i remember the feeling

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 22:06:36 GMT

this is a placeholder post for the dw post I plan to make this evening!! or tomorrow possibly the day has really gotten away from me

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Sun, 24 Jun 2018 02:01:19 GMT

friends I’ll be screaming about the waseem photo for the rest of my life

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Tue, 08 May 2018 05:02:15 GMT

OK SO TURNS OUT I DID NOT RAMBLE ABOUT FIC lol i just spent most of the night going down a niall/conor rabbithole to see if i could get behind this as an unrequited ship where niall has a huuuuuuuge embarrassing crush and conor... has a serious long-term girlfriend. basically i just want all of the bi niall sexuality crisis feelings where he's spent several years being like "aha i mean i like girls obviously. occasionally i have thoughts about various guys, but like, in passing, which is normal. sometimes i write heartbreak albums about my best friend harry going off on a yacht with a kardashian and never calling me again but it's like, cool. sometimes i also get weirdly flustered and blurt out i love you to my other best friend louis when it's late at night and we're both a little stoned and he doesn't call me for a few days after but then we pick right back up again and never mention it again. these are totally normal things that happen to all guys." and then maybe john bird says something accidentally that reveals that everyone on the entire tour (and also everyone in the ENTIRE WORLD) knows about niall's GIGANTIC EMBARRASSING CRUSH on conor, which niall had not even REALIZED was a gigantic embarrassing crush until it was pointed out to him, and now he is so embarrassed he just wants to lie facedown on the floor until the ground swallows him up and he never has to see any of his bandmates again.

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Tue, 08 May 2018 00:12:28 GMT

IM ALIVE and tonight I’m going to ramble about fic outlines here and also do some commenting. IM NOW LESS THAN ONE MONTH AWAY FROM BEING (MOSTLY PRETTY MUCH) DONE WITH ACADEMIC WRITING

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Mon, 19 Feb 2018 20:28:51 GMT

can I just strong-arm one of you into co-writing a fic with me? I’m half joking and half serious. I JUST FEEL LIKE IT’S THE ACCOUNTABILITY SOLUTION I NEED. hannah is my best fic outlining partner but we mostly stay in outling stage. I want to write a chaptered fic and post it on ao3 but when left to my own devices I just spend all my time outlining new WIPs. which is very fun don’t get me wrong but also I want to learn how to complete a story arc!!

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kinda skeezy '70s SoCal rock niall fic

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 05:59:06 GMT

ok my sister sent me this photo with the text “this photo is giving me very specific vibes,” to which i said “70s SoCal rock vibes?” and she said “yes also something about the hand is giving me kinda skeezy daddy niall vibes??” and then proceeded to ignore all of my texts demanding MORE HEADCANONS AND A FULL FIC OUTLINE. but SURELY WE CAN DO THIS OURSELVES. help me friends!!

here are my initial thoughts.

as you probably know, i LOVE trashbag!1d in fic. i had never considered a trashbag!niall before, probably because my two favorite fics in this genre, do you wanna and proper groupie, do not even include niall (or barely include him). SO MY EYES HAD NOT EVEN BEEN OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITY and that feels like a crying shame!!!! i am imagining like, some kinda fic that is not exactly celeb/groupie fic but has celeb/groupie or famous/nonfamous vibes + vague sugar baby vibes. it feels narry to me although i am open to other ships. and it definitely features niall as a kinda older (late 30s maybe?) guitarist in an Eagles-type band and harry as a youngish (19-22 maybe?) kid who moved from some small town to LA a few months back and thinks he's adapted to city life but is 100% still a total innocent. (you'll have to pretend like niall doesn't look totally baby-faced in that picture and imagine him as having a sort of rugged older Californian vibe.) i know nothing about the 1970s but it's the '70s and niall's got a house in laurel canyon and everybody knows his name. I have NO idea what would happen in the plot but harry's a little breathless and wide-eyed and niall's a little weathered, a little jaded, a little distant.

OK you can stop reading there and just speculate in the comments about niall's past if you want!! or you can read this possible outline for the first chapter IDK. im interested in both general speculation about a sugar baby!harry/older famous niall and specific speculation about this version of the plot!!

possibly harry meets niall at some party he's charmed his way into attending? i am kinda thinking that he's hanging out with these LA girls he's met who think he's adorable and let him hang around them, and then louis (who is also older and maybe in niall's band) is out at a club or a restaurant or something and the girls are flirting with him and he invites them to a party at his later. and one of the girls is like "can our friend come?" re: harry and louis looks at harry, kinda sizing him up, and then maybe says something under his breath to whoever he's with, they both laugh, and louis's like "yeah bring him too, got somebody who might like to meet him," kinda smirking as he says it. anyway maybe louis even sends a car for them or something, and when they get to the party the girls head off and harry's left alone at this party where he doesn't know anyone, in this huuuuuuge obscenely gorgeous california mansion, and he keeps seeing famous people and he's just sooo wide-eyed, keeps bumping into people and furniture because he's so busy staring around the room trying to take it all in. he doesn't know anybody but he can tell that a lot of the people there are famous -- some of them he recognizes but a lot of them just have that kinda aura about them, like everybody's intentionally not gaping at them but the intense casualness with which they're not being watched is basically like everyone staring at them... anyway he's just wandering around, hardly able to believe he's there, trying to commit every single detail to memory so he can tell his roommates about it later (zayn? liam? dunkirk boys?).

anyway the whole evening kinda goes by like this, with harry sort of drifting from room to room, drifting around the edges of people's conversations and being sort of coolly acknowledged but not addressed, which is fine by him!! he's totally overwhelmed and just trying to play it cool!!! i think at one point maybe louis is sort of holding court somewhere and spots him drifting past and is like c'mere, and harry goes over to him, and louis makes him sit down next to him and introduces him to like, the fifteen people who are sort of lounging around him, most of them with kinda improbable names or nicknames that harry's never gonna remember, and harry's just kinda dazed and nodding. probably he smokes a little himself when someone passes him a joint even though pot always makes him a little vague and hazy round the edges and horny. louis then seems to forget that he's there, and harry just sort of sits in a daze watching everyone talk, watching louis talk, and maybe louis's got a girl half draped over him and he's got a hand on her thigh but he's got his leg pressed up against harry's just sitting there all hazy and not really following the conversation anymore, just watching louis talk, feeling the warmth of his thigh against harry's. and he's kinda working himself up to developing a crush on louis, watching louis talk, thinking about louis's thighs, thinking about louis's dick, thinking about sliding to his knees and getting his mouth on him later. maybe fantasizing about doing it now, even, with all these people around watching, louis's hand in his hair, pulling a little.

ANYWAY harry definitely starts getting an inopportune boner and is like umm.... i gotta... be right back, and louis, who's got this lazy smug grin on his face again like he can tell exactly what harry's been thinking about, makes some joke and everyone laughs. maybe he's also like, don't leave yet, kid, i want you to meet someone, and harry, who's blushing now, is like ok!! and flees the room.

somehow he runs into niall who’s somewhere else in the house on his own? maybe harry wanders into one of the unused bedrooms looking for a bathroom and then after he sees that the balcony door is open and he steps out to look at the view and niall’s sitting out there in the dark drinking and watching the waves break on the shore. when Niall sees Harry in the dark he gives a little jerk of surprise, like something's startled him badly, and almost knocks over whatever he's drinking. Harry recognizes him, goes all wide eyed and confused and clumsy again, and is like sorry! sorry!!!!! and then niall looks at him again and seems to really see him this time. he seems to sot of shake out of something and is gruffly like, it's fine, sorry, thought you were someone else.

harry offers to go, but niall's like no it's ok, stay if you like. and it feels awkward to leave so harry sits down near him and they watch the ocean together for a while. harry's kinda watching Niall out of the corner of his eye, because he's not a fan fan but he knows exactly who niall is and he's trying to be casual and cool about it like the people at the party but is failing miserably. except he notices that niall keeps stealing looks at him too, almost like he can't help it, and harry's internally like "hmmm. HMM!!! very interesting!!!!" and takes it as a cue to start flirting a little, because he probably is not going to get to suck louis off tonight but maybe he can still hook up with a famous person before he has to go back to his real life, which is much less exciting.

idk maybe they start talking. niall's quiet and doesn't contribute much to the conversation but he's a good listener, and every time harry stops talking he asks some question that sends harry off again, and harry winds up telling him all about his hometown and moving to LA and the dishwashing job he's doing until he can make it big in acting or something (he has no idea what he wants to do, he just has vague romantic notions about LA and being in a profession where his job is to be adored). and he just sort of talks and talks, with a bit of bravado mixed in because he wants niall to think he's worldly and sophisticated and unfazed like everyone else at the party. but he's got this earnestness and he even makes niall laugh a couple times. but then at one point he realizes he's been talking for a long time and niall's probably just being polite, and he gets a little self-conscious and is like 'sorry' and niall's like 'for what?' and harry doesn't know how to say 'for boring you, probably' so he just sort of awkwardly ignores it, and then casts around for something to say instead and settles on asking niall who he was expecting. niall's like 'what do you mean?' and harry's like 'when i came out here you thought i was someone else, who were you expecti

except that somehow it's the Wrong Thing to say. immediately niall goes all reserved and distant again, and harry hadn't realized how much niall had relaxed in the space of their conversation until suddenly his walls go up again. harry's confused and tries to muddle through an apology, but niall just sort of brushes it off and is like 'you're probably missing the party' in a way that's clearly like, you should go now. but harry doesn't want to go!!!!! anyway i think maybe he sort of panics and decides to just GO FOR IT, i don't think he would actually kiss niall but maybe he puts his hand on niall's thigh, pretty high up, and then Looks at him. and niall kinda freezes, and there's this half second where harry's afraid he got that wrong too and he doesn't know if niall's going to be angry or have a gay panic moment and his mind's kinda spinning off thinking about what might happen, and then niall kinda surges forward and puts a hand on the back of harry's head and kisses him, not gently, and things get very heated very fast. it's very intense, and there's this weird undertone to it -- it's not at all violent or dub con-y, but it's rougher and more impersonal than harry was expecting, and niall's just a bit like.. idk. like on the balcony when they'd been talking harry had had this feeling sometimes that he'd taken niall by surprise -- he'd made him laugh when he wasn't expecting to, or said something that niall hadn't expected to hear, and it had made niall sort of focus on him and look at him like he was really seeing harry, and was surprised by what he saw. and it had sort of thrilled harry, this feeling of being sort of the focus of niall's attention like that. but now that they're hooking up it's sort of like niall's not focused on him anymore? (i can't decide if niall is thinking about the person harry reminds him of and responding to his feelings about that person in this scene, or if he's just had a lot of sex with people who want to sleep with him because he's famous and he's just kinda falling into the role he usually plays in these casual, kinda ultimately meaningless sexual encounters. possibly some combination of both!! im still getting a feel for his character.)

anyway it's hot but also it's all happening very fast, and probably harry goes down on niall on the balcony and that's excellent and he feels very accomplished and worldly bc look at him, blowing a celeb at his very first real famous LA party!! but then niall's like 'can I fuck you, i want to fuck you,' and harry is like yes, 100%, immediately, but once they get inside he starts getting a little nervous because actually he has not done this part before!! but possibly he has sliiiiightly misled niall on that front, aka sort of exaggerated / embellished his sexual history in the attempt to impress niall. and he is definitely game to have sex but also is nervous and hiding it, possibly by being even more like 'i know EXACTLY what i'm doing, obviously, ahaha! very good at sex, that's me! experienced lover harry styles!' and he sort of rushes through the prep and then when they actually start having sex it hurts a lot more than he expected and he can't relax but he doesn't want to stop because he doesn't want to mess up!! except then he winds up getting overwhelmed and sort of freaking out a little, bc Feelings!!! and niall's like 'whoa what ok let's just - let's stop' and harry's like 'NO KEEP GOING' bc he's just being stupid obviously and he doesn't want to fail at losing his gay virginity to a famous rockstar who's probably slept with so many people!!! but it's not ok and now he's gotten himself all worked up and niall's like 'ok actually let's just.. take a break yeah' and goes to get him a glass of water.

when harry's calmed down a bit he's soooo embarrassed and gets tearful again over it. at this point niall is still concerned, but also pretty convinced that harry's got a few screws loose and probably it would be best to just disentangle himself from this situation before things get any weirder. except that idk they have some kind of moment and harry just ditches the worldly act altogether, confesses that he has no idea what he's doing, and also winds up having a lot of Feelings, and it's so earnest and just.. obviously genuine that niall once again seems to be kinda taken by surprise? and once again it's like he's still kind of reserved/not exactly warm or forthcoming, but harry's willingness to be very unselfconscious and unguarded in front of him sort of makes him respond in kind, to an extent. and they get to have a do-over, which I will not describe here bc i actually wrote this part of the sex scene, except to say that it is totally different from what came before and it surprises them both and is weirdly intimate in that narry bizarro soul connection kinda way.

AND THEN, OF COURSE, HARRY WAKES UP IN THE MORNING AND NIALL IS GONE, and has left him all alone in a strange house, and when harry stumbles out of the bedroom and wanders the house looking for a telephone or the way out he accidentally wanders into the kitchen, where famous rockstar louis tomlinson is sitting in his pants eating breakfast with a girl harry's never seen before, and it is very clear that 1) neither of them knew anyone was still in the house, 2) louis doesn't remember who harry is or much about the previous evening, and 3) niall must've cleared out first thing and definitely did not mention to louis that he'd left harry sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms.

[INSERT REST OF FIC HERE]

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narry curse fic

Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:43:53 GMT

hi ok i can't remember if i've fic outlined this before on tumblr or just described it to hannah but: I read this harry/draco fic years and years ago where harry (potter) is under a spell called the Cassandra Curse that causes everyone around him to believe that everything he says is a lie. and if i recall correctly it's like, as the curse intensifies people's negative reactions to him get more intense too, like they think he's not just lying but lying maliciously. ANYWAY i was thinking about that fic recently and thinking about a one direction fic kinda loosely inspired by that concept. except that in this fic harry (styles) is under a curse that is poisoning everyone in his life against him. it would come on very gradually -- like he would start to notice at first that people were just a little bit less patient with him, a little more irritable or quick to snap at him, a little less willing to immediately forgive him for anything and everything. but things would get slowly but steadily worse. the tide of public opinion starts to turn against him in ways that feel at first like the fickleness of the internet, which he's used to and pretty good at ignoring, but then in ways that kinda feel more serious or more confusing. his close friends start to get more and more impatient with him, and every time he tries to apologize or fix things he somehow manages to put his foot in his mouth or make the situation worse.

and the worst part is that like, it's not just people being mean to him for no reason, a lot of it is people confirming things that he was always secretly afraid they thought of him and just weren't saying. like there's enough truth mixed in that he feels like they might be right. idk i'm trying to think of all the hurtful-but-with-a-grain-of-truth things that people might say to him, like nick getting exasperated with him for thinking he can drop off the face of the earth for months and then waltz back into his flat for dinner like they can just pick their friendship up where they left off, or jeff or mitch or somebody saying something that implies that harry bought his career, or ben asking if he realizes that he's not actually part of their family, gemma saying something that makes him realize how much his fame has negatively affected her life, or whatever. like none of it is outright MEAN mean, it's all more implied or suggested, or like, people will say something very pointed in a moment of anger and then sort of back off but also... not totally apologize or take it back. and so it takes harry a long time to sort of think that maybe something is going on? it does occur to him in the early stages that it's weird that people are so... suddenly not charmed by him, but he spends a lot of time talking himself out of it, or like, trying to figure out if it's something he's doing, or maybe just sort of putting the bad feelings.. somewhere else.. and drifting off rather than talking it out or investigating further. like maybe after he's tried to fix things with nick and nick just gets more annoyed harry just decides to sort of... drift off to LA... stop calling nick... whatever. idk classic harry styles avoidance maneuvers! the important thing is that like he experiences a lot of doubt and confusion about what's happening and is slow to put the pieces together and also people are kind of RIGHT but it's just.. they also keep kinda getting meaner and more pointed about it, and while he could handle one or two people in his life being irritated with him it's just like... everyone in his life is irritated with him, as well as millions of strangers on the internet, and none of the people he would normally talk to (including his therapist!) seem to have the time or patience to listen as he tries to muddle through what's happening.

OKAY i just spent all this time describing this concept as harry would experience it but i'm not even sure it would be from harry's POV! my original idea was that the fic would be either narry or lourry (it works better as lourry I think because of their complicated history but I prefer writing niall... idk!!) and that it would be mostly narrated from the other person's perspective. I was thinking that maybe it's future canon fic and it would start about six months or so into the curse, when niall runs into harry at some thing in LA. or rather doesn't run into him, because niall knows harry's going to be there and his general policy is to arrange his life in ways so that he is always just missing harry and never overlaps. niall has been out of the spotlight for the past couple months working on his second album, possibly having a jamaica idyll of his own, so he hasn't really been checking social media or interacting with industry people or mutual friends in LA or anything. also he has become very, very good at just sort of.. deliberately filtering out anything to do with harry and Not Thinking About It. idk what their history is like in this fic, like if they were together and harry broke niall's heart or if it was a 'we didn't talk about it and then we drifted and you never called and i wish you had just dumped me because this slow drifting and radio silence has made it impossible for me to fully move on' kinda thing. except i'm thinking there's also an edge of real hurt there, like, it didn't have to be inevitable and it's probably like 80% harry's fault that it played out the way it did. also possibly harry broke up the band in the most painful way possible. who can say. their history is a fraught one!!

anyway niall comes back and he's at some party or leaving some event or something and happens to sort of just barely overlap with harry, like he sees harry walking through the paps to get through to his car. and even just in that brief moment it's like... something is just off. like paps are always nasty and always trying to get a reaction, and fans can be.. intense... especially if they're stalkers and you don't stop, but it's just like... what little he sees of harry's interactions with the crowd is just very very weird. and i think he catches a glimpse of harry's face (harry doesn't see him) and that confuses him even more because he's never seen harry look like that before, at least not in public. he knows harry's bland smiling media face and that isn't it. harry looks terrified, flinching away when people try to grab him and sort of stumbling towards the car, and maybe there's some sort of altercation, like someone spits in his face or something, and his security guy pushes them away but also kinda shoulderchecks harry into the side of the car. like it all happens super fast, harry's through the crowd and in the car driving off in seconds, but it's an intense moment, and niall's accidentally witnessed the whole thing.

jesus, niall says, turning to whoever he's with. and whoever he's with snorts and is like, i know, right? he's such a fucking twat. and niall's like .....wait. what?

but then they're inside the party/event and niall sort of forgets about it for a while because he's seeing all these people he hasn't seen in months etc etc. except that it keeps sort of happening. maybe it's like an industry event or party or something so there's like, a veneer of politeness or professionalism or whatever, but niall starts piecing together that like... people are really, really, really not feeling harry styles, and it's not clear what's happened or why it's changed. maybe he ducks out for some fresh air at some point and googles harry's name just out of curiosity, to see if he's somehow missed some huge scandal or something. the first result is like, tmz tweeting out a fan video of the altercation niall just witnessed. niall doesn't watch the video again but he just... cannot make sense of the headline, which seems to imply that the whole incident was soehow and then all of the retweets and replies are people just tearing into harry (which is nothing new bc twitter is a cesspool and he tries to never look at it if he can help it) but it IS weird that there's like.. no stans jumping in to defend harry, nobody tweeting death threats at tmz for hurting their fave, nobody even being like LARRY IS REAL. (the larries haven't vanished in this verse, they've all just turned against harry.)

anyway idk what happens in the story!! at first i was thinking that niall was somehow immune to the curse, but i actually think that it would be more interesting if he was NOT immune but had instead sort of accidentally inoculated himself against it? like not really, it still affects him, but he's spend so many years learning to sort of.. detach himself from his feelings about harry, if that makes sense, at first because it was too painful in the early years for him to be pining the way he was over harry when harry mooning over louis but also having a lot of sex with a lot of intimidatingly hot people, and then in the later years because it was too painful to have harry finally but know that he was never going to get to keep him. idk i need to think about it but i feel like it's just, he knows harry, and he knows how to separate what he feels about harry from what harry's doing or what harry needs from him or whatever. and after harry broke his heart he got even better at it, because it's not harry's fault exactly, it's niall's fault for knowing it was going to happen and still still hoping it could be different, that harry would want it badly enough to fight for it. anyway he's good at separating things out in his mind and compartmentalizing his feelings etc etc where harry's concerned. and it turns out that weirdly, he can do the same with the curse? like he can't totally ignore its effects but he can kinda separate out those feelings. or he's good at separating out these versions of harry, like he's spent all these years in the band separating out the version of harry he loves from the version that everyone else sees, and so he sort of instinctively is able to parse his anger from those underlying feelings about harry or something. i also had this thought that maybe niall has bad anxiety in this verse and part of the way he's learned to cope with it is by detaching from his feelings a little and neutrally observing how he's feeling, like not assuming that whatever visceral reaction he's having to a situation is always the correct one or the way he wants to respond, and then that coping mechanism helps him sort of manage the curse's effects without realizing he's doing it? idk!!

what happens???? what is the plot??? i have no idea! but there's definitely a scene where niall and harry encounter each other face to face for the first time in a long, long time, and niall feels this surge of anger towards him. and harry must see the anger in niall's face because his own face just sort of shutters. maybe in that first instant he had felt just the tiniest flicker of hope that it would be different with niall. but it wasn't, it isn't, and he knows how this is going to go.

IDK THIS ISN'T EVEN A FIC REALLY I JUST WANT SOME XTREME HARRY SUFFERING!!!! I want him feeling totally alone and scared and unsure of whether he's done something to deserve this. I want him moving past the kind of good, useful self-examination that maybe he needs to do in this fic (bc he IS kind of a flake, he HAS hurt people, he isn't perfect) into this small scared hurt place where he can't see a way out and he doesn't know if it's ever going to change or how long he can keep going like this alone. I want the curse to just compound all of harry's fears and anxieties around communication because everything he says makes things so, so much worse. I want him to try to deal with it by just making himself smaller and smaller, trying to need less, to want less, to ask for less, so he won't drive away the people he loves. and I want Niall to have to push through all of these layers and layers of anger and bitterness to figure out how he really feels about harry and to try to look at him, clear-sighted, through the curse and through all this complicated history they have together. and also just like!! you know!! the usual intense angst around harry not knowing who he is when he's not Harry Styles(TM), or when being harry styles isn't a desirable thing or a thing he can hide in to avoid being a real person. THERE COULD BE A LOT GOING ON HERE EMOTIONALLY IDK. JUST SOME THOUGHTS.

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battlestar galactica au

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 06:53:48 GMT

just some more cylon!niall suffering from the bsg au. crossposted to tumblr.

*

Back when he worked on the flight deck, he’d sometimes have to retire an old Viper from the flight roster for good, take her offline and scrap her for parts. It was grunt work, the kind of task he could’ve passed off easily to one of the trainees. But he always liked to handle a decommissioning himself. He’d wait till the day crew had gone home and it was just him and the ship, alone in the bay. Louis used to tease him for it. They were only junkers, after all. Scrap metal.

But it had felt important, even then. It felt like he owed them this: some moment of dignity, some recognition, before he began the slow, laborious process of taking them apart. A quiet acknowledgment that they’d flown well, brought their pilots home safe time and time and time again, and now it was time to rest. He remembers their names, even now. Beautiful things: Lady Bird. Sparrow. Redwing. Niall’s loved machines all his life, not just the sleek elegance of their frames but the intricacies of their systems, whole complex universes beneath the skin. Never once had it occurred to him that this love, this quiet reverence for the so, might be something closer to kinship.

It won’t be much longer now. These days Fisk barely bothers with questions anymore. It’s the pain he relishes, Niall’s pain, and it goes on and on. Soon someone upstairs will realize the interrogation’s been a failure, and that there’s nothing left to do but scrap the Cylon for parts, see if there’s anything worth salvaging.

It won’t be like dying. To die you have to be alive, and Niall isn’t, not properly. He had felt like he was, once. Had sobbed and begged and fought for it – for the right to be alive, to be human. But Fisk was right. There’s no him, no Niall. He’s only a copy, a lump of metal and wires and synthetic skin, a chip where his memories should be. You don’t kill a machine. You just - power it down. Take it offline.

He wonders, sometimes, if anyone will do for him what he’d done for those old birds. If somewhere out there in the fleet, Louis will feel something, some flickering, and know – as that airlock opens onto the void, as the machine that was once called Niall is consigned to the crushing dark. He has to believe it. He sees it when he closes his eyes: Louis alone in the dark, in the cockpit of his Viper, offering up some half-forgotten prayer to the lords of Kobol. Some recognition of Niall’s years of service to the fleet, maybe. Or of what they had both mistaken, for a little while at least, as love.

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Sun, 04 Feb 2018 01:32:32 GMT

WELL IM ABOUT TO DIE OF DISSERTATION WRITING but last night Pip MIGHT have foiled a burglary. ok I have no proof for that claim but I live in a very small and kinda isolated complex and at 3:40am there were very suspicious noises outside. Pip woke up and started FREAKING out and barking at the top of his lungs, and then when I hid and looked out the blinds (bc I was afraid!!) I saw a strange dude take off RUNNING at top speed away from one of my neighbor's sliding glass doors. SO, POSSIBLY A HERO DOG. WHEN WILL THE CITY DECLARE A HOLIDAY IN HIS HONOR???? also even though it feels like my brain is being scraped out of my skull it turns out that being busy makes me want to write fic more (bc I crave the escapism), so in the last couple days I've written scenes from the westworld AU, small town divorce fic, and sexswap Niall before bed. progress!! my chapter deadline is tues afternoon and then I'm allowing myself two blissful days off from writing before I plunge back in. I have no idea how I'm going to finish ahahahaha let's not talk about it somehow it'll happen BECAUSE IT HAS TO.

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just putting some diss thoughts here bc ive banned myself from tumblr

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 22:55:16 GMT

( Read more... )

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Wed, 31 Jan 2018 02:42:53 GMT

I have some huge deadlines looming plus some guest teaching stuff this week (which always stresses me out bc it's not your class!!! they don't have to be nice to you!!!) so most of my time/energy/brainpower is being sucked up by that right now. but I am saving up comments on fic that people have been posting! ALSO, I am reading a bunch of old Harlequin romances for my dissertation and they're pretty zany and enjoyable. it's been so long since I read something where everyone was Definitely 100% Heterosexual that I keep thinking we're about to meet the love interest but then I realize no! the love interests are already here! it's that dude and that lady!

anyway the one I just finished was called WILDCAT TAMED, which I thought was going to be about a feisty woman being tamed by a man but actually turned out to be hilariously literal. a wildcat moves into this sleepy Scottish town and the police want to kill it. but then the woman and her love interest (a mysterious Hungarian antiques dealer) come up with a plan to feed the wildcat chicken and vegetables every day so it won't raid the village for food. then they fall in love. that's it. I mean I think the woman's wildcat spirit is also tamed by the Hungarian's muscular arms and brooding manner, but also, actual wildcats. If it were a 1D fic harry would definitely be the feisty female protagonist and Liam would probably be the hunky Hungarian with the well-sculpted biceps. I feel it would almost certainly end with harry getting mauled by the wildcat and Liam nursing him back to health. (that is not what happens in the novel btw. now that I think about it we don't actually get much closure on the wildcat front? they just get engaged and the whole wildcat issue just kind of fades away.)

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liam is the harbinger of the apocalypse au

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 06:37:00 GMT

sometimes when i am right on the verge of sleep a fic idea will emerge out of the ether and i have to scramble to write it down, and then in the morning I look at it and I'm like... where did that come from and why did it feel like a real idea at the time? ANYWAY the one I had last night was a weird loosely good omens-inspired au, except.. weirder.. more crackfic-y... anyway it's set during the hiatus except that liam doesn't have a baby in this verse (sorry bear!! I just want liam to be single for crackfic purposes).

liam's in rehearsals for some awards show or festival or something and falls asleep in his dressing room, and then when he wakes up he realizes suddenly that he's the harbinger of the apocalypse. like, there's no doubt about it, he doesn't feel like he's going crazy or anything, he just suddenly Knows. possibly he's known all along, though he's a bit unclear on that part. it does seem like the kind of thing that would be hard to forget, but he has this sense that maybe he set it aside to focus on the band and his career for a bit, and now he's sort of woken up and realized that he's got a destiny to fulfill. he's not like an Antichrist, because it turns out that the Christian end of days prophecies aren't true, and actually the true end of the world was foretold in the prophecies of a nice, mad witch several centuries ago. liam, being liam, is distressed about the whole world ending thing, but also, he's been entrusted with a great responsibility, none of it can really get going without him, so he's got to get started at least, and hopefully he'll get work all this out with somebody who's a little higher up in the chain of command.

anyway the first thing he's got to do (after the awards show, of course) is find zayn. it's unclear why, liam's mostly just got an itch to do it, and anyway zayn's the smartest, he'll be able to sort all this out and tell liam what he should do. zayn hasn't been seen in months (that was foretold too) but liam eventually finds him living on an organic farm in upstate new york with no running water and a lot of horses and pigs and things. he expects zayn to be a bit more skeptical at first, or resistant, because they've patched things up but they don't really drop in on each other like this. but zayn just sighs and is like oh so you've come about the apocalypse, have you, and liam's like how did you know, and zayn's like, I found this book. or well, it found me. kept finding me, too.

liam doesn't understand until zayn shows him the book, which contains the prophecies liam hasn't seen yet but is vaguely aware of. "yours arrived yesterday," zayn says. "that's how I knew you were coming." liam's surprised. "how did they get this address? do you even get mail out here?" and zayn's like "they don't come by mail, exactly." it turns out the books are magic and that they sort of just... find you, wherever you are, and if you throw them out or try to donate them to charity or leave them behind or whatever, they'll just turn up again anyway, usually dropping from a high shelf onto your head. "they seem to get annoyed," zayn says. "anyway they've got a map in them to the farm, or well - to the place where the farm is now. I guess there probably wasn't anything built here a couple centuries ago when it was written. but i really don't think the rest will come."

"the rest of what?" liam says. zayn frowns. "uh," he says. "one direction?"

(anyway the punchline of this crackfic, in my hazy dreamlike state, was like, that ot5 getting back together heralded the end of the world)

anyway zayn's pretty sure the boys won't come. the farm's kind of hard to find, for one thing. harry and niall aren't speaking to him (harry deliberately, niall by way of changing his number and not sending zayn a new one) and louis's patched things up, sort of, but has made it clear that they can make amends but they're not going to be best friends again. anyway liam and zayn chat a little bit about the apocalypse and zayn's art and the farming life, whatever, and zayn's like "ah yeah, I kinda knew about the apocalypse thing for a while, i got my book a couple years back. didn't realize it was like, totally real until all the signs started..."

liam's about to start asking about the signs, but then louis turns up on the doorstep looking very irritable, possibly with freddie in tow because it's his weekend, asking why the F-U-C-K (he has to spell it out bc he's promised briana he won't swear in front of the kid anymore) zayn keeps sending him packages full of this stupid book, when zayn knows perfectly well louis doesn't know how to read. apparently he'd tried to send them back but instead of "could not be delivered" he'd gotten an extremely cryptic note that looked like it was written on really old parchment or some shit that said the sender must journey to the return address in person to plead his case. since louis's gigantic LA living room is overflowing with books, he figured finally that he'd better go see what kind of stupid prank zayn was pulling.

idk what happens next but the crucial part is that harry and niall are the toughest sells, and everybody has like, a partial sense of what's wrong but nobody has the full picture, but liam heard from cheryl who heard from rita who heard from nick that harry and niall haven't spoken once since the hiatus, and zayn's heard from gigi who heard from bella who heard from kendall that somebody broke harry's heart. which can't be true, louis interjects, because he heard from julian that niall's the one with the broken heart and it must be true because he wrote a whole album to prove it. the point is, it's going to be pretty tough to get them to agree to come to zayn's of all places, let alone zayn's together, so they decide they'll split up, liam will go lure harry in and louis will take care of niall and they'll reconvene at the house in three days' time to confer about the apocalypse. zayn can't go because he's got to tend to the animals, of course, and anyway he'd like some time to read the prophecies again.

anyway the ancient witch basically foresaw the rise and fall of one direction and then basically wrote a fanfic, and they can't always entirely tell when she's prophesying something that's actually going to happen vs. what's just wishful thinking bc she hopes they'll do it, if the power of suggestion is strong enough. this definitely involves ot3 matchmaking for narry, who are both very unhappy but also quite unhappy with each other, for Reasons that they haven't told the other boys. one of the parts of the prophecies definitely says that they have to be united in purpose, though, because it's the five of them that will bring about the end times. harry probably suggests a group orgy, only to be scowled down by everyone else, especially niall, who is Over It and is not going to get sucked back into whatever weird game harry's playing, which makes harry indignant. probably there is zayn/louis/liam. louis is loudly annoyed about the apocalypse happening with freddie has not even learned to play football properly yet. somehow this culminates in ot5 agreeing to do a special reunion concert at madison square gardens, three nights only, or something like that. WHO KNOWS what the end of the world actually looks like or how anything goes!! who knows what this is, even! probably the world doesn't actually end because liam has a polite word with someone in the angelic orders and louis makes vague threats and zayn produces an alternative reading of the prophecy that persuades the higher-ups.

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Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:09:55 GMT

hi friends! I made a tinyletter (you can read the first one here) if you want weekly or maybe biweekly fic recs on Fridays. also if you read good stuff outside of 1d fandom pls rec me that too! (I'm gonna put an Arthur/Eames fic that meghan recommended to me in my next letter as the non-1D rec.) I also am gonna try not to include a ton of stuff by people who are already within our social group but I did rec some DW stuff, partly bc I think it would be fun to also include WIPs or fic outlines/sketches in the rec list.

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westworld au scenes

Fri, 12 Jan 2018 08:35:48 GMT

here's a roughly sketched out scene from the westworld au I've been sort of tinkering with off and on. this section comes after this scene, kinda, though I would rework that first drabble a bit -- I think Niall's realization 1) that Harry is a robot but he's still a person and 2) that he has to get Harry out of the park is a little slower in coming in the story itself.

content warnings in that scene linked above for references to past rape/torture (not between narry). warnings in this scene for guns + a nongraphic depiction of a suicide attempt. HIGH ANGST!!! got another scene for tomorrow, I think.

( Read more... )

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prequel to 'what a sweet sound it makes' (x-posted to tumblr)

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 05:59:39 GMT

this is a little prequel scene to what a sweet sound it makes. it takes place after this fic, which I did not write but felt so strongly about that i decided to write fix-it fic (plus more hurt/comfort) in that world. this scene takes place after harry’s gotten pregnant (by simon) and decided to have an abortion, without even telling nick he’s had his first heat. now harry’s come home to spend time with nick before the next tour starts, but he's not doing so well, in his head and heart.

alpha!nick, omega!harry. warnings for distorted/depressed thinking and vague allusions to a past dub/noncon encounter with simon.

"We’ve talked about this.” Nick’s voice is edged with frustration. "We've been over it a million times. Is that what you’ve been sulking about all week?"

"I'm not." Harry says, stung. "I haven't."

He’s not been sulking, just—thinking. Playing that night with Simon over and over again in his head, and later, the predawn visit to the clinic too, where a nice middle-aged nurse had held his hand through the procedure, speaking soft, reassuring words to him as he wept.

You’ll be all right, dear, you’ll see. It wasn’t the right time, that’s all.

"Everyone's been asking if you're ill," Nick says. "If that's why you haven't shown up for any of your own goodbye parties. And I've had to say no, he just can't be arsed to get off the sofa. He's got to watch the first half of Titanic for the hundredth time, you see, and it's very urgent, since he's leaving tomorrow for eight bloody months and they haven't got Netflix in America."

Harry keeps petting Pig's ears, though he can tell, from the way she's twitching them irritably, that she wishes he would stop. He knows Nick's right. He's ruined their two weeks, the last bit of time they'll have together.

When he doesn't say anything, Nick sighs. "I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't - I'm sorry, all right? It's just, it feels like we've barely spoken in months. You're always busy, and then you come home and you're like a zombie or something. You don't want to go anywhere, or see anyone - "

"I think we should break up," Harry says abruptly.

Nick stops pacing. He stares at him.

"What?" he says. "God, we’re just - we’re having a row, that’s all, we're not splitting up."

"I'm going to be gone for eight months," Harry says. "Like you said. It's a long time."

Nick moves closer, sinking into a chair opposite him.

"I know," he says. "But we've managed it before, haven't we? I'll come visit you, and you’ll come back to London when you can, and we can talk every day, if you want."

If you want.

Harry thinks about what he'd wanted, all the things he'd imagined for them. His first heat, the two of them together, Nick easing him through it. And later—when the band ended, when things quieted down—something else, something more. Moving in together and doing it all properly. Waking up next to Nick every morning, Pig curled up at their feet. A baby, maybe, someday. He's gone and ruined it, all of it. Because he was selfish and greedy, thinking only of himself. Because he'd wanted a knot more than he wanted Nick.

"I'm going to be away," he says again, dumbly, still not looking at Nick. "And I’ve been thinking for a while, we’re not - I mean, it’s not like this was going to last anyway." It feels like someone's cracking his ribcage open, exposing the softest, most vulnerable parts of him, but he still forces the words out. "And we should probably - I mean, I’m going to want to sleep with other people.”

"Oh," Nick says.

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gryles ethical porn au

Fri, 29 Dec 2017 17:19:03 GMT

SORRY FOR MY ABSENCE i've been writing a little bit but mostly have been swamped with family and the general chaos of being home. here's some crossposted fic from tumblr meme prompt! this is eyes from an unfinished porn star AU WIP where nick, Louis, and Eleanor co-own an ‘ethically sourced porn’ production company. Harry’s their newest hire and a rising star in their very profitable straight porn category. he ONLY does straight, until one day gay porn star Liam can’t make it to a shoot and harry volunteers to take his place.

“Lay back and spread your legs for me,” Zayn said, his voice soft but firm. “That’s perfect, babe. Going to open you up now, yeah? Get you ready for my cock. That what you want?“

Harry lets out a soft whimper. “Please,” he says. “Please, yes.”

“Please what?” Zayn runs a hand up Harry’s flank. Harry shivers, arching into the touch.

“Sir,” he says. “Please, sir. I want - I need you inside me.”

It’s breathtaking. Nick doesn’t think a single bit of it’s feigned. Not the glassy look in Harry’s eyes, or the way he turns his head to the side and parts his legs so easily, offering himself up. Stunning in his submission. He’s done this before with girls, Nick knows. Just last week they’d shot a office scene where Jade bent him over her desk and opened up that tight, gorgeous little arse on her favorite silicone cock. But today’s Harry’s first time with a guy, and some part of Nick had thought, had hoped –

No. He hadn’t let himself think or hope or anything else. Because he’s a professional. This is his workplace, his career.

So he watches, silent, as Zayn urges Harry’s knees up towards his chest, spreading him wider, and begins to rub his hole wet with lube. Zayn makes a good dom–strict but gentle, too, perfect for a first-timer. Camera 2 pulls in close for a shot of Zayn’s fingers playing with the taut rim of Harry’s hole. Harry makes a soft sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, as the first two fingers breach him.

Nick looks away. But that’s worse, somehow, listening to Harry making those breathless little noises. Listening to the squelch of lube as Zayn fingers him loose and slick, taking his time with it.

“Roll over for me, love,” Zayn murmurs finally. “Hands and knees, that’s a good boy. Going to give you what you need.”

“Cut.”

It comes out sharper than Nick means it to, sharp enough that everyone, the performers included, looks up at him.

“What’s the problem?” Zayn says.

“The shot’s all wrong.“ Nick’s voice is tight. “And Harry looks like he’s swallowed a lemon or something. It isn’t sexy.”

Zayn looks at him like Nick’s lost it. “What are you talking about?” he says. “It was perfect. He’s perfect. You know the viewers are going to go wild for that shy first-time routine.”

“Shy first-timer and being a bloody starfish in bed aren’t the same thing,” Nick shoots back. “Maybe you can’t tell the difference, but - ”

“Excuse me?” Zayn says loudly, getting up off the bed. “Say that again, please, to my face.”

“I said, maybe you - ”

“Stop it,” Harry says, kneeling on the mattress. He’s pulled the sheet around himself, in an effort at modesty. His face is very pale. “Both of you, stop it. I’m sorry. I wasn’t - I didn’t realize I was messing it up. I’ll do better this time, I swear. Just let me try again.”

“I don’t know,” Nick says abruptly. He feels hot and queasy, and the look of mixed hurt and shame in Harry’s expression makes him feel even worse. But he can’t seem to stop himself talking. “I’m not sure this is working. It was obviously a mistake, expecting a straight performer to be able to bring the necessary chops to a gay scene.”

“I’m not,“ Harry starts to say. But Louis, who’s been conferring in an urgent whisper with Eleanor, cuts him off mid-sentence.

“Grimmy,“ Louis says sharply. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Nick hadn’t realized just how tightly he was gripping the arms of his producer’s chair until he’s flexing his fingers in Louis’s office, waiting for the feeling to come back. Louis slams the door behind him, making the glass pane rattle.

“You’re being a dick,” he says, rounding on Nick.

“I’m doing my job,” Nick says. “I’m meant to ensure we’re producing quality content for our viewers.”

“I’m not talking about the little temper tantrum you just had in front of the entire production staff,” Louis says. “You’ve had it in for Harry ever since he volunteered for this shoot, and it’s making him uncomfortable. It’s making me uncomfortable, for Christ’s sake, and I’m not even the one you’re yelling at. El’s going to wrap this shoot.”

“Not bloody likely,“ Nick says hotly. “It’s my project, my actors - ”

“Go home,” Louis says. “And maybe have a nice long think while you’re at it, about why the thought of Harry Styles taking it up the arse from his male coworker suddenly transforms you into a raging arsehole.”

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Tue, 26 Dec 2017 06:44:19 GMT

I'll be back to posting fic soon (and have some comments in the works for meghan, liz, and la!), but in the meantime I've been revisiting a lot of my favorite harry/draco fics to refresh my fic writing brain. I've been noticing that many of my favorites are first person POV, and I'm kinda wondering why it is that first person narration seems to have fallen so dramatically out of favor in recent years, at least in the fandoms I read for. I get that it can be very clunky and awkward when it isn't handled well, but a good writer can usually sell me on anything. I was thinking maybe it's like, a ship specific thing? like some characters or pairings lend themselves better to that kind of voice than others? I can definitely imagine a Zayn POV first person voice, especially in a zarry or zouis fic, and I can sort of hazily imagine a tomlinshaw first person fic. but I can't imagine a first person Harry POV at all. I also don't think I'd be able to write Niall first person, because I think Niall does a lot of compartmentalizing and it would be hard to convey that in most Niall pairings. though I could envision a much older Niall first person voice in a narry or nouis fic, I think, like something where a lot of time has passed since they last saw each other. as a writer first person feels limited to me in a lot of ways, but also it seems like kind of an interesting challenge, too, and one that could open up some new ways into 1d/Dunkirk characterization. maybe I will experiment with writing one of these drabble requests in first person just to see what happens.

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sexswap niall excerpt

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 07:36:51 GMT

[cross-posted to tumblr]

The first time his body changed he was fifteen, alone in his room late at night, listening to Greg snore through the paper-thin walls. That afternoon, walking home from school, he’d passed the fields where boys from the local high school played pickup games sometimes, skins versus jerseys, kicking a football around for hours across the grassy field. One of Greg’s friends had been there, a boy with fair hair called Conor, stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat. When he saw Niall trudging past he had called his name and lifted a hand to him across the field before turning back to his game, as if they were friends.

Lying in bed that night Niall thought about Conor, about his quick easy smile and the light sheen of sweat on his naked chest. He thought about the broad stretch of his shoulders, kicking the blankets down round his ankles when he started feeling too hot, a restless energy coursing through him. He rolled onto his side first, then his stomach, pressing his hips down into the mattress, then again, as if he was only shifting around trying to settle. Like it didn’t count, not really, so long as he didn’t have a hand on himself.

He’d felt the change coming on that first time, though he hadn’t clocked what it was. He’d been too focused on the pressure against his groin, by the feeling of the soft, worn sheets rubbing against his belly where his sleep shirt rode up with each roll of his hips. He’d cleaned himself up after, cramming his pants down at the very bottom of his laundry hamper—not that anyone would find then, he did his own washing by then—and then passed out. When he’d woken a few hours later, just like that: no dick.

It doesn’t bear thinking about, that first morning. He hadn’t gone to school that day, had simply locked himself in his room and prayed, genuinely prayed, for the first time in years–not the mumbled recitations of chapel but a frantic bargaining with the divine: please god please god don’t do this please i’ll do anything i’ll be good i’ll never look at a boy again. Because of course it was an act of God. Divine retribution, he’d thought most likely. The only conceivable alternative was that he was being tapped for sainthood, and Niall thought that all the not-quite-wanking he did over boys like Conor probably excluded him from the latter.

He went down to the shops, dressed in a huge, bulky jumper that used to belong to Greg, keeping his head down in hopes that no one would notice that his face was a bit fuller, softer, than it had been. The Ace bandage was an inspired purchase, discovered in a little display of sports injury-related goods.

Back in his locked bedroom he’d stripped down to his pants, careful not to glance down at himself too long, lest showing interest in this naked body be weighed against him in the final calculus of his sins. It had been awkward at first, getting the bindings right. The first time he’d left the bindings too loose; the second time too tight, so that it felt as if an iron band was closing round his lungs, compressing them, crushing them. After a few more efforts, though, his chest was as near to flat under a shirt as he could get it, and he could breathe, more or less.

He’d expected to get a hiding for cutting classes. The school must’ve called his dad at work. But at eight when Bobby got home, he collapsed onto the sofa in front of the telly without mentioning it. It hadn’t been until he saw the cold syrup Niall’s arranged on the bathroom counter that he seemed to remember. But it’s the bandage wrapper, dropped carelessly into the wastepaper basket, that catches his attention.

“I thought you said it was your throat was hurting,” he said, showing it to Niall.

Niall swallowed. “Knee too,” he said. “Just thought - if I was going down to the shops already.”

Bobby hadn’t responded to that. He just looked at the torn plastic packaging in hi hands for a long moment, a frown creasing his forehead. He looked tired, exhaustion written plain on his face, but there was something else in it too, a sadness Niall hadn’t then understood.

“You’ll go tomorrow,” he said finally. “If you’re well enough to be down at the shops, you’re well enough for school.”

“Yes sir,” Niall said, and then fled, though whether from punishment or the threat of some new revelation, he hadn't been sure.

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nouis battlestar galactica AU

Sun, 17 Dec 2017 08:27:01 GMT

OK HERES SOME BSG. this is after Niall's been identified as one of the Cylon models. He's been arrested and brutally interrogated for weeks, in an effort to determine if there are other Cylon models in the fleet. During the interrogation, the interrogator (Lieutenant Thorne) repeatedly uses Louis as leverage, threatening to implicate him as a possible Cylon if Niall continues to insist on his own innocence. (Louis doesn't know this is happening; Niall's interrogation is top secret, and Louis won't learn the full circumstances for a while yet).
( Read more... )

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Sun, 17 Dec 2017 07:09:27 GMT

I swear, every day I rise with the sun (lol ok around 9am) and resolve that this is the day I am going to start posting writing reguarly on dreamwidth. and then I fail! I feel like the problem for me is that I write in fragments and then piece together scenes later. I also tend to go for the sharp little emotional moments in detail and then only hazily sketch out notes for the stuff that frames the scene (how they got there, context for what they're discussing, etc). so I wind up doing a ton of writing but then it never feels done enough to be a standalone drabble. anyway I am going to try to just post anyway, with little notes for where things are still sketchy and not fully realized, bc maybe posting it will also help me figure out how to frame it?? who knows.

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Wed, 13 Dec 2017 19:09:32 GMT

I... am going to stay off Tumblr today I think. at first I was genuinely baffled by the comments I was reading and had to text multiple people being like "wait did I miss something huge?" and now I'm just genuinely annoyed. I respect that people can interpret things differently and that we all have different thresholds for what we find funny or what we think is appropriate subject matter for comedy. I'm totally down to read people's thoughts on that and I think it's an interesting and important conversation to have, especially as part of a broader cultural conversation about how to talk about sexual harassment allegations against men who hold positions of great cultural, economic, and political power. what bothers me, as always, is the wild bandwagoning effect that Tumblr encourages and the way that digital media environments built around likes/reblogs deliberately polarize the conversation by rewarding the most polemical reactions while divorcing those reactions from context & failing to provide mechanisms that would make constructive dialogue possible.

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017 17:08:17 GMT

It's not dying, Niall thinks. To die you have to be alive, and he isn't, not properly. He had felt like he was, once. Had sobbed and begged and fought for it--for the right to be alive, to be human. Colonel Fisk was right, though. There's no him, no Niall. He's only a copy, a lump of metal and wires and synthetic skin, a chip where his memories should be. You don't kill a machine. You just - power it down. Take it offline.

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battlestar galactica AU, Niall/Louis

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 16:53:23 GMT

just reposting this other snippet I wrote in the BSG nouis verse, then I'll post a little snippet of the drabble I stayed up till 3am last night feverishly writing lol.

for this prompt, I wrote a little excerpt from a Battlestar Galactica AU. basically all you need to know is that the Cylons (a race of artificial intelligence created by man) have exterminated all of humankind except the ~45,000 survivors on board the Galactica and across the Colonial Fleet. New Cylon (“toaster”) models who perfectly imitate human beings have infiltrated the fleet, making it difficult to tell friend from foe. In this drabble, Louis is the captain of the Command Air Group and the fleet's most daring Viper pilot. Niall is a mechanic, far below Louis in rank, and Louis’ best friend/sometimes lover.

things you said when you were hurting

“Maybe they can feel stuff too,” Niall says, listing against Louis’s side. He takes a swig from the bottle of moonshine, grimacing at he swallows. “If they look like us.”

“Give me that.” Louis snags the bottle out of his hands. “Reckon you’ve had enough for tonight, if you’ve started thinking toasters have fracking feelings.”

“Just wonder, that’s all.” Niall hunches his shoulders up inside Louis’s flight jacket. It looks good on him, Louis thinks with a pang. It’s always looked good on him, and if it weren’t a violation of military code, dating his junior officer, he’d have Niall wear it all the time.

“Well, you don’t need to wonder,” he says aloud. “Blown enough of ‘em to bits, haven’t I? They’re hunks of metal, Nialler. Machines. Only difference with the human models is they’ve got synthetic skin.”

“Yeah,” Niall says.

He still looks troubled, though, and Louis doesn’t like that one bit. It’s one thing for him to have to live with it–the uncertainty, the fear. It’s what Louis had signed up for when he enlisted in the fleet, even if back then he’d expected to spend his career as a pilot flying endless border patrols. Niall, though– Niall had only entered the service to pay for school, like most of the maintenance specialists on board the Galactica. No chance of combat, not stationed aboard an old museum piece like this one.

Then came the attack on the Colonies, and the end of the world as they knew it. And the Galactica had become humanity’s last hope of surviving extinction. Everyone’s a soldier now.

“Don’t worry about them,” Louis tells Niall now. He bumps his shoulder against Niall’s, the most contact he’ll allow himself when they’re both like this, tipsy and prone to making bad decisions. “We’re gonna find ‘em, Nialler, the ones who look like us. Root ‘em out of the fleet and vent them out the airlock, every last one of them. And then once we’ve got enough Viper pilots in the air, we’re gonna attack every fracking Resurrection ship they’ve got, prevent those fuckers from regenerating.”

Niall doesn’t seem to be listening. He’s staring out across the abandoned hangar, pulling Louis’s coat tighter around his shoulders. “Emotions aren’t that different from software,” he says. “Not really. Don’t you ever wonder, Lou? If they can feel stuff too. If some of them want different things than the rest, and –”

Louis snorts.

“You’ve been talking to that crazy priest Styles, haven’t you,” he says. “All that rubbish about trying to find common ground. Like the Cylons aren’t dead set on exterminating the human race.”

“It’s diplomacy.” Niall’s not looking at him. “That’s all Harry wants, just a chance to end the bloodshed in both sides.”

“So it’s Harry now, is it?” Louis can’t quite ignore the hot twist of jealousy in his gut. He knows they’re friends, knows they’ve gotten closer since the attack. Knows that Styles keeps Niall company when Louis and the rest of the CAG are out on long missions.

“It’s not like that,” Niall says. “And you know it, so don’t be an arse. Harry’s just my friend.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis says dismissively. “Might not be around for much longer, if he’s not careful.”

“What do you mean?”

Louis shrugs, playing casual. It’s classified, but he can’t imagine the rumors haven’t already begun percolating down to the crew. “Apparently Dr. Baltar’s finished developing his Cylon Detector Test,” he says. “Commander’s orders are every member of the Colonial Fleet’s got to be tested, starting this week. Reckon there’ll be some unpleasant surprises in store. And there’s loads of rumors flying around about your precious Harry –”

“Harry’s not a Cylon,” Niall says, with such conviction Louis breaks off mid-sentence. “And there’s nothing happening between me and him, either, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Not that it’s any of your business.” He gets clumsily to his feet, nearly knocking over the half-empty bottle of moonshine, and starts shrugging his shoulders free of Louis’s flight jacket.

“Oi, don’t be such a baby.” Louis scrambles to his feet, but Niall jerks away from his outstretched hand. “I was only joking about Styles. You’re so bloody sensitive, Neil, honestly.“

The flight jacket hits him full in the face.

“Fuck off, Lou.” There’s a tremor in Niall’s voice. “You’re such a fucking dick, you know that?"

Louis tenses. He knows this fight. Doesn’t want to have it, not now, not when he’s leaving tomorrow for another recon mission into Cylon-occupied territory. Not when it might be the last thing he ever hears Niall say.

“Come on,” he says, in what he hopes is a conciliatory tone, but it’s too little, too late.

“You’re the one who wanted to be just friends, Lou,” Niall says bitterly. “You’re the one who finished with me, yeah? Didn’t want me anymore. So you’re not allowed to be jealous if somebody else might.”

“I didn’t - it’s not like that,“ Louis says helplessly. “There’s rules, Niall. You’re my junior officer, technically, and we can’t–”

“Didn’t seem to bother you before,” Niall says. “Why’s that, d'you reckon? How come I was good enough for you to stick your dick in back then, but now, now you’re some hotshot Viper pilot, you’re the bloody hero, and everybody wants a piece of you. Is that it, Lou? Don’t need your dirty little secret anymore, now that you can shag anyone you like–”

“We’re at war now, in case you hadn’t fracking noticed!” Louis yells, loud enough that Niall shuts up. “We’re out there every fracking day fighting for our lives, and I can’t be distracted, all right? Those pilots are counting on me to keep them alive. I can’t do my bloody job if I’m thinking about you the whole time, and going crazy worrying about you back here on. And gods, Ni, if somebody found out, if they transferred you to another ship, and I - I couldn’t come home to you anymore, I – ” He breaks off, turning so Niall won’t see the tears pricking at his eyes. He feels exposed, raw. Weak. Like he’s flown a bad mission, lost a pilot, fracked things up in a way he can’t fix.

He hates it. Hates that Niall can make him feel this way, still, despite how careful he’s been, despite how hard he’s worked to keep his emotions separate from the job he’s got to do. He can’t be weak, not anymore. If he fails they’ll all die, the whole fleet. If he fails he’ll lose Niall too: the last of his family, the only person he’s got left. It’s better to lose him like this, to give him up like this, than to lose him forever.

“Lou,” Niall says softy, but Louis’ already picking up his jacket, shoving it under his arm.

“There’s a war on, Horan,” he repeats, his voice unsteady. “And you and that toaster-loving freak Styles are busy wondering if the machines that murdered my mum and sisters have fracking feelings. They don’t. Maybe some of ‘em look like us now, but they’re not like us, Niall. They’re not human. And I swear to the Lords of Kobol that I’m gonna kill them, Niall. I’m gonna take out as many of those evil frackers as I can before they take me down.”

“Lou,” Niall says again, taking a step towards him, but Louis can feel tears pricking at the back of his eyes – his mum. His sisters. He shoulders past Niall and out the hatch, taking deep, gulping breaths of the ship’s recycled air.

*

[edit: they might be on the Pegasus and not the Galactica, bc shit gets way darker on the Pegasus? haven't decided yet. anyway, on the mission Louis's about to fly, he encounters a Cylon who's the same model as Niall (a Nine) and discovers that Niall's a Cylon. Niall doesn't know it himself - he thinks he's human.]

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get yourself clean (zouis maids AU)

Wed, 06 Dec 2017 05:45:17 GMT

ok one of my favorite little funny WIPs is the zouis housekeeper fic, where zayn's famous and louis is the housekeeper he hires in an attempt to put his life back together when his fiancée perrie leaves him for jade (lol). admittedly this is not an especially good moment for fics involving an employer/employee relationship lol, but mostly louis just hurricanes his way through zayn's life, wins over all his friends, smokes all his weed, makes judgey comments about zayn's aesthetic and life choices, and bosses him around all the time.

zayn's bemused but also just like.. charmed in spite of himself, and they fall into bed with each other and just kinda.. keep doing it, and then it's basically just a funny cute rom com with a tiny bit of angst. obviously power imbalances in the workplace are bad etc etc and some of the angst does center on that (tho not in a sexual harassment way, all of that is sort of breezed right on past in this particular situation).

also I know zouis is dead but I can't think who I would rewrite them with bc it's a specific kind of romantic dirtbag dynamic lol. suggestions welcome. here, have a little bit of it:

*

“Would you ever, like, dress up as a French maid or summat?” Zayn asks a little while later, spreading his fingers wide over one globe of Louis’s glorious arse. “Like, get a little costume and a feather duster and shit?”

Louis’s lying naked on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. He takes a drag from the joint, holds it for a long moment, and then exhales smoke into Zayn’s face.

“Nope,” he says as Zayn starts coughing. “And fuck you for making a mockery of my profession.”

“Your profession,” Zayn scoffs, as soon as he’s got his breath back. He smacks Louis’s arse, startling a yelp out of him. “Professional layabout, that’s what you are. Can’t remember the last time you lifted a hand around this house. I had to mop up all that mud you tracked in from the garden yesterday.”

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day,” Louis says sagely. “Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.”

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Mon, 04 Dec 2017 22:44:55 GMT

I'm working on tree narry right now and honestly I would die for used-to-be-a-tree Harry. HE IS SO GENTLE. PROTECT HIM!!!

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