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scaramouche-bully · 3 years

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i hope this isn't rude to ask, but why do you write dark content topics like noncon and abuse? i'm a s/a and abuse survivor who had no problem with these things before my trauma but afterwards i became angry at people who made such content. now i'm trying to remember that people have different reasons for writing these things and i've been asking writers what their thoughts are. i've been following you for a while and i know you're kind and not ill intentioned in your writing, so i was wondering what your views are. this isn't meant to be hateful at all and i am just curious and want to understand. if this makes you uncomfortable feel free to delete it!

Hello anon,

Don't worry, this isn't rude to ask at all. I respect that you want to understand and this is from curiosity rather than being hateful (which I don't take your ask as such) and that you remember that there's a person behind the work. To be honest, I don't really know how to answer your question so I might go on a tangent. I hope you don't take my words as fact or my entire thought process but I just want to say:

I don't support rape or abuse. I don't want anyone to think that just because I write it, I fantasize about it or condone it in any way. I don't. I'm not trying to offend or make anyone angry, that's why I tag everything twice and add a read more. It's your choice whether to believe me or not, I just ask that you don't harass me under those assumptions.

To put it bluntly, it's just writing to me. When you see people write or do something really obscure or relating to dark content, you're completely right to assume it's because they're interested in those topics. But that's not necessarily the same for everything and everyone. I can't speak on the behalf of every single writer out there but personally, it's just something to explore from an omniscient point of view. I'm not going to bullshit you or sugarcoat my words, I'm not a survivor and the harassment and abuse that I have suffered aren't traumatic to me. That's why I can think that way and it's not because I have any ill-intent or I'm trying to undermine or pretend that those issues aren't serious. They are. Personally, I would get very upset as well because, in my mind, someone is taking something very personal and traumatic and doing what? Writing about it with fictional characters that they want to fuck? It feels insulting in a way. Naturally, I have no idea what you feel but that's how I would react.

But it's similar to any murder/mafia au or even yandere. Does that mean I like killing people or obsessive behaviour? No, absolutely not. When I write a character or direct a movie and someone is shooting someone, does that mean I'm into violence or condone guns? No, that was not the intention at all. We can say it's "not the same thing" and you're totally valid to think that way. But for me, it is. I'm not pretending as if murder or abuse doesn't exist or it's something to want. When it's in shows or books, no one really bats an eye to that. Maybe it's the stigma with fanfic authors that we're all 13-year old quotev writers/readers (I used to be one so I'm really just making fun of myself here) that we rightfully assume it's because we like those topics or we fantasize about being in those situations. Because why else would I want to read or write about x reader fics with those topics?

You don't need me to tell you that it's reasonable to be angry at people that make dark content. I myself, don't really like dark content that much either. I don't daydream about being used and I don't like feeling upset. Which I guess doesn't make sense especially for the type of fics I write. But when I actually write, there's a major disconnect between fiction and reality and I understand that it's not like that for everyone else. Writers pov compared to a reader's pov I feel is very different. I can be a selfish person and write this way because I've never been through it. But it's never from a place of disrespect and I apologize if it feels that way but I can't control what you feel. All I ask is that you read the tags and determine whether or not you want to associate with it. To me, it's just words on a paper and action queues I'm giving to imaginary characters. I'm not fantasizing about anything, I don't even like sex that much. I just think it's something to write that I feel like doing. For example, I don't care for Venti at all. He's cute I guess but I don't want to fuck him. But I still write for him and how I write makes it seem as if I actually look at Venti that way. I don't, it's just writing. I guess it's the same question as to why do you write in general. Because it's fun? I wouldn't really call it "fun" and more of a hobby that I like to do. This doesn't really make sense since people that do anything as a hobby naturally assume they have a passion or like it. In a sense, it's kind of like this: You enjoy drawing but if someone asked you to draw a monster, yes you could do it because you like to draw but it's not like you're putting your heart or deep emotional thoughts into it. It's just a drawing of a monster. You've never had an experience with a monster (in a fictional sense) so there's nothing for you to be traumatized with. There might be some aspects, spikes or tentacles, that make you uncomfortable, sure. And people can find deeper meanings in your work and make assumptions when there isn't, to you it's just an image.

I know this is an incredibly shitty way to explain why I write dark content because it sounds like I don't care or I think abuse/noncon subjects don't matter because it's "just words on a paper". I get it, in movies when the protagonist is abused or has been a survivor of rape and that doesn't go anywhere. That it's just a way for the movie to pity the main character or to explain why they act a certain way, it feels cheap and manufactured and I hate it. But I always believe that as long as you aren't doing anything illegal or endangering yourself + others, I don't care what you do. When I see topics that I personally find disgusting or don't like, I just move on. They aren't hurting me in any way and they're allowed to write what they want to write. I know that isn't the same for everyone and that kind of thinking is very romanticized but I like to think that I'm smart enough to know when that thinking breaks or isn't acceptable.

Sorry that I keep drawing comparisons, it's just how I like to explain things and it's easier for me to explain my thoughts that way. My writing is like a snow globe. Sure it has some real connotations with the snow that comes from nature, but it's not real snow. It's an overly pretty, dream-like world, that can never be cold and doesn't show how awful living with a lot of snow does to you. People that have never seen snow, they'll love it because it doesn't remind them of actual snow since they've never experienced it. But I have, I live in NA. Except I understand that it's just a snow globe. Sure it might make someone uncomfortable for any reason, but it doesn't for me and at the end of the day, it's just an object to me. You can take that as a very selfish way of thinking but I'm not going to throw my snowglobe in the trash just because someone doesn't like it. I know for a fact that anything I write isn't meant to trigger or make anyone upset, I write it because I want to explore those topics. I don't think it's hot, I don't think it's okay, and I don't condone it in real life. But it's just writing to me, it's just fiction, it's a way for me to explore those topics in a way that I am comfortable. If you don't like it and it triggers you, that is completely okay and understandable, but that wasn't my intention and I'm not going to stop.

I hope that answers your question and gives you a bit of insight into my views. I know my way of thinking isn't for everyone and you're allowed to disagree with it. Dark content is a very thin line that a lot of people aren't comfortable with and I acknowledge that. I don't even like dark content that much but I'm not going to stop writing about it. I'll tag everything, crop away topics that trigger people, and to be honest, I don't find myself writing about dark content ever unless an anon asks for it. But if you don't like me or disagree with what I've said, the block button is right there.

- 🐑

#tw dark content #sheep talks #anon ask

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erricdraven · 3 years

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For the malec prompts, 7, t, 22 ? Feel free to change stuff if you prefer!

*so i used this to my advantage a bit so this can be read as a prequel-sequel to my previous fic the number of heartbeats between here and there. also it's a bit canon divergent because of the parameters of the request!* 7. deleted scene | t. secret relationship | 22. "i'm going to need you to put on some underwear before you say anything else."

To: Alexander – 1:23am

Did you still want me to come over tonight? I know it’s later than we had planned but…been thinking about you 🥰

To: Magnus – 1:26am

Sorry I was in the shower but yeah please come if you still can!

To: Alexander – 1:27am

Pretty boy.

To: Alexander – 1:27am

Handsome.

To: Alexander – 1:27am

Angel.

To: Magnus – 1:28am

…yeah?

To: Alexander – 1:28am

I always want to see you. Do you want to see me?

To: Magnus – 1:28am

Yes definitely

To Alexander – 1:29am

Then I’ll be over quicker than you can say my name

Magnus made his way around the sprawling architecture of the New York Institute, looking for the wing of living quarters. The buttresses that framed the familiar third-story window would have made fair footholds for scaling the building, but there were better methods available to him. Twisting his index and middle fingers, he summoned a dense amalgamation of magic beneath his feet that expanded upwards. Fortunately, Alec had left the window unlatched and slightly ajar, allowing Magnus to slip through and land soundlessly in a crouch.

Just as he straightened up, the bathroom door opened and damp steam from the shower billowed out. Alec emerged, naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist, but when he caught sight of Magnus, an almost smug smile pulled at his lips. “Hey,” he greeted, striding over to kiss him softly, one hand gently cradling Magnus’ cheek while the other held the towel in place at his hipbone.

“Is this for me?” Magnus teased, running the soft outer part of his forefinger along the damp skin of Alec’s bare chest. “How thoughtful.”

Alec laughed boisterously, his ears faintly pink with a warm blush. “Sorry to disappoint you but that was just a happy accident. Patrol ran late and I had to deal with— Well, that doesn’t really matter.”

Clicking his tongue in disapproval, Magnus shook his head. “How can I be disappointed with this outcome, unintentional as it may be.” He skated his palms up to Alec’s upper back and reverently drew them down across the planes of muscle until he got down to the small of his back. His fingertips dug into the soft skin above his buttocks needfully, pressing just hard enough that his blunt nails would leave behind little crescents if one were to look hard enough. “I still come out victorious in this scenario, I think.”

>> READ ON AO3

The way that Alec smiled at him, tired and weary but endlessly soft, made Magnus feel like his heart were being squeezed just this side of painful. It was the most vulnerable he had ever seen him, and it was simply theirs to share.

“Hey, Magnus… Why did you agree to this, us, like this?” Alec gestured vaguely. His eyebrows drew tightly together in consternation, and Magnus fought the urge to kiss the skin between into relaxing. “Why are you willing to hide with me?”

It had been a few weeks since their conversation about an arranged marriage for the sake of preserving the Lightwood legacy and foothold in the New York Institute. Maybe it was some kind of desperation that had driven Magnus to be so cavalier about his willingness to accept the “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality of shadowhunters. The thought of losing the first spark of hope in love that he had had in over a century was excruciating, and concealing it so meticulously was a high price, but he was paying it. In a way, though, keeping this fragile thing between them a secret, left to grow in discretion, felt a little like a relief. Whatever it may be with time, it was theirs alone.

At the silence, Alec licked his lips nervously and started to say something.

Instead, Magnus held up a finger to his mouth to quiet him anticipatorily. Through a roguish grin, he said, “I’m going to need you to put on some underwear before you say anything else. I want to give that question the answer it deserves, but that’s a tremendous ask when you’re up against me like this.”

Alec rolled his eyes as if it were nothing more than a line, but there was something in his eyes that betrayed his self-satisfaction. And that was exactly what Magnus had intended. “All right, well then, look away.”

Magnus turned his back with exaggerated movements and crossed his arms over his chest with a smile. It was nice to have someone to be this way with again; it felt like liberation to have someone with whom he was free to be himself without the burden of titles and expectations. He was exposed when he stripped away the personas and facades that were like secondary skins. They were facets of himself that people expected him to have, but Alec never seemed to want him to be anything but Magnus. Not Magnus Bane, not High Warlock Bane, not Prince Regent of Edom.

“Are you decent?” Magnus teased after the sounds of fabric on skin had subsided.

In response, Alec came up behind him and leaned in just enough that his chest brushed Magnus’ back. “All done.”

Magnus shifted his weight to lean back into Alec lightly and reached back to thread his fingers into Alec’s still-damp hair. Softly scratching his nails through the soft strands made Alec hum contentedly. “We should sit so we can discuss your question.”

“Can we lay down?”

“Of course.”

They climbed on the bed over the sheets and comforter, and Alec immediately rolled over so Magnus could curl up behind him. He even lifted his arm away from his chest so Magnus could slide an arm over his hip bone and anchor his hand on his abdomen. This was something they had done once before—bearing their heart to anyone was hard for both of them, but this way made it a little easier.

Magnus took a slow breath, gathering his thoughts appropriately. “You’re a possibility, Alexander. A beautiful, liberating possibility that I’ve never had the fortune to come across in all my life.”

Ever melancholy, Alec replied, “How can you feel that way when I’m basically shoving you back in the closet with me, and asking you to sneak around and be ashamed of something that should be so simple. It makes me feel like a child to ask you to…stoop this low.”

“It was my choice, Alec. I chose to put myself in the position I’m in. And for the record,” Magnus added, pressing his lips to the back of Alec’s ear, “I’m glad that I did.”

Alec pressed back perceptibly closer to him, ducking his head to press into the crook of Magnus’ neck in a self-soothing gesture. “You’re not just saying that so that I feel less guilty, right? Because it doesn’t work if you don’t mean it.”

Many times throughout Magnus’ life he had been in the position of feeling at the disadvantage with the people he loved. He worried himself sick over whether he was being too clingy, too transparent, too vulnerable, and then he overcorrected and worried about being too aloof, too distant, and too unavailable. The cyclical questioning and self-doubt had ruined a lot of encounters before they even had the chance to become something concrete. Even now, there was a seed of doubt about what he was doing with Alec—maybe he was giving him too much credit, and maybe putting his own heart on the line was naïve.

“I don’t have the luxury of knowing what will come of this, Alexander,” he said carefully, “but I am certain that never giving it the chance would be something I would always regret. Will I always be content to be the soul of discretion in regards to you and what we may feel? Likely not. But you didn’t ask me for forever, and I’m not asking you either. I think both of us just needed the chance to be worth the risk of seeing it through to whatever end it might reach.”

Warm calloused fingers made their way down Magnus’ arm to lace between his own and squeeze gently. “I can live with that.”

Magnus chuckled and pressed a kiss to Alec’s hair. “I hope you can do more than that.”

“Mmm.” Alec yawned and rolled slightly, taking Magnus with him. “For now, though, I’m just going to sleep with it.”

“‘It’ being me?”

“By the angel,” Alec groaned, exasperated yet fighting a smile. “You talk too much sometimes.” Before Magnus could reply, he had captured his lips in a languorous kiss. Each one they shared felt like a discovery that Alec relished, unrehearsed and uncertain but wholehearted in the best way. The anticipation and enthusiasm of each new moment they shared was somehow so much better than any shared with Magnus’ most experienced ex-lovers.

Magnus pulled away just enough that their lips parted but their noses still touched. “I thought you wanted to sleep.”

“This is even better than my white noise machine. Having you here is…peaceful.”

“Aren’t you a romantic,” Magnus said dryly. But when Alec pulled him close again, he was helpless to resist.

>> PROMPT LIST

#malec #malec fic #sharona1x2 #cuubism #thatnerdemryn #shfanficnexus #sugarandspace #bytheangell #ask #anon #mywriting #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #otp: we always seem to find our way back to each other

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johaerys-writes · 3 years

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Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by @noire-pandora @midnightprelude @mogwaei @serial-chillr @faerieavalon @pinkfadespirit @inquisitoracorn and @in-arlathan thank you so much! :)

How many works do you have on Ao3?

On my main Ao3 blog: 23! I also have a second blog where I post works set in the Dragon Age-inspired Modern AU I've been writing with @oftachancer , featuring my OC Tristan Trevelyan and her OC Aran Trevelyan, as well as a few others of our OCs. There are 5 works there at the moment. You can check them out here: jo_writes

What's your total Ao3 wordcount?

On my main blog, 516,722 words. On my second blog, 193,953 words, but the majority of it is co-written with @oftachancer .

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

High-Flying Birds: 589 kudos (TSOA)

Where Blood Roses Bloom: 467 kudos (Castlevania)

Winter's Fruit: 424 kudos (TSOA)

Like Friends Do: 410 kudos (TSOA)

Memories and Echoes: 327 kudos (TSOA)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always!! I don't think there's a single comment I've ever received that I've left unanswered. I just love talking with my readers and screeching in my replies. I often wonder whether I come across as a tiny bit insane or overly enthusiastic, but you know what? I am both, so who cares 😂 I just appreciate every single person that has taken the time to read and comment on my works, and I want to make sure they know JUST HOW MUCH

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I honestly don't think that many of my stories have an angsty ending? Most of them end on a hopeful or at least bittersweet note, I think. I'm pretty sure the only ones I've written that have sad endings were those in my Hector/Carmilla series, You Always Hurt The Ones You Love (CV) which were kind of dark and depressing anyway.

Playground Love, the fic I've written with @oftachancer featuring our OCs Tristan and Aran ends on an angsty note, but things do get better in the next installment, Never Let Me Go, so I suppose I am a little allergic to angsty endings XD

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

The Stars Will Guide Us Home (TSOA, Modern AU) has a super soft and fluffy ending, and Fall Into Your Tide (TSOA, Merman AU) will have a happy ending too.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I've written a Witcher/Dragon Age crossover, Viper In Tall Grass, where Tristan is a witcher and Dorian a Nilfgardian mage which I thoroughly enjoyed! Also, one of the first long fics I ever finished was a Witcher/Wheel of Time crossover, which I think is genuinely the most... imaginative thing I've written 😂 I never posted it and don't think I will, but I still love it to bits and I'm super proud of myself for writing it.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Kind of? It wasn't directed at me personally (I don't think) but at one of the main characters of the fic. Perhaps it was referring to the way I'd written the particular character, I truly can't say, it was a little vague. It takes a lot to offend me, but this really rubbed me the wrong way. I honestly think I would have been less offended if the person had criticised my writing rather than the character lol. I just don't take any shit when it comes to the characters I love. They're PERFECT, okay? How dare you come into my house and badmouth them 😂 RUDE

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hell YEAH! I love writing smut, it's great. As to what kind, I think that porn with feelings describes it really well. The smut I write tends to get emotional real quick, even when I intended for it to be straight up porn, so I guess there's no hope for me, hah.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, High-Flying Birds has been translated into Vietnamese.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes!! With oftachancer, two novel-length fics (Playground Love and Never Let Me Go), as well as a few other WIPs that haven't been posted yet, and I'm currently working on a multi-chap fic with my friendo @in-arlathan , featuring Dorian/Tristan and Solas with her Elenara Lavellan, which I'm so excited about! I've also brainstormed and goblined-out over a couple projects with @mogwaei !! I love co-writing, it's so fun :)

What's your all time favourite ship?

Oooh, that's a tough one. I'm super biased in that the ships I love are those I write (both canon and OC pairings) but if you held a gun to my head and asked me to choose I would probably have to say... Dorian/Tristan and Achilles/Patroclus? AAH this is too hard ;w;

What's a WIP you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I do plan on finishing all of the WIPs I am currently working on. I have a lot of writing ideas that I don't think I'll ever get around to, but when I actually start writing something I tend to commit till the end.

What are your writing strengths?

Descriptions, introspection and angsty/emotional scenes I think are my favourite things to write. I also enjoy writing fight scenes a little too much (and judging by the feedback I receive on them people seem to enjoy them too, heh). Lastly, I've been told that the characters I write are complex and fleshed out and that my pacing is good, and that's honestly the best praise for me.

What are you writing weaknesses?

I struggle quite a lot with self doubt and perfectionism. I worry a lot about how my work will be perceived and whether it's good enough. I often agonise over small details or paragraphs/sentences, to the point where I sometimes post just so I stop myself from going back and editing indefinitely. I have thousands upon thousands of words in deleted scenes because "they weren't quite right" or I changed a tiny bit and the rest didn't fit. So. You get the idea 😅 (Now, how I manage to read through everything multiple times before posting yet still get typos... welp)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Hmm, I have to say that I do like it when there are foreign words interspersed through the narrative if the story isn't set in an English speaking world or if the characters speak a different language, but I'm not a huuuge fan of seeing a big chunk of dialogue in a foreign language without immediate translation or a hovering text. It kind of breaks the immersion for me and I tend to avoid it generally in my own writing.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age, and specifically DAI! That game never gets old for me.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

It's impossible for me to pick just one so I'm going to cheat and choose a few. I absolutely love my current WIPs: High-Flying Birds, Where Blood Roses Bloom and A World With You, and the freaking epic-length fics I've written with @oftachancer . They haven't always been easy to write (especially AWWY, which has the most intricate plot & character development) but I'm so proud of them and I've learned so much while writing them. Of my finished stories, The Stars Will Guide Us Home is hands down one of my all time faves. It had been on my mind for several months before I actually wrote it, and I poured so much of my heart into it. I still get emotional when I go back to reread it, not gonna lie! Lastly, At The Water's Edge (TSOA) is very dear to me and I often go back for rereads.

I'm tagging forth to (no pressure!): @fancytrinkets @elveny @glimmerofgold @asiriushoe @juliafied @boshtet-juggler @schattengerissen @dafan7711 @tessa1972 @fandomn00blr @pikapeppa and anyone else who would like to join!

#tag game #writing #dragon age #castlevania #the song of achilles #tsoa #johaerys writes

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shadow-sovereign · 3 years

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Part 1

I’ve got another Ryuji/Jin-Woo fic idea in an au world.

Let’s start with the setting: It’s a low tech world where everyone has magic. There’s no cars or computers, but they have magic-powered appliances like fridges and blenders. And the continent is broken up into different kingdoms.

Magic beasts roam the world, though I’m still debating whether it’ll be a natural occurrence or a result of gates. Could be a mix of both. Either way, it means they need Adventurers or Knights to deal with said creatures and protect the public.

In this world, people can grow their magical potential through training, though once they get to a certain point, it becomes harder to advance. Like, everyone naturally has a plateau point where it becomes harder to get stronger, and it’s different for everyone.

This story centers around Jin-Woo and Ryuji, who are Knights in King Go Gun-Hee’s army. Ryuji is the General (the top position) and Jin-Woo would be a...Captain? I imagine the top ranks going Captain, Commander, General.

At this point, Jin-Woo is in his twenties and stronger than Ryuji, which is why he’s gotten Captain rank already. But the King (who’s in charge of top ranking promotions) wants his Commander class to have more experience leading missions.

So, I imagine the backstory of this being that Jin-Woo joined the military when he was 16 (the youngest that they’re allowed). He was in training for two years, where he occasionally ran into Ryuji and developed a bit of a crush.

At 18, he started going on missions, protecting civilians from magical beasts. He discovered that he has a beast taming skill (somewhat rare!), which got the King’s attention. The stronger someone’s magic is, the more beasts they can tame, so the King assigned some tutors to him, to focus attention on training his magic to grow.

It even got him Ryuji’s attention, who likes to recruit strong Knights into his division. (Commanders have their own divisions and Captains have teams. The general has his own division too, but he’s also in charge of the entire army.)

So, Ryuji and Jin-Woo started training sometimes and going on missions together. By the time Jin-Woo is twenty, his small crush has turned into full blown infatuation and love. But he never makes a move, because Ryuji is known for sleeping around. (Not necessarily deep commitment issues like in ‘My love is a fire’ but he just doesn’t pursue people for long-term relationships. Open to the possibility, but he doesn’t go looking for love.)

Ryuji is also known for how proud he is of being the strongest fighter in the country. He doesn’t like competition. (Rumors even fly that he’ll try to take the crown when Go Gun-Hee passes, whether he’s named heir or not).

At first, Ryuji isn’t threatened by Jin-Woo’s growing strength, just excited for another strong fighter under his command. But then Jin-Woo passes his second in command and he starts getting worried. Then agitated.

Jin-Woo notices what's going on, but even with him trying to hide how fast his power is growing, it quickly becomes obvious when he surpasses Ryuji. It completely sours their growing mentor/mentee relationship.

Ryuji grows resentful of Jin-Woo’s power, jealous and threatened that someone is stronger than him. He can’t entirely avoid Jin-Woo, not when they’re sometimes the best two for a mission, but he puts distance between them.

Jin-Woo is not happy about that at all. He tries being nice at first, but when that doesn’t work, he tries out various ways to get Ryuji’s attention. (Like with kids, negative attention is better than no attention at all.)

He’s never deliberately rude, as he doesn’t want Ryuji’s dislike of him to grow, but he starts trying to banter with him. Finding what will make Ryuji respond, maybe bringing out his competitive side.

Though what they’ll compete about, I’m not sure. It can’t be purely physical activities that Jin-Woo could brute force his way through with strength. But maybe skill-based activities that Ryuji has just as much chance of winning, especially since he’s older and has tried out more things?

But their competitions won’t be the main focus of the fic, so I won’t spend too much time mulling over that.

So, the main timeline of the fic will be when Ryuji is in his forties and Jin-Woo is in his late twenties. I’ll probably have a chapter or two for the backstory, then get into the main plot.

I’m still working on some of the exact details, but let’s say there’s some tension with a neighboring country. They’ve had some skirmishes with them and Go Gun Hee’s efforts at diplomacy aren’t yielding much results, so it looks like a war might be brewing.

Ryuji decides that this is a golden opportunity. He’s been wanting to rule for a while now, but he has doubts that Go Gun-Hee will name him as heir and trying to forcibly take over after his death will have its own complications. Maybe he doesn’t want to spark a civil war in his birth country?

So, he decides that he wants to take over this ‘enemy’ nation. But how to do so?

He’s got some strong, loyal allies who might be willing to help out. (The S-ranks that were in his guild in the canon world.) They’ll be fighting the enemy soldiers, anyway, but they would need enough power to get a foothold into the country. To make their way to the capitol city and defeat that nation’s ruler.

His mind flashes to Sung’s beast taming ability, envious. If he had that skill, he could create an army of loyal soldiers. And then inspiration strikes. Just because he doesn’t have the ability, doesn’t mean he can’t make use of it. But how to get Sung on board?

He’s known Jin-Woo long enough to know that he has his own moral code. One that might balk at disposing of a foreign royal to put someone he doesn’t get along with in charge. (He doesn’t yet realize that the rivalry with Jin-Woo is one-sided.)

So, the odds of him convincing Sung to help him take over a country seem low. He goes looking through his library, searching for possibilities.

In this world, people can have a wide range of gifts, some that need specific circumstances to unlock. So, he’s been collecting books about obscure magic, both to see if he might have some of these gifts, and to know what to test his loyal people for. To see if they have any useful gifts that can be unlocked.

And he comes across a very rare form of magic, a type of control magic. Not mind control, but using mana to control another person’s actions. But it’s not something that can be learned.

Ryuji almost gives up on the idea, until he reads a detail that some with this gift can enchant an object to act as a control object, and the control of said object’s abilities can be transferred to another.

[That was a clunky way of saying it, but it’s basically this. Person with ability enchants collar. Gives control of collar to Ryuji. Now whoever’s wearing the collar will be forced to obey Ryuji.]

It seems like the perfect solution, but how does he find one of these people?

With a great deal of searching. Luckily, he does have a network of people that he can ask to keep an ear out for rumors of someone with this gift.

When he hears of something that seems promising, he goes on a trip and finds someone with that gift. [It probably won’t be from his pov, though. Jin-Woo will just notice that he’s gone for a while.]

And when he comes back….he somehow gets the collar on Jin-Woo.

Somehow.

I haven’t figured that part out yet.

Tricks him into it, maybe? Makes a bet with him?

Perhaps the collar will latch onto Jin-Woo’s neck if Ryuji gets it close enough.

The collar is powered through the wearer’s own mana, so Jin-Woo can’t just overpower it. Supposedly. In reality, Jin-Woo gets the sense that he could overpower it. (The same way the giants in canon were able to overpower that barrier Yuri Orlov put up.)

But Jin-Woo holds off on trying to break free because he wants to know what the heck Ryuji wants badly enough to put a slave collar on him. (Sadly for Jin-Woo, Ryuji is only focused on getting an army and not anything...else.)

And I think I’ll have part 1 end here, with part 2 being on pillowfort. Because Jin-Woo’s reaction to the collar isn’t exactly PG. I don’t want to post anything not SFW on tumblr, in case it gets deleted.

I don’t post a lot on pillowfort, but it’s for anytime I have a not SFW story idea I want to share. And if tumblr ever gets deleted off the internet for some reason (like getting sued into the ground), then you’ll be able to find me on pillowfort. It’s my backup website.

https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/2283048

#Solo Leveling #fic ideas #Sung Jin Woo x Goto Ryuji

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poetry-protest-pornography · 2 years

Note

Saw your “truth Tuesday” post and wanted to share; I used to write fanfic all the time as a teenager in high school and I really loved it. I mean.. I wrote ALL THE TIME. I would sit in class and spend the whole time writing and then I would come home from school and still write. I didn’t even care if it was good or not, I just loved writing and playing with my favourite characters and sharing art.

But now that I’m older I’ve lost all my passion and motivation for it because whenever I read anything that I wrote (not even just fic; literally just ANYTHING that I create) I hate it and think it sounds cringey and I always end up deleting it or abandoning it/never publishing. And people who used to read my fics said they were really good and that I should never give it up, and I even get messages to this day asking when I’m going to update/make something new. I wish I could overcome my insecurity about writing but it’s so hard...

Hello, darling!

Sorry for the delayed reply!

I feel you on the losing motivation thing, it can be really hard to push yourself to continue creative pursuits-- especially as you get older and have more responsibilities and less time in general.

I have two-pronged advice here:

Option A) Embrace the cringe! I can all but guarantee that your writing is not actually cringey, but if you can't convince yourself of that, then just lean into it. Honestly, fanfiction is about wish fulfillment at its heart; sometimes, wish fulfillment is silly! So write what makes you happy, in the moments you can grab to do so, and don't worry about whether or not it'd make the Times Bestseller list (and really, have you seen some of the stuff that makes that list anyway? truly, some of it is absolutely awful!)

Option B) Get comfortable with yourself, and your writing. 9.9 times out of 10 when we decide we dislike our writing or our art, the real issue is that we think that we can't make anything worthwhile, and has very little to do with what we're creating. I find that it can be especially hard with unfinished work, to see the good in it, but I try to remember that if a piece is unfinished, I only have a part of the whole,

]\n --here, have something my cat wrote, walking across the keyboard

...and without the whole picture, it's impossible to see what you've really accomplished.

oiii-- another contribution from Mama kitty

You could, of course, set a daily or weekly word goal, if you want to get back into writing again, something low, like 100 words to start. But remember, 100 words is a whole drabble!

If you have some un-deleted work still rambling around, you might go back and see if you can finish them, or edit them to improve the words used, or the flow.

And of course, you don't have to post anything anywhere, but I bet if you do there will be other people that enjoy it!

If you write anything, please send it my way, i would love to see what you create! Sending you lots of good vibes, and encouragement!

xox, rk

#truthy tuesday #writing advice

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 3 years

Note

Hello! (Different anon here). So, re the recent discussions abt the MCU/Disney as imperialist propaganda, how do you think we as fans should approach the issue? Bc--I mean personally speaking I only engage w Disney properties via fandom, don't reblog (cont.)

(part 2) or promote the films/shows themselves, but still worry about the issues of fan complicity in corporate mythmaking. And I totally understand that the answer is "it's complicated", but I wanted to hear your thoughts?

Hi ^-^

It is a complicated matter and I think there’s two major perspective on which you can see the issue and I don’t think one is ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’, they’re both valid points and sadly coexist. (Not to be like ‘we live in a society’ but we cannot decide to exit capitalism, we can only move inside it.)

One is fandom as resistance: by engaging with the text in a manner that deconstructs it and that transforms it (transformative works that queer the text up, for instance), I am doing an exercise in resistance, and my act of putting queerness in a text that evades it is radical.

The other is fandom as advertising: we’re effectively giving visibility and attaching positive connotations to a product. How many people check out shows after seeing gifsets and fanart on tumblr? A lot. We should be consuming “good” media (say, indie content over megacorporation stuff) and giving visibility to that.

I don’t think that refusing to engage with the “problematic” text at all lest we dirty our hands by making ourselves complicit of the system is a particularly fruitful approach (obviously I’m talking about collective actions, individually one can just do whatever they want within the limits of manners, it’s fandom), it seems to me more like an act of purity. Transformative works have a long, long history and I do think there’s power in that history. Transformative works do help people. And “problematic” media attracts fandoms because there’s so much fertile ground for transformation.

Also, not less importantly imo, it’s not like you can trace a line between Evil Media and Good Media. The MCU is so blatant it’s not really difficult to see it, but how much media just incorporates values that are just mainstream in the culture that produced it and are not good? How do you trace a line? Is Drarry fanfiction advertising for Rowling? Should we stop it at all? What counts as propaganda? Must it have gone through the pencil of the American military or also not?

Maybe I’m just trying to justify my own actions, but I think that maybe we kind of overstate our own importance...? Disney spends billions on marketing, and unless it turns out half of you are Disney accounts swaying the population like the Russian blogs in 2016, I’m not even sure fandom is really that big a part of the marketing strategy. (Do we stop watching actors’ interviews? Is Anthony Mackie’s face problematic during a marketing tour? We end up in directions I’m not comfortable with.) I mean, I know that social media activity is still part of the marketing strategy, and an important one at that. But social media activity comes in many forms and some of those are transformative. Where do you trace the line? Edits are good but gifsets are bad? What about a gifset with different captions that make the scene gay? Slash fanart? Non-slash fanart? Fanart of a canon straight ship? (Hint: none of those are bad.)

Something else I want to point out: this kind of talk comes up when they (not just Disney) make content aimed at progressive audiences. It’s natural. An audience that will pay attention to this kind of issues will not really care about stuff that doesn’t really ping their radar. But the result is that it seems like we’re particularly vicious against “good” things: movies with a female lead, shows with a Black lead. You’ll see arguments like “oh, you weren’t saying this before, but you’re saying it for this product about a woman/Black person so you’re misogynist/racist!”. That’s in bad faith. Of course it stands out when the propaganda is done in something that markets itself as progressive. Nobody really goes to see Macho Batman With Biceps Feels Manly Angst #37 and expects intersectional feminism in it. But they make a movie with a female lead for the first time since 1926, and you’re like “oh? Maybe good? Maybe one good thing finally?” and then brown-skinned people with beards in sandy places want more bombs. Guess which one progressive-leaning people will talk about the most?

I have one Harry Potter fic on my ao3. It’s something I wrote as a teen and found a few years ago and, while it’s not really great, I decided to publish it. I recently debated with myself whether to delete it. I didn’t want to have something related to Rowling on my account. But then I thought, then what? Should everyone delete all Harry Potter fanart ever? Sure, no one will miss my old fic because it’s bad, but that’s not the point. Do I think that deleting HP fics is a “good” gesture? Then do I think everyone should do the same? No. The world of HP fanworks is vast and rich and has a lot of beauty in it. Same with the MCU fandom.

This said, individually one chooses. If you’re personally uncomfortable engaging with a text, you stop engaging with that text. If you want to make transformative works of the most problematic text ever, you make them. (And really, who decides what is too problematic for posting on tumblr about it? Fandom’s still having debates on that nazi manga with the big monsters.) Mega-popular texts are also good collective exercises in text analysis and further debates because they become a common language for many people. (There’s also the fact that the MCU didn’t create the characters, and they have actually a long and often powerful history, although that’s not a culture I’m familiar with.)

Tl,dr... don’t subscribe to the platform :p

#fandom #mcu #anon

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angelmichelangelo · 4 years

Text

so in response to that comment i got last night, i decided it’d be easier to just write down all my thoughts and feelings here because i know that some people don’t check their replies on ao3 so whether that person sees this, i don’t know but it’s good to just get it out there i guess.

i won’t be completing mmard. it was a lot of fun to write, a lot of fun to talk about with people here, and a lot of fun to see people enjoying it. but that fun aspect isn’t there anymore. i don’t think even i could write a half-hearted ending just to tie it all together. i’m sorry if that disappoints people but over the last two years (holy fuck TWO years) has brought me a lot of grief over it. i’d get asks filling my inbox about how it was annoying that there was no upload schedule. people getting impatient. people getting mad because they waiting a month for a chapter and then when i posted one, it wasn’t good enough. in the end, on top of everything that drove me away from phandom, i decided that it just wasn’t worth it anymore. it’s a story. it’s made up. i came up for the plot on the fly. it’s based off my shitty chinese takeaway near my house. write your own ending if you want! seriously! it’s not worth waking up feeling stressed over because i made a mistake or i didn’t write something people wanted. i “completed” the fic whilst the story was unfinished - i didn’t disclose this in the summary or anything because i thought it didn’t matter. because it doesn’t. i hate to be on here sprouting more negativity (which don’t worry i’ll be logging off again fairly soon) but i always find myself amazed at how quickly people can be so hateful and cruel. over fic. all the people that left. all the people that deleted fics or stopped writing. and it’s all because of hate and mean comments. and you wonder to yourself: was that person at one point someone leaving nice comments, or kudos? or reblogging my works? and nobody should have to worry about that. because fiction is creative, and fun, and freeing! and the fact that people can destroy all of that in just a few words is so disheartening. so whilst my december fics are always fun to write it’s still in the back of my mind thinking “what if people still aren’t satisfied??” but... i guess i don’t care anymore? which is also why i’m not limiting myself to just phanfics this year. and if people don’t like it. then i don’t know what to tell you. there’s a whole variety of fics you can read if mine don’t interest you. i need to learn not to care about what people think. just like how some people need to learn that behind every fanfic there’s a real person, and you should always ALWAYS be conscious of that next time you want to write something negative.

sorry that got long and annoying but yeah. just wanted to air my feelings on it all since ive been thinking about this for a long time. see ya ✌🏻

#that’s my take on it #idk #like i said. i really don’t think tumblr and phandom will ever be the same #im only here right now because my december fics and i want to do something good for people who have been kind and nice #but after that.#i don’t wanna fuck up all the good progress i made by staying away #so yeah #hm #not sure what to tag this but oh well

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cescalr · 3 years

Note

9 and 23 for the ask game please 😊

9: Are there any fics you'd love to see but don't want to write yourself? What are they?

Ooh, um... I'm not sure! Something substantial for Cursed 2005, maybe, like a crossover with buffy or teen wolf or something, with jimbo as the pairing from cursed and idk just something interesting (please no b*angel or st*rek or st*dia), or a time travel fic for Supernatural that involves Dean as the POV but absolutely zero, nada, nothing of (even hints) De*tiel or winc*st, that's 100% a fix-it fic (bc my mans deserved a lot better than that ending smh. And so did Jo, and Anna, and Lisa and Ben and Charlie and Benny and- ).

23: What's one piece of advice you would give to anyone who wants to start writing or posting their writing online?

Hmm... Just go for it? Like, write whatever comes to mind and post it. And keep doing that. Over and over again, because it's all the same thing - practise. If you can't think of an idea, there's no reason not to go trawling for prompts. I've got this list of 200 prompts, can't remember where I found it, but it's really useful if I'm stuck. But yeah. Find some time, any amount of time, whether its 5 minutes or five hours, and write what you can, as much as you can, whether it's ten words or 10,000, or more or less, it doesn't matter. Just get words on screen (or on paper, if you prefer.) And then... post it. If the main issue is getting the courage to post it, don't read back over it. That's when the nervousness rears it's ugly head. Just post it. Straight up. Type right into the Ao3 doc and hit post if you have to, just... find a way to minimise the amount of time you give yourself to get all worked up about whether it's 'good enough' or not. It won't be perfect the first time you write something - nothing ever is. Everything requires practise. And each time you post something, you get better at it. It gets easier. If proofreading is the bane of your existence, just post it and come back later to fix any issues. If titling it is a problem pick a random word or a song lyric or hell, a sentence from the fic, anything at all. 'Working Title | Stiles POV All Human AU Stira Fic', even. Just. Anything. You can always change it later. Summaries an issue? Grab the first paragraph. Grab the first sentence. Put 'Stiles POV all human au, stira focus.' as the summary. Who cares? You. Can. Always. Change. It. Later.

That's the great thing about fic. Changing everything later is possible. Nothing here is permanent. If you aren't happy with something, that doesn't matter. So long as it's out there, you can get feedback (because often, we don't know why we aren't happy with something - outside help is always invaluable). Being scared of criticism is half the problem, for a lot of people... but - not to sugar coat - it's necessary. And, just to note, in my 10 years of fanfic writing, I have never, ever, gotten a single malicious comment. Not. Once. It's much rarer than people think it is. And even if you do, you can always delete it. Put comments on moderation, turn them off, if it's the main issue. Gather your confidence at your own pace - but don't forget feedback is necessary for improvement. Eventually you will need to accept it's going to happen - it's not an attack on you. It's an attempt at help. We're taught in school to consume media critically, and those who internalise that will comment constructively. English class can leave an impression - the worst thing is to take any of it personally. Having a negative mindset (they hate it) versus a positive mindset (they want me to improve at this thing I enjoy doing, they're trying to help, they're being supportive) can make all the difference.

Eventually, you'll need to turn those comments back on. But you don't need to take anyone's shit, hence why moderation is a thing. There is a difference between constructive criticism and hate - but it's rare you'll get the latter. Tone is hard to convey in text form; benefit of the doubt is the best way forward.

Make sure you've got friends/mutuals you can ramble with about your fics. it's genuinely the most helpful thing. Give them snippets, do the whole cheerleader routine for each other. It's great. Brainstorm with each other. Not necessarily doing collaborative fic (though you might find that's what works best for you!) but just, geeking out with each other. It makes a huge boost for your ego, and that's useful for your confidence when it comes to posting things. But also, if you trust them, it makes taking their advice easier.

Sometimes, it might feel like two steps forward and one step back. That's great! It's still a step forward. Go at your own pace. The worst thing you can do is rush yourself and burn out. If it takes you a year to update, it takes you a year. I assure you, the readers will still be there, and they'll be happy to see the update. Nobody's going to hate you for taking your time. Prioritise your health. I promise it makes your work better if you're in a good place, and you don't have too much on your plate.

Though, having said that, if you find you work best with about twenty wips all at once updated every week, then go for it! Like I said; your own pace. If a schedule helps you, have one. If it doesn't, don't. I don't have a schedule. I have about 40 wips posted, and a few that aren't yet. It can take me a year to update, or I'll do four in a week. People are pleased either way - what matters is that you wrote something, and it exists, and other people can read it. Isn't that awesome? You've made something. You've made a mark. Someone's happy because of you, because you wrote something they like. Who cares if there's twenty typos and you use the wrong you're* (*or equivalent in your language, ofc) - you can fix that later. And it didn't stop that person's enjoyment of the first fic you ever posted, which might not be as good as your future fics, but it's still special. It's still yours.

Prioritise the thing you want to prioritise. Plot, relationships (of any nature), whatever. Prioritise that. The rest will fall into place. Personally, I prioritise characterisation. interpersonal dynamics follow, part and parcel of character exploration, then plot, as an extension. Do what suits you. And people don't tend to mind very much about any of these. If characterisation matters to you not one whit, just put OOC in the tags and be done with it. Plot doesn't matter? Perfectly fine! You don't want to write ships? Nobody's forcing you. Do what you want. It's just fanfiction. That's kind of the point. There's no need to feel pressure to write a certain thing. I'm in a lot of fandoms with a lot of very large ships. I'd get a lot more readers if I wrote st*rek, or d*stiel, or whatever, but I don't, because I wouldn't enjoy it. Write what you want to see. What you want to read. That's the best advice I can give. If you cry at your own fic, perfect. If you laugh at your own fic, brilliant. If your own fic leaves you all giddy like, grinning wide, amazing. It's gonna give someone else that reaction, too.

Hits, kudos, comments - they're not everything. Ao3, for harry potter, has 5000 pages of fic, with some of the tags I don't like excluded. It's not a case of people not liking your fic - it's a case of people not finding it. Don't worry. Recognition will come with time. Also, the ratio for fics is kind of awful, anyway. Comments and kudos vs hits is always poor; 2%, 5%, 7%. Don't worry too much about it. If people read it, it's likely they liked it. A lot of people are just lazy, and don't press the kudos button. A lot of people are incredibly nervous, or don't know what to say, so they don't comment. Another thing; some of your fics are going to be more popular than others. This is normal. Fandom size, fandom activity, content of fic, tags - prevalence of fic type, etc etc. One of my fics has around 15k notes. the rest are all below 6k. the runner up is a whole 10k below that fic. This is to be expected, and it's nothing to tear your hair out about. Write, first and foremost, for yourself. The rest, as always, comes later.

Really, tldr; you can always fix it later. the rest comes later. recognition comes later. the best thing to do - the first thing to do, the only thing to do - is just start. Post something. Anything. And go from there however you wish.

In 2016 i had zero subscribers on Ao3. I've got 72 now. These things just take time. In 2016 i'd written 30k words. I've written 1.2 million now. These things just take time. Through fandom, mostly fanfiction, I've gained people I'd consider friends. I think it's a really cool endeavour, and I think - for your confidence, peace of mind, and social sphere - it's also a really positive one.

#me; motivational speaker? no. but I try.#thanks!!!#these were really interesting ones :D #ask game

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

Note

hello!!! so i would be very interested in a fic based on all i want to hear you say by sea girls??? i know i’m promo ing them a lot but i think it could be a good fic concept??

you know what’s wild meg is i have had this prompt in my inbox for fully almost seven months and i was just reaching a point where i figured i would never write it. and then i did. so there’s your lesson in never deleting a prompt am i right

thank you @allsassnoclass for your invaluable feedback i love you

read it here on ao3

Calum only sees it because he has Luke’s Twitter notifications turned on, although if Michael asks, Calum doesn’t even know Luke’s on Twitter.

@LukeHemmings Tweeted:

missed u manchester!!

At which point he does the only logical thing: he excuses himself to the bathroom in the back and hyperventilates for about five minutes. And then he does a second, decidedly more idiotic thing.

“...Hello? Calum?”

“Hi, uh,” Calum clears his throat. “Hi. Luke.”

It is Luke on the other end. Somehow he hasn’t changed his number. Not that people typically change their numbers after only a year, but Luke is different. Luke is famous now. Not like Calum, whose band has been playing this bar since he was old enough to drink here. Since they were old enough.

Calum wonders what would have happened if Luke had never left. Maybe the band would have gone somewhere. Now he’ll never know.

“Calum,” Luke says. It might be wishful thinking, but Calum is pretty sure he sounds happy. “What’s up? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

Yeah. Since Luke moved to London. Well. Since Luke got cast in a play in the West End and relocated in less than a week. Calum knows exactly when they last spoke was, and not only because there’s a time stamp on the text messages. Luke’s play — okay, the play Luke is starring in — had been a smashing success, and after he’d left Calum on read three times in a row, Calum had gotten the unsent message loud and clear.

He’d thought they were the kind of friends distance could never conquer, but apparently he’d been mistaken.

Now he’s not sure what to say.

“Yeah, sorry,” he manages, awkwardly chewing the inside of his cheek. “It’s, life got busy, you know, uh, you know how it is.” Duh. Of course he knows how it is. He’s fucking Luke Hemmings. If anyone’s going to understand life getting busy, it’s Luke. “I just, I saw you were in town.”

“Oh, yeah,” Luke says, laughing a bit. “I am, yeah. I should’ve called, my bad.”

“No, no,” Calum says quickly. “It’s — no worries.” Lucky I’ve got you on Twitter notifs, isn’t it, he doesn’t add. “How long are you here?”

“Just the weekend,” Luke says. “I go back on Monday.”

It’s out before Calum can stop himself: “D’you want to have lunch or dinner or something?” He swallows. “While you’re here?”

Someone knocks on the bathroom door. “Calum?” Michael. Fantastic. The last person Calum needs to hear from right now.

“Give me a minute!” Calum says, kicking the door. He winces. “Sorry. Mi— I’m, uh, possibly hiding in the bathroom. During my shift.”

Luke huffs a laugh. “I’d love to get lunch or dinner or whatever,” he says. It doesn’t even sound like he’s lying. Then again, this man is nominated for an Olivier. He could convince Calum he was interested in diving into an active volcano.

(He certainly managed to convince Calum that he was interested in him, so Calum should probably know better by now.)

“You could come to our show,” Calum says, because he’s petty. Or a fucking masochist. It’s possible to be both. “The band, I mean. We have a gig on Saturday night?”

“Oh!” Luke sounds surprised. Probably because he hadn’t anticipated the band staying together after he’d left. This isn’t fucking Take That, Calum thinks bitterly. Maybe being famous has gone to Luke’s head more than Calum had originally thought.

Except then Luke says, “Shit, I’d love to come to a gig. I’ve missed you lads. You want to get dinner before? After? What time is the gig?”

And Calum’s right back where he started: hopelessly infatuated.

“Gig’s at six, so yeah, dinner afterwards,” Calum says. He shifts nervously on his feet. “Don’t get excited. Our venue hasn’t changed.”

“Still the pub?” Luke sounds fond. “Aw, I miss that place, though. I’m looking forward to coming back.”

You don’t need an invite, Calum thinks. You can just show up.

That might not be true anymore, though.

“Sure you can handle it?” he says drily. “I mean, you’re not worried about crazed fans?”

Luke laughs awkwardly. “In a cheap bar in Western Manchester? Think I’ll be okay.” Calum’s trying to work out whether that’s a subtle dig when Luke adds, “Look, I’ve gotta run, actually, some — press things, but, uh, I’ll be there at six.”

“Great,” Calum says. “Fantastic. See you then.”

“See you then,” says Luke. He hangs up. Calum puts his phone in his pocket and stares judgmentally at himself in the mirror.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he mutters, rolling his eyes and turning away to return to his job.

—

The fucking A string is fucked up. Calum has been trying to tune his bass to no avail — no matter how much he turns the tuning peg, the tuner won’t declare it a clear A. “Michael,” he says sharply, “my bass won’t tune.”

Michael materialises, his guitar slung over his shoulder. “Because you’re turning the wrong fucking knob,” he says. Calum looks over at his fingers.

Oh.

“Oh,” Calum says embarrassedly. He moves his fingers and tunes the A string, then moves to the D string, which has gone completely flat thanks to Calum’s mistaken fiddling.

“You’re all nervous because Luke’s coming,” Michael says, shaking his head to let Calum know exactly how he feels about that. “Stop worrying about it. He didn’t give a shit about the band when he was in it, he definitely won’t give a shit now that he’s out, alright?”

“Not helping,” Calum says, glaring. “And that’s not fair to Luke and you know it. He cared about the band. What was he supposed to do, not accept a life-changing opportunity?”

Michael just rolls his eyes. They usually avoid discussing Luke. It always ends with Michael disparaging his name and Calum jumping to his defence, with Ashton stuck uncomfortably in the middle. Ashton had only been in the band about two weeks before Luke left — he’d never gotten the chance to know Luke. Calum also suspects Ashton just doesn’t want to get involved, because it had been clear to anyone in the room during rehearsals that Luke loved it. Calum doesn’t blame him for leaving.

Just because he misses Luke like a lost limb, doesn’t mean Calum holds it against him.

“Whatever,” Michael says. “Long as he doesn’t try to rejoin.”

They could use Luke in the band again, but Luke’s more likely to dive into that active volcano than ask to rejoin the band, especially if Michael’s got that look on his face. “Yeah, Mike, I promise I won’t let the Olivier-nominated Luke Hemmings rejoin our band if he asks,” Calum says flatly.

Michael makes a face. Calum makes one back.

“Boys,” Ashton interjects, sensing the tension lifting. “Less flirting, more setting up, please?”

Calum immediately throws an arm around Michael’s shoulders and grabs Michael’s head. Michael doesn’t protest when Calum smacks an exaggerated kiss to his cheek, because he’s amazing and the best friend ever. “But father, I love him.”

Michael clutches Calum melodramatically in return. “You can’t keep us apart, Ashton! You’ve been against intra-band love since the very first, but Calum’s the only man for me!”

And then he dissolves into giggles, taking Calum down with him.

“I can’t fucking stand the pair of you,” Ashton says, grinning wryly down at them.

“Someone’s jealous,” Calum snickers. “Mikey, I think Ashton wants in.”

“Hey, Luke’s here,” Ashton says. Both of them jerk upright like soldiers called to attention. “Sure, Luke can get you to behave and he’s not even in the band anymore, but when I ask it’s like talking to a wall? I see how it is.”

Michael kicks at his cajón. “Fuck off.”

Calum tries to turn subtly without looking like he’s turning. Sure enough, Luke is standing at the bar, chatting with Alex who’s behind it and preparing a drink. Probably a tequila soda. That had always been Luke’s order. He glances over at the stage and catches Calum’s eye.

Calum might as well be a year younger for how it still feels to meet Luke’s gaze.

This isn’t the Luke that left a year ago. Calum hadn’t expected that Luke. The news feeds have provided him with both mental and literal images of this new Luke, Luke Hemmings of the stage. Swanky clothes. Longer hair. Gone are the lip piercing, the ratty snapback that used to hide what Luke deemed “bad hair days” as if his hair ever looked different, the beaten trainers. If Luke looked worse, Calum would feel better.

But Luke doesn’t look worse. He just looks good in a different way. In fact, he looks better. More importantly, he looks far too expensive to be hanging around this sketty pub. Despite seeing photographs of him online nearly every day since his departure, Calum is taken aback by how much has changed in a year.

He’s not equipped. That much is clear. This had been a mistake. Calum’s going to open his mouth and instead of saying hello he’ll say I can’t believe you became more gorgeous and you’re back just to mock us and laugh at the band you used to front and make me feel like even more of an idiot for thinking you liked me.

“It’s six,” Michael informs Calum, tapping his shoulder. Calum whips around, startled. The neck of his bass almost knocks over the mic stand. Michael raises an eyebrow. “We can start playing, yeah?”

“I’m ready,” Calum says. Michael gives him a Look. “I am,” Calum repeats. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Michael says huffily. He steps up to the microphone and turns it on. Calum takes his spot at his mic and waits for Michael to introduce them — “We’re 5 Seconds of Summer, and we hope you like our set!” — before going straight into ‘Unpredictable.’

He tries not to watch Luke for the whole set, but he can’t really help it. Not only is Luke the most magnetic person in the bar no matter how much it fills up, he’s also sitting directly in Calum’s line of sight. Intentionally? By coincidence? Calum decides he doesn’t want to know. Because it’s probably the latter.

He does see someone approach Luke for an autograph and a photo at one point, though. Which is so weird that Calum forgets his next lyric and Michael shoots him another Look.

The audience grows slowly throughout their set; Calum recognises a lot of the regulars, smiles and waves to the ones who smile and wave first. Behind the bar, Alex air-guitars along to their cover of ‘What’s My Age Again,’ as usual. Before Calum knows it, they’re playing their last song.

There’s no pretending they wouldn’t be better with two guitarists instead of just one, but Calum has to admit: as three-piece bands go, they’re pretty fucking incredible. Even if they never make it big, Calum can rest easy knowing it’s because of bad luck, not lack of talent.

“Thank you so much,” Michael says into the microphone. “We’ve been 5 Seconds of Summer, check out our Facebook page for information on future gigs.”

“Thank you, everyone,” Calum contributes, then steps away to let the scattered applause wash over him.

Luke is clapping loudest of all. He would do that, as an alumnus of the band. If bands can have alumni.

When the attention of the room at large moves away from them, they set to taking apart and packing up their equipment. Calum is coiling up the cord for his bass when someone taps him on the shoulder.

“That was wicked,” says Luke. Like they’re not the first words he’s said to Calum’s face in a year. Calum stares at him. His face is glittering. Oh. That’s makeup. It’s shimmering on his eyelids when he blinks. Gold, sparkly. Pretty. Does Luke wear makeup now? Or is he only wearing it tonight because it’s a special occasion? Even though it’s really not a special occasion? It must be the former. Luke wears makeup now. He doesn’t post a lot on Instagram — yes, Calum has notifications on for him there, too — and when he does it’s usually show-related stuff, in show makeup. Point being Calum’s earlier theory is once again proving itself true: he is not equipped.

“Thanks,” he says after he’s made is sufficiently awkward with his fucking staring game. He smiles. “Could’ve probably used another guitarist, but we do alright, yeah?”

Luke ducks his head. Great, really well fucking done, Calum. Way to guilt him. “I’m teasing,” he hurriedly assures Luke. “Thanks for coming.”

“Do you need a hand?” Luke gestures at the mess of cords around Calum’s feet.

Calum opens his mouth, but Michael, unfortunately, beats him to it. “We’re okay,” he says, stepping forward. “Hi, Luke. Nice of you to make an appearance.”

“Michael,” Calum hisses.

Luke bites his lip. “Hey, Michael. It’s, uh. You guys sounded sick, I was telling Calum.”

Even Calum can hear the no thanks to you on the tip of Michael’s tongue. “Which I agreed with,” he says, looking at Michael like be fucking civil. “Because we did.”

“Yeah,” Michael scoffs. “Well, Cal, if you want to go on your date, Ash and I can handle the rest of the cleanup.”

Calum frowns and blushes at the same time, which feels funny. “I’m — I can —”

“Honestly, go,” Michael says, sighing. “If it’ll get Luke out of here, then go.”

“Jesus Christ, Michael,” Calum snaps. “Get your head out of your arse, would you? If you’re offended that Luke took an opportunity for success, then one of you is a dickhead and it’s not him.”

Michael’s face hardens. He snatches the half-coiled cord out of Calum’s hands. “Go,” he repeats. It’s not a request this time.

Calum grinds his teeth and turns to Luke, who’s frozen in place with a pained expression.

“Ignore him,” he says tightly. “He’s been a dick about the whole thing. Let’s just go.”

Luke hesitantly follows after Calum. “I didn’t realise —”

“Great set!” Alex calls, wiping down the bar. Calum manages a smile just for him.

“Thanks,” he says, then glances over at Luke. “Yeah. I reckon I should have warned you.”

“I meant it that I’ve missed you lot,” Luke says mournfully. “I mean, I knew he wasn’t pleased, but…I sort of hoped he’d have gotten over it? Not that— I know I left, so I did ask for it —”

“Luke, come on. Don’t be thick.” Calum scoffs as they leave the bar. “It’s a Michael problem. He just thinks it’s an Olympic sport to hold the longest grudge or something. I love him, but he’s a fucking arsehole when he wants to be.”

“I — I know, but…” Luke sighs. “Yeah. I guess.”

The evening air is cool. Around them, shops and street lamps flood the road with illumination. The gold on Luke’s face catches the light like it’s being paid to do it. Calum only glances briefly at him before looking back at the pavement ahead and asking, “So…what do you fancy for dinner?”

“I seem to recall a Maccies this way,” Luke says. “I know it’s not the most elegant of places, but…”

“Say no more,” Calum says. “You never need to convince me to get Maccies.”

—

They sit across from each other, quiet for a few minutes as they both devour their burgers. Luke’s nails are painted with clear gloss. Calum isn’t sure if it’s the theatre effect or just the London effect that’s given him this extra glamour. Or the fame thing. Which is still decidedly strange. And also reminds Calum:

“Congrats, by the way.”

Luke looks up, confused. “Huh?”

“On the Olivier nomination,” Calum says. Luke smiles. “That’s a big deal.”

“It’s, uh, yeah. A bit.” He laughs. “Okay, a lot. It’s mad. Thank you.”

“You deserve it,” Calum says. “The play’s —” No. Nope. That’s not something he wants to admit to. “I’ve heard it’s good,” he amends quickly, but it’s too late. Luke, who is the definition of selectively perceptive, squints.

“Have you seen it?”

Calum presses his lips together. His silence could probably speak for itself, but whatever. “I saw it last month,” he confesses. “My mum got us tickets, me and her and Mali.”

Luke stares. “And you didn’t think to tell this to me? Or ring me while you were in London?”

“You didn’t ring me when you came here,” Calum retorts.

Luke bites his lip. “Touché. But why didn’t you say hello?”

Calum huffs a laugh. “You ignored my last three texts, Luke. I know how to take a hint.”

At this, Luke smacks his palm to his forehead. “Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I never replied to you. I’m so sorry. I kept reading them at the worst times and then forgetting to respond. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m really sorry,” Luke repeats. “I didn’t mean to fall out of touch, honest. I just…”

“Got busy,” Calum finishes. “I know. You don’t have to tell me. And look, not for nothing, the play’s bloody brilliant. So your hard work hasn’t been in vain.”

“God, I’m a fucking idiot,” Luke says, like he hasn’t heard Calum speak. “Just the other day I was thinking of you. Wondering why you never reached out. I figured you were upset at me for leaving. Like Michael.”

“What? And you didn’t think to shoot me a text, maybe?”

“I thought you were cross! I didn’t think you would want to hear from me!”

“Luke —” Calum breaks off and shakes his head. “Can’t believe I thought you were any different when you’re actually the same fucking moron who left here.”

“Hey,” Luke halfheartedly protests. “Fucking moron who’s nominated for an Olivier.”

“Oh, excuse me,” Calum says, rolling his eyes and grinning. Luke laughs almost to himself. “Look, it’s okay. We’re good now, yeah?”

Luke nods. “Promise to text you back from now on. And if I don’t, it’s not because I don’t want to hear from you. Just keep texting me. I’ll — I’m —”

“Don’t tell me you’re busy,” Calum says. “I know you are. I read the articles. How you find the time to do interviews and also a show eight times a week is beyond me.”

Luke quirks his lips. “You read those?”

“Of course I do,” Calum says. At first it was just to see if you’d say anything about me, he does not say. “Number one Hemmo fan.”

Luke laughs. “You didn’t even wait at the stage door to say hello. You’re nowhere near the number one fan.”

Calum scoffs in mock offence. “Yeah? Do your other fans know your drink order? Do they know who your first concert was? Do they have your phone number?”

“That’s not being a fan, you idiot, that’s being my friend,” Luke says, laughing.

Calum waves him off. “Same thing.”

“So what have you been doing?” Luke prompts once he’s polished off his burger. The napkin crinkles in his hands when he wipes his fingers, an action which becomes entirely pointless as he munches on the oily chips that had come with his meal.

“I still work at the bar,” Calum says. “Mike and I both. My, uh, my life is basically the same, honestly. Except we get paid slightly more to play now.”

“You should be playing the O2,” Luke says. “You’re really good.”

“Yeah, well.” Calum shrugs. “Can’t all have our dreams come true.”

Remorse crawls over Luke’s face. Shit. Calum isn’t doing it on purpose. It’s just that sitting here, eating greasy fast food, it’s so easy to forget that they live in different worlds now. Passerbys peering through a window at them could surely tell, though. Calum’s Rolling Stones shirt and black snapback are no match for Luke’s carefully styled curls and leather jacket. It’s not a ratty leather jacket, either, but one of the really nice ones. Probably Gucci or something equally outrageous.

It doesn’t mean Calum’s any less smitten. Just that the crater between them might be too vast to cross, and Calum keeps forgetting there’s a crater at all until he nearly trips over the edge. Moments like now, where the look on Luke’s face is that of a kicked puppy.

“Calum,” he starts, but Calum shakes his head.

“Never mind, sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You did a bit, though,” Luke says. “Right? You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t mean it a bit.”

“I’m not guilting you for doing what you love, Luke,” Calum says firmly. “I’m not. Anyway, I’m doing fine. Better, even. Don’t get a guilt complex, please. I’m happy for you, I’m happy myself, everything is fine.”

Luke grimaces and stuffs several chips in his mouth. Calum chomps down on one of his own. It’s a bit soggy but at least sufficiently salted. Not the best chips he’s had, though far from the worst.

“We left things a bit weird, though, didn’t we,” Luke says, staring determinedly at the table.

Calum nearly chokes on his chips.

A bit weird is probably the right way to put it. Calum’s been rejected in some pretty harsh ways, but having the boy in question pack up and move to a whole new city had been a first for him. If it had been a clear-cut rejection then maybe Calum could have handled it. It was the uncertainty that had done him in. Maybe that’s why he never made a real effort to stay in touch.

It’s one thing when your friend won’t answer your texts. It’s another when you really thought that friend had been into you, only for him to turn around and announce that instead of going out with you he’d be moving to London.

“I don’t mind if we just move past that,” Calum says now, hoping in vain that his voice won’t betray how much he has not moved past it. He’s an adult. He can be friends with someone he also fancies an embarrassing amount. He hadn’t intended to mention the whole will-we-won’t-we thing they’d done just before Luke had left. There’s not a lot to say about it.

“Do you mind if we don’t move past it? Yet?” Luke says nervously. “Can I say something and then we can move past it if you still want to?”

Calum swallows. What the fuck could Luke possibly have to say about it, other than to maybe apologise for leading Calum on the way he did? “Uh, I suppose?”

Luke clears his throat. “Okay. Well, um, I just wanted to say that…I think when I left, that you maybe got the impression I was turning you down. And. I wasn’t. At all. I didn’t want to leave you, it was just what made the most sense, being in the play and everything. Um, and I didn’t really say anything because it wouldn’t have been fair of me to tell you I liked you when I was also moving four hours away — like, I didn’t want to do that to you.” He laces his fingers together on the table. “But you, um, seemed. Hurt. And I didn’t know how to tell you before, so I’m telling you now, it wasn’t because I didn’t like you. I did. I do.”

Calum must forget to breathe, because it’s dead silent around them. Luke finally looks up and winces. “Also, this isn’t a guilt trip, so like— if you have a boyfriend now, that’s— sorry, I guess I should have checked?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Calum says. “The bloke I was hoping would be my boyfriend decided to move to London and become a star, and I haven’t exactly gotten over him yet.”

A small, tentative smile pulls at Luke’s lips. “Really?”

“You sure took your time clearing that up,” Calum says. His heart is beating unreasonably fast, but he thinks it’s probably excused on the basis that the boy he’s fancied for two years and who would’ve broken Calum’s heart had Calum gotten the chance to share it with him is now returning his feelings. Exhilaration flutters around his chest, and he smiles. “But yeah, really.”

Luke’s face breaks into a genuine smile. He pushes a strand of hair behind his ear. “Oh, thank God. I thought after this long—”

“Underestimating just how much I like you, obviously,” Calum says. Luke brightens like a fucking spotlight. “Though it’s been the same amount of time for you, so if I have problems, then so have you.”

“Who’s got problems?” Luke says. “This is the opposite of a problem. I’m thrilled.”

“You do still live in London,” Calum points out, because again: masochist.

A shadow crosses Luke’s face, but it quickly disappears. “That’s— it’s only four hours.”

“Only.”

“Okay, it’s—” Luke squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t— shit. Look. I know it’s not practical, okay? But can we just pretend it is? So this isn’t a complete loss? I’m here until Monday morning.”

“One whole day,” Calum says. “Lucky us.”

“Yes,” Luke says decisively. “Be my boyfriend for a day, Cal. We’ll figure it out from there.”

Every objection Calum has flies from his mind at Luke saying be my boyfriend. Struggling to maintain his composure, he hedges, “Really? You want to have a boyfriend who lives in Manchester and works in a bar and doesn’t even know how to identify what makeup you’re wearing? Which looks fantastic, by the way? And did I mention the whole living-in-Manchester thing? You know, four hours from London?”

Luke fixes him with a look. “Yeah, I want you to be my boyfriend, Calum. And all of the things that includes. It’s worth it to me.”

And. Well. Shit. “It’s worth it to me, too,” Calum admits.

Maybe if he’d said that a year ago, Luke would have listened. Maybe they’d have gotten here much sooner. But at least they’re here at all.

Luke reaches across the table and his lips quirk up. “That’s all I want to hear you say.”

For a moment, Calum imagines that life is easy. Luke could always leave the show. Move back to Manchester. Spend late nights and early mornings in Calum’s flat (having made up with Michael, who splits Calum’s rent and living space). Do his makeup in their bathroom mirror and explain it all to Calum as he goes. Rejoin the band despite Michael’s initial stubborn grudge, and finally reclaim his role as lead singer, finally doing justice to melodies Calum and Michael could never quite sing the same way. If Luke had never been cast, Calum wonders if that’s how their lives would be.

But it’s not how their lives are, and Calum doesn’t want that anyway. Luke is doing what he’s born to do, and Calum would never forgive himself to pull him away from that. He doesn’t want it to be easy. The fact that Luke knows it won’t be easy and is willing to take it on anyway means far more, to Calum.

They can figure it out.

He laces his fingers with Luke’s and squeezes once, smiling when Luke smiles. So much is different, but fuck if that’s not the same beaming, blushing smile that’s always been just a little too big for Luke’s face. There’s hope for them yet. Calum can feel it.

#calum hood #luke hemmings #cake #cake fic #5sos #5sos fic #fic #my fic #meg i compromised with this fic #so the calum is my type but the luke is your type #i hope that's a fair trade to you #i would also like to apologize for the fact that this fic specifically takes place in manchester #(where i have never been)#and makes many references to london (where i have also never been. and you live.)#hope i didnt get anything horrifically wrong !#kept it as vague as possible but knowing me........#anyway love you thanks for giving me this prompt in AUGUST #i was literally just listening to my liked songs on shuffle tonight #(crying a little. because the scientist played and whos gonna NOT cry at the scientist)#and this song came on #and i was like hey. actually i CAN see this as a fic #i've had the doc probably since the day you sent this ask but never knew how to write it #so! glad i finally tackled it #kaleidoscopeminds #ask #answered

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captain-aralias · 4 years

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today i have done very very little. i certainly haven’t started my COTTA but ask me tomorrow, and hopefully i will have because october is already half way done...

for now, i thought i’d post all the bits i deleted from Greener Grass, so they’re out of my head. i’ve just re-read them and i think all of them make the story worse, so it’s good they’re gone! but interesting.

plus, it’s no longer so incredibly painful for me to think about how i deleted 6,000 words from my 40,000 word fic because it’s done. so - now’s the time to share.

if you haven’t read Greener Grass, perhaps you’d like to! it’s a Wayward Son bodyswap.

here’s the stuff i wrote but didn’t use

Deleted scenes:

actually, to be honest, these are less deleted scenes, and more - alternate scenes. in most cases you can see where they came from/what they turned into.

from chapter 1:

(Baz POV)

When I get out, Simon is standing in front of the mirror trying to flatten my hair, even though I definitely told him not to.

“It’s all right, Snow – I can deal with it.”

“You didn’t bring a hairdryer,” he says defensively as I start pulling the kinks out with my wand.

I sigh, although I’m not actually angry about this. It’s just hair – it’s not as if he got it cut without asking me. That I really would have found hard to forgive.

“Do you even know what a hairdryer looks like?”

“Yes.”

“Because there’s one in the wall.”

“Oh.”

Snow’s eyes meet mine in the mirror (which is surreal, for obvious reasons) and then travel down the rest of my body.

“What the hell are you wearing? I look like I work in a bank.”

He looks horrified. As though the sight of himself in trousers that actually fit and a neatly pressed white cotton shirt is one of the worst things he’s ever seen. It really isn’t. He looks lovely.

I frown. “You needed some new clothes.” I lower my voice. “I didn’t look, if that’s what you’re worried about. I changed with my eyes closed.”

“Oh,” Simon says. “Er. You didn’t?”

“No.”

“I looked,” Simon says after a moment. “Twice.”

I stare at him and he shifts uneasily.

“I mean, did you not want to?”

“What?”

I’m not sure if my brain has shorted out from the knowledge that Simon has seen me naked, or from the clear invitation to go and look at him in the same state. Both, probably.

I can feel myself blushing. And see it in the mirror – Simon blushes easily, unlike me. It’s charming. And I can’t help but notice that the flush is spreading below the collar of the shirt I’ve put him in. (Crowley, I wonder how far down it goes.)

“It’s fine if you don’t,” Simon says hurriedly. “I know it’s a bit weird––”

“Simon,” I say firmly, “

reason for change:

i cut this back in february, so i’m not entirely sure - but basically i think it had to go because i knew i switched too early to simon’s POV because baz leaving to go to the bathroom felt so final (people leaving a room? it’s how you know the scene is over. no - that’s lazy). staying with simon meant i could write some of my favourite stuff in this chapter about him looking at baz and wanting him.

(Simon POV)

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Baz said to me as I tried to leave . “There will be a lot of vampires in there––”

I shrug. “I know how to handle vampires.”

“You certainly do,” Baz said. Then I think he realised he’d said that out loud and grimaced. “Please pretend I didn’t say that.”

“Done,” Shepard says.

“Speak for yourself,” Penelope says. “It’ll be burned into my brain forever.”

reason for change:

i mean, i kept most of this. i think i probably cut too harshly, and then missed the ‘handle vampires’ joke and put it back in in a different format.

Chapter 2

i hope you like... hundreds of version of exactly the same fucking scene.

BAZ

Lamb blinks. Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it.

It wasn’t what I was expecting, either. I suppose Simon has to say something. (And admitting that he’s the former Chosen One, and we want to see whether the Next Blood can give him his magic back, is unlikely to go down well.) But I’m not sure what he’s getting at with this particular avenue. And clearly, neither does Lamb.

“You do know what the Next Blood are, don’t you?” he says. “They’re like us, physically.”

“You mean, they’re vampires?” Simon says. “Yeah. I mean, I know. But they’re not vampire-vampires, are they? They don’t drink blood.”

I notice Lamb is wincing every time Simon says ‘vampire’. (As am I. Although I’m still invisible so it doesn’t count.) It’s at odds with the confidence that he’s been projecting so far. Which is a relief, actually. It’s good to know that the vampires here are still afraid of discovery. From everything Shepard said about them, I imagined they must be running this entire city. But this one at least still has some fear.

I can use that – if I have to.

I’m sitting in the booth opposite the two of them, on a fur-lined stool (most impractical). As long as no one tries to sit here, I have a clean shot at Lamb, if he tries anything. Although he hasn’t yet. I think he’s genuinely interested in us. (In me? In Simon? In whatever we’re doing here.)

“Would you mind not using that word?” he says now.

Simon looks confused. “What. Blood?”

“No. Although why not stop using that as well? For consistency.”

“Sorry.”

Lamb waves the apology off, gracefully. “But that’s it, is it? The feeding? That’s the thing you don’t like about being … one of us.”

“Yes,” Simon says. “I mean, no. It’s one of the things I don’t like.”

“Strange,” Lamb says. “I’ve always found it rather enjoyable, myself.”

I’m horrified (I knew we were sending Simon out to talk to murderers – but I didn’t expect them to brag about it over milkshakes.) Simon looks horrified too. That’s not usually a good sign for the people he’s horrified about. If he still had his sword, it would be drawn by now.

“Killing people?” he demands.

I grip my wand more tightly, but Lamb only laughs.

“No. That’s not much fun at all, is it? But it’s hardly necessary.”

“It’s not?” Simon says. Then I think he remembers the phone (although obviously, I’m right here. And I don’t think I would have missed this, even if I wasn’t). He says very clearly: “You’re saying vampires don’t kill everyone they bite?”

Lamb sighs. “Simon. You don’t mean to tell me you’ve been draining everyone you bite? No wonder you hate yourself.”

reason for change:

pass. (maybe i should remove this commentary portion.) i know i was having big problems with this scene. as you’re about to find out.

i think i probably cut this because i was struggling, and then i re-wrote it in simon’s POV, which you can see below, and then re-wrote again very similar to what we have here.

(Baz POV)

“Then don’t,” Lamb says. “Honestly, Simon, it’s not as if it’s compulsory.”

My wand clatters to the floor. Lamb’s head jerks towards where I’m sitting, but Simon is completely focused on him.

“What do you mean, it’s not compulsory?”

Lamb’s head twists back. He tuts. “Have you really been draining everyone dry? It’s really not necessary.”

reason for change:

a different version of the above? still not really working.

(Simon’s POV)

“Because I don’t like being a vampire,” I say.

Lamb blinks. Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it.

Even I wasn’t expecting it, but I don’t think it’s the worst lie I could have come up with.

Anyway, Lamb seems to be buying this, so I’m safe for now. In fact, he’s more interested in me than ever. He leans slowly forward in his seat, but I can tell he’s just pretending to be casual. He’s really paying attention.

“And you think the Next Blood can help you?”

I shrug. “Yeah?”

Lamb’s eyebrows are right down. “I haven’t heard anything about this.”

I shrug again. “Maybe you don’t move in the same circles.”

“I try not to,” Lamb says. “Perhaps that was a mistake.”

reason for change:

ok, this is an interesting one. here Lamb mistakenly believes that simon’s telling him that the next blood can change people back from being a vampire - and that’s why he’d team up with them to destroy the next blood. which i thought was cool and fun, and made sense of lamb being an ally. but ... it opens too many doors i’m not interested in and it’s a stupid misunderstanding where a few words could clear it up. so - i ditched this.

(Simon POV again)

“Because I don’t like being a vampire,” I say.

Lamb blinks. Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it.

Even I wasn’t expecting it, but I don’t think it’s the worst lie I could have come up with.

Baz does resent being a vampire. (Even if, so far, it actually seems all right to me.) I don’t think he’d love it even if the Next Blood taught him how to survive on transfusion, rather than rats. But it’d be a something. He wouldn’t have had to eat that squirrel, the other day. Or that dog I stole for him, which even I feel a bit guilty about and I didn’t have to eat it.

Lamb is still frowning. “You do know what the Next Blood are, don’t you?” he says. “They’re like us. Physically.”

“You mean, they’re vampires?” I say. “Yeah. I mean, I know. But they’re not vampire-vampires, are they? They don’t drink blood.”

Lamb grimaces. “Would you mind not using that word?”

“Vampires?” I say and Lamb sighs.

. “You mean, eternal life, not aging. Being stronger and faster than everyone else – none of that’s for you?”

I shake my head. I’m trying not to look surprised, even though Lamb’s just told me my boyfriend’s immortal. (I mean, Baz and I always knew it was a possibility. Frankly it’s a bit of a relief to have it confirmed – now he can make plans.)

“So, what?” Lamb says. “Are you just tired of life? Is that it?”

“No,” I say.

Because I’m Baz right now and Baz isn’t. He’s thriving.

Even I’m not tired of life. (At least, I don’t think I am.) Although I am tired of my life – all the sitting around. All the waiting for something to happen. Because it doesn’t.

Or it didn’t – I suppose things have been happening again, since we got to America. I’m being interviewed by a vampire (ha) about being a vampire. That’s different. Not good-different. But different.

“I don’t think I’d want to live forever, though, either,” I say.

“You don’t have to,” Lamb says. “You’ve been given the gift of choice.”

reason for change:

in this scene i was thinking a lot about rainbow saying that she likes to position scenes in the head of the person who cares about it the least. i think that’s why i was trying to force simon’s POV for so long. that and the fact that i thought it was cool, that the reader has this secret which is that Baz is there, and that in the version i eventually went with baz is passive and gets no chance to say anything - he just has to keep reacting.

i think i switched it back to Baz because i felt he deserved to be able to react, though. and you do kind of forget that baz is there, watching thsi scene, if it’s not his POV.

it has some of my favourite lines i cut though, particularly this bit: Even I’m not tired of life. (At least, I don’t think I am.) Although I am tired of my life – all the sitting around. All the waiting for something to happen. Because it doesn’t.

never mind!

(Simon POV)

“I don’t like hiding who I am,” I tell Lamb, because I know that’s what gets Baz down the most. It’s not that he has to eat rats – or it’s not just that. It’s that he has to sneak around, so no one knows he has to eat rats. It’s that his own family won’t even say the word ‘vampire’ out loud. “I’m sick of lying to everyone. And eating rats – I don’t like eating rats.”

Lamb makes a face. “Why are you eating rats?”

“Because I don’t want to kill people,” I say, even though it’s obvious.

Or at least, I thought it was obvious. Lamb looks surprised.

“It’s not compulsory,” he says.

reason for change:

we know this one now - this is simon’s POV, and i’d switched back to baz. this is quite good, though, re baz’s family.

(Simon POV)

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Lamb says.

He must have heard it vibrating (vampire hearing – I can hear it too, if I concentrate. Not just feel it.) Something must have gone wrong. I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that my friends have been listening in on our whole conversation. But just ignoring the call now he’s pointed out is probably even more suspicious. And if something has gone wrong, I should probably find out what it is.

“Yeah,” I say. “Hang on.”

“Take your time,” Lamb says smoothly.

I slide out of the booth, pulling the phone from my pocket. It’s definitely ringing, but the screen says Fiona Pitch rather than Penelope. Which is good, I think. It means nothing’s wrong. I reject Fiona’s call and there’s Penny’s call – still connected.

“Is everything all right

“Simon? Is Baz with you?” Penny’s voice says.

“What?” I say. “I thought he was with you.”

“He––”

“How dare you hang up on,” another voice says, cutting in over the line. (It must have been magic – I think, even on a posh new iPhone like this one is, you still have to choose to change the line). And I might not have recognised it, but I’ve just seen the owner’s name on my phone. i

When I look back over at Lamb, I see Baz taking a seat opposite him.

BAZ

Baz, right?”

I’m not sure what gave it away.

I’ve been here the entire time, and Simon hasn’t described me – himself – to Lamb. I would have noticed. And it’s not like Simon and I have matching terrible-boyfriend rings or bracelets (I’m not that pathetic.)

Perhaps it’s the look of cold fury I’m giving him. I know this look well – from the other side. I know Simon’s good at fury, that it looks good on him. Like he means it.

Whenever he used to direct that look at me, I knew I was going to have to duck. Or spell him first. It’s not an unattractive look, but I never got distracted when I saw it. I knew

So right now, I think I probably look like the sort of man who’s probably thinking seriously about ripping this Lamb’s throat out. The sort of man who’s just had to spend the last half an hour listening to Lamb trying to tempt my boyfriend into destroying me, like a sort of second-rate American Mephistopheles.

But Lamb doesn’t seem intimated by Simon’s scowl. He still seems delighted.

reason for change:

this is all victim of the POV swap. i knew i was struggling writing simon and lamb’s conversation so skipped ahead to him leaving to talk to fiona, and then back to baz.... some nice stuff here, probably, but ultimately it’s just slowing the action down. baz going right up to lamb is more dramatic.

(Simon POV)

And now I’m stuck trying to explain why I called her earlier today (I didn’t – Baz must have done it while he was out shopping) because Baz never calls, apparently, unless things are bad. Or he’s broken something in the flat and doesn’t know how to fix it with magic.

I mean, they are bad. (Maybe.) But I don’t think that they’ll get any better if I tell Fiona the truth.

So far, I’ve reassured her that Baz’s siblings are all fine. (“Just as annoying as ever, unfortunately.”) And his parents are fine. (“Both in the peak of health.”) And that his exams were fine.

“I’m going to be the top of my class,” I tell Fiona confidently because Baz is. “I’m a complete genius.”

“Hm,” Fiona says, unconvinced. “Tell me – how do you set the thermostat again?”

“Trick question,” I say. “I’d get you to do it.”

Fiona laughs – and it’s nice, I think. A real laugh. I think she does actually like Baz

reason for change:

i had the whatsapp group idea and it was better. this is me leaning into the idea of simon having to pretend to be baz.

(Simon POV)

“Let’s go, Simon,” Baz says.

He stands up next to me. He’s trapped by the booth and the table and me, so even if I wanted to stay (which I definitely don’t, if Baz is leaving), I’d have to stand to let him out. I do and Baz pushes past me, so he’s on my other side – with me and the table between him and Lamb.

“And I haven’t even told you about the Next Blood,” Lamb says.

I shake my head. “You’re right – it was a stupid idea. They’re not going to fix my problems.”

“I can, though,” Lamb says as Baz turns on his heel and I go after him.

“Well. You know where to find me,” Lamb calls, even though I don’t. I don’t think it matters though.

reason for change:

i wrote them a conversation with Lamb instead - here baz is just horrified by whatever it is he’s heard (who knows? i didn’t write it)

(Simon POV)

I stand up to let him pass and Baz practically drags me out of the restaurant by the hand. Out onto the strip where music is still playing and the lights are so bright it might as well be daytime.

Once we get there, though, he freezes.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Vampires,” he says. “Everywhere. Can’t you see them?”

and another version of this...

I pull Baz’s phone out of my pocket, tell Penny we’re heading back, and hang up.

Baz turns to me as I catch up to him. He has his wand out and flicks it, casting Nothing to see here over both of us.

“There are vampires everywhere

reason for change:

this is here because i wanted to write baz seizing simon and flying him up to their room, so he has to cast nothing to see here. also, he’s freaked out about vampires. but baz flying simon up to their room is insanity, so he shouldn’t do that, and baz can be freaked out about vampires because simon is kissing him and we don’t need anyone else.

Chapter 3

thank goodness we’re out of that shitty chapter (shitty from a writing perspective. as a chapter, it works ok! but i still resent it for the problems it caused me.)

it’s highly relevant that mid-chapter 3 is where i took a break and wrote my remix - which is also about wayward son and these themes (and just forced me to stop forcing myself miserably through this chapter). by the time i had to take a break, i’d written most of the flying and the biting, but not the end of simon’s first section in this chapter, or the ending.

(Simon POV)

Last night he found out that his body was different than he’s always thought it was. That’s something I know a lot about. I also now know something about what it’s like to be a vampire. But I’m not sure that helps. I think that’s just making it about me again.

Right now, my part of the story is just to be there for him, the way he’s always been there for me. Or maybe it would be if we weren’t in each other’s bodies right now. As it is, I think I can do a bit better than that.

I’ve dragged Baz out of the hotel (not physically, although he is stronger than me, so I could have done it.) (I just gave him a hand up out of the bath.) I wasn’t sure he’d agree to come with me, but I told him we were going to pick up a burger on the way, and that seemed to do the trick.

“A full sized one?”

“Remember, you’re meeting Lamb at two,” Penny called after us. “And you have to come back here first to pick us up first. Back by lunchtime, Simon.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Now we’re speeding out of the city in Shepard’s truck. (The cab this time, not the back. But this is pretty good, too.) I’m driving. Baz is leaning against the window

Although it might also have helped that I let him wear the floral jacket from yesterday (he spelled it bigger), even though I don’t wear patterns and it’s about a million degrees outside.

It’s only fair – I couldn’t face putting a shirt back on, so today I’m in Baz’s jeans, my t-shirt and I’m wearing my own jacket because I know Baz gets burned easily. Also, I asked room service to bring me a hat with a brim when they brought us breakfast and they did. A cowboy hat. Which is

“Eat,” I tell him now, passing him a bag full of

reason for change:

i was planning to just start this chapter with them driving out to go flying. but then i wanted to write more baz angst... so all this gets cut.

also, this explains why baz thinks that simon is going to get him a burger in the draft i posted, even though simon does not ever say that ;)

(Baz POV)

Even if it would take the pressure off a bit, perhaps. I know what I like, and presumably Simon knows what he likes – but it’s far too weird. (And it’s not the same as kissing. We’ve kissed before, in our actual bodies. This is just an admittedly bizarre continuation of that.) And anyway, it’s Simon I’m desperate to sleep with. Simon who I’ve always wanted.

Simon who is still talking.

reason for change:

i gave this to simon instead!

(Baz POV)

“And you should bite me,” he says breathlessly.

I swallow. (Although honestly, it’s not as if I haven’t thought it).

“All right.”

“You’ll like it,” Simon assures me.

“Well, you’ll like it too.”

Simon groans and presses his forehead into mine.

“Fucking pukwudgie,” he says as I laugh.

...

I never thought I’d be desperate to be back in my own skin, just that I wanted Simon out of it, but I need to be myself if I’m going to be able to do any of the things I’ve always wanted to do to him.

reason for change:

no idea. maybe because it’s too much like the mage’s heir.

(Simon POV)

He doesn’t start the ignition.

“I should have thought of this sooner,” he says instead. “But I could try spelling your wings away properly. While I’m in your body.”

“Huh?” I say.

My wings are definitely already gone. We wouldn’t fit in the cab, otherwise.

“Your wings,” Baz says. “I know no one’s been able to properly remove them before – even Doctor Wellbelove was talking about surgery. But I’ve always assumed it was because you were the one who cast the spell. So it’s possible that, now I’m in your body, I’d be able to get rid of them for you.” I’m staring at him. “I know we both hope that you’re going to get your own magic back,” he continues carefully. “But in case that doesn’t work – or in case you can’t control it …”

reason for change:

i tried to write this baz-magic wings thing in a few times, because i wanted simon to be able to tell baz that he likes his wings now (and it makes sense that baz would think of this). but ultimately it didn’t flow, that’s the reason i never managed to put it in. i gave baz the revelation instead of simon, re his fangs. so simon doesn’t get this big thing about his wings not being that bad - which obviously leads into what i eventually wrote for the ending which is that simon still.... isn’t completely comfortable in his body, he didn’t have exactly the same revelation that baz did. this is me trying to give him that, though.

(Simon POV)

“Do you want to see Lamb?” I say.

Baz makes a face. “Not particularly. It’s more of a necessary evil.”

“Because he can tell you lots of vampire things?” I ask. “Or because of me? Because if it’s the latter––”

“Of course it’s the latter,” Baz says.

“Then I don’t think we should go,”

“I don’t need my magic back.”

“Are you sure?” Baz whispers.

reason for change:

i probably cut it in favour of what i wrote below.

but essentially it’s all cut because i stopped writing this fic for a month and when i came back i realised that it was still chapter 3 and they couldn’t have this revelation yet!

(Simon POV)

Today, I’m even less keen on seeing Lamb again than I was yesterday. It just seems so pointless. And since Baz barely eats, and I am Baz at the moment, I’m not even that excited to go to a restaurant. (Besides, my mouth still tastes of him. However good this place is, it’s not exactly going to measure up, is it?) But I suppose we do have to go, don’t we?

Because Lamb’s still got lots to tell us. And it’s clear, Penny will kill me if we don’t get to try the food.

It’s just – Baz really doesn’t need transfusion if he can just keep drinking from me. And I can’t help thinking I should really have a better excuse to be tangling with possibly hostile vampires than a curry and maybe getting my magic back.

“Do you really think magic will make your life better?” Lamb asked me yesterday. And I said no.

Baz is already climbing out of the truck-bed and casting “Every time a bell rings” on his wings. I follow him, taking the driver’s seat. After a while he joins me in the cab of the truck and straps on his seltbelt.

I still don’t start the engine.

“Snow?” Baz prompts. “Do you need me to drive?”

I shake my head.

“I’m thinking.”

“Unusual,” Baz says – which is shitty of him, but I think I like that he’s being shitty. He stopped for a while, like how he stopped touching me. It feels like good sign that he’s started again.

“About going to see Lamb.”

“We’re already going to be late,” Baz says.

“I know,” I say. “But. The thing is. You’d still love me, even if I never got my magic back.”

Baz’s eyes flick to his trousers. He smooths down the fabric, even though there’s nothing wrong with it as far as I can see.

“Yes,” he says, without looking at me.

“Right,” I say, relieved. “So, I don’t need my magic back. Which means I only think we should talk to Lamb if you want to.”

Baz’s eyes flick back to my face. “How–?”

“Fiona told me,” I say. “On the phone last night.” I’m just going to say it – it’d be weird not to say it. “And it’s mutual, by the way. In case you’re wondering.”

Baz raises an eyebrow.

“Right.” He looks out the window for a moment and then back to me. “Needless to say, this is not how I imagined this moment going.”

That’s an understatement – he’s in my body, I’m in his. I’ve got at least a pint of Baz’s blood in my stomach and we’re in a truck in the middle of a desert. (I didn’t exactly plan this.)

“What I was actually going to say,” Baz says, “is: How can that possibly be your only consideration?”

“Because it is,” I say. “Before, I thought I needed magic to keep you––”

“You don’t,” Baz says quickly.

I nod. “So, fuck it. I’d only be shit at it again, anyway. I’m not going to risk you and Penny just so I can go back to being terrible at magic.” I don’t say that this would probably make me even more depressed, but I can tell we’re both thinking it. “I shouldn’t have even made you come on this trip. But I don’t mind speaking to Lamb again. If you want to. He seems all right.”

He doesn’t really. It’s just Lamb’s never tried to kill us, which makes him among the nicest vampires I’ve ever met. It’s still a relief when Baz shakes his head.

“I’m getting older. Frankly, it’s a relief. The only normal thing about me. And if I am immortal, I’d rather not think about it.”

That sounds about right. It’s what I’d do.

“Let’s not go then.”

Baz nods. “Just to be clear – you did say you were in love with me?”

“Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Yeah, I am.”

I take his hand and squeeze. This time Baz does smile. He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket with his other hand and dials a number.

“Bunce – order takeaway. Simon and I have better things to do than talk to more vampires.”

Then he leans over (he gets caught in his seatbelt – I unbuckle it for him) and climbs into my lap.

reason for change:

as above - it’s the wrong time in the narrative for this confession, even though they’re mostly past their shit. and i thought i wanted to write this slightly withdrawn confession where it’s not overblown and we use the confessions they already got from other people, but... i think it’s wrong for this story.

AND.... because i wrote my remix of bazzybelle, i wrote this thing where simon says ‘i love you’ in the middle of a sentence and baz almost doesn’t notice. so that’s good - i got it out of my system there in a much better place - and when i came back to this one, i was like... right... i mean, they can miss lamb because they were kissing, not because they just didn’t want to see him. that makes sense.

(Baz POV)

It’s not long before Simon gets hungry again. By which I mean, I get hungry again. I make Simon drive us back to the centre of Vegas where we can pick up a burrito and a milkshake.

“I’ve wanted one since last night,” Simon tells me, although I notice he still leaves most of it to me.

Last night feels so long ago.

Last FINISH

I can’t believe he loves me. (I can’t believe I didn’t cry when he said it. Although it probably helped that Simon managed to make the declaration so confusing that I wasn’t entirely sure I’d heard him correctly.)

FINISH

Bunce’s idea from earlier that we get other

“I should have thought of this sooner. I could probably spell your wings off permanently.”

I’ve tried before – so has Bunce. It hasn’t worked. Doctor Wellbelove has talked about surgery because nothing he knows has been at all effective. But I’ve always assumed the reason no spells have worked is that Simon wasn’t the one casting them. While it’s clear that’s never going to happen now, there is still this small window of opportunity where Simon’s body at least does have magic. My magic.

I thought Simon would be pleased with this suggestion, but he looks positively alarmed.

“But we already have a spell to hide them.”

“I know.” But it’s extremely inconvenient.

“I can ask Doctor Wellbelove if I change my mind,” Simon says – but I can’t

reason for change:

i’m leaving these weird half sentences and notes to myself in because a) that’s how i’ve stored them and b) i think it’s interesting to see where the thought processes dropped. this is another shot at the wings conversation. also - it picks up the milkshake thing from chapter 2.

i don’t seem to have kept it, but i wrote something where simon kept comparing baz’s fangs dropping to an inappropriate erection. (it seemed funny at the time)

and i never wrote it, but i think the reason i wrote that was because i was planning a version of this restaurant scene where they go to a bathroom and simon bites baz again and it’s just silly and playful after the intense stuff out in the desert. anyway - the low key version is better.

plus - the other thing to say about this chapter, i guess, is that about this time the thing about minors happened in thsi fandom. and i think i was trying to keep this chapter teen-rated so that no one would get upset. i wrote a much more sexual version of the bite. (which is still pretty sexual - i couldn’t get rid of it all) but i stripped back as much as i could and left a content warning at the top of the chapter.

Chapter 4

(Baz POV)

They’re Lamb’s people, right? Highly flammable.”

He makes a call from his watch. Tells whoever is on the other end to, “Let them get inside the house and light it up.”

“You got it, boss,” the person on the other end of the line says before hanging up. Braden grins at me as I stare at him in horror.

“What?” he says. “You think I wasn’t prepared for this?”

He wants to me to know what he’s done – because it’s clever. Because he’s that kind of supervillain. He tells me everything.

He had a truce with Lamb, but he wasn’t stupid enough to trust him. He always knew Lamb might turn on him – when Braden was close to his answers. When the time was right. That’s why the Next Blood has flamethrowers built into the ceiling of this house, the same way other homeowners might have sprinklers. It’s why the walls are lined with stainless steel, so the building doesn’t burn – only the carpets. Only the people.

I don’t even know what happens if Simon dies in my body.

Not that it matters that he’s in my body, because if Simon’s dies, however Simon dies, I’m done. My life is over. My life is Simon.

I have to stop this.

And I can.

I feel the fire crackling to life in my palms. (I was waiting for the right moment to try and escape. This is definitely the right moment.) I see Braden’s eyes widen. But before I can thrust the fire into his face, everything goes dark.

Not completely, dark, though. Just darker.

I’m outside. And it’s dark outside. It’s after midnight. Two days must have passed.

I pull fire into my hand again and throw it at the nearest vampire.

“What was that?” Penelope shrieks behind me. “That wasn’t me.”

She turns towards me and I grin. “Hello Bunce.”

“Baz?”

“Did you miss me?”

reason for change:

oh hey, did you think that the bit where shepard says - why does everyone have machine guns that are no use against vampires?? might be setting something up. well - it wasn’t initially. and then i thought - oh, it could be a sign it’s a trap and wrote this.

but my plan had always been to have baz confront lamb inside the house, pretty much exactly what happens in the fic, and for it to be a short-ish distance to simon. creating this fucking death trap inside the house means that all the bits with the gang and lamb have to be outside the house - and it just made the action really weird. also, it meant that baz - a vampire - literally has to run into a burning house to save his BF. who - as we know - is already saving himself.

(Baz POV)

Everything’s on fire.

Penelope Bunce cast a bubble around me with what I think was the last of her magic and I ran straight into this house, even knowing what Braden was going to do when I got here. (She tried to tell me she’d go instead, but she was clearly exhausted. Anyway, she’s not the one who knows where Simon is. And she’s not his boyfriend, I am.) (I told her to get back to the truck – and then I told Shepard to make sure she actually went. I also told both of them not to trust Lamb, even though apparently he’s been helpful so far. Fortunately I didn’t see him, so I didn’t have to choose between rescuing Simon, and setting my kidnapper on fire.)

It’s hot. And there’s smoke everywhere. Even though I was only led down these corridors a few hours ago, I can barely see where I’m going. I’m just stumbling on

reason for change:

because i realised this made no sense.

(Baz POV)

Fortunately, Simon seems to agree.

He kicks out at the window over the golf course. It cracks loudly. He kicks it again and this time the glass shatters. Falling in jagged pieces to the floor. Letting the night air in.

I cross over to him and look down. It’s only a few stories, I should be able to “Float like a butterfly” although it’s going to need a lot of magic. Magic I might need when we get down.

But Simon Snow doesn’t need magic to fly.

His wings are outstretched behind him, filling the room. He offers me a hand. “Come here?”

I know what he’s planning. I also know he can’t lift me. Not easily.

But making yourself weightless isn’t as difficult as a controlled fall. I cast “Light as a feather” and let him pull me in by the waist.

“Cheat,” Simon says as I wrap my arms round his neck. “I could have done it.”

I hang on as his wings I wrap my arms around his neck.

Tighter, as I feel my feet lift off the floor. As Simon carries me out and up, his wings beating powerfully behind him. I hold on to dear life, to Simon.

I shut my eyes

“I love you,” he says. Clearly. Easily. As though he’s thought about it and he doesn’t have any more doubts.

reason for change:

i wanted the i love you to be in baz’s POV, which is why i wrote this for baz - but it made this final baz section super long, leading into the prologue that also starts with baz. the weightless magic is nonsense and had to go. otherwise, i think i just wanted simon back in the story again. and the flight is his victory.

also - i tried to play myself again and put the ‘i love you’ before the end. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, SIMON, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Prologue

(Simon POV)

I’m sitting out on the sand, with my boots off and my jeans rolled up. It’s still early, so it’s quiet. No one else is on the beach besides a few dog walkers. Agatha says the taco-stands are amazing but they don’t open until later.

I can just hear the waves and the birds. I can hear myself think.

I’ve been to the sea before, but not like this. I was always there because I had to do something. Rescue Agatha. Find an underwater city. Try and convince the selkies to give back the ancient totem they’d borrowed from the Mage.

I’ve never just been on holiday. Even this trip turned into a quest almost immediately.

It makes me think maybe I should talk to Fiona about joining the WhatsApp group. Even though I would have to keep dealing with Fiona. (She’s sent someone to deal with Braden. I told her to leave Lamb alone for now, as I don’t think he’s hurting anyone. She said I should mind my own fucking business.)

Maybe I should try and actually go on holiday.

Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere peaceful. (Baz would like that.)

Somewhere with a double bed. (Baz would definitely like that.) (I reminded him I’d seen him naked earlier, while he was in the shower, and I’m pretty sure I heard him destroy Agatha’s shampoo rack by mistake.)

reason for change:

i was really struggling with simon’s bit of the prologue. i wrote most of baz’s final section (as well as the first baz section, which was easy) before i came back and wrote this.

this is me trying to work out what simon might be thinking about. again, i wondered if i’d blown all the revelations simon needed to have about himself in the previous chapters - but i worked it out.

then, after i’d written almost everything, i remembered the rock (it probably feels like i wrote that in just so simon could throw it away in this scene, but i literally thought of that an hour before posting. i wrote the rock so that braden would say ‘your magic’s gone!!’ originally he was going to be looking at simon’s blood, but then baz pointed out in his POV section that his blood wasn’t magic ... so... magic rock).

(Baz POV)

Simon’s eyes are still damp, but he’s smiling. “I don’t know why.”

Crowley, I think I’m crying now.

“That’s because you’re an idiot. Why wouldn’t I?” I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Listen, I admit I saw this on Oprah, but Maya Angelou once said––”

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them,” Simon says quietly.

Strange. He must have seen that episode too. Not impossible (demonstrably) but I didn’t think it was his kind of thing.

I nod. “I know who you are, Simon Snow. You’re the bravest person I know. The most extraordinary.” Now I’ve started, the words are easier. “You’re the love of my life.”

I have more to say. I could probably talk about Simon’s virtues for hours, if I properly thought about it, but he tackles me before I can. Pressing me down into the sand. The ocean laps at our ankles as Simon kisses me.

“Shit. I’m getting sand in your hair,” he says after a while.

“I don’t care,” I tell him, even though I’ve just blowdryed it.

He doesn’t believe me. (I suppose Simon knows who I am, too.) When Penelope Bunce runs down the beach towards us, Simon is holding my hand and watching me trying to spell grit out of my hair.

reason for change:

i love a cyclical narrative - and although my story doesn’t begin with this quote, wayward son does. plus, greener grass is about showing someone who you are, so i thought it was appropriate. but i also knew it was cheap for baz to have seen the same show, even as i was writing it. and i think the nail in the coffin is that i struggle not to think of ‘you’re the fucking love of my life’ without thinking about the bill nighy storyline from ‘love actually’. would anyone else have thought of that? i doubt it. but it was there for me.

and this kissing scene is just so me - i find it embarrassing how typical it is. anyway, it went to be replaced by a slightly different kiss scene.

and that’s all i have! except that i struggled with the final ending. i sent it to giishu, who sensibly suggested i just leave them on the beach (which was everything i’d written so would totally have worked) (arguably better? we will never know).

but i really wanted this ‘troubles at watford’ ending - to show that they’d learned enough that they could handle anything now, as they were together.

i don’t know how obvious it is, but this is the feeling i was going for -

there’s still something in that, i think. might keep hold of it and think about it a bit more. we know seuss is important to the world of mages.

thanks for reading the fic! and all these bad bits.

#my deleted scenes #carry on #wayward son #my content

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emgkheadcannons · 4 years

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So accidentally read this ask wrong from @positivecorrelation, and thought it was about them ending their beef, went with that, and wrote everything below this. I just rechecked the ask and realised what you were asking for. I will make it work.

I don’t have a set headcanon on how they make up, but one of my favorite ideas is that Cassie, and Hailie team up to end the feud. So I started writing an entire fic, but I really wanted to post this so here is the headcanon and most of the fic.

Cassie convinces MGK to apologise to Hailie, not her dad, since he wronged her first. She does it with perfect little kid logic, and Kelly wants to not only be a good dad but also a good example for his daughter, so he apologises to Hailie.

Hailie would be really happy she received an apology, and would decide that if a 9 year old can convince her dad to apologise, maybe together, and with a little outside help, they can get this feud to end.

This takes place sometime late February 2019.

Cassie hated that her dad was in a feud with Eminem. A lot of people are being mean, harassing him when he goes out, and booing him when he does ‘Rap Devil’. She has noticed that her dad isn’t as happy, and is acting different. He is sleeping more and more.

Cassie had an idea to help him though. If her dad apologises to Eminem’s daughter then that should make things better, not perfect, but it was a starting point. First she needs to find her dad, so she can convince him that he needs to apologise to hailie. She finds him easily enough in the living room, working on a song.

She starts by asking about the beef, and why they are fighting. Then she asked if he apologized, which she knows he did, but to the wrong person.

“But dad, but your tweet was about his daughter, not him. Shouldn’t you have apologized to Hailie instead?” Cassie asks.

Kelly freezes, thinking about what his daughter said. His tweet was about Hailie. She was the one he insulted, but he tried to apologize to Eminem. He never thought about how his comment affected her. If some kid had said something rude to his daughter, he would expect them to apologize to her.

“You’re right Cassie. I should have apologized to Hailie.”

“Then why don’t you? I bet she would appreciate it.”

“It’s a little too late for that now, pumpkin.”

“It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“No it’s not. You made a mistake, you acknowledged you made a mistake, now you just need to tell her you're sorry, and that you won’t do it again. See simple.”

“You are right again, sugar bean. How did you get so smart?” Kelly asks as he scoops his daughter up, as she breaks out into a fit of giggles.

Later that night, after he has put Cassie to bed, Kelly thinks about what she said. He really should apologize to Hailie for his tweet, but how could he get in contact with her. It’s not like Eminem, or anyone close to her will help him, and a public apology will look like a copout after all the feuding he and Em have done.

“Fuck. I can’t set a bad example for Cassie.”

He scrolls through his contacts on his phone, until he sees Travis Barker’s name. ‘Maybe he can give me some advice.’ He checks the clock; it was only 10:30, Travis should still be up.

After two rings he picks up

“Hey Kelly. What’s up?”

“Do you know a way I can get in touch with Eminem’s daughter Hailie?”

“Why do you want to get in contact with Hailie Scott?” Travis asks threateningly.

“I just want to apologise to her, nothing else. My daughter was asking about my feud with Eminem, and asked why I apologised to him, and not Hailie, since it was Hailie I tweeted about. I thought about what she said and it’s a good point. I wronged Hailie, therefore I need to apologise to Hailie, but I have no idea how.”

“So why call me?”

“For advice.”

“Okay. Let’s think. You could try DMing her”

“I highly doubt she would read a DM from me, if she hasn’t out right blocked me on everything.”

“Right. No one will probably give you her phone number. So maybe write her a letter.”

“A letter really. Even if I do write her a letter, I don’t have an address to send it to.”

“I can actually help with that. You just write the letter. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Okay, a letter it is.”

“Oh and Kelly, you better be telling the truth about this. I don’t mind helping you, but if this is just a way to get to Eminem by using Hailie, or something like that, I will personally drive your career into the ground.”

“Don’t worry Travis I am serious about this. I’ll leave the envelope unsealed so you can read it before it’s sent off.”

“Okay. Call me when you’re done.”

Kelly puts his phone down, grabs pen and paper, and starts drafting his letter.

It’s harder than he thought it would. Swallowing his pride, admitting his faults, and humbling himself is hard, but he finally does, and the letter shows his regret for his actions. Now he just has to find that nice stationary someone gifted him.

******

Hailie was sick and tired of all the attention she has been getting from her dad’s feud with Machine Gun Kelly. She prefers the quiet life she was making for herself, but now she barely got a moment of peace. What makes it even worse is that she has never seen her dad so angry, worrying that things will escalate beyond diss tracks and insults. Hailey doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her dad, because he feels obligated to defend her honor.

She knows her father’s beef with MGK isn’t just about the tweet Kelly posted back in 2012 about her being hot when she was 16, (Kelly says he didn’t know how old she was at the time), and that it was more about how disrespectful MGK was to her dad, saying he was better than her dad, and claiming how Eminem was hindering his career, banning him from Shade 45, and whatnot, but she was tired of this shit. Yeah MGK was a prideful idiot, who was full of himself, but her dad did block him from Shade 45, and some of his friends have decided not to associate with Kelly. When Kelly really did try to talk to Eminem in private, and end their feud, he threw it back in the blonds face, making Machine Gun Kelly double down, and release that diss track, ‘Rap Devil’. Her dad then destroyed him with ‘Killshot’.

While going through her mail, she notices a letter. She couldn’t think of who would send her a letter. Maybe it was a former classmate, or a thank you card. Shrugging she opens the envelope, and pulls out the paper inside.

The letter read,

Hailie,

I am sorry for the tweet I posted in 2012 about you being ‘sexy as fuck’, making you uncomfortable, and for apologising to your dad instead of you.

When I posted the tweet I didn’t know you were only sixteen, and when I found out your age I should have taken it down immediately, and apologized to you, but I didn’t. Instead I made a half assed apology to your dad, who I should have apologised to anyway, but for a different reason.

My daughter helped me see my mistakes, and convinced me that it’s not too late to apologise for what I did. I am going to set a better example for her. I have deleted the tweet, and I promise to never do something like that again. I will make a public apology, if that helps you, or if there is something else you need me to do, please tell me. I want to make up for what I did to you.

I was wrong for what I did, and what you had to deal with because of my actions.

I know I don’t deserve it, and that you in no shape or form have to give it to me, but I would like to ask for your forgiveness.

Sincerely,

Colson Baker, (A.K.A. Machine Gun Kelly)

Hailie was shocked. Machine Gun Kelly sent her a handwritten letter, to apologise for something he did years ago. No one else who had targeted and dissed her has ever apologised to her. Her dad sure, but never her. She rereads it just to make sure.

She opens up twitter, and the tweet is gone. Looking back at the letter, Hailie smiles. Maybe Machine Gun Kelly wasn’t as bad as she thought. She did want to know how he got her address though.

Going back to her phone, she reopens twitter, and goes to Machine Gun Kelly’s profile. She unblocks him, before opening her DMs.

I got your letter. How did you get my address? - Hailie

A few minutes later she got a reply.

I’m glad you got my letter. Don’t worry I don’t have your address. I gave the letter to Travis Barker. He’s the one who got a hold of your address. - MGK

Hailie frowns at her phone. Who was Travis Barker? His name sounds familiar. After a quick google search, she sees he is the drummer for Blink-182, and that he probably got it from Paul Rosenberg. Okay that made her feel better. Going back to twitter, she sees that she has a new message.

Would you mind if I told my daughter that you got my apology letter? - MGK

Hailie thinks about it before typing her reply.

Yeah, go ahead, I don’t mind if you tell her. This doesn’t mean that I forgive you though. - Hailie

I understand, and thank you. Again I am sorry for my tweet, and dragging you into this beef. - MGK

Hailie doesn’t respond. She debates whether or not to reblock MGK, but decides against it. He really did seem remorseful for what he did, and is trying to change to be better for his daughter. That gets Hailie thinking, if Machine Gun Kelly’s daughter can convince him that he needs to apologize to her, and not her dad, then maybe together they can get their dad’s to stop fighting.

Hailie has a plan to end this stupid feud, get her dad from being so angry all the time, and hopefully get her peaceful life back. She will need Cassie’s help, and a few other people too, for this to work. First thing she does is call up Paul Rosenberg.

“This is Paul.”

“Hey, Paul this is Hailie. Do you have a second?”

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

“First are you with my dad.”

“No. Should I be?”

“No, it’s better if he isn’t around for this. Did you give my address to Travis Barker?”

“No, he gave me the letter to mail. I didn’t read it though. He said it was something important, and asked me not to read it. Is everything okay? Was there something in there I should Know about?”

“The letter was important, and you did the right thing trusting him. I just wanted to know how he got my address.”

“Okay, I’m glad my judgement was good, but this has me a little worried. Will you tell me what the letter was about?”

Hailie debates whether or not to tell him. On one hand the letter was an apology to her, she doesn’t have to tell anyone about it. On the other hand, if she tells Paul nothing, he might tell her dad about it in concern, which would ruin her plans. She makes her decision.

“It was a handwritten apology letter from Machine Gun Kelly.”

There is a moment of silence before Paul responds. “WHAT!”

“You heard me. He apologized for the tweet he posted about me, making me uncomfortable, apologising to my dad instead of me, and for dragging me into this stupid feud. He even deleted the tweet.”

Hailie can hear Paul tapping on his phone, probably checking to see if it was really deleted. “Damn, he really did delete it. Do you know what brought this on?”

“Yeah, his daughter.”

“Okay, makes sense.”

“So you know how you have been trying to get my dad to end this feud with him, well this gave me an idea. I just need to know if you are in.”

“I’m listening.”

“If Cassie can change her dad’s mind, then I should be able to do the same with my dad, right? Right. So I need you to do a couple of things. I need a way to get in contact with Cassie, and her mom. I will also need you to back me up later on.”

“Okay I can probably get in touch with Cassie, and her mom. Give me a few days. And I will back you up but I will need more details.”

“I will tell you the details later. I need to make a few more calls.

Next people she recruits are Alaina and Whitney. They have noticed how agitated Eminem has been lately, and agree to help with her plan. He also ropes in Travis Barker, Tommy Lee and Elton John, to help them too.

Paul came through with Emma’s, Cassie’s mom, phone number, and an understanding that Emma will listen to her idea, but she decides if Cassie is involved.

Hailie explains her plan. She and Cassie were going to convince their dad’s to meet, in hopes of ending the beef. Colson already tried once, but Em turned it down. This is where Cassie came in. She needed to convince her dad that he should try again, that he should take the higher ground, and be the better person. You know, set a good example. Emma can help with this too. Hailie has the harder job of convincing her dad to do the same. That he has defended her, and should talk with MGK. Once they have convinced both men to meet, they will have to pick a date that works for everybody. They will have Paul, Travis, Elton, and of course Hailie and Cassie, there when the two meet. Hopefully having both of their daughters there will keep things civil long enough to get something done. Paul hopes a collaboration comes out of it, but Hailie and Cassie just want their dads to be happy again.

******

Over the next few weeks Hailie e-mailed, Cassie and Emma,over how to get the two rappers to end their feud.

******

Hailie, Whitney, and Alaina have been dropping hints, and saying things, about ending arguments, burning the hatchet, and letting bygones be bygones. Em is really proud of his girls, being so mature, but fails to get the hints. Whitney even stages a fight with a friend, with an epic apology, but it still goes over Em’s head.

Now it is time for Hailie to confront her dad on his feud.

She has made it this far, there’s no turning back now. Hailie straightens her back, squares her shoulder, and walks into her dad’s office determined. Her dad looks up from some papers and smiles. It’s nice to see him smile.

“Hey Hailie.”

“Hey dad.”

“What brings you over? Not that I’m not glad to see you, it’s just you have been busy lately.”

“I came to talk to you. It’s about your feud with Machine Gun Kelly.”

The smile falls off Eminem’s face and his eyes harden. “You don’t need to worry about that son of a bitch. I’ll take care of him.” He stands up and heads over to the window.

Hailie takes a deep breath. “No dad. It was me he tweeted about. Everything has gotten out of control, and I have now been dragged into your stupid feud.”

Em turns around. “I know sweetie, and I’m sorry for that, but don’t worry I am crushing that blond asshole. His career is practically over.”

“Dad, that's not okay. Yeah, he is an asshole, and he deserved to be knocked down a few pegs, but this is overkill.”

“Hailie, this is my business. What I do…” Em didn’t get to finish her sentence.

“No, this isn’t just your business. It’s mine too, and I get a say in what happens. Machine Gun Kelly wrote me a letter…” Hailie didn’t get to finish what

“HE FUCKING CONTACTED YOU. I’M GOING TO KILL HIM. THAT STALKING SON OF A…” Em yells, as he heads for the door. Hailie steps in front of him, blocking the exit.

“No you're not. Now calm down. We are going to finish this conversation.”

“Hailie Jade Scott Mathers you better move out of my way.”

“No dad. I am a full grown woman, not a little girl anymore, and you are going to listen to what I have to say. Yes he wrote me a letter. He did it to apologise for what he did. The tweet, the feud, everything. Do you know how many other people have apologised to me for stuff they said? Have expressed regret for what they did to me? Not how many regret having to deal with you, but feel bad for what they did to me.”

Eminem thinks for a second, but doesn’t respond. Hailie continues.

“None. That’s how many. Everyone says sorry to you, not me. He is the only one. He admitted that he should have given me an apology for the comment, and even though it is years late, he still said sorry. Even after this whole feud, ‘Killshot’, and everyone hating him, Colson Baker is a big enough man to admit when he is wrong.”

“Just because he said ‘sorry’ doesn’t mean…”

“No dad, he didn’t just say ‘sorry’, he swallowed his pride, took responsibility for it, deleted the tweet, asked what he could do to make it up to me, and asked for my forgiveness. He wants to be a better role model for his own daughter. Here, read it for yourself.” Hailie hands him the letter, and waits while he reads it.

Em reads the letter. The kid really did set his pride aside and ask for his daughter forgiveness. He rereads the letter just to make sure he read it right, and he did. He was still unbelievably pissed that Machine Gun Kelly was somehow able to get to Hailie, but after reading the letter he doesn’t want to kill the blond idiot anymore.

“Okay he apologized to you, what do you want me to do? Just let him get away with running his mouth?”

“You have already won. He admitted that he couldn’t respond to ‘Killshot’. He tried to contact you more than once to end it but you said no. What I want is for you to be like Machine Gun Kelly, swallow your pride and set a better example for Alaina, Whitney, and I, and at least meet with him, so this stupid feud can end.” Hailie says as she holds her dad’s satire.

Em looks away, and sighs. “I don’t really have a choice in this so I?”

“You do have a choice. You can be an adult and meet with him, or you can be petty, and Alaina, Whitney, Paul, Fifty, Royce, Elton, Dre, and I will be disappointed in you.”

“Of course you got everyone to back you up. Fuck! Fine, I will meet with him, but I am making no promises about ”

Hailie relaxes. She will take it. For all intents and purposes, her dad has agreed, and she is tired, but she has a sense of accomplishment.

“Thanks dad. I’ll have Paul arrange the meeting.” She turns to leave.

“Hey, Heilie.”

“Yeah,dad.”

She turns back around, and her dad has wrapped her up in a big hug. She returns it immediately, and stands there for a moment. When they finally break apart Em asks her, “When did you get so smart, Jelly bean?”

“I don’t know dad. I musta learned it from you.”

******

The day of the meeting happens. They are in a studio in LA. It’s a neutral location. Paul, Elton, and Travis are sitting in the room waiting on the others to arrive.

“So, do you think this will actually work?” Travis asks.

“I don’t know darling, but hopefully with their daughters here it will be civil.” Elton replies as he crosses his ankles.

A few minutes later Eminem shows up with Hailie, and he looks put out. “Alright where is the blond fucker?”

“Marshall! I hope you don’t plan on using that kind of language today. Colson is bringing his daughter, and she is only 9.” Elton scolds. Em sighs knowing better than to argue with Uncle Elton about this kind of thing, even though he is pretty sure that she has heard worse from her own dad. He slumps into a chair between Paul and Hailie, already feeling done with the day and this meeting.

Kelly walks in with Cassie on his shoulders, and she is just chatting away, and Kelly is listening to every word she says. He sets her down in one chair, and takes the one between her and Travis.

“Hi Cassie.” Hailie greets.

“Hi Hailie.” Cassie says with a wave.

Em looks between his and Kelly’s daughters, and then it clicks.

“Fuuuuc-dge, fudge knuckles.” Em has to correct himself remembering that there is a literal child present. Hailie and Travis are snickering. At least Paul and Elton are trying to hide their amusement at his outburst. Em looks over at Kelly who gives him a look saying ‘yeah me too’.

“Our daughters played us.” Em says.

“Yep they teamed up to gang up on us.” Kelly says as he nods in agreement.

Neither rapper speaks, and the silence gets heavier with each passing moment.

“Let’s get this over with.” Em says with a sigh. “Everyone else out. This is between Machine Gun Kelly and me.”

Everyone but Kelly and Cassie begin to protest. Cassie decides to take action. She nudges her dad in the side with her elbow, and whispers in his ear, “Remember Dad be the bigger person.”

“Thanks pumpkin.” He whispers back, gives her a hug. She then grabs hailies hand, and heads for the door. The others follow suit, until it’s just Em and Kelly in the room.

“I’m sorry for tweeting about your daughter. I’m sorry for those things I said about you trying to interfere with my career, and I'm sorry for the other awful things I said about you. I really didn’t mean for that tweet to be rude, but I now see how it looks.”

“Did you fucking practise.”

Kells scratches the back of his head, breaking eye contact, looking down, at the ground. “Yeah with my daughter.” He mumbles out.

“Why did you post that tweet about Hailie?”

“To be honest, I thought she looked hot in it, but I didn’t know how old she was. When I found out how old she was I was disgusted with myself, but didn’t know what to do.”

“Okay fine I can understand that you didn’t know her age before commenting, but it was still shitty.”

“I Know.”

“Don’t ever do it again.”

Kelly looks up meeting Em’s Glare. “I won’t.”

Em takes pity on him, seeing that he is being sincere.

“I’m sorry too, kid. I’m sorry I banned you from Shade 45, talked shit about you, and called you a mumble rapper. You’re not.”

“Thank you.” A soft smile appears on Kelly’s face. Em can’t help but think it looks good on the blond.

Em can’t help but smirk. He was going to have fun picking on Kelly. “Am I really your idol?”

Kelly goes pink, and looks away. “Shut-up.”

“Oh no. You really looked up to me didn’t you? You wanted to be just like me. I bet you had all my albums, and posters of me.”

“Yeah but they always say never meet your heroes.” Kelly freezes, not meaning to say that out loud, making Em stop. Yeah Kelly did look up to him. Kelly really didn’t do anything, beside the tweet. Em did hinder his career, and was an ass to him, but the entire time they were feuding, Kelly still said he looked up to him.

“Look I’m sorry I was an ass to you. You just wanted recognition from me. Instead I dissed you, called you a mumble rapper. You tried to end this multiple times, and I didn’t want to hear it.”

Kelly is still blushing but he is looking at Em again.

“Your lyrics aren’t half bad either.”

The blond lights up. “Really?”

“Yes, need some work but they are pretty good.”

“Thank you.”

They sit there again not knowing what to do. Then Kelly pipes up. “So does that mean our feud is over?”

“Yeah it’s over.”

“What do we do now.”

“N

Em grabs his phone and texts Paul. Next thing they know Paul walks in. “Now that that is out of the way, we can call this beef over. I will set something up for the press.”

The details are hashed out. Kelly is going to open up for Em later this year, and neither one is going to sing their diss tracks of each other. Kelly does get to keep the moniker ‘Rap Devil’, to Paul’s disdain. Em thinks it’s funny (read cute).

Everyone parts ways.

Hailie links with her dad’s arm as they go down the hallway.

“The way you were picking on him, almost felt like you were doing it to get his attention.”

Em blushes as the statement.

“OMG you do think he is cute, that’s why you don’t want to give up this beef.”

“No I don’t. He’s an asshole who needed to be taught a lesson.”

“Okay Dad whatever you say.”

She hurries on head, but turns and gives her dad a wink. A new plan in mind.

#emgk

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t-lostinworlds · 4 years

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...I shall return

a bit extra(cringey) with the title but yeah, I am taking a break from Tumblr.

essentially, i’ll be deleting the app, not deactivating aha. i don’t know when i’ll be back but said break would most likely last two weeks at minimum, could last a month—maybe more—but we shall see.

long ass babbling below the cut

so yeah... i’ve been putting this off for a while now because idk, going offline for a bit scares the shit out of me for some odd reason lmao.

but few weeks back, after posting tcwm, I already was planning to take a breather because writing that fic took a toll. so, I decided that I think it’s time for a break. main reason was so that I can recharge, recollect, and then write and focus on writing more, finish a few stuff (a series or two that I’ve been planning for so long now) and then come back and post, plain and simple.

but last night i had a sudden panic attack—it was small, don’t worry, i’m okay now—and i haven’t had one of those in a while, then that’s when i started to get too much into my head about me, my blog, and my writing.

so back to the writing aha. I’ve been on here for two years at max, been writing even before I came here (lol 1d days, don’t ask). I’ve grown a lot since then, blog and writing wise but the one thing I can’t seem to get over is the constant comparison I do to myself and other writers on here.

it’s no ones fault but mine obviously, i do this quite a lot to myself. but i found myself being over critical with everything again, telling myself that i would never be able to finish the things i’m working on, but if i do, it’s gonna suck ass and that why would i even bother. there’s so much more amazing and talented people on here, why would i even try. this is all in my head obviously, anxiety does that to you ha. again, nobody’s fault but mine and my mind.

now, don’t get me wrong, the support and love you guys have given to me and my works has been unreal, and i am so grateful for each and every single one of you who’s stuck with me from day to day. each sweet comment has always meant the world to me and they never fail to make me smile, just to see that you guys enjoy and love what i put out just much as i do. thank you for the support, whether it be for my fics or my shitposting (which essentially is the same thing but I digress lol)

but then there’s the pressure. seeing people constantly put out amazing content, and seeing all these writers who have everything organised makes me feel pressured that i should be doing the same too. which is a bit pathetic. but i do feel pressured that i should finish this series and start posting more and in a schedule because that’s what everyone is doing. i started to rush myself to finish my works now now now that then it becomes a chore. again, nobody’s rushing me but myself, my fault.

in conlusion, this break essentially now means i’m going to go offline and do whatever i want to do writing wise without constantly checking on here and be pressured with what other people are putting out. I need to get my head straight and just go with whatever flow my writing is on and rid of all the distractions and the constant what would they think and just write whatever my heart desires. do expect more content from me when I get back.

so yeah, thank you guys for the support, and I hope you understand where I’m coming from but for now, i’m signing off. take care of yourself, stay safe and peace ✌️

- tiff ♥️

#im gonna be on for an hour or two #in case a few wants to talk for a bit #and then i’ll delete the app #ramblings #psa: taking a break

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tfw-needs-baby · 4 years

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sam winchester | internet personas

based on my own experience.

read on ao3?

Sam Winchester and his brother stumbled upon fanfiction and the fandom a while ago. He swore to himself that he would never, ever go back and visit the crazy people that existed there.

Well, sitting in his room in the bunker, he was bored and had nothing much to do because the supernatural had been pretty quiet for the past month or so and he was scrolling aimlessly through new articles and finding nothing. He doesn’t know how or why the idea popped into his head, but it came and he was curious at the time, so why not?

‘Best places to’ Nope, delete that.

‘Where to join a fandom’ Delete that too. That just sounded stupid.

‘Fandom friendly sites.’ Yeah, that sounded about right. He clicked onto the first link, and it immediately brought him to a site called ‘Fandom.’

How ironic. Although it didn’t exactly help him much, it was just an explanation guide to their platform and what it had to offer. The rest of the links weren’t much help either, and he sighed. Alright, how to find the fans...wasn’t there something called livejournal?

According to a couple of articles, old and inactive journals had been purged, but were still doing pretty well. And then, the Winchester searched up ‘best places to read fanfiction.’

A couple of suggestions appeared underneath ‘Popular on the web.’

‘Wattpad - tumblr - kindle words - deviantart - archive of our own - asianfanfics’

Huh. Visiting a couple of sites, Wattpad and Fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own popped up frequently, so he decided to visit Wattpad first. He went to browse works and choose fanfiction, and it brought him to a selection of hot and trendy stories with millions of views on them. Woah. It ranged from k-pop to a selection of animes to CBS shows and weird crossovers. The ‘x reader’ tag seemed very popular and he shivered, reminding him of Becky.

Signing up wasn’t hard either. It had only taken him a couple of minutes. But when he was reading a selected few from the hot section, they didn’t exactly grab his attention. A lot of them seemed to be written by younger ten to fifteen year olds. They did have a large amount of potential and amazing storylines, he’ll give them that.

Then he wandered over to Fanfiction.net. The sign up process was easy, but the site was a bit more historical and a bit more him. There were multiple forums, and he scrolled down and viewed a couple of them. Oh. They were similar to roleplay, but just - more building along a storyline with it, if that made any sense. The sign up was pretty easy here too, and he smiled as two notifications popped up in his gmail for both sites.

Backtracking now, he went off to ‘archive of our own,’ nicknamed ‘ao3’ for short and a paragraph popped up and he skimmed through it quickly. It was just a warning that everything could be viewed by whoever and whatnot. The writing here definitely seems way more advanced, way more complex and interesting, with canon divergences going all out and unheard au’s. And the cliche plots we’re simply adorable.

He went over to sign up, and raised an eyebrow when it stated that you needed to get an invitation, and all you had to do was enter in an email. And wait a day for an invitation.

Hopping onto tumblr, he made an account quickly and started scrolling through it, and everything seemed different somehow. Like, more modern day than the last time he came to the page. The fandom had definitely become smaller due to a ‘nsfw ban’ and he couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad thing. They had gifsets of memories that had happened about three years ago, with their final stand against Chuck, and he smiled as he went through year’s old blogs that never updated anymore, reblogging everything ‘Supernatural’ underneath the username ‘babytrenchcoatnougat’ and he started to tear up when he stumbled upon a post where they had created a small art of playing the rainbow slinky with Dean based on a gifset of a memory. He still remembers how happy Dean had been when he got it just for him, he played with it for the next week.

A couple of week’s later, Sam want’s to do more than reblog and comment on content. Sam does have artistic potential, and he could definitely look into that. Although, writing seems easier at the moment, and he scrolls through an endless amount of fanfiction on archive of our own - ranging from major character death to general fanfiction - from his brother and best friend sleeping together to him turning into the boyking to high school universes to Apocalyptic worlds where they have failed.

He wants to write his own world, where they’re all happy and care-free and able to actually live happily, where no one he’s loved has died. Making a post on tumblr he states: By any chance, is there anyone on this platform that can help me with a non-romantic general Supernatural fanfiction?

He places a couple of normal tags that fit into the category, then presses post. About an hour later, he gets a reblog from someone called @ misha-moose-dean-burger-lover [and wow, that sounds like a handful] offering to help.

I’m available if you need me to, @ babytrenchcoatnougat ; what’s the plot? We can discuss more in DM’s if you’d like! Besides, I’m free for the week, but if you need a beta reader I can offer a couple of people that I know.

Sam sends her a message.

babytrenchcoatnougat: can you give me some advice or writing tips if you have any? i'm not looking to make any implied romantic pairings in the fic

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: well, that depends, what’s the fic going to be about?

babytrenchcoatnougat: i don't know yet, maybe team free will 2.0 just taking a roadtrip to nowhere without a destination in sight after defeating chuck?

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: eeeeee

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: that sounds like a awesome idea misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: you're definitely going to want to have specific destinations in mind, and only a hint of angst, and what they’re going to do at these locations

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: use transition words and make sure it doesn’t repeat often, descriptive details but don’t use it in every scene, and make sure there are frequent movements in the characters so they don’t sound so stiff, and make sure to slowly transition into the next scene, as time skipping to every scene will make the story seem boring. misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: make sure the characters aren’t ooc either!

And so, Sam writes. He writes until his eyes hurt and he definitely needs some sleep, so he sends a quick message to a beta to read it over for him and they do, gushing about how the plot was wonderful and badly needed after all the terrible angst that occurred this season. He smiles, giving his thanks before uploading the first chapter out of 15, 13k words, onto ao3.

[He checks over the grammar and tags over fifteen times.]

He can hardly contain his excitement, jumping around happily all day, even baking Dean a pie which makes him get sprayed with holy water and go through every test just to make sure he isn’t some supernatural creature.

Later that afternoon, he checks his ao3 underneath the same username and finds out it’s gotten about 150 hits, and 38 kudos, which makes his heart swell. He’s also gotten a comment, and he presses comments eagerly.

‘Kill yourself, psycho virgin fag.’

He re-reads the comment a couple of times, eyes tearing up and dropping his phone onto the kitchen table recklessly. What the fuck. Was his story really that bad? Did those people who didn’t leave a kudo really hate his story that much? Did the fans think his story was too child-like? Badly written? OOC? Do they really hate him that bad that he actually should commit-

Sam breaks down right then and there, pushing his computer aside, placing his head down and crying softly. Castiel and Dean don’t find him until an hour later, and he’s still softly crying. They rush over to him, Dean quickly sitting to the right while Castiel sits to the left. “Sammy? What happened?” Dean asks, and the younger Winchester shakes his head.

“N’thing.” He mumbles, and the older Winchester sighs. He’s just being stubborn, when he doesn’t want other people to worry about him, afraid that he’ll give them his problems. “Sam, please, if you talk to us, then we may fix the problem together. Remember, we made that promise two years ago, to be more open with each other.” The former-angel now archangel says, pushing Sam’s hair out of his face. Sam takes a shaky breath, pushing himself off the desk and grabs the laptop, opening it up to the recent fanfiction he had written, and Castiel and Dean both skim through it before Dean snatches the laptop. “Is this a fanfiction?” He looks at him as if he’s crazy, and Sam slowly shakes his head in agreement. Castiel walks over to Dean, both of them reading the first chapter silently, and everytime he glances over to see their reactions it seems unchanged. His brother probably thinks he’s weird, and Castiel is going to find him crazy-

“Damn, Sammy, you’ve got talent.” Dean says, and he actually sounds impressed. “W- what?”

“That is incredibly written and a wonderful idea, I think we should go on a roadtrip ourselves,” Dean nodded in agreement. “Is this why you’re crying? I think this is perfect.”

“Wait - you two do find it weird or anything?”

Castiel and Dean look confused. “Why would you think that Sammy? I like it.”

“You should uh - read the comment.” He says, and it takes the angel and older hunter a moment to find the comment section at the bottom, Castiel pointing at the button. Their faces turn into pure fury.

“I’m going to smite them.” Castiel all but growls out, and Dean shuts the laptop closed. “Don’t listen to ‘em, this is fucking amazing, got it? I want the second chapter. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, they're probably jealous that we’ve got a New York bestseller writer and all they can do is write the abc’s.” Dean hugs his brother, Castiel immediately joining right in and Sam sighs happily. They stay there for a bit, muttering out a ‘thank you’ before jumping up slightly, seeing that he’s gotten two more comments on his fanfiction, and nervously opens up the comment section to see that a user called ‘quicksilvermalec’ writing on how much they enjoyed the fic and can’t wait to read the second chapter while an anonymous user has attacked the one that insulted him, throwing a whole truckload of insults and Castiel smiles. “They got what they deserved.” The archangel says, and Dean shouts ‘damn straight’ joyfully. “Would the two of you want to write fanfiction with me, then?” Sam asks while writing the second chapter about an hour later, and the unison ‘yes’ gives him a warm feeling in his chest.

#sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #archangel!castiel #ficlet #gen fic #genfic #supernatural #fluff #representation week

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