#i'm going to start pulling up places with my emotional support stuffed animals and start keeping stim toys in my purse

[your--isgayrights]

Oh yay permission to send you fic related asks!! I'll start off by saying I lvoe how youre pulling off the limited POV, especially during longer conversations where the different intent and miscommunications pile up. it seems to me like you have a very clear grasp on the very different things/interpretations they all have going on in their own head. i like trying to understand what the non-kdj party must be thinking at the time, so i wanted to ask how much of their viewpoint do you map out/how do you do it when writing them? like, does it come naturally from their characterization, or do you ever need to write a bit from the other character's POV to know where theyre coming from?

Annooooon let me tell you a secret bestie... I pretty much always want to answer asks about my fic lmao. if you've been holding back DO NOT. <^This guy has written and published almost 100,000 words about this particular topic, methinks he might be a bit of a chatterbox about it...

GREAT question too. I think that like you say, KDJ's biased POV is really one of my favorite parts of writing the fic. It let's me create these situations where literally EVERY character is thinking something Completely Different is happening than the others, which is my favorite form of comedy. With this you also get to sort of juggle with the Reader's perspective, because with fanfiction you can expect that the reader will have a certain baseline understanding of the characters that lets them sort of see through the veneer of the social interaction as to what's really going on. I think that this kind of writing/reading is less about planning out and practicing at multiple POVs like you suggest and more about like exercising some empathy muscles for reader and writer... In the first place I think that I started the practice of really writing in order to become more articulate about expressing my own emotions, so I think a part of that is trying to express the emotions and perspectives of characters... And when you're viewing someone from the outside and are trying to understand them that way, you only get the avenues of their dialogue and their actions, and when you're writing a conversation it's easy to naturally work reactions in like that.

I don't really write out more than like notes about what's going to happen, so like, for example, popular scene in chapter 3: Shin Yoosung gets a stuffed animal from a gachapon machine. So, like, I know in my head that I have this specific characterization and take on Shin Yoosung, she's sort of a kid that is used to being disappointed by adults in her life but takes it onto herself. So when her mom forgets her birthday her thought process becomes "Well, I'm a big girl now, who cares? It doesn't matter that much anyway," she thinks like this to avoid having to be disappointed in her parental figure, but her rationalization doesn't hold up to her real emotion, which is where LGY and KDJ are able to provide support to her... I feel like all this just comes naturally from my interpretation so I would sort of know this about the characters like you know a person, right? Then the note is just about what plot point should occur, "SYS's mom forgets her birthday, KDJ buys her a cake, gochapon." Then I might write a bit of that scene and then just move it around in the outline where I see fit. So, like you say, I have the idea that SYS is having this dramatic moment where she tries her best to hold back her feelings, and then one adult in her life says "you don't have to, even if you feel sad for no reason, in this moment I'll do my best to make you happy" through his actions, it's obviously something that matters a lot to her. It really would be way to much trouble to have to write out a whole separate aspect in her perspective though, so there's no practice like that.

What I DO practice is that sometimes I take multiple cracks at a draft if I feel it isn't striking the right tone. Last chapter I was really held up by the LHS and JHW scene, because I hadn't quite hit the right vibe with it I felt. It's a bit difficult because what I had in my notes was basically "m/f couples that exist to be foils to gay romance are valid," so I think that my first drafts were way too heavy handed about that, and too LHS focused too. I think that another struggle I had in general that chapter was worrying about KDJ coming on a little too strong and messing up the pacing of the Vibes, because it's the beginning of this transition period in his emotional state which needs to be in a certain place by the end of 4.4... OK no one cares about that. Basically I was struggling to segue into the LHS & JHW discussion, then the one on one LHS and KDJ discussion without it coming across as making JHW's traumatic experience all about her male partner you know? Because a recurring dynamic I've tried to portray is someone who feels helpless vs someone who needs help, and the amount of care we have for our loved ones, being a survivor vs being a savior, what those concepts mean, etc. Like knowing your loved one is in danger and there's nothing you can do, that's one of the core emotions right, so I was trying to bring that out without having any weird implications if that makes sense.

Basically I was struggling and struggling with it until I realized that what I had written was basically a LHS & KDJ scene, then a JHW & LHS scene, then a JHW & KDJ scene, then a LHS & KDJ scene again. So I had the picture of the individual characters in my head, but I had failed to connect them to one larger group dynamic, just attaching them to each other in what were essentially duologues.

The break in the case for that one, and the reason I'm telling you about this I guess, was being able to have an experience in my real life that was sort like this. Basically I was visiting two of my pals I hadn't seen for a while at a ballroom dance tournament where they were participating and I was observing. We hadn't all hung out in person in a good while, and I realized that I felt a bit awkward and didn't know what to talk about, whereas they could both talk to each other about ballroom dancing and get conversation going that way... This let me really crack what JHW's perspective was, lol. I was like. Oh. She thinks she and KDJ are participating in the same ballroom dance competition.

There was also this aspect of "this m/f couple literally Can't Cope without their Favorite Little Guy. what's the point of being comphet if your gay boy best friend has been imprisoned/hospitalized for his crimes against humanity" that I wanted to incorporate after rereading some parts of orv...

Okay IDK if this makes that much sense but basically here's what I had in my notes about that conversation:

JHW is having an awkward catch up with her ex and is relieved that her friend who she Knows How To Interact With is there.

LHS is like wow I'm hanging out with my Cool friend but I'm cringe fail so i don't know if she hates me, its a good thing my Cool superior from work is here to support me.

KDJ is sitting next to blorbo from his arm and trying to do narrative math to figure out how soon he and/or JHW are going to die violently (make LHS sad).

Then I just rewrote basically the whole thing and it worked out fine lol. Basically cracked onto the perspective of "KDJ desperately tries to be a third wheel but JHW and LHS are actually really into tricycles and would absolutely eat shit if you asked them to ride with just the two wheels." It became hilarious to me how enthused they both were to have him there and how much he Did Not Want to be there lmaooo.

God Ok. Rambling. Um basically I don't generally do drafts written from different perspectives I don't plan to include in the final draft bc I feel like there's extra work involved in that. So I'm mostly writing from real life experience with the way real people work/my own understanding of characterization. I do take notes sometimes about plot events/character moments that need to happen in my outline. Like recently I reread the stuff I published takin notes on where YJH's head is at bc of 4.4 stuff that's happenin... haha.

I DO sometimes write other characters' POVs though. I think some of them might be included towards the end or in extras after I'm done with the main story. Like I have snippets of some soosang stuff and excerpts from HSY's writing. And then, not to spoil anything, but you know how ORV has more third person povs as the story goes on? My work may or may not have some of such funny business lol.

Thanks for reading and thanks a lot for your ask!

#long post #ask #anonymous #wall fic #love questions like this let me know if you have more questions anon

[blossom--of--snow]

95 "come cuddle" spaceparents (I know I requested more before... But I'm greedy... I'm sorry.... Hope u have time for it)

It only took me about 87 years, but here you go! What I learned from this is that I’m incapable of writing Spaceparents without angst. So sorry about that. 

Laura’s trail of belongings betrayed the type of day she’d had. On days when her students behaved, abstained from SparkNotes, and wrote like AP English students, everything had a place. Her tote bag hung on the olive green wall next to the door, her heels hid primly under the key table, and her blazer lay over the back of the couch. However, more often than not, only half her students behaved, too many didn’t quite finish their assigned reading, and even more write like accelerated English students. Those days called for toppled heels just inside the door, blazer still on her shoulders, tote bag tossed next to her desk, and Laura hunched over a pile of ungraded papers. On the remaining Bad Days, her blazer hung where the tote bag should be, the bag was stuffed under the key table, and at least one shoe was near the wine cabinet.

Today, Bill tripped over the tote, shoes, and blazer before he’d taken two steps into their condo.

“Laura?”

“In bed.” Laura’s voice barely carried down the hall. As he moseyed toward their bedroom, he noticed the closed door, with no light seeping through the cracks. He refused to give paranoia about the cancer’s resurgence any credence, but his fortitude wavered when he saw Laura.

It took him a moment to find her under the blanket of golden fur that was their dog, Prima. Curled on what remained of her side of the bed, Laura had discarded all her clothes in favor of Bill’s old Air Force hoodie.

She lifted her head so that he could see her face over the massive fluff of golden retriever. “Sorry Prima wasn’t there to greet you. I never understood the concept of emotional support animals before we got him. You’re welcome to come cuddle with us.”

Bill dropped the armload of her belongings onto the bench in front of their bed. “I suppose cuddling will make up for almost killing me with the obstacle course you left at the front door.”

Her laughter permeated the darkness. “I’m sorry about that. Come to bed, and I’ll explain everything.”

Usually, Bill would have made a show of putting his shoes in the closet where they belonged and tossing his clothes in the hamper like an adult, but today, he shucked everything but his dog tags, boxers, and uniform tank to the floor and climbed into bed on the other side of Prima. Either too lazy or too comfortable to move, Prima merely craned his neck to cover half of Bill’s face with his tongue.

Bill’s hands vanished in the fur behind Prima’s ears. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s been a lifetime since you last saw me. Good boy.” Propped on one elbow this close to Laura, he could see her puffy eyes and pink cheeks, and suddenly the problem wasn’t as important as finding a solution. “Bad day?”

Laura studied Prima rather than meet Bill’s gaze. “Not particularly. In fact, I had a pretty great day. Karl Agathon turned in his literary analysis, and from what little I read, he’s improved exponentially since we started in September. He’s a smart kid, but you know he always struggled to organize his thoughts coherently. I got a list of potential freshman from Tory over at the intermediate school, and it’s a small group, just the way I like. Principal Adar canceled our meeting today, so I actually got to be productive during my planning period.”

Bill reached over Prima and brushed Laura’s red curls behind her ears. “You don’t sound too happy about those things.”

Two tears stained Laura’s blue, satin pillowcase. “Don’t you hate it when you have a perfectly good day, but all you can focus on is the two minutes that frakked you?”

He thought of all the times he’d seen someone who looked like Zak on the hanger deck, or watched Lee’s son playing with one of Zak’s old toys, or had been walking down the street when he remembered that when he was five, Zak’s favorite color was purple.

“I do.” As much as he wanted to wipe her tears away, she preferred to feel her pain before moving on from it.

“We were discussing symbolism. And don’t ask me why I didn’t pick an example from the text, because I have no frakking idea. The kids we’re bored with the text…just one of those days, I guess, so I…” Laura huffed and rolled onto her back. “When I glanced down at my notes, I saw my bracelet, and the kids had already noticed the look on my face. I told them about the accident, about finding the bracelet in my baby sister’s personal effects. Did I ever tell you it was the only thing in all three bags without any blood on it?”

She had not.

“Of course, to avoid breaking down in front of my entire class, I dissociated, used the experience as an teaching moment. The bracelet remaining untainted by the tragedy was symbolic of three lives full of memories that can stand apart from their deaths, or some such bullshit. And you know, Bill, I was fine until I finished, and the kids didn’t say a word. This…reverent silence took over, and these teenagers respected me enough to absorb this calamity I forced on them.”

“No, Laura. You’ve known those kids since they were freshmen. They love you. You didn’t force anything on them. They’re old enough to understand.”  

Swiping angrily at her tears, Laura sat up in bed, as if she was too restless to stay still but too exhausted to walk. “Old enough to understand my hypocrisy. Thirty years of life and happiness, and I can’t think about them without crying.”

“That’s not true.” Expelling an embarrassing amount of effort, Bill sat up. “I don’t have to tell you that some days are worse than others.”

Her gaze focused on the drawn blackout curtains, Laura snickered. “I’m focusing on the negative today, remember?”

Bill thought that with her hunched shoulders and bedhead, she couldn’t look any more dejected. Then Laura flopped back onto the bed and flung one arm over her eyes.

“I hate feeling like this and knowing all I can do is sleep it off and hope everything is better in the morning. But when I close my eyes…”

The steadiness of her voice indicated the resignation and emptiness that on even the most excruciating days of treatment, she could always suppress. Bill’s intimate knowledge of those feelings did not make them any less unsettling to see in her.

As usual, Prima jerked them out of the moment’s solemnity. Muffled barking sent him leaping off the bed toward the living room, where his view of the “intruder” would be unencumbered. Bill cursed under his breath before rolling closer to Laura, who had propped herself up on her elbows. Her eyes, puffy but dry, reflected her musings, and Bill couldn’t stop looking for a solution, in the face of her acceptance that there was none.

“I’m sorry.”

His apology startled Laura out of her trance. Shifting her weight to one elbow, she stroked Bill’s cheek, and he saw light flicker in the bleakness in her eyes. “Just because you can’t always pull me out of my morbid introspection doesn’t mean you have to apologize.” Bill tried to protest, but she covered his lips with her fingers. “Never doubt that you make it easier to be grateful for every day.”

Then he was back at that night under the stars, only a month after the cancer had vaporized like an unsettling dream. With her wind-blown hair tickling his nose and her arm over his middle, the future was irrelevant in the face of the perfect present.

Maybe we should embrace it—the life that we’ve got while we’ve got it.

The memory of her words whispered in his ear, and he embraced her, needing to feel her breath—real, present life—on his cheek.

#also i went out of order with the asks #hope that’s okay #blossom writes #spaceparents #bsg #laura roslin #bill adama

[queercapwriting]

I wish I could tell my parents I'm a girl. Any chance I could get a fic of Sanvers helping someone with this? Obviously you don't have to if you don't want to. I'm sorry, I'm probably bothering you. I know this isn't really a party ask.

It was usually Adrian that brought kids who needed validation home to Maggie and Alex.

That day, it was Kara.

That day, it was Kara because there was an attack on National City High and one of the girls who was injured – not seriously, thanks to Supergirl – begged, begged, begged for the medics not to call her parents.

Supergirl eyed her and swooped in just as the medics were trying to insist that regulations mandated them to let her parents know.

“Maybe I can talk to her for a moment?” Kara had asked, her voice low in her Supergirl capacity.

And when the girl – Leslie, her name was – whispered to Supergirl why she didn’t want the medics to call her parents, Supergirl nodded and asked her if she’d like a hug.

She did.

“But I’m really going to need you to get that cut on your arm looked at,” she’d told her. “I can have a few friends of mine look at it and fix you right back up, if that’s okay.”

It was. 

So she took her to the DEO, and J’onn’s potential rage about Kara bringing an unvetted child into the facility without anyone’s permission simmered to nothing when Kara just widened her eyes at him. He nodded, frowned, crossed his arms over his chest, and bent slightly, remembering what it was to have a daughter who was significantly shorter than him, and trying not to.

“Did Supergirl tell you that this is a top secret place, and you can’t tell anyone its location?”

Leslie nodded. “I know a thing or two about secrets,” she murmured, and he glanced at her stiff collared shirt and at the barrette in her short hair, and he nodded.

“Well, I have a doctor here that’s very good at listening to secrets,” he told her.

“That’s what Supergirl said!” Leslie perked up, like she was just realizing that Supergirl had just flown her somewhere, that Supergirl was talking to her, helping her, introducing her to her friends.

And as if on cue, Alex strode out of the med bay, lab coat on, brisk walking, head turning, I-have-somewhere-to-be-right-now stride on.

“Leslie? Hi. I’m Doctor Danvers. I hear you’ve got something you need stitched up.”

Leslie held up her arm and Alex bent to examine it keenly. 

“Alright, that shouldn’t be too hard. Do you want to come to the med bay with me?”

Leslie glanced at Supergirl, who nodded down at her. “Doctor Danvers is the absolute best there is, Leslie. She’ll take really great care of you. And I’ll be right out here when you’re ready, okay?”

Leslie nodded as she followed Alex.

“Danvers!” A low shout from down the hall made them both turn, and Alex broke into a wide smile.

“Hey, babe.”

Leslie’s eyes flew wide.

“I got Supergirl’s text, she said – oh, hey, you must be Leslie. Nice to meet you, I’m Maggie.”

Leslie blinked with an emotion she didn’t know how to articulate, but she thought it might have something to do with introducing herself to one person – Supergirl – as her real self, as Leslie, and then having the three people she met next – big, important people, it seemed like – all automatically call her by that name, no questions asked and no sarcasm or cruelty to be found.

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“Fiancee, Danvers, or did I miss something?” Maggie teased.

Alex beamed and bounced on the balls of her feet. Leslie marveled at the transformation. “Nope, I just like hearing you correct me.”

“Nerd.”

Leslie’s eyes traveled between them with awe and with admiration and with something that looked an awful lot like longing.

Alex giggled before sobering and led the two of them into the med bay, where she prepped Leslie for stitches.

“So,” she asked conversationally as Maggie watched her work, as Leslie held on tight to the stuffed animal that Maggie passed her. “Supergirl tells me you didn’t want the medics on site to call your parents. Even though something really awful just happened. Everything okay at home?”

Alex flinched at her own lack of finesse, but Leslie didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah. No. I just… Doctor Danvers, are you gay?”

Alex laughed, but Maggie laughed so hard she nearly toppled a set of microscope slides off the table nearby.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry, Leslie, it’s a good question, an important one. I just… yes, I’m a lesbian. I didn’t realize until I met Maggie, and that was… kind of a big thing for us, so that’s why we’re laughing. Why Maggie’s… still laughing, apparently. Why do you ask?”

“I think I’m gay.”

“Well there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that,” Maggie sobered enough to say earnestly.

“But the thing is, I’m not gay as in I like boys. People call me gay because I like to be more feminine. But I don’t like boys. I like girls. But people think I’m a boy. But…”

“But they’re wrong,” Alex supplied softly, casually, as she stitched Leslie up.

She nodded, and so did Maggie, slowly, supportively.

“So I’m a girl. And I like girls. I think my parents would be okay if I was a boy and liked boys. I think they’d get used to it. But I don’t know… I’m a girl. So I’m a lesbian, but also… well… a girl. It’s the girl part I just don’t… I don’t know how to tell them. That part. The girl part. That I’m a girl. And I… I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this, I don’t know you, I – “

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re not doing anything wrong,” Alex reminded her, and Maggie had never been so in love. 

“But how do I…”

“Tell them?”

Leslie nodded, her eyes transfixed on the small stitches Alex was making in her arm.

“You might wanna be a doctor when you grow up, Leslie, the way you can watch me stitch you up like that,” Alex grinned approvingly before Maggie started answering.

“Well, how do you communicate with them best? Like, are you the serious talks type of family, or the texting type, or maybe joking around? When do they hear you best?”

Leslie gave a dry laugh. “When I cry.”

“Yeah, sometimes we do that when we come out,” Maggie murmured, and Alex resisted the urge to pull her into her arms.

“I guess sometimes they interrupt me. Like, when I try to tell them something that’s important to me, if it makes them uncomfortable, they like, try to talk about what’s on TV or something. So maybe writing them something. Because then they won’t interrupt me.”

“What do you think you’d want to say?” Alex asked, careful to keep her tone casual.

“That I love them. That there’s nothing wrong with how they raised me, that there’s nothing wrong with… with me being a girl. That I’ve sort of always known I wasn’t a boy, but I didn’t know I was a girl until I realized I could be. That I want them to know because I want them to know all of me. That they’re not losing a son, that I’m still their same child and I still like the same things, I’m just their daughter now. That I love them and I need them to love me. As a girl. With my name. Because they raised a great daughter, even if they didn’t know they were doing it. And I want them to be proud of themselves that they raised such a badass girl, and I want them to be proud of me because I am that badass girl. I… yeah. That stuff. I’d want to tell them that stuff.”

Leslie sniffled and she trembled while Alex and Maggie fought to keep their own eyes dry. 

“You said that really beautifully, Leslie,” Maggie told her, and she made a mental note to pick up three dozen donuts for Kara as a thank you for doing this.

“Do you want us to help you write it down before you go back to school?” Alex asked, and Leslie lit up like she was on top of the world.

“Yes, please,” she beamed, and when J’onn and Kara peaked in a half hour later, they’d never seen so much giddy joy in the med bay.

#sanvers #sanvers minific #sanvers fic #kara danvers fic #sanvers hurt/comfort #fine it's not that they're hurt/comforting each other but technically it still counts right? #right