#working on the next chapter of my fic will be cathartic after this

[lafaiette]

I finally found Pen's Chinese romance lines :')

(You can find more comparisons here and here by the way)

First, something sweet to start with: Jasmine calls Pen, Burgess, and Miguel "uncle"! (叔叔)

Jasmine to Andy: Uncle Peng Hu thinks he's the most beautiful man in the world. We can secretly put a mirror in his room, so he'll look at it all day long and we can sneak out to play!

And now, I'll start with the Romance Quest - I included only the Chinese version of the dialogue happening after giving him the Heart Knot, because the post is already pretty long!

Chinese: Well... little weakling, you gave me this Heart Knot. I thought about it seriously... You have always been nice to me. You often praise me, give me gifts, and help me run errands everywhere. Maybe I have really found the one, the most special person to me. Someone who loves me as much as I love myself! Oh, this is so surprising to me... Little weakling, before we go further with our current relationship, I have to speak with you. I have to make sure you are sincere to me! Everyone knows that I am a golden bachelor. If you are with me just to show off and make yourself look good at some workshop awards ceremony, I will not allow it! What I want is true love... And I still have to understand if my fascination with you is not just for your body, but also for your personality… Yes, that's right. All this time, I called you "little weakling", not because of contempt for your figure, but because I couldn't take my eyes away when I saw your small body without muscles. It’s like seeing an uncultivated land with unlimited room for exercise. It’s so charming! There is only one way to test whether there is love between us... and that is - Fighting! An adrenaline-filled battle! Drenched in sweat, bloody, and bare-knuckled! Yes, the fastest way to get to know someone is to fight with them! Builder: 1) Then let’s go! -> Pen: Good! Let's meet tomorrow at the gate of the Paradise Lost ruins. Let's fight side by side to destroy those robots from the corrupt era and beat fierce drumbeats on their remains with our fists! I’ll go first! Remember to wear protective gear and be prepared. All for romance! Builder: 2) After falling in love... shouldn't you go on a date? -> Pen: Haha, that's what ordinary people do. I don't care for those old-fashioned ways of falling in love. Only when fighting can I feel truly alive! Builder: 3) But we have already fought many times... -> Pen: Many times?! It's never enough! I'm a fighting expert! For me, this is true love, nothing else but pure fighting and strong love!

Meeting Pen in front of Paradise Lost: Here you are, little weakling! I've been waiting for you for a long time, and I'm a little bored... Let's not waste time, let's hurry in and kill everyone! Get ready, little weakling! Let's show those robots real fighting skills and send them all the way back to their corrupt era! Not bad, little weakling, you have been exercising recently! Robot, take my blow! Punch! Fighting with you... makes my heart surge! That move is awesome, little weakling! Don't let them escape, leave no one behind! Haha, fighting with you is more exciting than I imagined! The thought of being able to "seal love" with you and fight these robots to confirm our relationship... my heart is beating fast! Let the battle become more intense! Come on, let's go in! Awesome, little weakling! It's been a blast all the way. Now there's only one last step left to make our date today even more perfect - Yes! That's it! A powerful elite monster! Come on, little weakling! Show your fists and give the big robot in this corrupt era the coolest blow! Haha... so refreshing... This feels so right... Little weakling, what do you think? I’m having too much fun today... ha, wait! I got it, the most important step is missing!

English: I'm afraid this moment cannot last forever… We must return to the hustle and bustle of city life… But let us always remember this place. Our lovers cocoon where, for one brief evening, the world was ours... Outside Paradise Lost: Goodbye, my love! Expect to see me again soon… I'll swing by your place later for a major make-out sesh!

Chinese: I really want to stay with you for a while longer! But I have to go protect Sandrock. Let us remember this moment and this feeling. No one can take away the energy of this love... … Goodbye then, my dear! I'm looking forward to seeing you next time …… I will definitely have a more exciting date with you!

English: You fell from a cliff and survived? Did someone help you? Or did you simply claw your way back to safety, and crawl to my feet just to see me again. You truly do love me, don't you? Chinese: You fell off a cliff and came back alive? Could it be that someone more powerful than me saved you? Alas, I missed an opportunity to protect you.

English: Knight, Protector, Enforcer, Big Daddy Love Sponge… I go by many names. Chinese: Besides, Knight is just a title. Guardian, Big Brother, Heart-throb... these are my titles!

English: Alright… fine. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! But… here it is anyway: Miguel totally brainwashed me! Yeah, that's it… He told me, uh, Duvos rules and stuff, and… I was in a bind! I have multiple obligations! Do you have any idea how expensive the holidays are when you're shopping for twelve separate lovers who all think they're my one and only? Plus with Sandrock failing… I had no choice, I needed the money from his scheme… He said if I protect him, he'd give me a portion of his dirty money. Now that I think about it… say, do you think he could be some kind of high level Duvos operative? Certainly seems like it. Not trying to do your job for you or anything, though…

Chinese: Okay, okay, let me tell you... [Player's Name], your pal Peng Hu didn't know anything before he met that bad guy Miguel! Just eat, sleep, and protect the town every day. Until one day he told me that he was working for Duvos, trying to win me over, and saying a lot of things that made sense... I was short of money at that time, so I fell into his trap. Anyway, I am also a part-time worker. What is the difference between working for Sandrock and working for Duvos? Besides, with Sandrock being the way it is, I was saving myself. He asked me to protect him. As long as I did it, I would get a share of the embezzlement money. So I got involved in all this. Could that guy Miguel be a senior member of Duvos? An agent? Maybe he really is! Of course, that's the job of your militia group [Civil Corps], so I won’t say more.

English:

Builder: "How could you do this to me?" Pen: "What can I say, sometimes country trumps love…" Builder: "Please stop…" Pen: "I'm sorry, gotta fulfill my KPI, you understand!" Builder: "I still love you." Pen: "I know." Builder: "You were ugly anyway!" Pen: "Ooph, that might have hurt a mere mortal, but I know you know deep down in your heart that it's not true!" "Hm… to finally face you as my true self… it's invigorating! Now quit playing hard to get, Skinny, and take your place at my side!"

Chinese:

Builder: "How could you do this to me?" Pen: "What else can I do? The Empire is more important than love." Builder: "Don't do this to me..." Pen: "Sorry, [Player's Name]. This is my job, and I have to earn enough performance [points]!" Builder: "I never stopped loving you." Pen: "I know." Builder: "I stopped loving you a long time ago anyway!" Pen: "Haha, that doesn't hurt me. ["That sentence has no deadly effect on me."] Don't deceive your heart, you must still love me deep inside!" "Today I can finally face you with my true identity, and I'm actually very happy. Who doesn't want to be honest with his lover, little weakling? Why don't you come to my side, eh?"

English: I heard from someone in the capital that they experimented on him to make him stronger. Chinese: I heard that someone in the capital specifically conducted experiments on him, that's why he is so strong.

English: Ha! Know one thing about me, Skinny: any declarations I made on behalf of us was true. I make no mistakes, neither in war nor in love. You want proof? Well, it's not like I go around giving everyone nicknames! No… you were special in that regard. Perhaps it was always our destiny to be together… But I'm afraid that thread of fate has been cut short. I have chosen my country over love. Such is the duty of a Duvos Knight. …That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it…?

Chinese: Haha, one good thing about me is that I put real feelings into every relationship. I don't like to give people random nicknames either! Perhaps, ever since the moment I called you little weakling [Skinny Arms], you were destined to be my one and only love. It's just that we're different, and I had to sacrifice our relationship for the greater good of my country. Are you satisfied with this answer?

English: "Goodbye, [Player's Name]. It was... fun. Chinese: Farewell, [Player's Name]. This time it's for real. You're free.

The Protector's description, called "Guardian of Love" in Chinese:

A very delicate bracelet that protects the wearer's wrist. Wearing it gives the wearer a feeling of being emotionally confined. Perhaps this feeling is similar to what Peng Hu often said, "Marriage is a boring bondage".

Pen's letter in Chinese:

Dear [name], I've had a little more time to think lately in this so-called Atara Maximum Prison, and I'm more than a little sorry that I couldn't bring you along to accompany me. Well, it's my fault. Anyway, you are still the most beloved lover I have ever been with, and one of the few that I continue to miss even after a breakup. So, I'm going to forgive you. Yeah - I forgive you.I don't think there's a chance we'll ever be together again. You're just doing what you're supposed to do in your position, so there's nothing to complain about. I should have tried my best to recruit you from the beginning, and it would have been the best way to keep you with me. Of course I don't blame you, you're indeed excellent. I also left you a final challenge. In some ruins, there are a few of my most valuable things, and if you can get them, they're yours. It should be easy to get there, using the tricks I've taught you. My dear little weakling, this is the last time I'll call you that, I believe in your abilities. Remember, don't slack off on your training. We won't meet again. (but 后会无期 can also mean "meeting at an unspecified/unclear date")

WELP, what more can I say :'D

#mtas #mtas pen #my time at sandrock #my time at sandrock pen #the line after coming back from the dead will haunt me at night #in english it's almost cruel #in chinese he does suspect something but it's not as harsh as the english version #also when he and miguel are talking in the secret lair #in chinese pen makes a humming sound of agreement #嗯 #and actually replies to miguel with #“all/everything for the empire” #ISN'T THAT PAINFUL #ISN'T THAT NICE #“what else can I do? the empire is more important than love” #HERE GOES MY HEART #working on the next chapter of my fic will be cathartic after this #because OOOOH BOY #OOOOOOOOOH BOY #also i like the implication that pen had to keep an eye on the kids too

[wetcatspellcaster]

The fact that pieces Astarion can't flirt anymore because it's tainted is hilarious (sad, but hilarious). Like, the man who's whole deal was flirting is now in a self imposed ban and doesn't know how to function other than be the world's most awkward vampire.

But it is heartbreaking just how sad he is. It's a good heartbreaking because his crippling guilt is cathartic after all that was the Ascendant.

Wonderful job on the chapter. Excited for what comes next but obviously take your time

oh my goodness anon, normally I'd just say thank you for the ask and move on to answering the content, but actually this time I want to say thank you. SERIOUSLY. This message and the way you worded it has literally sparked something in my brain and cleared up so many issues I've been having with my draft, and suddenly everything is fixed. Pointing out that I've literally removed one of Astarion's key modes of interacting with the world and that's why things have been feeling OOC has literally cured me of some serious plot tangles. I fucking love fanfic/communities of interpretation, etc. Oh my god, you literally fixed the fic, thank you so much!!!

Anyway, yes, you are correct. Given the fact that the Ascendent has essentially used all Astarion's techniques, up to and including the ones that worked on Rose the first time, I couldn't shake the belief that everything would feel tainted right now. With the dissociation I've described as well, I can't help but feel like watching someone else use your body and your personality without any connection to you whatsoever must exacerbate all those strange feelings Astarion already had about performativity and sex.

These are things I'm trying to tease out in the final act but honestly, you've just put a lot of things into perspective for me. Appreciate it immensely xx

#asks #anons #wip: pieces still stuck in your teeth

[andydrysdalerogers]

Cross-Checked - Chapter 2

Andy Barber x OFC Leighton "Leia" Andrews

Summary:

Andy Barber is having the best year of his life. His game is on point. It’s gets to play with his best friend and his fiancé just... dumped him?!. 

Reeling from a sudden change in status, Andy decides it’s time to just focus on hockey. Until his best friend's sister comes out with news that rock the entire organizations world., 

Andy has always carried a torch for the untouchable Leighton but in her hour of need, is now the time to shoot and score or risk getting cross - checked again? 

Warnings: Cheating (but not by the MCs); slow burn; friends to lovers eventually; SMUT!; pregnancy; jealousy; handsome goalies, evil exes...

A/N: The tag list is open!

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site, even if you give me credit. DO NOT REPOST MY FICS. Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated

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Previous: Its Supposed to Be My Year

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 2 - it's That Last Step – Leighton

All I want to do is get home, take off my bra, FaceTime with Bret and relax.   

I have been in meeting after meeting this week trying to complete the launch of my business “Social Butterfly Promotions.” It has been my dream for years to have my own PR firm, but I made it unique by having it social media specific. It’s amazing how many celebrities and athletes have a presence but can’t compose a tweet to save their career. I’ve been handling Luke and Andy’s social media for a couple of years now and when one of their teammates asked if I would mind handling theirs, the rest was history. The Bruins loved how I handled the PR for their athletes and offered me the position of social media director. It was the dream 

But this has to be the most dramatic week of my life and I wasn’t the one who got screwed over. As I unlock my door, I think back on the last week. I had helped Andy with the packing up of Fiona’s shit from his town home while also helping him decide what stuff he wanted to take to the new house and what he would throw out. 

It was like a weird cathartic exercise. He got rid of his couch and bed, commenting on how there were too many memories. He took all the pictures frames that held the pictures them of through the years, took the pictures out and sent the frames to Fiona.  

He burned the pictures. 

There may have been tequila involved with that decision. 

But today it was Friday, and I was excited. My boyfriend of two years was coming home tomorrow from a business trip and all I wanted was to have him hold me. I was feeling extra clingy today. Probably because I was getting ready to start my cycle. As I pulled into my drive way of the home I shared with Bret, I noticed that his car was already there. I was thrilled; he came home early for me. 

“Baby? I’m home!” I yelled as I walked through the door of our home. 

“Hey sweetheart.” Bret came out of our bedroom but didn’t come up to kiss me. Odd. 

“You’re home early. Is everything ok? The trip go okay? I know you were worried about that.” I smiled hoping that it would ease the tension I was feeling in the room. 

“Trip was fine. Got some big news.” He moved to the living room. I sat next to him, and he took my hand. “You know that promotion I was working for?” 

I nodded. “You were excited to go for the possibility to be the director of the district. Did you get it?” 

“I did.” He smiled but it looked tight. 

“On my god baby congratulations!” I moved to hug him, but he pulled away before I could wrap my arms around him. 

“Lee, the job is in Tokyo.” 

My world stopped spinning and it was getting harder to breathe. “Tokyo. The job is in Tokyo?” 

“Crazy right? And it's not to be the director. They want me to be vice president of the entire division. I will be moving there in two weeks.” 

I sat back, unconsciously moving away from him. “You’ve leaving? You took the promotion without me? Talking without discussing this major life change?” 

“I’m talking to you about it now. Honey, I want you to come with me.” 

Now I’m really losing it. “You want me to move when I just landed my dream job with the Bruins?” The job with the Bruins was something I had been working on for the last couple years. “What about my mom and my brother? can’t just walk away.” 

Bret gave me a condescending smile, like he was patronizing me. “Lee, I could take care of you. You won’t need that silly job with the Bruins.” 

Silly job? Is that what he really thought of the work i was doing?  Without the job, what was i supposed to do? I had to ask, even though i think i know the answer and I know I’m not going to like it.  “What am I supposed to do in Tokyo?” 

“Be a house wife. Take care of the and our future kids just like we talked about.” He said it so matter-of-factly that I was positive he assumed I would just fall over and say yes. But I wouldn’t go down without a fight.  

“Yeah, but we said we would do that in a few years. I wanted to get my social media business off the ground. We had talked about this.” 

Bret did an exacerbated sight. “Look Lee…” 

“Stop calling me that!” I hate that nickname now. Why would he think that I would want to give up my dream for his? “Did you even care about my dreams?” 

“Be realist Leighton,” he said sharply, “starting your own company is hard work and frankly, social media is dying out. It wouldn’t have been successful anyways.” 

That one stung. I worked hard to hold back the tears. “Wow, I guess I really am stupid.” I stood up and made my way back to the door.  

I think Bret sensed that something was not right. “You’re not stupid.” 

“Oh yes I am. Because I stayed with a pompous unsupported asshole like you.” I grabbed my bag and opened the door. “I’ll be back to get my stuff. But just so you know we’re through.” 

He grabbed my arm to stop me, gripping me, pulling me closer to him. “Leighton, come on, be reasonable. I can take care of you. We’ll get married…” 

I broke his hold on me and raised my hand to stop him from advancing. “Whoa that’s how you want to propose?” 

He threw out his arms in frustration. “Why do we need to make a big deal about it?” 

Yeah. I was done. “Goodbye Bret.” I slammed the door and went back to my car. Once I was in, I had no idea where to go. I couldn’t go to my mother's. She loved Bret and would try to convince me to stay with him. I couldn’t go to my brother's because he would just want to murder Bret. That left one option. 

I drove across town and knocked on the one door that would hold a supportive friend. 

“Leia? Are you ok, Princess?” Andy opened the door. My brave face crumples and i began to sob. He didn’t hesitate and pulled me into his arms. 

“Bret is leaving for Tokyo, and he said some awful things and I broke it off and now I have nowhere to go, “I explained between sobs. 

“Okay, okay let it out. Honestly Leia, I only got like every third word so come on in and we’ll have a drink and unpack all of this, ok?” He guided me into his home. 

I knew this was the right place to fall. 

After I was able to calm down, I was able to explain to Andy what had happened with Bret. “Now I need to find a place to live.” 

Andy looked puzzled. “I thought you owned that house with him?” 

I shook my head. “No, I moved into that house. He already owned it.” I wiped at my eyes and see streaks of black on my fingers. Great, i forgot about the mascara and now i look like a racoon in front of Andy fucking Barber. Soldier on, Leighton.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Andy. I can’t go to my mother’s. We will kill each other>” 

Andy chuckled, cheeky bastard. “No, you can’t. What about Luke?” 

“And have him either complain about cramping his style, or try to find him a good lawyer when he commits murder? No thanks.” I covered my face. “This sucks. I thought we were in a good place and understood each other, I thought he under stood my dreams and now I have to pack up my stuff, and a cheap apartment and be on my own.” I flop dramatically on the couch and cover my face with a pillow.. 

Andy looked at me for a few seconds with his captains face on. “I might have a solution for you Leia.” 

“A Time Machine so I don’t make this mistake?” I reply with a muffled voice.  

Andy laughs and lifts the pillow off to look at me. “No, crazy girl. Creative but not an option. I was going to say, why don’t you come live with me?” 

I bolted up. “What?” 

“I have this big house and I’m really not excited to live here by myself. You would be on the road with me, and we would be able to take care of each other. It's perfect Leia.” 

“Don’t you want to, I don’t know, sleep around now that you’re single?” 

He laughed again. “I think I need a break from women. Besides, I have an idea of what kind of partner I want.” He drained his beer. “What do you say Leia? Stay with your best friend and we can heal together?” Then he hit me with puppy eyes. Those big blues look hopeful and goddammit, I sigh. 

“Will I get my own bathroom?” I smiled at him, and he lifted me up and spun me around. 

“This is gonna be great.”  

** Two weeks later… ** 

I was unloading a box from the moving truck when I heard a car door slam. I looked around the truck and saw the devil incarnate. 

“What are you doing here Fiona?” 

Fiona pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, her long blonde hair perfectly styled and makeup immaculate, accentuating her hazel eyes. Ugh, she’s beautiful and I hate her. “I need to speak to Andy.” She looks at my boxes.  “What are you doing?” 

“Moving in.” I turned my back to the she-devil. “Andy! Lucifer's mistress is here!” 

“Nice,” she sneered with a roll of her eyes. Andy came out with a scowl when he saw Fiona. I scooted into the house but found a spot where I could listen and watch. Yes, I’m nosy, whatever. 

He crossed his arms to stand in front of her. “What are you doing here Fiona?” 

She pouted a little. Bitch. “I wanted to talk to you Andy.”  

“I have nothing to say to you. You can leave now.” Andy turned to walk away. 

“After three years and that’s how we’re going to end it?” 

Andy stopped in his tracks. He turned around slowly. “How I’m ending it? Really?” She started to back pedal, but Andy stopped her. “You really have to be either be high on something or just that delusional. I wasn’t the one who slept with her fiancé's best friend. I wasn’t the one who had an affair for over a year with said former best friend.” 

“You were always busy Andy! Always at practice or meeting with management. And that’s on top of you always being on the road.” She stomped her feet, like a petulant child. It took everything not to cackle about her attitude.  

“You’re blaming me for your shitty actions? That’s rich. I was working my ass off to get a new and better contract so I could get US this house and pay for YOUR dream wedding. Fuck you, Fiona. Go back to Craig. Lord knows I don’t ever want to see your face again. I mean it took you two weeks to even confront me for the total embarrassment I suffered from your actions.” 

Her face morphed into one of disdain. “I thought we could discuss this as adults.” 

“You thought wrong sweetheart. Get off my property and never come back.” 

Fiona turned away to get back into her car before she stopped and turned around. “I always knew you wanted her, and you didn’t waste any time moving her in and taking my place.” 

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. She broke up with her boyfriend and needed a place to stay. She’s my best friend, we take care of each other.  I know you don’t know the concept of loyalty but that’s what best friends do. Now with all offense, get the fuck away from me and go back to the hole you came from.” 

I had been standing just inside the doorway and I jumped when Andy slammed the door. “Satan’s mistress leave?” 

“Yep. Fuck that felt good.” Andy grabbed a beer and took a long pull. “She has some balls.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Never been so happy to start a season before. Can get out of town and forget all about her.” He opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Get to travel with my favorite human.” He nudges me and it takes everything not to swoon. 

I should probably mention that I have had the teeniest, itty-bitty crush on my brother's best friend. Andy defined what a real man should be. The way he moves on the ice, how he holds himself to be a gentleman, it would make women swoon and want to be in his bed. 

Present company included.  

But Andy has never looked at me as more than his best friend's little sister and there in lies the problem.  I don’t stand a chance when there are women like Fiona chasing after the captain. So, my dream of a relationship with Andy stays right where they are – in my dreams. 

“I’m going to tell Luke you said that.” 

“He snores so he is well aware who is my favorite is.” 

Andy helps me with the rest of my stuff, and I try to organize as best I can while I wait for my new furniture to be delivered. I stopped and lay down in my new room. I’ve always been a believer of everything is meant to be. 

Maybe this new start is exactly what I need, and Andy can help. 

Two broken hearts.  

One house 

One season. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

NEXT

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#andy's shenanigans #andy's hea #cross checked #found family #pregnancy #best friends are idiots #best friends to lovers #brothers best friend #best friends sister #hockey au #idiots in love #andy barber fiction #andy barber fanfiction #andy barber au #chris evans fanfiction #NHL au #boston bruins au #andy barber fanfic #andy barber x ofc #andy barber

[chronic-ghost]

Chapter 7 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 11046

chapter summary: this is how the spiral ends.

chapter warnings/tags: physical abuse, depictions of overdose, dark themes, angst – lots and lots of angst, crying, hospitals

a/n: the song accompanying this fic is Foreigners God by Hozier. I had to physically restrain myself from using the lyrics as title because everything about that song fits so perfectly with this chapter. (title from x)

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Wondering who I copy

Mustering some tender charm

She feels no control of her body

She feels no safety in my arms

I've no language left to say it

But all I do is quake to her

Breaking if I try convey it

The broken love I make to her

- Foreigner’s God, Hozier

The desert does storms differently. 

Los Angeles, while hardly considered a desert, is occasionally touched by the fringes of a powerful storm. Bloated, purple clouds. Lightning so full of heat that is almost palpable as it sparks across the sky. Rain in fat globs that splatter and spray. Grumbles of thunder so deep and loud, they’re almost animalistic. Sometimes it rains like the world is in mourning, in deep-seated grief. It’s a comfort, though, in the same way sad movies are cathartic – an expression of pain in a way that is so often hard to conceptualize. There’s a relief in it too.

Outside the hotel window, thunder growls, curling low like a jungle cat, as lightning cracks, warding off the onset darkness for just a moment. It’s been raining for hours, water flooding potholes on the streets below, gushing from drain pipes. This early in the morning, the few cars out that swim through the gloom have their lights on bright, trying hopelessly to cut back the encroaching deluge. People are nothing more than wet shadows. 

The weather is throwing a fucking fit.

Thunder batters against the hotel windows again, groaning so loud he almost misses it. Almost misses that soft, quiet, little “fuck” that escapes your mouth. But he’s too close, too deep inside you, nose to nose, his elbows in the mattress by your head – he catches every movement your face makes. Every twitch of your lips, every stretch of your jaw. Every sigh. Every wail. 

The pitch black room, save for the occasional flash of lightning, smells like sex. And it should. You’ve been at it for hours. 

The skin on his back smarts where your nails dig into him, but that doesn’t get him to speed up or change his pace. Steady, slow, making you feel every inch that he stuffs up inside you. He kisses the curve of your sweaty neck as his hips roll as deep as the thunder outside.

“Oh, oh my god – Dieter–,”

He nuzzles your neck, nose tickling the back of your ear, sweat rolling from the back of his neck, over his shoulder, and onto your chest.

“Take it, baby, just take it. Let me have all of you,” he murmurs into your ear. Gently, he reaches under the covers at his back and pulls your leg up to his hip, maintaining that slow, tortuous pace. You breathe in on a high whine, the sound knotting his gut with pleasure. You shove your head back into the pillow, your face flushed, eyes wet as if trying to escape from feelings he inspires in you. You bite your lip and moan.

He’s been dragging it out too long. The both of you are on a fine, miniscule edge, neither wanting it to end, neither wanting to be separated from the other, but the tension is too profound, too great to hold onto much longer. He knows his knees won’t work for hours after this. His hips are going to be totally shot. He doesn’t fucking care.

You breathe in sharply and your cunt contracts around him once and he thinks he blacks out for a second, hips stuttering to a halt. That almost-painful flare of heat he felt must be visible on his face because you gasp, somewhere between a hiccup and a sob. There are tears in your eyes, but you don’t ask for it. You take it just like he wants.

“Sorry, baby, sorry–,” you whisper, your hand sliding to his cheek, then his mouth, your thumb against his lips. But he shakes his head, eyes shut against the overwhelming sense of submission, sliding back into his agonizing pace, and he presses his lips to the pad of your finger, lets your hand ease up into his hair. 

“Don’t – don’t a-apologize. You just feel so fucking g-good.” 

He says this but wants to say other things. He speaks to distract himself from the fact that his denied orgasm has sharp shocks sparking up his spine. 

He clumsily kisses your cheek. 

“Thank you, b-baby, thank you for letting me do this. For letting me fill you up. For taking me, as I a-am,” he stutters, his tongue too thick for his mouth. He really should just shut up and come, but when he opens his eyes, the look you give him – your eyes black and round from the Ecstasy – it pulls on the tendons at the back of his chest. Like the strings of a guitar – strum his heart and he’ll sing. 

He had begged you to let him fuck you slow, like he did in New Orleans. They only had a few hours before the comedown hit and he wanted to spend those hours savoring you. Licking his fingers of your sweetness, carving away old memories to make room for the ones of you naked and trembling, steaming images of you to the inside of his brain with a sweating iron. With a stripped-bare willpower, he holds himself back because he thinks the longer you’re beneath him, the more of you he can take. 

But this last one, this one he can feel pulsate in the cup of his skull, it’s too big. It’s too much to suppress any longer. He grits his teeth, and tries not to languish in the warmth of your thighs. 

“Are you close?” 

You nod, a single tear breaking loose and running from the corner of your eye to the sheets below you. “Y-yeah. I’m so close, Dee.” 

He adjusts on his already shaking knees, pulling back and giving enough space between your bodies so he can reach down to touch you at the apex of your legs, but you frantically shake your head, grabbing his wrist. You shake your head harder.

“No, n-not like that.” You put his hand back by your head, then pull him towards you with your legs, forcing him onto his elbows again. You dig your heel into his low back. “L-like this. Just a bit faster, honey.”

Feeling swells so much and so fast in his chest as he watches you encourage him, tell him exactly what you want, and what you want is him – he feels like he can’t inhale.

There are things he wants to say to you, but they’re clogged up somewhere between his gut and his tongue. He nods instead, planting one hand flat against the mattress, his head tucking into the curve of your neck. He goes faster, just a bit, like you asked. Under the patter of rain, the bed squeaks, metal screws and cheap wood rocking together. The wet clutch of your cunt is making him dizzy.

“Fuck, baby, I’m gonna– I’m gonna –,” 

He angles his hips like he knows you need, his pelvis against your clit, and you cry out, hands latching around the back of his neck, knees up by his shoulders. You wail and it breaks him wide open. He comes, deep inside you, gooey, pearly cum mixing with your release, your cunt so tight, he feels it all ooze back down his cock. He shudders at the sensation, his cock twitching almost painfully. His brain feels like the last bit of film flapping in the gears of a projector – thin, empty, overused. White noise.

Beneath him, he feels you sobbing, gasping against his throat. He uses his shaking arms to pull back, just so he can look at you, so he can kiss back your tears. That was intense and he wants you to know he’s here for you. 

“Baby, you’re crying.” 

Your gentle thumbs catch wet salt on his cheeks and he blinks, suddenly aware of the cold streaks his tears left behind. He shakes as he wipes his own face. 

“Fuck.” The word out of his mouth is watery, thick, and you smile up at him, your own grin wet and overjoyed. “I didn’t even realize . . .” You finally laugh and he can’t resist kissing you. Your tears mix with his as you press your cheek to his. 

This is the thing inside of him being quiet, being eased, coaxed down and put to rest. The want for you, it’s indescribable. He has you but he doesn’t. It’s not enough. The only time this black mass of desire inside him releases its pull is when he’s coming inside you. When his split soul in your body reunites momentarily with his. When he makes you his. Over and over and over again.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Outside, lightning flashes and you glow beneath him for just a second. This body is familiar because it’s his.

You make me happy, he thinks, so happy.

It has nothing to do with the drugs coursing through his blood, that sits in his cum drying on your thighs, on the mattress. 

It’s been two weeks since the last round of press junkets and tours, one week before the Oscars. Chloe, of course, did not come on the rest of the trip, electing to go home before returning to Europe to help her father. At this point, he couldn’t care less. It became easier and easier to stop answering her texts, and ignore her calls. He was already starting his new life with you. After a party in SoCal two nights ago, when he was up to his eyeballs in booze and your tits, he got half-hard thinking about making the phone call to his lawyer to draft up divorce papers. Ecstasy is so much better when you have someone to do it with you.

He wonders if she could see the lie in his eyes when he told her he’d give her an answer when she came back. If the divorce papers will come as a surprise. 

In a ring of thunder, he backs out of you, dragging the covers with him, and you shiver, exposed, skin damp in his sweat and your own. Eyes hazy, lips bitten, marks of him everywhere on your skin, you look raw, fucked out. He kisses your collarbone before easing out of the bed to take off the condom. 

You’re already half asleep when he comes back to bed. 

Sleep is oozing around his bones, making his muscles limp and pliable. He’s seconds away from passing out. He knows you both need to eat, but he can’t lift his eyelids long enough to find his phone. He crawls in bed behind you, the exhaustion a weight more demanding than gravity. He came inside you and all his energy left him. You hum as you curl up next to him. He doesn’t even make it under the blanket. 

You say something to him, something that his body reacts to, but his brain doesn’t fully comprehend. Noise, soft, gentle, comforting noise. He wants to hear it, whatever it is you’re saying, but he can feel parts of his mind shutting off, going dark. 

Instead, he turns your limp body onto your side, his own molding around you, a warmth he never before experienced expanding from his chest to the rest of his body. His fingers curve around your chest and he thinks he can feel your heartbeat beneath his fingers. It might be his instead. 

He noses your hair.

“Never leave me.”

Sleep is a thing he is, not a thing he does. He drifts, untethered in blackness, for hours, maybe days, maybe years. He dreams and remembers and his heartbeat settles somewhere behind his stomach.

When Dieter wakes up, it’s still raining, but the bedside light is on, casting a warm glow over the clothes on the floor, the crushed up powder on the table, the tablets of E by the couch. His come down is making him itchy – he’d love a joint – but he’s more unsettled by his sudden loneliness. Your side of the bed is empty, still warm, and he hears the shower running, sees light from under the door. You’re close by. He settles. Easily, slowly, mindfully of his fucked up hips, he rolls onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling, his thumbnail carving out a line between his eyes.

He wants it to be months from now.

He wants the divorce papers signed. He wants you in his home, all your things there. He wants to trip over your shoes, move your purse from the countertops, smell your shampoo in his shower. He wants his time to become your time, wants to carve out hours of the day just to be with you and no one else. He can feel himself finding excuses to get away from his next gig, the next tour, from the next press circuit, canceling plans for parties and dinners, from everything that doesn’t have you in it. Nothing is as important as you are because nothing makes him feel like you do. 

He needs you to come back to bed – he misses you. Thunder rumbles and he follows the noise out the window, his gaze briefly catching on the bedside table where you left your things. He spots the pill bottle and his skin hums. Flexeril. He wants to be under a little bit longer. He pops the cap off, rattles two pills into his hand, and throws it back, his throat pliant and obedient.

Sleep comes for him again. He hallucinates you, either dreaming or awake. A fix – love – whatever. They’re all the same to him.

It’s still raining when he lifts his head, sleep sloughing off him like relaxing overworked muscle, but it’s brighter out, the barrage of rain lessened. He has no idea how much time has passed and looking at the clock won’t help. He hasn’t kept track of time in days. Not since Chloe went away.

He’s suddenly aware of the warmth across his back. Your dainty fingers hang over his shoulder as if you tried to hug him and collapsed in place. Grinning, he rolls over, careful not to wake you, and sneaks his arm under your pillow, his other hand pulling you back against him. You smell like lavender and smoke and, wrapped up in his green t-shirt, a bit like him. He runs his nose the length of your neck to your ear – all mine – and lays down, tries to go back to sleep . . . only to realize what woke him up in the first place.

Buzzing. 

Blue light from the bedside table.

Blinking through the headache the sound is giving him, Dieter leaves you and the perfect glow the outside light gives your skin. Sitting up, he blinks several more times at the name at the top of the screen. 

Chloe.

And he’s missed four other calls from her, about five minutes apart each. She’s never done that before. 

Swallowing and easing his feet to the ground at the edge of the bed, he answers her call.

“Hello?”

“Dieter.” Her voice is wet, water-logged by a salty brine. She’s been crying. He glances over his shoulder at you. Fuck, does she know where he’s been? You stir in your sleep, but don’t wake up. Over the phone, Chloe inhales, hiccuping, and then an explosion of words: “Dieter, something’s happened– I wanted to tell you in person but – and I know you said you’d think about it but–but, Dieter, it’s happened and –,”

His head this fogged from his hangover, from the last vestiges of E and the muscle relaxant still crawling around in his veins, he can’t parse out her words, every vowel and consonant flowing and butting up into the next. He can’t tell if she’s happy or upset. 

“–and it’s so much sooner than either of us expected but–,” 

“Chloe. Chloe,” he soothes, trying to be quiet and firm at the same time. You move again behind him and he looks at you just as you open your eyes. You smile at him and his heart skips. He turns around, trying to shield you from her. “Slow down. I can’t understand you. What’s going on?”

 Silence.

Rain lashes the windows behind him. Thunder rocks the foundations of the building. Cars careen through the wet streets below. Your small hand presses against the ridges of his spine. 

“Dieter, I’m pregnant.” 

Rain lashes the windows behind him. Thunder rocks the foundations of the building. Cars careen through the wet streets below.

Your hand pulls away from him. 

“What?”

“I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.” Her voice is tinny through the speaker. She sounds far away. Everything sounds far away. “You’re going to be a father. Isn’t it what you’ve always wanted?” 

The phone falls from his hands to the floor with a clatter. It lands just right and the screen goes dark, the call ended. 

His fingers feel spongy, rubbery, unreal. His heart beats up against his chest, but he hears it in his ears, like he’s been running for miles on end. 

A baby. 

His baby. 

His lungs suck in air in short, sharp gasps and when he breathes in deep, he’s immediately hit by a wave of nausea. He fights to keep from hurling right onto the floor. 

Go, he has to go – has to – his body is moving, shifting, but his knees give out. Weakly dropping him to the floor against the bed frame. The back of his skull tightens and retightens. With every pulse of his heart beat, he feels it in a different place on his body. His ears. His fingertips. His chest. God, there’s something in there, clawing to get out. It’s choking him. 

��Dieter.” 

His fingers pull at the invisible bonesaw cracking open his chest. “S-s-shut up. I can’t bre-eathe.” 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He can’t be a –

– can’t be his father –

Can’t can’t won’t won’t – not like this – not now –

He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t want it. 

This kid – they’re gonna have his fucked up brain, his fear of living, that oppressive, slimy voice that keeps him pinned to his bed for days on end with all the curtains closed – that weighs him down to the bottom of the fucking ocean – 

He’s ruined them before they ever even had a chance. Because they’ll be his, a part of him. An unlucky splinter embedded deep under a caustic burn. It’s not fair. 

His fingers dig into his hair and wrench. 

“Dieter.” 

There’s a hand on his face. It’s soft and gentle and he hates it. It strokes his tears before he turns away and snarls, clawing his way up the mattress, cornering himself against the headboard. 

Don’t touch me

Your eyes, gazing up at him from where you kneel on the floor, immediately flood with tears. They crack and overflow. They drip off your face.

“So it’s true, then. What she said. It is yours. Your . . .”

Can’t can’t can’t won’t won’t won’t can’t do it

His nails scratch his scalp, hard. There’s liquid under his cuticles. 

“What happens now? What are we going to do?” You beg him, your tiny hands clutching at the sheets around the edge of the mattress. “W-w-we talked about – have you sent her the p-papers – I thought –,”

Maybe that weight in his chest will finally collapse and swallow him whole. Cramping until his very existence is crushed under the gravity of a pole star as it dies. He pulls his knees to his chest, his fingers knotting deeper and deeper into his hair. 

“I’m going back.” The words scald his mouth the instant they leave it. They taste like bile, bile that rots inside of him. “I-I have to . . . I have to be there for . . . B-b-but n-not now – not like this – not when I-I’m still –,” 

There on the table, there’s a chance he can forget about all of this, just take it away a second longer – but he has to go back to – to her – his ba– 

“But you promised.” Your serrated voice snares him and tears his gaze back to you. “Dieter, don’t do this. Please. Let me help you. We can figure out something together. You can’t go back. You don’t love her. There’s nothing –,”

“She’s the mother of my child, Natalie. Of course I have to go back to her.” 

He almost misses the gasp from your lips. Almost. 

That noise. The inhale, the crunch of air against an unwilling lung. The audible sound of understanding. Of clarity. Of the ground finally setting.

You on one side. And him . . . him out of your orbit. 

He sees the flash of your white teeth, the sharpness of bone, before you open your mouth.

“You’d be doing both of them a fucking favor if you never showed up at all.” 

He thinks he goes blind in one eye for a moment from the rage that burns up through his rib cage. All that blackness that was inside of him since the day he was born comes rushing, pouring to the surface.

“What?” he snarls, lunging down and snatching you up by the meat of your arms, his fingers digging into your flesh. His teeth snap near your ear. “What do you want me to do, huh?” 

“Stop, Dieter, you’re hurting me –,”

There’s a loud, angry man living inside of him, that’s lived inside every room he’s ever been in. The things he did subdued the anger, but not the inevitability. There’s a loud, angry man inside of him, and he doesn’t have the courage to pretend anymore that the voices in his head don’t all sound the same.

He crushes you against chest, your nails clawing at his skin, as he hauls you across the room. Dieter shoves you onto the couch, pulsating with fury. You’re crying again as your fingers curl around the ashtray on the table. Your arm winds back and he jerks away the second before you fling it at him with a scream. The ashtray shatters the lamp, electrical sparks flying, clay shattering, and then —

“I hate you!” 

“And I hate myself around you!” He snarls. 

He watches the words collide with your very being, your eyes fluttering as though he had slapped you. 

“We bring out the fucking worst in each other,” he goes on, like toxic drool spilling out of his mouth. “And you fucking know it.” He can’t stop. He doesn’t want to. Your mouth drops, lips trembling, skin going white, as though you drank poison from the cup of his hands. “You want me to abandon this kid for the mistake of just being born? You want it to turn out like you?” 

Tears again and this time he cannot miss the gasp. The hiccup where air goes down wrong. 

It’s all wrong.

“Fuck you, Dieter, GET OUT!” 

“This is my hotel room–,”

“Get the fuck out or I’ll call the fucking cops!” You shriek.

Your shoulder knocks into his chest as you shove past him, snatching up his clothes and pitching them into his face. The bed behind you looks like a war zone, covered in shards of glass and clay and wires. A great machine disemboweled.

“Goddamn it –,”

His belt buckle grazes his cheek. You’re trying to draw blood. Your hair wild and mussed from sex and his abuse, cheeks enflamed, you breathe as though you gasp around a collapsed lung. 

This was always how it was going to end. He’s come to the end of the spiral.

He thinks you and hurricanes share the same sort of powerful, thunderous beauty. The very sight of you glaring at him with such disgust and violence on your face makes his eyes grow hot.

“You are a fucking coward, Dieter Bravo.” You sniff, wiping something from your chin with the back of your hand. “You’re a coward and a fucking liar . . .” You swallow, vitriol wet in your mouth, in the curve of your shoulders, in the unsteady shake of your hands, “and you’re gonna be a fucking shit dad. You have no idea how to love anyone but yourself.”

You’ve done it. Stripped him down to his bare essentials and this is what you’ve found: a copy of a loud, angry man. A copy, blurred and blackened and smudged beyond recognition. And despite his best efforts, the copies would go on until there was nothing left but hot darkness.

Turning away, you take the sweating champagne bottle from the bucket and, stumbling towards the bathroom, you fall forward and lock the door behind you. 

That blank, empty door will haunt his dreams for years to come — he just doesn’t know it yet. 

He’s still shaking when he picks up his phone.

“Are you in Los Angeles? No. No – I’m not . . . remember the old laundromat off 1st? You have to meet me there. Now. Hurry . . . please . . . please.” 

In the blue darkness curling in the back of the room, metallic drums in their square boxes churn, their heating coils humming as excess heat warms the tile, the cracking plaster on the walls. Not a soul insight, but the machines go on, diligent and indifferent. There are the eternal mountains, the infinite sea, and there are these machines, washing out dirt from clothes and towels and bedsheets, and warming the cold and wet and the damp, forever and ever and ever.

He lets out a shaky exhale. Tapping the gray ash into the empty soda cup between his legs, he takes another sip from the cigarette, his left knee bouncing fixed and tight, as he waits in the half-darkness, his back pressed up against the cool window. In front of him, the washing machines grumble, the only light giving them individual edges coming from the glow in the street behind them. He didn’t even bother turning on the overhead fluorescents when he came in.

The cigarette butt between his fingers joins the other three at the bottom of the cup before he picks up the packet and shakes out another one. The metal zipper of his hoodie feels cold against his bare stomach. His knee won’t stop shaking.

To his left, the double glass doors suddenly open, the cool brush of rain overwhelming the heat of the machines for a moment, and a frantic shadow spills through, its head swiveling in a panicked search. 

“Dieter?”

Disbelief. Horror. His chest swells so sharply he thinks he might split open. 

Heels clacking on the linoleum, she comes into the light of the window. Her mouth smeared bright red, blonde hair down and smoothed around her ears, she wears a black raincoat over silk red pants and black heels. She looks beautiful.

Except for the way her mouth twists in terrible anguish.

“Oh, shit.” Heidi says, softly. “Dieter, what happened?”

He works his jaw, his eyes hot and tight, he doesn’t even look up at her when he says, “you look nice. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Heidi’s mouth drops open as further bewilderment sinks in. She slowly lowers herself into the seat next to him. The plastic squeaks from the force. 

“Honey, do you know what day it is?” 

He shrugs, shakes his head.

“Everyone’s been trying to find you for days. The studio’s furious but . . .” she inhales and he knows the sound. It’s the sound doctors make when they tell parents their child has a terminal illness, when parents tell their children they had to put down the family dog, when his father told him he wasn’t welcome in the house any more. “I was on my way to the Oscars. It’s Oscars night, Dieter, and Recovery Road was nominated for best picture.” 

The smoke in his mouth sucks out every droplet of moisture. He sees the room spin for a second. “Congratulations. I mean that. You deserve it.” 

She inhales again, but it comes through perforated and broken. “Honey, you were nominated. Best Actor. That’s why we were trying to find you.” 

He sniffs and drops the still burning cigarette into the cup, his palms rubbing frantically on his thighs, over his jeans, the smoke yanking his guts up into his mouth. He feels the acid burn his tongue.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, “I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone. I’m sorry you didn’t know where to find me. But . . . fuck, Heidi,” his voice cracks, “it’s gotten so out of control and I don’t know if I can fix it . . . or if I should.”

It’s her soft hand on his back that does it. Like she touched a pressure point that released the festering knot he had become and every sensation within him is pushed to an eleven, everything pushed to the brink, to the very line of sanity, and he breaks. 

He leans forward and cries. 

The single hand becomes two, then an entire body of warmth as she pulls him into her chest, not worried if he smudges her makeup or wrinkles her blouse. It streams from him, a dam unsealed and imploding under its own weight, and he cries, the wails high and loud and he could scream like this. He sinks to his knees and she goes with him until they’re on the floor, the seat of the chair digging into her back and his arms wrapped around her waist.

“I fucked up, Heidi. I fucked up so bad.” His fingers twist into her coat. “I’m so sorry, s-so, so so-rry . . .”

I fucked up

I fucked up

I am fucked up

I fucked up

I’m so tired of fucking up

She lets him cry out this thing that’s been choking him, grips him tight, holds him down, in the murky darkness of that laundromat, the machines churning and churning and churning in the quiet. He cries longer than he has in recent memory. Maybe in his whole life. Nothing has ever hurt like this because this is the culmination of every other hurt, every other wound. A grief compounded he never had time to mourn. 

He cries until it’s all out, until there’s static in his head and his eyes ache and his limbs are heavy. Until, despite the pain, his mouth wet and gummy, he can breathe around the weight. 

She waits for the flood to slow, for his breathing to ease, his skin still fire hot. She rubs the back of his neck and he shudders against her chest.

“Dieter.” His own name sounds alien to him. “Honey. Talk to me.”

She hasn’t called him that in half a decade. She uses her own sleeve to dry his cheeks and he turns away, mortified he’d ruin her pretty shirt. Heidi eases him back, resting against the chair. Her hand still holding the back of his neck, he finally looks her in the eyes. He can feel his breastbone bend under the weight of his failure.

But he tells her.

Mouth sticky and eyes dripping, he tells her everything – from the moment he knew you were taking drugs on set, to you showing up dripping and half-naked at his door, to the house in Albuquerque, the unsteady acceptance and balance you somehow agreed to – despite how you both felt, what you both wanted to explore – how heartbroken he was when you slept with someone else, how heartbroken he was when it became clear that Chloe couldn’t wouldn’t understand him because the love she felt for him was never enough to fill in the ache inside of him. 

The few moments of unparalleled joy he experienced with you in that cottage in the crescent city. 

Joy, fueled and fed and stimulated by drugs. 

That was the hardest to admit. That hurt the most.

His hands shook, either from the comedown or the nerves or both. Not a single detail was omitted, a memory misplaced. If he didn’t discuss certain blocks of time, then they were never in his memory to begin with. He wanted it purged from his system, like flushing an infection with saline water. If he didn’t bare his soul now, he never would, would never have another chance to be this honest with her or himself about his many vices, his many addictions. How he thought he loved you so much his heart might burst. How he can’t tell if that love comes from inside him or the strings he uses to stitch himself back together. 

What he had done to you in that hotel room. How he treated someone he loves with his whole heart. 

“And Chloe, she’s – fuck–,” he wipes at his eyes with his sleeve against his palm, “she called me this morning and told me she’s pregnant.” 

Heidi audibly swallows. Swallows down her disgust and horror. She knows what this means to him. Her silence reminds him exactly how fucked he is, how irrevocably changed his life is, and ice-cold, black-dread terror rockets up his spine, squeezing his heart. His stomach claws at itself, empty of anything to destroy. He wants to peel the skin off his fingers.

She wraps her hand around his forearm, pulling his hand into her lap. 

“Was that something . . . had you talked about . . .” she stops and starts, plucking at the threads of what she is trying to ask. “Were you trying?”

He shakes his head, eyes itchy from the tears. He paws at his face with his sleeve, huffing. When he speaks, he sounds like he has a cold. “Last time I saw her was at the start of the press tour. She came back, asking if we could fix things, and at that point, Natalie and I had already . . .” he wraps his arms over his chest, willing it all back inside of him. “Chloe asked if I wanted to have a baby with her and that was it. I think any desire to remain her husband just evaporated that day, whether I knew it at the time or not.”

“Wait, I thought you said you were going back? Back to Chloe? If that’s not what you want, then why . . .” 

He picks up a piece of that famous Dieter indignance and holds it in his fist. 

“I’m not divorcing the woman while she’s pregnant with my child. Besides, if she thinks I can help, or if she needs me . . .” he inhales, unsteady and weak, “if she thinks me being around the kid will make things better and not worse, then . . .” The laundromat goes blurry, the truth of it cracking, splitting, chunks carving up his throat. He exhales and the tears roll down his cheeks. “Then I’m going to do it. I-I-I just don’t want the baby . . . to-to e-end up . . . like . . . me.” 

“Oh, Dieter.” 

Heidi slides around his back, her head against his shoulder, arms tugging his inward, as if she could take away his sadness, his pain, his shame. They both tremble as sobs wrack his body. 

“You wouldn’t make things worse,” she murmurs to his shoulder blades, to the thin sweatshirt damp with sweat. “You wouldn’t, Dee, I promise.” 

“But it’s there, it’s in me, Heidi. This capacity to hurt everyone I love.”

“Honey, they wouldn’t love you if you couldn’t hurt them.” 

“A baby isn’t going to love me,” he says, softly, to her knuckles around his stomach. “It needs care, support, someone who’s around all the time. And I don’t even know what fucking day it is.” 

“But you won’t always be like this.” Hedi squeezes him gently. “I saw the healthy Dieter, the focused one. The one who loves the movies, who loves being an actor. You can be that person.” 

“Yeah and all the while wanting to fuck someone who wasn’t my wife.” He tugs on his hair and feels a few strands come loose. Gray, by the light behind him. Great. 

“You’re never going to be perfect, Dieter. No one is. Therapy and rehab is not meant to make you perfect, it’s meant to make you healthy.”

She’s not seeing it — why can’t she understand that he’s permanently fucked? 

He slides out of her arms, irritated, and curls up by the window, his long legs stretched out in front of him. 

“I was in rehab for two years and in an instant it crumbled. Everything they tried to teach me.” He rubs his palm in the divet of his nose between his eyes. “It doesn’t work. Not on me.”

“Then why’d you do it, Dieter?” Heidi asks as she stands, her hands on her hip. “Why do you keep going back if you think it’s pointless?”

“Because I want it to work!” He snaps up at her. “I don’t want to be like this forever. I went for Chloe, for you, for Mark, for everyone who–,”

“But not yourself.” She cuts him off and he feels the impact in his chest. With a sigh, she sits down next to him and drops her head against the wall. Heidi is quiet, observing the hunched washing machines, the spinning of the dryers, and a faint smile breaks across her face. “Do you remember that time we met that really cute guy here, what, fifteen years ago? Dark hair, blue eyes, hands the size of plates.” He nods. “And he was really into cycling, remember? So you and I would go down to that tiny gym twenty minutes from our apartment and join that fucking spin class at 6AM because you were determined to get his number . . . and then once you had it, after months of that goddamn class, you–,”

“I never called him.”

“You never called him, that’s right.” Heidi says as she laughs, Dieter chuckling with her. She watches as his fingers curl into his own hair.

“So, what, you’re saying I have problems with follow through?” 

“I’m saying you are committed to whatever you want to do, if you want to do it.” She wraps her hand around his bicep and leans into his shoulder. They’re quiet, contemplating. “I remember thinking I’d die young, when I was in high school. And because of that, I was as reckless as I wanted to be. But then I met Lucy and as clichéd it is to say this, everything changed. Being with her, I was the most clear-headed I’d ever been in my life and I knew exactly what I wanted.” She glances up at him as the rain picks up again. Flat droplets splatter against the window near his head. “How do you want your life to make you feel? Do you know what you want from life, Dieter?”

Fame. Acclaim. Adoration. These things go off in his head as if they were a Pavlovian response to this kind of question, but then they fade, grow weak without sentiment. 

Honestly?

At his core, his dark, deep secret is this: he wants to feel the way the drugs make him feel. Like he’s the happiest he’s ever been, or at peace with the universe, or the star of every room. 

Like he’s loved. The drugs make him feel like he is loved and whole and that’s what he wants. 

And there’s only one person on earth he’s ever felt that way with. 

“Do you love her, Dieter?” The question is delayed, muffled against his shoulder. 

He sighs. “Between you and me and these four fucking walls, no, I don’t. Maybe I did once, but what I feel for Chloe isn’t going to change or improve. I feel something for her, but it’s not the right kind of something to–,”

“I mean, Natalie, Dieter. Natalie.” Heidi lifts her head, her gaze serious, rimmed with worry. “Do you love Natalie?” 

“Yes.” 

He doesn’t question it, doesn’t add addendums to it, conditions around whether or not he loves her only when he’s high, or not high. There is something there, something deep. Something that scared him at first, but he’s seen you now. He knows that if he reached out his hand, you’d take it. Because whatever is in your soul, it recognizes itself in his. A split soul, into two bodies. 

Racing to the edge of calamity. 

But then Heidi sits up, takes him by the shoulders and asks a question he’d never once considered, about anyone. 

“Do you see a future with her?”

“I . . .”

No. 

He tries to swallow around the knot in his throat.

No, because one of you is going to burn out too fast. One of you isn’t going to survive, not the way it’s going. Did Heidi mean marriage, kids, a fucking lawn with a picket fence? He’s not made for that kind of future either but that is okay because he was never going to make it there anyway. 

I always thought I’d die young. 

Something fundamentally shifts in his brain, as though an old reality suddenly winked from existence.

He thinks about that blank door you locked yourself behind. He thinks of your tears and how he broke you. He loves you, he knows it, but now he sees outside himself. He thinks of the carousel and his mother and the promises she made to him. 

“I want her in my life,” he tells Chloe with certainty. “I can’t picture my life without her, even if I don’t know what that’s going to look like. Whatever we are, whatever happens with the baby or Chloe, I know now I can’t live without her. Without Natalie.”

The dusting of worry fades from her face and a crease appears between her eyes. The one that comes out when a scene won’t quite come together, or there’s a line of dialogue that needs reworking. When something is just a bit outside her understanding and she hasn’t quite settled on an answer. 

“I’ve never seen you make that face before.”

“What face?”

“I . . . I don’t know. You just look different, when you talk about her.” 

“I love her. I mean it.”

She turns away, some personal revelation coming too late. Her eyes are like flints, flecks of hard green stone, when she looks back at him.

“Enough to leave her?” Heidi implores of him. “Because what you’re asking, it’s cruel, to do that to someone. You get that, right?”

He bites the skin under his lip. “Yeah. I see that now. Or maybe I always have and I just didn’t want to admit it.” He’s cried enough for a lifetime, but his throat pinches and the backs of his eyes grow hot. “I just can’t stand the thought of us never speaking again. If something ever happened to her . . .”

“If you really want to stay with Chloe and raise this baby, then you might have to make that choice. Or she might make it for you, to keep you out of her life. Either way, you have to accept that.” He nods, a few drops sprinkling off his eyelashes. Heidi squeezes his shoulder and goes on, “but for right now, we’re going to start with rehab. Get you clean. You’re going to have to tell Chloe about the drugs, but as for the affair . . .”

“Do you think I should?”

Heidi’s lively green eyes dull, the stem of a flower as it wilts. “Honestly, Dieter, I have no idea.” 

Before he can read what else may be written on her face, she stands, pulling him up with her. She eyes him with a teasing contempt as he zips up his hoodie. 

“You really do look like fucking shit.”

“Yeah, thanks, I feel it.” 

She takes his hand and holds it to her chest. “One step at a time, Dieter. Step one, we’re going to get you some food so you sober up. Then we go get your stuff.”

His stomach twists at the thought of seeing you when he has no idea what to say — apologies aren’t enough. “But–,”

“One thing at a time.” She takes out her umbrella as they stand at the precipice between the laundromat and the wet street. Her look is one of hope, a small thing, of uncertainty and promise. “One thing at a time.” 

The rising of the hotel elevator syncs with the steady climb of his anxiety. His head hurts, even in the low lighting, and there’s some small part of him that’s looking forward to that white bed in any empty room. Folded up into the corner of the opulent elevator, eyes dark-rimmed, hair long and unkempt, looking every bit the addict he is, he swallows as the numbers in gold across the top of the double doors ding with every floor. His eyes fall to the watch at Heidi’s wrist. She stands in the middle of the elevator, her head held high, a slight frown on the crease of her forehead. He wonders what she’s thinking about but he isn’t sure he wants to know with certainty. It’s six thirty. They’ll all be seated now. 

“Thank you.” He murmurs to her wrist. 

Heidi glances at him, taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes, his waxy skin. He had been so hurt by her apparent disinterest after she left the film’s production that when he called, part of him was sure that she wasn’t even going to answer. One by one his support network had been cut away, trimmed down until he was dangling by a thread. And yet, she came, without hesitation, on possibly the most important night of her life. If there is anything to be ashamed about, he figures, it’s that he ever doubted her. He should have called sooner. 

“Thank you, Heidi, for everything.” 

Her expression softens and she breathes slowly. She actually graces him with a smile. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”

We.

When he thought he was all alone. 

His eyes sting as the elevator stops on the twenty-second floor, dinging cheerily when the doors open to the top, most secluded floor. It’s quiet, all five black doors in the hallway shut and locked. Heidi steps out with purpose and he drags himself after her, hands digging into his wet pockets to try and find his key, if he even managed to bring it.

And then he freezes.

Something’s not right. A sense. A chill in the air. An uneasy twinge in the stomach just before freefall. 

Heidi stops, looks over her shoulder. “Dieter, what’s–,”

Behind the door to his room comes a loud thump. A scrambling. And then –

“Oliver?” 

Those ice blue eyes snap up as the drug dealer stumbles through the doorway. Eyes bloodshot, skin gray, his immaculate suit is gone, replaced by black jeans and a loose shirt. His hands are trembling. 

“Ah, fuck, Dieter.”

The blackness of his irises take up the entirety of his pupils. He’s high, out of his mind . . . and he’s terrified. Trembling like a child, his gaze bounds back and forth between Dieter and Heidi. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Oliver?”

“I-I-I . . . uh . . . look, she called me, and I, uh –,”

“Natalie called you?” Heidi’s eyebrows arch up her forehead. She frowns at Dieter. “What for?”

At that, Oliver’s cheeks flush red. “Look, it can’t be traced back to me. I’ve got a green card and I can’t lose that. I need it – I have to –,”

“What can’t be traced back to you?” Dieter steps forward, his pulse quickening. 

Oliver actually whines when he looks back to his old friend.

“Look, I guess I didn’t realize how much she was t-taking. I was already high when I got here and just sort of let her h–have her pick –,”

Dieter’s stomach clenches. 

Heidi frowns, still not getting it. “What are you talking about? Have her pick of what?”

“Oliver.” Those pale eyes jump back to Dieter, his entire body shaking. “Where’s Natalie?” 

“I c-can’t be here, right now, ok-kay? They’re going to deport me if they f-find out that I–,”

Dieter thinks he hears the shower running. 

The air in the hallway thins, a ringing settling between his ears. 

The rest comes to him in flashes. 

Tattered pieces flung into the air, raining down images. He snatches at them but they crumble in his grip.

Shoving Oliver out of the way.

Pills, liquor bottles, powders on the table. Ones he knows he didn’t leave there. 

The white bathroom door.

This is the moment he realizes that blank door will haunt his nightmares for years to come. What he could have found on the other side. What he nearly does. 

Your pale hand dangles over the side of the tub. That’s the first thing he sees. It brings him to his knees on the tiled floor.

Shower water pelts your gray face, black lines of makeup streaking your white cheeks. Oliver had dumped you in there still clothed in black underwear and his green shirt, possibly in hopes that the water would rouse you. But you don’t react to the water, or the sounds he’s making. You don’t react to him sliding down over the lip of the tub to you, his hand cupping your face.  

You look small, broken and folded like a doll.

He had discarded you so easily.

But there, beneath the flood of water across your skin, he sees that you’re –

“Breathing,” he murmurs to himself, to you. “She’s breathing –,”

The ice cold water drenches his back as he pulls you out of the tub and into his lap. It’s not graceful, your knees and elbows knocking against the porcelain, but still you don’t move. You still don’t wake up. 

He drags you into his lap like a lion drags its prey, selfishly, hungrily, snarling. 

In his ears, the rushing of blood muffles all sound, everything happening in the room outside. He’s vaguely aware of movement, of running, of someone yelling. 

But you still haven’t opened your eyes. He touches your face, fingers dragging back the damp hair across your forehead, and he thinks he feels your pulse slow. 

No no no no no no no stop no not like this stop please i’m so sorry please don’t I’m begging you please please please please you can’t go you can’t leave me i’m so sorry please don’t leave me i’m so sorry please wake up wake up i’m begging you

please please please please

He doesn’t know what he keeps to himself or what he whispers out loud to you, arms wrapped around your back, limp head pressed tightly into his throat. 

He holds you until the ambulance comes, as if his constant vigil will keep you from slipping away.

It was an accident, Oliver assured the police. 

It was just a little fun that got out of hand. His stuff was more potent because it was made in a lab, not off the street. He didn’t remember to tell her and she didn’t know, Oliver said over and over and over again.

But that information came through Heidi’s contact at the police station, a contact that had been in the interview room when Oliver confessed everything in hopes of easing his sentence. But this was third hand gossip. A game of telephone that made Dieter nauseous to think about. 

Maybe it didn’t matter why, only that it did. Only that you were hurt, that you were unconscious. That what he had done to you made you do this to yourself. 

He watched the double doors from the hospital waiting room constantly. 

Curled up in the back corner, his eyes remained glued to the swinging, open-and-shut, entrance to the admission rooms. Where they took you after the ambulance arrived. They didn’t let him go back with you. He was prepared to lie and push and use every ounce of his considerable influence to let him see you, but in the end, Heidi brought him down. Told him to let them do their jobs and all he could do was wait. 

He paced the length of the waiting room, in the beginning. Shoulder curled, hands clenched across his body, nails bitten to the quick, he never took his eyes off that doorway. 

The nurse at the station initially glowered at his frantic energy, but then something lightened her gaze. She recognized him from somewhere but couldn’t place it. Heidi tried to get him to sit, drink water, but he refused.

Her police contact called her, told her Oliver had been arrested and was selling out his suppliers left and right. For his sake, Dieter hoped they’d deny bail and keep him in jail, away from the public. Away from anyone who might come after him. 

Heidi sits down next to him, now that he has settled, with a sigh, her second cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup from the machine smelling like burnt tar. She blows on it in a way that can only be described as calculating. 

His sweatshirt dried cold against his skin. Why are hospitals always so fucking freezing?

“Dieter,” she begins but he grinds his teeth so hard, it’s audible. 

“If you tell me to calm down, Heidi, I swear –,”

“No.” The word is heavy, cutting. It shuts him up immediately, even draws his dry gaze away from the doors. He looks at her, one of his oldest and only friends, with the coffee in her lap, thin pale fingers delicately holding the sides. Her eyes are unreadable as she watches him. “I want you to think about what you are going to say to her when she wakes up. And she will – that girl is tougher than you give her credit for,” she adds sternly. “But when she wakes up, that will be your one and only chance to do the right thing. The right thing for her. Not you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He chews on his tongue, which has suddenly grown three sizes and gone dry. The finality in her voice, it sinks into him. An ax falling into wood but isn’t removed. Left there, splitting the wood apart and letting the wet molasses ooze out of the crack.

It’s not fair, his heart aches. It’s not fair. 

But it is right. 

Dieter wipes his eyes as a doctor walks out of the double doors, the first in what feels like hours, and he approaches them in the corner. 

He wants to ask, wants to open his mouth, but words have left him. What if it's bad news? What if –

Heidi stands to meet the doctor with an outstretched hand, Dieter shakily rising to his feet behind her. The doctor, a serious man with no facial hair and brown eyes, takes Heidi’s hand and returns the greeting. Dieter makes a fist in his pocket to keep his hand from trembling.

“You’re the family, then?”

Dieter wants to shake his head, no, this isn’t how families are supposed to be, but Heidi nods before he can confess his heart to an indifferent cause. 

“We are. How is she? Is she–,” Heidi’s voice cracks despite her stern tone and Dieter’s skin at the back of his head pulsates. 

“She’s alive,” the doctor says quickly. He wonders if that’s the information they have to give immediately. Some reassurance that all this time spent waiting wasn’t for nothing. That maybe something out there is kind and listened to his frantic begging. “But she will need to remain in our care for a few days. She’s going to be alright, but she very, very nearly wasn’t.”

The doctor goes on, describing what they had to do to save Natalie’s life. What poisons they found inside of her. What they took from her to piece her back together. 

Wasn’t. There’s an alternative in that. 

In a parallel universe, you died. You were gone. 

But in this one, you lived. You were still here. There was still time.

“Can I see her?” He blurts out, cutting the doctor off from his long explanation. Those brown eyes harden like bird shells when they fall on him.

“She’s unconscious, heavily sedated, but stable. The nurse will show you back, but she might not be able to hear you.”

He nods. You might not hear him now, but you would, one day. You would know how sorry he is if it was the last thing he did.

The doctor waves at a nurse and Heidi turns and takes him into a hug.

“Tell her we’re all rooting for her,” she whispers in his ear. “Tell her I’ll be here waiting for her when she gets up.”

He pulls back, something about her phrasing squeezing his heart, he doesn’t like that he doesn’t like that at all —

But the nurse is opening the double doors for him, expectant.

She’s smiling but her eyes are empty as he lets go and steps back towards the long white hallway.

Your one and only chance to do the right thing.

He follows the nurse down room after room. He can’t bear to look into the rooms through the small windows, to flood his imagination with images of your possible fate, so he stares resolutely at the back of the nurse’s head. 

She stops outside of room twenty two and opens the door for him.

“You’ve got ten minutes. You can come back in the morning during visiting hours.” 

He nods, her indifferent gaze almost a relief. Pity, mourning, he couldn’t stand to see it. One more crack and he’d break. Shatter and spill like marbles across the floor. 

He wants to thank the nurse, but the words get stuck and she walks off, handing him the responsibility of the door as she returns to the waiting room. 

His hand shakes against the frame.

You were right. You always have been. He’s such a fucking coward. 

Shaking, knees wobbling, Dieter falters as he goes into your room. It smells sweet, the air pungent and cloying. As if dead flowers had been sprinkled over filth. 

There’s one light behind you, the curtains drawn shut, shadows heavy. 

Where you had been a limp, lifeless doll in the bathroom tub, stretched thin in the small bed now you more resembled a weak, helpless child. Small, pale, ragged to the bone. As if someone had stripped back years of your life, revealing a vulnerability lost long into adulthood. A brush with death and you become humbled, glancing towards the light erodes your false pretenses until you lay bare at the end of time and at the beginning.

You look so, so sick. 

His knees give out when he spots the skin beneath the arms of your hospital gown. The plastic seat beneath him all but holding him up right, he lifts the sleeve closest to him. 

The skin is purple, green, in the shape of fingers. His fingers. He had done this to you. Of all the things he thought he was, thought he had become, this sort of monster seemed unfathomable. But he was wrong. He had become a special kind of monster. 

His thumb trembles as he rubs the bruise, so sickened with himself his stomach churns. 

As though pinched, you suddenly gasp awake, the machines monitoring you spiking and chirping. Twisting in the bed, eyes blurry, it’s clear you don’t know where you are, what has happened. You struggle until he puts his hands on your shoulders.

“Baby – baby, calm down. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital.”

Your hair still hasn’t dried completely and it curls around your shoulders like tentacles. Easing back down, you look up at him, eyes fluttering as you try and focus your gaze. You blink and recognition suddenly sparks across your face.

“Dieter?” You cry out and suddenly your cheeks are flushed with tears. Your pale skin sparks pink as you sob wretchedly. “Dieter – I-I t-thought you l-left me–,” 

A solid block of stone where his heart used to be, he pulls you into his lap, arms clutched tightly around you. You’re shaking and shaking and shaking as you mutter,

“Thought you were g-gone. Thought you left m-me fore-eve-r-r. L-left m-me.” 

Dieter swallows, his chin on your head, aware of his own tears but doing nothing to wipe them away. 

He lets you cry. Holds you tight and strong in his arms and, as he always has been, unable to offer any real comfort. Real support. He offered nothing real, nothing tangible, no promises kept, because he had nothing to give. He sees that now.

You slow in your cries, your wailing, but you’re muttering something else now. He can’t hear it with your face against his heart, so he eases you away, hand soothing your neck, thumb by your ear. Your eyes are closed and you immediately try to nestle into him again, like a kitten searching for warmth.

“I did it . . . it’s my fault . . . I did it . . .” You claw at his forearms.

“Did what, baby?” He tilts your head up, up to him, to the light. Your face is puffy and pink and your lips are covered in tears. They spill again, your skin slippery, as you answer: 

“I ruined your life, Dieter.”

In his shock and horror, his grip loosens and that’s all you need to launch yourself forward into him again. Your arms hold him by the waist so tightly it’s like you fear he’s going to fade away, crying again, crying anew. His eyes flutter shut, against the building wave of nausea in his gut, against the soothing hum of your skin against his – this is where we’re supposed to be – against the acceptance of what’s to come. 

He lets you cry, perhaps longer than he should but he’s determined to sear the memory of your skin, your shoulders, your hips, your head into every crevice inside of him, stuff himself full of you when he has nothing else to sustain him on. He’s still greedy, selfish, corruptible, when it comes to you. 

And that’s the whole fucking point.

“Natalie–,” he tries and it comes out soft. “Natalie, I have to tell you something.”

You pull away from him, eyes puffy and red, your beautiful mouth twisted and gnarled in grief. But there’s something wrong with your eyes, your gaze blurry.

His stomach knots with the realization that you might not remember any of this, the sedatives too strong. Fighting against his trembling chin, he takes you by the jaw, gently, carefully, how you’re meant to be handled and he has done it wrong so many times before.

“Natalie, I’m going to go away for a while,” he says. Your eyes fill with tears, but they don’t spill over. Your mouth twists petulantly.

“For how long?”

“For a while. You’re sick and you have to get better.”

You turn your head, considering his words. “When I get better, can I come see you?” 

His jaw twists, dropping your gaze, chin trembling and teeth clattering. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t think that’s a good idea.’”

“Why?” You’re crying again and, finally, so does he. 

“We’re not good for each other. And I can’t keep doing this to you.”

“Do what, Dieter?” You aren’t sobbing like before, but you pale. Like a ghost. Like he’s killing you.

Inhaling through a wet mouth, he kisses you on the forehead, tears flushing out of the corner of his eyes. Your little fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt.

“Dieter, I love you.” You mutter to his collarbone and that makes him let go. Releases you. 

Sets you free. 

You lived and he still had to say goodbye. 

He wants to tell you in kind, try and capture this roaring, expansive feeling in his chest and give it to you. Offer himself on the funeral pyre if it keeps you warm. 

You suddenly can’t quite focus on him, the rock of your shoulders is unsteady. Either the medicine is kicking in or the brief bout of consciousness is fading. 

“Go to sleep, baby.” 

You nod, eyelids heavy, and he gently eases you back, into the pillows, your weight growing as sleep overwhelms you. By the time, he has you against the white sheets, you’re already gone. He recedes from you, grateful and furious and happy and screaming all at once. He gives you one final kiss on the curve of your eyebrow, lingering long after he should, before tucking your hair back and moving away. 

His last image of you is deathly pale and alone. 

Nurses and staff stride through the hallways, around gurneys and into supply closets. Disembodied voices call out doctors through the intercoms and machines make noise. No one stops him as he walks down the long hallway and through the exit. 

The metal handle clenches loudly as he pushes through, out into the dawning morning. It’s purple and quiet and not a soul in the entire city moves.

The rain has finally stopped. 

“You’re still watching that?” Dan probes her, his patrol of the hospital slow given how late it is. “It’s just some dumb award show.”

April makes a face at him, glancing down briefly to finish her notes before her shift is over. Her feet ache and she’s looking forward to the pasta in her fridge. 

“I worked a double today. If I want to indulge in a dumb show, I can.” She caps her pen and takes off her nurse’s badge. “Besides, it’s not a dumb awards show, it’s the dumb awards show. The Oscars are kind of important, idiot.”

Dan smirks, their banter the thing he looks forward to the most in his days as a security guard. 

Neither one of them notice the single man walking past the nurses station towards the exit. 

“Did you even watch any of these –,”

“Shush, they’re announcing Best Picture.”

A woman on the stage in a golden floor-length gown, her smile as bright as the lights around her, opens the envelope in her hands.

“And the Oscar goes to . . .” 

She lifts the card, extending the suspension in her inhale. 

“Recovery Road!”

The crowd on the TV bursts into applause and April squeals, clapping excitedly.

“Oh, please, like you even saw that in theaters.”

April shoots him a dirty look. “Yes, I did! I loved it. It’s my favorite movie of the year – maybe ever! I cried, like, four times. ”

Dan’s expression softens as he looks at her. She can’t soothe the blush in her cheeks quick enough. 

“You really like movies, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, ever since I was a kid.”

“Maybe I could take you to one sometime.”

She smiles at him. “I’d like that.”

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x reader #the bubble fanfic #the bubble fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble 2016 #dieter bravo/f!reader #dieter bravo/you #dieter bravo/reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

[whinlatter]

Hello! I just read the latest chapter of Beasts and I am, once again, blown away by your skill. I don’t usually read fics in the HP fandom (not sure why, to be honest- there are so many good ones!) but yours are far and away my favorite of the works I have read. (Re: Beasts, I would like to note that your portrayal of Hermione is dead-accurate and delightfully layered. I appreciate the kindness with which you write her, as neither a saint nor a monster— just a deeply traumatized teenage girl.)

I’m not sure if you dispense writing advice on here— if not, feel free to ignore the following— but if you are, I would love some pointers! I’m sure part of it is my anxiety talking, but I find whatever I write to be irritatingly juvenile. You do such a wonderful job of bringing nuance to your works, and I’d appreciate any guidance you have for amateur writers looking to take their fics to the “next level,” so to speak. Also, on a broader level, any tips you have about nailing characterization would be very welcome. I know the ultimate answer to my questions is simply “time and practice,” but I have a genuine desire to improve, and I figure there’s something I can do to hurry the process along.

In the interest of not wasting your time, I’ll wrap it up here. Many, many thanks!

Oh man, I’m blown away by this comment, are you kidding me? Thank you so so much. You really don’t know how much that means to hear (saving this to look back on on a rainy low self-esteem day).

On writing advice... I'm always a bit hesitant about offering writing advice, even though I have benefited so so much from other people’s advice over the years in lots of different ways (probably because I suspect few of us ever really see our own work very clearly). This is also sort of hypocritical of me because I literally teach (non-fiction) writing as part of my job, lol, but maybe this is my imposter syndrome syndroming.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question since you sent this, and wanted to say something that might be useful. I actually ended up going back to the (very bad) fanfiction I wrote about 15+ years ago for another fandom (I will not be linking this here lmao), to see what I do differently now and what I’d gotten better at. This was both a very unsettling but also very cathartic process, lol, because I think I’ve gotten a lot better since then (though, truthfully, it couldn’t have gotten much worse).

So, having done that, I’ve tried to put some writing advice and reflections and thoughts below that I think I’ve learnt since I first started writing and that I feel I’ve found out the hard way (by getting it wrong first time around). My points below are more ‘what I admire in other people’s work and ‘what I would like my writing to do’ rather than me thinking I do all these things well all the time, especially on the nuance and characterisation questions. Some are going to sound super obvious but I definitely did not know them once and have definitely had to work to learn all of them, so I really hope they’re useful to you all the same.

Having now sat down and read my truly truly dire past fanfiction (which has a lot of reviews on it telling me, in no uncertain terms, how and why the work sucked), I think these are the things I wish someone had told me or the things I've learnt after a long long time of getting it extremely wrong...

Writing should answer a question, or a series of questions. I think the big shift from the fanfiction I used to write is that I would start from the premise of ‘I want to write these two characters in X setting’ or ‘I want to fill in Y missing moment’. It’s not that these are bad premises - often, fic ideas start this way - but there needs to be a step after this idea before the writing happens, which is the ‘what question would this answer and what would the answer be’. To give an example, for Orchards I always wanted to write a Harry/Ginny summer teenage love story, but I never really thought of it as answering a question, and so every version I could imagine doing of it was unsatisfying. It was only when I realised the question I had was how does someone fall in love and not realise it (and, I guess, and what do they do when they’ve realised it too late?) that I was like ohhh ok, the fic needs to answer that question, and the conceit is how do we get from A (not being in love) to B (falling in love, but not knowing it) to C (knowing it, and being tormented by knowing it). The later layers the fic took on and that I now like so much - flashbacks, use of the future tense to switch to a period where Harry knows he’s in love but can’t do anything about it - all came after that realisation, and I think the fic is more satisfying for me as a writer because it answers a question I had always had in the back of my mind but hadn’t made conscious.

Show, don’t tell - so, signpost, but give the reader credit. Work that I really admire and take the most from is work that doesn’t beat the reader around the head with the point of each scene. You don’t need to tell the reader how x character is feeling. ‘Ginny felt angry because she thought Hermione was being dismissive of other people’s feelings’ - that’s a note to yourself as a writer more than it needs to be expressed so obviously written to the reader. On a first draft, maybe you need that line to be written out as you figure out how characters are feeling in that scene - that’s completely fine. But as you edit, think of ways you can show that kind of emotional response without coming out and straight up saying it. Try to cut lines that state emotional responses so starkly and jarringly, because they take the reader out of the flow of the scene. How might Ginny as a character show she’s pissed off in ways that are legible to the reader (especially a reader of fanfiction, who is familiar with her)? How can we show Hermione being dismissive (not making eye contact, for instance, or saying curt, dismissive statements that shut down the conversation). This relates to the next point which is… 

Make the setting work for you - or even let it be a character in its own right. It’s rare in any form of fiction writing that the setting or the activities around characters are incidental. This is especially true for HP, where the author uses the setting throughout to both build a sense of atmosphere but also parallel/symbolise the dynamics of the scene at hand, like little winks to the reader. The weather is often the most obvious way of doing this. As the author, you play god - the weather is exactly what you want or need it to be to best serve the scene. That doesn’t mean necessarily happy scene has to = sunny, or sad scene = rain,, but it could mean torrential rain = huge release of something pent up that’s been building for hours (think of the rain pounding on the tent when Harry and Ron have their screaming match in DH - it’s like a fourth character in that scene), or too-hot sun = rising pressure, huge discomfort, feeling prickled and angry and trapped with no shade (think of Harry at the start of OotP, in the heatwave). It doesn’t have to be weather, either. If you want to show how a character is guarded, struggling to let another character in, why not have them have the conversation hovering in a doorway, with the door partly closed? If you want to write a scene where two characters are thinking about their future together and really getting somewhere emotionally, why not have them have the conversation in a moving car, heading towards a meaningful destination (you could even have the instigator of the conversation in the literal driving seat, if you want to suggest dynamics of control or maturity). These are just examples, obviously, but the writing I really admire does this so well (and rewards re-reads for that reason).

Find a motif or a hook. This is more a personal preference, but I love reading pieces of writing that have a clear framing. The post-war summer fic I’ve been working on for nine thousand years lol only really started coming quicker once I finally found a conceit - an image, really - that worked for me (the fic is called Rubble, and the conceit is: how do you literally build a house that is a family home, as a way of thinking about rebuilding after the war, told around the Weasleys as a family). For Orchards, there are a few motifs: ‘the truth’ as a character; ‘truth or dare’ as a game, but also as a metaphor for Harry and Ginny’s early love story, and Quidditch (love is a quaffle). In Beasts, I have motifs and hooks that I hope to stretch over the entirety of the fic, not least this idea about beasts and beings and the hubris and the monstrousness of the wizarding world - I wanted to write a postwar fic for a long time, but I didn’t have a conceit that allowed me to get at the type of story I wanted to tell for ages. Within each chapter, I also like to have a little motif: so chapter two it was ‘coming back’, chapter three it was sleep and dreams, chapter four it was the soul/what makes a person who they are, chapter five was the sea. Some of these were more successful than others lol, but it helps me to fashion and discipline a piece when writing and when editing/cutting to think: everything in this piece, in some loose way, needs to link back to this theme I’m trying to thread through.

Make sure people sound/think/behave like people. I’ve put points specifically about characterisation below, but this is a more general point: characters shouldn’t sound like generic talking points, they should sound like real people putting together sentences. I think in fanfiction writing, because we often want to resolve flaws in characters, write about characters we love and admire, or want them to have the difficult conversations or hard confessions that they don’t do in canon, we sometimes can both idealise them and make them sound like very self-aware consistently compassionate angels who are experts at expressing exactly how they’re feeling in extremely emotionally healthy and communicative ways. It would be nice if our characters all did that, sure! But what makes for immersive, compelling writing is when characters try and struggle and fuck up and live their flaws, and sound like real living breathing failing growing people.

You probably need to lose the last line. The last line of a fic is important, but sometimes you can lose a reader who’s been with you the whole time with a clumsy last line or one that’s excessively cheesy or overly summarising or just seems like an afterthought because you wrap up. I say this as a real mea culpa because I still suck at last lines, but the best advice I have gotten on this is, if in doubt, cut the last line you were going to go with, lol. Let the scene end without the line you think is a great summative profound line or something reassuring or overly comforting for the reader. I am definitely still learning this (the end line of chapter four of Beasts I’m still considering cutting or editing severely lol - it’s too on the nose for my taste, and I don’t love it), but the last lines I do like most are always the most minimalist, sparse, simple, or even abstract. basically - if it sounds like chat gpt could write your last line (chat gpt loves an on-the-nose happy ending - eg. ‘Hermione knew it was all going to be ok after all’) then go back to the drawing board.

Embrace critique. This is a very subjective one, especially for writing fanfic. Writing fanfic is a rich and rewarding hobby but I recognise that it is a hobby and a source of pleasure, so lots of people prefer not to get constructive critique. I’m actually being a bit hypocritical here as I don’t currently have a beta for fic writing, but I do have a brutal self-editing process (oh, the scenes and sentences I’ve cut!) and I have spent the last decade of my life in academic writing and sharing my work-in-progress written work over and over and over again, often for a couple of hours every few weeks in front of a room of people more senior and much smarter than me all with my written work printed out in front of them ready to tell me what I got wrong and what I need to change or get better at, lol. This has been bruising to say the least, but it 100% has made me a better writer and disabused me of a lot of the bad habits I picked up when starting out, and kicked the ego out of me thinking I didn’t need to edit and draft and re-draft everything several times. I’ve also spent a long time reading and editing and responding to other people’s work, in the same way, and that’s also been super productive to help me think about how to better communicate written ideas, fiction or non-fiction. So I think real improvement and growth in your writing has to come from getting a thick skin and being able to take critique from people you respect, who are constructive not destructive, and who believe in your talents, your right to show them, and want to see your work presented in the best possible way.

On characterisation specifically...

Look for similar scenarios in the books and see how the character reacts to those. I go back to canon a lot to find plots that are analogous to the plots I’m writing to see how characters physically and verbally respond to them. My thought processes are like, Hermione and Ginny in conflict? Head to HBP when they clash over Harry and Sectumsempra to see how they fight lol. Need to write a Weasley ensemble scene? Head to Goblet of Fire Burrow chapters pre-world cup to see the family dynamics in full swing, and see how the text conveys warmth and love between the characters, while also attending to power dynamics and changing/fractious relationships, down to the adverbs used to describe how people speak, how they physically occupy the space. (I used this chapter a lot when writing the beach day scene for the latest chapter of Beasts, because I knew I was going to have a scene that in part shows how Bill operates an older brother, especially how he deals with his parents and Percy, but also how to distinguish Bill from Charlie when they’re often characters that can get blurred together a bit as ‘the older ones’.) I’m doing this a ton with Hermione atm, because I think she sometimes exists in fanon differently to how she appears in canon and I didn’t want to just assume I knew her speech patterns based on reading a lot of fanfiction about her, but also because Hermione, unlike Ron, doesn’t have her existential crisis within canon but probably (I suspect) has a post-war reckoning that speaks on insecurities and traumas that do occur within the canon text. So if I’m looking at Hermione struggling to relate to the student body, I need to go back to the canon text and find moments where some of those dynamics were already starting to come into play (eg. Hermione not getting Quidditch, Hermione’s responses to Neville telling them what life was like under the Carrows, Hermione’s relationship with other girls in her year eg. Lavender and Parvati).  

Relatedly: look at how characters that are similar to each other react to certain scenarios if you don't have enough evidence of how one character might behave. I decided with Beasts that, while Harry and Ginny are not the same person, they are characters that often react in certain situations similarly, so if I don’t have an example of how Ginny herself would respond to a certain situation (eg. injury in Quidditch), I can use Harry’s response as a bit of a guide for what Ginny would be like. That scene in chapter two where Harry and Ginny discuss her going back to Hogwarts actually borrows lines from Dumbledore and Harry’s conversation in the purgatory King’s Cross after Harry’s ‘death’ - ‘I have to go back, don’t I?’ ‘That’s up to you’ - because although Ginny deciding to go back to Hogwarts is not exactly the same as the decision Harry makes not to ‘go on’, it seemed there were enough analogies with it that I could borrow little lines and colour from that scene. (I have a bit of a cop-out dumb joke to myself in this scene - Harry saying to Ginny ‘we’re the same’ is me nodding to swapping out two very similar protagonists).

Play the ‘there’s a pigeon in the living room’ game. There’s lots of different versions of this exercise for improving characterisation, but I like this one: if this character woke up tomorrow, went into their living room and found a pigeon in it, what would they do? How would they respond? Would they scream/swear/laugh/calmly acknowledge the situation? How would they physically respond - would they try to get the pigeon out, if so how would they physically try to do that? What words could you use for how their body would move in the space while they tried to, say, open a window, or shoo it out the door? Would they call someone to help, if so, who, and why? What would they say, and how would they say it? It's such a stupid game but I do really find it helpful to better inhabit the character, especially if the character is very different from you as the author.

Good characterisation means trying to get everyone right. The trouble sometimes with fanfiction writing is that we have our main character as someone that we love and want to write about, and then harness all other characters in the service of our main character’s personal development. But that’s not really how real people behave - people rarely walk around thinking all day every day about one specific main-character person they know, lol (I always think of the bits in Inception where everyone starts looking at the person in the dream…) Strong characterisation means having at least a working understanding of what motivates every character that interacts with the main character in the fic, that thinks about how both characters perceive their relationship, and how their behaviours and the things they say might change based on who they’re talking to. Characterisation is deeply relational, and very much about how characters react or respond in a way that’s highly specific and contextual. It just takes a lot of really boring slog work of figuring how characters’ typical sentence structures, their body language, their thought-processes, who they gravitate towards, the kind of arc or change they are capable of. It’s important not to come in with judgement, and from a place of wanting to understand and empathise with a character. (It's why I don't really write characters I don't fully understand or 'get' - I'd do a horrible job!)

The last thing I want to say is that the best advice I ever received is pretentious and cloying but true: it's to know your gift. You say you find your own writing ‘irritatingly juvenile’. But in even asking a question like the one you’ve asked, you’ve shown you’re clearly a thoughtful, curious and creative person - and thoughtful, curious and creative people will always produce writing that other people will get something out of. I’ll bet your writing has real strengths, some that you don’t even see and others that actually (at least I hope!) you recognise and that you’re really proud of. This doesn’t mean you can’t develop new skills or improve or challenge yourself. But starting any process of improvement by clearly identifying what you’re good at (knowing your gift), figuring out why you’re good at it, thinking about how best to showcase it and believing you have a right to show this talent or skill is really important. I know this is excruciating to do but I really recommend making a little list of things and starting from this point of acknowledging you have stories to tell and ways of telling them that other people will admire and benefit from you sharing with them. You'll never actually want to improve if you come from a place of being horrible to yourself as a writer. What you do has worth, and wanting to improve is a journey we're all on, just trying to find ways to better share what we have and have it mean something to someone else who comes across it.

#writing #writing advice #beasts #thank you anon #i really hope this is helpful and i just know your writing will be wonderful #also i will be dining out on your praise for precisely one million years

[mostthingskenobi]

I JUST FINISHED WRITING “CASSIAN’S RECKONING”. . . AND I’M SOBBING

I just wrote the final paragraph of Cassian's Reckoning, and I'm not entirely sure how it happened. I wasn't planning on making that scene the end, but the story dictated the terms to me. Nothing else needs to be written. I don't know if that was some sort of cathartic deluge or if the universe was transmitting a message, but I sat down to write smut and ended up writing something far more meaningful... 🤷‍♀️

Don't forget, this fic comes with 5 custom, commissioned illustrations by @amikoroyaiart on my Patreon to my Jedi Knight and Jedi Master tiers. Here's the first one for free :)

This fic has been a journey. I feel like I grew considerably as a writer because I was less boxed in. Writing Obi-Wan has limitations that aren't present when writing Cassian. Writing Obi-Wan is like writing with one arm tied behind your back, which is an incredibly fun challenge that I love.

Just FYI, I have an Obi-Wan fic coming up next that I am LOVING!!!!!!!! It's been a fucking delight to work on and I can't wait to focus back on Obi-Wan after being in the RebelCaptain zone for so long 💜

I am going to sit on Cassian's Reckoning for a week or so and come back to it with fresh eyes. After another round of edits, I'll start releasing the chapters more consistently here and on AO3. I'm SO EXCITED to share this story with you!

Let's go!

#cassian #cassian andor #andor #cassian andor fic #cassian fic #jyn and cassian #jyn erso #cassian x jyn #jyn #rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic #rogue one #rogue one fanfiction #rogue one fic #star wars rogue one #rogue one a star wars story

[silverskye13]

🎀 and 💌 !!

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

My love please the struggle is real.

Uh. Uhm. I. I am really good at bringing around plot points in a way that gives them emotional weight. The plants are always just strong enough to be noticed without seeming super obvious, and their payoff makes sense and feels cathartic when it happens.

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

Oh heck yeah! Redstone and Skulk is going to get its main antagonist soon! Not next chapter, but the one after that I think. And in the chapter after that there's a very very cool fight scene that I'm excited to write. And after that this arc of the story will end and I can take a break for a little bit. The story isn't over, but it'll be at a good stopping point for me to sit back and work on MSH a little, and plot the next arc.

I think? RnS is gonna have 3 arcs total? The arcs have names. I don't know if it's considered spoilers to tell you their names though. I guess if you are curious about the arcs you can just? Send another ask? Pdkfjfjfjg

Real Fic Writer Ask Meme

#real fic writer asks #countthelions #answering asks

[light-yaers]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

oooo how fun! thank you for this mack! <3

going back, from 5 to 1...

5) brekker's ghost

Four years since their infamous Ice Court robbery; four years since Kaz had waved goodbye to Inej--

The Wraith is finally back in Ketterdam, but she didn't come just to feed the crows.

this fic means an awful lot to me! it was after i read the six of crows for the first time, and that duology is now my favourite of all time. i have a soc tattoo because of how much they effected me lmao. writing this fic was such a cathartic thing. it's my take on the kaz and inej of the future. i'm very proud of it.

4) her father's revolver series

You're thrown into the world of the Shelby's at the age of 20, with nothing but your paints and your will.

What ensues is the next few years of your life knowing that Tommy Shelby lives within you forevermore.

i still remember so vividly when i decided to say fuck it and start writing this. before this i'd never delved into x reader. i knew the stigma around it, but i also just didn't care. this was such an amazing thing for me to write. it still makes me incredibly happy and proud to this day, and is the longest fic/series i've ever written at just over 90k words (that is now going to be heavily beaten).

3) adjournment

Life wasn't easy growing up with a chess Grandmaster as a father; it's even more difficult when you find out you could be better than him at his own game.

Benny helps you realise that potential.

the fastest fic i've ever written. this was the first time i kept to any sort of schedule. i posted a chapter a day for two weeks, until the fic was finished. i wrote this 45k word long fic in 16 days. i cried while writing sad scenes. and to this day it's my most popular fic online! (almost at 200k reads on wattpad... wtf) this fic means a lot to me.

2) no saints

Working on Nevarro hadn't offered you much in the way of human contact.

That all changes when an unlikely deal is struck between you and the Mandalorian.

the fic that started me on this entire journey of expanding to other places on the internet. without it, i wouldn't be on this hellsite with all of you! i'm so grateful that it's brought me here. i know it's far from finished-- it's sort of only just begun really-- but i know i'll travel back to it soon. this fic was also the first time i ever wrote smut. and look where that's got me. amazing.

1) sweet escape

Being a Resistance newbie was always going to have its challenges, but you’d never expected them in the form of Poe Dameron; Black Leader, heart-throb of the fucking Resistance; being your bunkmate from day one.

You realise he isn’t someone you want to indulge in early on, but the more you treat him coldly, the more he latches onto you.

my longest singular fic to date. the fic that made me truly think i'm a decent writer. the fic that makes me the most proud of myself. sweet escape means more to me than i think anyone will understand. without it, heidi and lynx wouldn't exist as oc's in my mind. without it, i wouldn't have been able to grow this fanbase here. it's my baby. end of. and i know how it ends, which is even more crazy. there are only 4 chapters left. i just need to write them. wait for me.

special mentions go to right where you left me, the hating game and fools in the darkness! more of my babies that i'm proud of <3

#beff being dumb #ask box #fanfiction #lightyaers #kaz x inej #poe dameron x reader #tommy shelby x reader #din djarin x you #benny watts x reader

[devirnis]

Hi hi! For fic ask game, how about 1, 5, 13 if they haven't already been done :) -118side

hi elle! @118side <3

1. Is writing cathartic or stressful for you?

cathartic for the most part! it's nice to get stuff out of my brain and out into the world :)

5. Share a snippet that you’re proud of from an upcoming fic/chapter.

from my beloved restaurant front au:

As loath as he is to interrupt, Chimney needs a stiff drink if he’s going to sit through whatever weird moment the two of them are having. He reaches for the discarded vodka bottle on the counter next to Eddie, and his movement seems to startle Eddie and Buck out of their intimate staring contest. Buck blushes furiously as he resumes thoroughly cleaning the blood off Eddie’s face, while Eddie goes ramrod straight and stares determinedly over Buck’s shoulder.  Chimney grabs three glasses and pours a generous amount into each one. “What are you doing here so late, Buckaroo?” “Oh, uh…” Buck wipes the last of the blood from Eddie’s skin and turns to toss the ruined towel in the sink. “I was just on my way back from campus and thought I’d see if you were still open.” He looks a little shifty, and Chimney can’t help but be charmed. Ever since Eddie finally caved to Buck’s golden retriever personality, Buck has been at the Tavern even more often, and whenever Eddie is around neither of them get very much work done. Chimney’s gaze flicks to Eddie, and he sees the man pressing his lips together like he’s trying to avoid smiling like a fool at the implication that Buck wanted to see him after being stuck on campus all day.

13. Do you prefer writing multi-chapter fics or single-part fics? Do you prefer reading multi-chapter fics or single-part fics?

oh man, tough question. I like having the option to read stuff all in one go, but if it's a longer fic sometimes chapters are nice so I don't have to constantly scroll back and find my place when my browser on my phone refreshes.

I think I prefer writing single-part fics if only because I hate formatting on ao3 lol

#fic ask game #118side #ali answers

[taegularities]

Rid you're crazyyyyyyyyyyy

just finished cmi11 IM FUCKING CRYING holy shit that was so good oh god

first of all the conversation between oc and her mom made me cry so hard- it hit home for me, as a girlie with mommy issues, that part felt so real to me. Oc's courage to stand up for herself like that and tell her how much she hurt her own daughter is something i dont have in me. It broke my fucking heart, that yearning feeling, i cant believe you put that specific feeling into words rid [are u part of the mommy issues community as well🧐 or are u just that amazing, a true fucking artist (i saw that anon calling you the beyonce of ff and i agree 100%)] idk how to describe my feelings rn, that part definitely left a mark in my heart, ill never forget it

second the domesticity in these two dorks oh my goddddd they're driving me crazy, theyre so cute and in love and im in love with them and i want to cry bc i want what they have but bc irl men suck the hopeless romantic in me is gonna have to live through fanfics for the rest of my life and that makes me fucking miserable but bless the fanfic gods like you that keep my soul alive, idk what id do without you

lastly that scareeeeee oh god like i knew itd be a negative but it had my heart beating out of my ass (idk if thats a phrase) but the way they handled it oh god, the emotionsssssss the fears and insecurities, just reminded me that theyre human, even if theyre the most fucking adorable characters ever, theyre still human and i loved seeing such nuance. You really are doing an amazing job rid, not only writing the story, scenes and dialogue, but also the way you write these characters in such depth, its so fucking refreshing to see.

i want to kiss your beatiful head that holds your beautiful brain, seriously ive never ever been so enchanted by a piece of writing before (and i read so much fanfiction its like an addiction) you are by far my strongest fix. For real tho, your writing, and particularly cmi has touched me deeply and I'll never ever forget it. So thank you

Rest assured and stop doubting yourself bc youre seriously incredible and so fucking talented. Now rest up and take care of yourself, i imagine its not easy to birth such work (i mean 36k you monster, i loved every second of it but damn girl take a break before you burn your brain out) but no srsly i hope youre eating well, sleeping well and doing things that make you happy and relaxed. You deserve all the best of this world rid🫂🩷

sincerely ~ 🐼✒️anon

panda hi hello oh my gosh, sorry for being late, but you mentioned so many important things, so i wanted to take my time HELLO!! never stop sending these lovely af reviews 🥺

i know... she really is inspiring bc the courage to stand up against someone you feared for so long is admirable. i'm part of both the mommy and daddy issues community even though it's gotten a lot better lol like i wonder why it's such a recurring theme in my fics 🤣 i'm so sorry you could relate to oc :( but i'm glad you liked the scene so much.

and ahhh the domesticity 🤧 it's been so so fun and relaxing to write!! real life romance can be hard to find, yeah :') so i guess writing these scenes and chapters has been extra cathartic (although it drives me crazy, too — the next chapter has been making me so jejfhdjjsgd), but here's to finding a cmi jk irl soon :') much more to come!!!🕯️

the scare was one hell of a ride 🥺 i cried a lot!! and even i have been realising lately that i sometimes try to make my characters flawless, but that's actually not what i wanna go for. i always snap out of it and then try to make them flawed bc they're human, and i think the cmi couple, despite how endearing they are, is definitely vv flawed :') thank you for pointing that out 🥺

your strongest fix?? girl PLEASE ILL CRY 😭💔 i love you so much, you're so sweet for saying that and seeing me in such a way, pls i want you here forever <3 i rested a lot after cmi11! but ngl, cmi11.5 almost burned me out ksjdhehd gonna rest even more after that hehe. tyssssm, i hope you're well and healthy and i appreciate you so much for your kindness, reassurances and love for this series/me. love you so much 🤍

#MWAH see you tonight<3 #notes for rid 🌹 #🐼✒️ anon #fic: colour me in

[ewebie]

2023: An Author's Review

I've gotten in the habit (over the past 10+ years) of posting an author's review of what I've done on AO3. Since I started my Patreon, I've been posting it here and sharing across Tumblr and Twitter (*cough* I mean X? *cough*). I think it's good to take stock, be honest about what was possible and look and what I want for the next year. So here it is:

2023... I am not sure I'd say "astonishing" but it was a year of surprises (good and bad). It was a busy and chaotic year, but I really have been on a healing journey and both mentally and physically am much better than this time last year.

Hubs and made a temporary (planned for one year) move across the Atlantic in 2022 and came back to Ireland in July 2023. I was working part/full-time with research and grant writing, doing hands on clinical and remote parts. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, though it was much more sedentary than what I'm used to for a day's work. It's been rough coming back... the stress on the systems from the pandemic and (frankly) fucking conservatives ruining anything good has made remaining here untenable. After losing my FIL in the autumn and my own family having ongoing health scares, Hubs and I have decided to go back to the US in 2024... So... it's been a bit of a limbo.

Even with all the chaos of a move and work and... *gestures at everything* I did manage to accomplish a few things.

Summary of writing in 2023:

I set out with the goal of posting The Hayloft on a weekly posting schedule (without break) until complete. I'm SUPER proud of myself for managing that. It's >70k words and 38 chapters (with a 39th for ANs). Between the schedule, having 2 betas (thank you Paia and Sky), responding to comments, and the HTML bits of posting, it consumed a lot of my time (we won't mention that I finished writing it while posting)... But I'm very happy with the final product and with myself for keeping to the schedule.

In April, fresh out of 221B Con, I did a Mystrade Monday based on the prompt "Don't threaten me with a good time." It's a short one-shot, and lyric-based in title (Nod to Panic at the Disco) called Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline. (because who doesn't want a damp Lestrade?)

So that brings us to May - when things started to get really busy as I prepped to move, and the Mystrade is Family collection, to which I submitted 2 fics. The first was in response to Paia sending me a tiktok: Mistakes Were Made (though not by me), tiktok is at the end of the fic. And I somewhat love Greg's much younger sister, Roxy. I also dipped back into the When You're Fast Asleep series with Think Happy Thoughts.

June and July were mental... packed up my life again, drove the length of the US, moved back to the other side of the Atlantic, moved BACK INTO my flat, repaired the car, resorted my jobs, lost my FIL, went back to the US for the funeral, went back to the US again for Thanksgiving. A lot of stress... not a lot of writing. But I did keep up with Hayloft posting and finished the end of September.

October, I took some of the nonsense in my real-life and the MRC server members' real-lives and made a fic strictly to name-shame people we met and or didn't like. Queue's Next was rather cathartic for that.

In November, I (finally) finished a fic for the RGBA for Lav. She'd asked for something in the Safety First/KKBB universe, and a pet... and we ended up with Blunderbuss. Because murder husbands needed an orange cat. And having dropped back into the Safety First universe, I added H is for Heel and I is for Industry Standards to the work.

Still a bit stuck in Safety First, I wrote a murder husbands Xmas fic with J is for Jingle Bells and put that up mid-December.

On Christmas Eve, I posted a soft short from the When You're Fast Asleep series called All Is Calm. The series really suits calm and warm drabble.

Because I was SO soft of Christmas Eve, I posted a SPICY short in Safety First on Christmas Day called K is for Knife's Edge. And just to round out the year, I dropped a New Year's Eve present with L is for Line of Sight. 

Overall, I published shy of 100k words (though, I only wrote about 70k... Hayloft was mostly written coming into 2023, but all of the posting was this year) with 16k hits and I now have 380 user subscriptions and 7000 bookmarks. It was a solid effort and I've spent the year only writing Mystrade -- though... I've expanded my reading ships (for this I blame BeautifulFiction).

Plan for 2024: Keep myself sane. I have another few chapters for Safety First in the works... there's something so very compelling about the murder husbands. I have 2 WIPs that are very nearly done and I just need to push through the last... 2k or so. So I hope to be putting those up in the first quarter. Be on the look out for The Marshmallow Experiment and Ambien Wife (though, those are both working titles). There’s a few bigger projects that I’ve back-burnered or have been plodding along with, including "the sad one" and "the Pretty Woman one" and some complex, multichapter things. Trello has been excellent this year to keep my bunnies sorted and in some sort of order.

Working titles of a few:

Lesser Things

Used Books

Wrecking Ball

The Time Has Come

Attack the Cheese Block

Of Legwork and Dogs Bodies

Make Yourself

Bad Santa

I hope to keep adding shorts to Safety First and Badges and 'Brellas (I didn't manage any in B&B in 2023... though, Champagne was short enough). I'm not going to aim for monthly new works, I know how much time and energy the move is going to take. I also will try to learn the new features here on Patreon and the collections thing... maybe organise this a bit better.

Many thanks to everyone who has beta'd works for me through the year (this year was mostly Paia -- many times for her many many sins, but also Sky for doing a French language beta on Hayloft, Anne and Stella for the on-demand, and Mousie for the murder feedback). Thank you to the Asylum (nee Jail) - you're all gremlins and I-A-Door-You! Thank you to the MRC for being just... whatever it is you are. And the OGC - because intercontinental chat groups are their own, special nonsense!

I want to thank my patrons (you can find me on patreon here... thank you for thanking me for existing!). Everyone that has left kudos and comments and reblogs and likes. Anyone who has dropped me a message or a thought and has generally enjoyed or encouraged my writing this past year. And those of you who followed Hayloft posting and commented along the way -- amazingly supportive! ILY all!!

#2023-2024 #Author's Notes #Annual Review #Writing Milestones

[wanderingblindly]

hi!! for the ao3 wrap-up: what about 10, 11 and 19?

!!!!!!!!!! hello hello and thank you !!!!!!!! for the asks:

10. What work was the quickest to write?

Probably Milk and Love! It's not my shortest fic, but it's also not a fic I really wanted to edit. It was more cathartic, like personal journaling after coming home from a specialists office and feeling... weird.

And what is writing if not just processing your own life through your silly little characters :)

11. What work took you the longest to write?

Technically speaking, probably Changes, Beginnings just because it's the longest fic, word count wise. However, I think the second chapter of Is It Gay to Watch Your Teammate on Tiktok?, adjusting for length, took WAY longer.

I couldn't find the god damn plot.

It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue for WEEKS; I knew where I wanted it to go, in some ambiguous sort of way, but couldn't nail down a single concrete detail. Painful.

19. What's one pairing you want to explore next year?

Well I do have a Charles/Lewis concept in my idea list.... so possibly that! If it ever sees the light of day!

I think I'd like to study Lewis a bit in general, actually. I find his voice in fics fascinating, and I wonder how my interpretation of it would turn out.

#Youre the best and also the nicest and also the most encouraging #thank you!!!!!!!!!!! #ask me :)

[jmflowers]

Fanfic questions… 7, 17, 40, 66 and 91 please 😊

7. Tell us about the plot of the first fanfic you ever wrote.

            The first time I ever wrote fanfiction, I think I was about 12? Maybe 11. I didn’t have access to fandom spaces the way I do now, so I posted each chapter as video clips on my YouTube page, where I had a small following for my fanvideos. (I was also a little brat who thought threatening people to comment or give it a thumbs up in order to receive the next chapter was appropriate.)

The story was called The Letter Elle for the show Ghost Whisperer, pre-Jim’s death. I gave them a child (a little girl named Elle) who was exploring her own understanding of her inherited abilities. I probably still have it somewhere in my stuff, but I’m sure it was Not Good. Hilariously, the show gave the main characters a child a short while later and then did a time jump to allow for an exploration similar to the one I’d been writing about. Maybe they should’ve hired me.

17. What is your favourite line you’ve ever written?

            I don’t think I could narrow down one specific line; I have a tendency to forget what I’ve written once it’s posted. First to come to mind is most of She Will Still Love You because it was so cathartic and my first soirée into second-person point of view.

“When, really, what you should’ve been doing was rebuilding. Taking the chopped down limbs of your trees and building a log cabin out of them. Rubbing out the knots and sanding down the rough edges and turning it into a place you could call home.

You need to learn how to call your body home again.”

40. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

            There’s been a lot of good stuff through the years. The one that comes to mind most often was from a teacher when I was 14, who handed back an assignment that I’d earned 99% on (the highest grade she ever gave out) and then told me I wasn’t finished. She pushed me to go beyond in my writing and I owe a lot of my drive to her. The quiet pride in her face when I was published for the first time a couple years later is a core memory.

In the fanfiction realm, a reader reached out a few years ago regarding Extraordinary Measures and said some things that made me cry. She pops up every now and then, as our fandom paths have crossed a couple times, and it feels like a warm hug each time.

I’m incredibly grateful for any person who has ever reached out to me about that fic, especially when they tell me it made them cry or feel something they weren’t expecting. It was one of the most challenging writing endeavours I’d ever embarked on at that point in my life and I’m so proud that I completed it.

I also love when a reader leaves a comment in a different language. That you took the time to read something in English and then still write me a message after, even if you’re not sure I’ll be able to understand it, means so much. It’s like opening a little surprise bag when I go off to translate them. I’ve been getting Spanish and French most recently.

66. When have you felt the most confident in your writing?

            For fanfiction, the most recent confidence boost was actually you commenting on my Hygge Universe stuff. Knowing that what I’m writing is not your vibe in the slightest, but that I was still able to reel you in… pretty impressed with myself. I’m also always more confident when I’m getting lots of comments or kudos emails, or the hit count is rising quickly, like most writers, even if that isn’t why I write...

In terms of school, a professor telling me to pitch a show to network because she wanted to watch it was pretty fulfilling. And professionally, holding my own in my first writer’s roundtable was intensely gratifying. As well as finding out my favourite thing I wrote for them was picked up by network, after the root concept they’d given me to work from had been denied by that network the year before. I’d love to see that story become a television series.  

91. How has your writing style changed over the years?

            Oh man, where to begin? Early on in my fic-writing career, I wrote primarily in first-person point of view. Usually past-tense, I think. Over time, I began to explore different tenses and then had a period where I really played with writing second-person point of view. I also wrote much shorter pieces – if I got to 1000 words, that was good enough for me. Editing was minimal. Story content was very dark and angsty.

Nowadays, things are much longer, obviously. I’ve been mostly writing in third-person point of view for a couple years now. I think I’ve settled into a tense that makes sense for Hygge Universe, which is the lump sum of my fanfiction writing right now. I spend a lot more time editing than I ever did before and the story contents are heaps more uplifting and positive. I also think I just have a better understanding of human emotion than I did years ago, when I was trapped in a fog of depression and physical pain. Screenwriting has made me ruthless in terms of cutting things out that aren’t working and I think that’s reflected in my work in terms of like, anything present in a story is there because it’s integral to the overall plotline. I also appreciate that my writing now is not riddled with the same word six times a paragraph, haha. I hope my growth over the last ten or so years is obvious in my work.

fic writing asks

#thank you friend #janelle's asks #englishstrawbie #fic writing asks #looking back on baby-me's fics is a total trip wow

[thestalwartheart]

Mac, What a LoVeLy time you + the FanFam had yesterday/last night conversing back + forth on 00Q / Bond meta! LOVED reading through them this morning. It might take a second reading to fully synthesise what was shared, but let's take a moment to savour how you created a space for opinions + ideas + reflections to be shared. Brava! Here's my unpopular opinion: JAMAICA. I think James' time was a rich, full time in his life and, if I may be so bold, a meaningful beginning of his retirement. You + I have talked about this a bit in DMs; I'm going public w/it here to see what your thoughts are on this point now, as well as see what others think.

... We saw in NTTD Nomi disparaging his life there + this often gets picked up in fic. My question is WHY? Why is the default interpretation that James had nothing to live for in his, as she calls it, bubble? ...

My possibly unpopular opinion (we'll see from responses to this post if that's in fact accurate) is that a legendary agent who left public service, first with a woman he thought he loved + imagined he could make a life with and then, later without her, crafted a chapter of that life for himself on the shores of Cocoa Walk Bay close enough to San Antonio, Jamaica.

I posit he went to Jamaica not to lick any wounds, not to hide away, but to do what he just.could.not.do while he was an MI6 employee: invest time to heal, recover, even --honestly-- restore his soul. To have made it out of field service aLiVe + with all his limbs + mind + spirit (mostly?) intact is a HUGE accomplishment. Why not find or build himself a beautiful residence that matches his practical sensibilities? A place where he can tie up his sailboat right out front of his living quarters and sail it whenever he desired.

I mean: LOOK AT THIS PLACE!

Isn't it possible that the Daniel Craig!James Bond we got to know over four previous movies would have the capacity to take some extended time to unwind + unravel his experience of life so far in order to figure out how he might like to continue into the future? My imagination can picture it + I'm grateful for several fic authors who have taken this idea + run with it.

Include me in the column labeled James Bond Goes To Jamaica to Heal + Then Discern His Life's Next Steps.

Love,

One of your fans

P.S. It's funny, I started to type that I'd like to think I base this opinion on what we see in NTTD. But this is MetaLand, so I can choose any justification I want for this pov. In my case it's projection. Because even though I never was a Double 00 agent or anything REMOTELY SIMILAR, when I got to similar age I did something like this. After doing a lot of therapy + StuFF to be able to dive into raising two interdependent human beings, on top of spending decades doing interesting work in a variety of fields, I was f*%!ing mentally + physically exhausted. So I took myself out of society to do what I imagine Bond did in Jamaica: heal, recover, etc and it mostly worked.(Jury's still out on the next chapter)

Damn, though. I didn't have a shower like this one.

Perhaps it's not too late to cobble one together in my urban garden? 😂

Hey FSC!

This is such a good unpopular opinion because I think it goes against the fandom hive mind, and anything that does that is so worth hearing about.

But a note before this - you mentioned wanting to see if this was accurate. I would gently suggest that this whole exercise in airing unpopular opinions/headcanons/meta isn't to see who's right. It's to expose all the different ways we see the same characters, and maybe learn from each others' perppectives.

Okay, Jamaica.

Personally, I have mixed feelings on his time there, and my headcanons are full of contradictions. I wrote a chapter in the fly in the amber where I tried to make sense of it all, but I'm not sure it was the most convincing take in the world, so I'll try and do better here.

Firstly, I do believe it was probably healing, or at the very least, cathartic. That house is beautiful, the surroundings even moreso, and it's well-known throughout the wider canon that Bond's spiritual home is in Jamaica. He feels at peace there, and I can certainly see why he'd be drawn back to somewhere he used to spend a lot of time when life was a bit simpler. I think that's something a lot of us have felt before - the urge to return to a place where you really became yourself or realised who you were.

I like what you said about it being a meaningful beginning of his retirement. Why should it have been the be all and end all? It didn't have to be. Another one of the reasons I detest the end of NTTD is because it gave us no chance to see what might have been beyond it all for him. There were hints (at least to me) in his NTTD character of him being a lot more well-adjusted in some ways, which I would put down to taking some time out of "life" and heading to Jamaica.

I think he probably spent a lot of time revisiting his past, writing journals, and having some really hard conversations with himself. Spending time with own mind is the hardest, most painful thing you can do sometimes (even without having Bond's past!), and I'm sure Bond felt every minute of it for all the good and bad it did him. If you'll allow me an indulgent tangent, there is a wonderful Australian mini-documentary series called The Beach where an indigenous filmmaker took himself off to an extremely remote shack to detox/get away from it all/connect to country again for six weeks. Watching it was simultaneously the most joyful and harrowing thing I've ever witnessed. Not to ascribe an indigenous man's experience to a fictional white man, but I've always imagined Bond's time in Jamaica was probably similarly painful and peaceful in tandem for very different reasons.

At least Jamaica was certainly no Turkey (where he did run and hide, to his own and others' detriment). Having a place to tie up his boat, do some fishing, shower naked amongst a lush canopy of trees…I mean, at least part of the intent there is to heal, I think. And there's no doubt James sees beautiful places as a way to help him see the good in the world again. We saw that in his desire to travel with both Madeleine and Vesper.

But - and maybe I'm the one projecting now because of what pandemic life has been like for me - for all of that, I can never get past the fact he was alone. For five years. You and I have spoken about taking time out for various reasons, but I've certainly never done it without some kind of support network readily available. Bond doesn't have that, or if he does, he's ignoring it because he's been functionally alone since he was eleven and his parents died. There was the brief stint with the Oberhausers, of course, but after that, he shuts everyone out. And it can't be good for him. Because, at least to me, it really seemed like when he returned to London, he hadn't moved on at all from where he was in Matera.

I think his relationship with Madeleine is an indicator of that. Undoubtedly, this is partly the writers trying to make us care about that relationship in the limited stretch of time cinema gives us, but let's forget that for a moment. He meets Madeleine again and falls right back into that love, as if it were yesterday that he saw her and not five fucking years. To me, that's a sign of someone that hasn't had very much to focus on beyond what happened in the past.

The difference between you and Bond is that you had therapy and took the time to heal. Bond slept with a therapist, it all fell apart, and he took himself away to deal with it on his own. Different strokes for different folks, but I don't see one working as well as the other.

Of course, that's just my personal opinion. And I loved reading about yours. Thank you so much for the ask ❤️

Chime in in the replies or reblogs!

#ask box #unpopular opinions #james bond

[blackbird-brewster]

In February, the day after I finished the Jara love-saga that is [Between You & Me], I came up with the idea for (what I thought would be) a six chapter Jemily fic based around the song 'Kitchen Light' by Xana.

It was my first forray into more of a present tense, freeform, type of fic. I posted Chapter 1 of 'i can't be wrong (to be craving you)'-- even had it labeled as 1/6 at the time, but when I began the next chapter, something marvellous happened -- that fic took over my heart and soul.

In the next six weeks, I ended up writing a 100k+ word, 15 chapter, fic that received far more attention than I ever imagined. The love and thoughtfulness of reader's comments constantly left me in awe.

I poured so much of my own experiences into that fic, it ended up becoming deeply cathartic. I am forever proud of 'i can't be wrong', it is by far one of my most well regarded works -- and they wild thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever actually be able to read it all the way through again.

The thing about pouring my own trauma into the characters is, the fic covers so many triggering topics for me, that it's hard to read without falling into my own despair. Maybe, with time I'll get there.

The point of this post is, 'i can't be wrong (to be craving you)' just surpassed 10,000 hits on AO3. In only five months, this fic has made it's way into my top 10 most read works (out of my 130+), and that is humbling beyond words.

To all of you who read this fic:

Thank you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for sharing your stories in the comments. Thank you for your kindness and thoughtfullness in your replies. Thank you, for reading.

Happy 10,000 Hits, to this work of beauty!!

#criminal minds #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #jemily #cm fanfiction #my writing #kitchen light #I'm deeply emotional about this #I don't think readers understand that I'm just a little guy who sees your comments and falls in love with you every time #ao3

[wily-one24]

Fic: Wicked Game (E)

Fanfic time!

Chapter Nine is up!!

Title: Wicked Game

Rating: E Fandom: Law & Order: SVU Pairing: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler Words: 90,155. Timeline: Covers S5 through to S12. 

This fic blurs the line of mutual codependence and abuse. It is angsty. It’s going to hurt. Tags include: Olivia Benson lights herself on fire to keep other people warm. Elliot Stabler has the most ironic name in the history of television. Dark and Twisted. The author glances briefly at canon. Canon comes back and hits the author over the head. 

Ch1: What a wicked game to play; to make me feel this way. Ch2: What a wicked thing to do; to let me dream of you. Ch3: What a wicked game to play; to say you never felt this way.  Ch4: The world was on fire and no one could save me but you.  Ch5: Strange what desire could make foolish people do.  Ch6: I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you.  Ch7: I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you.  Ch8: No I don’t wanna fall in love with you.  Ch9: This world is only gonna break your heart.  Ch10: Nobody loves noone.

Reviews For This Work:

- Reading this feels like a beautifully dark indulgence. - AO3 comment. 

- MY GODDD u can’t end it like that! this story has been such a cathartic experience as a reader this far. - AO3 comment. 

- I’m feeling ALL of the emotions after this one. If you need me, I’ll be in the corner trying to mend the pieces of my shattered heart. 😂 Seriously though, this makes angst an art form - AO3 comment. 

- 🥺😩 this story has me so damn torn apart 😭😭 - AO3 comment. 

- I’m pretty sure I’m going to need therapy for this next chapter. Can I send you the bill???? - AO3 comment. 

- 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 this hurts......- AO3 comment. 

- This one actually rips your heart out and decimates it. - AO3 comment. 

#svu fanfic #bensler fic #jacqui writes fic #jacqui writes angst #jacqui drinks reader tears like a fine wine #jacqui breaks herself for fic purposes