It's Always Really Nice To See Someone Rec My Stuff, But To See One Of My Favorite Authors Rec TWO Pieces

It's always really nice to see someone rec my stuff, but to see one of my favorite authors rec TWO pieces of my work is really really neat to see! Thanks so much!

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

A collection of fics I’ve read (/reread) and thoroughly enjoyed in the past week-ish from all kinds of fandoms and genres.

BNHA

Putting Infinity into Words by redrobin1989

Soul Mates have evolved with quirks to become Soul Bonds in which one feels the entire emotional spectrum and a fact about their future relationship. Or so Izuku had heard, he’d only ever two Soul Bonds and they both caused him pain. Until All Might and Yuuei and he finally learned what it was like to have a loving, thriving Bond.

Honesty’s The (Best?) Policy by honeyandsunshine

“Disorientation is one of the quirk’s side effects, along with dizziness, confusion, and flushing later on. He’s going to tell the truth the entire time, but the truth may be…” Aizawa stares exasperated at Midoriya before running a hand through his hair. He mutters something under his breath that sounds distinctly like goddamned problem child, before continuing. “It may be slurred and difficult to understand.”

Hanta does his best not to stare. He does not think his actions are convincing to anyone.

“So it uh… I mean, it’s like…” He eyes Midoriya’s disorderly movements. “He’s… drunk?”

– OR:

Aizawa is tired, Midoriya gets drugged, and Sero uncovers some uncomfortable truths about his friend’s past.

Between a Rock (And a Hard Place) by honeyandsunshine

Midoriya’s past is minefield just waiting for the right trigger. Todoroki’s present isn’t any better. Iida gets caught in the middle.

Or:

“You can’t tell Aizawa-sensei. You have to promise me you won’t tell him.”

Something builds in Tenya’s chest.

“I-“

“Promise me, Tenya.”

What else can he do?

“I- I promise.”

Harry Potter

rust and fur and reception sticks by rexcorvidae

Remus Lupin was 22, and broke, and barely capable of taking care of himself. These were things that he knew. But he knew this, too: He could not allow Lily and James’s son to stay in that house. - remus makes an impulsive decision, and has to deal with the consequences. he doesn’t regret it nearly as much as he probably should.

ATLA

A Baptism of Fire by azenki

[A baptism of fire: a difficult introduction to a new job or activity.]

Crown Prince Zuko’s introduction to his new role as exile is difficult indeed. Chin Zun only wishes he didn’t have to watch.

Or: there were citizens at that Agni Kai. Chin Zun is one of them.

The Witcher

of music and motion and love by WriteThroughTheNight

When Jaskier was four, he slipped his mother’s watch and went to the field to gather a bouquet of dandelions. He climbed back into the yard, as stealthy as a child really cared to be, and crept over to the barn. In the barn, lived a secret. (The man he thought his father said the secret was a monster, a plague. His mother said the secret was his sister.)

OR

Jaskier comes from a far humbler background, and would really like to know why Yennefer never came back for her youngest brother.

so can we pretend, sweetly by theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes

Jaskier is a regular human bard, and Geralt could swear that yesterday he’d had regular human teeth. They’re just a little bit too long for his mouth, now- too white, too sharp. A predator’s. Jaskier clicks them together, experimentally, and winces when he bites his tongue. “Fuck anyone you weren’t supposed to?” 

“I don’t fuck anyone I’m supposed to,” Jaskier says, a little proudly.

I Know The Kindest Thing (Is To Never Leave You Alone) by WinterSky101 (+ podfic)

Geralt worries about Jaskier’s mortality. Jaskier finds out that witchers are, apparently, incredibly stupid.

(Honestly, how did Geralt not notice that Jaskier didn’t age for decades?)

all some children do is work by some_stars

It’s two children, he realizes as they slowly sit up. They look about eight or nine, not that he’s much judge of children’s ages. One is a girl, dark-haired, in a shabby dress. The other is a boy. His clothes aren’t much better, and his hair isn’t much lighter than the girl’s, but his eyes—

His eyes, Jaskier realizes with a distant sense of horror, are gold like a cat’s. His mind makes one more valiant effort to keep from connecting the obvious dots and recognizing them, and then it finally does.

“How in the unholy fuck,” Jaskier says to no one, “did this shit happen?”

Writing Pain: Pt 1- What it is and How it Works

After slogging through all my Whump Challenge posts, I thought you all deserved something nice. So here is the first of a 2-part series on pain. Enjoy!

Basics:

Pain is an unpleasant physical and emotional sensation caused by actual or perceived tissue damage. Under normal circumstances, pain indicates some kind of tissue damage. This damage can be from an injury, an infection, or a disease like arthritis. Very simply, when tissue is damaged, cells release certain chemicals. When the concentrations of these chemicals get high enough, nerve endings send a signal to the brain, which is interpreted as pain. Painkillers work by either blocking the formation of the chemicals, blocking how they interact with the nerve endings, or by blocking the transmission of the nerve impulses to the brain.

Pain Scale (intensity):

In healthcare settings, pain can be measured on a scale of 0-10. On this scale, 0 means no pain, and 10 means either the worst pain the patient has ever felt, or the worst pain the patient can imagine. Quantifying this for fiction purposes isn’t always easy, but think about it like this:

Pain score of 1: “Pain Threshold.” Where pain first begins to be felt. Barely noticeable and very easily ignored. Character likely would not express discomfort and may change positions, but not much more.

Pain score of 2: Character may voice discomfort, but may still not do anything about it.

Pain score of 3: “Pain Tolerance.” Pain becomes difficult to ignore and character finally begins to seek some form of relief.

Pain score of 4-5: Pain becomes nearly impossible to ignore completely, pain symptoms of tense muscles and a change in respiratory pattern develops. Irritability, nausea, and a change in vitals likely.

Pain score of 6-7: Pain is debilitating. Difficulty concentrating occurs, fine movements like writing are significantly impaired. Muscles are tense and hands are balled into fists.

Pain score of 8-9: Sleep is impossible, and pain is completely debilitating. Very difficult to read, think, speak or focus on anything that isn’t the pain. Change in vitals very pronounced.

Pain score of 10: Unconsciousness immanent. Worst pain character has ever felt. Incapable of thought, movement, or speech.

Pain is a very subjective, individual experience. One person’s 2 might be another person’s 6. Notice up there where it says “pain threshold” and “pain tolerance”? Pain threshold is basically how bad the pain needs to be to be felt at all. It’s the “1” on the pain scale. Pain tolerance is where the pain needs to be for the person to want to do something about it. It’s usually about a “3” on the pain scale.

Pain tolerance is different for everyone, and changes based on life experience (are they used to dealing with pain?), fatigue (being tired or chronically sleep-deprived may make pain feel worse), and emotional situation (being scared or sad may make pain feel worse). People’s perception of, and need of treatment for, the same pain may change day-to-day, or as they gather more experience.

Pain on this scale is also self-reported. People may exaggerate or minimize pain when reporting it depending on life experience (some people may be used to only getting treatment if they rate their pain at 10/10, and so routinely exaggerate in order to be taken seriously), culture (some cultures highly value stoicism, and may under-report pain so as not to appear weak), or religion (some religious groups view pain as penance, and so may under-report pain to avoid treatment). This is something to think about when building a character.

Describing Pain (quality):

Pain, while a universal concept, is not a universal feeling. Pain quality is what the patient reports the pain as “feeling like.” Different manifestations of pain can mean different things (see the list below for examples). Depending on the location or the reason for the pain, it can feel different. Here are some ways pain can be described/experienced (examples of related injury/illness in parentheses):

Achy (body aches from illness)

Crampy (gastrointestinal illness, menstrual cramps, heat cramps)

Crushing (heart attack, sometimes asthma attack)

Dull (injury to internal organs, bruises)

Piercing (pain from a surgical incision, some pain from loss of blood flow (ischemia))

Pounding (headache)

Sharp (pain from a surgical incision)

Sore (overuse, muscle injury)

Tender (bruises, soft tissue injury, musculoskeletal injury)

Tight (swelling (skin feels tight), asthma (air passages feel tight))

Throbbing (localized infection, soft tissue injury, swelling)

Any one of these and many others can manifest at any intensity.

Non-Verbal Signs of Pain and Pain Signature (newly added to post):

Writing for a character who doesn’t like to admit to being in pain? Rest assured, you still have something to write about. Non-verbal signs of pain obviously become very difficult to hide as pain increases, but even small amounts of pain may result in non-verbal expression of pain. Non-verbal signs of pain could be great for tipping other characters or audience off to pain.

Non-verbal signs of pain include:

Facial grimacing (especially the little crinkle between the eyebrows)

Increase in respiratory rate, heart rate, and blood pressure

Decrease in blood oxygen saturation (from breath holding)

Guarding of painful area

Decrease in physical activity and energy level

Loss of interest in surroundings

Difficulty keeping attention on task, may miss information

Restlessness

Constant shifting in position

Change in appetite

Repetitive movements, such as crinkling paper, wrapping fabric around hands, rubbing feet against bed

A “pain signature” is a person’s unique but consistent combination of the above signs. Even people who try to hide their pain often display a pain signature, though they may attempt to write it off (decrease in energy can sometimes be compensated for and change in appetite and restlessness can be caused by a lot of different things). If you know your character will be in pain, it might be a good idea to include their pain signature as part of character planning. 

R E F E R E N C E S

Craven, R. F., & Hirnle, C. J. (2009). Fundamentals of nursing: Human health and function. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Lippincott, W. &. (2013). Brunner and suddarth’s textbook of medical -surgical nursing 12th ed. nursing diagnosis, .. Place of publication not identified: Wolters Kluwer Health.

Stay Tuned for Pt 2: How to Get Rid of It

gravity girl

Random, but a really handy way to make things seem creepy or wrong in horror is to make them incongruously neat or clean:

In the middle of a horrific battlefield, you find one corpse laid aside neatly, straightened and arranged, its arms crossed neatly across its chest

As you walk through the garden, you gradually realise that the oddness you’ve been noticing about the trees is that they are all perfectly symmetrical

As you move through the abandoned house, you realise that suddenly that there’s no dust in this room, no dirt or cobwebs

You hear hideous noises coming from behind a locked door, screams and pleas, and visceral sounds of violence. When you manage to break down the door, there is no one there, and the room is perfectly spotless

In the middle of a horrific battlefield, a hollow full of churned mud and blood, you find five corpses cleanly dismembered, each set of limbs or parts neatly laid out in their own little row

You witness a murder, a brutal, grisly killing that carpets the area in blood. When you return in a blind panic with the authorities, the scene is completely clean, and no amount of examination can find even a drop of blood

You run through the night and the woods with a comrade, pulling each other through leaves and twigs and mud as you scramble desperately towards freedom. When you finally emerge from the forest, in the grey light of dawn, you turn to your companion in relief, and notice that their clothes are somehow perfectly clean

You hand a glass of water to your suspect, talking casually the whole while, and watch with satisfaction as they take it in their bare hand and take a drink. There’ll be a decent set of prints to run from that later. Except there isn’t. There are no prints at all. As if nothing ever touched the glass

You browse idly through your host’s catalogue, and stop, and pay much more attention, when you realise that several items on a dry list of acquisitions are ones you’ve seen before, and it slowly dawns on you that each neat little object and number in this neat little book are things that belong (belonged?) to people you know

Neatness, particularly incongruous neatness, neatness where you expect violence or imperfection or abandonment, or neatness that you belatedly realise was hiding violence, or neatness that is imposed over violence, is incredibly scary. Because neatness is not a natural thing. Neatness requires some active force to have come through and made it so. Neatness implies that the world around you is being arranged, maybe to hide things, to disguise things, to make you doubt your senses, or else simply according to something else’s desires. Neatness is active and artificial. Neatness puts things, maybe even people, into neat little boxes according to something else’s ideals, and that’s terrifying as well. Being objectified. Being asked to fit categories that you’re not sure you can fit, and wondering what will happen to the bits of you that don’t.

Neatness, essentially, says that something else is here. Neatness where there should be chaos says that either something came and changed things, or that what you’re seeing now or what you saw then is not real. Neatness alongside violence says that something came through here for whom violence did not mean the same thing as it does to you.

Neatness, in the right context, in the right place, can be very, very scary

And fun

some baby middleschool punksquad for @szeherezadaa for being such an amazing sweetheart on a writing discord server we’re on

love is stored in the found family trope