#this one was entirely self indulgent but I'd like to think it's fun | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xamag-draws · 1 month

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BBR thoughts 2024

Since I mentioned that I finally dusted off an old project of mine and was ruminating on how I'd remake it, I thought I'd elaborate a little, now that I've solidified some concepts. For funsies

This is gonna be a bit of a long and unfocused one, but I don't share my personal thoughts here often, especially the stuff about my projects I always marinate in. And for once it's something that people have existing context for, so hey why not

So for anyone who hasn't been following me for a gajillion years, The Black Brick Road of OZ was a webcomic that I posted around 2013-2015, back when I was in highschool going on college (which is kinda crazy to think about). It was sort of a darker twist on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although I definitely leaned a lot more into dark humor more than anything in those first few chapters

I don't think it's available to read anywhere anymore, and I know people have been asking me about it. So here's the full proper archive of BBR, as full as it can be with deceased Flash

I totally used it as an excuse to shamelessly and self-indulgently experiment. It had interactive pages and GIFs and was wayyy too overproduced for what I could handle or what was necessary, but I did have great fun making it while it lasted

Unfortunately, that excess and the fact that I've changed too much as a person by the time I was in college is what ultimately killed it. The direction I wanted to go in was practically unrecognizable from the original idea started back in 2011, so there were many old hold-ups that I felt ruined it

At the time I kinda wished I could start/rewrite it all over, but considering that I pretty much had the entire script done at that point, it felt like a pointless sisyphean task. So I just put it on a shelf and didn't look back for about 8 years, because I didn't know what else to do

Now to be fair, the nature of my art has always been iterative and cyclical; when I feel like my creative juices have run dry I prefer to leave a project to marinate and move on to something else; cycle through other old things and bring in new skills and perspectives into the mix when I'm ready again. Not very productive, but it is what makes me happy to work on my OCs; I'm doomed to hit a wall with them eventually and I need some time to be able to find a new direction

So that said, I'm glad that BBR was left to marinate for that long. I don't think I was prepared, emotionally or intellectually, to tackle it again until now. The Wizard of Oz book (and the entire series of them, really) has always been near and dear to my heart, but there's a lot of context around it that I'm only unpacking now that I'm older

I think I always inherently feel negatively about the stuff I've made in the past, like its faults always jump out to me more than the positives, especially the more time passes. I've never liked that, and I do really appreciate the kind things people have to say about BBR to this day. The fact that it still can be recognized and remembered is very sweet

When I left it, I already found it "kinda cringe", and that feeling only deepened with years. When I took my first look back at it, asking the question "how would I rewrite it now?", at first I took a very cynical approach, as in "everything would have to be torn down"

But the more I sat on it, the more I found that I still see some merit and charm in the ideas I was putting out; I just didn't know how to execute them at the time (not to pretend that I know what I'm doing now, but I certainly know more at least). Turns out a lot of my old concepts could be changed substantially with just a few small tweaks. So I'd say that's a nicer way to think about my previous work

If you haven't seen yet, I posted a first draft of my new designs for some of the characters (the main group, the Goods and the Wickeds). Definitely subject to change, but more or less how I see them now

I'm just playing with these concepts; by no means would I attempt to remake BBR right this moment. Call it a pipe dream among my other ones. But just for fun, this is the direction I'd like to take:

Nowadays I'd probably make it a visual novel, with more emphasis on the visual part than the novel because I'm no English prose writer by any means. It'd still let me play a little with the interactivity while helping cut some corners on the drawing part (only some, I imagine I'd go hog wild anyway)

I've always intended for some events inspired by the sequel books to take place in BBR's past. Stuff like Jinjur's revolt or Ozma's rule preceeds the main events here. So I think it would be fun to follow the past of a few key characters alongside the main story. One chapter focusing on the present quest to see the Wizard, then one focusing on the past events (that are maybe reflective thematically); rinse and repeat

I'm also sticking a little closer to the original text in some regards. Not everything that I enjoy from the books would be translated here, it's still just a very loose fantasy on the material; but I'd like to be closer in spirit at least

I like mature, wise and powerful Glinda, I like kind and vulnerable Tin Man, I like the Wizard being a pathetic yet loveable liar, so I'm sprinkling in more of that for example

I'd like to keep some whimsy, but make it more grounded and a bit more serious to be coherent in tone. I think the original TWWOOZ book was a more realistic fantasy in some ways, even for the standards of the time; I like its simple but vivid tactile descriptions and details like bringing attention that Dorothy needed to eat and sleep

I find it funny that Baum specifically was averse to making his books scary or unpleasant, finding that unnecessary for telling a compelling kids story, but they still can get pretty dark and disturbing, at least for our modern sensibilities. Let's just say that I intend to use the Evoldo and Chopfyt storylines for my purposes. In that way, I feel like a "darker" Wizard of Oz retelling can still mostly be tonally in line with the original and balance it with enough heart and occasional humor

I slowly grew to appreciate the quaint old-timey quality of the original series, as well. The first book is both timeless and very much a product of the 1900s. Originally I tried to give it a little modern or at least anachronistic spin, but it was moreso because it's what I knew best, so these days I'd rather intentionally lean into the time period. Still not fully historically accurate by any means, but at least directly acknowledging the influence

The events of the story span across 40 years of these characters' lives, so I'm drawing inspiration from the entire so-called La Belle Epoque: the time period around 1880s-1920s. Basically I'm cooking, and my soup is old Victorian fashion morphing into Edwardian fashion and slowly inching towards flappers

Some new Dolly outfits

Lots of crazy things, political changes and innovations were happening at the turn of the century, which I think is noted and reflected by Baum in the books as well; the character of Tik-Tok might not blow any minds now, but he was one of the first robot characters in literature at that point; and don't even get me started on Jinjur, etc. Plenty of really interesting stuff one could lightly ponder in an Oz adaptation these days

Aesthetically, art nouveau has always been a big artistic influence for me, and it'd definitely be its time to shine here. John R. Neill's illustrations of the Oz books often keep me company as well. Nouveau architecture in particular fits that fairytale whimsy extremely well imo

I'd allow myself a little bit of art deco here and there, but ultimately its intimidating geometrical splendor is an antithetical to the flowery nature of nouveau and I associate it with a completely different era. Definitely fitting some characters like my Wicked Witch of the West, but shouldn't be overused

One of my main problems with the original BBR was that eventually I lost track of what it was even about; and the original ending felt too mean and unfulfilling to be worth it. Now I'd like to stick to the theme of home and family as my main theme, but in a different, more bittersweet way than in the book

An interesting connection I made is that a lot of my aforementioned older key characters (the Witches, Jinjur, the Nome King, etc) all came from the same reformatory as kids, that's how they know each other. In my recent research I learned that in those reformatories it was usually frowned upon to release the children back to the families, which were seen as the original corrupting influence regardless of the circumstance. The reformatory did everything in its power to cut that connection and make itself the only family those wayward kids were supposed to know and love. That's an unexpected tie into the theme of home that I'd like to explore as well

So yeah that's the current state of it. I have a bunch of outfit concepts I'm slowly cooking, although I'm now sure whether I'd post them... But I do miss these funny guys, and I'm glad some people still do as well :)

#my art #xam rambles #the black brick road of oz #long post #ohsees tag

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ohnoitstbskyen · 3 months

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I know it would probably bring a lot of hate comments but I am begging you to roast the hazbin character designs because I'd love to have someone properly articulate why they don't work so I could send it to people who won't believe me when I tell them. 🫠 Understandable if you don't want to get into it though.

I don't think there's that much there to roast, honestly?

Those designs are clearly an extremely specific stylistic choice, and because that style is consistent throughout the show, it ultimately feels coherent with itself.

There are trade-offs being made. Because Hazbin's design style is SO stylized and so heavy on decoration and detailing, because it puts a lot of emphasis on costuming, it isn't as good at communicating specific character storytelling as a more grounded style could be (it's kind of the same tradeoff that stuff like Genshin Impact makes).

Like, why does Sir Pentious' hat have an eye and a mouth on it that makes its own expressions? Apparently not for very much reason at all, except that Pentious has a bit of an eyes-motif going on in his design and it was one more place to put an extra eye. And that's a valid criticism of his design, but also the entire show is designed like that, so frankly it would be weirder and more out of place if his design alone didn't have that kind of overelaborate decoration going on.

It does create a situation where I have a hard time "reading" the character designs sometimes. For example, Vox, Alastor and Pentious all wear a similar style of suit with upwards-turned shoulders, butterflies and pinstripes. Now, am I meant to read that as Vox imitating Alastor due to his crippling need to replace and outdo him, and Pentious imitating the style of powerful Overlords because he thinks that possessing their level of power will finally give him relief from his paranoia and self-loathing?

Or is it just a design fixation of the creator who keeps putting their characters in suits because that's just what they like? I can't really be sure, because sometimes design elements are used to intentionally tell stories about how characters relate to themselves, their world and one another, but plenty of other times designs look the way they do Because Of Vibes.

But again, that lack of clarity is clearly an intentional trade-off - and the benefit of that trade-off is a design style that is extremely varied, wild, expressive and memorable. Hazbin Hotel seems like a very easy show to draw fanart of, and a very fun show to draw fanart of. Those designs (especially the hyper-expressive faces) are begging to be the subjects of traumatic headcanons, unbearably cotton-candy soft fluff fantasies and weird, taboo, homoerotic power dynamics. Slaps roof of character design, this bad boy can express so much vicarious emotional intensity.

It's very exuberant, very excited about itself and very self-indulgent, it's a style that prioritizes visual impact and visual interest over readability (something which the animators of the show navigate with real skill, props to them) and individual aesthetics over worldbuilding.

And I don't blame anyone for being turned off by that (I certainly was the first time I started seeing those designs going around), but I would struggle to call the show's designs "bad" when they are clearly achieving exactly what they want to achieve.

I have some criticisms, especially re: how the show treats skinny bodies as an unquestioned, desirable default, and employs fatness as a means of alienating and abjecting the audience. That sucks very badly, and is a serious disappointment, and one of the few places where the show feels like it is being cowardly in its design philosophy. But I don't have it in me to do some kind of Hazbin Hotel Sucks And Here's Why takedown, its problems are not unique or extreme enough to warrant it, at least not as I currently understand them.

#tb answers #hazbin hotel #character design

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slaybestieslay946 · 4 months

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Everything About You - Luke Castellan

Summary: You've been Luke Castellan's closest friend ever since he arrived at camp, but unbeknownst to you, he's been desperately crushing on you this whole time. And of course, the feelings are reciprocated. In hopes of getting over you, he agrees to give it a go with someone else. Will he realise how you feel before its too late?

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Ares!Reader

Warning: Swearing

Word Count: 4.9k

a/n: uh sorry for shitting on that demeter girl sm, there needed to be some conflict somewhere

also please forgive me for this fic being crazy self-indulgent and therefore not up to par with my usual writing, i needed to express the obsession i have w this man otherwise I'd go INSANE

MASTERLIST

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You thought you knew everything about Luke Castellan.

After 5 years of being best friends, how could you not? You knew about the big things in his life, his damaged mother, the strained relationship with his father. You understood his anger towards the gods, the way it fuelled him to be better, work harder.

You knew about the little things too. He liked green olives, not black ones. He always stuck his leg out from under the duvet when sleeping. He sucked at tightening his armour, always convincing you to do it for him.

You could recognise each and every one of his tells. He always cracked his knuckles before sparring. He scratched the back of his neck when he was nervous.

But the one thing you didn’t know about him was the way he felt about you. You, who was normally so observant, was entirely oblivious to the gentle touches and soft looks he threw your way. And that, more than anything, was driving him crazy.

“You gotta tell her how you feel man.” Chris said to him, noticing the way his gaze would constantly stray to the Ares table. Your table.

Luke scoffed, “Yeah, right. I’d rather die…”

“Yeah, well it’s driving me nuts. All this pining. It’s-”

“Pathetic? Tell me about it.” He responded, not taking his eyes off you.

“Well, yeah. It’s pathetic. At this point, either confess your undying love, or move on.”

Luke could safely say that neither of those options sounded particularly appealing.

“There’s that new girl, y’know the one in Demeter?” Chris continued.

“What about her?”

“She’s pretty cute, don’t you think?”

Luke tore his gaze away from you to look at the girl Chris was on about. She was pretty, sure, with pale blond hair and flushed cheeks. He recognised her as one of the girls that would always sit in the fields and entertain the kids with her flower magic. But still, she couldn’t hold a candle to you.

“Yeah, she’s fine I guess.” Luke responded, noncommittal.

“See, told you so! Look, how about I set you guys up-”

“No thanks.”

“Ugh, you're no fun. Fine, just talk to the Demeter girl at the campfire tomorrow.”

Luke opened his mouth again to refuse, but Chris cut him off.

“And if you do, I’ll stop bugging you about it. Promise.”

Luke looked at his pleading face, and knew that there would be no shutting him up until he agreed.

“Fine. I’ll talk to her.”

The next morning, Luke woke up earlier than normal, so he figured he might as well get some extra training in before capture the flag in the afternoon.

He climbed out of bed as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb his many, sleeping, half-siblings, and grabbed his sword, stepping out of the cabin into the fresh morning air. He jogged down towards the amphitheatre, and was confused for a moment when he could hear movement inside the small arena.

Then, as he walked closer to the entrance, he realised it was you, slashing dummies left right and centre. And, gods, the sight took his breath away.

The early morning sun shone on your face, highlighting your sharp features. You moved like a dancer, and the sword in your hand was merely an extension of your body. Yes, they called him the best swordsman in the last 300 years, but his technique couldn’t compare to the grace of the favourite daughter of Ares.

He watched you for a few more minutes, standing just in the entrance to the amphitheatre, until he realised it might be a little creepy to stand there and watch you, so he decided to make himself known.

“What are you doing up so early?” He called out, striding forwards towards you.

You quickly spun around, a shocked expression on your face that softened into a fond smile when you realised it was just Luke who had snuck up on you.

“Oh, y’know, just preparing to beat your ass later on.”

“Aw, really? Hate to break it to you, but you don’t stand a chance.”

“Wanna test that, soldier?” You smirked, gesturing to the sword in this hand.

Luke laughed, stabbing the sword into the sandy floor and cracking his knuckles, meanwhile you took up an offensive stance.

And, as soon as he picked up his sword, you were on him, ruthlessly slashing through the air, and he barely had enough time to block the blow before you sliced through his face. He returned your strikes with equal vigour, moving with the precision and technique that he was so famous for.

With the way the pair of you fought, anyone would think you hated one another, trading blow for violent blow, both of you refusing to hold back.

Of course, it was the complete opposite, but that had never stopped the pair of you from sparring so aggressively.

The session went on for close to half an hour, neither of you wanting to surrender to the other. Eventually you were bested, as Luke sent your sword flying from your hand, holding his own up to your throat.

You held your hands up in defeat, rolling your eyes at him, before moving to sit down at the edge of the arena.

“I’m still gonna win in capture the flag today.” You remarked, your voice strained from physical exercise, but jovial nonetheless.

“As talented as you are,” He responded, sitting down next to you, “You're not gonna be able to beat Annie’s new strategy.”

“And what might that be?” You said, shuffling closer to the boy.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He teased.

You pretended to sulk at that, turning your body away from him in the process. Luke frowned, pulling your arm to turn you to face him again.

“Don’t be sad. Even if I told you you still wouldn’t win.”

“Whatever. Asshole.” You mumbled.

“What did you call me?” He asked, accusatory, and you quickly made your escape, running out of the amphitheatre to avoid his wrath.

But, of course, he managed to catch up with you easily, slinging an arm around your shoulders as you walked.

Somehow, you both telepathically communicated a need for breakfast, and your feet naturally led you both to the pavilion.

“I’ll see you later on, yeah?” You asked, detaching yourself from him to look him in the eyes.

“Mhm. Can’t wait to kick your ass.”

You laughed, cocking your head at him, “Why are you thinking about my ass Castellan? Bit weird.”

And then you were striding away towards Clarisse, leaving the Hermes cabin counsellor frozen, a faint blush covering his face.

Maybe Chris was right. His addiction to you was getting slightly out of hand.

“That boy is so obsessed with you.” Clarisse muttered, her voice derisive as you sat down opposite her.

“Who? Luke?”

“Who else?”

“Nah, no way.” You responded, chuckling as you grabbed a slice of toast from the centre of the table.

Clarisse rolled her eyes. How oblivious could you be?

“Whatever. As long as your little romance doesn’t get in the way this afternoon.”

“No chance. Besides, there is no romance. Gods, you’re just as bad as Silena!” You laughed, slightly sheepishly.

“Rude. But still, she’s right about these things like 90% of the time.”

Silena had been trying to get you to admit that you liked Luke for months, but each time she brought it up you would staunchly deny it. Of course, you were lying through your teeth, but it’s not like you could just admit something like that. It would open up a whole can of worms that you didn’t need.

“Yeah, well this is the 10% then.” You shrugged, taking another bite of your toast.

“You’re impossible.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. You know I’m your favourite sibling.”

“You were my favourite. I don’t know anymore.”

“Bitch.”

When Ares and Hermes were on opposing teams, suddenly capture the flag became even more serious.

Ares, of course, was the warrior cabin. Their father was the god of war, making them the most feared in combat. And, most of Camp half-blood was scared shitless of you and Clarisse.

Then there was Hermes, and their automatic alliance with Athena. That meant they had Luke, the camp's star swordsman, and Annabeth and her siblings, who always came up with the best strategies.

It was safe to say that when they weren’t competing against each other, it was painfully boring.

You only had about half an hour before the game started, so after you had secured your armour and recovered your sword from the amphitheatre, you decided to seek out Annabeth, both because you enjoyed her company, and because she may spill something about her new strategy.

“Hey, Annabeth!” You called out, and the young girl spun around to give you a little smile.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to see how things are going over here, y’know, scope out the competition.”

“I’m not gonna tell you our strategy.” She deadpanned.

“Damnit. Oh well. What’ve you been up to, I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

It was true, you hadn’t spoken to Annabeth for a few days, nor had you even seen her.

“She’s been too busy stalking the new kid.” Luke’s voice interjected and he stepped out of seemingly nowhere to pat the girl's head.

“Shut up! No I haven’t.” She sulked, pushing him off of her.

“Wait, which new kid is this? Percy?” You asked.

You’d seen Luke show the boy around camp. You’d been briefly introduced, but you hadn’t spoken to him all that much. The only other thing you knew about him was that Clarisse had a bit of an issue with him. Well, she had an issue with a lot of people, so that wasn’t exactly new.

“Yep. Can you believe it? My little sister has a crush!” Luke exclaimed, holding a hand to his chest.

Annabeth then gave him a small shove, before something clearly occurred to her, and she gave him that look that meant she had something on him. And whatever the blackmail was, it worked as he immediately held his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry! You could never like a boy, I know that!”

Annabeth didn’t respond, simply glaring at him whilst you laughed. Sometimes, she really was intimidating. Despite being only 12 years old, she had a stare harsher than medusa.

“Anyway. You need to get going, otherwise you're definitely gonna lose.” Luke said, pushing you away by your breastplate.

“Fine.” You said, and were about to walk away when you noticed his own armour, as usual, wasn't done up properly.

You walked back towards him, sighing, and grabbed the straps on either side of his body, pulling them taut, doing the same for the guards on his forearms.

“You seriously need to learn how to do these yourself, soldier. One day, I might not be here to do them for you.”

“That’s not true. You’ll always be with me.” He whispered, more hopeful than certain about his statement.

You just rolled your eyes, grabbing his helmet out of his hands to push it on his head.

“There. Can’t have someone hurting your pretty face, can we?”

“Uh-”

“Bye, have fun losing!” You laughed, and then you were walking away, once again leaving a malfunctioning Luke in your wake.

“And you say I have a crush.” Annabeth snorted.

“Shut up.”

Pretty much as soon as you made it back to your team, the conch sounded, and Clarisse shouted at you to ‘get your ass over here’.

She then quickly outlined her plan to you as you both made your way deeper into the woods, the rest of your team splitting off at different points as you went.

You two, as well as a few others, were to be on the offensive, searching for the flag, meanwhile the rest of your team were either guarding the flag, or serving as distractions. It was a pretty typical strategy, but it had every chance of working, as long as you two were able to work out roughly where the other team's flag was.

“Well, I’m pretty sure it won’t be at Zeus’ fist this time, that’s where Annabeth put it last time, and apparently she has a new strategy.”

“She could be lying to you?”

“Yeah, I guess. But it’s a place to start.” Clarisse reluctantly agreed, and the two of you moved further into the woods.

Along the way you came across a few of the blue team on border patrol, and the pair of you quickly disarmed them, you with your sword, and Clarisse with her electric staff.

You made your way down to the south edge of the woods, and it appeared that the number of blue troops were decreasing. Normally you would take that as meaning the flag wasn’t this way, but knowing Annabeth that could be some kind of purposeful bluff, so you kept going, until eventually you reached a dead end and had to choose a different direction.

“Ugh, the others better be closer than us I swear. I’m not losing again.” Your sibling said, batting aside a tree branch with her crackling staff.

“Yeah. I’m sick of having to listen to Castellan gloat.” You sighed, although the noise was more fond than anything else.

Clarisse rolled her eyes at your inability to keep him out of a conversation.

Then, there was a sudden noise of people crashing through the trees. You both raised your weapons, ready to defend yourselves, when you realised that they wore red helmets and were in fact, your siblings.

“Oi, Clarisse, we heard some of them talking that they’ve got the flag down at the creek! And that brat Jackson’s guarding it!”

You noticed the way Clarisse’s eyes filled with anger (and a little bloodlust).

“You keep going,” She said, “I’ll check it out with them.” She then patted you on the back and spun around, sprinting off into the woods.

“DUMBASS! IT’S PROBABLY A TRAP!” You yelled, cupping your free hand to your mouth, but either she didn’t hear you, or she didn’t care, because she gave no response.

You sighed, unable to believe how gullible your sister could be sometimes. But, you had nothing better to do than keep searching for the flag, so you kept walking, slashing through the undergrowth with your sword as you went.

Eventually you felt like you had covered the entire forest, and at a certain point you weren’t entirely sure if you were still in enemy territory or not.

That was until Luke Castellan burst into the clearing holding your flag.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He smirked.

“Asshole.” You snapped, immediately leaping at him, sword in hand, just as you had during sparring that morning. God he loved your temper.

You then began to battle one another with even more zeal than earlier, your slashes quicker and your blows harder as you moved. It was strange the way you two sparred, it was like as soon as you were in combat you forgot that he was your closest friend and that you would die for him in a heartbeat. Instead all you could think about was winning.

He was so annoyingly graceful as he moved, each swish of his sword perfectly calculated to hit at a certain spot, each block and parry almost perfectly executed.

Of course, your anger at his flawless technique was only further intensified when you realised that one: he didn’t have a shield, and two: he was holding his sword in his non-dominant hand, with the flag in his dominant one.

You ground your teeth at that. How could you expect to ever beat him if he held his own so easily? Whenever you watched Luke Castellan fight, you couldn’t help but wonder how he was a son of Hermes, and not a son of Athena or Ares.

And, as always, he defeated you eventually.

He threw a blow at you that you couldn’t quite block, and the force of it sent you toppling backwards, and landing on your ass. He quickly lunged down too, pinning you to the floor and holding his sword to your throat, so close that it almost broke skin.

“Do you surrender?” He asked, grinning smugly down at you, and you couldn’t help but notice just how close his face was to yours.

“Never.” You spat, furrowing your eyebrows at him.

He sighed fondly, before moving upwards to press a quick kiss to your forehead and saying, “You’re so cute, y’know that?”

Now it was your turn to be left malfunctioning, your face bright red with astonishment as he leapt off of you, and ran away into the forest, leaving you behind, on the floor, and completely and utterly frozen.

And then you came back to your senses, pushing yourself off the floor and chasing after him.

“LUKE CASTELLAN, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” You screamed, sprinting through the woods as fast as you could, but you knew there was nothing you could do to catch up, and you could faintly hear him laughing as those stupid long legs carried him over into friendly territory.

It appeared that a lot had happened during that game of capture the flag.

Luke had gotten your flag, and was about to go over and taunt Clarisse about it, but he immediately saw that she was even angrier than usual, and seemed genuinely upset.

He quickly went over to ask Annabeth what was going on, watching as you ran over to console her.

“Percy broke her staff.” She said, pointing to the shattered piece of wood in Clarisse’s right hand.

Luke winced. He knew how precious the girl was about that staff; it was the only token she had from her father. He was surprised Percy was even still breathing right now.

“Wait, where is Percy?” Luke asked.

“With Chiron. He got claimed.”

“What? By who-?”

“Posiedon.”

The boy’s jaw dropped.

“You’re joking. No fucking way.”

“Tell me about it. He could be the one, Luke.” The younger girl said, her voice quiet and hopeful.

“Hm. He could be. Don’t get your hopes up too high though, yeah?”

Annabeth sighed, but nodded nonetheless.

Luke then gave her a quick pat on the shoulder, before beginning to walk away, intending to get a shower in before dinner, but Annabeth quickly stopped him in his tracks.

“Where are you going? It’s dinner, silly!”

“What, no it’s not-”

“Yes, it is. Campfire tonight, remember? Early dinner? C’mon, you’ve only been here for what, five years?”

Luke groaned, and suddenly all the adrenaline from Percy being claimed, and from winning capture the flag melted away, as he remembered the deal he had made with Chris the night before.

He traipsed behind the daughter of Athena on the way to the dining pavilion, suddenly dreading the rest of the evening.

As the pair entered the building, a cheer went up from the Hermes and Athena table, a few of their respective siblings rushing over to give them pats on the back and congratulations for their efforts.

Luke laughed along with them, eventually being dragged away from his sister to his own table.

Then dinner began, and it was as loud and raucous as usual, maybe even more so coming off the back of a capture the flag victory. But Luke was unusually quiet, pushing his food around his plate and taking the odd sullen bite. He could feel Chris’ eyes on him, probably pissed off he was sulking again, but he didn’t really care.

He could also feel another gaze on him, and he looked up, expecting it to be you, giving him a feeble glare or mouthing some stupid insult. But instead it was the girl from the Demeter table, twisting a lock of hair around her finger and smiling sweetly at him.

The boy felt slightly disappointed, but masked it with a grin of his own, winking at the girl before returning to his food.

He felt that strange sinking feeling in his stomach as he continued to eat, but decided to push it away. What choice did he have? It’s not like you’d ever reciprocate his feelings, so maybe Chris was right and he should give someone else a chance. Besides, how bad could it be?

As it turned out, it could be really bad.

Ok, maybe that was an overstatement. Really boring was probably more accurate.

As soon as they got to the campfire, Chris disappeared, but not before practically shoving Luke down beside the girl from Demeter, who let out a high-pitched giggle as he fell into her slightly.

And gods he wished he hadn’t agreed to his friends stupid plan. Because he then had to spend the rest of the evening being obnoxiously flirted with. And sure, she was nice, and quite pretty, but not in the way that mattered.

She didn’t take his breath away like you did. He couldn’t imagine searching for her face in a crowd. The whole thing was just dull.

And her laughter was grating. Really grating. There was no way she thought he was that funny, especially when he was giving mostly one word responses.

They had nothing in common. She liked lounging about in fields, playing games and making flower crowns, whereas Luke couldn’t think of anything worse. He’d much rather spend an afternoon sparring, or at archery, or even swimming in the lake.

All the things you liked to do.

He tried to push the thought to the back of his mind. He shouldn’t be thinking about you, not whilst another girl was clamouring for his attention. It was cruel. But he couldn’t help himself.

And eventually he gave in, switching off from the conversation and settling for observing you through the flames.

Your hair was down right now, like it only ever was at dinners and in the early morning. You lounged back comfortably on the benches, smiling lazily and joking around with Clarisse and Silena. Your face was lit up by the flickering flames, complimenting you so well, like they just wanted to be near you, close to you. He couldn’t blame them.

And then your eyes met his across the fire, and he thought his heart was about to combust with the way you smiled at him. He recognised that smile. It was the one you reserved just for him.

At that moment he steeled his resolve to reject this Demeter girl, grab on to you and never let go.

But as he was about to do just that, he felt a slender hand wrap around his bicep, and he turned to the blonde girl next to him. And without any warning, she reached up and kissed him, snaking her arms up and around his neck.

He pulled away after a second, shock written all over his face. He quickly whipped around, looking to see if you saw that, praying that you hadn’t.

But you had. And you seemed just as shocked as he was, except there was something else in your eyes. Hurt.

Why were you hurt?

As you walked away from the campfire, you couldn’t help but ask yourself the same question. Why were you so hurt?

You had known for years that your pathetic crush on Luke would never amount to anything. He was just way out of your league. Perfect in every way.

He was so smart, and kind, and funny, and well-liked, and you just couldn’t compete with that. You were rough, and mean, and cruel, and angry. Why would he love someone like you?

Of course, you hadn’t seen the daughter of Demeter coming. But maybe you should’ve. She was everything Luke should want in a girl, gentle, sweet, feminine. Someone fit to be a girlfriend.

And let's face it. You were much more skilled in matters of the sword than matters of the heart.

You had always known this day would come. Eventually you’d have to let go of your best friend and come to terms with the fact that you weren’t the most important person in his life anymore (besides Annabeth).

So why were you so devastated?

You reasoned that it had to be the shock. Yes, it was surprising, that’s why you were reacting like this, running away from the campfire like a child, foolishly hoping that he would come running after him, when of course he wouldn’t. He’d stay with his new girlfriend.

“Hey!”

You whipped around, shocked to see the very boy you were just pining after running up to you.

“What?” You asked, snapping at him slightly, and immediately regretting it as he took on the look of a kicked puppy.

“Why’d you run away from the campfire?”

“Just needed some air.”

“You sure? I mean you look kinda-”

“I’m fine! Just fine! Now you can go back to your little girlfriend and leave me alone!” You burst out, waving your hands around manically.

He looked shocked by your sudden shouting, probably because you had only genuinely been angry with him about three times in your whole friendship.

“Sorry. Just give me a minute, ok?” You said, your voice shuddering slightly. God it was pathetic, getting so worked up over a boy? You wanted to crawl into a hole and die. You then turned around and began to walk away, but didn’t get far before a hand grabbed yours pulling you back.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He said firmly.

“What?”

“She’s not my girlfriend. I don’t even really know her name.”

He then apparently realised how that sounded, because he quickly amended his statement.

“Not like that. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t like her like that. She just kinda grabbed me.”

You stammered slightly, trying to regain composure. Right now you looked like a jealous loser, and while that is what you were, you didn’t want him to see you like that.

“Ok cool. I don’t care, y’know. Kiss whoever you want, man, not my problem!” You laughed although it was painfully strained.

“Again, not what I’m trying to say.” He said, scratching the back of his neck. Nervous.

“So what are you-”

“I’m trying to say I’m in love with you!” He rushed out, holding you by the shoulders and staring directly into your eyes to try and get his point across.

“What?” You whispered, once again not able to believe your ears.

“I said I’m in love with you,” He repeated, slower this time, his voice more even, “I’ve been in love with you for so long, you have no idea. I was only talking to that girl ‘cause I thought I’d never have a chance with you. But then I realised that I don’t want some other girl. I only want you.”

You took in a sharp intake of breath, scanning his face for any sign of insincerity.

“You’re being serious?” You asked.

“Deadly serious.” He responded immediately, smiling sheepishly.

You paused for a minute, before whispering, “I love you too.”

Only then did he finally make his move, holding you gently by the face and bending down to kiss you.

And it was like a piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place. It was painfully cliche, and it felt like you were in some dumb rom com, but kissing him really was like fireworks going off all over your body.

He clearly felt the same way, holding you by the back of the head and pulling you in further, closer, like he didn’t want to be apart from him ever again.

Eventually you both pulled away for air, and he looked at you with a smile of pure joy, until the shock of the whole situation hit him.

“Wait, so you really mean it?”

“I mean, I did just let you kiss me, didn’t I?”

“Good point. Sorry, I’m just a little surprised.”

“Fair enough. I mean, I had no idea you felt the same way.” You laughed, all the previous tension ebbing from your body.

“What, really?” He asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

“Yes, really! How was I supposed to know? Besides, I didn’t think I was really your type.”

At that his eyes practically bulged out of his head in shock, more so than any other time that night.

“Not my type? You’re entirely my type! Not like it matters anyway when you're the most perfect girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

You frowned, “Now you're just lying to me, Luke.”

“No I’m not. You're everything I’ve ever wanted. The only girl I’ve ever wanted.” He said firmly.

You looked at him, still slightly doubtful, but he was determined to fix that.

So he kissed you again, and suddenly all your doubts were swept away in his strong embrace as he kissed you like it was the last thing he ever wanted to do.

“Believe me now?”

“Yeah. And, I guess you’re pretty great too.”

He looked at you teasingly, daring you to elaborate, and for once you decided to stroke his ego.

“Fine. You're the most handsome, funny, charming man I’ve ever met in my life.”

That clearly satisfied him, because a wide grin wriggled its way across his face that you couldn’t help but mirror, because you both knew you meant every word.

“So does this mean you’ll give me a chance?”

“Yes. I’d give you a hundred chances.”

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #luke castellan x reader #x reader #fluff #romance #minor angst #fanfic #writing #luke castellan #jealousy

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sonarspace · 3 months

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jjk men taking care of you

a/n: very self indulgent..😭 thinking about making the sukuna one a proper fic/series. let me know what you guys think :) content: fluff ᡣ𐭩 wc: 1.2k

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

gojo

you're laying in bed wrapped in sheets, freezing when you hear a loud knock from the front door. you drag yourself to open the door. gojo stands in front of you. his smile vanishes when he sees your face, pale skin and red eyes.

he lets himself in. you groan, letting your head fall to his chest. "so tired, satoru". his hand pushes back the strands that cover your eyes, "oh baby" and he pouts at you.

he wraps his arms around you and pulls you in close as you lay back in bed. "you're going to get sick toru," you whisper as you nuzzle your head into his chest. "does this feel nice?" you nod a yes into his chest "worth it, then". you let out a sweet chuckle.

as expected he falls sick. a sick gojo is like a cat. purring as you scratch his scalp. although he could rct himself back to health, he doesn't...only so he can spend more time in your company. because as soon as he recovers he'll have to leave you and go back to work, so you let him cling to you like a needy and whiney cat. he pouts whenever you leave him for too long. he follows you into the kitchen his hands wrap around you, under your shirt. he nuzzles his head into your neck, humming contently at your warmth.

geto

he calls you in the early morning to ask you when you're going to get to this place. excited to take go on a weekend trip with your mutual friends. "yeah, i'll be there in a few hours" but your gruff voice suggests otherwise. "are you okay?" he asks concern lacing his voice. you hum into the phone, "just a sore throat, i'll have some ginger tea and i'll be fine". you fall asleep as soon as you hang up the phone. too tired to move out of bed.

a light shake of your body wakes you up. "hey," a voice whispers. your muscles feel heavy as you turn around to see the source of the voice. you slowly blink your eyes open to the night sky and a worried suguru standing over you. "suguru," you whisper quietly but your throat feel equivalent of when you scrape your knees on the ground. "come on baby, let's get you to the hospital." you groan as he slowly pulls you into a sitting position. too tired to walk, he ends up carrying you to his car. "it's okay i can walk," you protest. "the elevator isn't working and there's no way i'm letting you walk 15 floors of stairs like this." you blush and hide your face into his chest and whisper a "thank you".

the doctor diagnoses you with pharyngitis, a common infection and tells you, you should get fine within a week. so suguru stays by your side and nurses you. being close and keeping you warm when you feel too cold, cooking for you, carrying you to the bathroom, helping you gargle with saltwater to relieve the throat pain. "you don't have to do this," you tell him the first day. hating the fact that he's cancelling his plans to take care of you.

his eyebrows furrow as you continue, "you should go on that trip and have fun, yeah? you heard the doctor, i'll be fine in a few days." he exhales deeply. "i wouldn't have fun if you're not there. i would just be missing you the entire time. i'd much rather stay here with you sweet girl." he smile. "i'm sorry. i wish i wasn't sick," you pout. "heyy.. don't. i love taking care of you." he squeezes your hand. "thank you sugi, i'll make it up to you." you cuddle into his side. "i look forward to it," he winks causing you to giggle.

nanami

as soon as nanami finds out your sick he's on his way to your place, cancelling any and all meetings for the next few days. your laying on the couch in a fetal position watching a movie when he walks in with two bags of groceries.

you make an effort to get up and help him with the groceries. "i know where everything goes, just go back and lie down." he scolds you. thirty minutes later you can smell your comfort meal from the kitchen. you peak from the couch to see nanami preparing you a plate. "made you, your favorite" he smiles. tears quickly fill your eyes. worried your in pain nanami sets the plates on the coffee table and crouches down in front of you "are you okay? does it hurt somwhere?"

"i'm okay, it's just the niki udon," you sniffle. "what about it? do you not like it anymore?" he questions. "no no, i love it. it's just that you made it for me. thank you so much."

"oh baby, you scared me. i thought i did something wrong." he lets out a breathy laugh. you gasp "you could never. you're the most perfect boyfriend kento". you chirp.

sukuna

"who made this? where is she?" you can hear sukuna scold the servants from your room. sukuna's not fond of other people's cooking, except yours. so he's rightfully mad when his food is not served to him like usual. too much salt, too little spice in the dish. it was routine. you would cook for him. and he would come to your bedroom at night to tell you how much he liked the food. just an excuse to spend time with you.

you can hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and you prepare yourself for an angry sukuna. he lightly knocks on your door and calls out your name. unusual for him to do this with anyone else but you. it was something about the way you look at him and talk to him, even smile at him when everyone else cowers under his gaze. albeit he would never admit, but you made his heart beat weirdly. he was turning soft for you.

"come in". usually he would stand by the wall across from your bed, however this time he makes his way over to where you're laying. he gently lowers the back of his hand to your forehead. "you're hot," he whispers. "thanks," you giggle causing him to let out a chuckle.

"does it hurt anywhere?" he asks you, tenderly pushing your hair behind your ear. his palm lingers on your cheek, his thumb moving back and forth under your eye. "my body really hurts, and i have a headache and i'm sorry you didn't have a good meal tonight."

"hey..." he sits down on next to you. his hand on your cheek firm and comforting. "it's okay, it wasn't a bad meal just missed your cooking more." he smiles softly. he holds both your hands in his lower set of hands. "do you want me to take it away?" he asks you. "how..?" you're about to question when suddenly he leans closer. his lips warm, soft, and tender against your forehead. he pulls back and your head feels lighter. "how did you do that?" you ask him, mouth agape. "don't worry about it. where else does it hurt?" he lays you on your back and gets on top of you. and with each kiss, you feel better. his kiss holding some sort of power. "it's one of my techniques" he smirks. "and here i was thinking, you're some sort of cupid," you joke.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

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orrianreaper · 1 month

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GW2 people - Pitch me YOUR idea for an Expansion!

What's the theme, where are we going, what lore threads are we picking up on, what's the story premise, what mechanics do you think it could have.

I love spitballing ideas when I'm talking with friends so I'm posing the question To Everyone because I know everyone has some pet concepts floating around. As self-indulgent as you'd like, as unrealistic as you like, just throw ideas around, I wanna hear them!

The One I think I have the most rounded ideas for would be an Underwater Expansion. Picking up on the threat of whatever is terrorising the deep oceans, having some exploration of the Largos and bringing back in the Quaggan and the Krait maybe!

I love the sort of depths we get in maps like Frostgorge sound, and underwater combat has badly needed a rework and a tune up - there's loads of skills which straight up don't work and break entire builds underwater, and this would be a perfect excuse to try bring it up to speed. Maybe even make the underwater weapon sets function on land, to satisfy those who're after more weapons. You could make the maps a mix of true underwater and perhaps giant air bubble caves so you still had some land exploration even in maps otherwise set deep under the ocean. A map meta split with land phases and water phases. Additionally as personal bias wish, I'd love map event/meta design more like HoT. A map-wide Story with a few chains with specifically Build into the actual true Meta. I also simply love the idea of having a bunch of enemy designs based of the ocean and the abyss, there's so much incredible inspiration and interesting marine life. and biomes too! Give me a hydrothermal vent section in one of the maps, hell underwater 'water' in the form of brine pool 'quicksand'.

The Turtle might get some more use out of it's underwater, and skimmer would absolutely get spotlight as a skyscale isn't going to get you too far here - hell maybe even some speedy new underwater mount could be a fun addition to the roster.

I can see a plot being around trying to work with the Largos, The 'Terror of the Deep' being a danger and learning from them about how to survive the hostile environment and also convince them work with you to Hunt the 'Terror'. Maybe you come to the area of the ocean with the Quaggans and it's convincing the Largos to take them seriously as allies against whatever you're fighting? A quaggan companion character would be really fun, and you could easily bring back Sayeh al' Rajihd from the personal story given Largos involvement. I think not only would it be something very different in terms of the maps, which granted quite a few people might not like (thalassophobia reasons, or general Dislike of Water Gameplay reasons), but I think a rework of the underwater mechanics would benefit a bunch of places and it's something that really doesn't get touched outside of base game and maybe like, the Leviathans in EoD. There's so much neat creature design inspiriation swimming around out there, and I know so many people love the largos and even if not playable getting to see more of them could be neat! Also - it'd finally make all those legendary full people happy. A Legendary Aquabreather :P.

And a new suite of legendary underwater weapons since the G1 set. (and not themed pretty please make them all Unique.)

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #apollo talks #I would also adore a fully underground give me three-four tangled depthslike cave maps for an asura expansion where they go back undergroun #to explore and something's trying to capitalise on the hole left by Primordus #and something with the Norn heading back up into the northern shiverpeaks again and similarly dealing with #whatever is trying to fill the jormag power vaccum #and how the spirits are doing #there's so much solid stuff to play with

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littlemisspascal · 5 months

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2023 & Me

Been thinking a lot these past few days about everything that's happened with me in 2023. Hard to believe it's coming to end--time seriously does fly 😮

There's been some heavy losses this year. Several family members passed away to illnesses and old age, including my grandfather who I had a strained relationship with to say the least. I also had a shocking family drama bomb dropped on me earlier this month that has had a huge ripple effect I'm still navigating, but fingers crossed things will find a way of working out for the best.

I had some severe mental health depression episodes throughout the year, made me reevaluate priorities and also doubt pretty much every choice I've ever made in life, but I do truly believe I'm entering 2024 in a positive mindset so that's something to be happy about :) I'mma try this crazy concept called self-love and not think the worst about me, myself, and I.

My writing took a hit this year. Word count wise, kudos wise, engagement wise--but I also made progress on several wips and even finished a few which is a big accomplishment for a snail writer like me 😊 I want to enter 2024 not feeling guilty for being self-indulgent or trying new kinds of writing styles. I also want to shake off the belief a low note count equals it was a bad fic/waste of time -- I don't believe that for anyone else, yet my brain always uses it as a weapon of insecurity against myself and enough is enough brain 😠 no more I say!

On a more positive note, I was fortunate enough to attend several conventions this year and improve my cosplay skills (2024 Ahsoka is gonna be my best look yet I just know it 😁). I got to meet total sweethearts Jon Bernthal and Charlie Cox, Steve Burns my childhood hero, the dear Jodi Benson, the gorgeous Rosario Dawson and beautiful Ming-Na Wen, and of course I can't ever forget Andrew Garfield 😱💗 And most importantly of all I did each these cons with my sister and made some lifelong memories! (Also bought a heckin lot of stickers. A heckin lot 🥰)

And then of course the crown jewel of 2023 1000% hands down was attending the United States Formula 1 Grand Prix. Good lord y'all it was one of the best weekends of my entire life! If you had asked me a couple years ago if I'd care about a sport--any sport--I'd have laughed in your face but there's just something so addictive and captivating about the world of F1 and its cast of characters. And having the luck of getting Alex Albon and Daniel Ricciardo's autographs on my dumb lil frog bucket hat was just *muffled screaming* I literally was a shaking mess lemme tell ya--just ask @beecastle and @undercoverpena who were there with me on my phone every step of the way 💜 thanks for putting up with my addiction y'all! Much much love to you both!!

AND THE FRIGGIN FACT SOMEONE GOT A PHOTO OF ME AND DANNY TOGETHER 🥺😭😭 NEVER BE OVER IT NOPE

There are so many people on here that made 2023 a bright and kind and fun one for me---@oonajaeadira @something-tofightfor @wheresarizona @trinkets01 @kyberblade @sofasoap @grogusmum @writeforfandoms @psychedelic-ink @kteague @prolix-yuy @wildemaven @the-blind-assassin-12 @practicalghost @gnpwdrnwhiskey @bishtrouille @nothoughtsjustmeds @kirsteng42 @miraclesabound @radiowallet @harriedandharassed @hopeamarsu and dozens dozens dozens more!

Thank you to everyone who's liked, reblogged, commented on my blog + sent me messages! I appreciate and love you all so much more than words can ever express 💜💗💙🧡

2024---let's bring it on! 🥳

#i have spoken

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atropalugosi · 5 months

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Honestly ghouls, this one is just completely self indulgent trying to make myself feel better. But enjoy nonetheless Donna stans <3

Donna felt almost like a wolf stalking a small animal as she watched Valeria work, but she simply couldn't help herself. Well, surely she could, but it was more fun to look at the college student, especially at the moment. The flower shop was on the warmer side today, and the girl had opted to rolling up the sleeves of her blouse in an attempt to cool off, giving Donna a lovely glimpse of black ink on her right arm. She couldn't quite make out what the image was across the shop, but it looked intricate despite the heavy lines of the tattoo.

"Do you have any?" Valeria's voice cuts through the silence like a knife, startling Donna with a little jump. The girl fights a smile at catching her boss off guard before continuing, "tattoos I mean?"

"I'm afraid not," the botanist replies, patting herself down a bit to regain composure. "Do you have any more?"

"Nope, just this at the moment," she outstretches her forearm for Donna to get a better look. "I'd like to get some more eventually though! I've got a bunch of ideas, I've even drawn some out if you'd wanna see sometime. Thinking about maybe getting a floral piece done for you...'re shop!"

Donna steps closer and gently takes her arm, inspecting the black and grey design. It takes up Valeria's entire inner forearm, running from just below the prominent blue veins of her wrist up to her inner elbow. The entire image is bordered by ferns and inside the foliage stands a woman gently holding a roaring lion. Two sabers cross above the characters with 'VIII' scratched slightly to the right of the swords. She runs her fingers featherlight over the tattoo, surprised when it feels more or less like her unmarred skin, save for a few bumpy scars.

"I, uh, I picked at those spots," Valeria murmurs as though she'd been scolded particularly harshly. Donna noticed the redhead often picked at scabs and blemishes when her hands weren't preoccupied.

"That's alright, scars are a beautiful map of a person's life." That earns her a cute blush and sheepish smile. "It's truly a lovely piece though, really. Does it have any special meaning?"

Valeria's smile drops a bit at the question, but she speaks clearly. "It's a tarot card called 'Strength'. I've had... kind of a rough go of things before moving here and I guess I just got it as a reminder that I'm going to be okay and I'm strong. Even when I don't feel like it." She turns away slightly, looking like she's trying not to cry at whatever memories the design inspires.

Donna's heart aches seeing her like this and she bravely makes the decision to wrap the redhead in a strong hug. Her efforts are reciprocated instantly, and she nearly breaks feeling the girl tremble in her arms. Valeria was indeed an example of La Forza all her own, but Donna couldn't help but want to be an equally strong support for her, like she'd done for the botanist on the anniversary of Claudia's death. Nobody deserved to feel that way alone. Not even herself, she supposed.

"I've got you, dolcézza. Whatever you need, let it out," she tells Valeria soothingly. She rubs relaxing circles in her back while the girl cries, whispering words of encouragement until she finally calms down. Eventually the two part, Valeria sniffling pitifully and rubbing her eyes of tears.

"I'm sorry for that," she croaks miserably.

"No need, Valeria," Donna's tone leaves no room for argument. "Whatever it is that you've gone through; whatever you might be faced with in the future, you are strong, and you will beat it. But you don't have to do it alone. Let me be there for you like you are for me."

Enamoured. Valeria looks completely and utterly enamoured, and Donna fights tooth and nail with herself not to squirm at the watery brown eyes staring at her like a saint. God knows she was far from it. Still it makes her feel infinitely further from Miranda to be looked at like that.

"Thank you, Donna."

#donna beneviento #donna benevento x reader #resident lover #lugosi speaks #my writing #am i depressed today because of the depression or the sad or the caffeine withdrawal symptoms or the-#doesn't matter imaginery hug from donna fixed me #not really but the sentiment is there

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divorcedfiddleford · 18 days

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Random but - if you were given an opportunity to rewrite Ford's character and his arc in the show (and later J3), how would it be like?

canon gay and trans

so the thing is that i think most of how ford himself is written is really really good! i just think that the writers (particularly alex) have a bias against him, and so a lot of the narrative ends up feeling like he's either being punished or being forced to atone for his past. so i'm gonna ramble and daydream for a bit but i want to be clear i actually really like how he's written in general (yes, even in the book that i have so much beef with!!)

there's very few moments of catharsis for him, and those that he gets are either short (reunion with fiddleford) or undermined by the writers' bias (the ending of journal 3 where he burns all his bill stuff but has to keep reminding us that he was stupid for trusting bill in the first place). so i think a lot of the problems i have would be resolved with tonal shifts and a few cuts, like that fucking scene in the stanchurian candidate with the mind control tie. the implication of reaganite ford is bad enough but then to have a guy who has very specific trauma relating to being mind controlled/not being in control of his own body just hand that over is really fucking stupid. then again i think that whole episode is stupid so i'd end up rewriting all of it lmao

i've said before but if i really had my way i'd cut roadside attraction entirely and replace it with another ford episode. i loved how goofy and fun dd&md was and i think if more of that lighthearted side of him was shown it would endear him to the audience more. a long time ago i had an idea for an episode where they go back to the bunker and ford basically does puppy talk to the shapeshifter who is actively trying to kill them. i never followed this idea through to its conclusion but i think it still sounds entertaining, plus it would also give more time for him to reunite with fiddleford so it wouldn't have to be squeezed in the finale.

speaking of the finale... my personal fantasy is that i'd love to have a scene stuck in there where stan apologizes to ford. it REALLY stood out to me that despite all their fighting, ford still at least says the words "i'm sorry" to stan. stan never apologizes for anything he did to ford - neither for breaking his project, nor for banishing him to the hell dimension for 30 years. i get that they were mistakes, but you still have to apologize for mistakes (and if i allow myself to get very self-indulgent for a second, i've often thought the whole story would be a lot more resonant if stan broke ford's machine on purpose). i had a whole section in here where i talked about what a scene like this would look like but it was so long... if people want to hear more about it i'll say more but it's the kind of thing that warrants its own post.

anyway. moving on from the show itself. so possibly my hottest take is that i think journal 3 should not have been published KJSHDFLGKHSDFGUIWEHRGJSDF. basically i think instead of trying to write the actual journal 3 they should have picked a handful of stories from his research era that they wanted to tell and made a graphic novel about that. i got WAAAAAAAYYYY off topic and wrote PARAGRAPHS about this but it's not related to the question you asked so i'll just summarize by saying i think it would play more to their strengths as writers, leave more to the imagination, and they could leave out all those fucking retcons that i hate

as it is, though, again, i think that ford is written pretty well in the journal. there are a few off-handed comments and lines that give me "he would not fucking say that" vibes but overall it very realistically portrays what it's like for someone to be manipulated, isolated, drawn away from his loved ones, etc. it's a very poignant story which resonated with a lot of people, myself included. again my main problem is that it's undercut with the writers being like "BROOOOO HE'S JUST LIKE ICARUS!! FLEW TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN!!!!!!!!" as though it's all his fault, and that it ends on a very moralizing "i learned my lesson" note. so really the biggest characterization problems i have with journal 3 have to do with fiddleford, but that's a whole other can of worms

anyway i hope this was... interesting? informative?? i hope i answered your question to your satisfaction. have a nice day :)

#gravity falls #tales of the wild zeep

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mothman-can-write · 4 months

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hi !!! i saw u said you were open for prompts, i mean this is kinda less of a prompt really, but like i loved that blackhill mission transcript thing you did a while ago and would be really cool to see some more stuff in the same vein ig ! but also maybe something like a kinda blackhill first meeting kinda thing idk !! i just love your work tho ! you really have the ability to make me feel all the emotions

OOOOO i just thought of this whilst writing this but maybe something like with clint teasing nat ab having like feelings for maria or something ?? idk i just love ur writing ! sorry these are kinda shitty hahah

NGL I took this prompt and mangled it in my hands. I heard first meeting and my brain was immediately like well that could go seventeen thousand different ways, so I sorta mashed in Clint's teasing to go along with it and made it a little more suggestive than outright shippy. Realistically, I think if Natasha is only meeting Maria for the first time, she's probably still in a place where she's not totally open to such self indulgent things as having a crush

Also, this isn't a mission transcript but I'd love to do more of them that one was really fun! I just don't really have any good ideas for the sort of things they'd have to talk about in the field besides dying haha

ANYWAY enough rambling, though you're all familiar with my inability to shut up these days. ~3k under the cut of Clint being a ballache and nat being sceptical but gay

The only person that doesn’t treat Natasha like she’s a project – or a live wire – is Clint. He’d had his fair share of looking at her with those careful eyes, something behind them that made her teeth itch in her gums like some trained dog. He doesn’t do that so much anymore, not unless she’s in a particular state and doing a very bad job at hiding it. She likes him, she thinks. He might be one of the first people in her entire life that she can truly say she likes.

Naturally, she finds herself in his quarters more often than her own. She lays on his bed as he works on something probably explosive enough to kill them both if he sneezes, and she ignores the pip of her emails as she braids a small strip of hair under her ear. She’s bored, if she’s honest, but she doesn’t want to waste her first free morning of the past fortnight on something so trivial as emails. Or helping Clint.

“You not gonna answer her?” he says without looking up from his work. He holds it close to his face, something far too small in his tweezers.

Natasha’s fingers pause in untangling her braid. “How do you know who it is?”

He still doesn’t turn in his seat, matter of fact when he speaks. “You have a different tone for Hill.”

“How did you figure that out?” She tries not to scowl at him, but she still isn’t used to feeling so see-through. Quite frankly, she’d like to be as opaque as possible, but she seems to have grown rather attached to someone with x-ray vision.

Clint puts his miniature contraption down and turns to her at last. She’s not fond of the smile on his face as he leans over the back of his chair. “You’re not the only spy on the ship. Also, you weren’t trying very hard to hide it.”

“Her emails are usually more important,” Natasha argues, not quite sure why she feels the need to defend herself on it.

Clint grins ever wider. “I never asked why. I just thought you had a massive crush on her.”

Natasha scowls fully this time. “I’ve never met her.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know what’s in those emails.”

“Shut up.”

She reaches for her phone anyway and pointedly ignores the way Clint watches her. The email is much the same as they always are, telling her about meetings and progress and such. She’s overtly professional in every one, but now that she’s thinking about it, Natasha likes the words she uses – just slightly like she enjoyed reading dictionaries as a child. Very, very rarely, Maria will let something slip in her emails that is almost like humour, and Natasha doesn’t tell Clint that she actually does enjoy receiving emails from her just for the fact that she feels a little special when that happens. She’s heard the rumours; she knows not to expect giggles and grins when it comes to the Assistant Director.

In the end, she doesn’t bother to respond to the email anyway and Clint has already turned back to his work. “Not in the mood to sext her back?”

She scowls at the back of his head. “It sounds like Laura needs to watch her back.”

“Oh, god,” he laughs. “Gross. Absolutely not. Not my type.”

“What makes you think she’s mine?”

“You need someone to match your weirdness.”

Natasha wishes she had something to throw at him. She won’t admit that she intrigues her in small ways. She doubts she’s any different from every other CEO and government lead in the world, but some small part of her feels thankful to her faceless emails. She could’ve easily overridden Clint’s choice, could’ve had her put down before she could even think to beg for forgiveness. But she’d given her a chance, and she’d kept in contact despite her supposed overbooked schedule every day since. Maria held her life in her hands at one point, and she’d given her another shot at it.

Despite everything, Natasha still doesn’t sleep well. Or, rather, because of everything, she supposes. One good month doesn’t erase a lifetime of bad – and she’s really a little hesitant to say that this month has even been good in many senses of the word. She wonders if the nights will ever get easier on her with time, or if she’s stuck with these hours of restlessness and sweat for the rest of her life. It’s not a nice thing to think about, and it doesn’t really do all that much to distract her from the shadows that still play behind her eyelids or the way the shapes of the room still seem to swim around the edges. So, she swings her legs over the side of her bed and scrubs at her face with her hands. She can appreciate, at the very least, that she isn’t handcuffed to her bed here. Somehow, that had been a hard thing to get used to. She still sleeps with one arm by the headboard.

There aren't many things to do at this hour. Clint has told her countless times that she’s perfectly welcome to pester him at any time of the night if it would make her feel even minutely better. He says he understands, and she believes him enough from the way his past lines his own face, but it doesn’t make it any easier to put into practice.

She doesn’t have a plan as she steps out into the corridors. She dresses like she’s going to the gym on the off chance that she might be able to sneak into it and punch something until she’s sweaty for reasons more tangible. She wishes the firing range was usable at this hour, but she’s sure that’s much less subtle. Still, there are some nightmares you can only really feel better by shooting at. Maybe she’ll bat her eyelashes into an hour or so at the targets tomorrow.

She passes the odd agent as she trails around the corridors and considers that the ship never really sleeps entirely. There’s always someone on the night shift, always someone pottering around with something. She thinks it would be nice to work when it’s so quiet. Maybe she should ask about changing her hours. It might be a little soon.

The gym isn’t so far from her quarters, and by the time she reaches it her shirt still feels sticky at her back and her stomach still feels like it’s alive in her ribcage. Her hopes are low enough to limbo as she presses her hand to the door, and she could almost sigh with relief when the door opens easily. She’s not against breaking in, but she likes to think she’s been doing a pretty good job of building a better reputation lately. Maybe not socially, but Maria’s emails haven’t managed to sound short lately – not since the last time she’d bypassed what she maintains was a criminally simple encryption on one of Clint’s jobs.

The gym is utterly silent at this time of the morning, which is entirely unsurprising. She doubts anyone else sensible gets out of bed for another hour or two, let alone starts their training regime. Generally, agents are allowed the privilege of breakfast before they’re worked to the bone. Natasha’s never been a fan of food so early in the morning.

She doesn’t really know when she fell out of the habit of scanning each room on this ship like someone will be waiting to haul her out of it, and she blames it firmly on her lack of sleep and nightmare slurred thoughts when she doesn’t notice the other body in the gym until it’s too late.

“I did wonder,” someone says, and Natasha’s attention snaps to one of the benches on the far side, half covered from the entrance.

It takes Natasha an almost embarrassingly drawn out moment to place her features, and she’s sure she only half succeeds in hiding her surprise into an intrigued eyebrow. The Assistant Director didn’t really strike her as the type to be in the gym when everyone is supposed to be sleeping.

“Wonder what?” she asks instead of every other question that gnaws at her head. She stays firmly planted in the middle of the room.

“Who would come in at this time.”

Oh. She’s not wondering about Natasha. She doesn’t really know what that feels a mote disappointing. She hates it when Clint asks how she’s sleeping. Maybe she just doesn’t like lying to him.

“I thought it would be empty.”

Maria places her water bottle beside her on the bench and makes absolutely no move to stand up yet. Somehow, Natasha finds it unnerving, even if she’s taller here. “It usually is,” she says simply.

Her eyes bore into her in a way that makes the back of her neck crawl. Something about her says that she’s calculating, that she’s looking at Natasha and breaking her down into little bite sized pieces. Natasha has never liked being dissected. Maria’s eyes are very blue.

“Do you usually spend your mornings here?” she asks, if only to stop Maria from burning holes into her skull and reading her thoughts directly.

It works, in the way that her gaze flicks away for the briefest moment before pinning her again in that same cool tone. “I guess you could call this morning.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Maria’s eyes soften ever so slightly around the corners, and Natasha would almost call it a squint. “I’ve made a bit of a habit at this point, yes.”

She almost seems reluctant to admit it, and Natasha can’t help the way she wants to pick this woman apart. She has always liked puzzles, and people are just some of the more complex the world has to offer. She thinks she understands the rumours a little more now, even through this uncanny meeting. She wonders if Maria feels her own searching gaze as intently.

Maria stands at last, and Natasha had almost forgotten how tall she is. She thinks she preferred it when she was sitting. “Don’t let me stop you,” she says, and Natasha is silently thankful for the way that answers her question. Again, not that she wouldn’t break the rules. It’s just much harder to make an excuse when the Assistant Director is the one who catches you.

“I would’ve expected the AD to send me back to my quarters,” she notes, as forward as ever when it gets her information. She’ll admit this woman seems to be intriguing. She’s curious as to just why she’s indulging her so far.

Maria’s expressions are all very small, mere suggestions of emotions that only make Natasha want to pick her apart. “That would make me more of a hypocrite than I already am,” she says simply, almost smiling. “Are you getting on okay?” she asks instead , and her eyes are on her like she’s deciphering her again. She’s closer now, making direct eye contact, and Natasha holds it like a game. “Besides the obvious, of course.”

Natasha tries not to scowl. God, does she hate when people pretend like they know her. “What’s the obvious?”

Maria raises one eyebrow ever so slightly, her expression caught somewhere to amusement. “Did the Red Room have you in the routine of training at four in the morning?”

“Sometimes.” They both know that’s not the reason that she’s here, as much as Natasha wishes Maria didn’t.

Her eyes are almost soft. Almost like she truly cares about her. Natasha doesn’t like to let herself believe the sort of things that might cost her later. “Half of the people on this ship struggle with it, Romanoff,” she says, nearly gentle in the silence around them. “You don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

She can almost imagine her setting a heavy hand on her shoulder as she says it, though Maria remains in her own space. She’s still slightly too close for what Natasha is used to however, and it’s the first time she realises the darkness under her eyes. Her face is lined, something bone deep that she doubts ever goes away. It lends her a certain sort of…imperfection that makes her seem a whole lot more human. For everything she’s heard, though she knows to take gossip with a healthy grain of salt, she could almost imagine Hill to be some sort of robot, some living excel sheet.

Standing in front of her, she sort of just looks like a woman who could do with some sleep. She looks like a woman who has spent the last who-knows-how-many hours beating out her own past the same way Natasha intends to. She won’t call it affection. It doesn’t mean Natasha likes the way she looks straight through her any more.

“You have any tips?” she says, aiming for something playful. She really, really just wants her to stop looking at her like she can figure her out right here in the middle of the room. Maybe if she seems better than she is, she’ll leave her alone. She’d rather her conduct a genuine vivisection out on the boxing ring floor if she’s going to continue to examine her.

She’s certain Maria almost smiles at that, a tug at the corner of her lips that is almost sad, almost conspirational. She shrugs ever so slightly. “Shooting things usually helps.”

Natasha tries not to scowl like a child. As if she wouldn’t be there right now if she could get away with it. “I’m on supervised arms training.”

This time, Maria does smile, though Natasha thinks she’d have missed it if she blinked. “Not from tomorrow,” she says plainly, and Natasha can only watch her walk away without another word.

The door closes behind her, and Natasha lets herself furrow her eyebrows as deeply as she likes. She is overtly aware that she is not being let off of supervised training tomorrow. She’s aware that she has been seen as a weapon and an explosive since the moment Clint forgot that he was meant to shoot her. Somehow, she doesn’t think that Maria is one to tease.

It makes it very hard to punch things as effectively as she’d like to when she can only think after Maria. She wonders what keeps her up at night. She wonders what else she does to get rid of the shadows. She wonders why on earth she would let her off of the hook so early. For all they know, Natasha might decide to defect back. She might’ve been biding her time until she could get a hand on one of those guns outside of the range. She’d never even dream of it, of course. She’d rather be supervised for every split second a gun is in her hands for the rest of her life than have to go back to her life before. She wonders just how deep Maria managed to dig. She wonders if she really is all that transparent after all.

She finds herself in Clint’s quarters again as thoughtlessly as breathing. Every spare minute in her schedule that lines up with his, she’ll spend hiding from the rest of the world. This time, she’s sitting in his chair, her knees resting against the edge of his desk so that she can spin it slightly from side to side. Clint is behind her in his bunk, his arms tucked up behind his head and his eyes closed. It’s only 2pm. Natasha wishes she could have a nap too.

“Is she always like that?” she says on a whim, her thoughts still stuck on tired eyes and snap decisions.

“Like what?” Clint asks, completely brushing over her lack of context.

“So…intense.”

“Ah, we’re back on Hill. Yes.” He falls silent again, and Natasha listens to his breath. “Hold on.” His eyes open and his head turns on his pillow to face her. “Did you meet her? When?”

“This morning.”

“You were at the range this morning.”

“Before that.”

“You were asleep before that.” She doesn’t answer, and that tells him everything in as little effort as possible. “Natasha.”

She doesn’t meet his eye. “It’s better than moping.”

“You don’t need to mope. You can come wake me up.”

“But then you don’t sleep.”

“Tasha, do you really think I’m sleeping well either half the time?”

She stays silent again, staring intently at the dimples Clint’s chair has made in the carpet.

“How did you even find her?” he asks eventually, giving up the argument for the countless time. “She’s practically booked to the minute.”

“She was in the gym when I got there.”

“I’m going to skip over the fact that you’d rather punch something until you bleed than come and bug me. Was it worth it? Was she all sweaty and hot? Did you two finally canoodle in person?”

She doesn’t dignify his jokes with a response, her thoughts plain in her expression. “I don’t think she sleeps well either. She looked tired.”

Clint grins a little. “You paying attention to her face?”

Natasha scowls at him. “It’s normal to look someone in the eye.”

“Mhm…” He retucks his arms under his head, settling back against his pillow. “It’s for sure normal to think about them all morning.”

“She took me off of probation,” she says, almost in a rush, like maybe this will change the subject – maybe a little bit like she’s admitting something.

“Oh you definitely have a crush on her. It’s like she’s trying to get in your pants. Remind me never to read your emails.”

Natasha only squints at him, wishing once again that she had something appropriate to throw. The urge distracts her enough that she never does reject the notion. And when she finds herself imagining Maria’s secret little smile in those few and far casual emails, she decides that Clint doesn’t need to know. She’s not been given many chances in her life, and she thinks she could make space in her life for two instead of one. She wonders if Maria would ever want a gym buddy on long nights and promptly decides not to think any deeper into it.

#words #tumblr exclusive #prompts #blackhill #natasha romanoff #maria hill #clint barton

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wetcatspellcaster · 11 days

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I hope this isn't too personal. If it is, I apologize and you can obviously ignore it! But you've mentioned how there was a period where you were going through some stuff and stopped writing. I had the same thing happen, and things are better (yay for both of us getting through Stuff), but my writing still hasn't come back, and it's been years. I know you said BG3 itself helped bring it back, but did you do anything to help force yourself back into writing mode? Just wondering if you had any tips or anything. Thanks!

hey anon, I'm really sorry to hear that you're struggling to write. I'm going to do my best to answer but I've found writers block to be a highly personal thing so I'm not sure what I did works for everyone!

I've had two periods of writing block - one was years long due to having a high pressure university degree and then general life stuff after (18-26) the other was due to depression and something in a fandom upsetting me to the point where I didn't want to interact anymore.

So the first piece of advice I have is, work out what the root cause of the issue is, and address it! Which sucks! It's basically therapy! It feels very silly to even be advising it. But for my first writers block I realised I was putting too much pressure on myself - I wanted everything I wrote to be Meaningful and Perfect - so I devised the silliest and most entertaining writing project I could ever imagine for myself and got rid of expectation, and this broke through the block entirely. I began thinking of writing as a hobby I do for fun rather than a vocation or future profession, etc. I came to this drug late, so people who've been writing fic for longer probably won't find that novel - but I did! For the second issue, I took a break and then I readjusted how I interact with fandom. I probably seem quite antisocial at times to others, but I've just changed my boundaries to make it so I'm comfortable and so I keep writing. I realised that I didn't like the grounds on which I'd been operating on ao3 so I changed them - the block shifted again.

Often, it's not the writing that you're struggling with, necessarily, it's something else in the mix that's preventing you from doing it. See if you can find out what that is!

The second part of your question is 'how do you force writing back'... I don't think you can, honestly. Placing pressure on yourself, I've found, always backfires. But my advice for getting started writing again after a break is as follows:

Make a really fun project, as silly or cringe or self-indulgent as possible. Something you are genuinely excited about putting down on paper. Something that feeds you specifically. from a favourite maladaptive daydream, to a silly one shot, to a laundry list of all your favourite fictional things.

If you feel like you literally can't write sentences, bullet point something instead. This means that you won't feel guilt about losing the idea you've had, but also i've found that whenever I return to bullet points, it's easier to start writing bc it's not a blank page. Whatever your notes are, I promise they will be useful. If you write them in a low energy time and come back to them at a higher energy time, even better, bc past-you has literally set up a little springboard for you once you have the bandwidth to jump!

Reduce pressure. This one is very personal so it'll seem vague. Reducing pressure could be not publishing anything until it's finished. Reducing pressure could be publishing or sharing with friends immediately, so you get support and motivation to help you keep going and don't feel like you're working alone. Reducing pressure could be to pick the easiest project you have first, so you do something that maybe feels simplistic at the time, but it helps you build confidence for facing more ambitious projects later.

I don't know if any of that is helpful, but I've honestly found that for me, keeping writing as fun as possible has been what allows me to keep doing it. Any time I feel anxiety or stress creeping in, I try to remind myself of that by any means necessary.

#asks #anons

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made-ofmemories · 28 days

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20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @jesuiscenseedormir

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

153,084

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Actively writing for 9-1-1 at the moment. Have written for many others in the past.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

All of these are 911 + Buddie or background Buddie

You can feel it on the way home (You are in love) || words: 23k || T || Buck moves in with Eddie after the loft is destroyed

I built a home (for you, for me) || words: 6k || T || Eddie shows up to work wearing one of Buck's shirts. Assumptions are made and revelations are had.

Just go with it || words: 9k || T || the 5 times someone thinks Buck is Chris' dad + the 1 time it's official

What's up with A shift || words: 3k || T || A shift knows no peace. B shift live in fear of the day they have to cover for them.

Feels like home || words: 1.5k || G || In which Buck stays for dinner, Eddie decides to be brave, and Chris just wants to do his homework in peace.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm allergic to sad endings so I don't really have any, but I'd probably say Eddie is in the room, just because of the nature of that fic but it still has a somewhat happy hopeful ending it's just closer to angst than anything else I've written

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them? I'd probably say Just go with it, because the entire last segment of that one is very domestic bliss kinda vibes

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't so far

9. Do you write smut?

No, I'm not against it I just prefer writing other things and haven't written a fic where it felt necessary

10. Craziest crossover?

Marvel, The Walking Dead and Supernatural for a crack fic exchange I used to do with my friends every Christmas

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once years ago but by the time I was alerted, it had been dealt with

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I'm open to it

13. Have you co-written a fic before?

Yeah I write with @ladydorian05 all the time!

14. All time favorite ship?

Favorite at the moment is Buddie but I don't know what my favorite of all time is, it changes too much

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will

I have a tendency to go back to stuff after months of ignoring it so I'm never really sure. I also have a lot of stuff I know I won't finish but don't really want to right now either I'd say the one I'm having the most trouble with right now is a 5+1 of the 5 times the 118 bet on Buck and Eddie getting together + the 1 time someone wins the bet just because I feel like there's lots of ways for it to go wrong and I keep overthinking it. I also have a fic about Buck, Bobby and Chris at the zoo that I'd love to finish but I never have any ideas to flesh it out with so I never write it

16. What are your writing strengths?

Fluff. Probably fluff.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with dialogue, correct punctuation and I also tend to be very overdramatic and cheesy especially if I'm writing angst

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language

Love it but I try to avoid it unless I'm working with someone who is fluent in said language

19. First fandom you wrote for

Supernatural probably but I don't remember exactly

20. Favorite fic you've written

An unlikely friend from the Eddie Diaz and the Universal Cat Distribution system series It was purely self indulgent and I really had a lot of fun writing it, I also enjoyed the process of trying to write something that took place alongside canon for the majority of the time

Tagging: @loveyouanyway @nmcggg @ladydorian05 @inell @agirllovespancakes

#tag game

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bettsfic · 5 months

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hi betts! thx for writing free ride, its one of my fav. i sent this bcz of your a/n at the end of chap 2: "I don't know where communist frat boy Sejanus or lowkey yandere Lucy Gray came from but they are here and they aren't leaving." im always afraid of characters running on their own when i try to write a fic. im afraid they wont be in character anymore if i let them be. so i try to be careful and meticulous, but instead it stops me from writing. have u ever tried to stop charas when they run on their own because they end up not in character? how do you do characterisation when you write a fic?

whenever i get an ask about how to stay IC, in my heart i'm wiping a cartoonish drop of sweat from my brow and stepping in front of a mountain of comments accusing me of OOC.

it's interesting to me that anxiety about writing OOC comes from a proprietary feeling toward existing characters. both our own proprietary feeling which grants us the interest in writing fanfic about them, but also the reader's proprietary feelings which lead them to go "he wouldn't fucking say that."

there's a paradox there, though. many of us write fic to be self-indulgent. self-indulgence means prioritizing the ideal. the ideal sometimes means taking characters away from their canon selves in order to fit the story we're writing.

my whole motivation for Free Ride is wanting to see how coriolanus would be different growing up in contemporary american capitalism. canonically, he's a tyrant. but we have no idea why or how, in canon, north america became panem. panem is not a free market economy; there's not even evidence coriolanus knows what capitalism is. controlling commerce is one of his greatest anxieties. the idea that the capitol could be once again cut off from necessary imports is what leads him to make virtually every decision he makes in both tbosas and thg. so i think he would detest the idea of a free market, but he would never be a socialist.

which is all to say, a lot of the fic i've written these past few years have been kind of "what if" character studies in lieu of writing meta. with that being the goal, i'm less concerned about the characterization of anyone else. suzanne collins set me up well with developing characters who have a strong voice; ultimately, when people say "he wouldn't fucking say that" i think they mean "he wouldn't fucking say that in that way." in the case of tbosas, with the film and book being so different in terms of characterization, i feel there's a bit of leniency anyway. i'm writing book coriolanus with movie lucy gray and sejanus.

also, i think part of the fun of fanfic is selling your characterization. "yandere lucy gray" is a kind of thesis statement and the fic, i hope, backs up that interpretation. sans fearing for her life, i think lucy gray would be a bored twentysomething who feels like a big fish in a little pond and is eager to indulge in the kind of intensity she craves. canonically, i think you can argue they bring out the worst in each other. consciously, i'd gone into this fic eager to see how coriolanus would develop in this particular circumstance. unconsciously, lucy gray and sejanus's voices developed on their own around the premise.

there have been a few situations where i wrote characters in the entirely wrong direction before catching myself. i think i had about 40k of Digging for Orchids written when i realized i'd written xie lian wrong. i imparted on him my own interpretation of a happy ending. i can't really wrap my head around ambition or the drive for fame, so initially he came to accept his fall from grace and moved on from acting. but i remembered that canonically he's a god and his story is about ascension. in a modern au, household name fame is what would make him happiest. so i had to go back a ways and write in a different direction so i could give him the ending he deserved, even if it's not something i would ever choose for myself.

which is all to say, it's important to acknowledge that what you want for your story and what is "right" (in this case, IC) may sometimes be at odds with each other. sometimes what you want is more important, because that's why you're writing in the first place. but sometimes you can have what you want and also stay IC. in the case of Free Ride, i could write you a paper on the choices i made about coriolanus's characterization. i have dozens of annotations in my copy of tbosas interpreting his canon behavior in a modern context. but my only support for communist frat boy sejanus is that i think it's very funny and also the movie totally mangled his character so i feel slightly more justified in making him who i need him to be for the story.

write the story you want to read. once it's written, you can go back and figure out if some piece of characterization isn't sitting right with you. in writing, all things can be fixed. and if you don't feel like fixing them, you don't have to. it's your story.

#writing advice #characterization #free ride #dfo

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rorywritesjunk · 7 months

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For these foamy green hills are but saltwater desert

Richie, Mohji's lion, isn't doing so well. The crew end up at a small island with a dwindling population to seek help and Buggy meets Midori, the mayor who is far more stubborn and trusting with his crew than he can really comprehend.

Rating: PG-13, gonna have smut at some point later though. Warnings: Buggy being obnoxious, of course. I'd call this a fast paced slow burn. It takes the place over the course of the week and days are split into two chapters. There's also some drama and other pirates. A/N: Full confession. I honestly wrote this because I have been watching the anime and Richie is one of the best characters. Do I know a lot about the anime? No. Is some of this chaotic and characters OOC? Of course! It's a fanfic. Is it self indulgent? Hell yes. I had fun writing this and wanted to share it. Also, I wrote this more with anime!Buggy in mind since we don't get to see Richie in the live action. Title comes from the song "Dryad's Promise" by Tricky Pixie.

Chapter 3

Day 2 pt 1

Buggy woke up the next morning to the most horrific screaming coming from the barn. He heard the roaring from Richie, and he quickly threw the covers off his bed and rushed outside wearing just his pants, hoping he wasn’t about to come across something gruesome. Midori couldn’t have seriously gone to see Richie without anyone, right? He knew Mohji was staying in the barn with the lion, but that idiot was a heavy sleeper. He wouldn’t hear Richie wake up, or hear the barn door, and probably wasn’t aware his lion was eating their host.

He ran to the barn as fast as he could, a look of horror on his face as he saw Richie on top of Midori. She was thrashing around underneath him, trying to fight him off, no doubt being stubborn about dying from a lion attack.

But as Buggy got up to them, the screams were now giggles and Richie was no longer roaring but purring, nuzzling his large face against Midori, nearly crushing her into the ground. She was trying to push him off while laughing, grabbing at his ears playfully and giving them a tug.

“You silly cat, get off me!” She insisted as he gave her a face lick before finally getting off her. She stuck her tongue out at him and wiped her face with her sleeve. “C’mon, I know you’re excited. I got a cow in the small pasture around the barn for you.”

“What the hell is this?!” Buggy shouted, startling them both. Richie hid behind Midori. It was almost comical if Buggy didn’t think he was about to deal with a corpse a few minutes before that. “Y-You could have been killed!”

“I woke up to him yowling.” Midori explained way too calmly as she reached back to rub Richie’s nose. “I guess Mohji is a heavy sleeper, huh? Poor kitty wanted out of the barn so I came down to let him out. I guess he’s already feeling better because he practiced his pouncing on me.”

Buggy couldn’t wrap his brain around this. Richie, that fearsome lion, playfully attacking Midori like he was some little kitten? And she was fine with it? She survived the crushing weight of the large creature and laughed about it. This woman was insane and Buggy wasn’t sure if he could handle an entire week in her home.

Midori led Richie around the barn and Buggy followed after her. He could see the grass stains and mud all over her nightgown, and there were some leaves sticking out of her hair. Richie perked up seeing the cow in the pasture. The cow wasn’t old enough to be on her last legs, but she had definitely seen better days. Midori opened the pasture gate for him and he crept in, body low to the ground as he began to stalk his prey. She shut the gate and started heading back to the house, Buggy following after her in a stunned silence.

She let him into her house first and put her hand on his lower back to direct him to the kitchen table to sit. Besides sleeping or eating, this was the quietest he had been so far. And to her surprise, he allowed her to touch him, her hand grabbing his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze before she made her way to the stove. He wanted to feel that again, her hand on his bare skin like that, but he shook his head to clear it. No, no. He couldn’t think that way. Instead his hand grabbed hers, and she turned to face him, expecting to see it unattached from his body, but it was him grabbing her, pulling her back toward him as he narrowed his eyes at her.

“You could have been killed.” He told her gruffly. “What would have happened to your village if their mayor was killed by pirates? Huh?”

She didn’t pull away from him, instead focusing her gaze on his eyes. She swallowed heavily and shrugged. “I don’t fear your lion, nor do I fear you. If he had attacked me with intent to kill then it would have happened and your crew could have full reign of this place, doing whatever you please, but since that overgrown kitten trusts me for some reason, as does Mohji, I had no fear of him when I saw him this morning.” She finally pulled away from him. “Why did you come running in a panic?”

“B-Because I didn’t want to have to deal with your corpse first thing in the morning!” He told her angrily, his voice wavering as the adrenaline coursing through his body finally crashed. He fell back into his chair, almost slumping down to the ground if Midori hadn’t caught him and pushed him back into it. She used her body to keep him up, hands gripping the seat on either side of his thighs while she stood between his legs. She carefully moved one of her hands off the seat and reached up to pat his cheek gently. She hoped no one came up to the window or door at that moment because it was certainly an interesting sight. Buggy, shirtless and slumped back in a chair while she hovered over him in just a nightgown.

“Buggy? Captain?” She asked softly. “You okay? I didn’t mean to scare you, don’t die on me in here from… whatever it is you can die from. Shock, frustration? I don’t even know.” She sighed and patted his cheek a little harder. “C’monnnnn.”

He grabbed her hand and moved it away from his face with an annoyed huff. “Stop that. I’m not dead.”

Buggy took a moment to realize what was going on. She was almost in his lap. Her one hand was still gripping the side of his chair next to his thigh while her other hand was near his face. She was still between his legs, and he was feeling a bit uncomfortable with how close she was. The nightgown she was wearing was a thin material, he could feel her body heat, almost comforting, but he didn’t want to be that close to her. He pushed her away from him and looked away.

“I’m fine.” He muttered. Midori studied him for a moment, wanting to be sure he really was okay before she went to the stove to heat up some water for coffee. “I’ve been here barely one day and you’ve almost killed me once. Do I have to worry about my life when I’m around you?”

She looked back at him. Was this an attempt at humor and making conversation? Midori opened the cupboard to grab two mugs down from the shelf, but his hand beat her to it, setting them on the counter for her. She shrugged as she made sure they were clean of dust. “Hopefully not. I’ll try not to accidentally kill you by petting Richie or overfeeding you.” She grinned as she looked inside one of the mugs before wiping it again. “No promises, Captain.”

He put his elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand as he watched her. “Y’don’t have to keep calling me Captain… you’re not on my crew.”

“Yea?” Midori grinned. “I can call you Buggy then?”

“Only when we’re alone.” He warned her. “Around the crew it’s still Captain.”

“What about around Richie?” She asked with a cheeky grin. He glared at her and pointed his finger at her, waving it at her as to make a point.

“Even around Richie!”

“Fine, fine.” She chuckled. “I’ll make sure to mind my tongue, Buggy.”

The crew had yet to drink the place dry and they had now been there 24 hours. Buggy finally recovered from the morning’s excitement, and he chewed Mohji out regarding keeping a better eye on Richie. The lion had definitely perked up since arriving on the island, and with Mohji’s assistance, Midori had the townsfolk - all 14 of them - come up to meet Richie, with the understanding that he was there to recuperate and he wouldn’t bother them or their animals.

Buggy stood nearby with his arms crossed, glowering at the group as Midori hoisted a small child up to pet Richie. The lion basked in the attention and Mohji had a huge smile on his face, no doubt relieved at his friend’s improving condition.

“Okay, that was all, everyone!” Midori announced. “Thank you for coming to the town meeting. I’ll see you at the end of the week for the feast!”

Several of the crew perked up at the mention of the word ‘feast’. They were leaving at the end of the week, would they get to participate? The mayor noticed the way they were looking at her and she laughed. “I’ll make sure we have enough food for you guys as well. It’s a fun thing we do every few months, and it’s even better since we have guests!” She looked over at Buggy. “If that’s alright with you, of course, Captain. I would like to extend an invite to your entire crew for the feast.”

He grumbled and looked away, not making eye contact with any of them, even though the crew was looking at him with the same expression Richie and Mohji gave him the day before about staying on land. “Fine, fine! We’ll come to the feast.”

The crew cheered. Midori smiled.

Buggy took time to explore the island by himself. It wasn’t large by any means and he couldn’t see any way to get lost. There were trees, some hills, and a stream that ran through it from one end to the other. There were birds and small critters that ran about, but no predators, unless he counted Richie who he saw no less than five times, running around the trees excitedly with Mohji nowhere to be seen. Since Midori allowed Richie free reign of the island, it allowed Mohji some time to himself. Buggy didn’t think his first mate needed time to himself, but apparently he did, because he was nowhere to be seen in the forest while Richie sniffed at some birds that were perched on a log.

Buggy sighed and kept walking.

The mayor was also on his mind and he… he didn’t like that. He didn’t want to think about her. He couldn’t understand her. Why was she insistent on staying on the island even if everyone else left? She mentioned a family was planning on leaving, literally taking away half of the island’s population. What kept her from wanting to leave, and why did it bother him so much?

She was ridiculously stubborn as well, not to mention an idiot from what happened that morning with Richie. She was too trusting around the animal, and far too trusting around Buggy and his crew. They were pirates, they were supposed to be terrifying, but they just got invited to a feast at the end of the week like it was nothing.

And then being in her nightgown this morning around him, touching him, checking on him, making sure he was okay when she was the one knocked on her back by the giant cat. He hated how warm she felt next to him, and he wondered if she felt that way all the time or was it just from the excitement of the morning? What would it feel like to be skin to skin with her, wake up next to her in bed, touch her-

He stopped in his tracks and slapped his cheeks repeatedly. He was not thinking of someone he just met like that. He let out a frustrated shriek and kicked a rock out of his path. He was supposed to be exploring and relaxing, not thinking about her. She frustrated him, challenged him, and he couldn’t believe how much stubbornness was inside one person. He didn’t want to even have another conversation with her because he would just get frustrated by her again.

Maybe he needed to stay on the ship for the remainder of their stay, but then he wouldn’t get the meals she made, and she was a decent cook. He wondered how she felt about him, though. She said she didn’t fear him, was that true or was it just talk? She seemed more… amused by him than anything, no way intimidated by his actions or how he spoke to her. She just giggled or laughed, and admittedly, he was getting used to her laugh by now. She did it as much as talking.

He hated that he was already getting used to this place after a day.

#buggy the clown #buggy the clown x reader #buggy the clown x you #buggy x you #buggy x reader #buggy the clown x oc #buggy x oc

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blazehedgehog · 1 month

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Would you claim that Sonic as a whole has more than just subjective personal merit, that it is more than just "a fun franchise to escape in from the troubles of life"? Does it have any "objective" meaning in the sense a great work of art has or is it just a fun blue hedgehog and nothing more?

This is going to sound rude, but: I don't care?

This is buried in my inbox a bit, but I remember there being a line of questions I got last year that seemed to be from someone who was either experiencing a crisis of faith with their sense of belonging within the Sonic fandom, or were trying to poke at me to see if I had any misgivings.

And this feels like another one of those asks from someone who is fishing for an answer along the lines of "Why do you care so much?"

In romance there's always this talk of "love at first sight." You see a person and you just know that your search is over, their the one, and you'll devote yourself to them no matter what.

I'd argue that happens for a lot of things. Not that you think of something in romantic terms, but that you find the right thing at the right time in your life and there's an instant connection. You can't really explain it because consciously you don't know. There's something deeper that feeds a part of your soul you aren't even aware of.

Like, I know food metaphors are really basic, but you know how sometimes you get an intense craving for something? That can be your body signalling that "hey, we're getting low on iron, could you eat, like, a big meaty hamburger for us?"

Your brain doesn't know that. There is no sign that lights up in your head that specifically says, in human English, "consume more iron." You don't know what's really going on, just that you can't stop thinking about a specific type of food that is rich in a vitamin or mineral your body needs more of. So while you, personally, in your head your only thought is "man that burger tasted amazing, I really needed that" the rest of your body is receiving a critical shipment of some vital element it needed for comfortable operation and technically you're none the wiser that the two were connected.

My point in all of this is not that you're an idiot and I'm somehow superior or that we should dig deep to discover the meanings of what our feelings are really telling us...

My point is that sometimes you want a thing, so you should have the thing. That's it. That's all. It doesn't have to be complicated. As long as you're not doing anything unhealthy, you should fulfill your needs, because they are needs for a reason. And sometimes, if you stop and try really hard to unpack and diagnose why you want the mysteries of your wants, you open the door to all kinds of other problems.

Let's go back to an iron deficiency. How do you detect that? With a blood test. You take a certain number of milliliters of blood, there's probably blotting paper involved, maybe a centrifuge, and you're given a blood cell count. You can't do that on your own.

If you try to self-diagnose iron deficiency at home, you could end up chasing shadows, getting it wrong, and never even know it. For months, maybe years, maybe your entire life. You need to see a doctor, and then the doctor prescribes vitamins or whatever.

You... can't... really do that with emotions. You can't go to a doctor, ask "Why do I like Sonic the Hedgehog? Is there a deeper meaning?" and get a medically consistent answer. A therapist can speculate, they can point you in directions, make suggestions of what it could be, and in the end they may even be correct. But maybe they aren't. And what works for one person might not work for another.

There is no Sonic the Hedgehog deficiency test.

I am of the type where, since it's not an affliction and is just fandom funnies, I don't think about it too hard. I just ride the wave, enjoy it for what it is, and let my brain indulge in the simple pleasure of going "wheeeeeee" without any consequences. It can just be what it is.

Is there a deeper meaning? Probably, yeah. Nature versus technology, kids versus adults, fantasy versus science, adrenaline versus sedentary. There's a lot of interpretations.

And for me, I've mentioned it before, but my dad was a drag racer. I never knew him much for a variety of different (mostly sad) reasons, but he owned and maintained his own car named "Ol' Yeller" that he used to compete in local events (his was hot rod modded Chevy Belair). When it came to what he spent his money on, he put it into going fast. Which, even if he never could consciously impart that on me, seems to have manifested in other ways.

I have never been a fan of trying to coax meaning out of places where there might not be any. Sometimes you just want to go fast and bop a funny robot, and whatever urges that satisfies in my brain, I don't care much to unpack it, because I'd rather be going fast and bopping robots, you know?

#questions #Anonymous #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team

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blackjackkent · 5 months

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OK, intrigued by the ambient dialogue happening at the next booth.

First of all the answer is yes. Second of all, this is either going to be hilarious or awkward as hell. Let's find out which.

"This city of stone and steel is an endless scream in nature's womb. I have felt no peace here. Until now."

Hello to you too, ma'am.

I'm not entirely sure what this lady's deal is (apparently she's a dryad?) but she has a very ethereal voice and VERY carefully positioned Boob Leaves.

She looks at Hector with great interest, in a dreamy sort of way. "Your eyes, stira. There is pain, endless and deep. But also devotion - blazing like the sun. You're in love, aren't you?"

I think Hector feels more than a little awkward about this. He's not averse to PDA with Karlach (cf. the clown kiss from a few posts ago), but his relationship isn't the sort of thing he would normally discuss casually with strangers.

However, Karlach has been grinning away at everything and trying to get him into the spirit of things at the festival, and she gives him a nudge in the ribs encouragingly. So he answers, somewhat sheepishly, "I do love someone. Someone close to me, actually." He shoots a look at Karlach sideways and grins slightly.

"You are wise to admit it," the dryad murmurs with a nod. "When it comes to love, vulnerability is armor. Truth, a sword. And trust, a shield. I pray you wield all three, stira."

Hector nods very seriously. He tries very hard to bring all three of those to his time with Karlach, and he knows she does the same.

"Bring the one you love to me," the dryad continues. "I will look into your hearts and see if your love is eternal, or doomed eternally."

Hector shifts uncomfortably. After the business with Akabi he has no doubt this is also a scam, and yet he would not wish even in jest to hear this woman place doubt on his love for Karlach or hers for him.

(A/N: You can call up any of your party to participate (or go get someone from camp) here, regardless of relationship status. Out of curiosity, I tried Jaheira and Shadowheart before moving on to Karlach.

Jaheira: "Hm? Oh, the dryad is comely enough - but you? Don't poke at questions you don't want the answer to, cub."

LMAO. Man, it's a lucky thing Hector's self-image is not tied up in his appearance because it's getting DUNKED on today.

Shadowheart does accept and just says dryly, "Love, is it? I didn't realize I'd bowled you over that much. Go ahead, impress me."

Anyway, moving on to Hector's ACTUAL love - realistically I don't think Hector would, on his own, engage with this, but Karlach is very excited about the circus and wants to see everything and thinks it's in good fun. So this is very much Hector catching the expression on her face and indulging her. XD )

"This could be fun, Karlach," he says mildly. "What do you think?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" she says excitedly, trotting up next to him. "Let's do it."

Look at these cuties.

"Close your eyes, little ones," the dryad says softly. "Be still as stone to earth. And remember to breathe."

Hector grins slightly to himself and closes his eyes. This is old hat to him, like meditation in the monastery. He closes his eyes, centers himself, breathes in, lets it out slowly.

And to his surprise, he feels the air change around him, a pale white light suffusing around his body... and when he opens his eyes, they are somewhere different, or perhaps somewhere within.

It is beautiful - a sun-lit waterfall down into a slow-flowing river, crossed by a log bridge; he stands at one end, Karlach at the other. She looks at him with a grin, bemused but comfortable.

This is more elaborate than he was expecting, and he fidgets uncomfortably again, then stills himself deliberately.

The dryad is standing nearby on the edge of the river and looks at them curiously.

"Ah," she says. "Glorious. Your bond is sweeter than nature's dew. I see you. Know you. But do you know one another?"

Hector blinks questioningly. He knows Karlach, yes - likely better than he knows any other soul. He is far more comfortable with that than he is with the strange dryad claiming to know him. But he says nothing, just waits.

"Karlach," the dryad says thoughtfully. "Her fire within can incinerate an enemy or warm a beloved. Listen. Think. Who does she loathe above all others?" Her voice takes on an abrupt, strange edge.

Hector's jaw works. There are two obvious candidates for the correct answer here - Zariel and Gortash. And he is not really sure, if asked, which Karlach would say she (or he) loathes more.

"Zariel," he finally says slowly.

"She's the worst of the worst," Karlach agrees, grinning at him. "I suppose a devil can't help her nature, but she's got a really godsdamn bad nature."

Hector feels himself drawn forward slightly, a little further along the log bridge towards her.

"Your bond beats in pleasure," the dryad says brightly. "It is an honor to behold. Many things delight the heart, but only one makes it sing. Tell me - what is her idea of a perfect day?"

(A/N: I know why they can't but it's a bummer Karlach doesn't get to answer a Hector pop quiz too. XD )

Hector blushes a little because he knows the answer but saying it out loud is something else. "Bashing baddies interspersed with victory sex," he says with a soft chuckle.

Karlach's grin widens. "You know me too well," she answers, with a wink that makes his blush deepen.

He takes another few steps towards her, halfway across the bridge now.

"Our touch has been of sunlight," the dryad intones. "But now we must look beyond. To the uncertain. To the future. A decade from now, what will the mighty Karlach do? Where will she be?"

Hector's smile fades and he goes very still. The brightness of the sun around them seems to dim abruptly, the noise of the waterfall receding.

He remembers Dammon's words back at Last Light, telling Karlach that she cannot survive indefinitely without returning to Avernus. He remembers Karlach, afire with determination, asserting her independence - that she would rather die than go back there.

He remembers telling her, "But I want you to live."

And he remembers her answer. "I want to live too - but not under any circumstances."

He swallows, meets her eyes and forces the words out, because they are honest, and he would not do her the disrespect of pretending she has not said what she said.

"Probably dead," he says hoarsely.

He sees the flash of understanding in her eyes, and regret. But then she grins, shakes it off. "Honestly," she says cheerfully, "probably. But hopefully not any time soon. I've got a *lot* of living to do yet."

He feels his heart twist in his chest. Is she laughing it off because there is a stranger's eyes on them? Or does she really think so little of the possibility of that thing inside her burning her up, of leaving him alone...

She crosses the remaining space on the bridge towards him and looks into his eyes, her expression softening. He tries to read the expression in her gaze but it is surprisingly complex; he can't quite tell what she's thinking.

"You really know me, don't you?" she says softly. "It's wild. In so many ways, we barely know each other. But where it counts, you're deeper in my head than the tadpole."

He smiles slightly. That, at least, is true enough. He reaches out, squeezes her hand gently. They will need to talk later, he thinks. Some things have been sitting undiscussed for too long. But this has, if nothing else, been a pleasant reminder of how close they are, of what she means to him.

"I press my finger to your bond," the dryad intones, "and find a shield. Impenetrable. It is... beautiful."

There's a rushing feeling around them, and suddenly they are back on the rickety circus platform, with the noise of voices all around them.

"Go in peace, seedlings. And know that you made one whose heart was long quiet beat with love anew."

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #ok that was more elaborate than i expected :P #and kind of sweet but also OW #definitely some fodder for a drabble soon i think #also kind of wish Karlach wasn't wearing the face paint for this :P

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