#This will be confusing if you haven’t read any warrior cats

[apprehensiveacorn]

Guys, I’ve written a thingie for my warrior cats au. Hell is deep and hot as creation.

Anyways, I tried writing it in past tense like the books are, but I think I’d actually kill someone if I had to do that, so present tense it is! Like, seriously, someone could hold a gun to my head and say “write your fic in past tense” and I’d literally shoot myself, with my own gun. That is how great my shame is, here

ANYWHO X2, I wrote an Owen & Rasbi interaction! Meetin’ at the border at midnight to talk w/ your homeboy abt life and stuff, sweet sweet fluff, no angst here!

My secret past as a Warrior Cats kid is being revealed. I used to write so much fucking warrior cats, y’all have no idea. I was OBSESSED

Names

Owen - Fernspark

Rasbi - Monarchwing

Apo - Minnowbark (Mentioned)

Quick Rundown

Lake territories <3

Leaf-bare is the cat word for Winter

Moon is the cat word for month

Starclan is Cat Heaven

Halfclan relationships? BAD

Close halfclan friendships? BAD

Halfclan kits in your clan? OSTRACIZE THEM

Words: 1,356

Holemabier - The Arcadian Wild

Fernspark, carefully, noses along Thunderclan’s river border, watching the trees for any sight of his friend. He’s careful with his paws, and makes sure his tail isn’t brushing against the ground and making a racket. The soft moonlight filters down from the sky, streaming through trees and falling freely on the moors. He can see his breath in the late leaf-bare air.

In an arbitrary spot, a spot that would rise no alarm to any other cat, he crosses a shallow portion of the river, as quick as his paws can take him. On the other side, he shakes himself off, staring at his soaked paws in distaste.

The purr Monarchwing starts up at his misery is as loud as thunder, the cat padding out from a thicker bush, her movements mildly disturbing the thinner layer of snow resting on top.

“The river fun this moon?” They tease, giving a friendly touch of their nose to Fernspark’s cheek.

Playfully, Fernspark bares his teeth, lazily swiping at her shoulder with sheathed claws. The Thunderclan warrior escapes his reach fast, stepping away to bare her own teeth in jest as well. “I feel like I’ve fought one too many wars to get caught so easy by a Windclan cat,” she goads, tail waving lazily, fur flat and still keeping up that steady purr. Unthreatened, not angry.

Exasperated, Fernspark tries to groom his wet fur, a low purr in his chest as he grumbles, “If I get sick because of this, Monarchwing, and I happen to die first, I’m going to haunt you in Starclan.”

“Oh, no,” Monarchwing dispairs, “What would I do without you bothering me?”

“Oh, that’s it.” Fernspark pounces on them, playfully bowling them over into the forest, starting a play fight, as if they were two apprentices having fun after a long day of training. As Fernspark nips and backs away and steps over foliage, he is reminded that, under normal circumstances—if Windclan and Thunderclan had never been at war—he, as a Windclan cat, would be tripping over vines and breaking sticks and running through thorn bushes, because in no world should a cat who lives in the moors be so comfortable with playing in the forest, and in no world should a cat who lives in the forest be so good at avoiding rabbit burrows and messing with tunnels, unless they had to, for one reason or another. He shouldn’t be good at this. But there was a war.

It ends when Monarchwing gets Fernspark on his back. Fernspark had been backed against a tree, and he almost turned and tried to climb, before he forced himself still, because this was not a real battle, just a mock one.

“I concede,” He breathes, tail tip twitching happily.

“I win,” Monarchwing sing-songs, stepping off of him to groom her snow-covered fur, leaf-bare thick as it is. Fernspark got to his feet and shook himself off, tapping his tail tip against Monarchwing’s flank playfully.

Thankfully, they’d had the mind to keep their tussle confined, and quiet.

“You seem to like fighting,” she said, randomly, out of the blue. Not unkindly, and with a caring tone to their voice, almost teasing.

“Not really, and not as much as my father did,” Fernspark sighs, giving up with himself and starting to help Monarchwing with her fur. He swears he pulls a twig or something out of it every time they meet.

He has to admit, it’s almost refreshing to have someone talk about his father. His clanmates don’t mention the old leader around Fernspark, much less try to insinuate they’re similar, not after Fernspark had gotten tired of it and shouted at them.

He didn’t like yelling much. Despite his father's bloodlust, he hadn’t either.

The sting there is still at home, when he thinks of the cat his father had been, but it is less painful, a little more fond now that there is no more blood spilt in the old leader’s name.

When Monarchwing is content enough with their fur, they touch their nose to Fernspark’s shoulder, leading them under a cloistered group of bushes, where the ground is cold and free of the thin layer of snow fallen around the lake, where they curl up together like kits in a nursery. And secretly, Fernspark thinks that, if his actual sister had survived long after birth, she’d be a little like Monarchwing.

“Should our next meeting be near the outer edge of our territories?” Fernspark asks. “Or should we go by the lake, so Minnowbark can join.”

“Hmm,” Monarchwing contemplates, resting their jaw on Fernspark’s flank. “Yeah, I’d— I’d like to hang out with Minnowbark next time. We could speak with him next gathering to let him know.”

“Yeah. Usual spot by the lake, then?”

Their usual spot by the lake was a sheltered spot of sand in Thunderclan territory, only safe to stay dry in during low tide. It would be warmer next time the three meet, so it’d work. No snow, at least.

Monarchwing nods, “Yeah.”

Suddenly, after a moment of silence, Monarchwing says, tail twitching anxiously, “I feel like… I feel like Aldercloud is hiding something from me.”

Fernspark blinks. “Really? Your sister?”

“I— yeah. I’m trying not to pry but I—... I’m real worried for her, you know? She’s jumpy and scared and,” she barely stops to breathe as she rambles, “she just, isn’t like that. I am, I guess, but she’s never been.”

Fernspark’s tail twitches apprehensively. “I’d be worried, too,” he says. “But I’m sure she’ll be okay. She can take care of herself, can’t she? Maybe you should have a little more faith in her.”

“Maybe, yeah,” the Thunderclan warrior concedes. “I’m still worried, though.”

Fernspark takes a moment to think, watching as his breath mists over. “Try to help her, but don’t push too hard if she doesn’t actually need it, maybe?” he offers.

Monarchwing, after a moment of hesitation, nods, relaxing only a bit. Fernspark isn’t surprised, Monarchwing always worries. He’s content to bask in the silence, starting to groom his friend’s fur comfortingly.

He tries to keep track of how long they’ve been here, starting to worry about returning to their respective camps. It can wait a little longer, though, for just a little more time with one of his best friends.

Monarchwing buries her cold nose into Fernspark’s leaf-bare coat. “Thanks,” they mumble, eyes starting to, inexplicably, droop.

Fernspark whacks them with his tail to wake them up, purring as she jolts. “No problem,” is what he says in reply.

Normally, friendships between cats of different clans are restricted to passing moments at gatherings or border patrols, and in the beginning, Fernspark had meant to keep it that way. But after spending so long knowing Monarchwing and Minnowbark, he realized how much he trusted them. He realized how much he enjoyed their presence, their words, their reassurance, and one day he’d asked to meet Minnowbark by the border one day, because Minnowbark had been hurt and Fernspark had been worried, and Minnowbark had agreed, and had actually been there.

He had realized it was an option.

And really, they weren’t exchanging secrets.

Still, they know what they've gotten themselves into. All three of them. It’s worth it, to them.

So when they finally have to leave, Fernspark crosses the same stretch of river he came from, hopping into his old pawsteps and continuing on, downwards towards the lake, now in hunt, carrying through the large, looping pattern he’d started when he embarked.

And Monarchwing walks back and forth, dragging their tail across the snow, overwhelming Fernspark’s Windclan scent with her own Thunderclan one as much as possible, mildly reinforcing the boundary markers around their hangout. And he knows that, as they have agreed, she’ll hunt for however long it takes to bury a few pieces of prey somewhere Fernspark has stood, to not make Monarchwing’s extended presence suspicious.

And, it’s always the night after the half moon, so if all else fails, the scent of Windclan on Thunderclan’s border could be written off as the medicine cats, goofing around, and taking a second to talk.

[pleeborp]

Dndads headcannons in celebration of a new episode (not related)

• Glenn Close HAD nipple piercings. He doesn’t wear them any more, but he will gladly show pictures if asked.

• Daryl Wilson got so fucking confused watching Top Gun the first time. The volleyball scene was his favorite part but if you asked him why he couldn’t explain it to you.

• Ron Stampler eats erasers.

• Henry Oak Garcia paints nude paintings of himself and his beautiful talented wife Mercedes. They’re ranged from abstract to insane realism. None of the realisms are actually fully done yet bc he insists Mercedes deserves perfection.

• Ron Stampler fucking loved Lazy Town the show.

• Paeden went on to be happy and never die. It’s canonical, Anthony Burch told me himself.

• where the fuck is Yeet Biggley

• Henry likes to take photos of random things to “appreciate the Beaty of all my surroundings” and he prints them off and places it on a large mosaic he’s creating.

• Lark and Sparrow call it his “stalker wall” or more affectionately, his “serial k!ller wall”

• Scary Marlowe reads Warrior Cats. I personally haven’t, and don’t plan to but she reads the vibe of my friends that have.

• Normal draws fanart of all his friends and quietly ships them together. He used to be a hardcore gothcleats guy but he’s seen the chemistry between swiftkicks. (Don’t ship real people btw but he’s a hs he don’t know no better) He stoutly refuses to ship KickWorthy.

• Samantha Stampler is still alive and she’s kicking ass as a therapist. She doesn’t know about Terry yet.

• Carol, Mercedes, and Samantha meet up for book club regularly. They don’t actually read books Tho they get together to eat food and talk shit.

• Ron Stampler ate my homework.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Find the word

Thanks @mjjune for the tag!

My words: destiny, dead, dry, door, dang

Your words: rib, write, expect, spin, person

Tagging @badluck990 @leahnardo-da-veggie @elsie-writes @mk-writes-stuff @drchenquill @rjcopeseethemald @sparrow-orion-writes @cat-esper @mysticstarlightduck @winterandwords @ashen-crest + anyone else

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites (remember y'all can hop on if you want!)

Keep reading for:

I didn't use the word destiny in any current WIPs, but I know I used it in my Warriors cats fanfic because of course I did.

Gwen runs from Jedi and Carmen

Rose reads about her powers

Greyson gives Lexi a candy cane

Woah do you think Noelle is tall?

Destiny - from Warriors: Night and Day: The New Clans

Even though the water was higher up, Sparrowpaw put his forepaws in the water. The silvery river sparkled in the starlight. As the starry water lapped over his paws, he felt himself get drowsy. That’s when he heard the familiar voice. Angrily, Sparrowpaw stood up and turned around to face Rosecloud. “What is it now? I haven’t fallen asleep by the river for ages!” The white StarClan warrior sighed. “You know how you smelled Daisypaw’s scent last Gathering and told Lemonfrost?” Slowly, Sparrowpaw nodded. Rosecloud narrowed her eyes. “Why?” Sparrowpaw shrugged. Rosecloud leaned forward. “Don’t bother with interfering! Daisypaw has her own destiny! At the next Gathering, she will sneak out! It’s your job to make sure she doesn’t get caught!” Sparrowpaw couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Doesn’t get caught? How is her destiny so important she can break the warrior code?” Rosecloud sighed. “I can’t tell you that.” Sparrowpaw unsheathed his claws. “Why not?”

Yes, Sparrowpaw. Fight a ghost. That makes sense.

Dead - from The Secret Portal Part One (Gwen POV)

I heard Dr. Asghar and Dr. Moon run after me, but I didn’t stop. I had a good head start and was faster. I reached the vase I’d seen and gave a mental apology for knocking it over. Dr. Asghar swore loudly as I skidded around the corner and ran down that hall until I realized I reached a dead end. I whipped around but saw Dr. Asghar and Dr. Moon at the start of the hallway. I froze. “Where’d she go?” Dr. Asghar asked, panting. “I don’t know,” Dr. Moon said. He looked around. “She had to have turned here. Her powers must have activated.” I stood there in confusion. Looked behind me, looked back at them. What powers? How could they not see me? I decided not to think too much about it and be thankful that they couldn’t while trying to make my heavy breathing quiet down. “Let’s go back to the lab,” said Dr. Moon after a moment, turning around. “She could be demonstrating several abilities. I can name four off the top of my head.” He smiled. “Actually, seven! I’m curious to see which one it is.” Dr. Asghar huffed, but followed her colleague back around the corner. “Sorry about the vase,” I heard Dr. Moon say. “Who cares? It was my uncle’s. Good riddance!” I heard a sound that implied Dr. Asghar kicked a shard of the vase that bounced off the wall. “Eight!” I heard Dr. Moon exclaim. I could almost hear Dr. Asghar roll her eyes.

Didn't used to have the character moments with Jedi and Carmen here, so I love this little exchange now.

Dry - from The Secret Portal Part Two (Rose POV)

“You’re getting Understanding Dimensiokinesis by Yousra El-Amin since she’s a dimensiokinetic, and you’d want a first-hand account.” “You know me so well,” Issa smiled as she opened up the book. “Which leads me with Inside Class Four Powers by Cormack Cuoco,” said CJ, grabbing the largest book. “Why’s that?” Alex asked. “I dunno, I liked his name,” said CJ, smirking. Alex laughed, then opened up her book. I took that as the cue to do the same. The art of the book was fantastic, but Damian Brown must have been really boring or something because his writing style was super dry and didn’t match the color of the book at all. However, the illustrator did help emphasize the points to make the text engaging, so I guess I couldn’t complain. Brown went into the science behind my power, but I skimmed past the section because I didn’t think that would be helpful. I flipped to the chapter on controlling the powers to navigate the multiverse. I jumped when a ringing timer went off. CJ turned off his phone’s alarm and said, “Alright, gang, what did we learn?”

You would not believe how boring the original draft of this scene was.

Door - from The Secret Portal Part One (Lexi POV)

“Lexi?” Mrs. Korrin asked. “Don’t you have a partner?” I looked around the room. “No, everyone else is taken.” “Hm, I know we have an even number of kids—” The door slammed open, and a kid with messy dark hair was panting in the doorway. “Greyson,” Mrs. Korrin sighed, “is it going to be like this every day?” “Sorry, Mrs. Korrin,” said Greyson, moving to his seat. “Not so fast, we’re partnering up, and Lexi doesn’t have a partner. Get your worksheet, and come sit next to her.” Greyson obeyed and sat in the empty seat beside me. He turned to me, smiling. I didn’t return it. Greyson’s smile faded and he awkwardly tapped his pencil on the desk. My hand moved up to my hair and took off the hairtie. “You okay?” Greyson finally asked. “Yeah, I’m fine, let’s do the worksheet,” I muttered quickly as I undid the braid by running my fingers through it. Greyson pursed his lips, then reached into his bag. “Candy cane?” I crinkled my nose. “It’s August. How old is that?” “Candy canes last, like, years.” “That’s years old?” “No, it’s fresh.” “It’s August.” Greyson still held out the peppermint stick to me. I sighed and accepted his gift, with full intent to throw it away later.

This is an inside joke. I don't care if it doesn't make sense.

Dang - from The Secret Portal Part One (Akash POV)

Jedi was not in the room despite Maddie and Gwen being back. Carmen, however, was muttering to herself as she tapped the screen, freaking out over the dimensiokinetic—Rosalinda, who I assumed was the girl sitting in a chair against the wall. Another girl sat against the wall across the room. Even from here, I could tell that she was extremely tall, especially when Maddie, though short, was standing next to her, and they were practically the same height that way. “She’s not an ultimate,” Robbie suddenly said. “What?” I looked down at him peeking out from behind the desk, looking a bit disappointed. “Look how she’s messing with that hair tie.” Looking back, the girl was waving her hand in front of her, intently watching a hair tie spin around her palm. “She’s telekinetic.” “Then… dang, she’s tall.” “Y’know non-ultimate Alii can get pretty tall, like Parker,” Robbie pointed out. “Yeah, but Parker’s sixteen.”

This was my only use of the word "dang" unless you could "dangit!"

It's getting to the point where I feel like I'm repeating excerpts, but I suppose it may be a good thing! I don't tag *all* the same people each time so maybe some folks haven't read them yet.

[sakiyaki-sashimi]

Get to know you questions!! Tag whoever you like :D

Writing my answers in orange!

1) top 5 or top 10 favorite animals (depending on how many animals you like)

Hermit Crabs, Pigeons, Otters, Anglerfish, Shrimp, Cats, Manned Wolves, Salamander, Sheep, Axolotls :D

2) top 3 Minecraft mobs

Mooshroom, chicken, and parrot!!!

3) favorite vocaloid song or My Singing Monsters island theme and why! (If you don’t like/know Vocaloid/MSM, just name a song or genre you like and why :D)

Fav Vocaloid song is Brain Explosion girl recently, and fav MSM theme HAS to be cold island. Or maybe earth???? Hm

4) favorite and least favorite textures, no why needed :333

Fav is squishy soft things, least favorite is ice in a freezer

5) not your favorite color, but your favorite color palette (bonus points if you have a pic of the specific palette or a photo/artwork of the pallet you like!!)

Purple, Green, Orange, Pink, and Black! Total Halloween vibes!!

6) fav book you had to read for school (fiction or non fiction work lol, and if you don’t like/have any then just name a book or fanfic you like!)

Of Mice and Men was surprisingly amazing! Thought I’d hate it tbh

7) how do you think of the months of the year in your head? Left to right, top to bottom, in specific numbered rows and columns? Tell me :D

I think of it like this:

January, February, March, April

May, June, July, August

September, October, November, December

8) assigned harry potter/ilvermorny house or Percy Jackson cabin or Warrior cats clan something like that lol (if you don’t have anything like that, star sign works too!)

I’ll do em all lol: Slytherin/Hufflepuff, Pukwudgie, Dionysus’s, RiverClan, I’m an Aries sun/gemini rising/pisces moon :D

9) MBTI???? Love those things :33 (If you haven’t taken the test yet or u just don’t wanna cuz it’s too long, are you a solider poet or king?)

I’m an ENFP-T! I thought I’d get king but I got poet lol

10) something “cringe” you actually rly like, no shame here :D

Gacha Life/Club, the styles just so cutesy! Ohhh also K-Pop, I’m a TOTAL stay :33 and DSMP, it’s just rly cool to me

11) characters from shows/movies/games you kin/stan/just adore!! NOT ACCEPTING IRL PPL PLZ AND THANK U :D (unless it’s urself, we like self love in these parts)

For me I currently kin Dazai, Edward Elric, c!TommyInnit, and I completely STAN any Project Sekai character. I mean any of them.

12) 5 people you’d wanna be at a party with and why! (Can be alive or dead, real or fake, celebrities or randos, humans or otherwise :D)

My grandpa to see him again, Roy mustang to see if he’s a bastard irl, Hachi/Kenshi Yonezu just to see how he’s doing, Kanye West to just ask him why, and BeastChild (the YouTuber) just cause I really like his stuff and would wanna meet him!

13) favorite hobby/fandom specific term and its meaning :333

I’m a writer (well, aspiring anyway, I’m not rly that good) and I love the idea of the sexy lamp. Basically if you’re writing a female character that could be replaced with a sexy lampshade and nothing about the story changes then you’re writing a BAD FEMALE CHARACTER XD

Cause it’s spooky season il leave it at 13 ;)

Happy answering!!!

No pressure tags :3 @touratoura @theancientwonder @kneecoal-mooma @citrushomie @skytheamazing @mitski-slope @a-trench-coat-of-confused-worms @dicklesswonder-blog @vicaridoo

[screechingchaospotato]

lil bio thing I guess

please read it ALL the way through before following, requesting, sending an ask, etc!! You can interact with my posts but most everything else I want to to know my limits, rules, and boundaries.

ART REQUEST INFO AT THE BOTTOM

name : preferred : atlas | I’m also fine with snowy, snow, and pebble

age : minor

pronouns : bigender, he/she. They is also okay.

sexuality: panromantic, asexual

favorite things : cats, bats, cheesy eggs and rice

fandoms : rain world, Kaiju paradise (fuck (some of)the devs tho), (kinda good omens? I like it but haven’t really watched it before >_<) warrior cats, wings of fire, OMORI, rain world, rain world, Celeste, rain world

DNI IF : you’re queer/homo/transphobic, a TERF, NSFW blog, are xenophobic, sexist, ableist, and if you don’t support Gaza during this genocide get the fuck out of my blog.

I might block for other reasons.

also, I take art requests now. Info under the cut.

☆ art request info (WIP)☆

you may request while this is a WIP but some things might be confusing.

➼ how do I request?

• my art requests are free. I don’t require money, and don’t do commissions.

• Send me an ask or mention me in a post with your desired character.

• (asks are preferred.)

• if it is a gift for somebody else please tell me.

• if you have a question, ask. I bite but you’re safe behind a screen.

➼ what are the rules for requests?

• NO NSFW AT ALL. You will be blocked if you ask.

• please remember I am a minor, any suggestive art requests will be ignored.

• no humans. Unless you want a stick figure.

• do not request anything with HOLES. I have mild trypophobia.

• If it’s an OC, send an image. You may also link to one.

• if it’s a fandom character, tell me the name and fandom, I will take care of the references.

• you can ask for ship art. Depends on the ship.

• don’t spam request.

➼ what I might do

• I AM MOST COMFORTABLE WITH : (in order)

rain world slugcats

Kaiju paradise characters/ocs

rain world iterators

warrior cats characters/ocs

• I am okay with :

furries/anthros

Anthro OCs

stick figures, things from object shows

Baldur’s gate 3 tavs (but it will look bad. And no Dragonborns.. I said it.)

• absolutely never :

NSFW

humans

spicy ship art

gore (because I’m bad at it. This is the ONE thing on this list you MITHT get away with if it’s subtle.)

worms

holes

Suggested sa/csa

• you may request a certain scene, multiple characters, etc, or just say a character and leave it be.

• if I deny your request, there are multiple possibilities.

I do not think the drawing would look good.

I tried multiple times and it looked bad.

I do not like you.

You broke one of the aforementioned rules.

I just don’t want to draw it.

you’re kinda fishy.

you spam request - I take two requests max per person per week, I have school.

I also don’t have to explain myself.

art examples coming soon.

[swordfangs]

Warrior cats fan here!! <33 Do you have any favourite Warrior Cats books?? It can be from any arc, earliest or latest. Also, are you into Wof just as much as Warrior Cats? I'm on book 5 of Wof and Sunny is my fav small yellow dragonet <33. Though the pacing is quite slow and a bit dragging.

Hey! So might be confusing since I still draw cat OCs, and the occasional warrior cat OC, but I’ve never been a fan of warrior cats, even when I read them I wasn’t a crazy fan for them. Looking back, I think all the books are similarly mid quality. But I will answer you, I thought Midnight was fun back in the day. I liked the journey plot before it became overused in the series.

Now regarding WOF, I am a significantly bigger supporter of WOF over warrior cats 😅 I have so much more fun reading these dragon books. While I don’t exactly keep up with the books as soon as they come out, I catch up on them eventually. Warrior cat books I haven’t touched in years and never will again.

Also, Sunny is a good favorite to have! A resilient and sweet girl 💛

[yarrowleef]

y'know, lately i've started thinking, I have an easier time accepting StarClan as it is in canon if I stop thinking of it as the actual after life/cat heaven it’s regarded as, and start thinking of it as a weird self-made purgatory instead. Because the more I think about it, the more that feels like the case.

I started thinking about it when I read this quote (I can't remember which book its from, either the 4th or 5th Broken Code installment I think)

You would think that cats as spiritually inclined as the sister's would have their own version of StarClan, but this implies they don't. They have ghosts, as all cats can have (including kittypets as we recently saw). But once their ghosts decide to let go and leave the earth, they're just gone. The ghosts vanish to some mysterious place they "know" they are meant to be, but its apparently somewhere too distant and unknown for any cat on earth to understand, and the living don't even know for sure where it is, nor can the dead explain it to them....you know, a bit like an actual after life is typically described. And not at all like StarClan

A lot of fantasy stories have that “supernatural/magical thing made real through belief” thing going on, where enough people believing in something hard enough sort of makes it true just by...sheer will power or w/e. I think that's a kind of magic that definitely exists in the warriors universe to some extent. We already know that the spirits of StarClan (and the dark forest) are stronger and more physical-appearing depending on how many living cats still believe in and tell stories of them. StarClan itself was seemingly formed spontaneously out of a desperate need to stop the living cats from killing each other, give them something to believe in that would keep them together/give them meaning or a sense of control and understanding over their corner of the universe. And I guess that something was all knowing cat ancestors akin to deities, who they could pray to and ask for guidance  (at least, that’s what I took from the field guide version, I haven’t read DotC i’m just assuming StarClan’s appearance was equally sudden in that version based in the wiki summary lol)

But obviously as everyone and their grandma has already pointed out, despite how the clans and the ghosts of StarClan themselves insist that they are powerful and can control fate and bring their descendants fortune and comfort and some semblance of control to their lives, StarClan in reality are shown time and time again to be piss poor excuses for deities that are not actually wise and powerful at all in any visible way, and also can't really control anything. They get prophecies from ~somewhere~, somewhere clearly more mysterious and above them, and are just as confused and helpless to do anything about them as their descendants are. All they can do is pass some of that information on and pretend like they are controlling it

 I'm not even sure that StarClan cats are all necessarily knowingly lying about having control, it feels like they are just as convinced themselves of their power and importance over the clans, just as they were convinced in life. Like the god complex is a shield carried over from their living beliefs that they cling to, unwilling to admit to themselves the truth of their confusion and total powerlessness because...their society would fall apart if they admitted that, and it's the only things keeping them anchored to the earth.

It’s not a stretch to imagine the force of that belief, strong enough to make them (occasionally) visible and keep them around, was also strong enough to create a separate place, a sort of pocket dimension where its easier for ghosts to continue existing then it would be if they tried to just keep wandering on earth, but honestly StarClan itself doesn't even look like a heaven. It's literally just a more sparkly exact copy of the forest they used to live in. That’s all they know after all. A collective dream the ghosts manifested where they just wander around aimlessly, hunting, lounging, doing all the same things they used to do when they were alive. Does that not sound horribly boring? just doing that forever? Just like stories of ghosts in real life, haunting the same area over and over, unwilling, or unable, to move on as long as they have some "unfinished business" with cats who remember them.

I'd posit that StarClan spirits "fading" is not actually them dying again at all, or ceasing to exist as we’ve been made to assume. It's what happens when they finally have no one left anchoring them to the physical world and they can allow themselves to let go of their purgatory and actually ascend to whatever the real after life is, like they were always meant to.

Maybe the sister's would be iffy and uncomfortable around the clans even if they hadn't been treated so horribly by them, because the clans relationship with ghosts is just so f*cked up and wrong and utterly delusional. And dangerous. Ghosts aren't meant to be able to mess with the living like this. They shouldn't be able to remain for so long, and they definitely shouldn't be connected enough to tamper with the living world in ways like, i don't know, forcing a soul to remain anchored to their should-be-dead bodies nine times over and calling it a blessing. Frankly, leaders may very well just be ghosts re-possessing their old corpse (omg someone expand on an AU where older leaders slowly start falling apart, almost decomposing, as they lose lives because their body isn’t actually truly living anymore after they lose their first life). Ashfur was truly no different then any other leader, he just stole the body first. It's unnatural and dangerous the kinds of side effects that can arise from stubborn ghosts blurring the lines between the living and the dead so much and so often (like for example, bad ghosts literally manifesting and attacking the living). It's also dangerous for the dead cats, I'd bet being killed as a spirit in battle really does horrifically destroy a soul in a way that naturally fading or simply letting go wouldn't. it's all around just a terrible idea. 

(I have some idea in the back of my mind about the proximity to the moonstone/ moonpool being a cause for how this got so bad. Like there are just certain areas where the barrier is naturally weaker and can be exploited, also that the moonpool is even more unstable then the moonstone because well...dark forest dreams picked up en masse not long after the clans moved there resulting in a whole evil ghost army attack. And I’ve always been left wondering “why hasn’t this happened before in the old forest if dark forest ghosts could just...do that?” maybe they didn’t have as weak a barrier in the old forest, idk. but that's like, a whole au post for another day.....listen, i just really like dumb ghost stories and supernatural nonsense so i can and will take this and run with it to weird places if I go on long enough)

Maybe the Sisters know all this on some level. Most ghosts have the good sense to just wander on earth for a bit until they accept their death or their immediate kin moves on, but no, the ghosts that call themselves “StarClan” are too stubborn for that. And the clans have a lot of stubborn will-power to go around, and they'll definitely get pissed if anyone tries to explain that to them, so there's no point in trying. Best just leave them to their weird cult and hope this messed up mass haunting phenomena doesn't spread. They might be worth pity, if the clans weren't such a bunch of total assholes.

So yeah, the reason StarClan is Like That is because it isn't a real heaven, it's just self-inflicted glorified purgatory that by all natural laws and reason Should Not Exist

[ailuronymy]

Thoughts on the new discourse? Warrior cats naming conventions and rank names being straight up stolen from native American people? So many people seem to be... Straight up leaving the Fandom or changing all of their fan content and it feels very performative and, people not actually thinking critically and just being scared of getting "cancelled"? I feel like your opinions on these matters are very informed and well written so I wanted to ask given that this blog main theme is, well, warrior cat naming system and that seems to be the main issue of the new discourse.

This is probably going to get long, since there's sort of a lot to say about it in order to talk about this whole thing fairly and constructively, because from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of hyperbole happening, and panicking, and disavowing this series and fandom, and so on, like you say, and also some people genuinely trying to have complex meaningful conversations about racism in xenofiction, and also probably some bad faith actors in the mix--as well as some just... stupid actors. Kind of inevitably what happens when two equally bad platforms for having nuanced discussions--i.e., twitter and tumblr--run headlong into each other, in a fandom space with a majority demographic of basically kids and highly anxious, pretty online teens. I don’t mean that as a criticism of fans or their desire to be liked by peers and “correct” about opinions, it’s just the social landscape of Warriors and I think it’s worth pointing out from the start.  

If I’m totally honest with you, if not for this ask, I wouldn’t actually be commenting on it at all, because none of this is going to impact this blog or change how I run it in any way. But since you’ve asked and frankly I do feel some responsibility to try to disentangle things a little for everyone stressed and confused at the moment, because I know a lot of people look to this blog for guidance of all sorts, I’m going to talk about what I think has happened here, and how to navigate the situation in a reasonable way. 

Quick recap for anyone blissfully unaware: from what I understand, this post (migrated over from a presumably bigger twitter thread) has got a lot of people very worried about Warriors being a racist and appropriative series, and now are trying to figure out what ethically to do about this revelation. The thing I found most interesting about this screenshotted conversation is that it makes a lot of bold claims, but misses some pretty surprising details (in my opinion). If you do look critically at what is being said, here’s a few things to notice--crucially, there are two people talking. 

Person 1 says that a lot of animal fantasy fiction + xenofiction (fiction about non-human/”other” beings, such as animals) is frequently built upon stereotypes of First Nations and Indigenous people, and/or appropriates elements of Indigenous culture and tradition as basically set dressing for “strange” and “alien” races/species etc., and this is a racist, deeply othering, and inappropriate practice. This person is right. 

I’ve spent years researching in this field specifically, so I feel pretty confident in vouching (for whatever that’s worth) that this person is absolutely right in making this point. Not only is it frequently in animal fiction/xenofiction, but it’s insidious, which means often it’s hard to notice when it’s happening--unless you know what you’re looking for, or you are personally familiar with the details or tropes that are being appropriated. Because of the nature of racism, white and other non-First Nations people don’t always recognise this trend within texts--even texts they’re creating--but it’s important for us all, and especially white people, to be more aware, because it’s not actually First Nations’ people’s responsibility to be the sole critics of this tradition of theft and misuse. Appropriation by non-Indigenous people is in fact the problem, which means non-Indigenous people learning and changing is the solution. 

Person 1 offers Warriors as a popular example of a work that has this problem. Notably, this person hasn’t given an example of how Warriors is culpable (at least in this screenshot and I haven’t found the thread itself, because the screenshot is what’s causing this conversation), only that it’s an example of a work that has these problems. And once again, this person is correct. We’ll look at that more in a moment.

Person 2 (three tweets below the first) offers, by comparison, several more specious insights. Firstly, it’s really, really not the only time anyone’s ever talked about this, academically + creatively or in the Warriors fandom specifically, and so that reveals somewhat this person’s previous engagement in the space they’re talking into re: this topic. In other words, this person doesn’t know what has already been said or what is being talked about. Secondly, this person explicitly states that they “[don’t know] much about warrior cats specifically but from what I see it just screams appropriation,” which as a statement I think says something crucial re: the critical lens this person has applied + the amount of forethought and depth of analysis of their criticism of this particular series. 

I’m not saying that using twitter to talk about your personal feelings requires you to research everything you talk about before you shoot your mouth off. However, I personally don’t go into a conversation about a topic I don’t know anything about except a cursory glance to offer bold and scathing criticisms based on what it “just screams” to me. By their own admission, this person isn’t really offering good faith, thoughtful criticism of the series, in line with Person 1′s tweet. Instead, Person 2 is talking pretty condescendingly and emphatically about--as the kids say--the vibes they get from the series, and I’m afraid that just doesn’t hold up well in this court. 

So now that there’s Person 1 (i.e., very reasonable, important, interesting criticism) and Person 2 (i.e., impassioned but completely vibes-based opinion from someone who hasn’t read the books) separated, we can see there’s actually several things happening in this brief snapshot, and some of them aren’t super congruent with each other. 

Person 1 didn’t say “don’t read bad books,” or that you’re a bad person for being a fan of stories that are guilty of this. They suggested people should recognise the ways xenofiction uses Indigenous people and their culture inappropriately and often for profit. My understanding of this tweet is someone offering an insight that might not have occurred to many people, but that is valuable and important to consider going forward in how they view, engage with, and create xenofiction media.

Person 2 uses high modality, evocative language that appeals to the emotions. That’s not a criticism of this person: they’re allowed to talk in whatever tone they want, and to express their personal feelings and opinions. However, rhetorically, this person is using this specific language--consciously or subconsciously--to incense their audience--i.e., you. Are you feeling called to action? What action do you feel called to when you rea their words, despite the fact their claims are not based in their own actual analysis of or engagement with the text? It’s, by their own admission, not analysis at all. Everything they evoke is purely in the name of “not good” vibes. 

Earlier I mentioned that Person 1 is correct that Warriors is absolutely guilty of appropriation of First Nations and Indigenous people and culture. I also mentioned that they didn’t specify how. That’s because I think the most egregious example is in fact the tribe, which in many ways plays into the exact kind of stereotyping and appropriation of First Nations Americans that Person 1 mentions, and not the clans, contrary to Person 2′s suggestion. For instance, in addition to the very loaded name of “tribe”, there’s a lot of racist tropes present in how that group of cats is introduced and how the clan cats interact with them, as well as the more North American-inspired scenery of their home. It’s very blatant as far as racism in this series. 

When it comes to the clans themselves, though, I think it’s muddier and harder to draw clear distinctions of what is directly appropriative, what is coincidentally and superficially reminiscent, and what is not related at all. Part of this difficulty in drawing hard lines comes from the fact that, on a personal level, it actually doesn’t matter: if a First Nations person reads a story and feel it is appropriative or inappropriate, it’s not actually anyone’s place to “correct” them on their reading of the text. Our experiences are unique and informed by our perspectives and values, and no group of people are a monolith, which means within community, there will always be disagreement and differenting points of view. There is no one single truth or opinion, which means that First Nations people even in the same family might have very different feelings about the same text and very different perspectives on how respectful, or not, it might be. 

I’m saying this because something that gets said very often when conversations of racism and similar oppressive systems present/perpetuated in texts comes up, people frequently say: “listen to x voices.” It is excellent advice. However, the less pithy but equally valuable follow-up advice is: “listen to the voices of many people of x group, gather information and perspective, and then ultimately use your own judgement to make an informed opinion for yourself.” It means that you are responsible for you. The insight you can gain by listening to people who know topics and experiences far better than you do is truly invaluable, but if your approach to the world is simply to parrot the first voice, or loudest voice, or angriest voice you come across, you will not really learn anything or be able to develop your own understanding and you certainly won’t be making well-informed judgements. 

In other words, one incomplete tweet thread from two people who are each bringing quite different topics and modes of conversation (or perhaps gripes, in Person 2′s case) to the table is not really enough to go off re: making a decision to leave a fandom, in my opinion. In fact, I think in responding to anything difficult, complex, or problematic (which doesn’t mean what popular adage bandies it about to mean) by trying to distance yourself, or cleanse of it, will ultimately harm you and will not do you any good as a person. It is better, in my opinion, to enter into complex relationships with the world and media and other people in an informed, aware way and with a willingness to learn and sometimes to make mistakes and be wrong, rather than shy away from potential conflict or fear that interacting with a text will somehow taint you or define your morality in absolutes. 

So. Does Warriors have racist and appropriative elements, tropes, and issues in the series? Yes, of course it does, it’s a book-packaged series produced by corporation HarperCollins and written by a handful of white British women and their myriad ghostwriters. Racism is just one part of the picture. The books are frequently also ableist, sexist, and homophobic (or heteronormative, depending how you want to slice it, I guess), just to name some of the most evident problems. 

But does the presence of these issues mean it’s contaminated and shouldn’t be touched? Personally, I don’t think so. Given the nature of existing the world, it’s not possible to find perfect media that is free of any kind of bias, prejudice, or even just ideas or topics or concepts that are challenging or uncomfortable. I think it’s more meaningful to choose to engage with these elements, discuss them, criticise them, learn from them, and acknowledge also that imperfection is the ultimate destiny of all of us, especially creators.

I’m not saying that as a pass, like, “oh enjoy your media willy-nilly, nothing matters, do what you want, think about no-one else ever because we’re all flawed beings,” but rather that it’s important not to look away from the problems in the things we enjoy, rather than cut off all contact and enjoyment when we realise the problems. That doesn’t mean you have to only criticise and always be talking about how bad a thing you like is either, publicly admonishing yourself or the text, because that’s also not a constructive way to engage with media. 

As I said, there’s a lot to say here, and believe it or not, this is honestly the shortest version I could manage. There’s always more to say and plenty I haven’t talked about, but pretty much tl;dr: 

I don’t find Person 2′s commentary particularly compelling, personally, because I think it’s a little broad and a little specious in its conclusions and evidence, and I also suspect that this person is speaking more from their feelings than from a genuine desire to educate or meaningfully criticise, unlike Person 1. That’s not to say Warriors isn’t frequently racist and guilty of the issues Person 1 is discussing, because it is, but I don’t think this tweet thread is a great source of insight into the ongoing history of this problem in xenofiction, or Warriors specifically, on its own. I would recommend exploring further afield to learn more from a variety of sources and form your own opinions. I hope this helps. 

[ammocharis]

OC Interview: Vatna

Thanks for the tag @cleverblackcat, @mageofholyandraste, @darethshirl! It sounds fun!

Introduction

This event was organized a few weeks prior to the Winter Palace ball. Ambassador Josephine Montilyet had invited a few Orlesian journalists to Skyhold to interview the newly appointed Inquisitor.

Can you introduce yourself?

Vatna Einarsdotten Selkesdotten of Two Falcon Hold. (a moment of silence) In the Frostback Mountains. (another moment of silence as the interviewers wait for her to say something else) Inquisitor of the Second Inquisition. (it seems that she won’t say anything more, so one of the journalists asks the next question)

What are your gender identity, orientation, and relationship status?

Is that what you ask every Lowlander? (grumbles) Alright. I see myself a woman. Who I invite or don’t invite to my bed is my very own matter. I am unmarried and have never been before. If you’re curious, yes, the Avvar may marry multiple times in their life if they wish so. Does this answer satisfy you?

Where and when were you born?

I was born in Two Falcon Hold, eighteen... no, nineteen winters ago. (she corrects herself as she remembers that winter came and went when she was away from home, making her one winter older than when she left)

What is your weapon of choice and fighting style?

I am a mage. Unlike most spellweavers in your Circles, we in the mountains train with all sort of weapons, just like any other warrior. I prefer fighting in close quarters. When I came of age, I chose an axe as my preferred weapon. It was commissioned from the dwarves of Orzammar. The blade is engraved with runes and the handle has lyrium core that I can easily channel my magic through. It has been... misplaced for the first few months that I spent with the Inquisition, but it was recovered. Fortunately, the gods blessed me with another weapon in the meantime - the fire-staff that belonged to the Avvar-Mother. I’ve been told this topic is a source of confusion, but I’m not sure how to explain it better. Yes, I do use both an axe and a staff now. I had a battleaxe when I arrived into the Lowlands. Then I lost it. Then I claimed the staff of Tyrdda Bright-Axe. Tyrdda was called Bright-Axe because she had a staff with a fire-focusing crystal. But the word ‘axe’ used to mean every hafted weapon. Then I got back my axe, my regular axe... Let’s go to the next question.

Are you happy?

I’ll be happy when the Lady’s Veil is fully repaired and Corypheus lies dead. Until then, I have work to do. Would you be happy if there were world-dooming critters in your house? Because there are. There are cowards in Orlais scheming together with Corypheus, maybe even people you know. (a lady in a pale blue mask exchanges looks with the others and suggests a lighter topic)

Family and friends

What should I say? Just talk about my family and friends? Well, my father is called Einar, my mother is called Selke. In my hold, we take bynames after both our parents, so I actually already revealed their names. My father was born is Two Falcon Hold, my mother moved from another hold further south. They’ve been married for twenty three years now. They were rather mad to promise such a long marriage without extensions. Eighty-eight knots, can you imagine? I mean, they could always as the Thane to cut the rope short if they grew tired of each other... But it works well for them. I hope they’ll live together until it the last knot. (the interviewers prompt her to explain what she meant by knots and ropes) Oh, I run away with that. The number of knots is the number of years the marriage is supposed to last. Before the wedding, the bride ties a number of knots into a rope, and the groom’s task is to untie them. On the wedding day, the bride starts to sing hymns to the Lady of the Skies. The groom begins to untie the knots then. However many he’ll manage to unravel before the hymns ends, that many years they shall be married together. After the promise ends, they can get married again if they wish. But my parents vowed to get married for eighty-eight years right away. Eight is a blessed amount. Eighty-eight, doubly so. I’ve been told the ritual took all day to complete. By the end of it, my mother’s throat was sore and my father’s knuckles were raw. But they got married how they wanted, and the bond has been steadfast for many years now.

I have a younger sister, Hirka. She’s only four winters younger than me but she can be a real brat sometimes. We used to be inseparable as children. Then we both grew a bit. I got my magic and had to spent a lot of time mastering my abilities. She had other things to do too. But she’s my sister no matter what.

I have some (she pauses to rememeber the right word in Common language) aunts and uncles, but most of them and their families live in other holds, so I haven’t seen them a lot. Only a few times, never in some cases. The word still travels through the Mountains, so we do hear news from them every now and then. 

In the end, the whole hold is your kin.

Have you ever run away from home?

Once or twice, I skulked outside of the hold and refused to go back until well after nightfall. But I never really run away, I wouldn’t abandon my family like that.

Would you consider marriage or having children?

I don’t know.

Do you secretly hate any of your friends?

No, I do not. Those who I call my friends, I think as such. I make my dislikes known. Too easily, I’ve been told.

Which friend knows everything about you?

There is someone who knows my soul, but I’m not going to talk about it.

Asked by fans

Are you literate? Have you been to school?

Yes, I can read and write. Not everyone in the Mountains does, but more than you imagine, I think. Augurs, skalds, merchants, those who aspire to be thanes... Many are able to tell the numbers, in order to trade with dwarves, but haven’t practiced beyond that.

The augurs learn how to read so that they may study old magics. I was an apprentice to the Sky Watcher of my hold - uh, a Sky Watcher is like a... priest to the Lady of the Skies. I was supposed to become his successor. So I studied something almost every day since I was eight. One day, I would memorize the shapes of protection sigils, and then try to draw them myself. Another day, I would study the uses of all mushrooms found in caves. But we don’t have any schools like there are in the lowlands. You learn from your mentors and from the gods, and most importantly, from your own mistakes.

The eeriest prediction you made that later came true?

Eeriest? I’m not sure. I dreams of many things. Some come true, but not in the way I imagined them to.

What is something you were embarrassingly late to realise?

I had no idea those lap dogs your Orlesian ladies carry around are really dogs. I’d never guess they share blood with wolves. I thought they’re some sort of magic toy.

Do you have mental or physical problems?

Do you honestly expect me to reveal my weaknesses to you?

What is your current main goal?

As I said before, restore the Veil and kill Corypheus.

Drink or food?

Am I supposed to choose between the two? Food, I guess. I could live on soups and stews, maybe. Does goat milk count as drink or food?

Cats or dogs?

Birds.

Optimist or pessimist?

I learned these words only recently. I must say, I do not fully understand why your sages would divide people like that. Is there someone who truly sees everything in bright colours? And someone who sees everything in black? Isn’t everyone a little bit of this and a little bit of that? Perhaps I’m more on the pessimist side.

Sassy or sarcastic?

Eh, sarcastic.

HAVE YOU EVER:

Have you ever been caught sneaking out?

Yes, I once got so bored with my healing lessons that I decided to sneak out while Jokka wasn’t looking. She of course noticed me right away. I never tried to sneak out again.

Broken a bone?

I broke my left wrist while climbing. My mentor healed it quickly but he left a scar to serve as a reminder to not be so reckless.

Received flowers?

I... (she bits her tongue) Josephine tells me I had received several bouquets of flowers this last week. She had placed them in the guest hall where everyone can enjoy them.

Ghosted someone?

Ghosted? (a man in a green mask explains mirthfully) No, never. I wouldn’t leave someone hanging like that. I’d tell him straight in the face. (she replies sharply)

Pretended to laugh at a joke you didn't get?

I have yet to learn how to pretend so well as to laugh at something I don’t understand or find funny.

~

Tagging (no pressure, of course, this is just for fun): @dreadfutures, @tejaswrites, @serenpedac, @molliehaswords, @crackinglamb, @a11sha11fade, @rakshadow, @samuraisaucefrites, @noire-pandora, @1000generations

[shreddedparchment]

Pseudo Princess Pt.35

Sacrifices to Save the World

Pairing: King!Steve x Reader          Word Count: 9,582

Warnings: smut, LOTS of fluff, angst

A/N: (THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! One more to go!) Here it is everyone! The moment I have been waiting for. I can’t really say much and I don’t want to give anything away so, I’ll just let the chapter speak for itself. I also want to say that I’m sorry that I haven’t been as diligent about responding to comments. Trust me when I say that I read and reread them often! I appreciate your thoughts and reactions so much. As always, if you happen to reblog, thank you so much for helping me spread my work!

Tags are closed!

Please DO NOT repost my stories. Reblogs are MOST welcome!

You bustle around the cottage sweeping cat hair and dust, mixing the white of the chalk dust with the crimson blood of Grandmother’s sacrificial cat.

Your attempts to tidy the space is wasted as you’re only making it worse, but rather than focus on her words you prefer to clean.

She watches you from the seat at her table where you placed her. A cup of water gripped in her withered hand, still trembling slightly.

“Stop cleaning, girl!” Grandmother chides, watching you with annoyance as you stop amongst the mess on her floor and throw your hands out to your sides in a clear indication of not understanding.

“What would you have me do?” You ask her, voice tight with distress. “You tell me that my husband will fight to his death and I am supposed to what? Dance?”

“Just sit down.” She points at the seat across from her, her finger crooked and weak.

You drop the broom where you stand and plop yourself down on the indicated seat while ignoring the creak of the weathered wood. The old woman would resist new furnishings though you’d managed to sneak in a new bed and kitchenware.

“You killed your cat.” You tell her, as if she doesn’t know.

“Yes.” She agrees and lifts the small cup to her lips to take a drink.

“Why?”

“I had to see.” She explains. “Something was…was there.”

“When I found you outside Steve’s office?” You check, though you know her answer.

“Yes.” With a sigh she captures your gaze and does not release it. “I have sensed a darkness growing in the world. Something elusive. Hidden. It has kept its face secret, behind that of puppets. It uses others to do its bidding and until today I had no idea what that bidding was.

“He is gathering six relics. Stones. Rich in magic properties. Richer than any other relics I have ever come across. Each of them with powers more terrifying than the last.”

“What kind of powers?” You ask her, voice feeble and wispy.

“Powers to control time. Power to manipulate the mind and the very fabric of space and reality.” She warns. “Powers to rule the world…or wipe it from existence.”

Your heart grows cold, slipping into the pit of your stomach as you picture Steve in his armor standing before such massive power. What could your warrior husband do in the face of such might?

“Who is he?” You ask her, eager to put a face to the threat.

“I don’t know.” She says, looking down at the necklace that always rests around your neck. The locket that is Steve’s insignia, with his picture along with your parents. “I cannot see his face. I can only feel him. He is stronger than the king. Stronger than many of those who fight here. Together they may defeat him, but I did not see them together. I saw only your husband, the bodies of those you love surrounded him, and he fell too.”

You get up, unwilling to let her convince you despite you having already accepted her words. “I cannot listen to this.”

“You must, girl. You must take heed of what I tell you and prepare yourself for what is to come. Take your daughter and go as far away from here as possible but even that may not save you.” She adds as an afterthought. “I feel this evil plans for more than death. He has such a will.”

Turning to her you consider her thoughtful expression and the way she seems lost to her vision. She believes it with every fiber of her being and your own heart is swayed into panic as you throw yourself onto your knees at her feet.

Gripping the hand she has resting on her lap, you raise it to your breast and hold it there to where your heart is pounding.

“There must be something you can do. Something that will save him.” You reason, pleading for her to see reason as if she held the very fate of Steve within her old hands. “Won’t you try?”

“I cannot.” She shakes her head. “Such magics are forbidden. I am no dark witch.”

Her insistence is fractured, her own eyes betray her as she eyes you up and then turns away.

Her fondness is clear. You know that she loves you despite the way she speaks to you at times. She has fought hard for your happiness. If you would beg for her life, you think she might give it up.

“Is there no way? Nothing? Surely there is a chance to change things without resorting to dark magics? Please, Grandmother…” Before you know what’s happening, you’re crying.

Tears flow freely across your cheeks but your voice is strong in the only way that it can be when you’re pleading for your husband’s life.

“I cannot live in a world where my husband is not alive. Please…help me. Help me save him. There must be a way. There must be…please. We just had our daughter…” You lay your head in her lap, overcome with fear at this future she’s seen. “Please.”

Her silence is heavy. You can feel her thinking, can feel her mind searching for a way to give you what you want.

You have always loved this old woman but until today, you had not considered how much she might truly love you as one would a true granddaughter.

“Give me time.” She sighs.

“You’ll try?!” You gasp, your heart soaring.

With an elated sob you drop your head onto her lap and with gentle, feeble hands, she strokes the back of your head.

“I will think on it. I will try. I cannot make any promises.” She warns you, reaching under your chin to draw your gaze up. “What you ask for will not be easy. Is he worth it?”

You blink, confused by her question because in your mind there is absolutely no doubt.

“He’s worth more. He’s worth everything.” You nod. “I love him.”

Grandmother’s gaze withers and she releases you, nudging you away.

“Go. Be with your husband and child. Let me ponder.” She orders and slowly you rise.

You’re so stunned you have to keep a hand on the table as you rise to keep your knees buckling.

“When will you know?” You ask her, sniffling from the tears you shed.

“Go.” She orders again, staring at the hem of your dress. “And change your dress. You’re covered in blood.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Standing still, you hold tight to the lower left post of your bed as your corset is laced again.

The copper tub by the roaring fire in your bedroom sits lukewarm, full pink and wine-colored peony blooms floating within its oiled surface.

“Why was there blood on your dress?” Natasha wonders, tugging tight on your laces making you gasp.

“It’s not important.” You tell her, then think better of keeping her completely in the dark. “There was a dead cat on the way to Grandmother’s and I didn’t realize it until I came upon it.”

Fuck, was that believable? Does she trust you enough to accept your words without doubt?

“You’re keeping something from me.” She counters, frowning as she ties the corset closed.

Apparently not.

“I’m not.” You argue, but after her silence pierces your soul, you sigh. “I’m worried.”

“About Hydra?” She asks, supplying you with an appropriate alternative to the truth.

“Of course.” You grasp onto this straw and lean your stress onto this very real threat. “The last time I was within their vicinity someone tried to kill me and Maggie.”

“That won’t happen again.” Natasha assures you, moving towards you with a long ivory gown. The slightly yellowish tinge to the flowing fabric is pretty, though you note this in the back of your head. You’re too preoccupied with the threats looming overhead to notice how pretty the dress is. “I should have stayed with you.”

“It wasn’t your fault Nat. Pierce knew what he was doing. He’d been to father’s many times and he knew that I’d be in that part of the castle. He knew that you’d all be focused elsewhere. He was going to find a way to me one way or another.” You reason, but you know that if Peter or Nat had been there with you, there would have been a better chance of getting away with greater speed.

“I will never leave your side again.” Nat declares passionately but you huff a laugh and turn to look at her as she gathers up the skirt of your dress, hooking her arms through it to make ready for you to wear.

“Nat,” You smile. “I love you, and maybe you’re right and things would have been better if you or someone else had been by my side that night. But you cannot be beside me always. You’re a wife now. And even if you cannot be a mother naturally, there are many other ways to have children.”

Nat drops her arms, watching you with a concerned and furrowed brow. She’s clearly focused on you and not herself. You want to remedy that quickly. You love her, how can you allow her to only ever let you be her concern?

“You two must have discussed it?” You prompt, knowing that Bucky would not give up on giving Nat what she most desperately desires. “I know you want to be a mother. You love children.”

She seems to realize that you are not about to let this drop, so she sighs, relaxing a bit.

“I have thought about it.” She nods. “And yes, I do love children but I’m not sure if it’s right for me with the life that Bucky and I lead.”

Your heart aches suddenly, a renewal of Grandmother’s words reminding you that your daughter could lose her father. She so damn right about that.

“I don’t blame you.” You nod, sitting yourself on the end of the bed. “This life that all of you have chosen is one most unwelcome to the traditional family. But it is possible. Father and Mother have Morgana, Lord and Lady Lang have their daughter. Steve and I now have Margaret.

“It may not be ideal, certainly. But possible.” You offer in encouragement.

You don’t want her to give up. You want her to be happy.

Nat looks down at your stocking covered feet and nods.

“You don’t have to. Of course, it is entirely your choice and Bucky’s. I’m not trying to say that you should have children. But if you should you choose to have them, it is possible to live both lives.” You really hope that you’re not putting any pressure on her to raise a child when she might not want to.

Natasha’s inability to have children naturally should not be a hindrance on her desire to be a mother if she should decide to try. There are thousands of children in orphanages across the Kingdoms that would benefit greatly from a loving home that you know Bucky and Nat would provide effortlessly.

At the end of the day however, you know it is their choice.

“I appreciate your support.” Nat admits, gathering your skirts again and then holding them open for you to put your head through. “Truly. It means so much to me that you think I could do a good job. As a mother.”

You stand and stick your head through the dress and begin to pull your arms through the large puffed sleeves as Natasha straightens your skirt.

The neckline is ruffled, heart shaped, and low. The sleeves are also ruffled, small cinches that wrap around your arm mid-bicep leaving your shoulders and neckline exposed. Nat turns you and quickly laces up the back of the dress. She pulls it tight so that there is no chance of it slipping down.

“Isn’t this a little-?”

“You look beautiful.” Natasha smiles, fixing a long pink sash around your waist that she ties into a long loose bow above the curve of your bum. “Shall I braid your hair again?”

Natasha’s hands work fast, her fingers nimble and familiar with your hair’s texture and flow. The skirt is so long and flowing that you wonder if something special has been planned for you to attend as you feel that despite the somewhat casual look of the dress, it also doubles as pretty in that formal sense.

Your fingers find the embroidered pink and white peonies on the bodice that decorate your breast.

“Am I seeing someone special today?” You ask.

“No.” Natasha smiles. “Just us. Lunch is being served in the garden for you, Margaret, and Steve. Bucky and I shall be nearby. Peter will be close too. No one special.”

You huff a laugh as she lists all of the most precious people in your life. “So, only those special to me then?”

Nat chuckles and finishing tying off your hair.

“Lunch is for you, Steve, and Maggie. Steve expressed a wish to spend some quiet time alone with the two of you. He knows he’s been busy the past few weeks racing about chasing leads on this new Hydra weapon. He wants to make it up to you and I know he’d appreciate you in this dress.”

Her explanation makes sense but you’re successfully distracted from the dress by the mention of Hydra.

“How was the search?” You suddenly wonder, remembering Steve’s orders for her and Bucky.

“We’ve spread the word and will go out again tonight to search. I’ll tell you if anyone is found.”

“I’d like to know what’s happening with this.” You turn to her, adjusting within her grip as she reaches down to fuss with your dress. “I need to know, Nat. I can’t be kept in the dark again.”

Natasha drops her hands, placing them on her hips as she considers the look in your eyes.

“You’re not saying something.” She realizes. “What’s troubling you?”

“Nothing.” You say quickly, a shrug thrown her way just to brush off the concern. “I just don’t want any surprises. Not like before. This threat seems insignificant but what if there’s more to this mysterious weapon? I want to know what you’re all walking into.”

“Steve has promised to keep you appraised.” Nat promises you. “I will hold him to his word.”

Slowly, as the truth of her words shines through her eyes, a small smile stretches your lips.

“Thanks, Nat.”

~~~~~~~~~~

As you approach your renovated pavilion, peony blossoms blooming all around in varying shades of pink, you adjust Maggie in your arms.

You’re careful with your own dress. Double-checking the top of your bodice to make sure for the tenth time that you are covered after feeding your daughter. Nat made sure it was tight again but you’re fretting is ceaseless as a mother now.

The corset you’re wearing made especially for you since you are nursing, makes it easy for you to feed her without much fuss. Steve seems to favor it too though you’ve told him to be gentle and he’s avoided enjoying your breasts while you’re focused on raising your little one.

Aside from a loving caress and gentle butterfly kisses when the two of you make love, he’s avoided touching them.

Reaching the stairs, you fix your daughter’s dress—changed to match yours with endless ruffles but the same peony embroidery pattern on her little chest and pink sash around her little waist.

Steve rises quickly, rushing towards you with his arms extended.

Maggie coos excitedly, her little high-pitched squeaks and goos nearly make you swoon as she kicks her little legs excitedly. She’s not exactly screaming yet, but her noises are long and eager.

“There’s my princess.” Steve says proudly, his eyes flooding with love as he takes her into his large arms and kisses her chubby cheek.

He turns her to sit with her little back pressed against his chest and smiles at you while your own eyes are glued to your daughter.

“And my beautiful Queen.” He gushes, pulling your attention away from Maggie as he leans down slowly until he meets your lips with a long slow peck. “How are you?”

His voice is soft and deep. “I’m very well.”

It’s almost a lie.

In this moment, here with Steve and Maggie, you are most definitely well. You’re happy and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Your heart still weighs a ton with Grandmother’s news.

For a terrible moment as Steve walks away from you to sit down with Maggie on his lap, you remember her words and your knees almost buckle.

With him focused on the little one, you manage to sit yourself down before he can notice.

Rapid footsteps climb the stairs behind you. You turn to find Peter moving in to stand beside you both. He smiles excitedly as he watches Maggie. He, like everyone else in the castle, is head over heels for her.

No one draws a smile quicker than Maggie, even from the gentry that had so readily spread rumors about you.

This makes you happy. Your daughter accepted.

“Cook will be out with your meals shortly, your Majesties.” He informs you both.

“Won’t you join us?” You ask him, but Peter meets Steve’s eyes for a moment then reaches up to scratch behind his head, his cheeks flushing pink.

Clearly Steve had made it clear that he wanted to spend time with you and Maggie alone to more than just Nat. However, there’s something else in that rosy tint in Peter’s cheeks.

“I…I’m actually meeting Morgana in the libraries to help her with her studies. I will cancel with her if you wish me to stay?” He offers, though you see the disappointment in his eyes.

“No.” You hurry to assure him. “No, we’re fine. I just wanted to be sure you ate.”

“Thank you, your Majesty. I believe Cook is sending sandwiches to the library for us.” Peter bows and with an excitement in his step you watch him until he’s out of sight.

“They make a good match.” You smile, turning to take a sip of water from the silver goblet before you.

“Who?” Steve asks, confused. He bounces his leg to keep Maggie occupied while allowing her to hold his finger in her tight tiny fist. She drags it to her mouth and bites it with her gums, yet Steve doesn’t seem to notice.

“Peter and Morgana.”

“Peter and your sister?” Steve asks in shock. “But…she’s so young.”

“She’s fifteen, going on sixteen.” You remind him. “If they are engaged this year that will still leave them with two years of courtship before they’re married. That is the custom in Malibia.

She’ll be eighteen by then and Peter will be twenty-four. Some people would say those are two ages perfect for marrying.”

Despite the pleasant picture you paint, Steve’s frown only grows.

“What?” You chuckle, reaching into your skirts to find the pocket where you’d placed a few small towels for Maggie’s constant drooling.

You offer Steve the towel but he’s still frowning? No…he’s pouting! You get up and move around to wipe her chin before placing the towel in Steve’s hand.

“Why are you pouting?”

“I’m not pouting.” Steve grumbles.

It makes you laugh again. “Steve…”

“Maggie will not be getting engaged until she’s at least twenty.” He suddenly declares. “I’ll lock her up in the West tower until she’s that age and only then will I allow her to entertain the idea of a suitor.”

“Are you worried that you’ll only have her for sixteen years?” You chuckle, watching the worry in his eyes as he cradles Maggie closer, stroking her rounded cheeks with gentle thumbs.

“She’s mine right now.” Steve laments, looking down at her as she continues to chew on his finger. “I don’t want to part with her. I’ve waited so long for her for some boy to come take her from me.”

“Oh, my darling.” You chuckle but this time with full sympathy for his heartbreak. “We will have lots of time with her. And even after she marries, she will always be our daughter.”

Steve’s eyes are glued to her little face and he completely doesn’t notice Cook come up to serve your meal. A few roast chickens with potatoes and carrots.

You eat in silence but quickly. Enjoying the sight of him growing more and more enamored with your daughter. Steve doesn’t seem to notice the time slip by as he distracts her with the towel you’d handed him.

She chatters about nothing in her baby speak, drawing smiles and chuckles from your husband.

Finally, you eat your last carrot and slide your chair back.

“I’m sorry.” You tell him, rising to your feet knowing you have no reason to be sorry. He’s so in love with her. Luckily, you’ve still managed to eat fast enough that the food is still warm for him. “I should hire a maid to watch her when we eat.”

It’s true that you’ll eventually need to hire someone to take care of her when you must deal with kingdom affairs too. You’re so reluctant to let someone else care for her. Just as Steve claims her passionately, you feel just as he does. She’s yours.

“Not yet.” Steve counters, letting you take her from him. He adjusts in his chair, wipes his hand then proceeds to eat, stealing glances at both of you as you move towards the benches that line the inner edge of the pavilion.

Everything is so perfect. So lovely.

You’re almost content in this moment, with your little girl in your arms and Steve sharing a meal with you. You’re very nearly happy until you look at him and like a raging storm Grandmother’s words destroy your fragile peace once more.

Steve is going to die.

He turns to you and smiles. He smiles at Maggie. He confesses his love for you both with it pouring from his eyes and while your heart aches, you vow to do anything to stop this new threat from taking him away.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come to bed.” Steve pleads.

You glance at him through your looking glass, a hazy image because of the distance from your small table to the bed. The silver is in need of polishing or perhaps replacing. You don’t dare speak this thought aloud though.

Knowing Steve, he’d simply buy you a wall full of mirrors and you can’t have that.

Even blurry he’s a vision, an absolute fucking sight to behold with your daughter at the center of your bed his fingers tickling her tummy as she kicks her little legs excitedly. Her little hands absentmindedly stroking his arm.

He’s on his side, shirtless. His lower body hidden beneath the sheets of your bed as he lays naked underneath.

Despite that delectable fact, your eyes are glued to his gentle smile as he takes his hand and gently strokes the length of Maggie’s little nose. He’s noticed how that lulls her to sleep and does it to her every night to send her off when he’s not busy in meetings.

You finish tending to your hair, braiding it back once again to keep out of the way for your little one. When you turn in your seat to look at them, you find Maggie’s movements slowed. Her eyes are closing, little rosebud lips left open slightly.

She’s already fed and content. Your happy baby, so protected and cherished.

Despite his attentions to your daughter that you’ve spent the last ten minutes watching, when you look at him you find Steve’s eyes on you.

“Come to bed.” He urges you, a small twinkle of desire hidden in the tranquility of these moments he spends with Maggie but stares at you.

“Are you trying for a second?” You ask him, teasing as you rise and move to the bed. You know that look well by now.

Steve’s expression suddenly shift, concern etched across his face.

“Am I rushing you?” He asks, reaching for you as you kneel on the bed and gather your nightdress up so as not to trip on it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He’s thinking of this morning, already having had you in his den.

Since you’d given birth, he’s been so careful with you. Even when you’d assured him you were ready to be intimate with him again, he’d hesitated. Worried about hurting you or rushing your body into doing things you should not be doing.

Your smile only grows, a small chuckle escaping your lips as you settle in on Maggie’s right. She doesn’t even stir. Steve’s hand remains around your forearm, fingers gently caressing your skin.

“Why do you laugh?” He asks, his mouth perking at the corners despite his worry.

“You are not like any man I’ve ever met or heard of.” You confess. “Some of the women in Bright Rise, when they still spoke with me, would tell me about their husbands. They were like you were at the beginning of our marriage. Worse, as they took without care for their wives’ wishes. Some of them were always pregnant now that I think about it. Always trailed by a line of toddlers and children.

“The men didn’t care about their wives’ bodies or how their need to satiate their hungers affected the other.” You shake your head. “Some of the women even confessed to me that they took on lovers to find the enjoyment in fucking again.”

“Something you would have been forced to do had I continued in my foolish ways.” Steve suggests, unphased by your still somewhat rural tongue.

“Maybe…in the future. It would have taken me years of neglect to get to that point.” You nod, “Even with Thor, his touch was…unwelcome. He didn’t force me, but I did not feel right accepting his affections. I’m married. Even unhappy that wasn’t something I took lightly.”

Steve’s hand moves up to the top of your arm then slowly he drags it down to your wrist.

“Were you always this considerate? I mean, before me?” You wonder, looking deep into his storm blue eyes. “Say with Margaret? Or, perhaps the other women you were with before we married?”

Steve turns, laying himself on his back.

He releases your arm and gently strokes the length of his chest, fingers dancing across the tuft of blonde hair that rails all the way down below where the blanket ends at his waist. His other hand he shoves underneath his head as he thinks.

You wait patiently for him to be ready to speak. You’ve never asked him about his habits with other women in bed.

He steals several quick looks your way which tells you he’s nervous about answering you. Wary, in case it should prompt a fight. You can see the moment he decides to give in. His lips part a little, they stutter, then he speaks.

“Margaret was strong.” He states plainly, as if that explains it all.

You wait.

“Not that you aren’t!” He rushes to say, sitting up as gently as he can to keep from waking your daughter.

Maggie still stirs and whimpers. You place your hand on her chest and soothe her until she stills again.

“Can you put her in her bed?” You begin to sit up too, ready to do it yourself but Steve is faster, rushing so that you won’t have to.

“Of course! I’ll get her.” He gently scoops her up into his arms then quickly moves around to your side of the bed as you follow them with your eyes, turning your body as they go.

Gently he places her in her crib and tucks her in, shushing and soothing her as she complains then goes silent once more.

She isn’t too close, but you can still see her from your spot on the bed. Steve double checks by looking at you to see if you can still see her.

When he’s satisfied that you can, he moves back to you, crawling over you and stopping to give the tip of your nose a kiss as he goes before plopping himself down on his side once again. This time he reaches for you, grabby hands tracing the shape of your curves as he pulls you a little closer.

“What I meant, is that Margaret was willful. She knew what she wanted, and she made certain that everyone else knew so too.” He clears his throat, suddenly nervous again. “In bed, she was just as certain of herself.

“Even though I made the first move, she was the one who took charge in our physical relationship. I knew that if something were to go wrong or if she was tired or too ill to be with me intimately, she would tell me.”

You listen without judgement and try to keep your face clear of all emotions other than the love you have for him. Even through this conversation, your heart pounds with dread as it repeats Grandmother’s words over and over, reminding you that every moment with Steve is precious.

“I never had to worry about Margaret’s body because she never had to compromise it for me. I did worry for her, but not in the same way.” Steve says, probably thinking about the risks that Margaret would have taken as part of the Avengers.

“And the other women?” You wonder.

“There weren’t many.” Steve assures you, looking down at your chest in embarrassment. “Only two.”

“You were grieving Margaret.” You nod, understanding. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t a man.”

Steve is silent for a moment, resting his head in his hand as he uses his elbow to prop himself up. With his other hand he traces nervous circles in the blanket between you.

“They were visiting ladies. Ladies who, like Margaret, knew what they wanted.” Steve sighs the lunges softly towards you, pushing you onto your back so suddenly it makes you gasp and then laugh.

As he settles his body halfway over yours, he smiles down at you.

His hands caress the sides of your face before he trails one hand along your sides, grabbing you with intent. You can feel the desire in his touch.

“Court ladies are all playing a game. It’s a language they speak that you don’t know.” Steve sighs heavily. “A set of rules that I’m glad you do not understand. You are nothing like them and I love you for it.”

“They had husbands?” You realize.

“Yes.” Steve nods. “Men who are too distracted by their own infidelities or too busy grasping at power to pay their wives any mind. With both of them it was only one night. It came and went so quickly I can barely remember them. I don’t even think I could tell you their names.”

His face grows solemn, sad as if remembering a painful memory that has since lost its sting but not the emotion of sorrow. “I didn’t enjoy myself. I was driven by lust, but I didn’t even…I made sure they were satisfied and left it at that.”

“Mm. You felt guilty.” You nod, understanding as you watch his full lips. The lower is so much bigger than the upper. You reach up and trace it, loving the soft plumpness of it.

“Does it not make you jealous?” He wonders, relaxing more of his weight onto you. “Does it not upset you?”

You meet his eyes again, a smile stretched across your face. You can see that he wants to know you’re jealous. He wants to know that you want him as much as he wants you.

So much progress…is this truly the man you married?

“Only as much as it would upset any wife to hear her beloved husband talk about his past adventures in fucking other women.”

Steve groans and buries his face into the side of your neck, wrapping his arms around you as you also wrap yours around his shoulders. You chuckle, caressing the back of his head.

“So, the concern is not normal?” You realize, feeling better but also worried that you’re not seeing the real Steve. That maybe he’s acting this way with you while acting a completely different way with everyone else.

Is this not who he is?

“No, the concern is normal.” Steve says, muffled against your skin, making you feel almost instantly better.

He pulls back to look down at you again.

“What I’m saying is that every woman that I have been with until you has never given me cause to be concerned. I didn’t hurt them the way I hurt you.” He frowns. “I didn’t take what they weren’t willing to give.”

You look away this time, the solemnity coming from you now. The shift of conversation making your heart ache. When you speak, your voice is quiet, subdued with the reminder of your wedding night.

“I wasn’t unwilling.” You correct him because you hadn’t been. Not that first night or any night after.

Your line was not one clearly drawn, certainly. You’d slept with him out of duty but that hadn’t meant you didn’t want to. He’s the most beautiful man you’d ever seen in your life. Of course, you’d wanted him.

You hadn’t told him no. You’d only told him to slow down. You know that for him, for Nat, for everyone who found out—that slow down had been enough. It should have been enough to stop him.

“You know what I mean.” Steve says, placing both his hands on the sides of your face to tilt your head back until you look at him. “I wounded you. I took something that was not mine to take.”

“But it was yours to take.” You correct him again, and he growls in his throat at you before shaking his head, the pain leaving his eyes to be replaced by admiration.

“I can still feel you, trembling and sobbing in my arms. I was disgusted with myself. I couldn’t believe that I could do that to anyone. And you were so…so kind and gentle. So eager to please and I took advantage of that.” Steve confesses. All of his thoughts spilling out of him like water. “I had turned this beautiful, sweet princess into a sobbing, fearful, and wounded creature. I was so consumed by my grief over Margaret and my anger at having to marry again when I wasn’t ready to do so that I wanted it over. In that moment, I didn’t care about the sweet woman beneath me.

“And even after I hurt you, when I came to see you, despite your fear your only concern was for the tears I shed.”

It takes a moment to find your voice, but you do. You swallow hard.

“I’d never seen a man cry.” You confess. “Much less a king.”

“I meant every tear.” Steve insists. “If I could take that night back, I would. If I could redo every night since, I would. I am concerned for you above anyone else, because in you I saw my darkest self and I never want to be that man for you again. I never want to hurt you.”

The two of you lapse into emotional but pleasant silence. Both hearts beating strongly against each other as his chest is pressed firmly against your own.

At last, you smile, a chuckle spilling from your lips as you reach up and tuck his hair behind his ear. It’s getting long again.

“Have you always made these long speeches? Or is that reserved for me as well?” You check, mostly just teasing.

Steve’s lips curl up, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “I make sure to give every pretty woman I see a lengthy speech. Whether they’re enjoyable is a different matter.”

You bite your lip, glaring at him but only in jest. Quickly he dips down to kiss your lips, letting it linger for a moment before he pulls back only a bit so that when he speaks, his lips are fluttering against your own.

“My declarations of love, however, are entirely yours alone.” He whispers. “Tell me to stop and I will obey, my Queen.”

His right hand moves down, searching until it finds the hem of your nightdress which he begins to tug up until he finds the top of your leg. He traces the dip of flesh there, tickling your skin in search of your already yearning core.

As his fingers make contact, you gasp into his slightly open mouth and it draws his attention back up to your face. He licks your lips, just a gentle flick of the tip of his tongue before he kisses you, sinking it into your depths where you meet his eager kiss with your own.

You moan quietly, a whimper of yearning as his fingers spread your folds and begin to explore you. The noises his hand makes absolutely sinful.

Eager for his touch, you bring your knees up. You spread your legs for him, and he pulls out of the kiss to slide down along your body. He does down, down, down until he’s settled between your legs.

He grabs one and throws it over his left shoulder, then the other over his right. He kisses your thighs, trailing his tongue in small circles before every gentle pucker. The anticipation curls your toes as he moves closer and closer to your cunt.

“Steve…” You whisper, aware of the baby asleep in her crib and your need to keep quiet so that she can sleep.

He dives in, his tongue making one long swipe of your dripping core.

You gasp, curling up towards him as your body is sent into shivers.

He grabs hold of your thighs roughly, pulling you hard against his face. Opening his mouth, he suckles on your clit, the gentle sound of his sucking filling your limbs with fire.

As much as you enjoy his mouth where it is, there’s an impatience that wages war within you.

After months of waiting to enjoy sleeping with him, now that you do, it makes you eager to have him within you.

“Steve, please…” You beg, reaching down and tugging on his hair.

He likes that, growling a little at the lusty whisper that is your plea.

Pressing kisses along the length of your body while he shoves your nightdress up higher and higher, he finally helps you pull it off before taking your breasts within his mouth.

His lips are soft against them, gentle in their suckling as he knows how painful you can find it now.

When you whimper from the soreness, he steals a quick look at you to make sure you aren’t in too much pain before he simply kisses them around the nipple.

You run your hand over his hair, a promise that someday he’ll be able to enjoy your breasts again. He reads your reassurance but dismisses it as he rushes to meet your lips in a demanding kiss.

Without warning he pushes into you. He stretches you, filling you up so pleasantly that you throw your head back but swallow the moan you’d normally release.

Fuck…Your mind supplies, nails raking along the scarred flesh of his shoulders.

“Fuck…” Steve groans into your ear, stopping once he’s buried within you. Great minds think alike, you guess.

“Don’t stop.” You beg and wrap your left arm around his shoulders while the other reaches down as far as it can to grab as much of his bum as possible and pull him close.

He starts slowly, letting you both relish in the silky way his cock slides out of you then back in.

“Kiss me.” You tell him, needing his mouth to silence the moans you feel bound to make.

He obliges, roughly meeting your lips with a frenzied and lustful kiss as he loses himself within you.

He doesn’t pound into you the way he did at the cottage. He knows he shouldn’t, so he doesn’t. Even though you want it, you’re grateful for his forethought and instead focus on the way he seems to know which angles to adjust so that his cock not only pierces you but presses against the most sensitive spots inside of you.

He moves faster, reaching down to massage your clit as he kisses his way down your neck.

The moment is sudden, and it surprises you when your body goes tense for a moment as your climax washes over you.

You pull Steve down against you, gripping him hard as you hold him tight while your body is overcome.

Steve continues to push into you. Faster as he realizes that you’ve reached your limit. He grunts as he picks up speed, tracing the shape of your back down to your ass where he takes hold of it, fingers digging into the muscle.

He pulls up a little, searching for your lips with his own, tongue delving into your mouth as you give him what he wants. Both of you moan into each other, muffled and needy until Steve’s body stutters and his heat spills into you over and over.

He thrusts with each burst of ecstasy that overtakes him. His groans grow lazy. His body loose. Your own is already numb and you go still beneath him as he trails lazy kisses along the misty skin of your neck and shoulders.

He sighs, laying his head against your clavicle where he relaxes on top of you, your hands gently stroking his back.

You steal a glance at Maggie in her crib, but she’s sound asleep. It relaxes you to know she’s unbothered and without meaning to, you and Steve both fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

A loud thumping makes you twitch. It sounds distant but it startles you anyway.

In your arms, something large moves.

Your sleepy mind reminds you that it’s Steve and you sigh in your semi-sleep as your hands enjoy the feel of his hot body still resting on top of your own.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The thumping returns, this time louder and clearer.

A quiet whine to your right wakes you more quickly than the thumping and like you’ve been stunned with Thor’s lightning, you spring up from the bed, quickly sliding out from beneath Steve who also whines at your moving but peeks up at you as you rise.

“Whereyewgoin?” He asks, still mostly asleep.

“Go back to sleep.” You whisper to him from beside Maggie’s crib.

BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!

The thumping, which is actually a knocking on your door you realize, repeats.

Maggie whines again and you frown.

“Who’s there?” Steve asks towards the door, his voice more annoyed then upset.

“It’s Agatha, your Majesty.” One of the guards outside speaks.

“Don’t speak for me.” Grandmother’s voice grumbles.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty.” The guard says nervously, probably worried about the knocking, which means that was Grandmother and not the guard.

You look at Steve as Maggie begins to wake, her cries soft but rising as you continue to try and soothe her but now only halfheartedly.

Fear grips you, stealing you of your voice as you stare at your husband. Your little girl’s cries grow louder as she wakes but you’re frozen in place, terrified of what Grandmother could not wait until the morning to tell you.

“What, my flower?” Steve suddenly asks, sliding to the edge of the bed towards you.

“I…I should see what she wants.” You whisper, afraid to speak any louder despite your daughter already being awake.

“Go.” Steve urges you, grabbing your nightdress and moving towards you. He offers it to you as he reaches you. “I’ll put Maggie back to sleep.”

You take the nightdress with trembling hands. If Steve notices he doesn’t say so, but you don’t think he does as he’s already lifting Maggie from the crib, moving back towards the bed.

You dress in a hurry, then move to grab Steve’s robe as it’s closer and pull it over your body.

You’re tying it closed as the door opens upon your approach and find Grandmother pacing the hallway behind the two guards assigned to keep you and Maggie safe.

After what happened with Pierce, Steve is taking no chances.

“Grandmother?” You check, voice stronger but still just as terrified.

“We must speak.” She tells you, her voice strong and her eyes full of severity.

With a tentative nod you have her follow you into Steve’s den next door, shutting the door securely before you move into the room and offer her a seat in front of Steve’s desk.

“No.” She waves your offer off, pacing as you take a seat because your legs are weak again. “I have found a solution.”

“So quickly?” You gasp, hands balled into tight fists on your lap as you watch her pace.

“The sooner the better I would think in this situation. This is nothing like I have ever done before.” She admits. “It will take all of my power to do it.”

“It…will it hurt you?” You wonder, worried for her withered body.

“Probably not.” She shakes her head. “No way to know for sure. But it’s something I’m willing to die for.”

“What?” You gasp, suddenly terrified of losing her.

Finally, Grandmother stops her pacing and moves to stand before you.

“This threat is greater than I first thought.” She admits, slowly sitting herself down in the seat beside yours, turning it so that she can face you. “We cannot allow this power to grow. We can either stop it here, right now. Or we can let your husband stop it later. If we allow him to do it, it will take his life. There is no doubt in my mind of that. There will be others. He will not be the only to perish.

“Stopping this threat now is for everyone’s benefit and if I must pay with my life to save many others, I will do so willingly.” She declares.

“I can’t ask you to do that.” You shake your head, your emotions already raw.

“You’re not asking me, girl. I’m telling you that I must do it. I have already made my choice, now the only choice left to make is your own.” She fixes her gaze on you and you find you cannot look away.

“My own choice?”

“You asked me to save him. To ensure that he will live, a great sacrifice must be made. Separate from my own. I will provide the power, the strength for the incantation. Something else must be given for it to succeed.” Grandmother explains.

Your mind springs into action, thinking of the one thing you have of worth to give. Your life.

“So, I’ll…I’ll die?” You whisper, already in sorrow for leaving your husband and child.

“No.” Grandmother says. “No, I’m certain you will live.”

“Then what?”

“The price is impossible to know. It could be anything.” Grandmother gestures at you, looking you over from head to toe. “It could be your sight. Your ability to hear. Your voice. Your ability to walk. Whatever it is, it will be a great price to pay. Only you can choose to pay it but unless you do, I cannot go forward with the spell.”

“C-can I choose? Can I decide what it is that I sacrifice?” You hope, but what would you choose? What do you possibly have that could be worth your husband’s life?

“No. The magics will choose what to take. It will be equal to what it is you ask for, but only the magics can choose what that value is.” Grandmother explains.

This is impossible. This is unbelievable. This is torture.

You have to pay a price without knowing what it will be?

You know that your answer is yes. You’ll pay it. Whatever the price, you will give it willingly if it will save Steve’s life.

“I will pay it.” You nod. “Of course, I will. Yes.”

Grandmother takes your hand and squeezes it, a knowing look in her eyes. “I knew you would.”

She rises and you follow. Your hands feel weak but with the decision now made, you now it’s right and feel settled that you know this will soon be resolved.

Before the old woman can make it to the door, you reach out and grab her wrist, stopping her before she can leave.

“Grandmother…” You begin, waiting for her to turn.

She doesn’t. “Don’t get sentimental.” She says, voice strong though you’re sure that you can hear a small sadness in her tone.

“I want to thank you…for taking care of me. For loving me. I know that you could not always be there when I was young but you’re here now. Thank you.” You whisper, scared to speak louder in case you begin to cry. “I-I just wanted you to know. In case I cannot say it later or if you-”

You can’t even speak the words. She won’t die. She can’t.

With one withered hand, she reaches down and places it over your own. She gives you a squeeze, her hands trembling but reassuring.

“I don’t know when the spell will take effect. Go. Sleep soundly. Hold them close.” Grandmother advises then pushes your hand off her arm and disappears into the sleeping castle.

The very short walk back to your bedroom feels as if it takes forever. The guard make no comment as they open your door for you and you wander in, eyes searching for the loves of your life.

You find Steve snuggled up close to Maggie, his head pressed against the side of her own, his hand on her tummy and his eyes closed.

Maggie is not sleeping. She’s staring up at the ceiling with her little legs kicking gently as she coos and babbles her baby speak. One of her little hands is closed tightly around Steve’s finger, holding tight. As you move towards them, you notice how her hand doesn’t even close around his finger completely. She’s so small still. So fragile.

What if you can’t hold her after paying the price? What if you can’t hear her babble? What if you can’t see her little face or the way her eyes light up and her toothless smile spreads across her face as she spots you?

Just as she does now, she lets out a louder “Goo…” as she spots you and her legs go into a frenzy as she flails her limbs frantically.

You don’t want to cry but you feel the rush of sorrow overwhelm you. Quickly, before Steve can see, you drop onto the bed still wearing his robe and pull Maggie towards you. You hug her and turn her towards you, burying your face against her tiny chest.

Her little hands grab at you, whatever part of your head they can, and she pulls your ears, tugs your hair, scratches against your cheek but you don’t care. You inhale her scent, memorizing it just in case you lose the ability to smell.

After you’re sure you could never forget it, you tickle her sides until she’s giggling lightly, small bubbles and whines of amusement. It’s not a full laugh. She hasn’t done that for you yet. What if you never get to hear it?

You memorize this one anyway, put it away and lock it up within your heart where you know you will always be able to recall the pure sound of her innocence.

It takes every ounce of will power within you to stifle your desire to sob. Still, you manage it and when you’re certain you can face him, you pull back a bit to look at your daughter’s beautiful face.

She’s all Steve. You hardly recognize anything in her looks of you. She’s gorgeous. Pretty blonde hair, just like Steve’s only slightly darker in shade.

Her eyes are a piercing blue. Lighter than Steve’s but just as observant. She watches you, reaches out for your face where she places a small hand on your nose then slides it down to your lips which she casually grabs and releases before her eyes find her hand and she brings it to her mouth to taste.

You watch her for so long, you’re sure that it must nearly be morning, but the sky continues to be dark outside the windows of your room.

You sing to your little one. A quit lullaby that you hope she’ll remember if you can never speak to her again. You tell her you love her and sing some more.

She drifts off eventually, her little mouth open as she sleeps.

Finally, you turn your eyes on Steve, yearning to see him almost to an unnatural amount. You have never doubted it but in this moment as your eyes find him staring right back at you, you realize how much you truly love him. How much he’s changed your life.

Your world has grown since you met him. He’s changed you forever.

Will the sacrifice be your life? Will you be leaving them behind? Will you be wounding him again, just as Margaret had?

Even though Grandmother said it wouldn’t be, you can’t help but wonder and worry that you might very well be spending the last moments you’ll ever have with him and Maggie now.

What if you close your eyes and they should never open again?

At least she would have him. Maggie wouldn’t be alone. She would have her father. And he would have her.

If by some chance her father should also leave her behind, she’d have Nat and Bucky. She’d have Sam and Peter. She’d have the entire team to care for her. Father and Mother would probably try and take her to Malibia.

She would never need to worry about her meals or whether she could survive frigid winter temperatures. She would be protected and loved even if you aren’t around to make sure she is.

Steve blinks slowly. He’s sleepy but he’s trying to stay awake because you’re awake.

You’re not sure if he can tell that something is wrong, but you push yourself up towards him. You’re careful as you hover over Maggie, reaching to hook your hand behind his neck as he also pushes himself up and towards you.

You kiss him, slow and smooth until your heart begins to ache and your hand squeezes around his neck.

You kiss him with a bit more fervor and though he returns it, when you pull away, his brow is narrowed in confusion. Subtle concern.

“I love you.” You whisper to him, reaching down to trace the shape of his bottom lip with your thumb. You kiss him again. “I love you, forever.”

It’s a promise you have every intention of honoring. Will he love you even if you can’t talk? Will he love you if you can’t hear? Will he still love you if you are not the woman you are now?

You know that you can overcome anything. You can embrace a new way of living so long as it means that Steve and Maggie are safe. But will he see it that way? Will he love you for the woman you will become?

“You’re my entire world, Y/N.” He whispers back almost as if he can hear your thoughts and he wants to put you at ease.

His lips curl up at the corns softly as he blinks even slower than before as sleep begins to pull him under. “You and Maggie are my life.”

Your lip trembles as his eyes shut and do not open again, his head falling to his pillow.

“I love you…so…” He trails off, his words lost to dreams.

You stare at him and then Maggie. All night you stare at them, memorizing the way they breathe and smell. If you’re going to be changed forever, you’re going to remember this moment and cherish it until the day you die.

You will never forget it.

~~~~~~~~~~

1 Year & 3 Months Later

The sun is beaming. It’s strong. July is hot, even more so than normal. You groan as you look up to the sky and shield your eyes from the blinding light.

For a moment your mind goes hazy, full of fog. Something changes as it always does. Something shifts.

Something tugs at the corners of your mind. Something blurry and demanding. You get this way every single time you come here.

Every time you fill the wooden bucket, there’s a flash of something familiar.

You focus on the tug, allowing it to unearth the secret that eludes you.

There’s a quick flash that you don’t quite see. A golden hue. A storm blue circle.

Then your bucket overflows and the water splashes your feet, drenching your newly mended shoes.

They’re too small for your feet but it’s all you have.

“Damn.” You sigh, grunting as you lift the bucket and place it on the damp bank of the river.

Across the barren field, your little hut just at the opposite edge nestled into a grove of forest trees, Bright Rise begins to wake.

Another day, another scramble to find a way to keep your belly full.

“Time to check the traps.” You sigh, groaning as you lift the bucket and begin the trek back to your little hovel in the only village you’ve ever known.

The place you were born, but most definitely not home.

Your heart tells you that somewhere out there…somewhere else, your true home waits.

(THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! One more to go!)

[meadow-roses]

aske time :) for the writing asks: A1, A2, A10, A12, A14, your choice of anything in B, C8 ( :^) ), C11, D6

A1: Introduce the characters from one of your current WIPs in one or two sentences each. 

Okay let's gooo,,, I'll do The Keepers cause I haven't talked about that one as much. These aren't gonna be the best descriptions but whatever 

Ketsler: Quirky, fun-loving, everyone's weird grandpa, but also the most powerful person to have ever lived. He's old- so very, very old- and he's seen so much over all the centuries he has been protecting the worlds from Chaos, but he still makes an effort to slow down and appreciate the little things around him, because he knows better than most how fleeting life is.

Skylar: Skylar is from a world where faerie circles are real and witches turn people into frogs and trolls live in great, big castles and are slain by talking cats, a world where there's too much adventure to stay in one place, too many people to meet, and too many monsters to slay to stop running. He may be only a human (ooo mystery!!) but he is proficient in Wind magic and carries around a good bit of rune stones he and his pet dragon have found along his adventures. 

Felix: Felix is just a normal human from a small town after the earth becomes united under one world power. He wasn't born with superpowers like most soldiers are, but he was still skilled enough to join a special force working behind enemy lines when the rebellion made its move to free the planet from the tyranny that built this dystopian reality. 

Betty: A very sweet young lady, she's from a planet that was colonized by humans centuries ago. She may seem naive, but Betty can read anyone like a book and uses her gift to help those who are lost find themselves again. 

There's more characters but I'll just stick with those main ones cause I really struggle with descriptions xD

A2: Who's your favorite character to write and why?

Probably Joden? I haven't written most of my characters, but I looove writing his dialogue. He also makes me think so I can keep him clever lol

A10: What’s your character development process like? (As in how you develop them, not necessarily their development in-story)

I roleplay them! The more developed they are, the more I've acted as them. It really gets me inside their head to try and think like how they think, and that results in me being more equipped to "discover" why they are like that. 

A12: What kind of internal conflict does your character go through (want versus need, personality complexes or strong personality flaws/”fatal flaw” kinda thing)? How does this affect them?

It really varies depending on the character? For example Joden has this need to always have a plan, always be in control, and a breaking moment for him comes in when he finally just,,, doesn't know what to do. He's in over his head and the only thing he can do is trust Jacer to do what he can- knowing Jacer doesn't have things under control. 

So that's an example of a flaw that the character gets to overcome, but there also characters whose flaws are part of who they are. Skylar wouldn't be Skylar if he weren't stubborn. Ketsler wouldn't be Ketsler if he weren't arrogant. They never grow out of these flaws, they just learn to control them. Or I guess not be controlled by the flaw. 

This is actually something I think I struggle with for my characters, giving them those visable flaws. I see other people's characters that start out "bad" and grow into heroes, but it kinda seems like all my characters start out as heroes. 😅 I mean, they have flaws, but in comparison to other people's characters they feel really bland in that aspect. Idk

A14: Ramble about your characters. Anything special you like about them? Random little details you’ve added that you enjoy? 

Uh,,, I don't even know where to start I just love all of them for so many various reasons. Joden is just a clever little genius but he still can be so naive. He just has simple pleasures and it's not hard to make him laugh or smile and practically impossible to discourage him. He starts off just,,, wanting his old life back and then he sees what the world is like outside his little bubble and the bubble pops. He sees the atrocities for what they are and to be able to settle down again, he has to fix it. He can't just smile and do as he's told, he can't let the bad guys win. It I just his mother and wife and son he's fighting for, it's the entire wood and the idea of being actually, truly, free.

Jacer is so savvy, he knows what to do and what to say to get into and out of any situation, but at the same time he's just clueless when it comes to genuine connection. He's a princeling who's really never had a friend and now he's saving the world with Joden who only knows how to make genuine connections. Why does he have to keep hugging me??  

And Twylla who's ready to fight anything so she can get her clever idiot husband back? 

Adric who's just doing his best to be a good leader but everything keeps going wrong. He wasn't born to be a king, he wasn't born to lead an army, he always had his big brother to help him do these things and he's gone- he's gone and he's not coming back he messed up again so bad and yet here he is with everyone looking to him for answers and he doesn't know what to tell them. But he's got his friends, and he's got a good heart, and he genuinely cares and they're going to figure it out.

Skylar just keeps running forward and he never looks back at the past he just jumps from one adventure to another stopping the monsters and saving the day. He's got Gigi what more does he need? 

Felix is just,,, he's just such a nice guy. Over and over he stepped into the gap because someone's gotta fly that fighter, someone's got to fire that gun, someone's got to stabilize the bomb, someone's going to lose their life to ensure the victory, why shouldn't it be him? But he never actually dies, somehow he always survives and lives to fight the next day, and the next day and the next day, and then they win the war- the world is free. And even though he's been through so much he still hasn't lost that kindness, that love for all life that makes him himself. He still falls in love and starts a family and has his own beloved children… and even when he loses them he still doesn't become cynical. He still stands in the gap and is the one to fire the gun, to hold the hand of the one who's mourning, to scoop up the orphan child and carry them home. He fights, so others don't have to. Father to the fatherless and hero for all. Also he puts up with Skylar's time traveling craziness lol

And Ketsler? Unlike everyone else he never chose to be a hero. What are you supposed to do when you're a four year old boy and everyone tells you you're the hero they've been waiting for, praying for, you have to save them. It wasn't at all his choice to be born with the power of the universe running through his veins. To hold the Inness in his hands and bend reality to his will. But he didn't run away. He never hid from his destiny. He took the world onto his shoulders and never set it down. Only once- and he's never going to do it again. Never going to ask someone to fill in his role for him, it is his burden to bear… Except not anymore. Despite being multi-millenniums old, all that time didn't dull his appreciation for the little things. A baby's smile, sunshine through the leaves, the change of the seasons. The union of two souls in marriage, or the colors of the sunset streaking a foreign sky. He still sees these things, loves these things, fights for these things. Cause it's the little things he's fighting for, not just the big things. The precious moments and precious lives that make up the worlds. One of his apprentices asked him once, he'd been fighting for so long, when was it going to end? It's not his job to strike the final blow, to end the suffering and bloodshed, just to help. He saves the world, so that he can save it again. 

I have… several more characters I'd love to ramble about but that answer's gotten pretty long so I'll cut it off there. XD

B3: Do you have any plot twists? No need to describe them, just think about what kind of reaction you want from your readers. 

Oh I was just talking to August about this the other day. XD There is one plot twist in the Keeper's story I'm reeaaally looking forward to hehe I want to make people confused and then really mad when the whole thing is stretched out. >:) 

C8: Does magic exist in your world? Who can use it? How does it work?

It really depends on which WIP, but in general I like to keep magic restricted with rules. Joden's story and the Keeper's story are in the same universe (along with ThRoG) and follows that magic system. It's too complicated to go in depth here, but "magic" exists in another plane of existence, and things in the material world have varying levels of connection with it. It's kinda the energy that holds all worlds together and sustains life. The magic realm- the Inness is not a place where physical matter should exist, only spirits can walk there. 

Wizards are creatures that stand with one foot in the physical realm and the other in the Inness. Tevlar is destroying the world basically by turning it inside out- pulling the Inness out.

C11: Have you developed historical figures? How do you develop them? How in-depth do you go?

Oh yes. I am a complete history nerd so if any world EXISTS it has history, and history only happens because people. 

Sometimes it's a thought through process of "somebody needs to go here" and sometimes it's an npc from a time travel rp that took on more importance than I originally intended. 

It really varies how in depth it will go? Sometimes it's just a name to fill a spot and other times it's like, man I could write a whole book about this guy!

One historical figure would be Ares of the Pegasus. He was a powerful warrior that won a bunch of wars and united the different pegasus clans under his leadership and became the first king. He's really famous and people like naming their kids after him in a kinda superstitious hope they'll grow into attributes of his character. Ares is the male form of the name, Aris is for girls. It's like, the most common Pegasian name. XD

D6: Are there any writing styles that inspire you?

Probably the first writing style I wanted to emulate was Tolkien's, but I also really liked Andrew Peterson's? Tolkien is so dramatic, and Peterson isn't heavy on location descriptions, so I'm kinda aiming for in between I guess. 

[end-this-gay-disaster]

I’ve decided to list some warrior cat characters I would sell my soul to punt like a goddamn football💕💖

Appledusk- This mf got off easy in my opinion. Like lay it on him Maple baby, he deserves it😩

Rainflower- This was one narcissistic bitch lemme tell you. Imagine disowning your son because he broke his jaw while YOU weren’t watching him and telling his brother multiple times that he was better than your disowned son right where said son could easily hear you. She asked her leader to rename her disowned child after his disability. She kicked him out of the nest and left him in the nursery alone. She got what was coming to her lmao. Shitty moms get vibe checked on rocks. ANYWAYS. Stan Echomist and Shellheart for ditching her ass🥰

Clear Sky- I’m to lazy to type out all the reasons I dislike him a lot so just read the dawn of the clans arc and you can pick up on it pretty quick.

Hawkfrost- Interesting character I’ll give him that. However, his conduct with Ivypool was not it. And he tried killing Firestar. I’m super gay for his sister though so he goes lower on this list.

Breezepelt- Listen y’all, I know my guy was going through it. I really do. But he assaulted a blind doctor and a pregnant woman. Along with other things.

Onestar- THIS IS SUCH A SHAME CAUSE BEFORE HE BECAME LEADER HE WAS SO SWEET BUT THEN HE GOT INFECTED WITH DUMB BITCH DISEASE SO NOW I HATE HIM. Like he was just a prick. He also caused the whole Darktail fiasco cause he couldn’t keep it in his pants lmao.

Thistleclaw- This mf was a shitty mate to Snowfur, was constantly blaming Bluestar, and somehow managed to groom the clan’s medicine cat when she was young😐he was a sucky dad too wtf and a murderer.

Oakstar- You exiled a mother and her three young kits because their father was the guy who knocked your son in the river. I get that. You could have exiled Mapleshade. That would have been understandable. But the kits? Now that was plain spiteful and you mad wrong for that. He also struck me as a pretentious ‘god-fearing’ kinda guy so either way he was a prick tbh.

ASHFUR- I hate him. Like attempted murder apparently was enough to get him into starclan and even though I haven’t read the new series, he apparently possesses Bramblestar? Yeah no. Although I may be a bit biased since Bramble has always been a fave of mine. You go Hollyleaf! Out here doin God’s work.

Brokenstar- I don’t have time to explain.

Tigerstar- Him neither.

Raggedstar- Nor him.

Foxheart- Her name is a goddamn cat curse. That should tell you enough about her personality. She was also such a fucking pick me like Christ on a stick get a personality.

Dawnpelt- She was the only kit of Tawnypelt’s that was irrelevant throughout the entire series and yet she was always the one with her mouth open. She accused a BLIND DOCTOR, of killing her brother. Like bestie he can’t even see him how is he gonna kill him? He was the only one to jump after him as well. Yeah sorry but if you’re brother is still more relevant to the plot in death than you ever were, I’d pack it up sis cause this ain’t gaining you any more book time.

Sandgorse- Just a genuinely bad dad.

Palebird- She suffered from postpartum depression and I felt so bad for her. However there was just some stuff said and done later in Tallstar’s revenge that really turned me off about her character.

Shrewclaw- This dude was a straight up BULLY. He told Tallstar to go die😐he also caused him to have a long-standing fear of the ground. He also blamed him for his mom’s death btw. I love his brother though so Barkface supremacy💞

Willowshine- I forgot what it was about her that ticked me off cause it’s been a while since I’ve read the books. All I remember is that she did something that made me upset so she’s on here.

MILLIE- After Briarlight’s incident she lowkey forgot she had other children and was constantly fighting Jayfeather over what she thought was best for her even though he’s the DOCTOR. She’s also the reason Blossomfall trained in the dark forest so yeah.

Redwillow- He was so insignificant I almost forgot his name. All I remember is him dying after trying to kill his sister I think? Idk he was fighting this she-cat named Snowbird and got bodied so I thought he deserved to be up here.

Windstar- Yeah I just thought she was rude lol.

Tom- He was a massive bitch to Bumble and Turtletail plus he was the reason Turtletail got hit by that car in the first place. Wasn’t he also abusive?

Needletail- I could never remember who’s side she was on. Like in one chapter she would be chilling with her man and Darktail and Sleekwhisker but then in the next chapter she was telling Violetshine how much she wanted to leave but was scared and how she hated them all and then I thought she was turning against the clans for good but then she died for them sooooo🧍‍♀️just major confusion. She was a really cool character though! I thought she was really interesting and one of the greatest multidimensional characters of the whole series. But was sometimes a jerk to Alderheart so points are docked from that.

Spiderleg- He was a shitty dad who didn’t even pay attention to his kits, and he was rude to Daisy which is unacceptable.

Frecklewish- Let a kit drown. Like an innocent kit.

Ravenwing- Also let a kit drown.

Graywing.- I’m not talking about the original Graywing, he’s baby and I love him. I’m talking about the riverclan medicine cat that let a litter of kits drown because they were windclan😐like they were CHILDREN. Y’all can SWIM. You are a doctor and letting innocent kids die? Not a girlboss moment babe.

Stormtail- Another bad dad and was going after Dappletail even though he already had a mate. Wasn’t Dappletail an apprentice when he was flirting with her as well?

Darktail- I’m super sorry your dad abandoned you before you were born but becoming a totalitarian mass murderer? Just.. no.

Hailstar- Rainflower just walked into his den and asked him to rename her son after his disability and he just.. did it. No questions asked. He renamed a traumatized child CROOKEDKIT because his jaw was broken😐that’s fucked up like cmon. Think of the child’s feelings.

Firestar- This mf had no personality other than ‘I’m gonna be friends with everyone and save the day cause I’m the main character!!’ Yeah. Bland af. He also did a lot of questionable things pertaining Bramblestar so check out my other post on that if you want.

[kingbuckley]

Alright you guys this turned into an absolute monster of a fic rec. It’s organised by word count in descending order, and ALL FICS HAVE A HAPPY ENDING!! i don’t read fics that don’t end happy so even if a fic seems scary you can rest assured it ends fine if it’s here.

Special shoutout to @thisissirius (same ao3 handle) and @getbvcked (attolians (annber) on ao3) i have all their fics bookmarked so i didn’t include them individually in this list but you should check them out because every fic they put out is amazing. 

the rest is under the cut:

Breaking and Entering by AngelCuttingOnions (g/1k): Have you ever been terrified to lose something that isn’t even yours? Digging helplessly at the mud with your bare hands, so determined not to let go, not to give up. Your heart going so fast you think it might just beat out of your chest.

in any place you'll allow by barelyprolific (m/1k): Cleaning duty has never looked as good as Evan Buckley waxing floors.Or, Eddie Diaz finally makes his move.

Care and Keeping by BlackRose (m/1k): Eddie's alive, but he almost wasn't. Buck's determined to keep him safe now more than ever. Eddie, wants Buck to feel seen.

Cool for the Summer by Onlymystory (e/1k): Buck comes over to apologize to Eddie. It's a very good apology.

fireworks have nothing on you by inkandella (nr/1k): Buck’s tears had dried not too long ago, but his hands still shook as he wrung them. Bobby had just left to deal with, well, everything, but Buck remained by the truck, refusing to drag his eyes from Eddie for even a second. Eventually it was just Hen and Chim that remained, and Buck could finally see Eddie clearly. The man’s face was streaked with mud, dirt, and blood, his shoulders were bowed and eyes stared blankly off somewhere ahead of him. Buck bit his lips, but it didn’t really help him from asking again. “Is he okay?”Or; Buck finally does something about it.

Hotel Complaints and Grievances Raised by asexual-fandom-queen (m/2k): After a night out with the 118, Eddie wakes up with Buck naked in bed, and a barrage of feelings to face.

fight so dirty/love so sweet by homewrecker (m/2k): Buck and Eddie go for the title.

YOUR MOUTH IS HEAVEN by AgnesClementine (t/2k): A tongue piercing. Buck has a tongue piercing. Which is fine. Totally fine. Eddie is absolutely not going to lose sleep because of that information.

Zoom Into My Heart by Shaniamr (m/2k): Buck didn't know that zoom shared your private chats at the end of the meeting, but he's about to find out.

collisions in the dark by Marcia Elena (marciaelena) (e/2k): Eddie and Christopher spend the night at Buck's. Coda to 3x09.

What do you need? by RealOrFiction (e/2k): Buck has needs. Needs that haven't been met in a while.

Great Game by LovelyLittleGrim (e/2k): Buck’s watching him, waiting for some type of response. “Scared, Diaz?”“I don’t have any reason to be scared, Buckley.” He meets Buck’s eyes, lips quirked and murmurs, “I always come out on top.”

Buck Wild by Ithinkwehaveanemergency (m/2k): Eddie accidentally finds out that his best friend, coworker, and secret crush has done gay porn.

no greater joy by elisela (g/2k): When he wakes again, he finds Buck and Christopher out in the backyard, snuggled into the hammock that Buck had brought over months earlier, the day after Christopher had offhandedly mentioned that he’d been in one during a camping trip once and liked it. Buck was fooling no one when he said he’d happened to find it in storage, and Eddie had helped him set it up immediately, basking in the second-hand glow of Buck’s complete adoration of his son.

No Rest for the Wicked by Wassereis (e/2k): Eddie gets home early. What he finds wasn't what he expected.

people who love the same by templemarker (t/2k): Buck was just reheating a plate for Eddie when he heard a very familiar snort behind him."Okay, what now," he said expectantly."So," Hen drawled, "you have one plate on the counter, steaming, already had a couple of bites. And now you've got a second plate," she gestured at the microwave to the reheating lasagne, "and we all know who that plate's for."Buck looked at her, tilting his head. "I mean, I always make a plate for Eddie," he said, confused.

One Week by elisela (g/3k): Christopher's week revolves around Buck.

wherever I'm with you by anonymous (g/3k): In which Buck can't settle down in his own apartment until he realizes the true meaning of the word home.Or; Sleeping is easier when it's with Eddie.

To Be Whole by mansikka (t/3k): They say that when you and your soulmate are ready to meet, whatever they write on their skin will appear on yours, and vice versa. Which Buck thinks is bullshit. Right up until words start appearing on his arm.

Pull The Pin by islandgirl (g/3k): Everything they've been feeling and not saying is like a grenade between them and damn it all, Buck is ready to pull the pin, let the explosion happen and for everything to fall into place.

Long Overdue by mansikka (m/3k): Eddie realizes his feelings for Buck are more than platonic; what's he supposed to do now?

you could write this love in stone by chocolatebirdie (nr/4k): "Whatever happens, after tonight, I just want you to know that your friendship has meant everything to me. You’re my best friend, Eddie. You and Chris are – are like family to me. And I’m really grateful to have met you both.”“Why does this sound like you’re breaking up with me?” Eddie asks. The confusion-amusement ratio has started to skew towards the former, with an added dose of concern. Well maybe if he’d shut up and let Buck talk, Eddie wouldn’t be so puzzled.Did he have to use the phrase “break up,” though? Buck’s not sure he can stand the implication.

you can always be found by chocolatebirdie (nr/4k): Abby's back in LA, and she keeps trying to get in touch with Buck. The only problem? He's literally always with Eddie.

Until the Dancing Ends by suyari (g/4k): It’s been the strangest day of his life to date.Or the one where everyone's seen the footage of the rescue but Eddie.

when the hardest part is over by Anonymous (g/4k): “It’s okay,” Buck rasps out, tight against Eddie’s ear. “We got you back. We got you. You’re safe.”It sounds like he’s reassuring himself as much as Eddie – might even be saying it for Christopher’s sake even though the boy is blissfully unaware of what’s happened tonight. A mantra spoken to the night like a victory speech, a reminder that it could take nothing away from them.

Not Done by red_to_black (nr/4k): Buck volunteered to get into the ambulance with him, knowing the risks. He's pinching the guy's skin and saying, "Take it out," and Eddie, for the first time since leaving the military, feels it - a connection. A kindred spirit. A purpose that tethers him to reality. A person relying on him to get the job done.(or - a list of things Eddie Diaz couldn't give up on, including himself.)

Talk About It by DoneInLove (e/4k): You want to send me your dickpic?Just to see if it looks okay. Buck starts sending Eddie his dick pics before he sends them to other people.Eddie doesn't know why he decided this was a good idea.

Guessing Game by Arsenal (t/4k): Buck overhears Eddie telling his mother that he has feelings for someone and drives himself nuts trying to figure out who is possibly could be. aka yet another oblivious Buck fic

Happy Buck Day by Jecari (g/5k): After pushing the balloons tied to Christopher's crutch away, Eddie finds his best friend frowning, mouth agape. Buck looks adorable."It's not my birthday," Buck points out after shaking his head."We know," Christopher laughs.

Buck Is My Warrior by elisela (g/5k): “We’ll be filming a special edition of American Ninja Warrior,” Troy announces after the introduction to the current contestant ends, “focused on our brave first responders. Go to our website to find out more details and how to submit your videos.”Oh.“Buddy,” Eddie says, “I don’t really know if that’s my thing.”Christopher looks at him, then down at his feet and mumbles something.“Didn’t catch that, kiddo,” Eddie says, reaching out and pressing two fingers under Chris’ chin to tilt his face back up.“I said,” Christopher says, “I want to nominate Buck.”

Eddie Diaz and the Cat-astrophe at the 118 by SquaresAreNotCircles (g/5k): It’s Chimney who rescues her from the tree, but it’s Bobby’s arms that she curls up in on the drive over to the vet to get her checked out. Right from the start, it’s as if she knows who she needs to cozy up with to secure her spot at the station.“Come on, that’s crazy,” Buck says, but he does so while laughing not at Eddie, but at the grey tabby cat trying to get her claws on the fake mouse on a string that Buck bought with his own money, so Eddie doesn’t put too much stock in his opinion.Or: The firefam adopts a mascot and Eddie has a minor crisis about it.

Evan Buckley and a Series of Unintended Consequences by Shaniamr (e/6k): Buck has been hurt on the job and has lost the ability to use his hands while they heal. Eddie jumps at the opportunity to help Buck with anything he needs. Anything.

Love Language by red_to_black (nr/6k): The one in which there's too much pollen around, Eddie pines, and Buck is oblivious.Or - Eddie's love language is acts of service, and Buck doesn't totally get it.

The Other Woman by MomentsOfWeakness (t/6k): Buck has been unlucky in love lately and he can't figure out why. It takes a phone call from Eddie and an interrupted date for him to finally put the pieces together.

My Favorite Place Is Inside Your Hug by Lopithecus (e/7k): When Eddie gets stuck in a hole while trying to rescue a kid, he remembers Afghanistan and how many people were lost. Luckily he has Buck in his corner to help him get through the memories.

give me strength so i can see by see_addy_write (t/7k): After the tsunami, Buck is sure Eddie won't want him anywhere near Christopher -- or himself. Both of the Diaz boys have something to say about that.

haircut to the heart by itsmylifekay (nr/8k): 5 times Buck cuts Christopher’s hair and 1 time Christopher helps cut his.

In the Aftershock by hideeho (t/8k): When Eddie is injured on the job, Buck is forced to face the fallout.

Slow Your Thinking by an_alternate_world (e/10k): Eddie has the itch to fight, the discomforting unease of needing to release all his negativity again making it difficult to concentrate on the calls. Buck suggests an alternative: surrendering his need for control to Buck for a while.

Just For This Moment by suyari (m/10k): “Take your time,” Carla said sternly. “Don’t rush this because you’re worried, Buck, do you hear me? Any change in your scent could just set him off.”“Yes, thank you, I know how to deal with Alphas,” he drawled.“Yes, but Eddie’s not just another Alpha and I think it’s time we acknowledged that.”

You Are Safe (With Me) by BabylonsFall (g/10k): Or: 5 times Eddie waltzed into Buck's apartment like he owned it, and 1 time Buck tried

you waltz through my bloodstream by wayfarer (t/2k): Buck gets a boyfriend and Eddie is totally fine with that. Really.

can't fight that feeling by Anonymous (e/11k): “We have to keep this quiet,” he realizes.“That’s,” Eddie starts, his eyebrows tilting inwards adorably. “I mean, yeah, if that’s what you wanna do, then—”“Not for long,” Buck protests. “I’m thinking until tomorrow.”The eyebrows rise with interest; the eyes beneath get their spark back. “Yeah?”“It’s Maddie and Chimney’s wedding day,” Buck says, slipping his hands down the last bit and entwining them with Eddie’s. “Today should be solely about them, about their love. You and I can have tomorrow. All the tomorrows.”

Just Hold Me Well by Lobotomite (m/11k): It was meant to be a fun little trip with his 118 family; no stress, no drama, and certainly no sexuality-redefining fumbles that make him realize his more than platonic feelings towards his best friend. But, well, when has anything ever gone according to plan for Buck?

a leaf falls on loneliness by iimpossible_things (nr/11k): Buck doesn’t think that if he were to say, “I’m in a bad place”, that anyone would turn him away. Really, he doesn’t. The 118 has too many good, kind people for that.But every time he wants to open his mouth, to say something, to reach out to Eddie or Bobby or Hen or Chim, he hears Eddie yelling, “you’re exhausting.”—you’re exhausting, you’re exhausting, you’re exhausting—So each day he does his job and he laughs and he jokes and he pretends he’s the care-free goofball he’s always been. And each day he packs away his bruises and his worries, takes them home to his empty loft with its quiet rooms, and licks his wounds in silence.

Darling It's Better (Down Where It's Wetter) by Onlymystory (e/20k): "Who the hell is that?" asks Buck. Like he doesn't know exactly who that is. Like a week ago he wasn't enjoying one of the best fucks of his life with Eddie Diaz. Or the reason for Buck's surprise at the new recruit isn't quite for the reasons everyone thinks.

i think i might've inhaled you by ariquitecontrary (m/20k): How do you tell your best friend that you're actually in love with them? If you're Evan Buckley, you don't.

dancing under red skies by dayswithout (g, 30k) Buck hates Eddie Diaz on sight.aka, a soulmate au. (Eddie’s POV; g/15k)

dancing under red skies by dayswithout (g/30k): Buck hates Eddie Diaz on sight.aka, a soulmate au.

The Education of Eddie Diaz by mansikka (e/30k): Eddie doesn't really know how it happened. One moment the 118 are drunk in a bar after a hard shift, confessions slipping from his mouth as he playfully kisses Buck on the cheek. The next he is on Buck's couch, taking up Buck's offer of an education that could be asking for trouble. But it's just sex, and they're just friends; it doesn't mean anything to either of them. So why is his time alone with Buck the highlight of his week?

Guess We'll Just Have to Adjust by CocoBadShip (m/30k): No, Buck does not have a damn crush on Eddie fucking Diaz. No, Buck is not thinking about Eddie's stupid smile or his stupid hair or that obscene sound he made when he pushed the couch the way he did.Having a crush would be weird. And dumb. And the last thing Buck needs in his already fucked up life.

tagging those of you who requested @lafdbuckley @casscent @googoodreamers

and some mutuals because why not @eddiediazs @judsonryder @fierydeans @buckleystrand

[finnlongman]

Is there any reason certain names end up being used so repeatedly in the Ulster Cycle? Like, I remember reading some translations of The Wooing of Emer+Cú Chulainn's Training with Scathach, and the name Cett/Cat appears 3 times; once as one of Emer's brothers, once as one of Scathach's sons, and once as a soldier fighting with Aoife. Is it just a translation thing or is it not actually deep and it was just a common name? Sorry if this question seems a little stupid. Thank you for your time.

Interesting question! I've been thinking a lot about names recently, particularly those that repeat, so this coincides well.

A lot of the time, I think it's simply that they're common names. There are a zillion guys called Ailill (sometimes within the same text), every other random maiden seems to be called Étain, and I lose track of how many Eochaids there are. Whenever you get an index of names, as you sometimes do for longer texts where a lot of characters appear, you find yourself scrolling through half a page of the same name. If you're lucky, they'll be distinguished by epithets or patronymics. If you're not, good luck figuring out which Lugaid you're supposed to be looking up...

There are some names that only come up once, like Cú Chulainn, but for the most part, I'd hazard that it's more common for there to be multiple characters with a name than for it to be wholly unique.

Now, sometimes this is a plot point. Recently, I've been working on a tiny fragment from TCD H.3.17, concerning the seven Maines. The seven Maines, if you haven't come across them, are the seven sons of Medb and Ailill, all of whom have the same name (but different epithets to distinguish them). In this case, there's a reason for it: Medb renamed all of them because when she asked a druid which of her sons would kill Conchobar, he prophesied that it would be Maine. Realising she didn't have a son called Maine yet, Medb took action to fix that. But! She wasn't precise enough in her question. Maine Andoe does kill a Conchobar... but it's a different one.

So here we have a story that not only involves seven people called Maine, but also two people called Conchobar, and that overlap is central to the plot. But this fragment seems to be an excerpt from the longer text Cath Boinde... where there are two guys called Eochaid and that's not a plot point whatsoever. Eochaid Feidleach and Eochaid Dala just happen to have the same first name. Even within the same story, repeated names both do and don't have meaning.

The Maines aren't too unusual, even if they're one of the only groups I know of where there's an explanation for their names: there are a lot of lists of people with the same name. In the Táin the largest groups of same-named warriors are ten people, I think ("Ten Fiacs, ten Fiachas, ten Feidlimids"), although three is a pretty common number there and in Togail Bruidne Da Derga. But in some of the later (early modern) texts, we get groups of up to three hundred: "Ferdia son of Daman with three hundred Ferdias in his train; Fraoch son of Fidhach with three hundred Fraochs [etc.]" (Táin Bó Flidais II). It makes you wonder whether they made them all change their name, or whether they just had a highly selective job interview process with only one question...

It's clear that names recur a lot even within the same texts, but what about across different texts? Well, looking at the example you asked about, it's worth noting that The Training of Cú Chulainn is a later text that derives from The Wooing of Emer, so that may also result in some overlap or borrowing of names -- even if it's for different characters. But often the reason a name is common is to do with the meaning of it. You get a lot of names with the Cú or Con element at the beginning because 'hound' was evidently a comparison made for particularly fierce fighters. You also get a lot of names with the 'Fer' prefix -- Fer Diad, Fer Baeth, Fer Logain, etc, and 'fer' just means 'man'. So names that mean things are bound to recur.

What do these names mean? Well, I'm away from my books and library access at the moment, which makes it a little tricky to verify which spellings are used in the original Irish of those texts -- Cat and Cett would be distinct names, but I'm also aware of at least one spelling of Scáthach's son's name as Caid, which would be different again. (Caid means 'pure, holy, noble', which would maybe place him in opposition to her other son Cuar, meaning 'crooked, bent', although it usually means in the physical rather than moral sense -- and I'm not sure where the Caid spelling comes from as I've only come across it in translation.)* It looks like it's usually spelled Cet in Tochmarc Emire (but one of the manuscripts also says 'Scathqu' at one point, so I Don't Trust It). The most famous Cet is Cet mac Mágach, but 'cét' has a bunch of meanings -- it can mean 'first', it can mean 'a hundred'... it's a solid name for a firstborn son, so maybe that's why it shows up so much. One of the MSs of Training uses Cat, which is harder to pin down -- it could just mean 'cat', although that seems unlikely, or maybe it relates to 'cath' ('battle'), or maybe it's an early modern scribe getting confused about his vowels, I'm not sure.

This is... getting very long, and not saying much, so, the short version is: Sometimes Names Just Show Up A Lot. And the scribes and authors are evidently aware of the potential for confusion and plot points with regard to this, as the story of the seven Maines proves, but at other times, they throw repetition at you and leave you to figure it out. But a lot of the names that show up very frequently do so because they have a meaning, one that may relate to the characters' physical traits (so many fair-haired Fionns!) or their skills or even just their birth order.

I hope this was... useful? Sorry, I feel like I just threw a lot of words at you when you were probably looking for a quick answer. You happened to catch me at a time when I'm immersed in thinking about names in medieval Irish lit, so the infodumping was inevitable!

* Note that manuscript spellings are often wildly inconsistent, so the same name might show up as Cet, Cat, Caut -- without translating fully and getting context, it's hard to figure out whether they're all the same person, and right now I'm just scrolling quickly through editions, so I apologise if I've missed anything in that regard.

[birlcholtz]

Fic Questions

tagged by @the-lincyclopedia thank you!! (fun game: watch my writing get progressively less formal as the post continues. by the end it’s like what is capitalization)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

77!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

434,378 as of this week but it does go up quite regularly

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Okay so in terms of what’s on my AO3, I have Check Please, All For the Game, Sharp Zero, HP, and Miraculous Ladybug. I also have The Forbidden LOTR and PJO Fanfiction (as in, I’ve written it, but it’s never seeing the light of day)

(technically there is a PJO fic out there that has seen the light of day but I orphaned it because I was tired of getting comments asking about when it would be updated)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

and then i met you (and the whole world changed)

for the better

Knew It Was You

come home (to you, to us)

sin bin schematics

All of these are Check Please and all of them except Knew It Was You are part of my Zimbits Airport AU!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! It’s actually a very recent thing that I’ve started not responding to literally every single comment. Mainly I respond because I love talking about my writing so I am going to seize that opportunity when it comes up

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh, DEFINITELY Happy Birthday (HP). Check out that MCD tag ahah. (I say HP but what I really mean is that I write fic about Regulus Black. The Regulus Black-centric tag is my home in the HP fandom)

fun fact: this is a very short fic that I wrote when I was 15 and basically forgot about until recently, and then I reread it recently and went holy shit?? I pulled NO punches????

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the wildest one you’ve written?

Not a ton? I think a lot of the fandoms I write for don’t really mesh that well. That being said, the aforementioned orphaned PJO fic is actually a PJO/ML crossover, so there’s that

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope! Sometimes I get comments that are just.... really confusing? And a more common thing is that in my AFTG fic I’ll get comments from people who are so focused on Andreil (or the most common ships in general) to the point that like. they miss the point of what I actually wrote. Those are annoying but they’re not hate, they’re very enthusiastic, they’re just... enthusiastic about a story I’m not writing? So it’s a bit frustrating.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No sjflskgjhgf I struggle enough to write kissing, I think if I ever tried to write smut my brain would just shut down. I’ve managed some fade-to-blacks (which are mostly in WIPs that haven’t been posted) but they rely HEAVILY on the powers of implication

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, although I have occasionally made a brief go of it, not to post, more as an exercise for myself in a language that I’m learning. Anyway I never finish them so I’m gonna say no

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really? I’ve definitely group brainstormed fics and then written them (the best example of this being Q&A (AFTG), which was the product of a truly off-the-walls group chat), but I tend to do all the actual writing myself. I think the way I write would drive a co-writer up the wall since it’s very disorganized and I don’t write stuff down because ~I know what’s gonna happen I don’t need notes~ and it would infuriate me if I was co-writing with me lmao, so I won’t inflict that on someone else

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I regularly move through ships I’m SUPER focused on, like it’s kind of a rotation. I will forever and always ship Percabeth though.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Okay so if you follow me at @birlwrites you may know this already, but i have this ‘warmups’ document that is just like, random ideas i get that i don’t necessarily want to finish but i just want to try out for a bit? and i have a rule that once a ‘warmup’ is more than 10 pages long (so 11+) then it has to be moved to its own document, just to make scrolling through the warmups doc easier. but usually, a warmup only passes 10 pages when i’m INTO it. so i have a bazillion wips i will probably never finish. i complain about this a lot. i have so many wips. i don’t need more.

here’s one: it’s titled ‘interrobang doesn’t know they’re dating’, it’s basically a full outline for a chowder/tango fic and it would be SO cool if i could ever like. get around to writing it. but i am constantly swamped with writing projects, so it’s probably not gonna happen. if anyone’s interested in adopting it though i’d be down for that!! i think it’s a fun idea i just almost def won’t write it myself

15. What are your writing strengths?

SNAPPY DIALOGUE AND SNARKY INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. my writing is COMEDIC, 90% of my ideas are based on a funny snippet that popped into my head, a lot of my worldbuilding is based on ‘hey you know what would be hilarious’ (whenever i explain how larai selects a chosen one in the rainfall universe i start laughing, which is a STARK contrast to how it plays out on the page), i love writing funny stuff!!

also i think my writing sounds nice, a lot of the time i pick words/syntax based on sound and flow so there’s that too. and i have lots of ideas! i don’t struggle much with writer’s block because a) i have a lot of strategies to deal with it and b) i have a lot of ideas to help get around it/work with it

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

PHYSICAL INTIMACY LMAO, sometimes in my end notes on shippy fics you can see me complaining ‘it took me literally 4 hours to write that very brief kiss’. also sometimes the humor in my writing gets in the way a bit, i have to very consciously put it away so characters can actually have serious, genuine emotions. also i don’t like outlining and i tend not to get betas for fanfiction so like..... i do my best continuity-wise but having really tightly plotted stories is just not my focus lol. (and i do put more effort into that for original stuff, it’s just fic where i kind of go wild)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If the reader’s supposed to know what it means, then writing it in another language is iffy for me. (stuff like terms of endearment which come up a lot in fic are fine imo, you can just put a note in to translate them and your reader will prob remember)

If the pov character isn’t supposed to understand it, and it doesn’t matter if the reader understands it, then ig it’s fine? but unless you already speak the other language (and i am NOT confident in my ability to translate english into literally any other language), then i think it’s way easier to just note that a character’s speaking x language and provide tone indicators, body language cues, etc. so the reader understands as much as the pov character.

That being said there are def times when it’s used super effectively--the dialogue in spanish in cemetery boys comes to mind! that’s not fanfic but it’s still creative writing so w/e

so i guess it comes down to: does actually writing out the dialogue in the other language serve a purpose? if it doesn’t, then you’re filling up the screen with words your reader isn’t likely to understand, which i try to avoid doing

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

so the first fandom i actually *wrote* for was PJO, but i distinctly remember creating warrior cats OCs when i was little. i never actually did anything w them but i had them and my favorite was a riverclan warrior named shellstream i remember this VIVIDLY

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

oh boy. okay so this is hard because i feel like i’m continuously improving as a writer. like in the sense that my writing is getting closer and closer to really matching my own taste? my favorites tend to always be my current projects as a result. and i do really love set those ghosts alight (HP) but it feels a little like cheating to say a fic i haven’t even finished writing yet. even though it’s def not cheating, that’s just the direction my brain is taking it.

i’m gonna say and then what? (OMGCP) because i’m super proud of the prose (especially ch 2 aka the first actual prose chapter), survived by (HP) for SUCCESSFULLY WRITING AN EMOTION and making readers cry :), and Q&A (AFTG) because i’m literally the one who wrote it and yet it still makes me wheeze. those are all fics i reread occasionally, because i’m big enough to admit i enjoy rereading my old stuff! (just like. to a point. some of my old stuff i can’t look at anymore because all the mistakes stick out to me like they have spotlights shining directly on them)

this was fun!! i’m gonna do an open tag because i just started my fall semester and brain tired. i know sometimes people see open tags and assume the op didn’t really mean it but I MEAN IT, PLEASE DO THIS AND TAG ME!!!!! YES YOU READING THIS

[ghostietea]

I would love to hear those Akito headcanons! (Also your Akito metas are amazing :D)

Thanks!!! As requested, here's some of the Akito headcanons from my masterdoc:

-Akito slowly and intimidatingly slinks around the estate because she is a powerful and scary God certainly not because she will pass out if she stands up too fast

-at the end of Furuba Akito should have permanently ended things with Shigure and then walked around acting like a 50 year old twice divorced woman even though she's like around 20 and they weren't even formally dating. Ex: Akito, wearing a huge vintage fur coat she found in some closet over slacks and a blouse, taking a sip from a glass filled with a beverage comprised of like one drop of wine and a bunch of cranberry juice: "Just kicked my ex out for the second time. Good riddance, you see-"

-Stole an eyeliner from Kagura one time when she was like 13 and promptly stabbed herself in the eye with it on accident and blamed Kagura.

-Can't even use a microwave. Don't let her cook your kitchen will burn

-When she was a baby Ayame tried to recreate the presentation of Simba with her and dropped her on the floor

-The one time she broke a bone it was because she got pissed off and punched a wall really hard

-Didn't like lit class. Likes reading but hates things like "effort" and "critical thinking." Payed someone else to write the essays she mailed in to school.

-Lesbian but doesn't know what a gay is. Doesn't think anyone suspects anything when she's climbing all over Kureno and Shigure not just because she's generally clingy but because she doesn't know gay people exist. Someone (Hana) has to stage an intervention to inform her that she is gay years in the future after months of everyone having to listen to her talk about how pretty and neat girls are as part of what she thinks is her unlearning being a raging misogynist.

-Demigirl she/they nonbinary but doesn't figure it out for years after she stopped presenting as a man

-Gets anxious about how clumsy Tohru is because of… that incident. One time saw Tohru fall down a flight of stairs and panicked and now she links arms with her anytime they go on stairs.

-Actually sorta likes dressing androgynously when it's her choice. Chronic dressing like a gay person syndrome. 

-Didn't keep her hair long. Cut it off after like a month in a moment of passion with a pair of kitchen shears and then had to reluctantly slink off to have someone make it look presentable.

-Secretly loves plushies but is too embarrassed to buy them for herself. Slowly acquires a hoard postcanon and can bury herself in a pile of them.

-She's very light and can be easily picked up and carried around by any of her friends that want to

-Googled "is hitting people bad?"

-Hana can call Akki over by pspspsps ing at her like a cat and Akki HATES it but still falls for it every time

-Doesn't get anything more than a flip phone and work laptop until postcanon. Generally REALLY sheltered, would get addicted to the first video game she got to play. Probably Animal Crossing.

-Secretly read every book of Warriors as a middleschooler but it became unsecret when she got into a fight with Haru about who could do a better human!Scourge cosplay.

-As an adult Kisa is taller than her.

-Mega lightweight with pretty much everything. Will either LOOSE IT and have an anxious breakdown or space out staring at the wall for 3 hours if she drinks coffee. Would probably be strongly affected by too much sugar. Strictly prohibited from drinking alcohol.

-As a child tried to convince the boys that the zodiac girls all had cooties

-Either can't swim or taught herself in her stupidly large tub.

-Sensory issues, does badly with bright lights, loud/annoying noises, non neutral temperatures, ect.

-Has perpetual cold icicle hands

-Crashes through several rebellious teen phases as an adult trying to find herself postcanon. Bleaches her hair and dyes it some unnatural color in the bathroom, immediately regrets it and dyes it black again. Nobody ever knows.

-One time ate a leaf because she was bored and has -10 impulse control

-Makes other people order for her at restaurants 

-Postcanon she has a pencil box FULL of animal shaped squishies Tohru gave her

-Was one of those kids that got A's without studying (also canonically homeschooled and ik that crowd)

-Starts painting her nails black after she meets Hana. Likes the symbolism 

-Called Hatori her brother by accident once and they both silently agreed to never speak of it

-Rin anonymously mailed her the "I'm sorry women" hat

-Realized she had almost no interests and started ping ponging between hobbies as she tried and then ditched them upon not being immediately amazing at said hobbies. Eventually is given encouragement to keep on trying instead of giving up because she believes she won't be good at it. One of the things she liked was doing stuff with flowers, but she initially ditched it after she killed all the plants she tried to take care of (@ Akki, lying flopped down on a windowsill: Why is everything I touch destroyed… @ her dead flowers: *are dead*). She goes back to it though when she realizes accidentally offing some plants is not a universal statement about her morality and eventually figures it out. Is told to get a personal creative project to work on by her therapist and she sits in the garden and makes a little journal with entries about the flowers and their symbolism complete with illustrations. 

-Connected, has a weirdly large amount of flower symbolism and lore memorised postcanon because of this (@ Tohru: wow a pretty flower! @ Akito: Ah yes, the poppy, did you know it symbolizes death, dreams, an eternal sleep… though is an eternal sleep not as good as death? Are dreams a small taste of what's to come? Also did you know they contain opi-" @ Tohru, confused but likes listening to her friends talking about their interests: 😶)

-Would probably do good with a pet cat for emotional support once she gets over the Sohma biases and can be trusted to take care of an animal.

-The Sohma mansion is always out of hot water because Akito uses it all taking hour long angst baths in the giant tub. 

-Uo+Hana+Akito have a sleepover were Uo and Akito are talking and are just like wow we both sure had a thing for the same dude because of varied ulterior reasons haha that certainly doesn't mean anything and Hana just sits there wanting to bang their stupid heads together like rocks

-Due to general isolation and probable lack of exposure to "memery," I believe that Akito Sohma would fall for the "updog" trap, in this essay I will-

-Akito full on doesn't remember how old she is. Someone's just like "how old r u?" and she's just like (internally) "How long have I endured existing in this wretched world? Hmm" *sweats in the passage of time doesn't seem real when you dissociate in a dark room all day*. Nobody else remembers exactly either. (That's why Shigure put an "I think" on the end of his "he's in his 20's" lol) Hatori can remember if he needs to but that's because he has her medical records. One time one of the younger juuni is like how old is he??? And they talk for 30 minutes and only come up with "has to be close-ish to but older than Yuki and Kagura. Didn't go to school. Was he born or does he just exist??? 

-Akki would be that one person that's always cold and has to be lent sweaters by their friends when they're out. You go into Akki's room postcanon and there's a pile of sweaters on a chair that where SUPPOSED to be washed and returned but just haven't been yet

-If Akito was an animal she'd be a cat... claws, dramatically lounging around all day, climbing all over people, attacking and then being like??? But I want love??? I did nothing wrong??? She's got the vibes.