Happy New Years! I wanted to say, apologiesfor the criticism you talked about receiving. You didn’t specifically mentioned the fandom, but personally, I enjoy the bsd content you share with the community, and your writing
happy new years! I haven't been here in awhile, but it was nice to see this message from you. That person I mentioned in my last post had really just picked a bad day to start shit with me. Sometimes I feel like I have to fight with the entire world and really I just need to work on stepping back and letting the hate pass me by. Anyways, thanks for stopping in. I hope you had a good holidays and the year is treating you well so far.
…and some thoughts on how I’m handling Writer’s Block at the moment
I just finished another chapter of Looking Glass today. Truly, I finished it the other day, but it was only today that I finally decided “Enough is Enough!” then I created a new line, wrote Chapter with the perspective character’s name in parenthesis next to it, and styled it as a Heading 1 (this is my super technical in-process…
feeling exhausted, between someone wanting to rant at me over a 5+ year old post because i criticized the character they like ("did you even read the manga??" Uh, did you read my post? It was 3rd in a series of posts, first of which clearly stated i was comparing two animes to one another and nothing from manga would not be taken into account for either anime, and, it was a media critique so I'm not really interested in your parasocial relationship with the character and all your head canons for him, but since you asked, yes, I have read the manga and I'm less impressed with the character and narrative there to the point i decided as of last month's chapter to just stop reading the story altogether because the author failed to make me care about the characters and plot) and someone who popped back up after loudly proclaiming they'd be leaving (turns out they didn't actually leave, that's on me for not checking that they closed the door on their way out, i guess) because...checking notes...i didn't pay enough attention to them(?) and immediately apply their "feedback" (aka, them telling me how to write my story) and treat them as some grand authority here to save me from my mediocre writing (i don't know, I'm still kind of lost on what this person's issue with me actually was...i wasn't requesting feedback from anyone on one of the chapters in my WIP because i knew i'd be heavily rewriting that character's storyline, and well, it seems this person took it very personally that i didn't specifically want their notes and lost their shit on me because that's apparently not a decision i was allowed to make for myself and my story as a writer).
i honestly feel like i log in to this place just to see what random stranger wants to kick my teeth in today. i don't obsess over media the same way other people do here all it's a struggle to connect and really i just wanted to find a way to motivate myself to write my original work but i can do that without this place. feedback community was a failed experiment for me, the two assholes i encountered there aside, what really ruined it were the people that would ask for feedback and never give it. I didn't want to be the only voice there, i couldn't give great feedback to everyone because i had my own preferences and sometimes people weren't posting things that were of particular interest to me, and that has nothing to do with the writing itself. for a moment, it seemed like a few people might make it a real community, but in the end, their personalities didn't work out. One of them couldn't grasp that telling writers not to write a story that didn't specifically appeal to them is neither constructive criticism nor appropriate, and one that couldn't reconcile their own self-importance with the needs of the actual writer.
whatever. these are my morning reflections since i officially shut down the feedback community this morning and i don't know that I'll be around on this site much anymore, mostly because it never served a purpose. I started it for fandom stuff but really never used it much for that because, like i said, i don't get into fandom like that and I couldn't figure out how i wanted to use it beyond that. I had positive experiences here also, so I'll take those and leave everything else here. now i need coffee.
I was digging through some old writing, came across this chapter I forgot I wrote for a fic idea I forgot I had and thought I might share it since I haven't posted anything in awhile. If nothing else, I think it's entertaining, but maybe it'll inspire someone else to write something.
Title: Love, In Theory
Summary: Dazai is a professor of theoretical philosophy stuck working on his doctorate thesis and contemplating whether everything is truly meaningless and if the only real value to his life is death. Until he meets the new professor of theoretical physics, Chuuya, and feels the first spark of life. They fight every day, on the surface they seem to hate one another, but underneath they’re falling helplessly in love. Except, Chuuya is battling a terminal illness and his time is growing woefully short. When Chuuya falls into a coma, Dazai dedicates day and night to finishing Chuuya’s doctoral work on multiverses, in hopes of finding a universe that holds the cure for Chuuya.
Chapter 1: Objects in Motion
The tiny, half caved in apartment where they spent their last night together, albeit in another world, seems like a good place to give up and succumb to the sweet embrace of nothingness. Jacket coated in frost, snow turning his mouse brown hair white, icicles gathering on his tightly pinched brow. Through the sleet, Dazai can make out the ruins that were once Yokohama tower, and the mangled half-moon of the Cosmo Ferris wheel’s steel frame. He rubs his hands together, blows on them to no avail. He is sorely underdressed for this weather and vaguely wonders if there existed enough layers that could count as ‘prepared’ for the cold of this dead and barren world.
If only there were more clues what happened here…ah, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that what he’s looking for isn’t here. Maybe it isn’t anywhere, he decides with an outburst of hysterical laughter. The sudden noise echoing through the silence startles him. What is important, anyways? The never-ending conundrum. The unanswerable question. What is the meaning of life? For the first twenty-two years of his life, Dazai believed there was no meaning and he’s still not entirely convinced that there’s a meaning. That maybe, perhaps, the meaning of life is its meaninglessness. So why not give up here?
Memories come back in flashes. Silky red hair on powder blue cotton sheets. The smooth curve of a neck that fit his cheek perfectly, ligature of finely sculpted shoulder blades cascading down to a slim waist that he grasps desperately at, never wanting to let go, fingers leaving marks like bruises and lips and tongue bleeding into the softer, more liquid parts of a flesh so delicate and sweet, he drowns in its taste. Eyes, sharp as steel, that met his and dared him to never look away. A laugh, loud and brazen and uncontrollable. To think, he once believed he hated the sound, and now he langured in it through his delirious dreams.
“Get up…” He’s not sure if the words come from his own mouth, or from some distant, aching place inside of him. “This isn’t your place to die. Get up.” The snow packed around him crumbles as he shifts and shudders and manages to dig himself free. His teeth clatter, he can’t feel his arms or legs. He pushes forward. Or is it backward? Yes, back. He has to go back.
…
Dazai wasn’t certain what woke him first. The incessant ringing of his phone, the screeching of his alarm clock, or the whining of his bedmate. He peeled his eyes open long enough to silence his alarm, the phone stopped on its own, and he rolled over to ignore the unclothed woman sitting up next to him, whose name he didn’t want to admit he couldn’t remember. He briefly tried to recall if he’d even asked for a name but couldn’t conjure a memory from last night before he’d downed three glasses of whiskey on the rocks. His phone started ringing again.
“This Kunikida person is desperate to get ahold of you,” the woman, unhelpfully, provided, “He’s been calling since nine.”
It took a second to register. Dazai sat up and stared at her, drool down one side of his face, “It’s nine already? As in, nine in the morning?”
“No.” The woman reached for her undergarments on the floor. “I said he started calling at nine. It’s twelve.”
“Fuck,” Dazai tossed the covers off his legs and scrounged about for clothes. He gave her a once over, not a bad body, he determined, and said, “You need to leave.”
“I figured. You just need to pay me.”
“You’re a prostitute?” Dazai gaped at her. She blinked back, unamused.
“We went over it last night.”
“How much did we decide on?” Dazai groaned, searching for his wallet, even though he knew it was empty. Drunk him sure liked to waste his money on uninteresting people. His phone started ringing again.
“20,000.”
“There’s no way I would agree to that much for a night with you,” Dazai said.
She didn’t flinch. “If you don’t have the money, my representative can always swing by and take something for collateral.”
“Representative?”
“I’m in the union,” she pulled a stick of gum from her skirt pocket, popped it in her mouth, and shimmied into the skirt.
“Ugh,” Dazai looked over the random items scattered over the top of his nightstand, his eyes paused on a wristwatch, a pang of guilt in his gut, before he picked up a tiny statue that looked like it might fetch a pretty penny at the pawn shop. He tossed it over, and lied, “Ancient prayer statue from Thailand, used by the second Dalai Lama’s fifth cousin. Worth double what you’re asking, which is at least five times what you’re worth.”
She seemed satisfied, finished dressing on her way out the door with statue in hand, and called over her shoulder, “You’ve got the second smallest dick I’ve seen this month. Asshole.”
“Only the second? Why not the first? Ah, well. At least this was disappointing for the both of us.” The door slammed on her exit, and Dazai finally answered Kunikida’s call, “I know that I’m late…” “You’re not late, Dazai, you’re absent. You missed the entire meeting. It’s over.”
“Oh. In that case…uhm…erm…I’m sick. I’m down with a terrible case of the flu and…”
“And the woman leaving your dorm room right now is a nurse that was caring for you all night?” Kunikida cut in.
Dazai took a deep breath. Let it out slow. “Yes.”
“I see. Well, I suppose it’s for the best you weren’t there to meet the new professors, spare them that joy on their first day of the job, but you missed the opportunity to volunteer for student orientation,” Kunikida said.
“Drat. That sounds like so much fun, too,” Dazai replied with a self-satisfied smirk. Student orientation was the worst responsibility. It involved coordinating with faculty from every department at the university, printing, and collating pamphlets, and, greatest of horrors, waking up early on orientation day to deal with the bright eyed and over eager new class of freshman. They were always too chipper, too willing to please, too young to know what a hell their lives were about to be for the next four or so years – a fine introduction to the endless abyss of despair that awaited them after graduation until the bliss of their deathbed.
“I’m glad to hear you think so, because I volunteered you in your absence,” Kunikida said, dripping smug triumph. Dazai winced, he’d walked right into that one. He blamed the whiskey, or the girl, or the watch still staring him down from across the room, eating away at his insides until there was nothing left. He sucked at his teeth for a second, mulling over the news.
“Student orientation is such a big event for the university, it sets the entire school year up. I couldn’t be trusted to attend this morning’s meeting, surely, no one thought I could be trusted with such a great responsibility as orientation,” Dazai decided to appeal to Kunikida’s typically grounded sensibilities.
“I agree. I expected you to fail miserably and finally be fired.”
Dazai made a face, though he knew Kunikida didn’t have a stomach for that kind of conniving. Despite all the time he spent with Dazai, he was still as innocent as a butt naked cherub on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
“Fortunately for you, one of the new professors also volunteered.”
“I see,” Dazai relaxed, ran a hand through his hair and across the back of his neck, “One of the new professors, as eager to please as our incoming freshmen, volunteered first, and you, the dutiful veteran of these hallowed halls, realized they would be in way over their head but didn’t want to crush this novel feeling of team spirit, instead offered me up to guide them along the process. I might be willing to forgive you for this subterfuge, my so-called friend, after all, I was home, an invalid, near death’s door in bed, but I won’t hold a very justifiable grudge against you, if and only if, this professor I have to work with is a leggy young maiden with raven hair, dainty disposition and a willingness to commit double suicide with her handsome, yet tortured, lover. Which will, of course, be me by the end of student orientation.”
“The only one that calls me your friend is you, and that’s only when you want something. I’ll have to live without your forgiveness. The professor is a man, and he is not leggy, dainty, and, without a doubt in my mind, even slightly interested in being your lover – not now, certainly not by the end of orientation, or really ever,” Kunikida said without missing a beat, “He also seems a reliable sort, I regret burdening him with you. You might be interested to know, he took the position, in part, because of high recommendations from your benefactor. Perhaps it’ll serve as an ice breaker.”
Dazai steadied himself against the nightstand and swallowed back his knee-jerk response. The wristwatch stared up at him accusingly. His “benefactor”, Dr. Mori Ougai, was a sore subject and Kunikida knew it. Dazai certainly was interested and absolutely did not want to meet whatever man came with Mori’s compliments. Later, Dazai would cite this as the reason he chose not to show up on campus until well after student orientation. He also ignored any phone calls that came from Kunikida or unknown numbers and ducked out his back window should Kunikida come knocking on the door. He thought the matter over and done with, when he walked into his office for the first day of classes to find a petite man with fierce blue eyes sitting, leaned back, in his chair with feet dressed in mud caked black motorcycle boots on his desk crossed at the ankle.
Dazai hung his jacket, scarf, and messenger bag at the coat rack by the door while casually surveying the scene, mulling over how to handle it. The man was small in stature, lithe, and had a smooth, youthful face. His ruddy colored hair was cut in a dramatic style, bound into a tight knot at the base of his neck. He wore a black t-shirt, and form fit dark denim pants, and leather gloves. Atop his head was the most audacious black hat with a crimson band, chains dangling off the side. Dazai immediately decided he disliked the man, and his loud fashion sense.
“You must be a new student. Lost, I presume. I can escort you to the dean’s office if you’d like,” Dazai finally said.
“Dazai Osamu,” the man replied, his voice a lower octave than Dazai would’ve expected. Dazai raised a brow in acknowledgement and the man jutted his thumb back at himself, “Nakahara Chuuya. You stood me up. That Kunikida guy said you would, but I couldn’t believe that a professor of ethics and morality would really do such a thing.”
It took Dazai a moment to understand the man’s meaning. He blinked several times in earnest surprise.
“Are you saying you were the one that volunteered to do student orientation? You’re joking. You can’t possibly be one of the new professors. You’re so small! And tackily dressed, too. What even is that hat? I could barely believe a freshman at the university, but a professor?”
“Listen, asshole,” the man dropped his feet to the floor, and sat up, jabbing his index finger at Dazai, “I know your type. Lazy, good for nothing lout that thinks they’re better than everyone else, and they can just get away with pawning all the work off, but I just wanted to let you know that I rocked the student orientation, the freshmen here all love me, and you’re on my shit list.”
“Should I be impressed by any of those statements?” Dazai droned, folding his arms over his chest.
“Not yet,” the man stood up and pushed his way past Dazai - at least a head shorter, Dazai noted, with a strange sense of triumph. The man paused in the doorway long enough to say in a grave voice that brokered no argument, “But you will be.”
With that, the door slammed shut and Dazai stared at his now empty office in stun. He snorted lightly, muttering, “Nakahara Chuuya. I will be impressed by you, huh? Doubtful, yet I can’t help but wonder what that means.”
What it meant, Dazai learned throughout the day, was that Professor Nakahara had ‘informed’ the new freshman class that it was school tradition to prank a professor on the first day of school. They shouldn’t feel bad, because the professor was in on it, he had even volunteered to be the target. The pranks should involve fish, stinkier the better, and Nakahara had given them the professor’s class times, office number, and if any of them could get fish into the professor’s dorm, well, Nakahara would treat those auspicious hooligans to drinks himself.
The ‘volunteer’ target professor was, of course, Dazai, and apparently, a lot of the freshmen wanted drinks with the tiny new professor.
It took three days for Dazai to find all the fish and another two weeks before the smell finally faded away. By then, the entire student body and university staff alike were referring to him as Professor Mackerel, a moniker coined by Nakahara. In turn, Dazai had taken to calling the other man ‘slug’ because, he argued, Nakahara was small and slimy. Dazai was disappointed it didn’t catch on in the same way as his own new nickname.
“I’m pretty sure he’s stealing candy from the student union store,” Dazai complained to Kunikida as they waited in line at the campus coffee shop. Despite his treachery, Kunikida was still the last professor at the university that pretended to put up with Dazai.
“Why would he do that when there are free snacks available in the faculty lounge?” Kunikida reasoned. “I don’t know. We can never truly understand the motivations of kleptomaniacs, can we?” Dazai hummed lightly, rocking on his feet.
“Let me see if I understand you correctly. You believe Professor Nakahara is stealing candy from the student union store because he’s a pathological thief?”
“Obviously,” Dazai said, impatiently.
“And this has nothing to do with the fish?”
“Fish? What about fish? I’m not sure I know anything about fish,” Dazai fidgeted with the hem of his coat.
A few students chose that moment to walk by and greet them, “Hello Professor Kunikida! Hello Professor Mackerel.”
Dazai sighed, hanging his head and shoulders, and Kunikida snorted a laugh.
“I think most of the student body is under the impression that’s your real name,” Kunikida said, enjoying the moment way too much for Dazai’s liking.
“What kind of depraved individual directs students to hide fish all about the campus?” Dazai demanded, “Have we truly considered his mental stability? What happened to standards at this university? It seems they’ll take any thug off the street these days. He completely lacks maturity and professional decorum.”
“If maturity and professionalism were qualifications required of our professors, you never would’ve been hired and I could get coffee without a headache,” Kunikida muttered, he cleared his throat and tried a different approach, “I know that you’re still upset with Professor Nakahara for his prank, but you can't honestly believe you didn’t deserve it. Besides, it was all harmless fun.”
“I’m not at all bothered by that juvenile prank, Kunikida! You’re not listening! He’s a menace. Have you seen the clothes he wears? That hat alone ought to be banned from campus on the grounds of bad taste. And why are all his pants so tight? It’s immoral. What about the way he roars onto campus on that motorcycle of his? What kind of example is he setting for the students? The students, Kunikida, that’s all I’m thinking about,” Dazai cried, exasperated.
“I don’t want to know why you’ve noticed the ‘tightness’ of Professor Nakahara’s pants, though, now that you mention it, I guess I don’t particularly care for that motorcycle either. But the university has no rules against it,” Kunikida stepped up to the counter to place his order and Dazai hurried to his side, blurting out his own order for the barista. She rang them up together, and Kunikida growled, “I’m not paying for your coffee.”
“Aw, come on, Kunikida, it’s already on your tab and we don’t want to put this poor, beautiful maiden through the trouble of removing it and ringing it up again. Think of all the time that would waste and just look at this line,” Dazai gestured to the crowd waiting behind them.
“Fine, but you’ll get the next coffee,” Kunikida grumbled, handing over his faculty charge card. “Of course,” Dazai grinned, never mind that he was supposed to get the ‘next’ coffee five coffees ago. They stepped aside to wait for their coffees to be made. “All I’m saying is he’s obnoxious.”
“So says the pot of the kettle.”
“He’s flashy!” Dazai flung out his hands in exasperation.
“Not against policy, and the students love it. They’re transfixed in his lectures,” Kunikida shrugged.
“How do you know that?” Dazai demanded, folding his arms petulantly over his stomach.
“I’ve sat in on a couple of his classes,” Kunikida said plainly. The barista called his name and placed two coffees on the counter.
Dazai stared at him as though large red and yellow pustules started popping on his face. He said, “Why?”
“First, and foremost, because it’s my duty as the head of our division,” Kunikida stepped forward to take his coffee. He sipped some before continuing. “Also, I’m on his doctoral panel. Like you, he’s a student teacher, a doctoral candidate working on his thesis research. I’m woefully ill prepared to grade his work, though, so I’m trying to catch up.”
“Why would you be on his doctoral panel? You’re a mathematician. He’s medicine,” Dazai said. It was Kunikida’s turn to give Dazai an incredulous look.
“What makes you think his field is medicine?”
“You said he got the position because Dr. Mori recommended him,” Dazai flourished his hand in the air, and swiped his own coffee off the counter, “Naturally, I assumed.”
“No. I said he took the position because of Dr. Mori’s recommendation,” Kunikida began walking from the coffee shop towards the Division of Engineering building where his office was located, and Dazai followed, even though his own office was in the Social Sciences building on the other side of campus, “We’d been trying to get him to consider our university for his doctoral studies for nearly a year. Dr. Mori was the one that finally convinced him. So, put your petty grievances against him aside, Dazai, he’s here to stay. He’s a brilliant theoretical physicist and the foremost authority in his subfield.”
“Ah. I see. Physics. Dabbles in the theoretical bits like any hamster on a wheel. And, at that, a foremost authority in…hm…his subfield. Which would be…?” Dazai refused to be impressed. He wouldn’t give the tackily dressed urchin the satisfaction.
“Multiverses.”
Dazai burst out laughing, his worries of being impressed cast aside. “His subfield is fantasy?”
“I assure you, Professor Mackerel,” Kunikida stopped, they’d reached the door to his office, “The school would not have been so keen to bring Professor Nakahara here if his research were little more than fantastical bilk. I think you should sit in on a few of his lectures, it might change your mind about him. Now, stop following me and go do some work at your own office.”
With that, Kunikida stepped into his office and promptly slammed the door in Dazai’s face.
................…
Story would've followed Professor Dazai traveling through Multiverses while remembering through flashbacks his tumultuous romance with Professor Nakahara leading up to him traveling in search of a way to save his love. The end would've seen him find his way to the "original" universe of the anime/manga, where in *that* Chuuya, as a genetically engineered person, is the key to saving Professor Nakahara.
hi. not usually. this year i did because my sister invited me to my niece's first fireworks show. it reminded me that i don't really care for fireworks. they're loud and i get bored watching them and start thinking about all the people and animals that get scared because fireworks trigger their traumas and that makes me sad.
Shortly after midnight, Kincaid turned in and a few minutes later started snoring. Kevin slipped out of bed and crossed the room to where Kincaid left his bags. He kept one eye on Kincaid, as he unzipped the main compartment of Kincaid’s duffle.
Inside there were clothes, to be expected. Kevin carefully poked through the basic solid colored cotton t-shirts, button-ups, and trousers, each neatly…
DRAFT: 1
Lenny woke to a sudden shock of cold. He was laying on his belly in a pile of dusty pillows and blankets which he’d dumped on the floor of the clock tower storeroom late at night. Or early morning. Same difference. He hugged a pillow, rubbed his face into it, an effort to clear away the chill. It smelled of mildew and hundred-year-old dust. Water dripped down his cheeks from the back of…
DRAFT: 1
Gary stared up at the flat anxiously, his palms damp with sweat. He kept wiping them on his jeans. He wondered how many other people from school would be there. Bertie said it would be a small get-together, but small was a relative term, and Bertie struck Gary as the type that thought forty or so people met the definition. He wanted to ease into friendships, not be thrown to the wolves…
DRAFT: 1
Ryan and his friends found a pool in one of the offshoot rooms with less people in it. Ryan finished the last of the two black bottles, cradling his head in his hands. There were lounge chairs around the pool and he was seated at the foot of one. Whatever was in the bottles tasted fresh and clear but was definitely not water. He felt more sober. At least, the world had stopped spinning.…
DRAFT: 1
Warnings: Mention of past abuse and sexual assault of a minor.
Mick, Lenore, and Nina returned from their winding journey to the bathroom after a quick stop at the refreshment tables. They found Dante ecstatically chatting with some guy in a regency costume. The guy’s hand rested on Dante’s hip. Mick grabbed Dante’s shoulder, turned him around.
“Where’s Ryan?”
“Excuse you,” Dante…
Lenore put the finishing touches on Ryan’s costume and turned him towards a mirror. They were at her apartment before the party. She’d made costumes for all of them and insisted on doing their hair and make-up. She put Dante in black and red leather, red tulle jacket, and red high heels, a sexy take on the Knave of Hearts. She transformed Mick into the Walrus with a professor vibe, sweater vest…
DRAFT: 1
Kevin fixed a twin daggered glare at Kincaid. Kincaid valiantly ignored him, as he accepted the card keys and signed some paperwork for the hotel clerk.
“Do you need help with any bags?” the clerk asked.
“No, thank you, sir. This is all we have,” Kincaid answered with a bright smile, indicating the backpack slung over his shoulder, and the duffle bags he and Kevin were carrying. The…
DRAFT: 1
Deirdre went through her classes that day in a daze. She absently wrote down the teacher’s lectures verbatim in her notebook without much thought. After her last class she went to Wild Wonder, even though she didn’t have a shift.
“Hello, my starlight,” Esmie greeted with a broad, glossy smile. She came from the backroom carrying a box. Deirdre put her bookbag behind the front counter…
Some bossa nova music station played while Alonso drove Lenny and himself to the morgue. They’d landed in Rochester not long ago. Lenny had slept on the flight. There would be a few hours before the annual event that was Lenny’s main purpose for being in town, so Alonso had booked them a meeting in that time gap related to Lenny’s additional assignment.
Alonso tapped his fingers on the steering…
DRAFT: 1
Warning: Mentions self-inflicted death and drug use.
The Agency only paid for “economy” car rentals, which put Kevin and Kincaid in a tiny red Toyota Yaris. Shiny and polished, its interior drenched in the smell of chemical cleaners. They tossed their bags in the trunk and Kincaid took the driver’s seat.
“You’re striking me as the controlling type that always needs to drive,” Kevin…
