#<- not officially canon but a fun concept i like to rotate

[sparky-is-spiders]

So by the time they even meet Amaldyne will 1) have preconceived judgements (despises him) and 2) be in so deep with Eityr that neither of them have room for close relationships of any sort in their lives, but I think there’s an alternate universe where Leoshgon and Amaldyne date. It would HAVE to happen after her family dies and while Leo has the sword (aka when Amaldyne is enough of a control freak and Leo is at his most useful). But like. It definitely COULD.

I imagine it would be much like the Overseer’s relationship with Leo in terms of the dynamic, but the internal forces driving it would be different. The Overseer enjoys control and possession for its own sake. He likes that one of the most powerful forces currently at play belongs to him. Leoshgon is a tool and a possession, and a trophy, but the love goes beyond that. He’s a person who isn’t magically bound but chose to stay anyway, and the Overseer loves THAT most of all (I imagine some of that love fades after Leo loses the sword, which I think Leo would interpret as the Overseer seeing him as a tool, but is more the Overseer wanting a partner who chooses him). I think Amaldyne would lean less “posession” and mor “objectification.” Leoshgon would be, to her, an extension of herself and her values. Leo is in her corner. Leo is fighting her battles. For her cause. For HER. She loves that Leo never disagrees with her (or at least that he always sides with her in the end), that he’ll do anything for affection and validation. And even if parts of Leo want to be his own person (want to be a person) he loves having somewhere to belong and someone to love him, even if it means being a doormat for someone who’s love is very much conditional.

And I think that’s why, if Leo was in a relationship with Amaldyne instead of the Overseer when he gave up the godslayer sword, she would kill him for the betrayal when the Overseer would keep him for coming back at all.

[nonbinarv]

ask game! <3

loop (isat) - 5, 12, 23, 25

ena (ena) - 2, 3, 4, 13

absol (pkmn) - 1, 6, 23, 24

ena

2. the basis for her design is a cool concept :o

3. does the end of temptation stairway count /hj

4. hmm. pokémon bc i have made a team for her before. she would find fun there i think. a strain of joy she recognizes

13. 🎭. yes this is just my ena tag on my kin blog but like am i wrong,

absol

1. i forgot when or how i really ended up attaching to absol in particular but like. the pokédex entries… it just wants to keep people safe but is scorned for it… it's really just the black cat of the pokémon universe and i want to hug it. also i know people call its design edgy but i consider it more majestic than anything ngl. idk i just want it to be happy

6. could use a hug

23. look at its little tail wags… its paw movements… ;w;

24. …hm not sure tbh? design-wise mayyybe joshua twewy. mega absol in particular. it's just the Vibes™

loop (under the cut for spoilers)

5. so technically there's an official playlist for them i haven't listened to yet- but the very first one that comes to mind is sundial by lemon demon thanks to this comic. since that's more of an overall siffrin song than specifically loop though (it's on my kin playlist too which has a lot of songs that overlap for obvious reasons), there's also upside down & inside out by ok go and you are getting a ramble on discord about my logic later tonight owo

12. okay okay hc time. so the thing is siffrins are not very subtle creatures right. so i think that just like odile was suspicious of the time loops before having enough info to really put the pieces together, she'd be suspicious as all hell of loop in a post-canon scenario where they join the family. while they'd still keep their façade up there'd be all these little things that she can and would notice. especially considering her own guilt that she expresses in act 6 for not pushing more to find out what was wrong she would confront them so quickly about it and they would not react well because in addition to pineapples siffrins are also extremely allergic to being vulnerable. also this odile may be a near perfect copy but not quite, not theirs, a complete stranger wearing her face- loop wouldn't go full act 5 but they'd definitely ramp up their playful exterior out of desperation and flee.

odile ends up the first to know (besides siffrin of course) after siffrin is 👀 at them and loop has to experience the other side of self to self therapy momence. self-recognition through the other (derogatory but necessary bc if siffrin has to start opening up to the others then so does loop it's not fair for only one siffrin to). maybe going the 'if you got to tell them about my time loops i get to tell them about this if you don't' type thing but not in like a manipulative or getting back at them way more a 'i know you'll never actually say it otherwise but you do have to come clean eventually' thing if that makes sense. bc how are they supposed to start healing from it if they won't even admit it

she takes it surprisingly well; she'd only push to a certain point (not as necessary to like with siffrin and his wish, the universe isn't breaking over it) and let loop know that while she may not be their odile they're still a part of the family all the same and that she's there for them too not just siffrin. may ramble more @ you later on discord about how i perceive loop's relationships with the rest of the group bc this question has me rotating them in my mind

23. not a favorite emotionally bc they deserve better but also ough. the moment of their old appearance shining through before the battle. and this pic when they talk about their second wish, stuck in it for so long that they just break and want someone to help them, for it all to stop… it's gonna kill me when i get their act 6 stuff. it's the emotional impact of it

25. initially an absolute bastard. not quite hatred but also damn "have you tried not dying?" fuck that y'know. they're still very much bastard but now it's like. i get it sdgfkjhl i can't say anything really. i want to give them a hug because they're just as touch-starved if not even more so. old friend start again siffrin continuing to go through hell, again of their own making…

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[hankwritten]

TFComics Rewrite

I am currently plotting an outline for a TFComics, and I want to get my thoughts about fixes to canon and possibly get feedback. Since this is a rewrite there’s really no *spoilers* or anything, so I’m willing to answer all questions about what I plan to do. Also some characters I’m not so sure about how I want to retool them, so if your have ideas for your fav let me know!

Disclaimer:

This rewrite is intended to critique the content/choices made in the construction and telling of the Team Fortress 2 comic series. It is not a personal attack on the artists/writers/directors or any of the creatives that made contributions to this series, nor is it meant to substitute or replace the official release. This work is transformative in nature, and relies on an understanding of the source material to be understood. TF2 and its characters belong to Valve.

TFCR is working on the assumption that the audience has read the original comic, and as such will skip over scenes and plot points that are unchanged from the original. I don’t think it needs to be said, but this fanfiction will not make sense if you are not familiar with the source.

I also recognize that there are strengths within the comic’s writing and weaknesses within my own. Namely, that Valve writers are gods in the realm of comedy, and I’d rather not try to match them in the regard. As such, I will state up front that these will not be as funny as the TFComics. That is not to say there won’t be jokes (either ones transplanted from the source or some of my own) or that the tone of this will be terribly grimdark, only that my focus will be on improving story structure and character development as those are what appeal to me.

 The Broad Strokes

The goal of TFCR is to give a more engaging story for all the mercenaries we know and love, as--let’s face it--the TF2 mercs are side characters in their own damn story. These are some of the planned improvements.

There will be reason for each of the mercs to actually be there. As it stands, the motivations for almost every character besides Pauling and Saxton Hale are vague and unsatisfying. We’d usually say something along the lines of “money” for hired killers, but clearly Scout doesn’t even know if they’re getting paid, and some of the other characters are even worse. The hunt for the Australium is, therefore, boring. MacGuffins usually are, but at the very least the characters should care about the item even if the audience doesn’t. This work aims to give each of the nine mercs a motive and a reason to be in the story instead of just replaceable joke dispensers.

Explain what “Team Fortress” means, and how it relates to RED and BLU. Long and short: the nine mercenaries we see on the team are not from either RED or BLU but rotate between the two, and were the individuals selected to fight the robots. That means all things do happen to all characters. As Valve pretty much goes with “whatever is funniest at the time”, it’s very hard to make a cohesive theory about “where the hell is BLU team?”, but I’ll do my damndest. We’ll also examine Team Fortress’s relationship with the other capital T Teams, and why they’re considered the “rejects” of the bunch.

Comics 1 & 2 will be removed from the timeline as they serve no purpose, only taking what needs to be known about the plot’s setup and jumping straight to A Cold Day in Hell.

We will introduce the Classic Mercs right away so they can generate threat and play against the TF mercs when they do actually meet head to head.

We will not be killing off Gray Mann. (Not preemptively anyway.) In fact, there will be more focus on him and Olivia as villains facing off against the Admin, providing her foil as the TF2 and TFC mercs provide foils for each other.

I considered waiting until the final comic was out to begin working on this, but that may never happen. Jay Pinkerton said he may reveal what plot they had in store eventually, but considering it took Half Life over a decade to get the “I was once a Valve writer but my NDA has expired and now I can go buck wild” treatment, I’m not holding my breath. The main reason I wanted to do this is that the Administrator’s motivations are not interestingly foreshadowed, to the point where there aren’t even any good fan theories out there. That said, WritingDispenser and Riddle of the Sphinx helped come up with a pretty fun one, which was actually the inspiration for me to get off my butt and start plotting this.

There will be no queerbaiting. This refers both to HeavyMedic (which has been simultaneously used as wink wink nudge nudge joke many times and as encouragement for fans to play their stupid hat game) as well as lesbian Pauling (since femme lesbians are the preferred method for front facing LGBT representation across almost all media, but video games especially). If you need to understand why lesbian Pauling is an issue, Sarah Z coined the term “queercatching” in order to describe word of god confirmations on characters sexualities that are not followed up on in the text. I recommend the full video on it.

Due to the importance of immortality in the theming of the comics, respawn will not be a thing. Deaths we think should have happened previously will be explained as close calls, or that Medic can heal a short time after death. Medic and Scout’s deaths will be cut in the story itself, as after Sniper died and came back, them doing the same thing kinda lost their punch.

Scout

There will be no ScoutPauling hints. It doesn’t make sense to give screentime to this relationship because Valve obviously doesn’t think it’s going to go anywhere so why make Scout turn down advances from other hot women? I mean I get Expiration Date was a Thing but it feels like Scout’s whole motivation shouldn’t be reduced down to chasing a girl who doesn’t like him back.

He’s here because he lost his life’s savings in bad investments and needs the money. That’s it. Which is still somehow more than his canon motive which is question mark question mark question mark

He, Soldier, Spy, Demo, and Pyro all start the adventure with Miss Pauling.

Engages with Heavy on a genuine level when they go to collect him, Heavy doesn’t blow him off when he tries to level about dead dads.

There will be no DadSpy reveal. The way Spy treats Scout has never been “deadbeat dad feels bad about abandoning his kid” but more “this is someone I would kill without a second thought if I felt like it” which makes his reveal in comic 5 feel very disingenuous. I don’t think Valve even had this plotline in mind until comic 3, as #2 still has Spy seeming only to care about Scout’s Ma and not Scout himself. It also makes “seduce me!” retroactively weird.

Uhhh hooks up with Zhanna. This one isn’t critical I just think it’s funny.

Soldier

Soldier is going to be the Ur example of the Admin not treating her people well, as we’re going to lean into the whole “Soldier was only mildly messed up until the whole lead poisoning” thing.

He’s here because he’s blindingly loyal to the cause. He’s actually going to very little from canon because of this actually.

Might be the reason Team Fortress has a reputation of being the lower tiers of the Teams, but that doesn’t mean he’s damn good at his job. Fatal flaw is that he’s unstable, and even though the courthouse plotline won’t be in this fic, it should be noted that he actually does cause problems for the other protagonists due to his short temper. He’s a risky asset, but still essential.

There will be a minor explanation for the WAR! Comic, but I think that’s better saved for Demo’s analysis.

Pyro

Pyro is the character you could cut entirely from the comics and have the least change. Now, they’re going to be Pauling’s right hand. Let me explain.

Engineer and Pyro are implied to live together, and Pyro doesn’t have anything better to do than go with Engie after Team Fortress is disbanded. Rather than having a reveal, we will see some of what is going on with the Admin and friends early on, and see what leads up to her sending Miss P the note that kicks off the whole plot. However, while Engie needs to stay and look after her, Pyro’s skills aren’t useful here, and they are sent as a direct messenger to help Pauling.

They’re loyal, and unlike Soldier rarely mess up orders. They’re also partially mute, making them ideal for handling sensitive info. Pauling trusts them to handle the burning of “Elizabeth’s” paper trail.

Will be using they/them in the narrative voice, but other characters will refer to them as he/him. I considered going with it/its because that’s bubbled up in popularity again, but ultimately I decided against it.

We’ll get glimpses to their train of thought, but like the comics they will remain virtually silent.

Demo

Demo’s role in the cast is going to be very similar to Spy’s. The events of WAR! involved him nearly dying and Soldier taking the win, and he’s very bitter that after all those events *apparently* mercs can just be switched around teams willy nilly and don’t have to kill each other anymore. (As the audience, we know this is because the Admin found out the “make them so angry they won’t ask questions” wasn’t a long-term viable solution, and instead brought TFI forward as a neutral third party that was pretending to mediate the gravel wars.) But Demo’s suspicious, and is only along because he really has been miserable since he lost his job.

This conflict will eventually come to a head, more on that in the Sniper section.

Is fairly forgiving with his teammates. Doesn’t like Sniper but I’m willing to drop a little angst during that submarine scene. Is glad to see Medic actually. Here to be some glue to hold this merry band together.

The Eyelander will not be forgotten after 2 comics because I love this character concept and I think it was underutilized.

Drunk jokes will be kept to a minimum. What I liked about WAR! and Bombinomicon was that it took Demo and showed that they knew how to make him funny without making him one note, which they sort of did in the early TFComics but stopped in the later ones in favor of him….being asleep for the whole plot. I promise 100% awake Demo in my rewrite.

Demo likes Pauling on a personal level, but has trouble reconciling her with his feelings on TFI.

Doesn’t get knocked out by moonshine because. Seriously? Poisoning the Demoman with alcohol? In what world does that work.

Heavy

Not too much to change. Scout doesn’t accompany him when he goes to look for the secret Australium cache, and he engages with Mags and Saxton (which will be when the audience finds out what they’ve been up to) and actually cares about what’s going on with them. He thinks Darling is up to something. Which he is, he’s attempting to unseat both Gray and Helen due to long family history.

Will at least mention Medic. Their reunion falls a little flat since it mostly relies on Meet the Medic for context, as they don’t really interact in the comic. There can be a bit of a flashback to what it was like as all these mercs broke up.

I know uhhh Valve seems to think found family is really dumb, and that these murderers could ever like each other is silly or something, but the mercs do? Like each other? For the most part anyways. 

Bronislava and Yana come alone for adventures, not just Zhanna. Again, no real reason, but sometimes I get to have tacky fanfic stuff in my own fanfic because I Wanna.

Engineer

Engie ruminates on his family history of allowing all this bullshit to happen and just kind of shrugging. Basically Moss’s analysis of the Conagher themes.

Has put a lot of time, sweat, and tears into BLU and now TFI, isn’t willing to let it fall now, even if Admin is basically living on borrowed time. He’s doing this because of the ‘ole sunk cost fallacy.

Also we get to see more of Pauling and Admin’s relationship through his eyes.

Medic

Congrats on being the one merc with an actual arc, Medic! As a reward, you will not be changed much.

I’m actually going to use Medic’s section to say that the Classic mercs will be referred to by their first names in order to differentiate them, and we’ll get little previews of what they’re like from Medic’s perspective before we actually see them fight Team fortress. The battle at the submarine will be more of a fight in this sense, working it out so it seems like surrender is the only option after Sniper is killed.

Final fight with Cheavy will be...not blocked so awkwardly. I mean this is now a textual medium so my work is already halfway done, but still the pacing is so weird. Shudder.

Sniper

These are the big guns. Most changes, even more than Demo. He’s been actually hunting for New Zealand/the Australium cache on his own, and doesn’t want Pauling interfering, saying for a he knows she could have been the ones to kill his adoptive parents.

(She hasn’t, but the Admin did actually order them killed in an attempt to stop Sniper because she thought she could prevent the exact thing that is going on right now which is that Sniper is considering trying to get at it.)

Sniper doesn’t know this, but Pauling, Demo, and Spy eventually convince him to share his findings and help them get to New Zealand.

Spy

Similar to Demo but is less conflicted about it. He knows just because he likes someone doesn’t mean he won’t have to kill them later. 

Spy knows about who killed Sniper’s parents, and tells Demo, sort of as a test to see where his loyalties lie. He also knows that Pyro is Pauling’s confidant for certain things.

Demo questions him about what he’s doing here, whose side he’s really on. But you know. Spy is Spy and he was never really on anyone’s side but his own. When it comes down to it, it might be exactly as Scout thinks: that he’s ditched them all and run off when he had the opportunity. But, big damn hero, comes back in the end.

He’s here mainly to “keep an eye on things.” Also maybe because his gf asked him to keep an eye on her son :)

[lycorogue]

Fanfic ask meme: U!

Aww, Cy! And you said *I* ask the hard questions…

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Well, peeps, IT’S PROMOTION TIME!!!!!(Fair warning, these are going to be in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, sorry if you’re looking for a good author outside that fandom.)

1.    @baneismydragon, you can find her on AO3 here.

First of all, Bane has a LOT of stories, and it’s fantastic to find an author with a lot of content to consume. Secondly, the stories have fun and unique concepts with them, and a nice level of snark. I love me some playful snarkiness. Plus, just such amazing fluff. Something about Bane’s writing voice always gets my heart racing during the action or romance scenes. Wonderful! My personal favorite is “And The Name For Your Order Is?”

2. @edendaphne, you can find her on AO3 here.

I was first drawn to her - excuse the pun - because of her illustrations. She was doing collabs with some great writers, such as Maerynn, and her illustrations always added an extra layer to the writing. But then Eden started writing on her own, and it’s just as fantastic. In her first solo story - Discordant Sonata - actually includes a sort of playlist within the writing, since the story focuses on music. She starts each scene with a link to mood music, and it really enhances the experience.

3. @midnightstarlightwrites, you can find her on AO3 here.

I actually found her via fanart drawn for her story Smoulder, and it is very much deserved. She tends to write aged-up ML stories so she can also include more adult themes. And let me tell you, she’s suuuuuper good at getting that heart racing with some steamy scenes ranging from major pent up tension up to softcore foreplay. The humor is also pretty on-point as well, which is great way to break the tension.

So those are officially my three, but you didn’t really think I’d end there, do you?

4. @thetauruspixie, you can find her on FFN here, and she’s starting to build up stories over on AO3 here.

She tends to write darker themes in her stories. She also has multiple projects going at the same time, so it’s fairly easy to find one that you’ll like and will update fairly regularly. She also writes epics, so you can enjoy your favorite story for a while. The one I’m currently following is Chat Vert, which is about Chat Noir’s jealousy once Luka comes onto the scene.

5. @buggachat, you can find her on AO3 here.

I started following her here on Tumblr after seeing the wonderful mini-stories she shared via her fancomics. Just like with Bane, Bug has fantastic comedic timing and just the right level of snark. Bug is still fairly new with the non-visual storytelling element of fanfics, but the concepts are so delightfully unique and truly delves into character exploration. I’m following her multi-chapter story Curiosity Wrote a Comic, which explores the emotional ramifications to Marinette and Adrien reading a fancomic that takes a fairly dark turn.

6. @chibisunnie, you can find her on AO3 here.

Finally moving away from my fandom, I met Chibi when we collabed on a (sadly abandoned) “Hey, Arnold!: The Jungle Movie” fanscript as a means to help encourage Nickelodeon to greenlight the project. Since then, we’ve kind of moved away from each other’s fandoms, but I still love reading Chibi’s works. Even though I don’t know the stories or the characters, I’m still emotionally invested. She focuses on the sort of background couples of stories; the ones that tend to be forgotten about in fanfics. She also keeps her writing fairly clean, so it’s just wonderfully wholesome. Finally, she usually focuses on gay relationships, including the struggles of finally coming out of the closet. Along those lines, I really enjoyed her Andi Mack story “Aren’t You Happy For Andi?” (It does include a spoiler from the season 2 premiere) 

7. @cyhyr, you can find her on AO3 here.

Even though she’s the one who asked, how could I forget my girl Cyhyr? Just like Chibi, Cy doesn’t write in any of my fandoms, but that’s fine. She writes the characters in a way that you don’t need to know the fandom to care about the story. The characters are real and raw and in such need of cuddles all the time. She does like her some hurt/comfort. She mostly writes in the FFXV fandom, rotating between the Big Four: Ignis, Prompto, Noctis, and Gladiolus. I think my favorite story is Choice, mostly because of the subversion of the Soulmates trope.

Now, can I be a little self-indulgent here and include myself? Does that sound arrogant? I dunno, I just think you should enjoy your own work, ya know? “Write for you” and all that?

You can find me on FFN here, and on AO3 here (and if you’re truly desperate, I even post on DA here).

Of course, my pride and joy is my first completed multi-chapter story: Peeping Tomcat. However, I also really love my one-shot Build Your Own Luck, simply because this is now my headcanon as to where The BraceletTM came from. My Lukanette story I Was Thinking Of You also has a special spot in my heart.

I tend to write as close to true-to-show as possible, and I’ve had a lot of reviews telling me it’s like reading an episode script. I am kind of obsessive with keeping the characters as in-character as possible, and keeping the facts as canonical as I can.

OKAY! Long post is long! Thanks for the ask, Cyhyr! And thanks for everyone for indulging me. Love you all, and feel free to drop me an ask.

[onceuponamirror]

11 questions game

tagged by @raptorlily, who prepared 11 questions for her tag-ees:

1. The core four + Kevin and Cheryl are attending a literary character party. What costume does each of them wear? Bonus: What costumes are the Southside Serpent characters wearing?

OH BOY. well, betty is elizabeth bennett. her instinct is obviously be nancy drew, but then decides she wants to play dress up a little bit. she tries valiantly to get jughead into a darcy couples costume, but his instinct is to just be sal paradise because he won’t have to buy anything for the costume. 

betty tells him that if she’s not going to be nancy, he should go outside the box too. he then decides on dressing like the titular mummy from jane loudon’s the mummy! (he’s still a weirdo, remember)

veronica goes as daisy buchanan if not purely for the extravagant opportunity to dress like a flapper, archie comes as jim hawkins from treasure island, cheryl bucks expectation and attends as a female robin hood (she already loves archery), and kevin is absolutely sherlock holmes. he’d look so natural in a trenchcoat!

2. What extracurricular activities are Reggie, Ethel, Fangs, Midge, Toni and Sweetpea involved in?

besides sports, reggie’s extracurricular activity is definitely selling ground up oregano to middle schoolers and telling them it’s weed. 

ethel is canonically a drama geek and that’s valid, but she’s also probably in band. i’m gonna go with....flutist. 

fangs is also canonically a drama geek and a regular geek (less we not forget jughead used a larping club to lure fangs out of a self-imposed suspension) so i honestly am just waiting for him and kev to start up their dungeons and dragons club. (wow they are perfect for each other tho??? a dorkier bughead)

midge (RIP) was probably into 4-H bc i can’t get the concept of “klump farms” out of my head. she seemed like a genuinely sweet person who also was a regular teenager and was a cheerleader and probably volunteered at hospitals too idk 

toni wanted to get laid so bad she became a cheerleader. or, ok, seriously i mean my headcanon is like, it’s bring it on, where toni was into gymnastics and dance in a v serious way but southside didn’t offer any curriculars that would allow her to do that, and she couldn’t afford gymnastics herself. turns out the closest thing riverdale has is cheerleading, which’ll do. 

sweet pea is probably the lowkey nerdiest of them all. i was joking earlier that he’s probably secretly into anime, but more seriously: feel like he’d go for basketball officially and also probably has an interest in engineering. i mean, that interest began with pipe bombs, but. yanno. ya dreams gotta start somewhere!!!

3. Give me three of your favourite headcanons for Reggie

had a crush on betty until high school

does his dumbest shit for his dad’s attention, painfully unsubtle about it

is cripplingly afraid of being alone, which is why he surrounds himself by teammates at all times and/or can’t get past the pack mentality. has difficulty being vulnerable in spite of all that, can’t be honest with himself and/or with others. 

4. It’s Saturday night and the core four are all hanging out by themselves at home. What is each of them up to?

betty is listening to the memory palace podcast while laying on her bed, feet crossed up in the air, doing her homework. cleaned her room earlier. wants to call polly. she doesn’t. stays up till two am for no reason other than her room is warm and full of golden light and it’s the only time the house is quiet. plugged back in her old nightlight, half out of spite after polly nearly threw it out, half genuinely. sometimes she thinks she’s still afraid of the dark. the irony isn’t lost on her. 

jughead is working on his novel, american crime story is playing on the TV in the background, a bag of popcorn slowly rotating in the microwave. the trailer is empty and he chooses to think his dad is at work. emails his sister. he doesn’t remember when, but they’ve stopped talking about their mom. his tattoo itches. toni told him not to scratch at it. 

veronica is drinking chamomile tea on a tray, scrolling through pinterest and making a european vacation mood board for the post-graduation trip she’d like to take with her friends. she wants to surprise them with it, all-expenses paid. she resists the urge to book flights years in advance. browses the barney’s website. doesn’t know why she gets such a thrill from online shopping. isn’t sure why she can’t stop. 

archie is in the garage, his fingers strumming aimlessly over the strings of his guitar. wonders why his mother can’t be a lawyer here in riverdale. isn’t sure if music was ever his own, or something he thought he should want, because he didn’t want to work construction. or worse, because a woman found it attractive. brought his history textbook out with the intention to study. doesn’t. practices wonderwall, even though jughead laughs whenever the song comes upon. 

5. What’s your headcanon for Jughead’s hat? Why does he wear it? What’s the origin story?

his mom made it when he was a kid, and growing up in threadbare clothes donated down the line of serpents or thrift store finds, it was the one thing that was truly his---made for him. with love. 

being scrawny and quiet and outgrowing his pants too fast to replace them already set him apart. might as well let the hat seal the deal. 

6. What is your Riverdale guilty pleasure ship? One that you don’t necessarily ship in canon but wouldn’t mind reading fanfiction for?

don’t think i have one, honestly? 

7. Can Chuck be redeemed in your eyes? Any caveats or things that would need to happen to make this count?

yeah, it’s really interesting answer this question post 2x18, but---yes, i definitely think chuck can be redeemed. i never wanted him to be a villain in the first place, for so, so many reasons. 

i mean, comics!chuck was a deliberate bucking of specific stereotypes that riverdale slid right back into without seeming to think about what it was they were saying by doing that. (related readings: x) and then the way they did it---ack. 

outside of the vacuum of comics vs. show, i think that where we’re at culturally, we’re really asking men to unlearn their toxic masculinity. especially of adolescents who are still growing and changing---and what chuck did was certainly part of the vacuum of male privilege/toxic masculinity, but he faced consequences  for that, and then he acknowledged it. actively has announced he wants to change, and i genuinely believe it at this point. 

and while i wish chuck wasn’t the character they’re doing this with in the first place, “cancelled culture” can be really frustrating because it’s way too binary. it undermines the growth and self-crit we want people to be doing. 

obviously, it doesn’t apply unilaterally, some people are abusive or cruel or malicious to the point where they lose their ability to profit off of it, and rightfully so---but with a character like chuck, whose main crime appeared to just be slut shaming, i actually appreciate a narrative where a male character owns up to how that was bad, why it was wrong, and how they’re going to change. 

8. What is a storyline you’d like to see most explored on the show?

just---more familial dynamics. i cannot wait for gladys and JB, i think that’s going to be so meaty and tragic and emotional in the right ways. i want more of polly and betty’s relationship, and/or how betty feels watching her sister run away constantly, or just their dynamic in general. more of archie and fred navigating dreams vs. reality. i kinda don’t love veronica’s parents tho, and i’m not sure where they could take that in a way that i enjoy. 

9. What is your favourite Riverdale fanfic trope or cliché?

pining, man. just. pining. 

10. What is existing scene or storyline would you rewrite to better suit your tastes?

HAH. how much time do we have 

BONUS:  Archie starts a band. He settles on ‘The Archies’ but what were some of the other suggestions for the band name? Name three songs that show up on their debut album.

jughead’s suggestion is: red drum, red drum and he thinks it’s hilarious

three songs: midnight ride, smoking gun, and can’t fly

my 11 questions for my taggees 

1. which twist did you least see coming? genuinely. 

2. we all know riverdale loves hopscotching through genre elements (true crime, musical, grease, etc), and sometimes it’s too much, but which has been your favorite? what other ones would you like to see from the show?

3. riverdale does dirty on its secondary characters. what storylines would you give to reggie, kevin, josie, etc? or, what would you like to see for them in s3? anything you thought the show really fumbled? did right?

4. what are your backstory headcanons for sweet pea, fangs, and toni?

5. what’s your theory on the old riverdale riots?

6. it’s the ten year high school reunion. where did everyone go to college? (core four + the secondary pals) what’s your headcanon for their future careers? who’s still together? who wishes they were still together? who hooks up unexpectedly in a storage closet? 

7. what’s a storyline you just didn’t buy this season?

8. any headcanons for the riverparents? like, how they grew up, who they were in high school, why they went the directions they did?

9. what’s one trope that you’d wish the show would do? or something you wish you saw more in fic?

10. thoughts on reggie? will he ever be fleshed out? will it make him more of a villain, or less of one?

11. if you could have anything happen in s3, what would it be?

and i tag @village-skeptic @stillscape @sylwrites @lessoleilscouchants @myrmidonofmelodrama @heartunsettledsoul @raptorlily (tagging back, bc i want your answers on these too!) @theatreofexpression​ @imreallyloveleee​ 

or anyone who wants to answer!!! just tag me, i wanna see yer answers. these games are fun