Magnate Lea Rang, A Magenta Angler

Minifics: DaveKarkat, “Critical Failure”

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Baiting Karkat is a game with the simplest rules – everything is fair game, and as Karkat shouts louder, that means Dave is winning better. When Karkat goes cold and silent, though, that’s a bust, game over, critical failure achieved, that means there is such a thing as “too far” and that, once again, Dave’s unleashed mouth has forced him to learn that lesson the hard way.

When Karkat snaps his mouth shut so quickly his teeth clack coming together, when Karkat turns on his heel and leaves without another word, that means Dave really put his goddamn foot in it.

When Dave screws up, he knows sooner or later he’s going to come around with the shitty coffee that neither of them like but both of them drink by the gallon, done up sweet and just-warm and precisely the way Karkat fancies it, knows he’ll be contrite with his half-spoken apologies, his tacit acknowledgment that there is a line, and that even Striders can learn to walk it. When he axes his pride and prostrates himself in every way save the literal, he knows that Karkat will cave and take pity, that his mouth will taste like bitter and spice with bestowed make-up kisses.  

I sure did recently sign up for the Homestuck Shipping World Cup!

I’m pretty excited for this thing. I’ve been in fandom long enough to witness both HSO ‘11 and HSO ‘12, but in 2011 I wasn’t writing fanfic or committed to any ship enough to want to participate, and in 2012 I vacillated over my choices for an eternity and in the end I opted out. I kind of regret that, so I’m really hoping that this new shipping event is just as fun as its predecessor, now that I’m finally gonna play!

If what I hear about the rate at which teams are filling up is to be believed, I’m banking on being sorted into team Bro<3John, as it was my first choice.

My backups were, in order for the curious, Dad<3Dave, alpha!Dave<3Dirk, Dave<3Karkat, and Cronus<3<Kankri. 

I’m actually chomping at the bit to find out teams!! and do something already!! way more than I intended to let on, jeez, it’s almost a problem. 

four

saffronheliotrope:

This is an entirely self-indulgent ot4 beta-kid-pile.  When times are stressful, writing porn is therapeutic.  I’m not apologizing.

I really just want them to live happily ever after and kiss each other a lot.

*

Four is perfect; four is exactly right.

Four of you together, two boys and two girls, two blond and two dark, Prospit and Derse, day and night, light and shadow.

Four around a table, four across on the couch.  Four in your little beater of a car, on another harebrained roadtrip where the destination doesn’t even matter, splitting the driving, sleeping propped together in the backseat, singing to whatever is on the radio.  Four is a perfect little circle, a square knot that doesn’t loosen no matter which end you tug.

Four in your bed, at midnight or at three in the afternoon, a tangle of arms and legs.  Often when someone is tired or busy or traveling you’ll group off in twos or threes, but when all four of you are at home and willing — those are your favorite times.

*

You come home to find the living room empty and Dave’s sunglasses folded neatly and abandoned on the coffee table.  That’s your first sign.  Then you hear the soft familiar sounds from an open bedroom doorway somewhere upstairs, so you follow.

Your eyes adjust quickly to the dimness of drawn curtains.  They’ve all shed their clothing already.  Jade is on her back and Dave is propped over her, kissing her unhurriedly.  Rose straddles Jade’s hips.  She turns and sees you in the doorway, reaches out for you.

You strip off your shirt and go to them.

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Lily writes such nice things and such nice porn, and the give-and-take in this is really amazing. I know the most wonderful people, happy sighs.

I want to talk about writing things.

Please, talk to me about writing things. Fair warning that I will get kind of Serious Business and potentially obnoxious, but goddamn, that is a thing I enjoy to do. 

On a realtalk note: I’ve actually been having trouble writing non-romantic plotlines. It’s kind of a personal point of weakness, and the stories I like to tell are most often of the urban fantasy or futuristic fantasy varieties, so I want to be able to write interesting plotlines in those sorts of worlds! 

But hey, I will say fifty kinds of good things about the importance of practice, and it means a lot to me that I can look at writing that is two years old, or one year old, and see both the ways I have improved and the way that I would improve that old piece. It’s neat!

jochai:

Shakespeare wrote romance. If it’s good enough for the Bard, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

I see your “Shakespeare wrote romance,” and a raise you a “Shakespeare also wrote histories, and tragedies, not to mention how many of his plays include intense political intrigue or the complex way his characters plot against one another.”

Still never said there is anything wrong with romance. For me personally, if I’m saying anything, it’s that I would do well to better attend to the other parts of a storyline.

(Source: elegantanagram)

doughtier:

elegantanagram:

Sometimes it dawns on me at the most inopportune times that I am, in essence, a romance writer.

I convince myself that I’m not, when I write original content. I just like writing shippy fanfiction. 

And then I remember that my favorite original fiction is still writing porn and caring too goddamn much about interpersonal relationships.

I am a romance writer.

Help.

#this is meant with some degree of flippancy #but honestly #despite the genres and settings and tropes that I like #I spend a disproportionate amount of time developing romantic relationships #I should accept being a romance writer #do what comes naturally self

Except there’s nothing wrong with being a romance writer. Romance isn’t any ‘lesser’ writing or genre or anything of the like. It takes hard work and skill and a good eye to figure out how people work in relation to each other.  

I never said there was anything wrong with being a romance writer.

Tone is hard to convey on the internet, and I will understand if the connotations on some of the words I chose made this seem like a negative post. It’s not. That’s why I pointed out in the tags that I am saying this flippantly, because it’s a commentary on how I personally think about the writing I do. Nowhere in my post did I say romance was a lesser genre. I implied that I have pet genres of choice, which is very true, I have a love affair with fantasy writings of all kind that just won’t quit. 

What I’m saying is, I do not first-and-foremost identify as a romance writer. What I’m also saying is, well-done romance is one of the first components of a story that I care about. There’s a dissonance there. I like to talk about it.

dysfunctionaldraught:

elegantanagram:

Sometimes it dawns on me at the most inopportune times that I am, in essence, a romance writer.

I convince myself that I’m not, when I write original content. I just like writing shippy fanfiction. 

And then I remember that my favorite original fiction is still writing porn and caring too goddamn much about interpersonal relationships.

I am a romance writer.

Help.

I had this very same epiphany not to long ago. Like I realized other people were actually doing RPs that were mysteries or horror with no romance at all in it. And I sorta…

how do you do that everything I touch turns into romance.

Preeeeecisely. 

I have a remarkably hard time composing plots where absolutely none of the characters have romantic interest in any of the others. Interpersonal dynamics are my favorite thing and romance kind of turns out to be my favorite kind of interpersonal dynamic to play with, and I seem to inextricably entwine whatever romantic plot is going on with whatever over-arching plot I mean to write. 

Sometimes it dawns on me at the most inopportune times that I am, in essence, a romance writer.

I convince myself that I’m not, when I write original content. I just like writing shippy fanfiction. 

And then I remember that my favorite original fiction is still writing porn and caring too goddamn much about interpersonal relationships.

I am a romance writer.

Help.