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#i literally dont know how anyone is gonna ever find this on ao3
pub-lius · 2 months
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I just wanna say, DUDE. The majority of what I know about amrev comes from your blog. Your in-depth posts literally have me FOAMING AT THE MOUTHH I don't have much time to read longer books due to school but I wanna feed my obsession so do you have any books on the shorter side or some websites/archives I can research/read a bit quicker? If not it's totally fine.
Also off topic but I'm loving "It Began About Dusk" on AO3 <3
OH MY GOD THE FLATTERY‼️‼️‼️ you’re making me blush here anon. im so glad that you find my posts helpful!!! AND IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY FICS i have a chapter of it began about dusk in the drafts rn so you’ll get more content soon
now this is a tricky question because im absolutely insane and ive barely ever read short books. right now im reading His Excellency by Joseph J Ellis and i recommend it!! its only around 2-300 pages which is the shortest history book ive got VSJWBW primary sources can be really good to get in book form, things like Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior (Washington’s rule book), and Memoir of Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, Secretary and aid to Washington are all primary sources i have on my shelf that are short and sweet.
i also have Hercules Mulligan by Micheal J. Obrien which i haven’t read but is VERY small. there is also James Monroe by Gary Hart which is short but i have not finished (i dont even truly remember reading it but i annotated part of it apparently), The Drillmaster of Valley Forge by Paul Lockhart is a little longer than those others, but still isn’t chernow levels of wrong, but i also haven’t read that one. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger isn’t the most serious history book, but it is pretty good and an easy read.
as for secondary source websites, start with encyclopedias ie Britannica, which post short articles on different historical figures and events that give you the overview. from there im gonna point you to the National Park Service. this is the best thing the US government has ever made for researchers. this is all your battlefields, winter encampments, historical reproductions, and former capitals. also check out private residences turned museums, such as Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Schuyler Mansion. these institutions have an abundance of easily accessible information on more than just the people who lived there.
now the Library of Congress was a good decision on Jefferson’s part, but it can be inaccessible if you don’t know how to use it well because their website is one of my least favorite things about being alive. so instead, i recommend using Founders Online for any primary source regarding the founding fathers or amrev figures. the Washington Papers are filled to the brim with almost everything that went out of headquarters during all 8 years of the war. founders online is the shit
all of these websites i’ve mentioned are free to access, because i do not pay money on any research tools besides books out of spite for late stage capitalism. also any primary source is 100% accessible online. that includes memoirs and court transcripts, which can be very helpful
also i really do recommend watching documentaries and informational videos on the subjects you’re interested in while doing work or other things if you’re someone who does that (ik some people don’t have background noise but im just assuming you’re as neurodivergent as i am) because you can absorb just a little of that information and it being about a subject of interest can make academics seem a little less miserable!
i hope this is helpful and if you have absolutely any further questions, feel free to ask. i know im very privileged to have the time and resources to read long ass books, which is why i very freely share the information i absorb with the public bc i believe education should never be gatekept by anyone. so if you have any questions, im happy to research them for you, or at least point you in the right direction. love ya!!
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dandunn · 3 months
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Fic author interview tagged by @vampirenaomi
1 How many works do you have on AO3?
42
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
728,089
3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Fic that annoys me so much I disabled comments (go find it yourself lmao), Marked for Death, Tiger by the Tail, What's coming through is Alive, The Sea is Getting Rough Again
my one piece fics all have way more kudos than my recent stuff basically
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
i do sometimes, im usually tired from writing and editing so sometimes ill just say thanks lol
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
i wrote a fic anonymously which is horrendously dark and doesnt have a happy ending but I think most other fics i write at least have a bittersweet or happy ending hdfgb
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
uhhhhhh i dunno man I like the ending of the fic i wrote where goemon threatens to cut one of jigen's exes' dicks off and then they go hang out by the pool. that was fun :)
7. Do you write crossovers?
not really, I've had a few ideas for them but they're hard to write and wouldnt have worked out
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
not... really? i got a really weird backhanded compliment where someone talked at length about a ship i dont like (the fic wasnt about that couple) then said the first chapter was alright apart from being painfully slow (thanks) and then accused me of virtue signalling because of the difficult topics i handled in the fic.
It was really, really strange like I genuinely think they were trying to pay me a compliment but they were incredibly shit at it lol
And then in another fic I turned off comments because a minor started bitching at me about the porn I wrote not being sexy enough and when I told them to go away they harassed me for a little while. That was fun.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Yeas. I prefer it when smut is incorporated into the story because I kind of need the emotional stakes to be high enough otherwise I kind of lose interest. Smut without feelings is just kinda boring to me. Of course I have some exceptions but those are rare nowadays.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I'm aware of.
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
yes, though it's on wattpad apparently so I have no idea if the person doing it credited me because I dont use that site lol.
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
yeah and I dont recommend it. we only wrote like 2 chapters of it but i no longer speak to the co-author and the whole thing ended up feeling a bit disjointed and weird.
13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?
Uhh I have a couple, zoro/luffy, ace/sanji, jigen/lupin and jigen/goemon
zolu probably wins here because i have not so far written a 200k fic about anyone else lol
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
*gestures weakly at literally everything in my google docs*
I forgot how to write sorry
15. What are your writing strengths?
*tv static noise*
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
i cant speak english
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I don't know whether its bad or just handled badly by a lot of writers but I don't like it. Speaking as someone whos been learning japanese for the past 2+ years I hate it when I come across a word and have to either look it up myself or scroll to the bottom of the fic for any footnotes there are to explain it. Gonna use myself as an example for how I go about this kind of thing:
Fujiko tries to smile at his robotic, overly formal speech patterns, when really it's a little off-putting. She hasn't heard anyone use the word sessha, 'my humble self', for themselves outside of a period drama.
each to their own but i prefer putting in a small aside like this rather than shoving in foreign words and expecting for the reader to go and break the flow of the writing by looking it up for themselves.
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
id say pokemon mystery dungeon but the first fic i wrote i instantly deleted after getting one negative comment, i think one piece is more where i cut my teeth
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
i dont really know? ive gotten into a couple of new things recently but they havent triggered my "oh i gotta write something" reaction
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
i dunno man i dont like my work very much right now heres an image if u read all of this
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brainrotdotorg · 11 months
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Okay so first off, In Short, I Love You. Great fic, def have ONLY read it and totally have not used it for nefarious purposes.
Also you wrote in the notes how surprising it was to not see any other sex pollen works and. You’re right?? There’s only 5 tagged in ao3. Which got me wondering about how little of the common fandom tropes there actually are for de.
Like-like, there are only 3 soulmate aus. Which in and of itself blew me away. Then I could only find 11 ABO fics (side note: Kim was an omega for all but 1. This disappoints me narratively and personally) Then 4 werewolf and 10 vampire aus respectively. Out of the 2800 fics tagged de, only 65 are marked alternate universe At All. (With most of them being what if scenarios)
My point is: Thank you for writing that very good (Very good 😏) fic and I think you may have inspired me to come out of writing retirement to write for every fic trope under the sun. It’s got me nostalgic
(i made a huge post that crashed the editor so im. gonna try my best to reconstruct that)
THANK YOUUUU im so glad you enjoy it!! and I KNOW it's shocking right? DE fic (at least on ao3) is fascinating in that like. there really isnt much of it in the first place like you said, just under 3k. as for the tropes themselves, it could have something to do with the source material itself, which is already so strong and compelling that it doesnt really need much trope support to make it interesting.
Maybe its because of different circles i run in, but these types of tropes like soulmate AUs, ABO stuff, coffeeshop AUs, etc. are all received fairly favorably, so its not like there isnt a demographic of people who would enjoy stuff like that.
fans really seem to gravitate towards canon-compliance, at least the ones who are writing about it ! which is neither a good or a bad thing btw, its just how it is, the selection that we have afforded to is absolutely JAM-PACKED with some of the best stuff ive ever read. i just hope that doesnt discourage some people for getting more self indulgent and out there in your fic.
all this to say im happy to hear that you feel inspired to write again!! i highly encourage. literally anyone. if you have an idea for a fic you want to see, and are sad it doesnt exist yet-- you can be the one to write it! dont worry about your skill level. just give it a shot. someone will be happy that you did. it can feel great to be the one who gets the ball rolling in an obscure ship tag or niche trope. find a friend who also has a niche idea and do a fic trade, if you want to see someone elses interpretation of your idea! commission a writer whos comms are open (not off of ao3 tho, iirc theres rules about making money off of the site)
seriously there is nothing better than knowing that you made something that specifically appeals to you, and odds are, will appeal to other people. i thought no use crying over spilled milk would be my least popular fic and was pleasantly surprised. dont be afraid to be the change what you want to see in the world!! see a need fill a need !! write niche stuff!!!!
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yossarianirl · 6 months
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i hate how everything is being labelled “ai” now even if its not ai, and i hate how it causes ppl to just blindly hate so many technologies n think they should never ever be used or ur evil. long post
like. ai being used commercially to replace human jobs is (mostly) a bad thing. i say mostly bc there are some jobs (eg. call centres) that are absolutely horrible and noone wants to work them, and it’d be a benefit to the world if some robot did them instead. but replacing illustrators, voice actors, writers etc. doesnt benefit anyone except the ppl profiting financially.
ai replacing commissions is also pretty bad, esp the ppl selling art they just made with ai. but im not sure that anyone generating pictures for themself would be in the market to buy commissions anyway. for the same reason piraters would never pay for a video game or a song. i think most ppl would still just commission humans, bc usually ppl like a particular artist and want smthn in their specific style, not just any old generic picture. and human art doesn’t have ugly errors like ai art always does. plus it’s actually extremely difficult to get the ai to spit out smthn even close to what u want, so it’s a lot easier to just describe ur idea to a human.
then there’s the chatbots, which ppl can use to generate stories or do roleplay. honestly i dont support the hate against these. i get ppl being upset that their fics might be part of the machine’s data (altho thats very dubious and im p certain it’s already been confirmed that ao3 didn’t share shit), but if someone’s generating a fic for themselves, most likely there aren’t any existing stories with the kind of premise theyre interested in. or maybe they’ve read all the stories available but want more. i really dont see how anyones being outcompeted. ai writing is super generic crap and it’ll never be accurate to canon or write characters well, so ppl would only resort to reading it if they don’t have any other choice. and “write ur own” isn’t a valid response bc the desire to read comes from wanting to see new ideas u havent thought of, it’s not going to be satisfied by making up ur own story. thats a completely different desire.
as for roleplay, i find the anger about this even stupider. it’s actually super hard to find an rp partner that’s interested in ur plot idea, writes semi-decently, and doesnt ghost u or only send one message a month bc theyre busy. roleplaying w a human is way way better than using a robot, but ppl r turning to the robot bc they don’t have a human. and saying “just make friends”, “just find someone” is ridiculously dumb. as if it’s that easy. again, noone is being outcompeted, the bot isnt using ppls fics, and like. one person is even gonna read these chatlogs ever, how does it affect anyone. why does it even matter.
the last thing is synthesized voices. i find the sudden backlash against these really weird, bc ppl have been making vocaloids of cartoon characters for memes/song covers for literally like a decade. but now that it’s called “ai” (which it’s not. it’s as much AI as ur washing machine) ppl suddenly think its fucked up and horrible. not everyone knows how to do an impression, or wants to put their voice on the internet, or can/wants to hire an impersonator just to make a dumb meme video. someone using a shitty crunchy synthesized spongebob voice to make a meme would never have been in the market to pay for a spongebob impersonator. and half the time the shitty voice quality is part of the humour. again again noone’s being outcompeted and i don’t see the problem at all. tom kenny is not gonna lose his job to the shitty crunchy robot voice (plus the american unions are aiming to ban that kind of thing anyway).
u need to like use ur brain abt it and not just hate anything that has a keyword. generating emails n cover letters w chatgpt instead of wasting ur own time is fine. cheating on an assignment w chatgpt instead of going an extra $10k into debt from repeating the year is fine (and u cant get a degree with ai alone bc. exams??). making a dumb picture or a song covered by eminem vocaloid or talking to a chatbot is fine. ppl r only getting harmed by ai when it’s used in commercial industries, so stop jumping down the throats of everyone on the internet whos doing smthn completely harmless
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whatever-man-whatever · 9 months
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seeing everybody speculate about who could be behind the ao3 outage is just
look
yall have NO PROOF
even when there WAS proof it was fucking fake dude
so stop speculating about how 'it MUST be antis!!' behind it
ill be honest i dont think anybody who's bothered to know and be on ao3 regularly enough to find out what kind of content is on there is gonna have the tech literacy or wherewithal to launch a ddos attack
but then again! my theory probably has as much merit as anyone else's, and lets be real, there is ZERO
im annoyed tbh
a lot of people are super quick to jump to conclusions, which i will try to extend some grace to bc they've been essentially brainwashed into thinking they're oppressed for their ship choices, and it is very frustrating watching people let their terminally online fandom politics takes take over their common sense to see something in even a slightly more objective way
i think the only slightly reliable truth that's come out of it is that the attacker may have asked for money, so honestly? most likely, they saw that ao3 gets lots of donations and decided that it's highly likely they can extort a few thousand bucks out of them. like that's probably it. no weird fandom conspiracy needed.
that person probably saw that ao3 has a volunteer staff, saw they earn a lot of money in donations, saw that ao3 uses very old software to run their site, and realized they're an easy fucking target
this seems FAR more likely than some random anti who happens to be tech savvy enough to do such an intense ddos attack. and even then, if it was an anti, wouldn't they make demands that an anti would??? wouldn't they make demands for ao3 to 'take down' specific content???? since apparently that's all antis ever want or whatever. even the fake made up telegram statement is ridiculous bc like it doesn't even make demands it just says that they're taking it down to take it down.
idk the speculation does literally nothing for you except make you angrier bc you made up some facts and assumptions in your head and jumped from conclusion a to conclusion Z
the sad part is i can see how you did that but also it means i can see the logical leaps you had to take to get there and all the assumptions that must be true in order for this to actually be a thing
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Black
Prompts: After POF, Roman takes over the abandoned color black. He becomes the hated side that Virgil used to be. By most, anyway. Janus and Virgil are concered. Patton chooses to ignore it. Romans room is really cold? and boy is he touch starved - anon
(Sanders sides Prompt) Any one of the sides is touch starved. fluff. (You dont have to do this just thought I might ask) - anon
Hello there!! I just wanna say that I love your work and I think you’re such a talented writer. Idk if this is a weird ask but would you consider writing Roman angst with the song “it’s OK I wouldn’t remember me either” by crywank as like inspiration? Thank you so much <3 -anon
buckel up babes this one's a doozy
Read on Ao3
Warnings: implied/reference self-harm by way of self-negligence, pretty intense self-hatred and neglect that could verge on suicidal, but NO ONE DIES, everyone's fine at the end, we don't break shit and not fix it in my house
Pairings: it is platonic found family hours
Word Count: 5697
Do you know what no one ever tells you about the color black?
It’s seamless.
There are no cracks, no tears, no imperfections, because everything’s so dark you can’t tell what’s a trick of the light and what isn’t. Everything blends together. At first, second, even third glance, it’s perfect. Pristine, even. It hides absolutely everything. It’s intimidating, honestly, that level of deception. The way it can make anything look like it’s meant to be there, as if to live the colorless and lightless life is all it was ever destined for.
Darkness has always found a way of feeling like home, even to the ones who are afraid of it.
You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Roman hadn’t wanted to go to the wedding. He didn’t want to go, but it’s what Patton wanted. It’s what Thomas would’ve wanted. If Roman hadn’t been so loud. But it hurt, it did, when they said that they shouldn’t go to the callback because there was such a slim likelihood of Thomas winning. Because Roman couldn’t win. But Roman wasn’t supposed to be the villain and do something bad so he sent Thomas to the wedding.
Bruises were supposed to be yellow, or green, or purple, not black.
But if he had yellow, green, or purple bruises, he would’ve blamed a yellow, green, or purple Side. And that was bad.
So he hid them, because as he learned, no one was looking for them anyway. Patton cared when he didn’t show up to the video and then he was there and oh, having someone there, even if they only cared a little, was like rainfall in a desert, it was wonderful, Roman would’ve sung if he thought it wouldn’t make everything worse. But Roman was good, so he never complained, and he did his job to the best of his ability.
But what if his job was bad?
But there are two Creativities, a Roman and a Remus. And no one else liked Remus, because Remus was bad and Roman was good. But Remus isn’t bad, he’s just the opposite of Roman. And Roman didn’t want to be Remus because Remus was bad. But Remus isn’t bad.
Creativity isn’t bad.
Bruises aren’t supposed to be black but they can’t be red.
Roman isn’t supposed to be the villain but what else do you call someone who laughs at vulnerability, who scorns people’s earnest attempts to help, who single-handedly ruins someone’s life?
Roman isn’t supposed to be the villain, but bruises aren’t supposed to cover every inch of his skin unless he deserves it.
His skin burns. It crawls and aches and screams and darkens into bruises. His throat aches from the wordless screams and the horrible things he’s said to everyone. He’s been so selfish, he’s tried to make everything go his way, tried to make it about him, not about Thomas, because everything they do is supposed to help Thomas, help Thomas, that’s what they’re supposed to do, they’re supposed to help Thomas, not themselves, why is he doing this, why is he doing this?
Because he’s the villain.
Roman cries.
What else is he supposed to do?
He cries until the tears grow thick, sluggish, oozing out of his eyes until he can’t see anything but them, until his breath grows thick and his chest heavy. He cries until he has to struggle to open his eyes because of how swollen they are, how globulous the tears have become on the ends of his lashes. He cries until his head splits and his chest wails from the pain he isn’t supposed to have but deserves, deserves every little bit. He cries until his body is consumed by the bruises.
His costume is a straightjacket. He needs it off. The white hurts now, it burns his arms and cuffs his wrists. He doesn’t deserve it so he rips it off. Every seam that he ruins is another bruise. The rips are so loud they burrow into some soft part of his brain and live there. The white is still imperfect because it’s on him.
Only when his costume lies in tatters around him, his sash torn off and thrown away, far away, does the white look pure.
He cries himself to sleep with a smile on his face.
Far, far away, a black hoodie is tugged back into the Conscious Mindscape.
When Roman wakes, his head is full of static.
His lungs inflate and collapse on autopilot, driven by the merciless pump of some distant machine, turning the crank to draw air in and out, in and out.
His hands are numb, fingertips rubbed raw and inflamed from tearing relentlessly at fabric. He turns them slowly and it’s like watching himself in a video game.
His face is cold. He paws at his cheeks and feels sticky residue, etched into his skin. His eyes stick slightly when he blinks and he doesn’t know if that’s just his face or if there’s something else.
He is swathed in black fabric, an old threadbare hoodie that has gone years unloved, untouched, unseen. It’s selfishness that makes him tug it closer, feel a faint bubble of pressure on his screaming body.
He should get up, he should go make sure he hasn’t hurt anyone else with his tantrum again, he should apologize.
But…what would be the point?
Like Patton asked, does there come a point when someone keeps apologizing so much that you just have to admit they’re bad?
Roman isn’t good. Has he ever been?
Something interrupts the pleasant numbness and it shoots from his chest to the soft points at the base of his wrists, making his hands tingle. He decides he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want it. He wants everything to stop.
He’s selfish, they all know that, he’s just going to end up hurting them anyway, so why bother trying to fix it?
Apathy, his tired brain supplies when he lies there, unmoving, on the ground, for hours and hours and hours, unwilling and uncaring to fix things.
But that can’t be right. Roman is here because he cared too much, he did too much, he was too much. How can he now be the epitome of not caring at all?
If only he never cared, if only he wasn’t so attached, if only.
If only he had been Apathy, maybe he wouldn’t have been so hurt.
His pride got him here. His pride, his wants, his his his. He wanted everything and burned down the things that would’ve helped him get there because he couldn’t do it right. He is the villain and villains always have too much pride.
Pride. Apathy.
Prapathy.
Apride.
I’m not Creativity anymore, he thinks to himself as he lies there, still on the floor as his chest aches and his eyes sting and the sticky residue drips down his cheeks onto the bruises. He stares and stares and stares at the wall and a faint part of his mind that exists outside of the static realizes he never did get around to fixing that crack in the baseboard.
Pride, apathy. It doesn’t matter. There’s a much easier word that he can use to describe both of them.
Wrong.
—————————————————————
“I don’t know, Thomas,” Logan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I don’t think that’s a valid solution either.”
“But it makes sense,” Virgil protests, shoving his hands into his pockets, “all we have to do is not talk to anybody else—“
“But that will hurt their feelings!”
“But we won’t hurt ourselves.”
Janus and Patton look at each other for a moment before Patton sighs and scratches the back of his head.
“I—I don’t know, this…this feels weird.”
“None of us are happy about this, Padre,” Virgil mutters, “but it’s the best solution we’ve got.”
“Real high bar we’re setting there, isn’t it?”
“Listen, Snake Face, if you’ve got a better idea—“
“Virgil, enough.” Logan shakes his head. “We need to keep thinking.”
“We’ve been at this for an hour, Logan,” Thomas says cautiously, “I don’t know what else you think we’re gonna get to.”
“We’ve already passed the optimal point for productivity, yes.”
“Oh, well, we can’t just give up now!” Patton puts his hands on his hips. “I’m sure if we just keep at it for a little longer—“
“You said that half an hour ago, Patton.”
“And I’ll say it again!”
“Because that’s going to make everything go much easier.”
Thomas sighs as the Sides fall back into bickering. Normally, this wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary—pretty much all they do is argue back and forth—but Logan’s right. They’ve made almost no progress. He finds himself staring at the TV.
Why is he staring at the TV?
He frowns, tilting his head. It’s literally just his TV. Why is he so fixated on it right now? It’s not like it’s gone anywhere, it’s sitting right where it always is. He stares at it most of the day, why is it so weird that he’s looking at it now?
Wait—
“Guys,” he interrupts, still staring at the thing he’s not supposed to be able to see like this, “where’s Roman?”
The room pauses. Then Logan sighs.
“Oh, of course, that’s why we’ve been having such a hard time coming up with solutions, we don’t have Roman.”
At Virgil’s side-eye, he glances around to see similar looks of disbelief on the other’s faces.
“What?”
“Did you…did you just admit we need Roman?”
“He is Creativity, it makes sense that if we are struggling to be creative, he isn’t here.”
“Okay, that makes more sense.” Virgil shakes his head. “Thought you were admitting he was important or something.”
“Please, his head is big enough as it is.”
Janus hides a snort.
“Why didn’t he show up earlier,” Thomas asks, “he’s normally one of the first of you to get here.”
Virgil shrugs. “I dunno, I haven’t seen that much of him lately.”
“Is he…okay?”
“Who the hell knows, he’s Roman.”
“My guess is he’s been in his room,” Logan says, glancing at Roman’s usual spot, “I haven’t seen him either.”
Thomas doesn’t miss the way Janus and Patton glance at each other. “If you two have information now might be the time to share it.”
“Roman…hasn’t come out of his room,” Patton says after a beat, “not since…”
“Wait, he hasn’t come out since the wedding?”
Janus shakes his head. “I’ve barely seen him open his door.”
“That doesn’t…normally happen, does it?”
“No,” Patton says, “and, uh, he doesn’t normally ignore us either.”
“Ignore you?”
“We’ve tried knocking. It doesn’t work.”
“Perhaps Thomas can summon him,” Logan offers, “you have more power than any of us do, he’d have to answer you.”
“Well, here goes nothing. Creativity!”
Someone pops up in front of the TV.
Someone in a white costume with green embellishments and a mustache.
“Remus?”
Remus glares at them, his Morningstar at his side, his costume white, pristine, and light.
“What the fuck have you done with my brother?”
—————————————————————
It’s been weeks.
The fans have accepted Remus as Creativity. They think that the videos are better than ever. They think this was Thomas’s plan from the beginning.
There is one end card where the Sides are watching a movie and some of them spot a dark figure in the corner. Who could this be? Is this the mysterious orange Side everyone has been waiting for? Is this the Side that’s been hurting Thomas so much?
Zoom and enhance. It’s Virgil’s old hoodie. They’re sitting where Remus used to sit. They’re not staring at the screen, they’re looking at the others. What could this mean?
Someone spots the faint outline of a tiny crown perched atop the figure’s head.
And then, well, then it all makes sense.
There was always one Side that messed up everything, that made everything more complicated. There was always one Side that, if you thought about it, you could trace everything back to. There was always one Side that was told he was making the bad choice and yet, never seemed to learn.
They start to put together timelines, evidence, essay-length meta posts on how of course, this is the plan, why didn’t they see it before? Those that had disliked him from the start crow about how they were right, how everyone doubted them but look who’s laughing now. They point out how he’s become a Dark Side, maybe he was always a Dark Side, and how incredible would that storytelling be? To warn against the pressures of society’s expectations, the idea of good versus bad, or authentic versus forced. How of course, they’re wearing Virgil’s old hoodie because they’re the hated Side now. How they’re not looking at the screen because that’s not what they want, they want to be a part of the famILY.
Vitriolic rants. Accusations. Vent fics. The unsympathetic tag is overflowing.
Because who else could the villain be?
—————————————————————
Roman lives in the cold now.
His fireplace isn’t lit anymore. The door to the Imagination doesn’t work anymore. The blankets on his bed aren’t thick enough anymore. He drifts through a haze where only the emergency systems in his brain are online, where only the awareness needed to sleep, breathe, and move the little bits he needs to move are present.
He doesn’t know that there’s nothing behind the red door anymore, that when Janus and Virgil come to knock on it, worried, or when Remus storms through the Imagination and tries to knock it down by force, there’s nothing for them to find.
He doesn’t know that a new door, a black door, leads from his room to the hallway, far away from any of the other rooms. He doesn’t know that it’s so dark back here that no one would be able to tell there was a door if they didn’t put their nose right up against it.
He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care.
A new kind of ache settles in his bones now. Pain is an old friend, but he’s yet to give suffering a proper handshake.
He misses when he could go and ask someone for help.
He misses when Patton would turn to him without any judgment in his eyes, without any ‘well, you know, kiddo—‘, without any ‘let’s start off with—‘, just the soft words of I’m here, I’ll help you. He misses being able to walk up to Patton’s door and knock on it and know that he would be safe on the other side.
Patton would open the door and soften, his mouth curling up into a small smile as he says hey, kiddo, come in. He would sit Roman down on the bed and press a glass of water into his hands. He would rub his back as he drank, taking the empty glass gently and cupping Roman’s face in his hands. He would ask what’s wrong, sweetheart, what can I do? And Roman would say he just wants a hug, he just wants to not be alone for a bit. And Patton would smile and coo about how Roman was always welcome here, sweetheart, I’m right here, I’ll take care of you. And Roman could fall asleep with his head on Patton’s chest and believe that everything was okay.
He misses when he could walk up to Logan and ask for help and he wouldn’t be scoffed at or turned away, he wouldn’t be looked at suspiciously and asked what he really wanted. He misses when Logan could come to him too and just spend time together.
Logan would knock on his door and ask if you have a moment, would you like to walk with me? And Roman would smile and say, of course, he always has time for Logan, and they could go somewhere in the Imagination and just talk. And Logan would say that’s an interesting idea, I wonder if—and they would walk and talk for hours. And Roman could bustle up to Logan’s door and say I’ve just thought of something, and Logan would open his door and be happy to talk with Roman and it would be okay.
Roman curls up tighter and feels nothing.
He wishes he could have something to miss for Virgil. He wishes they could have bonded over their love of Disney, their want to talk about the things they’re interested in, or even the need to just have someone else in the room with them for a bit. He wishes their relationship wasn’t just spitting barbs at each other, each hoping to hit the bullseye first and knock the other one out of the race. He wishes he could’ve done better.
He wishes he could have something to miss for Janus. He wishes they could’ve done this right, that they could’ve bonded over the want to keep Thomas safe but also have him be himself. He wishes that he hadn’t laughed, hadn’t scorned, hadn’t fallen back on his pride to keep himself safe at the expense of Thomas. He wishes that maybe, just maybe, if he had been a better puppet, then he wouldn’t have been dropped so suddenly.
But as it stands now, more than anything he wishes he could hear them when they say the things they say about him because then he could figure out which bruises were theirs and take comfort in knowing that they still touch him in some way.
The bruises are a constant now. From the online hate to the casual remarks from the others to the way that Patton hasn’t even tried to come find him anymore—he can hear that, you know—he can’t turn over without landing on a new smattering of bruises. The hoodie helps to cushion the blow a little bit.
He misses Remus.
Remus was…
…Remus was everything.
Roman misses his other half. Roman misses his brother. Roman misses his Creativity.
When they were small they would curl around each other as if they could fuse if they focused hard enough. They would wrap their arms around each other so tightly that it would be a pleasant ache when they woke, never minding because they were tighter. Remus was always so warm and Roman hoarded every single bit he could get.
Roman was cruel to push his brother away and now he understands how it feels.
He misses Thomas.
He misses when he was allowed to go and see Thomas. When he could talk to Thomas. When his presence was celebrated or at the very least, tolerated. He misses it. He misses helping.
But he’s helping now, by staying away.
He’s cold.
He’s so cold.
—————————————————————
do you remember what it felt like
to be touched?
press of fingertips against shoulders
bump of a forehead against yours
palms meeting and parting a mere second later
in days gone by
do you remember
warm?
humans thrive off physical contact,
we’re not built to hold each other
at arms’ length.
infants will die
if they aren’t held enough.
and I am so
so
cold
—————————————————————
Something is wrong and even Patton can’t ignore it anymore.
The Sides shuffle uneasily in front of the red door until Remus raises his hand to knock against it.
“Roman?”
Silence.
“Roman, please, please, just—just say something.”
Silence.
“Where the fuck are you, Roman?”
“Don’t yell,” Logan mumbles, “you’ll make him think we’re angry at him.”
Remus takes a deep breath.
“We’re not angry, Ro-bro, we’re just—just please make some noise.”
Silence.
“…we’re coming in, Roman.”
But they can’t. Because as Remus turns the knob on the door, it falls forward. The entire door comes off just to reveal—
A blank wall. With no sign that there was ever a room behind it.
Thomas can hear the scream.
—————————————————————
Roman hears the scream and can’t move. But he can close his eyes and reach out and see what’s going on. After all, he hasn’t done anything, so something must be wrong if someone else is screaming.
He feels something in his chest twist and snap.
“Re?”
Across the Mindscape, Remus’s head jerks up.
“Ro,” he breathes, getting to his feet and rushing off down the hall as the others hurry after him, “Ro!”
“Remus, what’s going on?”
“Why isn’t Roman’s room there anymore?”
“Where are you going?”
They barrel into the hallway and smack into a black door. Logan’s eyes widen as he realizes what’s happened.
“Roman’s become a Dark Side,” he says, fingers scrabbling where the door meets the wall, “he’s—he’s really hurt, we have to help—“
“Move, L, I’m gonna break the door down.”
“You’re not gonna do it without me.”
“Roman!”
Roman turns his head to look at the door. Are they…here? The hoodie rasps against his undead skin and he winces. There are still bruises.
“Roman!”
The door shudders its frame. He could open it. He could. He just has to reach out and—
“Ro!”
Remus.
The door unlatches and his brother pours into the room, letting out a wail when he spots Roman in the bed.
Janus hisses as soon as he crosses the threshold, this room is freezing. It feels as if no one’s moved for years inside, as if the heat has been sucked out entirely. His gaze flies to Remus, who’s over on the bed, his hands scrabbling at something in black material.
Roman.
“Oh, little prince,” he whispers, horrified, “no, no, no—“
“We have to get him out,” Logan orders, startling Remus into action as he scoops Roman into his arms, “we have to get him warm. His core temperature is too low.”
“Shower? Bath?”
“No, if we shock his system we could make it worse. Janus, I need your heating pads, Patton, something warm to drink.”
Janus and Patton vanish.
“Virgil, weighted blankets, Remus—“
“I’m here.” As Virgil ducks away as well, Remus helps Logan cradle the limp and freezing form of his brother in their arms as they begin to rush out of that horrible, horrible room. “You thinking bathroom?”
“Get him to Janus’s, that’ll be the safest place.”
“Got it.”
Sure enough, Janus has no objection and sweeps them inside, setting down the heating pads as Patton bustles in with two thermos flasks and a mug. Virgil pops back with thick blankets as they lay the cold form on the ground. Roman’s eyes blink sluggishly as he stares up at Remus.
“...Re?”
“Yeah, Roro, it’s me, I’m right here, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here faster.”
“What’s…wha’s going on?”
“You’re too cold, Roman,” Logan says gently, “we need to get you warmed up.”
“Oh…”
“It will be easier if we take a few of the layers off,” he explains, still careful to keep his voice low and even as the others scurry around, “is that alright?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to unzip the hoodie.” Logan works slowly, patiently, stopping when any flicker crosses Roman’s face. “That’s it, you’re doing very well, I’m almost done.”
By the time he’s coaxed the hoodie off of Roman’s shoulders, there’s a little bit of color back in his cheeks.
“Very good, Roman, you did well. Virgil’s brought a few warm blankets and Janus has heating pads for you, do you think you can sit up?”
“Don’t know.”
“That’s alright, you’re doing alright.” Logan glances up at Janus.
“Little prince,” Janus murmurs, sitting by Roman’s head, “if you can sit up, I can sit behind you and help warm you up, does that sound alright?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, sweetie, we’re going to sit you up now.”
Logan and Janus sit Roman up slowly, only to pause when the long sleeves of his shirt fall down.
“Roman,” Logan asks, trying frantically to keep his voice calm, “are you hurt?”
“Mhm.”
He bites back the fearful response and patiently asks where, how bad, can he see?
“Everywhere.” Roman lifts his arms weakly. “’S all bruises.”
“…can we see?”
“Okay.”
Logan’s hands begin to tremble as he works the shirt over Roman’s head. He wasn’t kidding when he said everywhere.
There’s barely an inch of skin that doesn’t look bruised black and blue. Patton stifles a cry as he drops to his knees next to them, looking at Roman like he’s never seen it this bad before.
Oh, Roman, how did they not know? How could he just ignore him like that?
“Get him covered,” comes Virgil’s voice, “he’s still too cold.”
Janus grabs one of the blankets and wraps it carefully around Roman’s form. It should help distribute whatever pressure they apply so it won’t aggravate his injuries too severely. He takes one heating pad and scoots forward, bracketing Roman’s legs with his own and wrapping one pair of arms around him to press the pad to his chest.
“Can you feel that, sweetie,” he asks softly, “is that too warm?”
“No.”
“Good, good, little prince, you’re being very brave.” He turns away to reach for another and so misses the little shudder that goes through Roman. “Do you think you can handle another if I press it to the back of your neck?”
“Mm.”
“Let’s try, little prince, and if it’s too much, I’ll stop.”
“Okay.”
“Here we go, sweetie—“ Janus presses it carefully to the base of Roman’s skull, just at the edge of the blanket— “there, does that feel okay?”
“Mm.”
“Good, sweetie, you’re doing so well, so good for us, that’s it, you relax now.”
Roman starts to tremble.
“That’s alright,” Logan soothes, “you’re warming up, it means you’re going to shiver a little more, you’re alright, Roman, you’re safe. You’re doing well.”
It certainly doesn’t seem that way once Roman’s breath starts to come in gasps. Virgil nudges Patton out of the way and sits, gently calling Roman’s name until his gaze snaps to Virgil’s.
“Hey, Princey,” Virgil says slowly, “you gotta stay with me now, okay? We’re right here, no one’s angry, nothing’s going to hurt you. Just focus on me.”
He ignores the startled noises when Roman starts to cry thick, black tears.
“Eyes on me, Princey, that’s it, stay here. We’re just gonna sit here and breathe for a moment, okay?” Roman nods and Virgil starts to take big, exaggerated breaths. “Good. That’s it, Princey, you focus on me and you breathe. It’s okay. You’re doing great. Just stay here.”
When the viscous black liquid slows, Virgil reaches out and begins to tuck Roman’s hair back. A moment longer and he pauses, noting how the scratch on Roman’s face is covered in the thick black tears.
“Princey, can I clean your face off for you? You’re doing really well at breathing, I’m proud of you. Can I help you with the rest of it?”
“O-okay.”
There’s a bottle of micellar water and a pack of cotton circles pressed into his hands. He moves in slow, careful strokes, changing out the circles as often as he needs to. A pile of them grows beside him as he works, doing his best to get all the black off of Roman’s face. Roman just cries.
“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Patton murmurs when Roman’s cry gives way to a wail, “it’s okay, you cry all you need to, we’re not going anywhere, it’ll be alright.”
“We have you, sweetie,” Janus says against Roman’s neck, “we’re here.”
Remus lets out a broken noise.
“Oh, Roman, you didn’t…”
Logan’s head whips sharply around to scold Remus only for his mouth to fall open in shock.
Remus’s costume is bleeding too. The same black that drips down Roman’s face is slowly coloring Remus’s costume again, back to what it normally looks like. Remus’s mouth is agape, staring horrified at Roman.
“Oh, Ro—“
“What’s going on?”
“Check the bruises on his neck,” Remus orders as Janus pulls back the blanket, “are they still there?”
“They’re here, but they’re…lighter, how is that—?”
“Roman is the Ego,” Patton mumbles, “he gets bruised when—when—“
“Oh, shit,” Virgil curses, before quickly hushing Roman’s discontented mumble, “and with all the hate that’s been gunning for him—“
“Oh, sweetheart—“
Roman lets out another sob and the tears run clear.
“The Ego is kept healthy by positive attention,” Logan says softly, scooting closer and rubbing Roman’s shoulder through the blanket, “you’ve been starving, haven’t you?”
“He’s not cold because he’s hypothermic,” Remus blusters, “he’s touch starved.”
“It’s still not safe to introduce him to direct contact all at once,” Logan warns when Patton and Remus look like they want to rip the blanket off, “we have to take it slow.”
“So what do we do?”
Janus just leans down and presses a kiss to Roman’s temple. “You’re so brave, sweetie, you’ve been so strong.”
They watch as Roman’s tears begin to wash away the black.
“We love you, sweetheart, you’re so important to us.”
“Stay with us, Princey, we need you.”
“You’re doing very well, Roman, we’re very proud of you.”
Roman cries, ducking his head into Virgil’s waiting hands as Remus’s costume colors itself black again.
After a long while, when Remus looks like he normally does, Roman shakes his head and looks up at them.
“Where am I,” and he sounds like Roman again, “what’s happened?”
“You were starving, sweetheart,” Patton mumbles, “and we didn’t notice until it was too late.”
“O-oh,” Roman blinks, “is that…is that why I’m so cold?”
“You’re touch starved too,” Virgil adds, “and we, uh, L said it wasn’t a good idea to try and shock you out of it.”
“Try and drink something,” Logan says quickly as Patton reaches for the mug, “you’ve been crying for a while and you’re dehydrated.”
“Is that…hot chocolate?”
“Your favorite, kiddo.”
Remus sits down at Roman’s side as he drinks, staring at him like he’s not seen him in ages. Which, well, none of them have, really.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” Roman repeats, looking sheepishly at all of them, “I, uh, well, the last video I messed up a lot. I, uh, I shouldn’t have laughed at your name, Jan—where are you?”
“Right here,” Janus mumbles, giving him a gentle squeeze, “and you’re forgiven.”
“Oh. Uh, that was easy…are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Yes, it wasn’t great of you to do, but I’m not exactly blameless either and…”
He squeezes him again.
“…you’ve been hurting enough.”
“Logan, you too, I—I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Roman, but I agree. It’s alright.”
“Why are you all forgiving me so fast?”
“Because,” Remus mumbles, cupping Roman’s head and resting their foreheads together, “this happened.”
They all watch as Roman shudders as Remus shows him what happened.
“Oh—oh—I—oh no—“
“It’s over now, sweetie,” Janus reassures, “we’ve got you. You’re okay, you’re safe.”
“C-can I have a hug?”
“Of course, honey, come here—“
“Let’s get the blanket out of the way, L, is he—“
“It should be safe now, yes.”
“Remus, I—oof!”
“I gotcha, Ro-Bro.”
“It’s still—I’m still—“
“Patton, grab that end of the blanket.”
“This one?”
“That’s it, yes.”
The Sides end up swaddled in the blanket, their heads poking out, as each of them pulls a little bit of Roman into their arms to warm up. Janus and Remus wrap around his upper body, mindful of the few bruises that haven’t been healed yet. His legs are in Patton’s lap, as Logan and Virgil each hold on to his hands. The poor thing is still shivering, still shaking, still a little overwhelmed.
But Janus coos into his ear as his head lolls back, Remus holding him tightly. Logan’s thumb strokes over his palm as Virgil lets him squeeze as tight as he needs to. Patton makes sure he’s off the cold tile and he’s warm.
They’re going to have to work out what to do about the fans, about the videos, but right now they need to worry about Roman.
Speaking of Roman—
“I—I need to apologize to Thomas.”
A cry goes up as he says so, Patton reaching up to pat his knee. “You don’t have to do that right now, sweetheart, rest, it’s okay—“
“I won’t—he won’t be able to rest until he knows what’s happened.”
As if he can hear them, they feel the familiar tug of one of them being summoned. A quick glance around shows that if one of them is going, all of them are, so they appear on the floor of the living room, swaddled in the blanket.
Thomas’s mouth drops open and he rushes to their side.
“I was gonna ask if you found Roman, but I—Roman, buddy, are you okay?”
“I…I don’t know,” Roman mumbles, “but I’m sorry.”
“For what, buddy?”
As Roman begins to apologize, for being away, for hurting Thomas, for being selfish, Thomas just shakes his head.
“No, buddy, that’s not all on you. You—yeah, okay, some things happened, but it’s not entirely your fault. You don’t need to think of it like that.”
“Well said,” Logan mutters, “now help us get Roman to rest.”
“So what Disney movie are we watching and how many pillows do we need?”
A lot, as it turns out, is the answer. And they have to bite back laughs at the way Thomas makes a noise when he’s swept into the blanket too. But Thomas is warm and Roman is still cold and the movie plays on the screen.
“Hey, Roman?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re my hero.”
General Taglist:@frxgprince @potereregina @reddstardust @gattonero17 @iamhereforthegayshit @thefingergunsgirl @awkwardandanxiousfander @creative-lampd-liberties @djpurple3 @winterswrandomness @sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes @iminyourfandom @bullet-tothefeels @full-of-roman-angst-trash  @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind @demoniccheese83 @pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious @firefinch-ember @fandomssaremysoul @im-an-anxious-wreck @crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch @enby-ralsei @unicornssunflowersandstuff @wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv  @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams @averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb  @cricketanne @aularei @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws @cecil-but-gayer @i-am-overly-complicated @annytheseal @alias290 @tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance @whyiask @crows-ace @emilythezeldafan @frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires @cyanide-violence @oonagh2 @xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx @rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734 @triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo @cerulean-watermelon @puffed-up-bees
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calumthoodshands · 2 years
Text
2021 Writing Self-Evaluation!
thank you @burstingsunrise and @daydadahlias my dear friends this is terrifying for my baby writer ass but i guess i’ll try! Under the cut
1. Number of stories posted to AO3: seven
2. Word count posted for the year: 164,489
3. Fandoms I wrote for: 5sos only!
4. Pairings: so far we’re cake exclusive but well i’m caught up in a story since literally march so
5. Story with the most Kudos/Bookmarks/Comments:
all of them and surprising to no one, are from Days in the sun. i sometimes lose my mind a little when i look at the number of kudos being over 100. how. how!! and so many comments!! over 30!! bat shit insane. i’m glad people like it but it does stun me every day
6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):
i’m gonna name two bc the reasons are different. Dits, because it’s the biggest fic i have written and ever will write, bc i managed to keep a story up in over 130 k words without losing the plot, bc i myself love the world i created in it. everytime i finish a chapter i’m baffled at myself that i’m actually doing this. that i’m writing this fic for soon a whole year.
the second one is probably The easy way out. it’s in no way a particularly outstanding fic, its not long or incredibly short or anything, but i’m proud of how it came to be. i wrote it in one go in just a few hours, i got the exact vibes across that i wanted, and it even did quite well for some reason. i like it a lot
7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):
i do have a fic i am not proud of but i dont see a point in mentioning it
8. Share or describe a favorite review you received:
okay i want to mention several people bc im me and these all made me cry
starting off with megs @igarbagecannoteven bc seriously every comment she leaves on dits makes my heart hurt bc theyre so detailed and really make me believe that i’m not just doing nonsense but actually. like. having an effect on people with what i’m writing. i appeciate it more than i can put into words
second of all was that one time i got a random ask from c @soggyburgers and it was in the very beginning still and out of all fics, about my sad fic high above the city lights. i couldn’t believe someone actually read my stuff. and thought it was good. i seriously think about that message almost every month at least once. i’m still sorry i made you cry, c, i hope you’ve forgiven me
third, and a must for me to mention is the playlist des @cakes-curls made all by herself for dits. when i tell you i cried for half an hour. that my fic had such an impact someone would actually sit down and invest the time to find songs that fit the fic and the vibes????????????????? i’m. i can’t. i’ve talked about it a lot of times already and still dont know what to say to express how much it means to me.
9. A time when writing was really, really hard:
i had a huge writer’s block at one point. i think it took me a month to finish a 3 k word chapter. but also right now, i was struggling with the new chapter for dits, then i was gone over new years, and i have so much to do and i cant sort my thoughts enough to get any further. i’m incredibly frustrated atm. i also constantly think about how i dont give characterisation enough thought.
10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:
probably the first kiss in dits! i had it planned completely different in the beginning, only for it to take not only WAY TOO MANY CHAPTERS but also to happen in a completely different setting.
11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:
i literally can’t if anyone has suggestions hit me up i’m too tired and there are too many words
12. How did you grow as a writer this year:
i mean. i started this year. i learned how to write. how to make sentences flow. those kinda things. basics
13. How do you hope to grow next year:
I really wanna keep an eye on characterisation and i really really need to broaden my vocabulary
14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):
actually, i think all the writers in the club. the fact that we have a community where you can ask the most stupid questions, where you can always ask for advice, even just reading what other people write and ask about. but also just reading their fics in general. meg’s and molly’s cake fics and jess’ were so good they were the last push to get me into fic writing. but also special mention to molly. thanks for always answering my dumb ass questions no matter when or what and helping me w fic ideas <3
15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:
oh definitely. i was in france!! i was where the magic happens!! but also just personal perceptions of things and preferences, but i won’t specify anything. i cant afford to be perceived even more
16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:
write. just write. dont be afraid of ideas going to ‘waste’. dont be afraid of writing things u can’t do. if you dont post it, who will know about it? no one but you. always write it down, no matter how small the idea. u can always edit, but u cant get ideas back.
17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:
i have several fics i want to write, but as long as im on dits still, i dont have the brain capacity to work on other longer projects. i would love to write the neighbour fic, or the ballet fic.
18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.
I’m probably the last rn so if you read this and wanna do this pretend i tagged you!!
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mariaiscrafting · 3 years
Note
ahhhh ty ty ty <3
ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.
he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:
• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.
let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo
my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.
• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)
(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2
pt. 2:
Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2
Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):
Speed of Dream's rise to fame
The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase
Post-MCC HBomb stream
Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans
Manipulation & RSD
Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand
The “just a dude” argument, flipped
First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.
Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.
Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.
Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.
Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.
Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.
I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.
Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.
Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.
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pod95 · 3 years
Text
Pairing: Finn Balor X OFC (Ciara)
Word Count: 1310
Warnings: Mature to explicit as the story goes on.
Description: After moving to the USA from England to start her career as an NXT superstar, Ciara gets to meet her long time crush, NXT champion Finn Balor. It's clear the pair have chemistry, but when tensions start to rise, will they find they want more than a no strings attached relationship?
So this is the first piece of fanfic I have written literally ever. I will be posting them here periodically, but I already have 6 chapters out on my Wattpad, AO3 and FanFiction pages.
This series will involve romance, drama and (although it will take a little while) some smutt too. Hope you enjoy it! 😊
Tumblr media
Chapter 4: Up Close and Personal
I awoke startled to the sound of my roommate banging on my door. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I checked the time on my phone, 9:36. Shit! I'd slept through both of my alarms and needed to be at the Performance Center by 10 for my first day. I opened my bedroom door and a panicked Alex was standing on the other side.
"You're gonna be late! Quick, take a shower and I'll drop you off on my way to work." She handed me some towels as I gave her a thankful look before rushing into the bathroom to get ready.
I don't normally sleep in but I didn't get back from the party until late and I definitely went overboard with the alcohol. Fergal and I talked way into the night before sharing a taxi back to our respective homes. Nothing happened obviously, despite my drunken attempts to flirt with him. I cringed at the thought of my clumsy pickup lines and awkward attempts at being alluring. I would have to be very careful around Fergal from now on, after all this was the second time in as many days I was trying to wash away my shame with water and shampoo.
I was washed, dressed and in the car in record time, arriving at the Performance Center a little after 10. Not too bad considering how late I woke up.
"Ciara! Follow me," Paul greeted me as I entered the lobby, "so like I said before, you debut in 3 weeks. You'll be entering into a feud between Tegan and Dakota as Tegans tag partner. Obviously you're very experienced in the ring but here in NXT we have our own rules, own way of doing things so you'll be working with some of our trainers today just to help you adapt."
He led me to a ring, where I was taught the basics of wrestling for the WWE.  There were so many rules, some of which didn't even make sense. Obviously certain moves were banned, no blading, no head shots, all the usuals. But then there was a lot of differences too. Matches often have "agents" that help to set up a match, if you wanted to use certain weapons you need written approval, and don't even get me started on the list of banned words. I was starting to become worried that I was out of my depth here.
After going through the rules and doing some initial training, I was introduced to Steffanie (Tegan Nox), Cheree (Dakota Kai) and Victoria (Raquel Gonzalez)
"Oh hey you're working with us right?" Steffanie asked, extending a friendly hand.
"Yeah! I'm Ciara! Looking forward to working with you all." I introduced myself to the girls and got to know them a little better before getting to work on our tag match
We'd been working for a couple of hours and had some good spots perfected. It was just the finish left to go, where I would hit my finishing move ( a Canadian Destroyer I called the "Natural 20") on Dakota and make the pin.
After practicing it a couple of times, I began to feel like someone was watching me. Glancing around the room, I spotted Fergal, leaning casually against a wall and observing our practicing.
Thankfully for my heart he wasn't shirtless today, in fact he wore a baggy hoodie which concealed his physique like a well hidden secret. I gave him a small smile and turned back to the girls.
"If I might offer some advice..." Fergal interrupted.
"Please." I gestured for him to join us in the ring.
He climbed up onto the apron and jumped over the top rope, clearly showing off.
"Your finisher is a Canadian Destroyer right? It's a good move-"
"Thanks!"
"-But, it's a little overplayed. In WWE alone there's Sin Cara, Adam Cole, Rey Mysterio and Chelsea Green who use it. If you wanna stand out, I'd switch it up a little."
I didn't know how to respond. He was right of course, but I'd always had the same finisher. I didn't want to change it.
"I've always had the same finisher, it means a lot to me. I don't wanna do a different one."
"I'm not saying to do a different one. I'm saying to tweak it a little."
After thinking it over for a few moments, I still didn't have any idea what Fergal was getting at.
"How?" I yielded, knowing that it would result in a cocky smile.
"Have you ever seen anyone do a springboard Canadian destroyer," he smirked.
"I haven't.."
"There's a reason for that. Its not done that often."
He took his hoodie off and threw it into the corner of the ring, revealing a tight vest which hugged his torso.
"Jump at me," Fergal instructed, taking me by surprise slightly. Physical contact with people who are practically strangers wasn't unusual in our line of work, but I still felt nervous at the thought of being that close to him. I did as he told me.
Taking a slight running start, I jumped at Fergal, his strong arms catching me beneath my thighs. As he held me there, explaining the next part of the move to me, two things crossed my mind. The first was that this man was even stronger than I realised. He was holding my full body weight with only his forearms and not even breaking a sweat. The second thought was how close his face was to my chest.
"Right, now I'm gonna bounce your back off the top rope, kinda like a rope assisted powerbomb, only on the rebound, jump over my shoulder into the Canadian Destroyer. OK?"
He spun me around and bounced me off the top rope, but I didn't quite have enough momentum and ended up bashing my chin on his shoulder blade.
"Ahh!" Fergal put me down gently before inspecting my chin.
"Are you OK? Can you move your jaw?" he asked, genuinely concerned.
"I'm fine, don't think it's injured at all, just hurt a bit."
Relieved, he backed off a little, seeming a little guilty that his suggestion had hurt me.
"Shall we try again?" I smiled at him, hoping to reassure him that I was fine and he had nothing to feel bad about.
"OK, but this time you need to really just dive over my shoulder OK? It'll be easier with the girls cause they're smaller."
We went again, and this time I used my full body weight to push myself back off the top rope, Diving elegantly over his shoulder and completing the move. It was a little clunky due to never having done it before, but after a few more attempts, I was able to do it perfectly.
After we'd finished practicing, I collapsed in the ring exhausted. Fergal handed me a bottle of water before sitting cross-legged next to me.
"Good job today. You worked really hard."
"Things are a lot different here in the big leagues huh?" I commented, sitting up and taking a much needed sip of the water. Fergal chuckled.
"You'll get used to it. I can see why Paul likes you."
It was only upon hearing this that something occurred to me.
"Wait, you were here to train too right? Damn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk up all your ti-"
"Dont even worry about it. I came here today to keep an eye on the newbies, " he smiled, reassuringly.
"I know but you could have been helping the others and instead you were stuck with m-"
"Are you hungry?" Fergal interrupted "I'm starving. Come on, I'll treat us to dinner," he stood up, helping me to my feet and leading me out of the training room before I had a chance to refuse, not that I would have done.
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richietoaster · 4 years
Text
As I Am, You Understand
reddie
words: 2,217
playlist
AO3 LINK
me writing tooth rotting fluff impulsively and posting at 3:30am? more likely than you think
READ BELOW IF YOU DONT MIND IT BEING UNFORMATTED 
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Richie has a date. It’s not his first date, but it’s the first time he’s felt alive in a long time. He makes sure to shower double the time he usually does, scrubbing his body with his dad’s Sandalwood and Eucalyptus bodywash, and, fuck it, he even conditions his hair too.
He feels like he’s in a movie and that’s how he knows he’s got it bad. Richie dances in the shower using the bottle as a microphone to sing loudly. He feels ignited- on fire. Honestly, it’s a surprise to him that he’s going on a date. To the fucking carnival. What kind of teen movie is this? Richie will be going to college with the love of his life type of shit? Actually, he thinks, that’s not a bad idea. 
Richie doesn’t want to think about college, to be fair. He got accepted into UCLA, the best university ever, but all his mind consists of golden brown hair and eyes, consists of his best friend, the love of his life, and-- quite frankly, he’s not sure how Eddie said yes to a date with him. Him. Out of all people.
Richie looks over to his friends at the lunch table and throws a fry at Stanley’s face. “Any you fuckers goin’ to the carnival?” He says as Stan steals another off of Richie’s plate for payback. They’re all waiting for Eddie to get his lunch and come sit with them.
“Yeah, this weekend.” Bev responds, “Ben and I are going on a date.”
“Well, good for you for finally figuring out your feelings. It only took, what? Since the eighth grade?” Richie smirks at them. He supposes he’s not one to talk, since everyone under the sun except Eddie himself, knows about Richie’s crush on him. 
“You are not one to talk,” Mike says with a pointed look. 
“Y-Yeah,” Bill agrees, “Why don’t you ask Eddie to go with you?”
“Yeah, ask him on a date.” Ben shrugs. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“The worst?” Richie asks incredulously. He counts on his fingers, “Well, one, he could say no. Two, it could make him uncomfortable. Three, he might never talk to me again. Four, he could say no. And, five, he might never fucking talk to me again.”
Stan rolls his eyes, “You’re being dramatic. Just ask him, Rich. I’m positive you’ll get the answer you want.”
Richie shakes his head, “No, nope. Mhm-hmph. I am not asking Eddie.”
Everyone’s eyes go wide, staring right past Richie. Richie feels goosebumps on his arms immediately, because oh. Oh no.. That can’t be good. 
Richie turns around and focuses his gaze on Eddie, who’s looking at him with a confused expression.
“Ask me what, Rich?”
Richie turns around to look at his friends for help, but they all exchange glances and get up to move to another table. 
“Thanks, you guys. Yeah, love you too!” Richie calls after them. 
“What was up with that?” Eddie asks, sitting down next to him, setting his tray on the table.
“I-.. Shit..” Richie breathes out a shaky breath. “I.. I.. we were talking about the town carnival this weekend.”
“Oh.. yeah, I heard it’s gonna be really fun this year.. But what does that have to do with-?” Eddie cuts himself off, and Richie can see the second it clicks for Eddie. “Richie, were you going to-?” 
This time Richie cuts him off.“N-Not like that! I mean- or- or- unless you wanted to of course? I don’t know, I figured it could be fun- like the two of us! We always have fun together. And.. And like recently it seemed like things might be feeling different between us- like- like- I don’t know, like-” Eddie covers Richie’s mouth with his hand.
“Richie. Ask me.” Richie’s eyes widen. Eddie removes his hand from Richie’s mouth.
“Eds, will you be my date to the carnival this weekend?” Richie gulps, almost afraid of this just being a cruel, and very unfunny joke. Except, Eddie’s smiling wide, and straightening up.
“Of course I will, you big dummy.” He stands and picks his tray up. “I wasn’t planning on staying long, I actually wasn’t going to even stop by the table.. but I wanted to see you guys. I have to go to the library to work on a project, but..” Eddie bites his lip and Richie really feels like he’s in a cliche movie. “I’ll call you later?”
Richie can barely process what just happened, so he settles by answering with a weak nod. 
“Great!” Eddie has a faint blush rising to his cheeks. “I’ll.. call you later, then.”
Richie watches Eddie walk away, and once he’s out of sight, he’s fist pumping the air. 
And now it’s an hour before they’re supposed to meet and Richie’s heart is booming in his chest. Honestly, Richie feels like the world’s luckiest guy. Like, for real, how the fuck did he score a date with his best friend in the entire universe? The cutest boy in mankind? It’s completely unreal, if anyone were to ask him. 
Richie arrives ten minutes early and sits on the wooden fence to wait for Eddie. He told Eddie earlier that he could come pick him up, but Eddie insisted on meeting up- claims it would be aesthetic, like an eighties movie. The cheeseball. 
But as he checks his phone each passing minute, before he knows it, it’s almost an hour. And he’s about to leave, accept that it was in fact, a cruel and unfunny joke, but he hears his name being called out.
“Rich! Richie!” He can hear Eddie sounding out of breath as he gets closer.
“Did.. did you fucking run here?”
Eddie puts his hands on his knees to breathe easier and nods, “I.. I couldn’t find my phone.. Was gonna text you and.. tell you that I’d.. I’d be late…” He inhales deeply a few times after struggling to complete a sentence. Eddie finishes, “but I couldn’t find my phone.. And then my mom was yanno.. Sonia-ing it up..”
Richie stifles out a loud laugh, “Sonia-ing it up?”
“Yeah!” Eddie chuckles. “Her being like ‘don’t go out Eddie, air is bad.’ shit like that.”
“Air is bad..” Richie repeats and continues to laugh. Eddie grins at him and takes Richie’s hand, threading his fingers between his own.
“I’m glad I got you laughing.” Eddie admits.
“Why wouldn’t I laugh at that?” 
The two walk in together, immediately going to the ticket booth and buying just enough to ride every ride if they wanted to. But their first stop is to the cheese fries. 
“Because,” Eddie shrugs, finally responding. “I was afraid you’d be upset that I was late. I didn’t want you to think that I was-”
“-standing me up?”
“Yes, exactly. But, you know that wasn’t the case, now.” 
“I’m not mad, Spaghetti. Can’t be mad at someone as cute as you.” Richie winks and Eddie’s face flushes.
“Yeah- actually, that reminds me- when did you start liking me? Because I’ve been literally pining over you for.. for.. At least freshman or sophomore year.” Eddie leads them both to a table nearby and they sit together.
“Hah,” Richie says, “I got you beat by at least a year or two. I’ve been in-” He coughs, “I’ve liked you since 8th grade when I accidentally made you trip in the hallway going to science class. You picked yourself up like it was nothing, and just smiled at me and said, ‘you’re lucky I like you’ with that little huff you do when you’re either annoyed or embarrassed.”
Eddie does the exact huff that Richie’s talking about and says, “I do not do that.”
Richie smirks at him.
“Oh, fuck off.” Eddie pauses and looks up at Richie through his eyelashes, and Richie thinks for a split second that Eddie might be debating on kissing him, but instead he continues, “I never expected in like, my wildest and probably wet dreams that you would ever like me back. But you were just babbling on and on at lunch and it just.. It just clicked for me. I figured if I didn’t help you out, you’d have a fucking stroke, so, there’s that. You’re welcome.”
“Okay first of all- wet dreams, huh? You have wet dreams about me, do you?” Eddie pushes at his shoulder and chuckles. “Okay, okay!” A quick pause. “And second of all, I wasn’t gonna have a stroke, thank you.”
“Oh, no. You definitely were. And then you had the audacity to be like ‘but it can be a date if you want it to be’ like? Have you not been with me in the same situations the past two weeks? I swear.. We both almost confessed feelings multiple times.” 
“When we were in your bed a few nights ago, your head was on my chest and I was actually terrified you were gonna wake up to the sound of it beating so loud.” Richie tells him, “You have no idea how badly I wanted to kiss you then.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea, actually.” Eddie admits. And then they’re both quiet, staring at one another, not sure if they’re supposed to make the first move or not. The moment passes, and Eddie stands up, the empty box of fries in his hand. “I’m gonna throw this away real quick.”
“Yeah, no, go ahead.”
And then Eddie’s returning seconds later to grab at his hand, “Come on, let’s get in line for the Ferris Wheel.”
Richie groans, “But the Ferris Wheel always has the longest line!”
“Stop complaining.”
“Fineeee,” Richie says.
“You’re so dramatic,” Eddie laughs. “Speaking of which, are you excited about UCLA? I know it must’ve been hard picking your major. But I’m glad you went with Theater. You’re an amazing performer.”
Richie is silent for a minute. He was really hoping they would stay away from the topic. He’s terrified of the future. “I.. thanks, honestly. It’s.. It’s so weird, you know? That graduation is literally in like, a month. We have the summer.. Together.. And with our friends.. But then everyone is off to college. It’s kinda scary, Eds. Don’t you think?”
“Well, not really, since we all got accepted into schools in California. I think it’s pretty great. We’ll be closer than you realize. And.. I’ve kept it from you for so long, but.. I got accepted into the University of Southern California.” Eddie smiles softly at him.
“Eds.. holy shit, that is literally like a twenty minute drive from UCLA.. did you fuckin’ plan that?”
“No,” Eddie laughs, “But it is super convenient, right?”
“Don’t think for a minute I won’t be spending every second I can with you. You won’t be able to get rid of me.”
“Next!” The ride operator interrupts their conversation and holds on his hand for the tickets, which Eddie hands him.
They get in the cart and the guy slams the cart’s gate shut, locking the side. “Keep your arms, legs, hands, and feet, inside the car at all times. Have fun.”
They stay quiet for a few minutes, two times around the Ferris Wheel, and then Richie speaks.
“I was actually afraid you guys would like. I don’t know. Want better friends than me in college.”
Eddie looks at him, “Rich, you know that’s absolutely crazy, yeah? We could never want to replace you.”
“That’s not what I said,” Richie grumbles.
“It’s what you meant.” Eddie retorts. “But that would never happen. We’re all gonna have the time of our fucking lives in California together. Crashing each other’s dorms parties-”
“-you’re gonna be a pariter? Yeah, okay, right.”
“New school year, new state, new me!”
“It’s not New Year’s, Eds.” Richie chuckles.
“Might as well be. Anyway, the point is we’re all gonna be together.. and.. And most importantly,” Eddie links their fingers together, “We get to be together.”
“Aren’t we together right now? I mean-” The Ferris Wheel stops and they’re at the very top. “Do you want to be together? More than friends?”
“Finally you’re getting the hint.” 
Richie chokes on his own spit. “Well, I- me too. I want that to.”
“Good,” Eddie rests his head on Richie’s shoulder. “Then that’s what we are. Together. Boyfriends.”
“Boyfriends.” Richie breathes.
“And it’ll be better when we’re out of buttfuck Derry, and in literally one of the most beautiful places in the world.” Eddie says. 
“Good.” 
“Good,” Eddie agrees, “because like I said, you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon, Rich.”
“Well, then I don’t plan on going anywhere, so I guess you’ll just have to get used to the fact that I’m gonna be in your future.”
Eddie pauses for a moment, lifting his head off of Richie’s shoulder, “Well.. then, here’s to the future.”
Without missing a beat, Richie looks down and tilts Eddie’s chin up. “No.. Here's to right now,” and leans down to press a soft kiss to his lips, Eddie’s hand reaching up to cup Richie’s cheek. Their mouths move slow and in sync together.
And, yeah, their future may be important, as graduation is slowly approaching and college is nearing closer, but so is this moment.
This moment is the start to a beautiful beginning; their beginning. 
-----------------------------------------
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tokugou · 2 years
Note
i feel you so much, i become so extremly neatpicky (sometimes I feel like its better to only follow jpn artist man) but you still will see stuff. i don't follow any enabler but the shippers I follow often get attacked by the other shippers and defend themself, its so disheartning to see. Doesn't help we currently mostly only have like, our favs, comfort ship and the premis of the show (Im, ignoring canon currently, not very fun to read at all for a while now) Im kidn aglad I have a second twt i follow more jpn artist and for other stuff so I can just avoid the stuff a bit more easily. I also reacently started watching a more cartoon show with a bit of a story, sure writting aint the best but I promised myself to not be as hypercritcal for it and enjoy it as it is and I do. it helps cause now I actully have something to look forward too comming out (so I also care less about the manga right now) and kinda ironically helps keeping my intested for my fav charas and ships in bnha alive too (along side specefic artist and writers I follow) doesn't work for anyone but yeah. This ship wars are the most stupid things fandom ever came up with. Were around the same age so I don't think I can give much advices you probaly don't already know yourself but hey, maybe worth checking the todobaku tag for yourself on a03 again?
Here I am replying waaaay too late again. One day I gonna pay more attention to my mailbox, yeah I am still not used to the fact there is anything there.
Dont ever get me started with twt it is ridiculus how bad the non-existencial blacklist system there is, like you cant have safe time there even if twt has huge amount of good stuff when it comes to art. pity
I am actually pretty good nowdays, like I avoid everything that can tilt me, the blacklist is so full and I usually block people who are dumb or spread hate and I have never been a part of any ship war, yay me. Maybe cuz of that when something happens (like last time) it is huge and mindfucking more, or maybe it is just canon fucking with everyone brains, we have literally no good content in canon so people will stick to anything non-existencial and try to create something out of nowehre and say it is the way.
I cant belive I had a hope, each week checking leaks hoping for good exciting content and here we are with today's chapter that hope prolly died. I cant, how worse it can be?
I am glad tho you manged to find something to take your mind off b/nha in general no matter what it is as long as you enjoy it I think it is valid! I still try to find a new anime/manga I could get into, but this is my problem I cant have more than one obsession at a time. And I am stuck here in b/nha but it is fine at least I have bk/td which makes me happy. Tho I admit that there is less and less new content for them even on ao3 (or maybe it is me thing since i have too many filters on there....)
but thank you so much for sticking with me for that time, i hope you are having a great day and once again i am sorry for such a late reply. also sorry for lame reply
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False Positive [Chapter 6]
Rating: M Words: 2467 Pairing: Kristanna Summary: When things don’t go according to plan and Anna finds herself alone and pregnant, she looks to her sister’s best friend, Kristoff, and almost makes a huge mistake.
[Chapter Index]
Where To Read: [AO3]
Notes: This chapter is definitely ... different. I think it works though lmao... thanks again to @kristanna and @frozenwritingcorner kiss kiss kiss kiss
Enjoy!
Anna felt the weight of her duffle bag digging into her shoulder as she stood on the side of the road, waiting desperately for Hans to show up. He said he’d be there as soon as possible, but it had been almost three hours and she couldn’t stop crying. A few of her neighbors had slowed down to look at her suspiciously, but none had stopped when they saw her red eyes, smeared makeup, and shaking body.
Finally, god finally, his silver BMW coupe pulled up beside the curb, and he rolled down his window to look at her. “Well, look at you, all dolled up.”
She knew he meant it as a joke, so she forced out a laugh, but it stung her to her core. “O-only for you,” she sang, her voice tight, before she threw her duffle into the popped trunk and climbed into the passenger seat. “Thank you.”
He pressed a kiss against her forehead before driving off. “Anytime.”
The rumble of the car lulled her to sleep. 
Until the squealing of tires and the sirens of an ambulance shot her awake, and she was sitting in the hospital with her sister, who was paler than normal and unmoving. Anna turned to face her, trying to figure out why they were back here. They couldn’t be back here… 
“Elsa?” She asked, her voice quiet and meek. Anna looked down at herself, in the same hoodie and jeans she was wearing that night. No, it couldn’t be. She refused to believe it. Panic started rising in her throat. It had been six years. Six. She wasn’t here. “Why are we… Where are… What’s…” None of her sentences would finish, tongue literally tangling behind her teeth. Until she managed to shout just one thing. “Elsa!”
Cold blue eyes darted to her, upset that she would make a scene. “Quiet, Anna.”
Anna felt a shiver race up her spine and pierce her heart. This was wrong, this was all wrong. Elsa would comfort her, right? Elsa wouldn’t treat her like this… Elsa… “Where are mama and papa?”
But her sister’s eyes were unblinking. “I said be quiet, Anna.”
“No!”
Elsa’s face stiffened, froze, and she turned calmly to face the front desk again. “Then leave.”
And the floor fell out from under her. She was falling, reaching up to her sister who wouldn’t even acknowledge her, crying out for someone, anyone, to catch her. To help her. To see that she was there.
Her back slammed against something hard, stars bursting behind her eyes as her head followed suit. It was a struggle to stand. She felt heavy, like something was weighing her down. It wasn’t until she touched the wooden handrail that she noticed she was back at her apartment. But she wasn’t, not quite, and her whole body shook as she looked through the window. Another her stood in the kitchen, hands clenched by her side as she fought back tears.
“I’m eighteen, Elsa. I’m not stupid.”
“You’re a child. And he’s… too old.”
Elsa’s own hands were wrapped around her upper arms as she closed herself off, obviously not open to discussion. 
Anna watched herself throw a tantrum, watched herself slam the plate down on the table as her voice rose, laced with frustration. “This isn’t fair, Elsa! You can’t decide who I date! You’re not mom!”
“If you don’t like it, you can go.”
“Go?”
“You’re eighteen,” her voice was full of venom, mocking. “Leave.”
She moved to wipe her cheeks, tears falling fat and heavy, when a new set of arms wrapped around her shoulders, warm and strong and comforting. 
“I’m here, whatever you need.” 
Anna turned in his embrace and tears of grief morphed into tears of joy, her arms wrapping around his waist as he tucked her under his chin. “You can stay as long as you need, okay? I’m here for you, Anna.”
Her name echoed in his voice and she breathed in his scent, a new sense of safety enveloping her.
Anna.
Anna…
Anna?
“Hey, Anna!”
She woke up with a start, gasping for air as she looked around for the source of the voice, not entirely sure where she was or how she got here… until she found her little snowman plush smushed against her pillows. A sigh of relief escaped her.
“Over here,” he laughed, waving at her from the screen of her computer. “You fell asleep.”
Anna shimmied back up her bed, laying back down in front of the camera. “Sorry. Growing a human is exhausting, apparently.”
Kristoff’s warm honey laugh came through the speakers, and she couldn’t stop the smile that stretched over her lips.
After she had confessed her big mistake, they had spent another few hours talking, making sure everything was out in the open and that they were at a good understanding and a place to move forward. Since then they had video chatted most nights when he got home from work and she was too tired to trek over there, and Anna couldn’t help but admit that talking to him was quickly becoming the best part of her day.
They had grown apart a tiny bit in the last year, but mostly because Hans wasn’t the most fond of Kristoff. He always assumed men just wanted to screw Anna and didn’t particularly like her spending time around other guys. But since he was out of the picture, it was pretty nice to have Kristoff back in this kind of capacity.
“Have you told Elsa yet?” He was folding clothes in front of the webcam, shoving up his too old and too loose glasses in between every shirt. 
“Oh you’ll know when I tell her. The whole city will freeze over because of her disappointed glare. You know the one.”
Kristoff laughed again, nodding.
“Think I can just tell her I’m getting fat?” Anna rubbed at her tummy, wondering how long it would take for everyone else to notice that she had a little person growing inside of her.
“Probably not.” He rubbed at his eye. “I think she’ll figure it out.”
Anna groaned before shoving her face into the pillows. “She’s gonna kill me. Do you remember when I started dating Hans?”
Kristoff looked up, straightening his spine. “... Yeah.”
“Sorry, I literally just was having this dream about it.” She rolled back over to look at him. “She kicked me out for dating Hans. God… she might literally kill me for getting pregnant.”
He stayed silent, and she nodded with pursed lips. “I thought so.”
“... If you need a place to stay, you know where I am.”
Anna frowned, closing her eyes. “I think I need someone else to be the dad.” She froze, before sitting up and leaning closer to the screen. “I’m sorry. I’m… I didn’t mean…” she sighed and dropped her face into her hands as a small smile pulled up one side of his mouth. “God, I can’t believe what an idiot I am.”
“How’s your foot taste.” He laughed to himself before realizing she hadn’t caught on to his joke. “... since it’s in your mouth so much.”
“You’re the worst. I cannot believe I ever had a crush on you.”
She heard him drop something before coughing. “You…” 
Anna couldn’t help but look up at him, her eyebrow cocked with confusion. 
“You had a crush on me?”
His cheeks were pink and Anna smiled, rolling her eyes with a chuckle. “Oh yeah, big time. It started when I was thirteen, and you were sixteen, I think?” She tried to ignore how cute he looked when he moved his glasses up on top of his head, his hair pushed back out of his face. “I was grounded because I failed a test.”
The memory came flooding back to her, vividly, like it had just happened.
“And you… snuck into the kitchen and got me my favorite chocolates - you know,” she gestured, leaning closer to the computer. “The ones my mom kept up on the top shelf of the cabinet so I couldn’t reach?” 
He nodded, and his cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red.
“Then you sat with me at the table, and helped me study math until I got it, and gave me a piece of the chocolate as a reward each time I figured something out. It was…” she bit her lip, twirling her hair between her fingers. “It was so sweet. You were just so sweet.” Then she changed her expression and stuck her tongue out, blowing a short raspberry in his direction. “And then I got an A on every other test because I was too embarrassed about you coming anywhere near me ever again.”
Kristoff looked like he had swallowed a frog, his face bright and contorted. 
“... You okay?”
He sucked in a deep breath, before blowing it out with almost incomprehensible words. “I’lldoit.”
“What?”
“The… fake the pregnancy thing?”
“... What?”
Kristoff’s whole face had paled, and he was looking anywhere but at her. “... If you want… to pretend I’m the dad…”
Her breath quickened and she grabbed the sides of the computer to pick it up so she could sit up properly. “... What?”
“Can’t you say anything else?” He choked out, rubbing his hands down his face. “Like… not forever, okay? And not like… pretend dating. That’s… not what this is…” He was clearly doing his best to ignore her dumbstruck face. “And in the end… when Elsa is fine with it… you can do like a … paternity test or something… and just act like it was a big mistake… or… something…”
“You…” Anna was completely speechless. Was he crazy? Was he kidding? Was he… “We don’t… you …. dont…” her breathing was shallow, she was so shocked that she could barely catch her breath. “... What?”
Her stomach was churning. He was saying something else, but Anna couldn’t hear him over the blood rushing in her ears. Had he just agreed to this? Was this real? Was this… no. She was still dreaming. She had to have been! There was just no way…
“So… deal?”
Anna suddenly felt bile rise in her throat and nodded as she scrambled off the bed, through the doorway as quickly as she could.
Kristoff watched her, expression shocked. But he missed the small voice come through his speakers.. “Guess the morning sickness is starting.”
And then he saw Elsa’s head peeking around the corner.
“Morning sickness?”
Ah, shit.
Kristoff slammed his computer shut as quickly as he could and stood, pacing back and forth as Sven watched him irritably from his bed. What did he just do? Did he just agree to — no, suggest that they concoct some crazy plan to appease his best friend? And then accidentally reveal the secret?! 
She could be a bit brash, but she wasn’t so unreasonable that she would abandon her pregnant sister… right? Right! 
She was a good person. Kristoff had known her for almost a decade and when she finally came out a year ago and started being her whole, true self, he noticed a difference in her. She was less angry, slower to make impulsive decisions, more caring and understanding… But god, she still scared the shit out of him. She had dropped out of law school, abandoning all her efforts so that she could focus on her art.
Which he was so, so proud of her for. He wanted her to be true to herself and do whatever made her happy.
But when it came to Hans, Elsa and Anna never, ever wound up on the same page. Which was fair, he was… the worst. But Kristoff knew he and Elsa couldn’t really have any say in what Anna chose to do with her life. And when Elsa kicked her out the first time, Anna had gone to stay with Hans for a while.
And that left Anna easily startled and even more anxious when she made mistakes than before. And Kristoff was not prepared to ever let her be in that situation again.
He swallowed his pride before opening the laptop back up and pressing the call button.
Anna picked up on the second ring, her face red and hands clasping at her stomach. 
“Hang on,” she mumbled, before returning to the screaming match with her sister.
Kristoff wondered why she even answered, but did his best not to interfere. He had seen enough of their fights to know that you just had to sit tight, stay safe, and wait for it to be over. Kind of like a blizzard.
Or a hurricane.
“Well?!” Elsa’s voice was sharp, as if all her zen, I ride magical horses into enchanted forests and paint naked fairies sitting on mushrooms hippy personality receded back into a hidden pocket. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Anna opened her mouth to speak, freezing when Kristoff’s voice came from the computer.
“It’s mine, Elsa. I, uh, did that.”
She turned on him, then, her eyes alight with rage. “You… did that? You and Anna? When!” They both hummed noncommittally as his eyes avoided both of theirs. Elsa threw her hands up with frustration. “It doesn’t matter! What… what are you planning, here? Are you even… together?”
“No!” They both rushed to answer, their eyes meeting before darting quickly apart. Anna took in a deep breath.
“It was just a… get over Hans thing. One time.” 
“And you’re keeping it?”
“Yes.”
Anna was firm and confident, Elsa was rigid with anger, and Kristoff was just doing his best to remain relatively unnoticed.
“Okay…” she took a deep breath and stood up straight again, nodding. “I’m going back to sleep.” Her words were slow and calculated, as if she was trying to calm herself down. “We will continue this discussion,” she said, looking at Anna and then at the computer screen that held Kristoff. “In the morning.”
And then she left and Anna flopped down onto the bed, and Kristoff let out a sigh of relief. 
“Well,” Anna huffed, dropping her hands hard onto the comforter. “That went just about as well as I expected it to.”
“...Yeah…” 
Anna’s breathing slowed, and Kristoff didn’t doubt she was close to dozing off again. “Well… I guess this is happening now…”
“Yup.” Her lips ended the word with a pop.
“I’m sorry.”
Her head snapped over to look at the computer. “Why?” She turned her whole body to face the same way. “It would have gone way worse if she thought it was Hans’.”
Kristoff laughed, feeling a tiny bit of tension ease from his body. “This is a mess.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Anna nodded, and she smiled up warmly at him. 
“Thank you.”
He almost couldn’t control the absurd laugh that tickled his throat.
“... Anytime.”
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fueledbysprite · 4 years
Text
abandoned wips masterlist
so not too long ago i did an insta poll asking if i should expose all my abandoned fic drafts cause i mean it’s not like theyre ever gonna see the light of day otherwise. i was going to do it when i hit 3k kudos on ao3 and i did so i suppose it has come time for me to expose my mistakes
for obvious reasons, don’t repost these (idk why anyone would lol) but if you really like one of these and want to see it continued, just hit up my ask box and i may or may not consider~
Miscellaneous Fandoms:
Ninjago: Zephyr - a Morro backstory fic bc the hageman bros refuse to feed me more content of my son. barely started it but yknow its there
Miraculous Ladybug/BoBoiBoy: this failed attempt at a fanginette fic bc @secretagentspydetectiveninja got me invested even tho writers block is a binch hahshs
BoBoiBoy:
kokotiam gang angst that reminded me i cannot for the life of me write emotional angst (or any angst for that matter oop)
ramenzo (and kaifang) angst that i churned out on a saturday afternoon on a writing spike instead of doing homework bc I Do Not Control the Writing Juice
au where bbb is a forest guardian(?) and fang just wants away from Society (same fang same) i will probably be yearning for woodland aus till the day i die bc who *doesnt* wanna ditch everything and go live in the middle of the woods amirite?
ramenzo n boifang water fight bc you cant convince me these idiots dont get up to ridiculous shenanigans on their downtime
abandoned draft for the sequel to the og ramenzo fic (dont bother reading it literally nothing happens i swear)
i literally don’t remember where i was going with this i think it was supposed to be fang introspection but idk??
uhh kaifang with ramenzo vibes i think this was gonna be? i genuinely don’t remember anymore oop-
RAMENZO IN QUARANTINE yes this one was regular au (i mean duh) and it’s a shame i never ended up finishing it-
i am actually goboifang t r a s h...until i realized im going to have to make all the food by myself and i never learned to make food :’)) (fr if anyone provides me with any kind of fanon gbf content i will love you forever pls)
this...exists even tho i honestly prefer it didnt but ramenzo is ramenzo n ramen has freckles i will fite u on this (dont read it pls)
if anyone wants ramenzo crumbs (and i mean that quite practically) then feel free to consume the Specks
dont read this pls im begging just dont lets yeet it into the void it doesnt exist~ I Do Not See It
update: i discovered this uhh kaifang post-bora ra incident thing in my other drive
Miraculous Ladybug:
okay forewarning there are wayyyy too many of these so im skipping the ones that are sequels/dependent on other fics for context just to spare myself from having to sort through this mountain
i was planning to participate in chlonath week 2k19 (unfortunately for chlonath nation I Do Not Control the Hyperfixation oop) if you want context then ask
marcnath crumbs thats it thats the doc
oh look allya is self projecting again (writing is still pain) (marcnath)
for the one who requested chloenette with the dialogue prompt i am so sorry
idk why this feels like something ive posted before but then again all lovesquare is the same to me (dead) so who knows im not gonna bother checking hshsh (marichat)
chlonath go to comic con or sth idk chloe is tsundere as always (or would have been anyway if i ever ended up Finishing this)
i *think* this was based on a @terrible-miraculous-ladybug-aus post but heck if i remember now- (lukanette??)
i have absolutely no recollection as to where i was going with this but if anyone finds the concept interesting then by all means go ahead n snatch it- (manon finds the miraculous i guess?)
this is a great. opening. to a chloe fic. that doesnt exist. oof :,)
caline bustier’s home for orphans amirite (i mean she basically already adopted the whole class so)
im genuinely not a fan of the jealous!lover trope but someone in the marcnath server wanted some at one point so i. attempted. and failed but you know thats to be expected at this point :’3
oh look allya is projecting her writing struggles onto marc again is anyone surprised?
theres probably a museum brotp story in here but it doesnt exist and at this point it never will rip
oh good lord not this again i genuinely managed to forget about it for a while until now-
i just read the first line and im already reeling what the heck is this nathanette(??)
WHY IS THERE MARICHAT IN MY WIP FOLDER WHAT
allya stop projecting onto emo weebs challenge failed
i really wanna know where the context for chlonath skiing trip came from i literally have 0 recollection of this at all??
YO I ACTUALLY REMEMBER THE CONTEXT FOR THIS ONE anyway nath n aroace!alix arranged marriage au anyone?? well too bad cause i abandoned it oop-
ahahahahahahaha wdym i wrote 7k of chlonath and then ditched it i would never do that lmao-
i think this was a hunger games au uh
something something marcnath
marcnath angst i guess? *allya pls stop trying to write angst we’ve already established that is not a thing you can do*
something something chlonath
im never gonna forgive @powerdragonmoon for the fact that i thought “beecock” while glancing over this to figure out wth was going on. cholaon works here too tho so that is what i shall call it //sideways glare at moon
take your otp. now put them on a trampoline. but heaven forbid you ever finish the fic- (chlonath if it wasnt obvious)
nathanette doll au from forever ago with @lotus-duckies that was a real concept its a shame i have 0 commitment
i wanna call this lukanathanette but i honestly don’t remember where i was going with it so idk
hi uhm what is this and why is it so depressing allya fr quit self projecting on emo tomatoes oml
chlonath established relationship i guess??
museum brotp go skating?? is that what this is?
how much chlonath do i hAVE also chloe u tsundere
nathaniel is Yearning n tbh i dont blame him cause same (ft. marc)
i could swear this was gonna be luklonath (chlolukanath??) but i wouldnt be able to remember-
if anyone can figure out what’s going on with marc pls tell me bc i dont-
cholaon but theres no context
Oh god im finally done good lord that’s all of em i hope i never have to look at a mlb doc again in my life anyway pls be grateful n enjoy the crumbs n stuff thanks i sacrificed my sanity for this-
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Yes thats the episode! I forgot John was in prison at the time. It would have been great if he got that number. Thank you so much for your fic recomnendations! Im going to check them all out. I would also love to read your story if you ever feel comfortable sharing it. Okay so as for the season 4 and 5 thing: i do agree with you that it got really different from season 1. I struggled a bit with that in the beginning (cause i love the s1 concept) but then i went with it (1)
I really disliked root in the beginning and i dont know when that changed but in the end i started loving her. She was like a comic relief and i liked her relationship with shaw. But i can understand anyone who doesnt like her. The thing i missed the most was the relationship with Harold and John (it was sad that they got so little interactions) and i also wasnt a fan of Johns S4 love interest. But overall i enjoyed s4 and 5 (minus the ending maybe cause my poor heart needs a Happy end) (2)
But i can understand anyone who doesnt like These seasons as much. I just remember a lot of discussions on reddit where everyone was loving season 3-5 and saying season 1 was boring (which is kinda sad cause i love season 1) so i guess you are right about there being a fracture. I just hope i am still allowed to send you questions after admitting that i like root (i promise i wont ask anything about her 😂)
Yes having both John and Harold working on that number, and addressing John's issues would have been great. Hope you like the fics !
Aww thanks ! I considered posting it on tumblr bc stuff gets "lost" easily on here compared to ao3. But if you delete your post the reblogs are still here. Maybe I'll post it as anonymous, but I'm talking about it on here anyway so it wouldn't be hard to guess it was written by me. Ig posting it unanonymously (is that a word) with moderated comments would be the best choice. Tbh it's not my best writing anyway and idk if I'll manage to finish it. (Idk if I'll manage to finish any of the ten billions wips and translations I have lying around on OneDrive.... But that's another subject.)
It's nice that Root grew on you and that you enjoyed the last seasons ! I'm too busy clutching the early seasons close to my heart lmao. I could never see her as a comic relief I think, she's too much of an annoying intrusion to me. Idk how I feel about shoot either. Like I don't really like or dislike Shaw but given that Root creeps me out... Idk. I feel like John and Harold had more chemistry. You can pry Rinch from my cold dead hands.
Yeah I've heard about John and Harold relationship not being how it was in the beginning >:((( I'm big mad.
I agree wholeheartedly about a happy ending. Man I remember crying my eyes out watching return 0. And I already knew what was gonna happen. But nothing can truly prepare you for that.
I wasn't on reddit back then, got an acc like 3 years ago and started actually checking reddit 2 years ago but yeah from what I've seen the poi subreddit seems to be quite the circlejerk abt the last seasons. (Aren't I circlejerking abt the early seasons though.) I remember a post saying it got worse after Carter's death and someone was like akshually the whole AI war thing was planned for the beginning and poi isn't for you if you want a procedural. Like bruh I highly doubt that shit was planned from day 1 and also poi literally started as a procedural so I expected it to be a procedural, that's logical, but go off I guess. Sad that they find it boring but yeah ig S1 can be seen as boring if you're into all that S4/S5 shit. I'm getting bitter again oof. I also have a feeling some of those ppl discovered poi with the last seasons and expected the rest of the show to be similar ? But viewership went down so idk if there were many new viewers.
Talking abt poi gives me life send me all the questions 👀👀 but bc you like root I deem you only half valid :/ (jk ♥️)
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bananonbinary · 5 years
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Final Epilogue Thoughts
okay, ive OFFICIALLY finished homestuck. 100%, all epilogues complete.
yall, i was really expecting it to be so bad? everyone hated it so much, but i really enjoyed it. meat was a little rough for me to get through, but after a bit of a depressing start candy REALLY took off. it really felt like a dozen other homestuck fics ive read, and i dont mean that in a shitty way. i dont understand why people disliked it, i was especially having a lot of fun in the revolution plot.
(On that note, has anyone talked about yet how the ao3 framing actually would make the ending fucking brilliant even if it never upd8s again? do you KNOW how many goddamn homestuck fics i’ve read that are forever discontinued, many of them ironically specifically because of the epilogues? it felt SO much like every other fic ive ever read it actually made me nostalgic. getting to the end and feeling like “hey author where’s the rest” is sort of part of the fanfic experience lmao.)
i mean, i know a few characters really had a Bad Time, but i dont really feel like any of them were completely butchered or unrecognizable? i mean i didnt see jane coming, but like hussie talked about in that bigass statement on pgenpod, that’s...sort of the flawed nature of sequels and continuations, you always need to find a way to undo the happy ending you left everyone with to have Drama again. coupled with the kinda fucked-up and Too Much nature of the epilogues, i dont feel like it butchers jane’s character any more than Bro butchers dirk’s. it’s just one way she could’ve gone if she was handed ultimate power and an unstable narrative depriving her of real friendships.
Speaking of Dirk, meat was MUCH harder for me to read, but i don’t feel like he was super slandered either. it kinda seems like Ultimate Selves aren’t....supposed to exist as characters? which makes sense from a narrative standpoint because how could you have any sort of character development if youve simultaneously done everything you ever will or could do, that’s not a character that’s a model sheet. And dirk’s ultimate self includes...a lot of fucked people including Bro. so he was always going to be a prick.
don’t ask me about the graphic and triggering shit, there was literal trigger warnings that the writers repeatedly said beforehand were real, so i dont wanna hear any complaints about dead doves.
idk, it was all very silly, and fun, and had a lot of interesting things to say about storytelling just like the rest of homestuck, and OBVIOUSLY is leading up to something else, and honestly, i dont know what the big fuss was about. it’s cool if you hated them, i aint gonna try to change your mind, but personally i thought it was a great story and i cant wait to see it continue
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possiblypeachy · 5 years
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author Qs!
thank you @deviantramblings for the tag!! these are always fun :)
Author Name: pssshhh. i wish i was advanced enough in my writing career to have an ‘author name’. the only place i really write is here or on ao3 so i suppose ‘possiblypeachy’ is my author name? but you can probably find some pieces of mine scattered about the web under different names.
Fandoms You Write For: a lot!! but it usually depends on what i have inspiration for at the time. at the mo, i’m most likely to write for rdr (1 & 2), assassin’s creed, dragon age (as always, despite having never published anything for it here?), any any other games i reblog really. i would write for marvel but it requires a certain mood for me, although i do love it. i dunno?? do i even know what fandoms i’m in?? gonna hit the ‘no’ button on that.
Where You Post: tumblr and ao3 mostly 
Most Popular One-Shot: ooh i had to dig for this one. fingertips (i think?) is my most popular one-shot and the first bit of writing i published on here actually!
Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: i only have one multi-chapter story going on at the moment lmao! i wouldn’t count it as popular but i enjoy it so everyone can suck it :))
Favorite Story You Wrote: i ? don’t ? know ? im really indifferent on most of the stuff on my blog now bc its mostly d:bh. i suppose i do quite like this. it’s discontinued but its a fun little choose-your-own story thing i did a while back.
Story You Were Nervous to Post: i was definitely anxious to post the first instalment of tea & schemes bc it was for a new obsession and original character stuff is sometimes not received all too pleasantly?? The little bits of feedback i’ve gotten so far has been lovely though :)
How Do You Choose Your Titles: i sit and stare for a long while until i type something in. then i go “hmm.... actually no.” i change it again a few more times until i finally have no will left and just leave the title as the last thing i thought of.
Do You Outline: i had never really planned anything before tea & schemes (and oh babie,,, you should see the plan for that).
Complete: the only complete things on my blog are my one-shots //:
In-Progress: the only thing i’m writing at the moment is tea & schemes (i feel like i should stop talking about it) bc i have mad amounts of inspiration for it at the moment. i’m usually pretty good at staying on top of wips tbf but i just don’t have any presently
Coming Soon: the next chapter of… tea & schemes. who would’ve thought? i’m gonna make myself go insane with how much i’ve mentioned it im so sorry :(
Do You Accept Prompts: sí, of course!! if i ever reblog a prompt list and you’d like me to write one, do just send me a message or smth. sometimes i don’t get around to it or my muse has just vanished but i do love the fact that y’all saw that and wanted me to write it to begin with.
Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: please dont make me say it again. i don’t want you all to hate me and the story. please… im begging-- 
tagging: literally anyone! I speak to barely any writers on here and, if i do, i don’t know if i’m close enough with you to tag you in this wee game :,)) but!! if you do want to do this after seeing mine, i’ll be ecstatic to read through it!!
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