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monzamash · 8 months

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off the record — lando norris

"the line between personal and professional was already so blurred; so incomprehensibly faint that anyone looking in would have to squint to see it." lando norris x you (femreader) | 2.1k rating – 18+ (sex, coarse language, drug references) masterlist

The media pen was mayhem after what had been an eventful morning on track. Cameras hoisted every which way, journalists vying for their chance to get front row. And then there was you; little old you trying your best to muscle into every nook and cranny available, wrestling with the big boys and girls. You were a bit of a hot shot now, rising through the ranks online as a media personality and bringing it to the stalwarts of mainstream media.

And you were good – really good. An exceptional storyteller and an extractor of sorts when it came to getting the scoop, something you had honed in on during your days working freelance before eventually realising your potential. Somehow, you’d made it here. Reporting for Sky Sports. Coming to you live from Monaco. Dream shit.

“Lando Norris…” You started, microphone locked and loaded in front of the sweaty, nonchalant McLaren driver.

“Felt like you left a little bit out on track in practice this morning. P10 – where do you think you can get the car in qualifying this afternoon?”

“P1 obviously,” Lando quipped, chewing through his comically large drinking straw in an attempt to hide his smirk. Mocking.

“Yeah?”

“What do you reckon?” He asked, leaning forward ever so slightly with a mischievous glint in his eye that had you rolling yours.

You shrugged, “Wouldn’t count the McLaren car out, that’s for sure.”

“The car and…” Lando smirk widened, lips still pursed and baiting.

“The driver too? Maybe?” Dickhead.

“Maybe that too…” You gave in with a sigh, eliciting a wide smile from the man standing in front of a gaggle of reporters, waiting for your next question with snickering expressions.

“So high expectations going into quali then?”

It had always been like this with Lando from the moment you stuck your little hand held recorder in his face at Bahrain last year to now. He knew he could wind you up and find levity in whatever situation he found himself in at the end of a session – good or bad. It was always a friendly back and forth between journalist and driver. Harmless banter to make the monotony of the media pen just that little bit more bearable. Professional, until it wasn’t.

“The flirting is getting out of hand,” You whispered into his kiss, teeth clashing, hands fumbling as you fell back on your hotel bed with a huff.

“But you look so fucking cute asking me questions like that,” He growled in retort, hands making quick work of the jeans clinging to your hips – the ones that had been taunting him all day.

Everywhere he turned he saw you swaying from side to side, aching to have this moment with you now.

“Well duh,” You quipped confidently, eyes fluttering shut as his feverish lips ghosted above the damp patch of excitement between your thighs. Focus.

“But it has to stop.”

“Oh you want me to stop right now?”

“I’m not talking about…” You stopped mid-sentence when you caught the mischievous glimmer in Lando’s eyes, lips pulled into a smirk, “Okay, fuck you.”

“You love it,” He breathed out in barely a whisper, leaving a trail of marks down the inside of your thigh before finally giving you what you were waiting for.

“And don’t pretend like the thought of me going down on you when you’re asking me those silly little questions doesn’t turn you on.”

Well he fucking had you there.

Lando punctuated his point with a long, teasing stripe to your cunt before burying himself between your thighs, only coming up for air when you tugged on his curls and demanded a kiss. He knew how you were, how needy and insatiable you could be. This was a thing now; a god forsaken mistake in Australia that had turned into a runaway train. Neither of you could stop it.

“I can’t live without this.”

The desperation spilled from your mouth in a guttural moan as you titled you hips upwards and let the twisted knots in the depths of your stomach unravel. The sight of you thrashing in pleasure below knocked the wind out of Lando, eyes and mind focused solely on fucking you through your high so perfectly, fingers bruising the buttery flesh of your thighs.

“God – fuck…” He could barely breathe, “Don’t – you don’t have to.”

And with one last pump, he was coming into the condom he’d slipped on without you even knowing. It was second-hand now, muscle memory and so fucking good. But it didn’t start that way – no, it was awkward goodbyes and a cold ‘thanks for that’ which made you regret ever answering your hotel door. The situation had changed in the blink of an eye – now he was lingering, kissing you in places that had you melting into the mussed sheets and begging him to stay a little bit longer.

It was pathetic how reliant you’d become and how distant you could be when he had to leave. The leaving part was the thing that changed and had you questioning all of it. It used to be that you could go shower and come back to an empty bed and not even flinch. Four months of he is just a causal fuck, no hard feelings to now not being so stoic on that sentiment but you wouldn’t admit that. Not to yourself and especially not to the man peering down at you – all lazy smiles and dimples and ocean eyes. You were fucked.

“I gotta go,” Lando whispered, brushing the stray strands of hair from your flushed face, pout present and needy.

“You don’t really though.”

“If I don’t go now I’ll never leave.”

The little voice in your head was monologuing – screaming out all of the reasons why he should stay because maybe deep down that’s what you wanted. But you couldn’t have that. The line between personal and professional was already so blurred; so incomprehensibly faint that anyone looking in would have to squint to see it. It was the devil on your shoulder that tormented you when it came to Lando, pushing the boundaries more and more every time you had him in your clutches. Risking it all.

“Kiss me before you go.”

And he did. Passionately, like a man in love because maybe he was. Maybe he had been for a lot longer than he’d realised – somewhere between Miami and now he let his guard down too far, too soon. You were flawless though, unattainably perfect that he couldn’t be blamed for falling victim to your allure – sharp eyes following you around the paddock, wishing he was the little notebook in your back pocket that garnered all your attention on race weekends.

“See you tomorrow?”

“If you’re lucky,” Lando quipped, knowing he would be the one curled up in his cold, lonely bed for the rest of the night waiting impatiently for tomorrow.

In any other circumstance you would think the two of you were like magnets, drawn together amongst the travelling circus that was your workplace. But you had a job to do and that was to seek out drivers and team principals, digging deep for any story you could find. There was a trust that you’d built with the teams, all of them respected your work and knew that you weren’t malicious; in fact you were the opposite.

“I really appreciate you not writing about my drunkenness last weekend… It wasn’t my finest moment unfortunately.”

Oscar was a rookie driver but also a total sweetheart, who admittedly had found himself in a precarious late night adventure in a Miami nightclub post-grand prix. How he ended up that drunk, you had no idea but you saved him from himself with the help of Lando, who Oscar would’ve thought was suspiciously close by if he wasn’t black out drunk.

“I got you, buddy but I think your Australian citizenship might have to be revoked after an effort like that… Very disappointing,” You teased in jest, both smiling into the blistering Monacan sun as you walked side by side into the paddock.

“I woke up with an L on my forehead which I can only assume Lando put there so I think my ego’s bruised enough thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah,” You cringed, “That might’ve been my eyeliner.”

“Is that right…”

Oscar’s tone was laced with suspicion but before he could quiz you on why you were still there that night and that he had started to notice the budding friendship between you and his teammate, he was being whisked away by one of his McLaren publicists. You were thankful that they'd taken his curious questions away – how the tables had turned.

Lando was watching you wander through the paddock behind his dark sunglasses, as had been the trend all weekend. Every time you glanced around he was there, wondering if he could sneak over and say hello. Sure, you were friends with a few of the drivers outside of work but when you stepped over that white line, the barriers of professionalism came up again. They had to, otherwise you would end up in a situation like this – gawking at someone you shouldn’t be.

But god he looked good.

He wore what he knew was your biggest weakness – a backwards cap and the black denim jacket he slung over your shoulders on that dark, stormy night in London a few weeks ago when Imola was cancelled and you needed a fix. Hotel hook-ups only. And all of this had you asking yourself, how on earth could you deny a good morning from the man who was the subject of your every desire?

“Good morning.”

“Well it’s not a bad one,” You smiled, more energised than Lando who was yawning into the crook of his arm, “Late night?”

He loved it when you did that. Sneaking little inside jokes into seemingly innocent conversation, naughty reminders of the nights you shared together when nobody was watching. The cheeky grin tugging on his lips a definite tell-tale that he enjoyed it – the tells getting easier and easier to spot the more you got to know him. A shiver ran down your spine at the thought that maybe he was into this as much as you. Little did you know.

“Yeah just squeezed in a late cardio sesh – you know how it is…”

A soft ahh slipped from your smirking lips, eyes trained on your path ahead as Lando strolled alongside, “What’s on the agenda today?”

You shrugged, half out of genuine cluelessness and the other half deflecting how nervous you were. Working in the media was your dream but walking through the hallowed halls of a sport you had loved for your entire life and that dream coming true made your stomach churn with every emotion under the sun. Especially in Monaco.

“You nervous?” Lando asked quietly, shaking you from your thoughts and panicked that you were talking out loud.

“Huh? Oh…” You waved him off and chuckled, “No – I mean, yeah but I always feel like this on race morning… But obviously you’re probably a lot more nervous than me so it’s nothing…” You were a stuttering mess and all Lando wanted to do was reach out and give you a hug.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. This was your little secret, a delicious secret that only the two of you knew and he didn’t want to ruin that. Instead, he dug his hands into his jean pockets a little deeper and gave you a reassuring nudge. Shoulder to shoulder, the same way you laid together the night before after what could only be described as the best sex of your life. Lives.

“My mum always said that nerves mean you care,” Lando’s voice was lower than before – a seriousness taking over, “You’ll do great, as always.”

“Thank you,” You matched his tone, “Hopefully I’m interviewing Lando Norris, Monaco Grand Prix winner…”

That’s all you really wanted deep down. Not the breaking story of the weekend or the drama surrounding contract talks at Red Bull. Just for the guy you had grown profoundly fond of to have some semblance of good luck for once. He’d worked hard for it, you’d seen it first hand and you’d seen the heartbreak when things weren’t going his way. Alas, that was what started this whole situation – frustrated post-race sex. Chef’s kiss.

Lando simply rolled his eyes and sighed loudly before leaning in a tiny bit closer than what you considered a safe workplace distance, “Kiss for good luck then?”

“Get the fuck out of here!” You laughed, kicking his calf with your platform boot as his infectious cackle of a laugh echoed through the growing crowd.

You watched him disappear somewhere between the motorhomes, searching for his team. The lingering feeling in your stomach made you slightly nauseous and a little excited for the next run-in with him. It was like a game of cat and mouse and you weren’t sure who was who but you liked it. More than you wanted to admit because he was Lando fucking Norris – f1's most eligible bachelor, the naughty boy from Bristol, all curls and dimples and undeniable charm. You couldn't help but wonder how many others he had wrapped around his finger like you.

He's just a casual fuck, you mumbled under your breath as you flicked open your notebook and got to work.

masterlist | askbox

#lando norris #lando norris imagine #lando norris smut #f1 imagine #f1 smut #monzamashmasterlist #lando norris x reader #formula 1 imagine #off the record fic #off the record series

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soopersara · 28 days

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Me: Zuko's scar is kind of shaped like a flame.

Me: I mean, no shit, it's a burn scar.

Me: But it has the three little pointy bits at the back, which kind of make it look like the Fire Nation's flame emblem, but turned sideways.

Me: ...

Me, scribbling furiously: The resistance movement in the Fire Nation comes to see Zuko as the symbolic leader of their movement toward the end of the war, and because voicing support for the traitor prince isn't tolerated, the resistance needs a subtler way to make their position known. All across the Fire Nation, banners are stolen and re-hung sideways, official seals on documents are deliberately printed crooked, and disillusioned soldiers deface their uniforms by tearing the flame emblems away and reattaching them sideways. What most people know but no one will say is that the sideways flames represent Zuko's scar, and that the symbol indicates support for him as a leader and for his mission to bring an end to the war.

Me: ...

Me: Am I gonna have to start another fic just for this idea?

#atla fanfiction #for the record I think the answer is no #assuming that things don't drift too far off course #I should be able to cram it into a certain behemoth of a WIP #... eventually #if you know the fic then you probably know that I'm still a ways off from Book 3 #zutara #zutara fanfiction

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theminecraftbee · 1 month

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solving counting sheep prompt thing: three and joe trying to work on some project together

Three squints critically at a post in the ground.

“Your measurement is off,” it says.

“Why, thank you. Your eyesight is far greater than mine, so I very much appreciate you correcting the marks I’m using to decide how big and close the moon is getting!” Joe smiles at Three. Back when Three had first met her, Joe had smiled big quite often. These days, even that goofy, meant-to-be-a-gesture smile is drawn and exhausted. Joe is not designed to run on minimal sleep the way Three is; Joe is hardly the only Hermit staying up until the middle of the night these days.

Blocks rise around them.

Three has better vision than Joe. Blocks rise everywhere.

“I still think we should try Mumbo’s missile again. Or we should try a bigger missile.”

“I am afraid that didn’t work the first time!” Joe says, finishing their sign adjustments.

“That’s stupid,” Three says.

“That’s just how it is. Besides, big problems like that are for big problem havers! We’re out here, collecting data for the people who might actually be able to do something about it.” Joe pauses, shrugs. “I mean, if they exist. They probably don’t.”

“I could torture a Watcher into fixing it,” Three says glibly.

“No, you said that wouldn’t work,” Joe says. “Also, that’s morally questionable.”

Three does not fidget. It trains its eyes on the threat it can do nothing about. It lets out a trill that, for most mortals, is terrifying.

Nothing happens.

“I can make everyone leave,” Three says, quieter this time. “With better plans than—”

“The season’s hardly over. Iskall hasn’t given me my badge yet. I’m not leaving until I get that,” Joe says.

“That is a stupid plan. Don’t be stupid,” Three says.

“Are you leaving?”

“Not until Mumbo does. Especially not until—Pearl should know better. She did not leave last time. She was—was sad. She should know that—I won’t leave until she does,” Three says, halting as it trips over emotions it doesn’t understand.

“Then let’s not have this argument again.”

“Will comply,” Three grumbles.

“Besides, this new moon data is fascinating. Why, at this rate—oh no! I might not even finish my castle! I think I’m going to go work on the walls again, just in case,” Joe says.

“Affirmative,” Three says.

“See you around! If you happen to See any solutions with those big eyes of yours”—and here Joe winks, incredibly unsubtly—“please, by all means, let us all know!”

He leaves.

Three looks at a line of signs across the ground, scattered markers of how small the problem was a month ago. It’s grown so big so fast, and Three has still yet to figure out how to neutralize it.

No one has any orders to stay. No one has any reason to. Three doesn’t understand why they’re still staying.

Three won’t leave alone.

Three, Three doesn’t want—

It would be sad if Zedaph’s sheep experiment had to end early. It should not be buried under moon rocks and rubble. It should be remembered.

That’s all.

#answered #a bee fic #solving counting sheep talk #this is also in answering ‘three reacts to moon’s big’ for the record #anyway. sorry I still have big moon emotions #so HERE THEY ARE #anyway three hates this get it off this train #(also almost despite everything three gets along with joe hills almost)#(it thinks joe is a baffling person but in a way that makes sense enough to it to figure out)#also yeah at this point the ‘ask game’ is ‘send me scs prompts and I slowly get through them to wind down in the evening #combining scs and s8. yeah THERE are my insanities all in one place.

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essektheylyss · 1 year

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Okay, I'm looking at rarepairs for the fic exchange nominations, and I need y'all to level with me: why does no one write Fjord & Essek (platonically! not even romantically!) when, despite their canon conversation being minimal, every SINGLE instance of it is iconic. They do admittedly exchange very few words, but that's because they do not need any further conversation to absolutely carry a scene.

Have we forgotten the Dungeon of Penance con? "So are you saying you want to date Fjord?" Fjord egging him further into a panic attack in the middle of the arctic? THE RANGER MOMENT? THEIR EXCHANGE AT THE END OF 140???

Fjord and Essek are an absolutely buckwild duo who should absolutely not have the bizarre chemistry that they do and are complete opposites on a lot of surface levels, except for the fact that they are both the type of person (pointedly restrained, skillfully manipulative, ruthlessness simmering under the mask) who Caleb is immediately inclined to distrust but also, unfortunately for him, so incredibly attracted to.

#for the record there are 28 fics with the tag and I am the author of 30% of them. PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU ALL #ALMOST A THIRD OF THEM. ARE MY FICS.#nevertheless I WILL be writing another fic specifically centered around them. cuz it's what they deserve.#tell me they would not accidentally set off a trade war together. lie to my face and tell me that isn't a thing these assholes would do.#critical role #fjord #essek thelyss

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bolithesenate · 3 months

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not a single day passes where I don't think about the implication of legends(?)-comics jedi master Vima-Da-Boda

she *has* to have been in her prime during the clone wars, which puts her right into the time frame of anakin 'stress ulcer over my secret wife's secret pregnancy' skywalker.

why am i saying this?

because this woman, a jedi master from a *geneological jedi dynasty*, also got pregnant, had a whole daughter and TRAINED HER AS HER OWN PADAWAN (the daughter then wdnt off and fell and got herself killed but thats besides the point)

what i'm saying is that between Vima (and the whole Sunrider Dynasty tbh) and Yula Braylon (who hid her child but Yoda explicitly states that they would have helped her had she told them) and the several other jedi with close family bonds in and outside the order WHY do people keep insisting that the jedi were anti-family hardliners?

the jedi order, at least in legends, has *always* allowed its members to marry and procreate if they choose to. you can even train your own children! it happens all the time!!

ki-adi mundi has five wives and idk how many children, plo koon's niece is a jedi, adi gallia and stass allie are cousins and both became high council members, vima trains her own daughter as her padawan and yula could have announced arath as her kid no problem.

and that is not even going into jedi families in the old/high republic times (remember, the order's most famous grandmaster, nomi sunrider, became a jedi at 30 after her already jedi husband was killed and she too had a daughter which she trained as a padawan)

also, you know, canon is free real estate anyways.

but for those who are so hellbent on saying that the jedi are anti-marriage/family hardliners, no they are not & they never were.

i hope that helps 👍🏼

#im not saying this to discredit anyone who wants to play with the concept of a vow of celibacy/non-attachment jedi order #i'm just saying that thats not what the source material implies #you know you're free to do whatever you want in fic 🤷🏻‍♀️#i just am a staunch defender of the jedi order being quite a bit more open about things than large parts of the fandom think it is #like. what reason could there POSSIBLY be in-universe for someone to not just grab the next best nomi sunrider holocron #and have the recording of THE grandmaster herself tell anyone off that tries to go 'all familial bonds are attachment' or whatever #seeing as the sunrider line kept producing jedi over literal milennia i think their existence alone should shut up any naysayers #but whatever #i think about the sunriders way too much tbh #random boli thoughts #star wars meta #me writing #jedi order #the jedi

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baejax-the-great · 1 year

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I've seen a lot of posts about orphaning vs deleting vs posting anonymously and people exhorting authors to never ever delete their work, and I think they always make me cranky because of this:

Whatever emotional attachment a reader has to a fic will never be stronger than the emotional attachment the writer has to it.

Maybe it's not true of every fic (and I have orphaned a couple fics in the past), but writing is frequently an emotional task. The act of putting your own creations out there is an emotional act, and one that can leave you feeling very vulnerable.

I struggled for a while wanting to delete some of my works. Knowing that people would read twenty of my works in a day and move on without so much as a word made me incredibly uncomfortable. Those twenty fics comprised an entire year of my life, an entire year of daydreaming and imagining and composing. Those were all my bus rides, what I thought of as I fell asleep, where my mind wandered when I did chores. It felt like having strangers walking through my brain, looking around silently, and leaving.

I'm not going to say everyone feels that way, because I know many people do not. My point is that in putting their work into the world, authors are putting pieces of themselves into the world, an act that can leave them feeling very vulnerable, and therefore it is their right to delete it when that becomes too difficult for whatever reason. It's not a moral failing, and it's not even really taking away something from readers. Sometimes the things we enjoy are ephemeral. Easy come, easy go.

Fandom really needs to ease off on people who delete their fics.

#on writing #fanfic #ao3 #for the record I got over my feelings by turning off kudos emails #highly recommend if you feel the way I do #it seriously improved my relationship to my fics and ao3 in general #I get that people love certain fics but like #the writer is just a person who made something for free and no longer wants it out there #that's legit #continuing my habit of posting random essays on Friday afternoons when people have better things to do than be on tumblr

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phoenixcatch7 · 2 years

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Love the idea of each previous hero's journey being mostly lost to time, such that each time the cycle starts again absolutely no one picks up the very obvious clues that might lead them to the hero.

Oh, you've named your blond haired blue eyed child Link, have you? That's a good name!

Oh, he's found a strange red and white maned horse he's named epona who has utterly bonded with him? How unusual!

Yes, the princess Zelda is the same age, isn't she? What a good omen for the family!

We know he doesn't talk much, but he's the sweetest lad, don't worry!

Don't fret, dearie, his wanderlust will abate when he grows up, I'm sure it won't get him in too much trouble before then.

Prodigious little swordsman, isn't he? He would make a great knight if he wanted to when he's older!

Oh? Rumours about a long forgotten temple in the woods? How strange! Are you sure it's not just the children telling stories?

Look at him in his armoured green outfit! That hat looks lovely on him - where did you find it?

#It's so funny #In just about every Zelda I've played there's been about a hundred signs link is In The Building and no one ever notices #Twilight Princess was the absolute worst everyone just kept bringing up Its The Hero stuff and it just was not clicking #By the time we got to epona I was half tempted to make a bingo card #Heck he even has a tree house!!#Strong oot time genes there XD #There's something about loading up a Zelda game and going 'yup. This is a Zelda game alright' but NO ONE in universe notices #YOU ACTUALLY LIVE THERE YOU GUYS STUDY THIS IN HISTORY CLASS #it also opens up the great trope of link casually knowing stuff from previous lives he absolutely shouldn't and nobody taking it seriously #Until he comes back with the master sword #Some of those games were particularly bonkers and if the specifics never got recorded then there's no way anyone would believe them #A zora princess tried to marry the hero?? Lmao try writing fanfic #Listen I know it says the hero came from the woods but kokiri don't exist he would have just lived in a cottage or something #How dare you besmirch the hero's honour! He would never lower himself to base property damage! Never mind pots!#No hylian can ever wrestle a goron are you insane??#Talking boat.... Sure #But you just KNOW Zelda would get some scholars and they'd hang off his every word #I love fics where link just casually references some world shaking knowledge (ie rito being zora descended and their own squid ancestors)#Or what the divine beasts were named after #Or what time travel feels like #Or that the myths hylians came from the skies are true #Or what one Zelda did when she vanished centuries ago #Or what the giant skeletons were #That kind of thing #Sorry I rambled #long post #legend of zelda #loz #loz zelda #loz link

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jmflowers · 6 days

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Still taking prompts? Carina feeling emotional over Maya learning/knowing Italian.

You got it, dude. Canon-compliant for your reading pleasure.

~~~

Ding!

Carina smiles as she steps through the front door, the smell of dinner on the stove wafting down the hallway to greet her.

They’ve been in their new home all of three weeks and already they’ve fallen into a symbiotic routine – one she finds herself endlessly enamoured by. A warm meal waiting for whoever’s last to arrive home, a load of laundry in the dryer before bed each night, swapping shifts to rise when Liam cries out at 2am to be fed.

There’s balance forming, now that they’re here. Balance and love and support that seemed so far away, so farfetched, just a year ago.

“I’m back!” she calls out as she wanders into the kitchen, heavy grocery bags dangling from her hands. She can’t wait until they renovate this space; can’t wait until there’s more room on the counters and in the pantry for all the things she has to keep slipping out to buy.

Mela, a slightly robotic voice says.

Carina frowns, turning towards the sound, groceries piled half on the counter and half in the sink. She lets them tumble from her grasp, traipsing down the hallway after yet another Ding! echoes from the nursery.

Arancia, the robotic voice says.

“Arancia,” Maya repeats, her voice so whisper soft Carina barely hears it. “That’s an orange.”

Ding!

She’s leaned back in the plush rocking chair they’d settled on for the nursery, Liam curled in her lap with his eyelids fluttering as he tries desperately to pay attention to the phone she holds in front of them.

Elefante, the robotic voice inside the screen says next.

“Elefante,” Maya replicates, lips pressed to the side of Liam’s cap-covered head. “You know elephant.”

Ding! the phone chirps.

“Oh, you know this one, too,” Maya whispers, smiling softly. “Mamma says buona notte every night before we go to sleep.”

“Sì,” Carina murmurs, stumbling into the gravity that’s dragging her across the room towards them. “Buona notte means good night.”

Maya nods, turning just enough for Liam and his heavy eyelids to catch a glimpse of Carina as she leans over the arm of the chair to kiss his cheeks. “And ciao is hello.”

His little face splits into a grin, reaching for his mamma even as he fights a losing battle with sleep. “Ah,” he chirps.

“I got a few lessons ahead of him,” Maya explains, setting her phone aside on the dresser. She tips Liam backwards in her arms, laying his head in the crook of her elbow with a practiced ease. He gazes up at her with a toothless smile, nearly giving in to the weight of his eyelids. “So, we had to go back and review what he missed.”

“Ah,” Liam repeats.

“Sì,” Maya nods, looking down at their baby boy with a ferocity of love that causes a clench of something deep and primal and unquantifiable in Carina’s chest. “Apple is mela. That’s your favourite, I know.”

One of those tiny, perfect fists finds its way into Liam’s mouth and then, finally, he loses the fight. Finally, his eyes close and he tumbles into sleep.

And that feeling in Carina’s chest seems to explode.

She leans forward, reaching for Maya with a desperation she can’t quite explain. Tugging, needy, until their lips connect. Until she can try to convey with her body what she doesn’t have English words for.

Ti amo. Ho bisogno di te. Sono così perdutamente innamorato di te.

Maya won’t understand them all – not yet.

But she will. One day, she will.

#purposely did not translate that last bit #maya x duolingo #maya x carina fic #minefic #tumblr prompt party #prompt party #station 19 fic #does horny/enamoured count as emotional?#for the record: the stove is OFF with the food on it but I couldn't find a clear spot to write that in #we all know Maya Bishop would NEVER leave the room with the stove on #mustbebunnys #thanks for asking for this one friend

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not-poignant · 4 months

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Out of curiosity, when did the, 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon, everything is valid and good, don't give concrit unless specifically asked for' attitude become the norm? Genuine question.

I was active in fandom back in the LJ days, when sporkings and comms viciously mocking Mary Sues were the norm, but then I sort fell out of fandom spaces for the past (checks notes) fifteen years holy shit. The current attitude seems diametrically opposed to what I remember fandom being like (kinda shitty, it was 'cool' to be an asshole back then), and I'm just curious as to when and how the shift happened. I mean, I assume it was a gradual thing, but is there anything in particular that stick out to you?

(Also, because tone doesn't convey very well through ask, and I don't want to leave you with a poor impression-- this is by no means a defence of the 2000s attitudes, nor an aspersion on the current ones. I'm genuinely only curious about the evolution from one to the other; I hope that comes across.)

Hi anon!

TL;DR because my response got LONG -> Anon this existed before Livejournal as an attitude, in fact modern fandom was literally born out of being not canon compliant (*waves aggressively to Spirk shippers*) and this existed on Livejorunal too and there have always been big pockets of fandom that really frowned on sporking even there, like that was not cool when I was on LJ, unless you were a certain age, or in certain spaces in fandom.

But also AO3 was its kind of final death knell re: making it cool to bully 13-16 yo writers (who were largely the victims of sporking) and killing dreams, which was born out of meta happening on LJ and in other places about like... not trying to make people miserable for writing a free fic out of the love in their heart that someone else didn't like or think was good enough.

Anyway, the longer version of this under the read more!

(For everyone else, welcome to some of the uglier aspects of 00s fandom!)

So there was actually criticism around all the stuff you mention 15-20 years ago as well. I was also on Livejournal during that time and there was a pretty big proportion of people in certain fandoms who recognised even then that like... setting up communities to mock say, Mary Sue writers, was actually a pretty weirdly cruel thing to do to people who were providing free labour and the literal only 'payment' they could get in a kind of energy exchange was people just not being complete dickheads to them.

So things were already changing, especially in many LJ communities and awards communities. There were a lot of big debates over whether concrit should be asked for, and a growing movement of authors who said they welcomed constructive criticism for example, instead of assuming it should automatically apply. There was also a lot of meta around the function of fanfiction and whether it should even be 'good' by published standards if the author was just doing it for themselves, and for fun (esp if they were just going to get punished for it by folks who were elitist, judgemental, grammar purists etc.)

Things really changed around the time of AO3 (2009-2010 - literally around 14~ years ago, you may have just missed the big change anon!), Strikethrough and the Dreamwidth exodus. There was a massive swing away from leaving concrit unless the author specifically asked for it, and fandom became a lot more generally able to recognise that a lot of labour goes into fanart and fanfiction and that paying with public criticism is shitty actually. Also people were just more able to recognise that like most fanfiction writers aren't trying to become professional writers and many don't want to be.

(I would actually say things changed around the time of fanfiction.net too - rude comments there were definitely noticed and could create some pretty forward 'hey why are you doing this on something you literally don't have to read' responses from fellow readers - idk what fic sites you were on. The small indie fic sites where you could often only comment via email for example, definitely drew a lot more critical attention than sites that tended to have public comments).

The 'fanfic doesn't need to adhere to canon' literally exists since the very first Spirk slash fic in modern fanfiction in the last few decades. Literally, as soon as you write Kirk/Spock, you're not adhering to canon. Our fanfiction 'ancestors' literally paved the way for a legacy which is about not adhering to canon in order to see the world/s and thing/s you want to see, be entertained by, by turned on by, or enjoy, from the very beginning. You may not have been in slash circles anon, but the foundation of queer same sex fanfic is in many ways the foundation of fandom. But yeah, this is literally where fanfiction started! As soon as you're shipping characters that aren't canon for fun (or for whatever reason), you're making it pretty clear that you want stories different to canon, and you have to change things to often keep those characters in-character.

So yeah! That's been there for decades. Idk what circles you were in on that front! While it was fairly common for a while to criticise characters for being OOC (Out of Character), imho, a lot of folks started to recognise that they literally weren't paying for what they were criticising, and they could just walk away and potentially not like...blast the fanfic. Some folks started to recognise more that people were writing with ESL, or were teenagers (some 40 yos in fandom realised they were mocking literal 15 year olds in their proto-podcasts and websites and realised actually that's just...mean? Really mean? Not the way to nurture new generations of fanfiction writers. Definitely in no way encouraging), or were writing for themselves, or writing for like one other person, or writing for fun, or writing for free, or writing for personal reasons etc.

'Don't Like Don't Read' wasn't just about political stuff, it was also about just walking away if you feel the urge to slam a fanfic in the comments.

I've been in fandom for around 2.5 decades anon, and there were so many spaces that were not actually as shitty or mean-spirited as the ones you were in? Or ones that at least had a lot of different thoughts etc. Like, sporking (mocking/bullying badfics and sometimes the folks who wrote them) was disapproved of by a lot of people in fandom even while sporking was at the height of its popularity (the Fanlore page goes into more detail about this). It might have just been the fandoms you were in, or the people you were hanging out with (and that might have been dependent on your age or just if you were around people who wanted to be 'cool' back then - in the same way that being an 'anti' is cool among certain crowds today. It's possible to spend years in certain crowds and never get an image of broader fandom for example - we can all end up in spaces like that! I know I have.)

When I started writing fanfiction (which no one will EVER find lmao), generally giving positive comments was normal. Constructive criticism was actually pretty rare and there were already fanfiction aggregate sites that generally disapproved of it in their Rules of Conduct. People were encouraging and polite. And this was around 20 years ago on Livejournal and private indie fanfiction websites.

I would actually say there was never exactly an evolution from 'one to the other' because like thousands of people in fandom already believed this and argued in defense of supporting fanfiction and transformative works via accepting that people are labouring for free and that not everyone wants to become a 'better writer' etc. - the meta was there on Livejournal in the 00s. There were communities where sporking was seen as hip/fun, and communities where it was literally banned or at the very least, super frowned upon.

There were meta fandom communities where sporking was the subject of discussion and you know eventually in a lot of those meta communities, that's where a lot of folks decided actually that calling out the fanfiction of 16 yos as 'cringe' or 'badly done' maybe said more about us as human beings and what we wanted fandom to be, than it did about the actual fanfic itself. By the time AO3 came around, people built it with this in mind.

To this day on AO3 it's mostly considered appropriate to say you want concrit in your author's notes, and to otherwise assume as a reader it's never welcome if it's unsolicited. That started during the LJ era. And it was talked about at great length. There's obviously going to be people who disagree! But for the most part I'm a big believer in compassion and 'not everyone is here for the same reason' and 'they literally gave this to us for free and it's meant to be fun' (like yourself! What we do/think/argue 10 years ago on LJ is sometimes different to what we do 10 years later lol, I used to be against trigger warnings pre-AO3! Times change a lot :D )

So yeah, this was definitely something that was around before you and I came to fandom, and it was something that continued to grow as an attitude during, until finally it kind of won out on AO3. But yeah fandom as we know it was born in people literally not being canon compliant to make some gay dreams come true (Spirk shippers bless them all), at a time when there was no representation.

Even in the earliest days of fandom where comments could only happen via email, one of the earliest phrases authors used were things like 'flames will be used to roast marshmallows.' For those reading who don't know, flames are hate comments, critical 'this fic is bad because' comments etc. Except you emailed them directly to the author, because there was no place for comments on a fic.

And this started because authors in part got death threats for writing gay stuff.

So you know, from the very beginning, authors in fanfic have by and large had a very low tolerance for criticism / hate over something they're doing for free and making no profit out of, when they're changing/altering the canon as they please to create representation (or hotness lmao), that is literally a labour of love in a world of very little representation. From there, things have just grown. The whole 'flames will not be tolerated' existed even before Livejournal did.

Honestly there are still people who love sporking and you could probably find groups and Discords dedicated to that even now (actually you literally can, there's a Dreamwidth group for it), it's kind of wild but it started to get cool again. Just like 90s clothing :D (Which is also wild because I can just take that crap out of my closet and wear it again).

But yeah it also sounds like you may have been in some pretty crappy pockets of fandom! When I was on LJ in the 00s I avoided those places and still got to experience fandom across multiple fandoms (mostly NCIS, Captive Prince, HP, Profiler, The X-Files and some others) and communities.

I was super active in some fandom communities and saw a lot of meta happening, and my view during the early and late 00s was that sporking was largely pretty frowned upon after a very brief (like 3-6 month) era where it was cool for only some folks, and then everyone (including some - but not all - of those folks) was like 'heyyyyyyy hang on a minute.' It was something that the bullies did, and enjoyed, and otherwise folks kind of stayed away from it, especially once they learned people were becoming too scared to write fics, which is the inevitable outcome of mocking/bullying folks and fics that have been made purely out of love for something.

Like, publicly making a spectacle out of what a 13 yo (they were often teens - and it's kind of sad how many 40 yo women were doing the sporking :/ ) wrote out of love, just for fun/clout was not considered cool by everyone even back then, because like, a lot of us saw that as killing new generations of fandom (some folks who sporked considered it a win if a fic or account got deleted, this is not based behaviour), not actually creating good writing, internalised misogyny (Mary Sue hatred and self insert hatred), etc. It's hard to explain because I do really think we were in different corners of fandom at the time, but I don't know anyone personally from my time on Livejournal who actually liked sporking as an idea or enjoyed it or enjoyed listening to it or reading articles mocking fic.

I knew about it from very lively 'is this okay' 'actually no it's not even if it's just for fun this is trying to hurt people and saying 'it's just the fic' is not going to be the bandaid a teenager needs to understand why older folks (generally) in fandom are mocking them for being new at a skill' discussions on LJ in meta fandom communities. So this is how much I could be in fandom and not be a part of it and also have like a wildly different experience to your LJ experience!

I think if I'd been a teenager during that era it would have seemed a lot more appealing (in the same way that many teens are antis now before they grow out of it), and fuck it if I was a more bitter person who was just around people who liked to make fun of what other people created, perhaps I would have enjoyed it too, I can see a lot of reasons why a person would fall into that in LJ -> but I was an adult on LJ trying not to be mean to people or what they were creating, so yeah I was maybe just in very different spaces! (Don't get me wrong, I have my giant fucking character flaws, but I was very scared of people hating me so like I didn't want to do things that would make that happen, lol, and also I was scared to put up fic myself during the era of active sporking. I know for myself that sporkers didn't just scare away writers of 'badfic' - they...intimidated a LOT of people).

Before AO3 I was on FF.net, posting fics on LJ, posting on Schnoogle, gossamer, and a couple of other archives. So I don't think my experience was that 'narrow,' I just think I wasn't around like... anime at that time or other places where it might have been happening. I also avoided like...Draco/Malfoy where CC drama was happening and I know sporking was popular in that specific arena / pairing for a while as well (er, as well as anything to do with Mary Sues).

So yeah! That's about where that is. Generally gatekeeping fandom is just seen as not a great thing to do to people, and that creates other kind of beliefs that are generally upheld as being more inviting/nurturing. After all, if someone truly wants to get better at writing, they can ask, or do courses, but as we all know, everyone has to write some bad stuff to get good at it, but not everyone wants to be good. Folks are in fandom for different reasons. I'm rambling now so I'm going to finish my lunch! :D

#asks and answers #pia on fandom #pia on writing #god i do not miss sporking #but it's still happening tbh in some sections of the internet #and it always will!!!#there will always be fics that piss us off or that are just written painfully #generally speaking it's just encouraged to share that with afriend privately #instead of creating a website and recording an interview or discussion or slam #or writing an article for fandom to see #and using BNF energy to chase fic writers out of fandom #it's wild that it was actually around for as long as it was #on LJ #i feel like that was the mean-spirited click-bait era before click-bait then came around #anyway it's grown in popularity again because of Tiktok!#such is life :D

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