#merigreenleaf

[albatris]

Happy STS! What's the most surprising thing about your characters? It could be an interest or personality trait you didn't plan for them, or something that takes other characters by surprise, or something that takes the characters themselves by surprise. However you want to answer this. :)

happy sts!! I’m responding to this almost a full week late!! thank you for the ask!! my apologies for the rambles I am literally incapable of being concise

one thing that I can remember that took me by surprise is like........ before I started writing her, I had intended for Shara’s social anxiety to be fairly similar to my own, but pretty quickly it became clear that her vibe was actually much closer to my best friend’s brand of social anxiety, so...... less "panic and clam up" and more “literally cannot stop talking”? so, yeah, an anxious chatterbox who is definitely internally screaming through almost every social interaction she has, but tends to ramble and blurt out whatever comes into her head and desperately fill the silence rather than hanging back and appearing "shy" :P

lots of things about Shara surprised me actually! she’s the one of the gang who threw me the most curveballs during the recent frankendraft, sometimes she would just be like “cool so I’m creating an interdimensional map using radio waves” and I’d just have to be like. sick. ok. well I guess I have to figure out how the fuck that works now

then uhhhhhhh

in terms of both “something that takes other characters by surprise” and “something that takes the characters themselves by surprise” I think the most common answer is “Noa is a nice person” WHICH SOUNDS REALLY MEAN but like

it takes a long while for the Being Nice to kick in when she's getting to know someone and it always just catches people so off guard when it finally happens lmao

she works real hard at her intimidating standoffish don’t-fuck-with-me vibe, which is........ a defence mechanism, yeah

Shara and Kai’s first introduction to the concept of Noa Yun is hearing Tris talk about her, which is an issue because Tris has been best friends with her for four years and will jump at any opportunity to tell Literally Whoever Will Listen about how kind and smart and compassionate and friendly and amazing his best friend is and it’s very sweet but he does forget that said best friend is actually terrifying as all hell and Does Not Like People

so when they actually meet her in person they’re both lowkey kind of like :))))))))))))) hey tris quick question what the fuck

they don't really believe him until a fair way into the story, when eventually that switch flips and they catch a glimpse of a Noa that's not holding them at arm's length and glaring at them all the time and emitting Generally Threatening Auras

n like, Kai enjoys teasing her and getting on her nerves but doesn't twig that Noa actually considers them a friend till at least two thirds into the book when she flat-out says it in the midst of an argument and Kai is just like Hey Wait Hold Up What Was That

and as for Noa herself, it’s like

hm

she's always felt kinda alienated and weird and Not Able To Be A Person In A Way Other People Like, she was subject to a lot of senseless bullying and cruelty from other kids when she was younger, nowadays people still form all sorts of judgments about her and the reputation of being someone prickly and mean and unpleasant is one that is applied to her almost by default, even when she doesn't want it

it's easy for her to spiral into viewing herself as someone who is just inherently unpleasant and difficult to be around, someone who is just simply a naturally unlikable person

which, like. >:(

n even in those moments where she's able to drop her guard conpletely or be openly caring and affectionate with people she's comfortable with and share in a friendship, it's a difficult belief to shake and she often feels like she's just tricked people into liking her

there's a point near the end of the story where someone calls her a good person and their friend, and it's..... not the first time she's heard that said to her? but this time, hey, she's just gone through a whole big character arc and Learned A Lot Of Things About Herself and for the first time she's actually like wait holy fuck AM I a good person???

and is just COMPLETELY thrown for a loop about it and has a minor existential crisis

[lynnafred]

Happy Tender Tuesday! What's the sweetest thing your character(s) have done for someone they love?

Mer!! Thank you!! 💗💗 There’s so many little gestures for this crew that I’m going to try to keep it to romantic partners, but I know that a few friends will slip through. (Also, QPP absolutely counts in this ask and in all my other answers for Tender Tuesday.)

Pierre’ll tell you that the sweetest thing that he’s ever done is saved their life. (It would be a lie if it wasn’t immediately noted by others that that you should do that anyway if you’re a hero.)

Devin will say that the sweetest thing they’ve done for Olivia is the three-year long globetrotting escapade they did. (Olivia will say the sweetest thing that Devin’s ever done for them was being unconditionally supportive of their transition when they came out, but Devin says that’s too low a bar to count.)

Devin will also make it known, loudly, that there is nothing that will express how much he cares about Vincent more than breaking him out of jail. (Vincent wishes he’d stop saying that within earshot of a cop, but says it’s certainly better than the time that he was given an STI for his birthday that one time.)

Michael doesn’t think it should count, but it was the simple act of being there and being supportive - coffees on sleepless nights, snacks foisted instead of a simple reminder to eat, a simple ear to listen to problems, things like that. (Things that, in his opinion, you should do for someone you love anyway.)

Ant will say that it’s picking up the pieces of another bad night and poor decision without ever making it into a judgement or a blame game. 

Cass will tell you that it was coming home in time to tuck her daughter in. (Chloe won’t disagree.) 

Vincent knows that taking care of Ant when he’s sick is the sweetest thing that he can do for him; he never tries to deny that, even when Ant tells him he can take care of himself. 

[raevenlywrites]

STS time! :D Imagine you've got like a huge fandom-- how would your characters respond to finding out they had tons of fans? How would they react to learning that fanfic existed about them? Who do you think would be shipped together? Who wouldn't you want shipped together?

Well, in universe the dancers of Asylum *do* have fans, and so there is almost certainly fanfic about them. The nest is very careful about monitoring internet access, both keeping the younger members safe from their fans, and keeping some privacy about the nest from the rest of the world.

There is really only ONE ship so far that I cannot allow, and it’s Kyle and Lia. One, they’re best friends and I hate when those deep meaningful friendships aren’t respected/are treated like lesser than a romantic/sexual relationship, and two, Kyle is GAY, gay gay gay, and there are like, SO MANY bi/pan characters to play with, so any Kyle ship that doesn’t respect his orientation would just make me really really sad.

[thatwitchrevan]

For the ask game, can you do #s 2, 10, and 15 for whichever character you'd like? :)

I’m gonna do Parker, one of my original ocs!

2: Post a line of dialogue from your OC.

cheating in that this is technically two lines, but the first one is setup.

“I love your hair.”

“You might have to fight Savannah for custody. She keeps begging me to let her braid it.”

10: You are conducting a ritual. What 5 items would you need to summon your OC?

A sundress, hair ties, converse, red hard candy, and music.

15: Your OC is given the chance to go back in time. Where do they go and what do they do?

Parker doesn’t have much that they’d change. They have about two real problems in life: they have depression, and they have to deal with some dysphoria and transphobia due to being nonbinary. That’s about it, and there’s not much they could do about that even if they could bend time. So I think probably what they would do is go back to a younger, closeted Parker who isn’t aware of their mental health issues yet and hasn’t met their amazing girlfriend and tell themself that holy shit, kid, it really is going to get so much better, just hang in there. And not to waste their time trying to ‘prove’ their gender to themself or anybody or rush the questioning/transition process.

Thanks for the ask!

[ageekyreader]

I almost forgot you asked about this! Would it be weird to ask you to write something about Sol and glitter? Or do you want a more basic prompt? In that case: glitter. I want something shiny today lol.

You can absolutely ask for something about Sol and glitter. I did say I’d do fanfic after all ;) This does start off on a grumpy note, but don’t worry, I have a plan ;)

For anyone who doesn’t know who this character is - Sol is one of @merigreenleaf‘s characters in her Unexpected Inspiration series. It’s not published yet but … I keep writing fanfic for it. lol You can learn more about it [here]

_______

It had been one of those weeks where everything seemed to go wrong and everybody was on edge. If anyone had asked them they would discover that each and every carnie had a different answer about why they were irritated - and quite a few would tell you about it with great animation and detail. Performers are like that. 

This couldn’t last. 

Blythe would tell you that it the week had gone sour when one of the younger members of the Caravanserai managed to reinvent itching powder. Dray would tell you that they were livid because they couldn’t find their favorite shoes and everyone claimed they had no idea where the shoes might be.

Adair would tell you that he was fine, really, but he was just a wee bit grumpy about Sol managing to set his bed on fire. Again.

Etri wouldn’t say anything about being grumpy, but the truth was that Dray had borrowed a book without asking and Etri had just gotten to a really interesting part in it. 

Sol would tell you that he was sad because his family was grumpy and he didn’t like seeing his people grumpy. 

[This got longer than I planned - it’s a little under 1000 words total - find out what happens next under the cut!]

Dinner was usually a time to come together and relax. Everyone would gather near the cooking fires and talk about their day, or a tricky performance piece they were trying to figure out, or just whatever was on their mind. It was one of the times where it became the most obvious that the carnies were essentially a giant family bonded by choice. 

Tonight it was eerily quiet. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts and the people who were talking were mostly bickering softly. 

Adair was the first to notice that something was happening. He glanced over at Blythe and noticed something green sparkling on the tip of her nose. That was odd. He was going to say something but the words died on his tongue because he realized that he could see more sparkles showing up here and there. 

That’s when everyone else noticed something was going on. 

Glitter wasn’t uncommon among the performers. Glitter randomly appearing all over the place from seemingly nowhere? That was strange. 

Only a few moments passed before it became clear that the glitter was coming from the sky, raining down like kaleidoscope snow, and gradually coming down in larger quantities. 

It was little Jamie who first tried to taste it. That’s what you did with snow after all right? Stick your tongue out and let the flakes fall? Jamie was too young to realize this was anything other than a kind of snow or rain they hadn’t seen before. 

Jamie was soon tugging on their Da’s sleeve, “Da! Da! It tastes like sugar!!!” 

Their Da didn’t quite believe them, but he stuck his tongue out anyway to humor Jamie. It did taste like sugar. That made the whole thing even weirder. 

Etri had retreated to his usual perch on top of the wagon by the time the glitter raining down so he was the first one to guess what was going on. The glitter was falling from the sky yes, but it was also being shot into the sky from a spot high up on an old tree that stood near the wagons. He decided to investigate. 

The first thing Etri did after climbing down from the wagon was go grab some soft juggling balls. He could have climbed up and see who was in the tree but he had a feeling he knew what was going on and this was more fun. 

He didn’t say anything before he started throwing the juggling balls. Just started tossing them at the tree a little bit lower than where the glitter was actually shooting out. Etri had excellent aim and he only had to throw three balls before he heard an indignant, “Hey!” 

The glitter stopped and the branches started to shake as someone climbed down. They jumped from the lowest branch and Etri wasn’t surprised in the slightly to see his twin brother. Sol had pine needles stuck in his hair, a streak of grease on one cheek, a small contraption in his hands, and was pretty much covered in glitter. 

“Look Etch! I made it rain glitter! Isn’t it smarfy?” 

Blythe stomped over and replied before Etri had a chance to do more than chuckle, “Hey! What were thinking? This got everywhere. That’s not good for the plants, and what if it got in someone’s eye?!” 

“I thought of that. It’s bio… biograd… no, bidegra… it’s safe! The lady I got it from told me it would wash away with water. It’s mostly sugar and food dye.” Sol looked a little wounded that she hadn’t trusted him. 

“Mostly?”

Sol shrugged, “She said it was safe, I didn’t need to know how to make, just how to make my smarfy machine.” 

The rest of the carnies were starting to gather around by now and Adair walked up and gave Sol a big hug. “Well I think it was smarfy.” 

Sol brightened at that. “Really?”

“Yup.” 

Everyone else was starting to grin now. It wasn’t like anyone was complaining about the glitter itching, and it really was very pretty. Some of the carnies decided to give Sol a high five or a hug, and the rest began to talk and play with the glitter. 

Dray just had one question, “Sol, do you think we could use this in my act?” 

Sol was grinning from ear to ear as he responded to Dray and the other questions and congratulations he was getting. His plan had worked. Everything was back to how it should be. 

_________

If anyone else wants to participate, my ask box is still open! Send me a prompt and I’ll write you something quick and most likely shorter than this piece. Maybe. Probably. Eh, who knows :P 

[mayaiai-blog]

@merigreenleaf  replied to your post “I'm a little late, but for the writer's ask game, can you do #8, 25,...”

I love that answer to the side character question! Now I want to know more about these two because the alternate dimension thing sounds so cool!

i can rant about my characters for ages so don’t hesitate to ask me anything :D

so basically reese is ‘ya average girl’, but it turns out she’s something called a visitor, which is a person that thanks to where her ‘world’ is in the multiverse, she can travel between them. there are not a lot of visitors in the world, and it’s the only world that has visitors (other worlds can have multidimensional travelers but they’re not the same). reese’s world is called ‘world alpha’ for reasons.

seere is from ‘world beta’ and she works for a company called ‘Adstrum Enlightenment’ that are involved in world traveling so she has a little box that allows her to pop around the multiverse and check out other worlds for Adstrum. 

anyway turns out! adstrum are on world alpha! reese is suspicious (because them playing around with the multiverse give her a; a headache & b; make her powers flare up without her control) so she goes to check them out, finds out they’ve been doing Bad Stuff to other visitors, and accidentally ends up on world beta, where she finds out her double exists and works at Adstrum. and basically 

‘if i work there then i mustn’t know that these guys are evil! if i go tell me, she’ll believe herself and we can team up and take them out!’

which uh, didn’t happen.

and thus starts the beautiful ‘self loathing.’

[lacependragon]

ofthieveryandaddictions

yeah no if someone i was dating actively referred to me as a girl then there'd be Talks and actually i have broken up with someone over that before so the fact that this show makes it up to be NBD is kinda disconcerting to me??

cakeandpi

I... didn't realize any of this as I haven't watched the second season yet, only seen gifsets. That sucks.

merigreenleaf

Aww, I've been thinking about watching this show and now I'm bummed out about this as a nonbinary person. :(

I know there are some nonbinary folk who identify as sapphic and feel somewhat femininely aligned and I’m totally cool with that. But Syd isn’t. Syd is nonbinary without alignment. Syd uses they/them pronouns and gender neutral language exclusively. And just. It feels like the show and Elena dismiss their identity because they “look like a girl”. And that makes me really uncomfortable.

Sorry to let you guys down about the show. I was watching the second season and it just made me upset enough to cry. And I don’t cry often.

[dragonscanbeplantstoo]

Find The Word Tag

Hi all! I was tagged by @ava-burton-writing to find red and earth in my WIP. Thank you for thinking of me Ava! I’m sorry I’m so late responding.

So red shows up 29 times so far, and here’s my favorite excerpt (sorry it’s sort of long):

Levi makes an acknowledging noise and takes in the rest of the scene. Bloody claw marks on the pillows, a big pool of it on the floor under the woman’s head. Sterling must have had her more upside down at one point to create the artful red drips down her face.

And earth only shows up once:

Suki shrugs, “there’s also Levi.”

Greyson snorts, “there’s no way on earth I’m asking that...I don’t even know.”

“We usually say unpredictable.”

“Unpredictable is a very tame way to describe him.”

There we go! I’m going to tag @merigreenleaf (thanks for the follow), @polapipo (gotta know ‘bout that cult story) and @stirringink (excited you’re back) for the words black and building, if they want.