Sometimes I feel that my writing will never be good enough for my own standards. I want to be the next Neil Gaiman, the next Stephen King, the next best-selling writer.
When I read fanfics that others have written and posted on AO3, that are SO incredibly good, there's this sense of moroseness that comes over me, the fear of what if they're younger than me but are already leagues above me?
When I read works from people my age, it always amazes me how beautiful their writing is, how I can never replicate their imagination or their style. Then I have this odd feeling - it's almost as if you're standing on the balcony and the cold night air is blowing over you, there are white lights and unfinished concrete condominiums spread out across your view, and the entire world is silent and unmoving, and there are neither moons nor stars in the sky.
When I see a writer with enormous passion - that terrifies me. That's intimidating to me. Because what if I run out of steam before they do? What if for every thousand words that I write, they can write three thousand more? What if they get to live my dream before I do?
Whoever is reading this, and has ever felt the same way...
Show your fellow writers some love! Even if their stories seem like a thousand-meter wall you can never scale... or a lone flag on a faraway planet out of your orbit. Because your story, the one you think looks like a small patch of wilted daisies, is that shimmering heat-mirage in someone else's desert, that untouchable bloom in the midst of radioactive nuclear waste. Your story may not appear so, but trust me, to someone out there, it is colossal. It is unimaginable. It is a deity.
Who knows if I'll ever reach the likes of Stephen King, of Neil Gaiman? I feel foolish, even now. "Oh I'm just a regular 'ol person writing silly fanfiction, how can I ever elevate myself?" But to hell with all that shit talk. I will write my own stories. I will write the stories of everything else. And I'll live pursuing this craft.
It is good to support them! Leave a comment or a like or a reblog. But it is not your obligation to do so - because when creators make content, we don’t just do it for you, we do it for ourselves. If you read what I write and don’t leave anything, that’s perfectly fine with me. Writing fanfiction is not a service, you don’t need to feel like you have to repay us in reblogs or likes. But reception (positive reception) really gives that extra boost of energy, so if you can spare the time that’ll be awesome.
👏🏻 support 👏🏻 creators 👏🏻 or 👏🏻 they’ll 👏🏻 lose 👏🏻 motivation 👏🏻 to 👏🏻 create 👏🏻 things 👏🏻
HI ARE YOU LONELY?
sorry i just wanted to tell you that i love the way you write tqm
AHHH THANK YOU <3 <3 <3 I'm actually planning on putting something else out today (the 2nd part to my roadtrip trilogy)- so im hyped that u like my writing! Also wanted to say, it makes my day when i scroll through the walkerbaron tag and see new posts under it XD i appreciate ur updates hehe
love u too! have a very good day 😊🍀
Amazing work!
6000년만에 메이저잡엇으니까 ㅈㄴ 쳐먹기만할계획
Featuring snapshots of the three most important road trips in Zemo and John's journey of working together.
Le notti a cercare buone stelle
Ritrovarsi in mezzo a strane sorti
Quanto siamo storti
HARKANSA PASS, ROMANIA
John loosened his grip on the steering wheel, leaned back into the leather-clad seat with a sigh. He took his eyes off the road briefly to look at Zemo from his peripheral vision. The wind was whipping through the man's hair, throwing it up into a wild brown halo, strands nearly shining golden where it was struck by the sun. Zemo's face had regained some color since their trip started two hours ago. The shadows had faded from his cheekbones and under his eyes, leaving the barely noticeable smattering of freckles behind. He had started slouching slightly in his seat like a cat, squinting against the setting sun.
The trees were whizzing past them, behind them, in front of them. John had wanted to track some of them down with his eyes, a stray bird there, an oddly shaped trunk there, but they sped away as soon as they came, leaving him disoriented and dizzy.
He asked if Zemo was comfortable, and that seemed to rouse the man out of some daydream, who had to blink several times to get the dazed look out of his eyes and process John's question, before nodding. Zemo seemed to struggle with himself, lips opening and closing wordlessly a few times, then came a hesitant question after a while, torn away by the wind, "Do you need me to take over?"
"At the next stop," John replied. The next stop would be a few hours away, but Zemo didn't need to know that. For good measure, he reached over and gave Zemo a little pinch on the back of the neck just to see the man squirm. "Thanks for asking."
"... Likewise."
John tilted his head slightly to make sure Zemo could see his smile.
The road around them was wide enough only for two cars, and that was enough since not many cars came around this road. The sun was setting, the clouds were low. They were paper-thin wisps in the distance, but dark sinking little pieces of debris above his head that looked like concrete rubble. They were so solid and impenetrable that the sunlight clung to their edges, never sinking in, making them a beautiful red. John thought beautiful, beautiful, beautiful over and over again till he thought he would pass out with the wonder of it all, the landscapes he imagined as a child.
In front of them, the mountains were falling away, the sides of the high cliffs were fading, the layers and layers of dirt and rock giving away. John found himself almost missing what had gone, the stupid little yellow trees perched on the side of cliffs, or the huge huge walls beside him as he drove, like they were carving a path through, and how the rays would slip out from the peaks of the cliffs, would splatter the hood of the car in yellow, and they would play with him, mischievous, slipping away into complete grey one second, and blinding him like a laser the next.
Yellow, yellow, like autumn, stretching up and up so high and high that if he lifted his head up all the way to see the tops, he would lose sight of the road. And he'd be so enraptured and hypnotized, eyes held up to the sky, not paying attention to their direction anymore, maybe not even caring.
The road swerved left and right in staccato in front of him.
"It's odd, John, to choose a road like this..." Zemo says.
"It's odd?"
"Not many roads are like this one. Not many roads, especially not roads to deliver vibranium..." Zemo murmured, trailing off. For a moment, the illusion was shattered and John was reminded of the six kilograms of vibranium in their trunk, his soon-to-be shield.
"Maybe odd wouldn't be the right word for it," The other man rectified. He was smiling. "Magnificent is a more apt description."
So the walls were falling now. Beside him, Zemo sits up a bit straighter, leans forward in anticipation. The moment their view clears, beside him, he hears a shaky gasp of wonder- beautiful, echoing his own thoughts.
Zemo looked like a child seeing fireworks for the first time.
It took a few seconds for him to realize that he had forgotten to revel in his own wonder and joy, or throw up his own love to the light, that first experience, the wonder and mystery beyond every singing of it, as your world opened up and drew you in; one gate closing and one gate opening, in a little bubble, a snow globe. He had missed it. He had missed the half-second that would lift the air from his lungs in a roar.
It wasn't the splendid view that imprinted itself into his retinas, it was another man's joy.
He tastes something bittersweet at the back of his throat.
He put his gaze back to the road, continuing to drive, but then Zemo tugged at him insistently. "Stop, stop," Zemo whispered. So he pressed on the brakes, the car rumbled to a slow stop. Zemo reached over, turns the ignition off, and without any other words he opened the car door and steps out.
The crunch of boots on a rock-and-asphalt road was a welcome relief to the hum of the engine. He moved out of the car, went to stand beside Zemo. And that was when he hears.
Everything was silent. Pure silence. Then it began. The wind started to pick up into a howl over the hills, darting through the trees and bushes, and all the around them there was such a loud overwhelming rush of leaves, the groaning and creaking of trunks, that John felt that the world was nearly trembling apart in his hands. The two of them were so minuscule in the large expanse of landscape, yet he felt completely in control.
And in front of him stretched mountains long and unending and ceaseless, fading away into the clouds, and at the closer slope of the valley, winding down roads, the sides were painted with trees, tall towering spikes of green shooting through the land like needles through a needle cushion, so tall that even in the distance they appeared huge, and if you were to stand under one of them you could not raise your head high enough to see the top, the trunks that you could not wrap your arms around, everywhere you looked half your vision would be smothered by wood and bark and pine needles.
They were the most beautiful brilliant shade of hunter green, like oil paint, a stark contrast to the yellow-green of the soft meadows below. That shade of yellow-green was like if he looked at a grass field of canola flowers and backed away far enough until everything blended together. Down in the winding roads, there was a small little farmhouse, red and dainty, its shadow cast long against the ground by the sun's rays. John was reminded, and he looked back, at his own shadow, both of their shadows. A little smile played on his lips as he realized that their height difference was made more apparent by the sunset.
In the distance, the mountains were the pale shade of blue cast over by the clouds. Blue and golden mixed in with the sunlight. Ah. Maybe he had an epiphany then, for John thought, blue. It was blue that he was smelling, blue and golden in the air all around them. He looked to Zemo again. There was the hazy swirl of pollen in the air, settling on his eyelashes and his nose, blown from the flowers down the valley. He was coated with it, that invisible perfume.
John laughed. "Pretty," he said.
"More than pretty," Zemo said. "It's magnificent."
John smiled wider and wordlessly turns to the horizon again.
The sun touched his skin, his face, leaving his back cold. It was just a saturated red bloom across the horizon line now, fading into the mountains. And it became dark so quickly, so soon, that John was surprised when he looked at Zemo once again and saw that the other man's pupils were black and dilated like a cat's. The trees seemed to grow taller in the darkness, stretched by their shadow. The grass shined wet and oily with the moonlight. The world became a lot bigger, as the blackness of earth merged into the blackness of the sky, spiraling into galaxies and constellations above them.
He pointed to Zemo the Big Dipper, the Cassiopeia, and finds Polaris, the true North. They were stars that he'd trace in the war zones, above the sound of gunfire, to get him home. Then the Orion, and to Mintaka, the first star to rise in the constellation. Through all this, Zemo listened silently, occasionally nodding or asking questions.
He draped a blanket over Zemo's shoulders. He let his hands linger there, tracing the edge of the fabric, then slipped one hand under his purple turtleneck, resting at Zemo's trembling hips. There were bruises there, in the shape of his fingers. Some yellow and fading, some new. This was more intimate than usual, tonight, a new game that Zemo wasn't used to. But it would be back to normal in the morning, and John would remember that there was nothing gentle about Zemo, nothing redeemable for all his cruelty and vengeance and loathing. And Zemo would hurt him, over and over, taking him apart bit by bit, only to lie in bed shaking and shuddering, screaming John's name as he came, snarling hurt me, make me feel it, in a twisted form of self-punishment.
But for now, he could savor the moment. Those pretty eyes hold his own, nearly black in the darkness. John knew they were the true shade of brown, pools of honey in the light.
Maybe poison or aphrodisiac would be more accurate, for who he really was.
He couldn't resist - "Pretty."
John didn't need gentle. He's learned that gentleness is only a disguise for something more insidious. He needed madness and sin. Zemo was both in spades, and pretty as a striking cobra.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Zemo laughed hoarsely, but pulled him down into a kiss nonetheless.
Inspiration and images were taken from:
Zion National Park, United States (Utah)
Black Canyon of the Gunnison, United States (Colorado)
Trollstigen, Norway
Transfăgărășan road, Romania
Karakoram Highway, China-Pakistan
Images were taken from Google, not owned by me. Harkansa Pass is not a real location.
Damnnnnnn, tony, stooooooop
You’re gonna make me catch feelings
Tony Leung photographed by Isaac Lam for GQ, August 2021.
I aspire to one day be as show-stopping and fearlessly revolutionary as Carpenter Brut’s entire aesthetic.
Anyone interested in Lovecraft, Twilight Zone, Gods and Mythology should search up “Fab Tool”.
The visuals there are the best I’ve seen all year.
Bro…… you are me……. I am you…….
Am I the only one who usually is only capable of shipping one person for one fandom, although I may like a lot of the other characters very much?
* By “shipping” here I mean actively spending time searching gay ships centered around that character and reading fanfics.
(I’m only talking about myself, who’s incapable of shipping heterosexual couples)
For the MCU, although I love most of the heros and villains and even, uh, just normal citizens, I’ve been only interested in Bucky centered ships.
That being said, now here comes the first exception: now I just desperately need some Wenwu gay ships……
THE FINAL PART (Part 3) OF MY WALKERBARON ROADTRIP SERIES WILL BE OUT TOMORROW
ITS THE SADDEST INSTALLMENT YET
STAY TUNED FOR HURT PEOPLE HURTING EACH OTHER
The next one will have a LOTTTTT of disclaimers and warnings so uhhh watch out
@nervous-disaster I hope you enjoy! Thanks for bringing the hype to my writing! ❤️🍀🍀🍀
I’m going to write another (possibly last?) WalkerBaron story soon, this one set 5 years after the events of He’s My Collar.