#SOMEONE ASKED ME ABOUT MY ITERATION I'M SO HAPPY

[goodforwho]

Pibi. Could you... Could you explain the sibling dynamics of the brotherhood turtles??? I'm kinda curious on how they act.

(ask em inglês caso queira que a fandom inglês entenda tmb :^] )

Amazing question! So let's look at it

They get grounded together a lot too, mostly because they take all the blame so their siblings don't suffer as much (as Splinter's punishments are no fun). You can consider them besties who can't stop arguing

"I'm no slave, Leo!" Says Donnie while he wants to work on his hiperfixations. It is not like he doesn't do things for the team, he just needs his own time

They are always making silly duets of musicals or quoting space heroes around each other. (By the way, Mikey does a lot of things in secret so Leo doesn't get upset)

Raph can be very angry most of the time, but she cares SO MUCH about her siblings. She screams lower when with Donnie. Shes used to Donnie's screams, and Donnie is used to hers

Mikey really has no malice, they're just a blob of a smol being and tries their best to make everyone family, even if it costs their own happiness. Raph just wants everyone to be safe, feelings later

This is probably my favorite duo of the whole iteration. Something about mutual understanding between a very quiet person and the most hyperactive of the siblings is very appealing. They just get along SO well

Anyways, thanks for the question anon! It was very fun to draw this

[mikimakiboo]

Time Travelers AU - Out Of The Blue

Here we go againnnnn

I hope you all are having wonderful holidays <3

I apologize again for the long wait and the short chapter, the end of the year has been... tiring. In the last two months, my 14yo cat got sick, I got sick, got some medical appointments with not so great news (nothing life threatening or anything but just very annoying as I've been dealing with the same things for years now and they are still not fixed), and now my grandpa is sick when his health was already quite fragile, so yeah, my motivation to write wasn't really that high and I got tired very quickly after writing only two sentences, so that's why it took so so long.

I am very thankful for everyone supporting my silly au tho, it helps me to keep going, so thanks a lot <3 I wish you all a very happy new year <3

First

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@ancha-aus I'm summoning you once again

Morning came, and everyone had woken up, Cross first to take his turn in standing guard in a hurry after realizing he had slept for more than the planned few minutes, then Killer, who came by his side to keep him company, then Dust, who stayed next to Horror for the warmth, Horror who took a quick nap after his turn and then stayed with the small skeleton, and finally Nightmare, but he didn't move from his spot.

It was cold and humid, Cross needed to find somewhere dry where they could stay. He was walking around the area they had stopped in, thinking, as Killer was walking next to him.

- Quo tendimus ?

Killer asked, but Cross of course didn't understand. He stared at the roman with confusion.

- Iter ?

Killer tried again. Cross's confusion only grew, what was Killer trying to ask him ? Did he need something ? He didn't seem to have a problem, but maybe he was hungry ? They hadn't eaten since the previous day. Maybe Cross should try and hunt something, but how would he do that ? He only had his sword, and he clearly wouldn't be able to chase any prey in this armor. They should try to find someone, and maybe they'll have food for them.

- Mengier ?

Cross tried to ask him if he wanted to eat. Killer frowned, but quickly nodded once he understood the word. It was one of the few words they used regularly and knew how to say in the other languages.

- Sumemusne cibum omnibus ?

- Uh...

- Omnes: me, vos, Horror, Dust, Nightmare.

Killer explained, pointing at himself and Cross before mentioning the others. Did omnes, or omnibus as he said earlier, mean everybody ? It seemed so, Cross figured. Killer asked something about everybody, did he asked if the others were hungry too ? They most likely were, no one had eaten after all. They should find food for everyone. Cross nodded at Killer, to which he smiled, happy to have been understood. Now, where would they find food ?

Killer ran off.

- Killer ! Atendez !

Cross screamed at him to wait, running after the roman. Why did he run like that ? He wouldn't catch anything if he wasn't more discrete !

- Killer !

Cross called again, but the roman didn't stop and continued to sprint between the trees.

Cross eventually caught up to him, only for Killer to slow down and come to a stop once he reached the end of the forest.

- Ne correz mie ainçois !

Cross said when arriving next to him, telling him to not run like that. The roman didn't listen, instead pointing at what seemed to be a town a little farther. Cross looked at it. It looked familiar. Too familiar. He got out of the woods first, careful, looking around for any sign of danger, and gestured to Killer to follow him once sure the area was safe. The roman joined his side, looking at the town, and waited for the knight to lead the way.

- Retez près de moy.

Cross ordered him to stay close to him, not wanting him to run off again. Both started to walk towards the oddly familiar town as it started to become obvious to Cross that they were in his own time as he recognized the buildings and the way people talked and were dressed. They entered by an alley, Cross first, Killer following close behind.

The knight stopped, looking from side to side, the people here didn't seem to notice him, but would they notice Killer ? He wasn't dressed like them, sure it wasn't as striking as the clothes the rest of the group was wearing, but it still was unusual. Cross made a sign to Killer to follow him before getting out of the alley into the streets, if the people saw that Killer was with him they would probably question his clothing a little less.

The two walked for a brief moment, soon reaching the village square with the merchants, and Cross turned in a tight alley between two houses. They needed to find a way to get one of the merchants to give them some food, which wouldn't be easy, as they didn't have any money on them at the moment, but maybe they could pay differently ? They could offer their help for whatever there needed to be done in exchange for food ? They had to try.

Cross turned to Killer to explain his plan, only to not find Killer behind him.

- Killer ?

He called, but received no answer. Where was he ? Did he lose him ? Did he lose him in the crowd ? How could he lose him ?! He was right behind him ! Wasn't he paying attention to his surroundings ?!

Cross left the alley in a hurry, he needed to find Killer ! Luckily, or unluckily, he quickly heard a merchant yell, and not two seconds later he saw Killer running past him with a bag of bread in his arms. Cross didn't need to be a genius to understand that Killer stole those, which, of course, was the total opposite of being discrete.

- Killer !

Cross tried to call him again, running after him, but the roman was faster than he was as he wasn't running with an armor on. He saw Killer take a turn to the left before hearing a loud noise as if he had fallen on something. Cross hoped he didn't hurt himself, even if he was slightly relieved by the thought that he had stopped running.

He followed Killer in the alley, before freezing: the thief was sitting on the ground, a hand above his bag ready to dive in and take out a knife at any moment, only held back to do so by the sword pointed at his throat. The knight standing in front of him was holding the bag of bread in his free hand. Killer's empty sockets were staring at the knight who's gaze wasn't visible under the helmet.

Cross looked at Killer, feeling his anxiety grow in his chest. Why didn't he do as told and stayed behind him ? Why did he have to run off on his own ? He didn't know how things worked here ! No, what was he thinking about ? It wasn't Killer's fault, all he wanted was bring some food to everyone, he couldn't be mad at him for that. Cross should have explained to him better how to behave instead of dragging him in the middle of the marketplace. He should have thought ahead, because now his friend was in trouble. He needed to help him.

Killer's gaze turned to Cross. He had to do something, to think fast and get Killer and himself out of here. But what could he say ? What could he say for the knight to let him go after having stolen food ? Should he blame it on himself ? Tell that he was the one to ask Killer to steal ?

A voice spoke from behind him before he had time to say anything.

- Nos allons le prandre en carge, mercit.

The knight with the sword turned, looking at who just said they were going to take care of the thief on the ground, before nodding and putting his sword away, leaving with the bag of bread. Killer got up, and Cross turned around, having recognized the voice of his best friend immediately. The latter didn't leave him time to speak before almost jumping forward to embrace him.

- Cross ! Où estais-tu ?!

Blue cried in relief, asking his friend where he had been. Cross hugged him back, relieved too to see him as he sighed, grateful for his help with the other knight. Blue had always been here when he needed help, Cross didn't know if he deserved him, but he was so happy he was here. Now, what could he answer to his question ? Where had he been ? He didn't know for sure, he had been in another time, in another place, with other people from other places and other times, but where had it been exactly ? What could he say for Blue not to think he went crazy ? Would Blue even think he was crazy ? Probably not, he never looked down on him for any reason. He would explain everything to him later, for now they needed food.

Cross let go of him after a few seconds to turn to Killer who was waiting, knife in hand, looking between the two knights.

- Killer, mon amic Blue, Blue, mon amic Killer.

The two skeletons looked at each other, "amic" sounded like "amicus" so Killer assumed it meant friend. Was this knight a friend of Cross ? Judging by how he hugged him, it was highly probable. Blue seemed quite surprised but also excited to meet this new friend as he turned to Cross for more talking that Killer didn't understand. He put his knife away in his bag, and waited for Cross to finish, quite pissed that he didn't have his bag of bread anymore.

After a few minutes, Cross turned to Killer, signing to follow him.

- Omnes.

Everyone, he said, they had to go back to where everyone was, and so Cross lead them both out of the town. Cross's house was farther away, probably too far to reach before the night, but Blue had offered to help them get food and clothes, he knew a little inn that would let them stay for the night for free, the owner was a good friend of him, they would stay and go to Cross's place the next day, once in clean clothes and with full stomachs.

Cross was quite happy, he would get to introduce his new friends to his very best one, and they would eat in a warmer and dryer place than the woods. All would be well, he hoped.

He wanted them to have a good time in his time.

[bunnybird-afk]

Hogan x Reader (Seeing you in Heroic Order armour)

Warning: Suggestive.

Hogan had always admired your aesthetic sensibilities, watching over the years as you shifted between various forms and appearances that somehow always managed to leave him speechless. This iteration was no different.

From the time that he had first met you, you had adorned yourself in outfits that managed to give you an air of both competence and approachability. A look that perfectly suited the great Magister Merlin. Though at this point, Hogan had began to suspect that you'd be just as breathtaking regardless of what you wore (or perhaps didn't wear if he let his mind wander too far). That being said, Dura herself must have been testing him in this moment.

It had all started when you had been asked to join the Heroic Order on a diplomatic mission. Something about establishing trade routes between Holistone and The Dark Forest now that peace had been restored. Considering your close relationship with both the Wilders and the Lightbearers, it made sense that you would be invited along, if only to ensure that that the agreement was fair to both parties. Either way, such a mission required something more official than your usual attire.

As Hogan stood there rooted to the spot , he felt as though all of his thoughts had instantly evaporated. There you stood, adorned from head to toe in Heroic Order regalia, the orders emblem emblazoned boldly on the chest plate of your armour. You looked like the idealised version of a knight who had stepped straight out of a children's story book or perhaps even a legend. All of the nobles in the capital who had dressed themselves in extravagance couldn't hold a candle to you right now. You looked absolutely ethereal.

"Hogan? You still with me, buddy?"

Oh Dura above, you had been speaking to him. Hogan quickly cleared his throat, averting his eyes. "Apologies old friend, I was simply lost in thought..." he hesitated before continuing, "the Orders uniform suits you well".

You smiled at him, turning a bit so he could get a better look at the full ensemble. "Thanks, though I'm not entirely sure I fastened the armour correctly." You looked at him again, an unreadable look in your eyes even as the smile never left your lips. "I was just wondering if you'd be able to help me?"

The request would have been insulting had it come from anyone else. He was a general, not some young squire. And yet, because it was you...

"Ofcoarse, old friend. I'd be happy to." He smiled jovially, trying his best to mask the tenseness in his voice. With the way you looked currently, he felt more like a blushing young maiden doting on a dashing knight than an adult man who had been a knight himself for the past decade.

He stepped closer to you, feeling your body heat radiate off you as he leaned down, further into you space. You lifted you arm, resting you elbow on his shoulder as he fastened the straps of your armour with practiced ease. It was a casual, harmless movement that would have meant nothing coming from someone else, but as things stood, your touch sent electricity coursing down Hogans spine, causing him to fumble with one of the buckles. Thankfully, you didn't seem to notice. Once he was done, he stepped back, feeling the need to escape the emotions that your mere presence stirred in him.

You gave him a grateful smile, "Thank you, Hogan."

"Anytime, my friend." He said, patting your shoulder in an attempt to seem casual. "I'll meet you in the courtyard whenever you're ready to depart." he said quickly, turning to leave.

"Umm, Hogan..? "

Your voice stopped him in his tracks as he looked over his shoulder to see what you needed. You trying not to meet his gaze, a flustered look on your face as you spoke.

"Would you mind meeting me back here after the mission? I... I might need help getting out of this outfit again..."

Poor Hogan could have sworn that his soul left his body for a second.

[kenozumin]

Even if you don't draw tr Purpled, I hope we get to hear out your hcs in a post because as someone who doesn't know his character in general I'm so curious 👀 👀 👀

aaa wait okay. im going to use this as an excuse now mika. this is ur fault. im going to ramble bec tr purpled is literally my fanon oc so i can do whatever i want LOL.

since its a lot of rambling, i put it under the cut bec.... i dont wanna clog people's dash:

all things considered ooc wise, purpled would have 100% been a green faction member. not because of beliefs or anything, but because hannah is on green faction and purpled has a tendency to team with hannah in like, every scenario. if hannah is there, purpled will be by her side if given the chance, they are a package deal (shout out wisteria duo!)

he would be so happy to see pili on the realm and be friends, he would have been a tr mocha defender, probably help with grinding and kills and things, just cause its pili lol

as for my own story for him, it has always revolved around the fact that he doesn't exist, and i thought it would be fun to use pili's dream of him as like, part of my interpretation. basically it goes two ways for me:

sc3!purpled (because i am so absolutely obsessed with sc3!purpled and bec sc3 was part of the reason why he was invited) meets his doom alongside sc3!classroom six (hannah, foolish, tubbo, philza), falling into the ice water and dying, trapped in ice.

the keepers pluck him out and into the realm, but he never quite... "woke up."

poor guy is trapped in ice like walt disney, nooo someone free himmm [sob] [sob]

if we include pili's dream scenario, then some iteration of pili stumbles onto him thousands of blocks out from spawn, in some snowy plains

if he's asleep, pili would encounter purpled's very frozen and asleep body lmao

but if we go with the dream scenario, purpled would be awake

and bec of purp's interactions w/ pili from dedsafio -> sc3, purpled would've recognized pili and they would have likely become friends, yay !!!

there's like another version of events that i also associate his character with, immensely more fanon, but it's more au adjecent so i won't mention it for now

as for his personality, he would likely act the way he does ooc:

confident, quick-witted, and sometimes a little awkward.

he tends to act a little silly, especially around his friends, and crack a lot of jokes so it would've been fun had he logged on.... especially with pili....

he was like no. 1 pili fan back in sc3, chasing around every guard and asking it was pili behind the mask and then ending up very disappointed. he was always excited to hear pili's voice (since pili did the english voice overs for sc3) and it was very wholesome :((

he's a little like foolish where i feel like he would just get along with everyone no matter what, definitely one to not care about faction conflicts in day-to-day unless it come to a point where he or people he liked could be in direct danger

as for the keepers, i think he would find them slightly creepy in the beginning (since keepers weren't capable of much speech in the beginning of the realm, plus had the whole darkness-teleporting thing), but as time goes on i think he would have fun with them, enjoy messing around, he's just that guy

and for you mika, i think he would help to balance out newt's more insecure side, hype him up and reassure him. purp is the kinda guy to go pretty good at keeping up people's mental (with his experience in high stress and competitive atmospheres). i think he would have fun watching all the thing newt could do as keeper and maybe exploit them to play pranks. he would think newt is silly, ESPECIALLY WITH THE EMOTICONS, i can see him recreating them in his speech, like mimicking them back at him bec he finds it silly, maybe a little endearing. okay. thats all the nurpled you are getting from me mika grrrhfhrr hope ur happy LOLL

[mewguca]

luna, thanks for breaking down the character differences between vanilla and downpour because I'm too much of an illiterate gremlin to discern those nuances, it is much appreciated!

may I ask if there's anything from the officially published fanfiction that you did like on its own merits?

I'm assuming you're asking about characterization and narrative, instead of gameplay / world design, so I'll focus on that. on a meta level, I love the fact that downpour exists as officially published fanfiction / an official AU. It's really inspirational tbh, and it makes me feel better about making fanworks

for actual game stuff , I'll start with Spearmaster.

I like that SRS forms an attachment to their messenger, especially since they initially seemed repulsed by it. It's more interesting that they didn't immediately bond, as it creates some internal conflicts (guilt) within SRS. I also like that NSH warns them not to get too attached before it returns; it's a reasonable suggestion and may be influenced by their current loss. (of LTTM)

I could nitpick a lot here but I'm going to try and omit that for the sake of brevity and efficiency. (general statement about the ramble)

I like that NSH gets upset and stops talking to SRS for a little while, and that SRS becomes a bit desperate and anxious. It humanizes both of them. I also like that NSH says something irrational and emotional about suns sending their messenger to the wrong person, and that they immediately reflect and retract their statement. They seem emotionally mature here. I also like that SRS's question (would that have helped?) can be interpreted in multiple ways; perhaps it's a genuine inquiry out of desperation, or perhaps it's a more snide remark to ground their friend. Perhaps both. It's neat, I think.

I like NSH's broadcast to FP. I think the wording could be stronger, but it's still convincing to me. I can feel the emotion here. I can hear NSH's voice as he speaks these words in his mind. And I like that NSH asks FP to reflect upon his actions, rather than insulting him or threatening him. Again, you can interpret in multiple ways, and it serves multiple purposes. Self-reflection seems to be a weak point for DP Pebbles, especially with all of the shame. So, this remark serves as Genuine Advice, but it can also serve as... a Curse of sorts? Foreshadowing? That he must overcome this weakness of his, and that he cannot run from it forever. yay

I like Moon's final broadcast. I'm glad she got to have a moment like this, and it's fun to voice this one, too. It's sweet, and it says something about her that she wanted her final broadcast to be uplifting and warm. She wanted people to remember her and smile...

This broadcast between SI and WO may actually be my favorite, though. (of sm broadcasts I mean) I'm a huge bennie (ancient) fan, so hearing more about them is awesome. I like that different Cities had different cultures and politics, different rituals and behaviors, and (implied) different "eras" over time... I enjoy that this characterizes the bennies as diverse and fascinating, and that different Iterators had different relationships with their citizens. There's a lot to chew on here without too much to wade through, and I wish we had more broadcasts like these. I love it. <3

Other Spearmaster things I liked:

SOS lizard betting <3

SRS studying sign language to communicate with SM. i dont like the worldbuilding around the mark and the puppet faces here so I didnt include the full screenshot, but I like the idea of SRS trying to establish two-way communication.

NSH purposing a messenger to troll people is fun, even if I'm not fond of the details

TRANSCENDENTAL INVERSION! is a fun phrase; I really like it lol

Artificer:

this one white pearl

Rivulet:

I like the mass rarefaction cell. I like the heart symbolism around it a lot; as someone with heart issues, it makes me happy to relate to a fictional character with them, even abstractly.

I like how it ties things into a neat little ring; FP kills moon, but he also gives her life. It's very powerful, at least conceptually. I just wish that when he gave her his physical heart, he gave her his metaphorical heart alongside it. She just wanted to speak with him one last time, and it sucks that's unfulfilled. But I appreciate the potential, at least. And I do love a reconciliation. I'm glad they made up.

also mass rarefaction cells are fun and useful! gotten a lot out of them, I think! yay.

I also like some of moon's dialogue in riv campaign and that she checks her unread messages.

Saint:

There's not really much to talk about here, but I like some of the Echo dialogues quite a bit. I also like the dialogues in Rubicon but I don't feel like getting another screenshot

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets remains the goat forever.

I have a particular fondness for Eight Spots on a Blind Eye, as well. Probably because I voiced these lines, haha. But I think it's cute for someone to acknowledge your enthusiasm for exploration, and I like how sweet they are. yay

[lezforsapphicwrites]

first of all, thank you to everyone who engaged with my last post about my theories and give really good points. i love all your theories! so thank you thank you!!!

someone asked me about my thoughts on how lenore and annabel fit all three of the love tropes and i put it off back then cuz i hadn't organized my thoughts about it (yet). but i've finally thought about it and here it is!

(again, feel free to add your own take or to argue with my points. i'm welcome to discussions! just pls don't be mean and fight me. i'm just trying to share my thoughts with fellow fans)

before i dive in, i'm basing this off a post/comment that i encountered before. that all love stories are just variants of either orpheus & eurydice (doomed love), odysseus & penelope (love that dooms everyone else), and romeo & juliet (love that dooms them). i'll do my best to explain how annabel and lenore fit all three.

First Trope: Romeo & Juliet (Love That Dooms Them)

this is mostly tackling annabel and lenore's time together when they were both alive. we all know r&j as the most famous example of the forbidden love trope. their families are enemies, they are not allowed to love each other, yada yada. over time, that trope had been overused for het couples and became stale. what brought it back? homosexual love stories. nothing like good ol' homophobia to keep lesbian couples from living together. annabel and lenore are definitely not exceptions to this when they were alive, which is why lenore pretended to be a man, to be suitable for marraige with annabel.

theories of their death can vary but i'm gonna use mine for this and the theory of one of my replies in my last post. they died at their supposed wedding after lenore was exposed for being a woman. again, how they died is still unknown, but most likely, they died together (with one of them dying a little before the other), which is exactly how r&j ended.

i rest my case cuz this was a kinda easy comparison. off to the next one.

Second Trope: Odysseus & Penelope (Love That Dooms Everyone Else)

this one is a bit tricky so stay with me on this.

i'm covering their time in nevermore academy for this. a short breakdown on odyssey: ody does anything and everything to stay alive and return home to penelope. a lot of his actions were not morally right. he killed or destroyed a lot of people's lives for the love of his life, to return to her. hence, the love that dooms everyone around them.

how is this connected to lenore and annabel?

annabel is basically odysseus in this story. she is not afraid to ruin or kill the others to keep lenore safe and for them to come out winning in the end. we all saw how she traded duke's life to stop her group from killing lenore instead. she thinks of everyone as collateral for her ultimate goal of her and lenore getting their second chance at life together. odysseus was willing to destroy their marriage bed because penelope told him to despite not wanting to. meanwhile, annabel was ready to give up her life when lenore was starting not to trust her because she believes that nothing else mattered if lenore wasn't on her side. it's a crazy form of love and yet, i'm so hooked!

Third Trope: Orpheus and Eurydice (Doomed Love)

this was the hardest to point out because the parallels were hard to find.

for this, i'm just going for a shot in the dark. the doomed part of their love is mostly just hunch (bc i'm hoping for them to get their happiness) so i'm gonna skip that and focus on some parallels.

lenore is orpheus. deep her in heart, she loves annabel and she knows that but her mind hasn't caught on due to her missing memories. all the while annabel is blindly diving into her loyalty for lenore because she knows the end and the intensity of their love (i think). lenore's missing pieces of the story is why she can't fully trust annabel and in a way, "looks back" to see if she's "really behind" her, meaning she keeps questioning annabel's intention.

(yes, i know some iterations say that orpheus looks back because of he loves eurydice too much not to look at her. but i'm using the version where he looks back because he doubts that he is not enough for eurydice to feel the same and follow him back to life. kinda my take sorry)

honestly, that's all i got for this trope. if you have your own take, pls share because this was hard to organize in my brain.

feel free to use this as a safe space to discuss theories. i would like to hear what you think of this opinion of mine. gosh, i just love nevermore and i wish i had enough money to fast pass (no, pls don't dm me for deals and stuff. i can wait)

edit: i forgot to tag the one who asked for this. sorry about that @xxdelusionsofgrandeurxx

[thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos]

I know the bay turtles are different from the guys in most iterations I was wondering. I don’t know if your doing a love triangle fic because lol drama is fun /aff but I was wondering do you prefer Leo over raph in that iteration or is just fir drama?

YES NONNIE I WOULD LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS

*cracks nuckles*

You are totally right in that the Bay boyz (hehe) are very different than most other iterations, and that is something I love so much about them. I love that they gave more playfulness to Leo and Donnie, that typically only Mikey gets because, well, it's Mikey.

I love Bayverse Leo because of the burden that he shoulders, and I love writing him as more teasing and playful because he deserves to be. He's needed to be so responsible for everything his entire life; responsible for his brother's lives, responsible for NYC (in his view), and responsible for his father. And it gets to him. He deserves some sweet, soft moments where he can have fun and fall in love.

I love Bayverse Raph because of his wall that he puts up, blocking out the world so he doesn't get hurt. All he wants is acceptance, love; but the fear of rejection is so strong that he'd rather hide behind his muscles than give anyone a chance. He does everything he can to be intimidating, scary; but deep down he's screaming for someone to see past all that and reach out. Raph wants so badly to fall in love, but that fear; that fear that keeps him up at night, that's stained his hands with blood- it haunts him.

It's the difference between want vs need. What you deserve, and what is destined.

Plus...

..I mean...c'mon. *sighs dreamily*

But yes, I do love drama. And the love triangle idea between two incredibly strong personalities, who would both respect and disrespect each other has me rolling on the floor writing it.

So to answer your question completely, I love the Bayverse versions of Raph and Leo pretty equally. In most other iterations, Raph is always my favorite. I relate to him most (the wall) and I'm a sucker for a brooding bad boy. But Leo, *sigh* Leo and his angst got to me.

Writing ERHIT has been so fun because it gave me the opportunity to showcase the jealousy and anger that these two are known for, but in a different way. I love giving Raph more angst and making Leo feel happy and carefree...for a bit.

But thank you so much for asking!! It made my morning to get this!!

I could talk about ERHIT allll dayyyy lol

[rockscanfly]

I have read all of your Charthur content on ao3 and loved all of it - currently working through the comments I need to leave because each piece is phenomenal in its own right and deserves individual praise.

Your style and the dynamics you show between Charles and Arthur has been really inspirational for me and I definitely want to write some Charthur smut with bottom!Charles getting the pillow princess treatment.

Saying that - I want to know if there are any terms/ideas you would be uncool with seeing someone else write for this pairing? (Charles being called 'princess' etc).

I certainly wouldn't want to write something that felt like it was trying to be your work but I want to know ahead of time if there's anything specific I should avoid because I'm definitely really influenced by you.

Hey! I'm so glad you're enjoying the series and the way I've written the fellas so far! Your comment meant a lot and I really look forward to seeing what else you have to say/liked about the individual fics! I'm glad I've been able to help inspire you--we need more bottom!Charles and generally more of Charles being treated as an equal partner to Arthur rather than a caretaker or weird 2004-yaoi-seme stereotype. There's plenty of great top Charles too, don't get me wrong, but I've been having fun trying to balance the scales a little and explore a mode of their dynamic that doesn't get as much attention.

That said--use whatever you like! The iterative nature of fandom is one of my favorite things about writing fic! Nicknames, little quirks--if there's something super specific that you truly feel you're pulling from my work I'd love a shout-out in the author notes, but that's all I'd ever ask!

I see fandom as an fantastic mixing pot of ideas and I'm happy that you wanna add some of my specific flavor to your personal soup! I can't wait to read whatever you've got cooking!

[raccoonfallsharder]

I mean this strictly out of affection, but every time that darn orloni salesperson/stand gets brought up in a piece of yours I smile and giggle a little. It's just... so cute? They appear so often and it speaks to things I've absolutely overthought about. Like... damn, that must be some really good food, y'know? They stay in business and are able to source just the right amount to keep the people fed and keep themselves afloat even when I (perhaps incorrectly!) assume that there wouldn't be that many visitors to Knowhere. I'm just... so intrigued by them? I mean, I hope they sell more than just the orloni a la carte, maybe a side or a drink... but, I digress, I just want to try it and see what it's like. I believe it's been described as sweet and lightly spicy perhaps in a particular piece that I've forgotten? I wonder about the mouthfeel, how it would pull and tear, is it sorta stringy like a chicken? Is it more like fish? I assume it's a relatively lean meat? Or does it actually have a fair amount of fat in it? Is it basted in some kind of fat? I think it comes with a sauce in your iteration? Do you pour it on at your own discretion or is that done for you? The words fail me at the moment with how regard to how deeply fascinating they are and how food is portrayed in fiction. Thank you for introducing us to this fellow and keeping them around!

this ask actually touched me. I AM SO GLAD that you love the orloni vendor as much as i do. they honestly have my whole heart, and my whole imagination. i spend far too much time fantasizing about being a random nobody on knowhere who happens to hit it off with groot's cranky dad

look i have so much to say about the orloni vendor and what they represent to me and what they mean about the knowhere economy and culture

i imagine being an orloni vendor in post-collector knowhere is pleasantly low-stakes. you get to feed people. you get to be your own boss. you are presumably compensated enough to live (more on knowhere's economy later). the community that you serve is happy to see you when you're there, and they miss you a little when you're gone, but nobody's relying on the orloni vendor to survive, and nobody gets pissed off at the orloni vendor (unlike working food service here on earth-1218). that would be like getting pissed off at the person who drives the ice-cream truck?? what the fuck is wrong with you??

(my own job is pretty high-stakes and underpaid, and i am not my own boss. though for the most part i also avoid customer outrage, which is nice. every time i write about the orloni vendor or sanna orix's little shop or the reader who starts the community gardens or runs a little bookshop on knowhere, i am one-billion-percent imagining myself in that role)

to be clear, when i'm referring to the orloni vendor, i don't have the canonical character in mind - but it's worth noting that there is a canonical character. referred to in mcu materials as the orloni peddler, they show up for the first time in the gotg holiday special (they have a little kiosk rather than a cart) and i think that this is important. back when the collector was running the skull, the only people living there were exploited miners (probably displaced and exploited refugees, trafficked peoples, and potentially-nonviolent ex-cons or fugitives trying to lay low) and dangerous people (the actually-violent criminals, the traffickers themselves, assassins and bounty-hunters and worse). maybe there'd be a market for someone selling cheap street-food, but the number of times you'd get robbed or beat-up and all your units stolen on the way home would make it as dangerous as any other knowhere profession.

but once the guardians buy knowhere and are in charge - once the mines are retired and the monsters are run out of the skull - the city of exitar becomes a community.

and what's a better sign of a thriving community than some tasty shared street food???

the canonical orloni peddler is also important to me because of their fractional screentime in gotg3, right at the beginning. nebula takes a number of sticks of grilled orloni from the kiosk and hands them out - not just to the "current Guardians" but also to Kraglin and Cosmo - and nobody pays for anything.

now, maybe that's just because it's fucken nebula and she's awesome and terrifying and she's probably already known as the one who runs the city, or maybe she's just got an open tab at the orloni kiosk. but it still strikes me in the heart every single time i think of it, especially combined with the final scenes of the movie where people are just handing out packages of food to the Star Children, as if they either already had them waiting on hand or suddenly pulled together to create them as soon as they saw a need.

personally, i believe the citizens of knowhere still use money - i don't think our mercenary heroes-for-hire have suddenly some to the conclusion that units aren't important - but i also believe the guardians have managed to almost-accidentally cultivate a place on this skull where peoples' needs are provided for as a matter of course.

and that really, really means something to me.

Rocket Raccoon: Grounded (2016-2017). Rosenberg & Coehlo.

as for your pondering about whether or not knowhere receives a lot of "visitors" - i think you're right. i don't think there are a lot of visitors in the classic sense. but i do think we have an increasingly-thriving community. i do think more and more refugees and ex-cons looking to start over start to think of knowhere as a haven. i do think when some place is liberated (like the arete), the city of exitar ends up with at least a few new residents, whether they are there for a few rotations or the rest of their lives.

and i think almost all of them like the orloni vendor, too.

as an aside, exitar is inside a skull - a skull that has up until this point been largely taken up by mining operations and the collector's other projects. i suspect living space is limited and compact - mostly studio- and one-bedroom apartments with tiny kitchenettes and a lack of much food-storage-space. i think that makes for a lot of excellent communal and opportunities. not only are people more likely to pick up street-food on their way home but they're more likely to hang out in bars and gambling dens and laundromats and cantinas and perhaps, eventually, in rooftop parks and alley gardens and mezzanine playgrounds, too.

now, as for your other notations.

orloni is sourced very easily because orloni are essentially intergalactic pests (possibly even an invasive species). we know knowhere had orloni as early as volume 1, when they were gambled on and fed to f'saki at the boot of jemiah. maybe they were already a a known pest and food source on the skull at that time. but even if their population were limited to the boot of jemiah before thanos arrived during the infinity wars, a whole herd of the little guys probably would have escaped during that particular round of destruction.

then they would have multiplied in the streets like the adorable pests they are.

when all is said and done, selling orloni-on-a-stick is probably not very different from selling grilled rat-meat on terra (if you can't stomach that, then consider it closer to squirrel or rabbit - just try not to imagine Floor when you do). what i'm saying is, orloni is not typically considered a delicacy.

(but you know how rich people are - give it a couple millennia and the elders of the universe will be nibbling on orloni sauteed in moomba butter as if their own private chefs had invented it just last quarter).

once the guardians take over the skull and a street-food-cart actually seems like a reasonable investment, i suspect that our brand-new orloni vendor partners with local hygiene efforts - trap! don't poison! and i will provide removal services for at least a portion of your pests.

orloni is a lean meat imo, since it is a reptile (i think it is a lizard, though i don't know that we have enough detail to say for certain). i suspect our orloni vendor grills it up with a lot of spices native to their own home planet (wherever that is). the meat is crispy - maybe a little charred in some places - but also sweet, like a really good chicken drumstick. in my mind, depending on the day, i have imagined the seasoning tasting like anything from tajin to gochujang to something else entirely. (my mouth is watering as i type this)

but maybe i'm wrong! maybe they don't grill it at all. maybe they have a little smoker, and the whole street smells like rich smoked orloni every day. yum. or maybe they slather it in some kind of concoction of sauce and spice and creaminess, like elote, or some kind of masala. or - they are their own boss, after all! maybe they do something different every day, and are constantly trying new recipes - stabbing little notes into their datapad as the citizens of knowhere hum their appreciation around a mouthful of juicy orloni meat.

sigh. oh, to be an orloni vendor in exitar.

[eponymous-rose]

Monday!

It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!

It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.

I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.

10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.

11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.

12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!

12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.

1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.

2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.

3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).

5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).

6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!

8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!

[siravalondulac]

okay but what ARE your thoughts on the nutcracker?

PANDORA'S BOX OPENED EVERYONE TAKE COVER

okokok so. where to start. i became obsessed with the nutcracker after reading the book for the first time and realising how absolutely BONKERS the story is (positively of course).

book, i hear you say? there is a book? well, yes. every iteration of the nutcracker is based on one single book: nutcracker and mouse king by e.t.a. hoffmann, or as i know it nussknacker and mausekönig because OF COURSE the nutcracker is german. did you really think someone normal could have come up with all that stuff? no!

hoffmann wrote the nutcracker in the early 1800s for his godchildren (who, as it happens, were called fritz and marie, just like the children in the book). my advice: if you want to read it, listen to an audio book. i love and respect hoffmann, but his writing style is Not It.

the original nutcracker might actually not at all be how you think. there is the regular stuff - the children getting gifts for christmas, one of them is a nutcracker that marie (yes, marie. she's nawt called clara) takes a liking to, nutcracker gets damaged, marie cares for him, then the mouse king attacks, nutcracker defends. but here is where the most common portrails of the nutcracker likely diverge.

(i assume 99% of you only know the nutcracker from the barbie film (which. Yes) so i will meet you there.)

the nutcracker and marie do not defeat the mouse king right away nor to they go to the land of sweets to defeat him there. instead what follows is a slow story about marie staying in the house and starting to learn more and more about the nutcracker, how he came to be, his curse, and his history with the mouse king. it's actually a really great book, even outside of my strange hyperfixation.

here is a non-ordered list of why i love the nutcracker:

the nutcracker's jacket is purple, not red

marie is 7 (which makes her caring for the nutcracker understandable as she is a child. any adaptation that tries to age her up clearly has problems adapting her behaviour)

the nutcracker is uncle droßelmeier's nephew

droßelmeier has an eye patch and a glass wig

the entire story around princess pirlepat and the nut krakatuk

(seriously. that's thee most bonkers part)

(look it up. or ask me, i'd be happy to lore dump)

THE MOUSE KING HAS SEVEN HEADS WTF

and each head has its own little crown awww

the entrance to the sugar land is located in a wardrobe (narnia who?)

they only go to the sugar land right at the very end of the book, in the very last chapter

marie incapacitates the mouse king during the very first fight by throwing her shoe at him

also it never gets explained why the nutcracker (a guy from the real world) became prince of the sugar land

they marry at the end (she's 7 he's 15)

everyone - even droßelmeier who knows the nutcracker is real - treats marie as if she were crazy

marie and fritz have an older sister, louise. she never appears in any adaptation

the nutcracker is gifted to them by their father, not droßelmeier

marie's last name is stahlbaum (which is german for steel tree) (translation doesn't matter, it's just a cool name)

nutcracker and mouse king is peak german phantasy. it's a christmas fairytale that feels as if it jumped directly out of the mind of a child. this book is the reason everyone nowadays associates the nutcracker with christmas.

i haven't really gotten the chance to read/watch many adaptations of the nutcracker yet (maybe i'm scared of how they'll treat my girly) but here's what i can tell you:

alexandre dumas' translation/re-telling of the nutcracker is useless. he changed some things for absolutely no reason, added an unnecessary framing device, and it's a shame that tchaikovsky based his ballet on that thing.

tchaikovsky's ballet is sort of accurate? i haven't seen it in its entirety, only listened to the music, but everything in the first act is about what happens in the book (except that he lets marie/clara and the nutcracker fight against the mouse queen, who was the mouse king's mother in the book that died before the story started). the second act is only the sugar land, and almost every figure that gets a dance in there doesn't exist in the book (yes, that includes the sugar plum fairy. she wasn't in the book). the music slaps though.

barbie in the nutcracker is a good movie! not an accurate one, but i appreciate them making droßelmeier a woman. definitely watchable, but it takes more inspiration from the ballet than the book

the german tv adaptation of the book from 2015 is the most accurate i have seen as of yet. it includes everything - princess pirlepat, the nut krakatuk, droßelmeier being a weirdo, all the toys coming to life in the first night, the mouse king constantly appearing in marie's bedroom and threatening her. they also changed droßelmeier's first name to anselmus, which is the name of the main character of another of e.t.a. hoffmann's books! they also made the mouse king sexy and flirt with marie. which. is something. (she's aged up here)

jolanthe and the nutcracker is just the opera jolanthe with a few dance numbers from the nutcracker. nothing to see for nutcracker fans sadly. the staging i saw was boring like all hell, BUT! they gave the mouse king seven heads

nutcracker and the four realms (the disney film) is very dear to my heart and i don't care what anyone says. droßelmeier has his eye patch, louise exists, the main character is called clara but her mother was marie! who discovered the sugar land before clara did! it's not a good movie but i love it. also the nutcracker is a cutie and in a constant feud with the mouse king, even after they become allies.

i really want to read/watch more adaptations (including the ballet). on the top of my list is definitely that weird nutcracker movie that takes place in vienna and that made the mice singing and dancing nazis.

[turtlecleric]

I'm pretty sure I've gotten through All of your fics in the last couple of days and ohhhhh my god your writing is so fucking good. All of your characterizations are so on point, your narratives are so heartbreaking, your word choices are amazing - all of it is so GOOD. It's amazing so see someone actually writing for 2007, too. Personal favs: Just For Me, Not Your Fault, Doomsday (this fic is EVIL for my own sanity I have to pretend Raph explained everything to reader and it turns out okay off screen), Beat Past Tense, Sleepy (I have a massive crush on Rise Raph and I've been sad lately so this made me so, so happy), I See You, What Did I Do (again, heartbreakingly effective and makes me want to scream and write an unrealistically upbeat follow up, but that would betray the feeling of the original lol), Pretty Girl (I respect the shit of writing a genuinely terrifying fic and still having Donnie use the phrase "no probbles". Too many angst writers ignore that these boys are goofy as hell and you don't. I love you for it!), & What (I love when the reader dies for some reason??).

Idk I don't have a point to this ask but I fucking love your writing and I wish you the absolute best. If you could toss some more Rise Raph out I would be eternally grateful but you write everything so impossibly well that I will eat up all your work. Cheers!! 💕💌

Oh my goddddd whehhhhhh (<- me crying) thank you so much!! This is incredibly kind of you 🥺🥺🥺 I'm so glad you enjoyed!!

A fic of mine?? EVIL???? Never... 😈

I tried so hard to write a followup to What Did I Do, but I was only writing it because people asked for a second part rather than because I actually wanted to, so it never really got anywhere. Alas. I did try!

Yesss the boys ARE goofy!!!! I like writing and reading them with much darker and more serious personalities, but I also like it when it's just the few aspects that are different from their canon selves. They're silly lil guys!!! Who are willing to [redacted] because they are so obsessed with you! Isn't that great? :D

Oh man, 2007... such a good iteration fr. Nightwatcher Raph is so.......... hhhhhhhh I'm fine (lie). I had started something for him that Keisha reportedly thinks about a lot (hehe) but then I got distracted. Maybe I should work on it next... hm. Things to think about.

Rise!Raph is truly a sweetheart. If I didn't have such intense brain worms over Donnie and Leo, he'd definitely get the spotlight more often. But I'll try regardless!! For you and all the other Raph lovers hehe 🥰

Thank you again for such a sweet message!! I really, really appreciate it. I hope you're doing well, nonnie! 💕

[last-words-ofashootingstar]

The Garden

Chapter One

❥Prince!Park Seonghwa x fem reader

☆ feat. ateez, tomorrow x together, and others

➯a/n: i've had this idea in the drafts for a very long time and it's gone through a million iterations of characters and love interests and something about hwa in the skirt and sword clicked in my brain. i'm still recovering but this idea hit me hard and fast so i decided i'd put something out. i promise i'll stop starting new stories 😭 (shoutout to my gf again for helping this come to life)

✃"I will give you the happy ending you've always wanted."

✫彡wordcount: 2.7k

(✯◡✯)genre: historical fantasy au, drama

ಠ_ಠwarning/content: mentions of violence, anxiety, and loved ones passing, briefly proof read

⁂taglist: @stvrfir3 @tunaasan

MATURE UNDER CUT MDNI

𖢌

I hope this letter has found you well.

   The wheels crunch the gravel road. Horses hooves clap against the ground loudly. The waves crash just feet way. The sounds echo through the carriage.

I know it's short notice.

    The sun is casting down from a clear sky. The grass is healthy, green and lush. The ocean is vast and blue, foam from the waves clings to the pure white sand.

Taedemere is in jeopardy. We are at war. Lord Hwang declared it silently.

  It was a bumpy ride. A long one. But you don't seem to mind. You keep your sisters entertained and keep your brothers minds off of the impending war. Doing so, you can almost manage to distract yourself from your own future.

He's already posted spies. Spies in the castle. Gods knows how long they've been here.

  "The dragon fell from the tower. It's shrieks echoed through the kingdom!" You read with enthusiasm, looking at the twins who look back with wide eyes.

It's not safe for them here. We had to sneak them away through the tunnels.

  "Did the prince kill it?!" Seunghee asks, holding tight to your skirt. "He must have," Soojun is entranced by the story, "right?"

There was an attempt on my life. An attempt on the girls in the garden. Another on Kai and (Y/n). They are everywhere.

  You launch forward and scream, spooking the girls back into Kais leg. He's holding back a laugh as he pats their heads. "The dragon soars up from the fog, the princes sword still lodged into its scaly side!"

They are threatening us with no words at all. Lord Hwang is coming for the Taedemere crown.

   "Must you scare them with such stories?" Yeonjun sighs as he tugs the young girls back up to the seat, sandwiching himself between them and his brother.

You must forgive our absence. I have to keep the crown secure until we have a more solidified plan.

   You simply ignore him, "the creature perches itself on the ledge, it's jaws reach for the prince. He backs into the wall and draws his dagger. 'Foul demon! I send you back to hell!' he yells as he dives at it. They tumb-"

It's time.

  The carriage halts. You snap the book shut and lean back to get a look out of the foggy window. Yeonjun slides into the seat next to you and does the same. Kai strains his neck to look out of the window behind him.

Take care of our children. Our future.

  The gates are iron, shining like they were scrubbed everyday. The castle beyond them seems to be endless.

-King Choi Seungcheol

  As the gates open, you can feel your heart beat in your ears. Seunghee climbs on your lap and peeks out of the window, her eyes widen with every second she inspects the castle.

   Yeonjun seems to notice your dismay as the carriage grows ever closer.

He can feel it to. The feeling that your future is being written in stone with every inch you grow closer.

"When I last saw him," he hesitates as he gets your attention. "Prince Seonghwa seemed to be the same. He hasn't changed, he's still your old friend."

  You manage a nod with a small smile, and although he can tell it's forced; it helps comfort him. It doesn't comfort Kai, however. He never liked the idea of you marrying someone so far away. He still doesn't. You're attached at the hip.

   Everyone knows Choi (Y/n) doesn't want to marry for security or position. You made it very clear. It's a miracle that you've been able to avoid it this long. You figured if you put up enough of a fuss, your oldest brother would simply give up. But you are equally stubborn. And now he's King.

  A loud horn startles you, and you instinctively pull Seunghee closer. Your breathing hitches until you realize it's just the castle welcoming your entourage.

   As you come to a complete stop, all of your demeanors change. Yeonjun wipes his caring expression away and straightens his back. Kai lets go of Soojuns hand and fixes his blouse. The twins try their best to hide their awe at the beautiful and vast architecture.

And all you can do is hide your growing anxieties with a polite smile.

  The door squeaks as it opens. Yeonjun is the first one to exit. Soojun eagerly follows, and Seunghee is right behind her. The remaining siblings can hear the fuss from the bystanders outside.

   The middle siblings sit silence for a moment before he speaks up. "You don't have to be afraid."

You look up and let the faux smile fade the second you see his sincerity.

  "Don't I?"

  "No."He shakes his head. He's sure. His sister has nothing to be afraid of. Because- "if that Prince hurts you; I'll be the one to personally whip some senses into him."

You can't help the small chuckle that leaves your lips, and motion for him to leave the carriage first. He does, leaving you alone for a single moment before someone peeks in.

  "Your highness?" You smile at the man in uniform, standing slowly.

  "So impatient," you roll your eyes playfully and take his hand as he helps you step down. "Thank you, Yeosang."

  He bows slightly before leading you to your place in between your brothers and sisters. Your eyes are still adjusting to the bright light, but you can see the large doors open in front of you.

Yeonjun kneels, Kai follows his lead, you follow his, Seunghee following you; and Soojun stands upright just staring at the royal family until you notice and pull her down by the back of her neck without even lifting you head. You can all hear a small snort of laughter, and Yeonjun worries your family managed to already offend them until the King speaks.

"Please, rise."

The Choi family does so and Yeosang, the knight, steps forward. He bows deeply before turning to the siblings. "The Prince Choi Yeonjun. The Princess Choi (Y/n). The Princess Choi Seunghee. The Princess Choi Soojun. Huening Kai."

A man steps up from behind the other family, introducing them like Yeosang had just done for your family. "His Royal Majesty Park Kyujun. The Prince Park Seonghwa. The Princess Park Bongcha. The Princess Hayoon."

Your family bows, greeting him in unison, "Your Majesty." Yeonjun continues. "Thank you for your hospitality, sire. We are forever grateful."

Your eyes are fully adjusted when you rise from your bow. The king is older than you remember, but it has been a long time. Princess Bongcha has grown so much that you briefly wonder if you've found yourself time-traveled. There's an unfamiliar little girl beside her. The prince, your fiancé, has changed just as much as you have. You contemplate if he even remembers you. But those wonders are cleared when he addresses you directly.

"Princess (Y/n)," he has a bright smile and dark hair, that much has stayed the same. "Your highness," you smile back and lower your head.

  Whispers echo through the crowd that's held back by the guards: and it's becoming hard for you ignore them. You wrap your arm around Soojun when she cowers closer.

   "Please, come," King Kyujun motions for you all to follow him, and you gladly do.

    It's been a long journey, but it's only just begun.

𖢌

  King Kyujun leads the Choi family down the great hall and they can't help but marvel in its greatness. To the twins, it's a new world to be explored, coming up with their own stories that go along with the stain glass windows. To the older siblings, it brings back memories of childhood, a time when they didn't have such worries that plague their minds these days.

  Yeonjun can remember his first kiss behind a delicately painted pillar during the dead of night. Kai can remember learning a dance with his mother in this hall, the feeling of belonging. (Y/n) can remember running away from the tutor with Seonghwa beside her.

  As you look over to him, you notice it. "You still have that goofy smile," you've dropped the titles and politics. You're just a girl reunited with her child hood friend and fiancé. "I though you may have outgrown it."

  "I'm starting to think I may not," he laughs a bit.

   "I'd hope not. It's one of your few redeeming qualities," you joke, hiding your smirk as you look up at the new chandelier you pass under.

   He feigns a gasp, a hand on his chest. "I'll have you know that I have many good qualities."

  You hum, turning to him, "such as? Sparring with a squirrel?" He slaps a hand over his mouth to swallow his laughter. Your laughter rings free in the empty hall.

   "That squirrel was a menace! It startled me!" He argues in a low voice. "It had no right jumping next to me like that," he says with an exaggerated frown.

   "Unnie!" Soojun hollers, catching your attention quickly as you see that your little sisters have fallen behind. You make your way to them quickly, scolding them that they shouldn't yell in the presence of the King. "Look, Unnie," she points as she ignores your scolding.

  Your heart speeds before it stops abruptly, face to face with the intricate stained glass window. The sun shines through it, casting colorful lights on you all. It's a beautiful collage of colors. Every tiny piece is fit together perfectly to tell a story.

   You flinch when a hand is placed on your shoulder. The King apologizes, retracting his hand. "You probably don't remember this..." You shake your head and look back to the art. "I remember, sire."

He sighs deeply, and you can feel his energy apologizing even if he says nothing.

    "Come on, there's food waiting." The twins cheer quietly, following the King to the room where everyone else has vanished to.

    Seonghwa joins your side and looks at the window, basking in the colored light as he looks over the picture for what must be the millionth time. In his lifetime, he hasn't been able to find a single flaw.

  He looks down at you. Your skin is painted in a range of blue and yellow, pinks and greens. There's a patchy scratch on the majority of your cheek that's slipped his notice until now. Your eyebrows have screwed themselves up and your lip quivers.

   "Don't cry," he was essentially begging, "please, don't cry, (Y/n)."

You sniff in response, rubbing a stray tear away from your cheek. It's silent between you as you have a staring contest with the glass. "Fuck," you mumble as tears start to fall more often. "Ah, (Y/n)," he coos, moving to block your view of the heartbreaking image.

"I... It's just, I haven't seen them since they passed, Cheol put away their portrait... It breaks his heart to see them, but it breaks mine not to. I almost forgot what they looked like."

He doesn't say anything, simply opening his arms and letting you fill them. After so long, it feels the same. You're still shorter, but you've both grown. He's still strong, but now you caught up. You still turn your head to the left and place it on his chest. He still wraps one arm around your back and places the other on your shoulders. After all these years, you remember how secure he feels when your arms link around his waist. Even with the time that's passed, he can recall the fact you love when he rubs his thumb over your shoulder.

So much has happened to each of you and yet you both still have memorized each other's hugs. You used to be each others safe place. And though you're older and have met again in such pressing circumstances, it remains the same.

"Your highness," the familiar voice is just loud enough to startle you. "Yes, Yeosang?" You questions calmly, and it's a stark contrast to Seonghwas glare at the man. "Your brother asks for you, ma'am." You nod to dismiss him, and turn back to Seonghwa when he's gone.

"How do I look?"

"Look like you've been crying."

You tut your tongue and gently slap his shoulder with the back of your hand. He smiles as you do. "It'll be okay," he assures you as he fixes a stray from your neat hair, "it's dark in the dining hall."

He takes your hand and pulls you away from the image of your passed parents lazing in the garden.

𖢌

His footsteps are heavy. He's forcing his breathing to be slow. His heartbeat is going wild as he gets closer to the Kings quarters.

He steps in front of the guards and they knock on the double doors. "Prince Yeonjun, your majesty!" The Kings response is muffled by the walls, but clear enough for the guards to be confident in opening the doors.

Yeonjun steps in and looks over his shoulder as the doors close behind him, anything to keep his eyes away from King Kyujun. The doors slam shut and he finds a tapestry to inspect.

"Please, sit." He follows his voice and finds himself sitting across from the King on the large balcony, a round table littered in papers separates them.

"Thank you, your Majesty," he eagerly takes the wine he offers, hoping it would soothe his dry throat. He can't remember being so thirsty before the King called for him.

"How do you find your quarters?"

Yeonjuns lips are still occupied with the glass when the man speaks up, and he takes his time before speaking shortly. "Very nice, sire. Thank you."

"And your siblings?"

"I'm sure they're adjusting well, sire. We thank you, again, for your hospitality while we discuss our plans."

When he finally has the courage to look at the man, it calms his nerves. His crown is gone. His blouse is astray. His nose and cheeks carry a rosy hue from the frigid weather. He looks much more human.

"This is, of course, why I've asked you here."

"Of course."

Kyujun leans back into the wooden chair and lets out a sigh. "Once (Y/n) and Seonghwa are married, we will put our combined efforts against Lord Hwang. He's a vicious man," he tuts his tongue, annoyed at the mere mention of the Lord of Kherhai. "I've heard of the attacks on your family. I'm sorry for you loss and... rest assured, we will not let anything happen to you at this court."

    "Thank you, sire."

   "Your sister," he hesitates just a bit, "I've looked into quite a few people to help her plan the wedding. They'll meet with her tomorrow. I know she doesn't agree with the circumstances, but that doesn't mean it must be unpleasant."

   "I'm sure she will appreciate it, sire. She's been hesitant to do any planning on her own."

   Kyujun nods in response. He already knows this. He's kept close tabs on his only sons fiancée.

   "Sire, may I ask when the wedding is supposed to be taking place?"

"This week, if all goes well. Lord Hwang is no doubt sending men this way as we speak to get rid of the rest of the Choi family lineage." Kyujun doesn't seem to notice Yeonjuns pained expression, and if he does: he doesn't say anything about it.

   He, instead, hands the young man a map of Kherhai: diving head first into strategy.

𖢌

[sparkagrace]

Hiii! Not sure if you answer asks or not, but just wondering if you have any advice for new writers about writing Bucky? I’m so intimidated by the idea of writing such iconic characters and getting them wrong

Hello! Thank you for sending your ask - I very rarely get asks so I'm always happy to answer them! 🥰️

As for your question I truly feel like I'm not qualified to give any true direction as so many wonderful writers who write Bucky have different approaches, and I don't think it's possible to really get a character like Bucky wrong. I don't want to say that the way Bucky is written in the MCU is gospel because we know that his character is quite inconsistent between each project, but I think looking at Sebastian's interviews about the character (or other tumblr users' meta about Bucky) is a great way of finding that consistency and understanding of the character.

I truly think that the best way of writing Bucky (or any character), is to extrapolate the traits you best feel represent him and work with those. For example, I tend to write him a little cockier around strangers like he's shown to be in TFA (almost like putting up a front of charisma/confidence), but in the quieter moments when he's alone or with someone he's comfortable with like Steve, the softer and more anxious moments come through (because, in my head, he's a worrier).

For me personally, I think it depends on what POV I'm writing in. I'm assuming you're mostly asking about writing Bucky as the main protagonist/narrative, in which case I try to think about the type of Bucky I'm focusing on. The great thing about fanfic (and Marvel) is that you have so many different iterations of Bucky to work with! Most of my work has been AU, so it's slightly easier in some ways, especially if he's a modern Bucky and hasn't been through the same horrors as MCU!Bucky. Even in AU, there's so many different flavors and ways to approach him.

Anybody writing Bucky - whether for the first or 100th time - will always find new and interesting ways of presenting the character in the way they feel best, and I think that's incredible! There will always be at least one person that vibes with your interpretation of Bucky so I definitely think you should just write him and I'm sure you'll find the voice you want to use, and the one that will best fit the project you're working on!

I hope that was helpful! Good luck with it and, most of all, I hope you enjoy writing! 😘

[irregularcollapse]

I literally just found out that you’re a lesbian and I was a little surprised but now I have to gush about your writing because of it. I was telling my partner about Even In Another Time and how it’s practically one of the best romances I’ve ever read because it actually feels romantic, but I could never really put my finger on the difference between it and frequently recommended romance novels. I think it’s because you write about men and male characters like they’re genuinely attractive and beautiful while having very masculine traits, and as a lesbian it really makes the whole fic so much better. Laurent’s love for Damen is so much more real and they seem more like equals in their relationship because of them being attracted to all of each other. The emphasis put on Damen’s physical appearance but also his nature and his love for the people around him made it an insanely good reading experience. I thought about it for days, no joke.

Anyway, hope this wasn’t weird.

this ask and your tags on the library post did give me a bit of a chuckle, i can't lie, but thank you so much for sending this. i wanted to think carefully about a response, and i know you haven't really asked a question, but you've said some incredibly flattering, really kind things and i think it warrants some acknowledgement!!

i'm having a really rough time with writing confidence lately, despite like... writing degrees and literal decades of considered work on my craft (excepting the few years where i couldn't write due to my health) which i only mention because it's so funny how i can still have my confidence shaken when i've been previously pretty happy just sticking to my own thing and experimenting for fun and self-critiquing. so it's just really nice, in the place i'm at right now, to have someone like yourself come forward and share that you've recognised the effort i put into my work.

the slightly jokey response to your curiosity is that even when i'm writing queer men, spiritually i'm writing dykes. i think there's more shared in queerness than there are things which separate us, and queer masculinity is always beautiful to me in any iteration, so maybe that's what you see in my writing. queer femininity is as well, and hopefully you see some of that too.

the other thing is always my goal with writing romance generally, which is that it needs to be abundantly clear to the reader why these two people love each other. i know in fic it's sort of a given, because there's already investment in the characters from the reader and everyone is sort of bringing their preexisting expectations of the characters/ship to their reading, but i personally don't like to write fic with any presumptions. the love needs to be clear on both sides or it just doesn't work - and yes, this is absolutely about equality of attraction as well. i think equality in a relationship is the sexiest thing you can write into a romance, because it means that balance of power is malleable and can shift back and forth. fixed binaries are rarely sexy to me, and there are just so many ways that power and trust can be passed back and forth between a couple. that feels more truthfully queer to me, personally.

i think, when it comes to writing attraction that i don't necessarily personally have... well, i like the characters, and i respect them, and i don't think there's much that separates attraction anyway. but also, i wouldn't be doing my job as a writer if i didn't have respect for the attraction and the drive to inhabit the character rather than imposing my own perceptions onto them, you know? this is sort of connected to a lot of threads in my head, including wider fandom's reluctance to write women experiencing pleasure, and people being so damn bold about effectively saying they want women removed from these stories entirely, and the frequent portrayal of women as a threat to queer men, but that's all technically a different discussion and sort of a long bow. i get that some people are young and/or haven't worked through their internalised misogyny yet, but i don't think i could write queer men in a way that apparently achieves my goals and resonates if i didn't love and respect women so much. there's more i could say about that, but this is already very long and nonsensical.

anyway, thanks heaps for sending this <3 you're very kind, and a treasure, and it cheered me a lot and gave me much to think about!

[gr1ffins]

rereading it again cuz i'm a pervy loser but this right here...

“I can’t figure out if I’m doing something wrong,” You finally manage, voice thick. “You’re supposed to have the answers, aren’t you? Why can’t you tell me what to do next? What comes next?”

xydia u ate omg. this is bratty, but in a way i don't think i've seen in fics before. 'why aren't you helping me? why aren't u doing this for me?' what a cool iteration of a popular fic trope. me lowkey i can self insert so well here yes i WILL be having a wet dream.

ik u once said to never worry about being vulgar in ur asks but sometimes I'm grossed out by myself LMAOOO ur welcome to exile me :( <3

i’m throwing your other ask in here too!! (i’m not sure how to put a “see more…” on an ask, and i always feel bad flooding peoples dashes with the longer asks i get on here. i do treasure my long asks and want to put them all on my fridge and cherish them forever, but i know not everyone wants to see them😭)

so first i’ll go through the longer ask! since you sent it in first:

HELLO SWEETNESS!! i have been so well! just super stressed because my summer classes are tying up! i have the calc exam wednesday, and the final for that class friday (asshole move by the prof but what’s new). sorry i’ve been missing! i’m gonna try to at least repost things more regularly. and i saw your posts, ive been liking them and promising myself that i will read them when i get the chance to sit down properly. you might see me in your notifs under my main account with the blue yugi pic LMAO

SO HAPPY YOU ENJOYED TINY VESSELS! i put so much time into it, im relieved that it’s been well received. i never know with these nsfw fics😭 im extra relieved that the translation of griffins emotions through words and actions and especially the sex made sense and was coherent to his character. i think that’s what i struggled with the most tbh

that is the personality of the reader i’m writing for the mc of Crooked Teeth though! it won’t always be bold and precise, but i definitely want to write a character with enough grit to get under griffin’s skin. it’s a calculated front that i’m excited to explore in more depth that i think a lot of people will relate too. you’ll see, trust the process!

all the kinks in that fic were entirely self indulgent. lowkey letting griffin know you like being spanked is SO dangerous bc it’s the only form of pda he tolerates. he won’t hold your hand in public but trust he has no reservations playing a game of whoop ass in front of hermes. always be on guard you never know what he’s plotting

the creampie was for you🙂‍↕️ i remember, trust

many parts of this fic were tailored towards what people have expressed enjoying! the “dear” comments were for el, the creampie was for you, the bickering was for circi, the conflict towards the beginning was for scrumdiddly, and so on. i really do listen to what you guys tell me and try to make it count. we’re such a small community and im so grateful for all the support i’ve gotten, i like to try and give back where i can

you have been added to the taglist for sure!! crooked teeth will be the next piece i work on, and i will hopefully have the first chapter out sometime in late july once i’ve gotten majority of the chapters prewritten! in the meantime i think i might open headcanon requests so i can continue providing content, but i’ll have to see!

bratty reader… i’m glad someone sees my hidden propaganda agenda. i love brats. it’s a brats world. always project yourself onto the bratty tendencies i give my reader characters.

AND NEVER CONTAIN YOUR FREAK💔 sometimes i have to laugh in astonishment at the asks or comments i get, but remind yourself who wrote the fic in the first place and all doubts should melt away. you won’t out-freak me you can’t. if i posted all the ideas i really wanted to explore with griffin i would be publicly executed i swear