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suzdin · 1 year ago

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Washed Up Has-Been: a Dieter Bravo one shot

Dieter Bravo x F!Plus Size!Reader

Warnings: soft!Dieter, sweet!Dieter, smut, angst, bodily insecurities, reader is plus sized but no other physical attributes are described, Dieter is a little chubby as well, mentions of drugs and alcohol, oral (m receiving), mention of sex toys, fluff? (gasp!), did I forget anything? I know next to nothing about the film industry, don’t judge me :(

Word Count: 2,800

Enjoy and feel free to reblog and comment if you wish! 💜🙂

——

Dieter Bravo had not been the same since Cliff Beasts 6.

What did they call it? Losing your spark? Your mojo? Your moxy? Whatever it was called, he’d lost it, along with his marbles… if he ever had any to begin with, and he was sure many would agree he hadn’t.

The reviews were bad, abhorrent, really. ‘Dieter Bravo as Gio Ricci baffling’, ‘Bravo couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag’, ‘I can’t believe this man has an Oscar’, ‘Did he get his Italian accent at an Olive Garden?’, on and on the critics wailed and lambasted.

He’d had a mental break shortly after the premier, firing everyone he could in his vicinity — his publicist, his hair stylist and manicurist, hell, even his agent of twenty five years. He’d hired a new one, of course, a potential script FedExed to his door that morning, fist curled and white knuckled in anger around the thick stack of papers as he perched himself like a sentient gargoyle on his couch, in the tattered clothes he’d been wearing for nearly a week.

A dad. They wanted him to play a fucking dad, some sort of buddy comedy family film opposite Dwayne Johnson, it might be a good move for your career, buddy, his agent had explained. But seriously, him? Hollywood heart throb Dieter Bravo, reduced to playing someone’s bumbling father, opposite THE FUCKING ROCK?

He couldn’t believe it.

He had put on some weight since his last film, sure, but that was no reason or excuse to allow himself to be typecasted as a dad.

Or was it the ever persistent graying in his hair and beard? The laugh lines? The crow’s feet?

‘Dieter Bravo is a washed up has-been’ the internet screamed at him daily, leading him to drown himself in an endless stream of drugs and alcohol…more so than he was already doing, anyway.

He was barely a functioning person. A husk of his former self, he could no longer get it up, unsure whether to blame the drugs or his steadily fleeting mental health, and even putting brush to canvas felt more like a chore than an escape nowadays. He’d become a hermit in his own home, the ghastly, aging 1970s mid-century horror he resided in the Hollywood Hills, that he thought was amazing when he originally bought it a decade ago.

Well, much like him, older things fall apart, and the house was a piece of shit, which was apt.

He had hired you as his assistant and he was so vague as to what that entailed that you were sort of a jack of all trades as far as helping was concerned, acting as his maid, his cook, the middle man to screen his calls, his emails, so on and so forth. Hell, you even took care of the large python he’d bought ‘because it looked cool’, that he was now too scared to touch, himself.

You did it all, and although he never properly expressed as much, he was more grateful for you than he let on.

He always found you pretty, too. Beautiful, even, and not in the fake way he’d grown used to, living in Hollywood. You were kind, sweet, and uncorrupted by a crueler world, always happy and eager to assist him with whatever he needed.

And if he was being honest with himself, the thought of you sheathed around his cock was the only thing that could even get him half hard anymore.

When you arrive for the day, you find him on his couch, glowering at what you can only assume is another bad script, graying hair disheveled and curling away from his skull, teeth gritted in disdain. A look you had come to recognize and were more than familiar with.

“Let me take that to the garbage for you,” you offer, as you normally do in these situations, stepping forward to reach for the offending script.

His eyes clock the way your breasts sway when you walk, the roundness of your belly, the plushness of your arms. He can’t help but stare; he wants to bury himself in you and stay there forever.

He swallows, moving the script away from your extended hand and tucking it behind a cushion, distracted by your body.

“No — no, it’s okay,” he replies and his voice feels like gravel in his throat, realizing he hasn’t spoken all day until now.

Although the script sucks and he doesn’t want to do it, he needs the money. “Thanks.”

You notice his eyes on you and you sit, leaving about a foot of space between you to maintain a modicum of professionalism, observing the sadness behind his dark brown eyes and knowing this has been the norm for several months now but still hating it for what it is.

“What’s on the docket for today?” you ask him and he shrugs, unhelpfully, his lips pulled into a frown, shadows staining the lines of his face. You haven’t seen him this bad in a while.

“I can… make you some hot tea?” you ask, looking down at the schedule in your lap, of which nothing is jotted down for the day.

He shakes his head, carding a hand through his hair. “No. I’m out of tea.”

You chew your lip. “Okay… well, then I guess I’m running to the store today. I have a list already, but can you think of anything else?”

Once again, he shakes his head. “No. I’ll just order it or something.”

You frown and tuck the schedule away, crossing your legs and turning to face him, contemplative.

“Then what do you want me to do today? You’re paying me to be here,” you note. “Unless you’d rather I go home.”

“No!” he damn near shouts, making you jump, and he immediately regrets his lack of impulse control. His gaze traverses your subtle cleavage and you clear your throat, heat warming your skin. “Sorry, it’s just… I don’t want to be alone right now. Can we just hang out?” he queries.

“Dieter, are you okay?” you question and he shakes his head in response.

“No.” A single word that says so much more than that. It pulls at your heart strings, seeing him like this. “I — I’m a nobody.”

“You aren’t a nobody, you’re Oscar winner Dieter fucking Bravo,” you counter, and he snorts, picking at some dry skin on his ankle.

“Yeah, Dieter fucking Bravo, the aging has-been who can’t act his way out of a paper bag,” he snorts.

“If you keep talking like that, I’m going to take away your internet access so you can’t read all the mean tweets about yourself,” you threaten.

“You wouldn’t.”

“One call to your financial advisor and I would and could,” you retort and Dieter scoffs, trying to remember if he’d fired him yet or not.

You cross your arms and flop back against the worn and flattened couch cushions, eyeing him smugly.

The movement pushes your chest up and out, his gaze on you once again and he isn’t subtle about it this time. You clear your throat and stir, staring back at his soft, plush lips.

“Dieter—“

“Come here,” he murmurs quietly and the spontaneity of it catches you off guard, your jaw hanging agape in disbelief and confusion.

“…What?”

It had been months since anyone had touched him, had wanted to touch him, and now, as he stares at your body and smells your light vanilla perfume, after the shitty week he’s had, he needs to be touched, even if only briefly.

“Come… here,” he repeats, more dogged than before, and in spite of yourself, despite how unprofessional it is, you find yourself scooting forward.

He grabs your hips when you’re within reach and drags you the rest of the way, pulling the cushion partially off the couch in the process, a small yelp of surprise escaping your lungs as he softly grips your face to bring his lips to yours.

They’re plush, dry, lightly chapped and he tastes a little like whiskey and weed, but you don’t really mind, his coarse, wiry mustache scratching and tickling against your nose.

Suddenly, with a soft groan in the back of his throat, his hand is under your shirt, cupping your breast, and you break the kiss, looking down to where his arm disappears beneath the fabric, shock settling over your features.

“Dee… are you… are you sure?” you ask. You don’t exactly look like the people Dieter had been confirmed dating in the past, and you feel a wave of trepidation, your self conscious nature bubbling to the surface. You’ve always felt Dieter Bravo was more than a little out of your league.

Not that you’re dating him, but, you know.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t sure,” he tuts and kisses you again, rougher this time, palming your breast, making your cunt throb.

He groans. You’re so good to him, always taking such good care of him, and you feel exactly the way he thought you would, warm and luscious and supple, his dick already fighting with the seam of his pajama pants, the first time in weeks.

And you’ve wanted this, too, as long as you’ve worked for him, never confessing your feelings for fear of losing your job. You never imagined Dieter fucking Bravo would feel the same way about you.

You know Dee needs this, you need this, and you want to make him feel good.

You brush a hand over his hardening cock and he damn near bucks himself straight off the couch with a grunt and a sharply uttered, “Fuck” against your lips. You grin into his mouth at how much composure he’s already lost from so few touches.

You pull away after a moment and scoot off the couch, sinking onto your knees in front of him, nestling yourself between his broad thighs.

He watches you, rigid cock tremoring in his pants at the sight, the outline of it clearly visible and straining against the fabric. “You… you don’t have to…” His voice is thick, haggard.

“Let me take care of you, Dee,” you mewl as you nuzzle your face against the squishy paunch of his stomach, lifting his shirt to plant small, reverent kisses in a circle around his belly button. He giggles and flinches at the contact.

“Sorry, sorry — ticklish,” he explains and you smile, placing a few more kisses there, more delicate than the ones that preceded them, trailing a line from his navel to the thick swathe of hair leading to his crotch.

Despite the pounds he’s put on recently, he doesn’t feel at all uncomfortable in front of you, eyes darkening as he drinks you in visually, lips tight and parted, breaths growing deeper in the barrel of his chest.

You look up and from your current perspective, he’s all wild haired and broad shouldered, panting, your cunt clenching with desire as you eye him with a wry grin.

You smooth his shirt down over his belly and move your face to the hard bulge below, nosing the bulk of it through the fabric and inhaling his natural scent, thick and musky and masculine in your nostrils. You both groan in unison.

“Dear god,” he grunts, “I feel like I’m about to— aaaaugh— fucking bust already.”

“Save it for my mouth, at least,” you snip and his head rolls back against the cushion at your words, the one with the sag in the middle where his neck always rests, eyes sliding shut.

“You’re so good for me,” he pants softly, already so close to falling apart, “I take you for granted and I’m sorry.”

“Dieter, shh.” You find the stretchy waistband of his striped trousers and drag them down his hips, not all surprised to see he’s gone commando, cock springing free from the cage of fabric, uncut and dribbling against the drag of soft cotton. He’s girthy, and you’ve never seen one intact in the flesh before — literally — a small puff of air escaping your lips, taking in the sight of him for a few seconds before coming to your senses.

“Is everything alr—“ he starts to ask, cutting himself off when you unexpectedly cup his heavy balls in your palm and lick a slow stripe up his length with the flat of your tongue, his hips quivering and bucking involuntarily. “Shit—“

You grin, humming satisfactorily to yourself and continue to tease him, his hands finding your hair, fingers twisting at the roots as the rings he insists on wearing get caught in the strands, pulling ever so slightly. You moan.

You feel incredible, your tongue working his most sensitive areas, and he’s having a hard time holding it together, torso heaving above you, tiny whimpers departing his lips, and he hasn’t even entered your mouth yet.

You sense how much trouble he’s having at keeping himself in check, so you back off a touch to give him a momentary reprieve, shifting to kiss along the meat of his inner thighs, nipping at the tiny elephant tattoos etched into his skin as you do so.

He cups one hand on the back of your neck, watching you through half-lidded eyes, your lips like pure velvet and heaven.

He’s already forgotten about the shitty script tucked into the couch, about the bad reviews and the critics with their cruel, baseless quips. Faded away to nothingness, akin to what he experiences when he’s completely blitzed, negative thoughts dissolving to the back of his mind to be discarded, and for now, for the moment, the only thing that matters is you, your beauty, and how well you take care of him.

After what seems like an eternity of small, worshipping, teasing touches to the insides of his thighs and the rim of his belly, your lips return to his cock, lapping at the precum that’s beaded up at the slit before taking him into your mouth, hand fisted at the base as you work him into your throat.

He’s impervious at this point to keep his hips flush against the couch, shuddering into your mouth as you take him and pushing further down your throat, not entirely on purpose, moaning as the wet heat of your mouth engulfs him.

“Wanna— fuck your pussy next time— with a vibrating plug in your ass,” he grunts, hardly able to string a single cohesive thought together, making your cunt throb and slick leak into the cradle of your panties.

Dieter wasn’t one to shy away from toys, and in fact had an entire drawer full of them, which you had accidentally stumbled upon one day when putting away some of his clothes; everything from butt plugs to cock rings to flesh lights with multiple attachments and bondage gear.

You steady his hips with your hands and hold him in place as best you can, difficult with how much stronger he is than you, jaw stretching to fit him, the musky tang of him flooding your tastebuds.

You steadily rock your head up and down his length, taking him all the way to the back of your throat, and you can feel the veins running the length of his shaft pulsating against your tongue, feel the way his balls tighten as he edges ever closer to the precipice.

He’s wanted you, needed you, for so long, that he can’t contain himself much longer. His hips begin to stutter and you feel his body growing taut, hear his breaths growing shallow and haggard, fingers curling against your scalp.

“I’m… I’m gonna… fucking cum,” he grunts deep in his chest. That’s all the warning he allows before his hips stall and he lets out a visceral growl of pleasure, spilling a hot and heavy load across your tongue, some of it seeping out at the edges and dribbling down his thighs until you’re able to steady yourself.

You hold him in your mouth until you feel the very last drop hit the back of your throat, slowly pulling off only when you feel him starting to go soft.

“You should really clean up this awful mess you’ve made,” Dieter taunts when you sit back to catch your breath, watching the cocktail of spend and saliva slide down his tan skin.

You grin and tip your head forward to obediently lap at the escaped fluids. He groans as he savors the delicious sight of you, affectionately brushing his fingers through your hair as you do so.

After a moment, you rise from the ground, your knees cracking from the exertion, joining him on the couch as he tugs his pajama bottoms back up his hips.

He snakes an arm around the small of your back and kisses you, deep and full, moaning when he tastes remnants of himself on your tongue.

He grins against your lips and then rises, yanking you off the couch and giggling along with you when you pass him a perplexed look.

“Where are we going now?” you ask, pleased to see him happy and relaxed again after all this time, to actually see him smiling.

“You took care of me, so I’m going to take care of you. You’re familiar with my special drawer, aren’t you?”

—

FIN. xx

#pedro pascal #writing #fanfic #smut #author #romance #pedro fanfic #dieter bravo #dieter bravo the bubble #the bubble

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kwassants · 3 months ago

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Writing yap: Mar 20, 2025

TSS is 8 months old! Some fanart, yapping about chapter opening lines, writing skills i'm currently trying to improve

This is a stream of consciousness entry so help me

Made by the amazing Amazeun over at discord

Anyway yes, opening lines, here are my current favorites:

Handsome, intelligent men were dangerous. Erina Valoa knew that much.

Erina firmly believed in hands-on research, but that did not, under any circumstances, include being hauled over someone’s shoulder like a sack of soil.

In hindsight, Erina really should have known better than to assume that Ludger Cherish was a normal, functional person.

Did not plan to study or improve my opening lines, it just happened naturally which I think, is the point? I believe our writer's gut will just naturally move to the next writing skill to improve, we just need to listen.

Although this is of course coming from an intuitive writer so YMMV but in my experience my writing is best when I publish only when it feels right. I had some chapters where I published without the yes in my gut and guess what? Months later I still consider them my weakest chapters. It shows.

This is also a reminder to myself because I've been strangely stuck in a chapter for a while even though I already know the structure.

At first I thought it was a mini burnout which I think may partially explain it, along with sayren being an absolute [redacted] so I couldn't write anything with romance for a bit.

But yeah, some chapters, though the beats are placed well, just don't want to be written yet.

Though the key thing here is I don't write only when I feel like it. I still sit and stare at my screen and focus until the words flow and sometimes it takes hours.

Thinking about it now, another possibility may be that I'm getting too distracted while writing which is why I'll try limiting my online presence in the next few days.

(Emphasis on try)

Stuff I'm trying to improve on

The general setting or environment.

This one is very difficult for me because I have aphantasia aka when I close my eyes and try to imagine things... I can't lmao I can't visualize anything in my head which might explain the reason why I can easily do banter etc since my focus is on dialogue.

But yes, I want to get better at describing settings. That isn't to overdo it, because some chapters do need more description than others (and frankly not all scenes need to be described so much imo it would depend on the chapter goal) but the idea is to give the audience a backdrop of where the scene is happening.

...

WHICH IS SO FREAKING DIFFICULT FOR ME

I've been trying to do diagrams for choreography let's say if people are moving around a scene which is fine but UGH scene descriptions are hard.

Though for chapters where I understand the emotional core and when it's really heavy and there's a certain theme to it, it does tend to flow out better.

Opening lines/chapter hooks

I never planned to improve this like I said which is why I'm fascinated that I stumbled upon improving this skill so now I'm more conscious about all my chapter openings moving forward.

idk! it really tickles my brain haha it's like i unlocked a secret skill tree or whatever.

Anyway, I used to not care about how I open my chapters, then I started opening it via setting, now it depends? but having a hook is very nice and I Get It Now.

Yap over, I think. Hopefully this writing exercise loosens the words in my head and actually lets me write.

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demonsfate · 11 months ago

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When Reina was first revealed for T8, a 4chan user once described her design as "safe". And honestly, it's still the best way to describe it. Reina was designed to be safe, to obviously appeal to the masses. Therefore, she's gotta look trendy but not be a trendsetter, y'know? For the reasons I already explained lol. That's why her devil design couldn't necessarily match the aesthetics of the other devils, too. Because they had to make her look soft and feminine. Like I said, Reina is allowed to be tomboyish and cruel, but she still has to be cute in the end. It's also why she has to be younger than her nephew despite being the daughter of a 73 year old lmao.

And yeah, almost every character was supposed to have a relatively normal appearance! I mean, most of these characters are dressed in simple karate outfits, or leather / denim. The only ones with the craziest hairs are the Mishimas or Paul. Yoshimitsu and the bears (not pictured( are the only ones who are really out there. Jack may be a robot, but he used to look relatively normal too save for the red eyes. King is just a luchador. And even the Mishimas, their hair really only sticks up in one direction. Even the characters who did have more unrealistic hair or colors (Lee and Bryan having silver hair) the characters hairs and clothing styles were still simple.

TK6 is where the designs started becoming more complex and unrealistic. Lars & Alisa were once (and still are) heavily criticized for their "too anime" designs, Lars' hair being a little too wild and Alisa resembling a magical girl. This criticism is usually met with "but Tek was ALWAYS anime-" but like... there is evidence to show that they indeed made these more "anime" than they could've. I mean, look at ALL of Alisa's concept art, for example.

Even with her more robotic designs, you can still see where she still resembled a more Normal Girl. Her hair being natural colors, sometimes being dressed in more natural, simplistic outfits.

Then somewhere along the line, for some reason, they decided they wanted to do a more unique and colorful look - hence, it appearing more "anime." Alisa's clothes no longer look as realistic as her dresses or button up shirts in the concept art. It now looks more whimsical, or "magical girl" like. Alisa's concept arts made her look more like a Russian than her final design does imo.

I'm not saying this particular designs is bad, but I am pointing out how they are indeed different from what Tek's designs were like in the TK1-TK4 (even TK5) era. This was the start of the series wanting to move on to more complicated fantasy like designs. And imo? I prefer the more grounded-ness of the early TK games. Yes, they've had demons and angels and bears and space ninjas(?) but the zany parts didn't apply to everyone or everything in the world, y'know?

And yes, you can indeed get plenty of cool things out of keeping things simple! 😌 Like there's no reason Jin has to have 12 pockets on his outfit. There's no reason why he couldn't have had a normal tee (or muscle shirt) underneath his jacket and why it has to be this shirt with all these decals, holes, and weird v-neck shape on it. Like that really does feel like they're just throwing on details for the hell of it, because they sincerely believe a plain gray tee would look too "basic" for a next gen game.

Like in TK4, Jin was just wearing a normal black tank top underneath his hoodie. Although we never saw him without the hoodie, it's quite evident that it's just a normal shirt with no extra designs on it. And to this day, most people still say TK4 was Jin's best design. So it shows that you can indeed impress with less.

Of course, there are people who may prefer the very creative designs, the characters wearing 4+ layers. And that's fine! Different strokes for different folks! But I just personally prefer the simpler, toned down designs. I think they were easier on the eyes, they didn't feel as try-hard, and in a way, it kinda felt like Tek had more of a specific style back then? If that makes sense.

#mechahero #✏️ - ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏsᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏsᴛ // (ooc)#// ASHAHSHAA i'm in a rambly mood it seems ...

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baura-bear · 2 years ago

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MAURA IMPORTANT AS FUCK !!!!!! what do you think david's favorite books are. make this as self indulgent as you want bc then i will also learn what books you like :33 personally i think he loves classic polish books (they help him reconnect with that part of his identity which can be a little hard considering he lives so far away) such as pan tadeusz or kordian and especially wesele (it didn't come out until the 1900s but shhh he would LOVE wesele) and also i think he really loves 20,000 leagues under the sea (i think he just loves the fantastic elements, the way the ocean is described + also captain nemo was originally supposed to be polish and yadda yadda i don't want to dump too much here..) AND little women. because of reasons i think. the march family dynamic is so sweet and also i definitely think david's gay ass would find laurie cute SORRY i got really passionate about this my bad.

Guys, I had and Epic Autism Moment so this will all be under the cut. You have no clue what you've started Dave <3

OMG YES YES YES!!! I LOVE THIS! ok ok ok so i definitely agree with you about the polish literature thing (although i obviously don't know anything about polish literature) I always imagined David to live in an immigrant neighborhood (and of course be an immigrant himself) and I'm sure he has several neighbors who, throughout his youth, lent him and gifted him books.

(going off the rails for a second idc) I think his family is really active in the community (of course they attend shul) Mayer and Esther love talking with the neighbors and having them over for dinner or just tea or something. Esther mends clothes to make a little extra money so she frequently has folks coming to her with that. I also think there's a kosher deli nearby and Mayer is friends with the owner (well the whole Jacobs family is friends with their family) I know that in 92sies it's established that Mayer works in a factory but with the stage version we get a bit more lenience PLUS (this might sound terrible) but like. his injury doesn't look that bad in 92sies (LET ME EXPLAIN) his arm is just in a sling so we can infer his arm is broken (i honestly don't remember if they ever say??) but I feel like he'd be able to a job like he wouldn't be completely indisposed. anyway in the stage version it makes more sense that he has a leg injury and can't walk, hence the inability to work. I imagine he helps do deliveries and like loading stuff off of carts. His injury actually happened out on the street trying to stop a kid from getting hit by a wagon and he did, it was just to his expense. "twisted his leg up real bad" I take that literally like.. it got caught in the wheel and twisted up. and I think the deli owner saw it happen and got him home (along with a few other fellas and a doctor).

ANYWAy the whole reason I say that is just like. I think the Jacobs are a well liked family in the community and everyone always found David endearing and saw his love of reading and writing and wanted to help give him the resources he needed (especially being a polish kid removed from his culture they wanted to help restore that)

I agree that he likes Little Women!! He also enjoyed reading War and Peace (I haven't finished it yet but I just KNOW Davey loves Pierre because little awkward man who's probably autistic). I think he also enjoys Wuthering Heights (which admittedly I haven't read but my friend really loves it and has talked about it so I think he would enjoy it) along with poetry. I think he loves books/stories/poems that are very descriptive and have good imagery because it helps him transport himself and like really be engulfed by the story

He'd read Moby Dick but he despises it. He wanted an epic ocean adventure but half the chapters are just all about whales (like science-y and shit) which,,, would be fine if he'd picked up a textbook about whales. He just wanted more from it and didn't enjoy the ending. WHICH IS WHY he prefers 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea because if he wants to read a good story involving the ocean he's not gonna pick up Moby fucking Dick.

um. yeah.

i had literally never thought about this before but the second that I saw the ask i was typing up a storm. hehe

ALSO LITERALLY STOP APOLOGIZING I LOVE WHEN ANYTHING FROM YOU APPEARS IN MY ASK BOX you could send me a ten page essay and I would read it beginning to end like :DDDDD and enjoy every second

#asks #newsies #david jacobs #epic autism moment #totally wasn't projecting about moby dick #listen if you like moby dick i apologize #but #man

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blightandshiningarmor · 2 months ago

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1: Where in the Thedas is your Rook from? Eglantine Ingellvar is Nevarran, born and raised. The Grand Necropolis will always be the most beautiful place in the world, to them.

2: What is your character's alignment? Chaotic Chaotic Neutral

3: Race and subclass? Human Warrior (Reaper)

4: If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found? Throwing punches and getting punched in an underground fighting ring, underneath an empty mausoleum, with rowdy Watchers cheering and skeletons taking bets

5: What emotion did they usually pick? Charming/Humorous

6: What companion are you platonically close with? All of them Harding is... was their best friend

7: Romantically close with? They're Emmrich's personal gremlin devoted bodyguard future spouse; there's something going on with Davrin but last time I tried to explain it I ended up with a 1500-words-long wall of text

8: Who are they suspicious of? Never trusted Solas but genuinely liked him, would have bet the entire Lighthouse on Illario's treachery the moment they met, was initially suspicious of everyone in Minrathous except Ashur and Dorian but warmed up to them quickly

9: Does your Rook get along with their chosen Faction? Absolutely

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments? People No, but they dance like no one's watching

11: Weapon of choice? Words Greataxe + shield

12: What is their orientation? They swing all ways

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it? They believe in redemption, so they generally dislike killing, although they also believe it to be inevitable sometimes; however, they enjoy hunting slavers for sport and making sure their remains are put to good use

14: What hobbies does your Rook have? Encouraging Manfred and Assan to cause all the trouble they want while making sure nothing bad happens to them; drawing, exploring places, necromancy and all kinds of funerary arts

15: What NPCs do they like? Which ones do they dislike? They're not getting married unless Vorgoth is the officiant, Myrna is like an older sister; loves Antoine and Evka, would protect Dorian with their life, has a major crush on Ashur, calls the Inquisitor their friend; can't stand Strife, had to be dissuaded from throwing a party when Shathann died, and describes punching the First Warden as one of the most satisfying moments of their life

16: Do they have a favorite creature in the Thedas? Emmrich Manfred and Assan, and every single wisp in the land

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer? They get in trouble like it's a religion and thrive in it

18: What would your Rook be doing if they weren't recruited by Varric? They would have gone back to the Necropolis after a month or two, resumed that routine; would have joined the fight against the Evanuris and probably ended up in charge anyway, because they crave action, they love bringing people together, and are not afraid of that kind of responsibility

19: How do you think they'll meet their end? End? They're devouring anything and everything there has been written about how to become a lich; a lich won't die from natural causes but can be killed, in some circumstances, so... they would either die fighting, or have someone kill them to accompany Emmrich, should he decide to find out what lies beyond

20: Would they side with Solas or fight him? If Solas' plan was safe, if it didn't involve people dying or spirits being forcefully twisted into demons, they would have gladly fought for a world where mortals and spirits can coexist. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and the collateral damage was too heavy to ignore. Even while tricking him into causing his own downfall, they couldn't see Solas as an enemy

21: What is your Rook's favorite ability? They throw that shield at least a thousand times per day

22: What languages is your character fluent in? Trade, Tevene (both modern and ancient), a bit of Elvhen, and that patois of Orlesian unique to Nevarra, naturally; they're also picking up all kinds of idioms and profanities from their travels and friends

23: What do they do after an absolute crisis? Emmrich. Or they fall asleep with Assan on Davrin's bed, in a tangle of tears and feathers; if anyone comes looking for them, Davrin hits them with a "Rook? Haven't seen 'em"

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife? Of course

25: What specialization best represents your Rook? Reaper fits perfectly

26: What animal best represents your Rook? Probably a very chatty corvid

27: What was their life like before the events of Veilguard? Fighting boredom, chasing trouble, partying like there was no tomorrow only to wake up the next day in some unfamiliar place, with a massive headache, and possibly stuck in a cuddle pile

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader? Manfred and Assan They consider themselves to be the leader, and they love that: they love being the one to bring people together, the one to cause a domino effect of alliances and friendships, to support and encourage and inspire; they're also really stubborn and need to do things their own way, even if it means bearing all the burdens

29: If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why? Shadow Dragons: see question 13

30: What's your favorite thing about your Rook? They're brutally honest and unhinged, but also extremely respectful and committed to honoring tradition and ceremony

Rook Questionnaire

inspired by @cassieuncaged's BG3 Character Development Questions but for Rook instead!

1: Where in the Thedas is your Rook from?

2: What is your character's alignment?

3: Race and subclass?

4: If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found?

5: What emotion did they usually pick?

6: What companion are you platonically close with?

7: Romantically close with?

8: Who are they suspicious of?

9: Does your Rook get along with their chosen Faction?

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

11: Weapon of choice?

12: What is their orientation?

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

14: What hobbies does your Rook have?

15: What NPCs do they like? Which one's do they dislike?

16: Do they have a favorite creature in the Thedas?

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

18: What would your Rook be doing if they weren't recruited by Varric?

19: How do you think they'll meet their end?

20: Would they side with Solas or fight him?

21: What is your Rook's favorite ability?

22: What languages is your character fluent in?

23: What do they do after an absolute crisis?

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife?

25: What specialization best represents your Rook?

26: What animal best represents your Rook?

27: What was their life like before the events of Veilguard?

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

29: If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why?

30: What's your favorite thing about your Rook?

#Dragon Age The Veilguard #yapping #Eglantine Ingellvar

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occultstarr · 1 month ago

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𝔻𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕖 - ℕ𝕚𝕔𝕜 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕠𝕟 𝕩 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣

CHAPTER 1

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Standing in front of the apartment building you let out a dramatic sigh. Carrying all of your stuff up the stairs all morning because the elevator was broken had proved to be quite stressful.

Your friend David had asked you to move in his apartment with him and two of his band mates since they were all quite broke and splitting the rent four ways would be cheaper on everyone. David had been a good friend of yours for years now, and you really needed a cheap place to live. You hadn’t met David’s band mates so all you knew about them were that their names were Roger, Nick and Rick but Rick wouldn’t be living with you.

“Roger’s a bit of an arse.” David explained. “But Nick is easy to get along with so you don’t have to worry about him.”

You sighed again and picked up the heavy box you had been carrying through the parking lot. It had a variety of things that you thought would be necessary to bring.

“Ugh!” The box tumbled from your hands and fell to the asphalt.

“Let me help you with that!” A man with dark brown hair and a mustache to match ran over to where you had dropped your box.

“That’s quite a heavy box for just one person to be carrying.” He flashed you a cute smile and helped you pick up the box.

“I’m Nick by the way, Nick Mason.”

“Oh are you David’s band mate by any chance?” You remembered David saying that one of the guys you would be living with was named Nick.

“That’s right, you must be Y/N.” David was right, Nick was very friendly. The two of you carefully hauled the big box up the stairs to your apartment.

“It’s sort of a suite if you know what I mean. A living room and kitchen that connects with two bedrooms that have their own bathroom and two beds.” Nick tried his best to explain. “Well I guess I could just show you.” He took out a key and unlocked the door.

The apartment was exactly like what Nick had described. It was a bit sad looking but at least it came with a microwave and a small fridge. David and Roger had already arrived and started to unpack their stuff. They had chosen the room on the left side of the living room.

“Guess we’re sharing a room then.” Nick laughed awkwardly.

“That’s alright, David said Roger wasn’t all that friendly.” You said under your breath only loud enough for Nick to hear. Nick grinned and slid the box into your new room. It too was just as empty as the living room. There were two beds on either side of the room and a small bathroom.

“I call the bed near the window!” Nick said and flopped down on the bare mattress. You rolled your eyes and scooted the box near your bed. Opening it up you pulled out some blankets and sheets to put on the bed.

“Hey Y/N.” David said. He leaned in the doorway and watched you struggle to find the edges of the sheets.

“Hey David.” You turned to look at him. Behind him was a tall man with a rather interesting face.

“This is Roger, and I’m assuming you’ve already met Nick.”

“Yeah, he helped me carry some stuff in.” Nick smiled proudly to himself.

“Well I’m going to go get the rest of my stuff. I guess you can introduce yourself to these two.” You looked between Roger and Nick. They seemed alright, although Roger was a bit scary looking.

“So you guys are in a band.” You tried to make conversation.

“That’s right, it’s called Pink Floyd.” Roger informed you.

“David hadn’t told me a whole lot about you guys if I’m being honest.”

“Well he sort of uh…replaced our former lead singer, Syd.” Nick said.

“He was having a lot of issues with drug abuse and we were having a hard time working with him.”

“No hard feelings though.” Nick quickly added.

“Anyway, like David said I’m Roger the bassist. I also sing sometimes.” Roger struck you as a bit arrogant but you had expected that.

“I play the drums.” Nick said but he didn’t seem all that full of himself.

“Do you play any instruments Y/N?” Nick asked you. Roger had wandered off back to his room to unpack.

“I play piano but not much else.”

“Maybe I could teach you how to play the drums sometime.” You thought about it a moment.

“Maybe.” You giggled.

Nick had brought a suitcase but not much else. He had also packed a small box that he shoved under the bed.

“What’s that? If you don’t mind me asking.” Nick blushed a little and pulled the box out from under the bed.

“It’s um…..my hot wheels collection.” He opened the box to reveal a large collection of hot wheels.

“That’s so cool!” You plopped down on the floor next to him and looked at all of the cars.

“I use to love hot wheels cars.” You said excitedly.

“Really!?” Nick had the biggest smile on his face.

“Yeah, but I lost them all. You know moving around and all.”

“Well Ive been collecting them for years. It’s just embarrassing to have toys at my age don’t you think?”

“No not at all.” You gave him a reassuring smile.

“I think we’re going to be very good friends Y/N.”

After you and Nick had put all of the toy cars back, David burst in.

“Let’s go out and do something!” He exclaimed.

“Like what?” Nick asked.

“Let’s go see the new Monty Python movie!” Roger yelled from across the living room.

You all excitedly climbed into David’s car and drove to the theater. David and Roger were in the front and you and Nick sat in the back.

“Should we pick up Rick?” Nick asked.

“Nahhh.” Roger said.

So poor Rick didn’t get to go.

Meanwhile Nick admired the night sky through the car window. And you found yourself admiring Nick. He had the cutest nose and his hair looked so soft in the moonlight.

Wait! Why were you looking at Nick like that!? You had just met him. But…he was really cute you had to admit. Not to mention that he had been so sweet to you today. You thought back to what he had said earlier, “I think we’re going to be very good friends Y/N.” Right, just friends.

#archive of our own #fanfiction #pink floyd #nick mason #roger waters #david gilmour #rick wright #fanfic #x reader #tumblr fyp

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starlightrosari · 2 years ago

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Reassessing transition: Do I want to go on Testosterone?

I’ve been thinking on this a lot and feel kind of strange about it because while I do have dysphoria, I don’t have an overwhelming sense of dread for my appearance. However, I am a nonbinary boy who wishes to look androgynous in a way akin to androgynous men (think vampires and elves, or for more human examples, androgynous male models or celebs and emo boys). I often feel limited in how I’m able to look because I can’t be androgynous in the way I wish for being a petite AFAB person and it holds me back a lot on feeling comfortable embracing my masculinity because I feel like no matter what I do, I look to some extent like a girl.

Section 1: Dysphoria as a feeling

I would describe my dysphoria as more being saddened at times by the way I look being overly feminine to a female appearing degree when I want to be androgynous masc leaning in appearance. I get upset when I’m dressed very typically masculine and still don’t look how I want, knowing it’s because I’m limited in how to achieve that because of my petite body and young feminine appearance. I get jealous of people who can be both masculine and feminine and not look like women, and as much as I tell myself “clothes don’t have a gender” or “androgyny shouldn’t be based on AGAB,” I still can’t shake the dissatisfaction of how I look compared to others. Sometimes it can mean almost crying staring at myself or being in a space where I’m aware of others perceiving me and look around being surrounded by androgynous male leaning appearing people who I wish I looked more like. Other times I get dressed fem anyways and then feel really uncomfortable about my body being so apparent and feminine and don’t want that attention on me, feeling like I look even smaller than I already am and that my curves are overly visible in a way that’s too female appearing that it’s not androgynous anymore, so I change into something else or just bare with the minor annoyance of dysphoria because I don’t want to sacrifice style for comfort when I probably don’t pass no matter what anyways. It’s upsetting if I think too hard on it but I’m sort of numb to how prevalent this feeling is because I’ve always had it and dealt with it by just looking cool enough that it didn’t matter that much as the alternative of hyper-fixating on how I should look sometimes makes it worse. That was how I coped with it growing up with a poor view of myself that I could never look right as a girl or as a boy. Because of this, when I acknowledge how I actually want to look or the parts of my body that bother me, although it’s obviously dysphoria, it doesn’t make me feel much of anything, just minor annoyance, discomfort, sadness, and a feeling of wishing I could look the way I always wished to be.

Section 2: My dysphoria

So I’ve explained how my dysphoria feels and vaguely what it is, but how about specifics? What feels wrong? Well, for starters, I have always loathed my tiny skinny arms hands and shoulders, wishing desperately that they could be bigger, partially because it’s an inconvenience stylistically (for example, I have really skinny fingers and wrists that make jewelry shopping difficult), but also because I just don’t want to be so small and feel dysphoric seeing my tiny arms. My height is another thing that I absolutely hated growing up, being triggered by how behind I was from everyone else and how overall young I look being petite and only 5’ tall, also worrying this is a big deterrent from me ever appearing masculine (so much so I repressed that I felt trans for most my life even though I’d have thoughts along the lines of being trans through most of it). I worked on this a bit in Highschool when I realized it would never change, and that even if I were a girl I’d still be bothered by this because it’s annoying for anyone, but it’s still difficult at times. Another thing is my feet. I hate how my feet look and how skinny and small they are, same with my toes. I try to keep socks on and not wear sandals to help this, and when I was young I always got uncomfortable comments about how tiny my feet were and would purposefully sit in a way that would hide them even though it was uncomfortable. It’s also annoying because my tiny feet and ankles and calfs make it hard to buy cool shoes. And I have huge thighs that sometimes bother me, and then below the knee is skinny when I wish at least that my legs were pencil shaped. My small waist is something I feel mixed emotions about. On one hand it’s kind of cool to have a unique feature on my body, and it can be hidden underneath shirts anyways, but then it also makes me really uncomfortable having it exposed. I feel similar about my hips. It’s cool my hips even out my body features a little but I don’t want them super visible, though I’m grateful to have them at the small size I do because they’re not so noticeable but they also make my big thighs appear slightly slimmer. My torso in general is really thin when I want it to be more square shaped. My voice sometimes bothers me too, more than I think even realize. Like, I don’t like hearing my voice back in recordings, and I don’t like repeating sentences because it makes me aware of how I sound. I feel annoyed that hard of hearing people can’t hear feminine voices as well as masculine ones because I hate shouting and hearing the sound of my voice so loudly, and I also internally think of my voice as androgynous so it’s frustrating realizing it’s not. I also hate when I subconsciously raise the pitch of my voice to seem more approachable to other people because it’s not how I want to sound. I also have mixed feelings about my face because I like the shape of it and my bone structure and big nose, but I wish it didn’t have such feminine fat and stretch to the skin, and I wish my jaw were more prominent and in general that my features were less round and more angular. And then there’s an area of my body I try to not ever think about that I hate, I have bottom dysphoria. I hate the function of that area, and how it genders me as belonging to women’s space. It always felt icky to me and I feel major dysphoria if being asked by a doctor about my fertility/sex life or about my period. I have an irregular period but when I get cramps and bloated and bleed, I feel so miserable and too embarrassed to tell anyone, and I hate thinking about how people in the house probably can see someone is on their cycle and know it’s me. My chest normally doesn’t bother me that much because I’m small but I wish I could have a flat chest and sometimes feel like my chest is just another obvious indicator of my assigned sex at birth that I don’t want to be referred by or seen as.

Section 3: Transition goals

Transition is complicated because I want to look like an androgynous boy, but not male. I want the effects of a deep voice, but still in the androgynous range. I want to get taller, which I doubt would happen but I’d be really happy if it did. I would be a lot happier with my skinny small body if it were more angular and masculine, with a wider torso and broader shoulders. I want my feet and hands to get bigger. I want my face to mature in a more masculine way. I want an atoms apple. I want bottom growth. I want my periods to stop, and to be infertile. I want fat redistribution to move fat away from my thighs, chest, and butt and distribute it in a more muscular male appearance. I want the curvature of a masculine frame that’s more stoic and angular, and to not be so overwhelmingly circle, pear, and curve shaped like women are. I want to wear makeup and pretty clothes and feel like I look like a pretty boy in it, not having to feel dysphoric for a way of expressing my style that I enjoy. I want to be non-normative in my appearance, feminine and glam or soft and masculine, but underneath all the styling have a boy base for my body that I much rather have than the feminine base that makes me uncomfortable in feminine clothing because I want to look like I boy in it.

Section 4: Doubts

I’ve explored what I want and how I feel dysphoric, even linking back to feelings that have been with me since childhood, and I understand how I feel limited in these goals without transitioning, but there’s still some things I haven’t quite figured out if I’d be okay with about transition. Since I want to be androgynous and T is geared towards masculinizing people to a male appearance, I worry some of the effects may not come across as androgynous as I hope for. I am very small and petite, and my features reflect that through the delicateness of my skin and bones and lack of muscle, and my hope is that T would masculinize this in an androgynous way that I’d be really happy with, where I look between male and female, masculine yet androgynous. I’ve felt this way since before I even fully came out to myself as trans or even was questioning my gender fully, and often envied how T effected people who were petite like me pre T. So I’m not nervous about the body and face changes, in fact I feel like those are what I want most out of T and am confident I’ve been really bothered by these things without it my whole life, wishing to be more androgynous. And I know I want the bottom growth because that was the first obvious dysphoria I had since I was a kid, and however strange it might be I feel like it will feel more right, as I always wished I had something different than I’ve been given. Any amount of doubt I sometimes have about this is more societally based, like concerns over if pants will be harder to find or if people will find my body strange or if I’ll still feel uncomfortable with my naked body. I also worry about if the hair increases will look strange on me, or if I’ll feel weird growing facial hair because “fems aren’t supposed to have hair.” I feel like on my own, I don’t think it’s weird to be hairy and have facial hair, even with me being small and androgynous, but the idea of other people seeing it makes me nervous. The voice change makes me nervous too because I don’t want my voice to get too deep and I love singing and don’t want to lose the ability to sing. I also feel like I’m supposed to want everything and feel terrible in my body because that’s what I see so many people say but I don’t want every effect and feel invalid for that. I feel like I’m supposed to know 100% that I’ll love every change of transition, and I don’t think I can know that to be honest. Though my body gives me dysphoria, the idea of changing it however fascinating it may be also is scary to me, and it’s a big decision that I’d like to feel more strong feelings about before deciding on it, as well as more good about the secondary sex characteristic changes I’ll get. I think it’s okay to not want so much of the hair changes, I can just be a guy who shaves, and I don’t mind so much being hairy on my body even if I would prefer not to be, it doesn’t feel like I’d feel wrong about having that change, it’s mostly just I don’t know how I’d feel with the facial hair, and I don’t want to feel ugly or not like myself. I think there’s just a lot of work I need to do to understand myself better, because I know I’ve felt immense jealousy over guys deep voices, flat chests, facial hair, and hell, even body hair sometimes, yet these are all the aspects of transition I’m least sure about.

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spaceisout · 2 years ago

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𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙖 𝙟𝙤𝙠𝙚 // 𝙠𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙪𝙠𝙞 𝙗𝙖𝙠𝙪𝙜𝙤

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugo x F!Reader

Warning: Cursing, angst, fluff,

Summary: Having a crush on the dirty blonde was hard enough as it was. Him treating you like a friend was obvious to him except for you.

Authors' note: This was a random one I had it in mind but didn't think I'd end up finishing it until now. Hope you enjoy! Feedback is appreciated as always 🌷

Links: Masterlist, Series List, Donate to the author,

"Are you sure you like that?" Mina questioned as she saw the person you liked fighting with another friend of yours. "I mean no judgement here, everyone has their likes but- come on why do you like him? You're the opposite of him!"

You shrugged looking down at your desk, playing with your fingers. "He has his... well his own defaults I mean who doesn't, right?"

"Yeah but still," she turned her chair to fully face you. "Bakugo is a loud individual. Compared to you, you are quiet and nice. You don't hesitate to help anyone out while he- well..."

Mina wasn't trying hard to berate him persay but it was difficult to even come up with good things. Although they may be acquainted enough sometimes it was difficult to describe him.

"What you think as loud I think he's..." you bit your lip trying to come up with a good definition.

"See!" she exclaimed, "You can't even finish your train of-"

A smile rested on your lips, a total change from your thinking face, as if you had made up your mind already. "He's passionate. Bakugo sees ahead of his own future, he wants to keep climbing to the top to get better."

"And you don't think that might be... I don't know a bit of an obstacle? I mean the guy is clearly focused on only becoming a top hero." Mina explained resting her chin on her open palm. "Wouldn't that be hard in a relationship?"

Your lips parted to speak but looked away feeling too shy to say anything. Mina was already thinking ahead of the whereabouts of your relationship while you had only been focused on what to say to him.

"I-I don't know what might happen Mina." You stuttered.

She sighed, "You need to confess to him the sooner you do the better it will be so your little heart can finally rest at ease."

"Who says my heart isn't at ease?"

"Me."

Chuckling you nodded, "I'll do my best to do that."

During lunch you took your regular seat beside Todoroki while Iida sat down next to Midoriya and Uraraka.

"Are we all going to pair up for the project then?" Todoroki asked as he began to eat his cold soba noodles.

"I assume everyone by now has chosen groups?" Iida asked as he broke apart his chopsticks to eat.

"I think we're all on board as a group." Uraraka answered.

"(name)?"

"Hm?" you looked up to see everyone at the table looking at you. "Uh..."

"Are you okay with being part of the group?" Todoroki asked. "Or did you have already a group you wanted to be with?"

"Oh um... actually-"

"She's part of our group."

You turned around to see Bakugo with his hands in his pockets, walking over to your table along with Kirishima and Mina.

"She is?" Todoroki questioned with narrow eyes, not fully believing him.

Kirishima chuckled sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, "Well we actually asked her if she wanted to be part of our group."

"(name), Ochako!" Mina ran over to you both and hugged you tightly.

"Whatever she didn't say no to begin with." Bakugo said stopping in front of you. Looking down at you, he spoke in a calmer tone. "You are joining us aren't you?"

"I... well-"

Mina wrapped her arm around your neck and whispered into your ear. "Say yes, this will be a great chance to spend time with him. I mean come on look at him changing his voice just to talk to you!"

Biting your bottom lip, you tried to think about her suggestion. it would be a great way to get to know him better and he does want you to join them after all.

Smiling softly you nodded at him. "Sure, if that's alright with everyone?"

"It's not a problem." Midoriya smiled at you.

"We can all hang out and work on our projects together in the living room!" Uraraka suggested.

"That sounds like an excellent way to lend each other a hand if needed." Iida added.

"Then it settled! You are with us, (name)!" Mina exclaimed excitedly.

You chuckled leaning into her touch as your eyes travelled up to look at the dirty blonde, who faintly smiled as he looked at Kirishima and at you.

It was more than just him being kind to you whenever you were around. Bakugo became attentive, if you needed something simple like a pencil or an eraser he would notice and hand you one instantly.

Every time you handed it back to him he insisted you kept it. To him a writing utensil was something insignificant. He could always get one again or an extra pack if he needed to. Even then if it was the last one he had he most always let you borrow it.

Or at times when you two partner up to train during hero studies he gave it his all, never holding back. if at some point you began to doubt yourself he would encourage you.

Being a hero with such a simple quirk could at times be troubling when you see people like Bakugo, someone who was blessed with a powerful quirk.

You had confided it to him one random day as you made your way to school together. You thought you had embarrassed yourself but was surprised instead when Bakugo started to say the opposite.

"Why are you always looking or thinking at what others think?" He looked straight ahead as he spoke. "There's going to be someone better than you that's something you can't stop. Even so, your quirk is useful in situations where mine isn't. You were able to stop that fire from growing at the training camp. Not only that it helped the others escape."

"Well yeah but those actions are only useful during an emergency, when it comes to fighting villains-"

"Then train." Bakugo stopped walking and turned to really look at you. "I've seen you staying after school to improve your quirk. You're already doing half the work the others aren't. If you want to really amp up your quirk then try different things, come up with an ultimate move."

"But it's water-"

"Water is a vile ingredient needed to do certain things... doesn't mean it isn't powerful enough to end villains. You can use it to drown villains as well."

"Drown? Doesn't that mean they die?..."

"You won't kill them, it's not like you have it in you to even do so." Bakugo smiled, "I'll help you. I'll make sure your quirk gets better than it already was."

You looked at him with wide eyes, "Really?..."

He nodded "We'll start training after school."

"Okay!"

"(name)."

Maybe there was a chance that he did feel the same?

"(name)!"

"What?!" you retorted looking around your surroundings to see Mina next to you.

"I've been calling your name and you wouldn't budge." She sighed sitting with criss crossed legs. "What's up?"

"N-nothing I promised!"

Mina gave you a "really" kinda looked knowing you weren't even close to telling the truth.

Bakugo stood up from his seat next to Kirishima and walked over to where you were. "Hey, can you help me with doing some research for this part?" He asked sitting down in between you and Mina, slightly pushing her a bit to the side.

"Hey, I was sitting there!"

He ignored her and solely focused on you.

You mouthed her a sorry.

"Sure, can I see what is it that you need help with?"

"I tried searching up about this part of the island but nothing came up." He explained as you grabbed your laptop and typed into the search icon. "I only found out the date but other than that the geography info was absent."

"Hmm..." you bit your bottom lip in concentration as you scrolled down the countless results.

You could feel his breath tickling the back of your neck, you tried your best to ignore it but it was impossible.

"I-I only see the information you got."

Bakugo cursed under his breath, "What the hell was the point in assigning us this dumb island if there's not enough information."

"Maybe we can check out the online library? There's websites that put historical information for everyone to read."

"The encyclopedia?"

You nodded ticking a piece of hair behind your ear. "Well yeah... I mean there's nothing wrong with trying that. We might find more info on there than searching up on the engine."

"Alright let me grab a pen-"

You dug into your pouch of pencils and pens, taking out the one he had loaned you a long time ago.

"You still have this?" He took the pen from your hand, looking at it thoroughly to see it was still in good condition.

"Yeah, I didn't want to lose it in case you might want it back one day." You shyly looked away, "I figured it could come in handy if you... or someone else might need one."

A faint smile rested on his lips, "You're the first one to even care enough to keep it the same way. I handed one to Kaminari and he lost it the same day."

Chuckling you nodded, "I saw the way you looked at him that day. I kinda fell bad when he looked scared."

He slightly smirked. "That idiot was lucky I wasn't able to do anything to him."

"That's cause you choose to not doing anything bad to him." You teased, "I can tell you care about them even if they annoy you at times."

"I-I do not!" He retorted looking away from you for the first time.

"Mhmm." You smiled looking back to your computer screen and searched up the names island on the encyclopedia page. "Well good news."

"Did you find the info?"

"Yup!" Pushing the laptop closer to him, you pointed out at the info you were able to gather on one part of the screen. "It has the location, scenery, acres, weather, and seasonal food as well."

"You're amazing." He breathed out, "I should have asked you a long time ago instead of suffering with the research."

Your eyes sparkled hearing him complimenting you. "You can count on me for anything. You know that right?"

"Yeah." Bakugo smiled to himself as he started to write down the most important focal points for the project. "How's your move coming along by the way?"

"Hmm..." looking down at your lap you said, "It's not as perfect as I hoped it would be, I still need to practice more to perfect it."

"Stop thinking that it isn't enough." He said looking from the screen to his notebook from time to time. "I've seen your move it's coming more perfectly together than you think. All you need is someone to try it out on."

Leaning forward you said, "And who should I ask?"

"I'm appalled that you haven't thought about asking me." Bakugou mumbled.

"I did think about asking you... among other things." You mumbled the last few words. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to since well... you have helped me enough already."

"You're an idiot." Placing the notebook and pen down he turned his body to look at you. "I already told you I'd help you out with your quirk. I don't see why you are still hesitant to ask me anything."

Your heart fluttered, it felt like he was looking deeply into you with those red orbs that shined brightly under the light. Bakugo held such an important part in your heart and as time keeps passing by you are only falling harder for him.

Taking a deep breath, you exhaled. Your voice slightly shaking, "A-actually now that you mention it I do want to-"

"(name), hey." You both looked to the left and saw Todoroki. "Sorry am I interrupting something?"

Bakugo became irritated. "Is it a habit for you to interrupt our every damn conversation, icy hot?"

"I'm actually a close friend to her, am I not allowed to talk to her?"

"Of course you are!" You butted in, trying to deescalate the situation before it turned badly pretty quickly. "Was it something that you needed?"

"Cold you help me make some tea for everyone?"

"You interrupted our damn conversation for some tea?!" Bakugo retroted.

"It's alright." You said trying to calm the dirty blonde down. "I'd love to give you a hand."

Todoroki extended a hand out to you, you gently accepted his offer and stood up.

"What type of tea are we making?"

"I'm not sure they said they did not mind the flavor."

"Bakugo, I assume you want green tea?" You asked.

"Always." He proudly said.

"We'll be back in a bit then."

You fell in step with the bi color haired friend as you made your way towards the kitchen.

"Do you think Momo has any tea left?" You asked walking over to the cabinet and opening it.

"Do you like Bakugo?"

You held your, breath as your movements stopped. Silence filling the small common kitchen.

Todoroki stood by the kitchen counter looking at you intently.

"I..." you cleared your throat taking the tea box and closing the counter. "I think y-you might... have gotten the wrong idea-"

"I'm not judging you for it if that's what you think I'm doing."

"What?..."

He added, "I wanted to ask because I've noticed you being around him more than usual. I hadn't thought anything about it but when I asked Fuyumi she explained that it was something someone did when they like a person."

"Are you..." you turned to face him but looked away. "Do you think... t-that it's silly?"

"Not at all... I mean it is normal is it not?" He asked, "I've never really liked anyone before... but shouldn't you let him know?"

"I want to..." you crossed your arm over the other holding it, "I have such a great time talking with him and being around him lifts my mood up more than I thought. No one has ever made me feel like that before."

"I see..." he muttered. "Bakugo isn't an easy person is he?"

"He has his moments where he does get angry over things we kinda don't really understand well." You answered, "Bakugo has many different sides to him. At times he can get flustered over things he gets wrong or misinterprets. As opposed to him fighting against a friend or rival, he gives it his all and doesn't hesitate his moves."

The more you talked about him, your heart started to beat rapidly against your chest. "Don't get me wrong sometimes it is hard to decipher what he means but he's grown and changed. He has started to see what it feels like to accept those around you as friends and not rivals. Slowly but surely I feel he will be the type to save and win."

"You talk about him with such passion..." Todoroki looked down at the his feet, a sad smile covering his lips. "I'm kinda jeaous."

"I guess it's what it means when you like someone... that's something I never really came to understand until now."

"I don't want to bring you any doubts, you're someone Bakugo would be lucky enough to have in his life."

"But?..."

He sighed, "I think you'd be someone he needs for him to become better. But... Bakugo right now is engrossed with becoming the best."

"So?..." you said looking at him. "I don't want to distract him and I-I won't... I just want to be someone who he can depend on when things go south. Or someone he can be himself around when he's tired of acting strong all the time."

"It's true what Midoriya said about you." Smiling softly he looked up at him, "You are someone who people can trust... you're just enough and more at the same time. I really hope things go your way, (name)."

"Thank you, Todoroki." Smiling widely you placed the boxes of tea in front of him. "Which tea should we make?"

"How about this one? It seems like a nice flavor."

Bakugo walked away from the kitchen door, his hands stayed deep in his pockets in thought. A look of confusion and realization, as he kept replaying the conversation in his head.

After you finished half of the project for the day you got up packing your things to head back to your room.

"I think we made great progress today!" Mina spoke stretching her arms above her head.

"I agree we will for sure get finished by Friday." Uraraka chimed in.

"Ohh we can go to a nearby cafe where they sell the yummiest sweets!"

Midoriya chuckled closing up his backpack, "Sounds like a good place to go to then."

"I won't be able to go I apologize." Iida spoke up, "I'll be helping my brother out this weekend."

"No worries I'm glad to hear that your brother is getting better." You said holding your laptop and books in your arms.

"Same here it's a good sign." Todoroki said.

Iida smiled. "Thank you, we are glad as well."

You bid each other goodbye and walked your separate ways. A yawn escaped from your lips as you walked towards the elevator.

"(name) can we talk for a sec?"

A soft smile formed on your lips seeing Bakugo. "Sure, do you want to go to my room-?"

"I'd like to talk here if tht's alright."

"Okay." You said confused, "Is everything alright?"

Bakugo stood quietly trying to gather his thoughts. He had a plan in mind already on how to say what he wanted to, but nothing wanted to come out.

Frustration ran through his body, he rubbed his face getting irritated with himself.

Worry began to show on your face, "Bakugo... is something going on?"

"I need to tell you something." He said.

"What is it?"

Even then you stayed quiet looking at him, waiting patiently until he was ready to speak.

He let out a long breath before ripping off the band-aid, his eyes focused on you with such sadness.

“I like you. I really do, but not in the way you want me to.”

You blinked rapidly trying to process the words you heard. Your body moving two steps backwards in shock and in pain.

"I-" you could feel your eyes swelling with tears, knowing he already found out about your crush.

Bakugo felt guilty, hurting you was never in his plan when he started to care about you.

"I... overheard you and icy hot talking in the kitchen." He explained, "I went to talk to you about the project but I heard my name and stayed there instead. I-I know it probably wasn't something I was supposed to hear and I'm sorry I did."

"I should have... been more careful..."

He looked at you with sad eyes, "Maybe in the future I’ll see you as more than just a friend but right now…" Bakugo softly sighed, "I’m sorry.”

"I thought... t-that... I mean you were so nice to me." You sniffled trying not to raise your voice at him. "You're never like that to everyone else! Every time I needed help with something you were there... I-I don't understand."

"I care about you, that's why I didn't hesitate to lend you a hand."

"Really?... You only care about me as a friend?"

Bakugo ran his fingers through his hair, "Right now... that's the only thing I feel for you."

"I'm sorry but I don't believe you." You said, "I can't be the only one to have misinterpreted anything. I know you Bakugo. I've watched you everyday and have been around enough to know that you don't treat a friend like that!"

"I do! Okay?"

"Are you afraid to say what you actually feel?" You stepped forward your eyes trying to search his own for an answer.

"I-I'm not!" He exclaimed and exhaled out. "I can't reciprocate your feelings, I'm sorry that you began to fall for me. But I do not feel the same way and I hope you realize that."

It was no point.

Bakugo wasn't going to come clean or face the way he feels. Someone like him wasn't going to admit it anytime soon, and you were only going to lose in the end.

"Alright..." your grip tightened around your books. "I won't pester you or say anything again."

"I really do care about you... I hope we can at least keep being friends-"

"I can't promise you that I'll be okay enough to treat you as a friend." You said wiping away your tears. "My feelings for you are too strong and it hurts to even look at you right now after knowing how you really feel."

"(name)." He extended his arm out to comfort you but let it fall seeing you retreat yourself back from his touch.

"I have to go." You turned your back to him and decided to take the stairs to your room instead.

Pain was all you could feel inside of you. It was as if someone had taken out your whole heart and had gotten rid of it. You felt hollow. And what hurt the most were the memories that kept replaying in your mind from all the times you had spend together with him.

The countless times you both shared smiles or even laughed at the weirdest things. When you fell asleep during one of your study sessions and he carried you back to your room. It felt like a dream, feeling his warmth close to you.

You shut your eyes tightly in hopes to stop the headache that was beginning to form along with the endless tears. Your vision started to become blurry, as you slowly made your way up to your floor.

A quiet sob escaped from your lips, your steps slowing down. The floor was empty making your crying to appear louder than it truly was.

"I-I have to let him g-go..." you muttered, leaving a trail of tears on the wooden floor.

"(name)!"

Oh great.

"I saw you two talking and didn't want to interrupt," Mina said smirking. "How did it go-" As you got closer to her she noticed your tears, concern covered her whole face instead. "(Name)... what happened?..."

You shook your head, crying louder than before. Mina immediately wrapped her arms around you, hugging you tightly. Her hand caressing the back of your head in order to comfort you.

"H-he doesn't feel the same way..." You blurted out burying your face in her shoulder.

"Oh sweetie..."

She opened the door to your room and helped you inside, telling her everything that happened and all the things that were said.

Mina ended up feeling bad and apologized for pushing you to confess to him. Although you knew you wanted to wait you did not carry any resentment or hate towards her or Bakugo. She meant well, that much you knew.

The following days became a bit awkward whenever you two showed up together or ran into each other with one of your other friends.

"So... how did everyone do on the test?" Koda asked smiling nervously as he along with everyone could feel the tension in the room.

"I did good!" Kaminari answered confidently. "I was actually able to answer all the questions without thinking so hard about them."

"Tch... isn't that what you do everyday?" Bakugo spoke looking down at his plate not fully grabbing food with his chopsticks.

"Why are you so mean?!" He retorted, "You'll see when we get our tests back!"

"The study method you came up with actually helped me a lot with math." Todoroki mentioned as he looked at you.

"Really?" You slightly smiled. "I'm glad to hear that it worked, I was kinda doubtful since I have never tutored anyone before."

"Oh that's right," Midoriya added. "You usually study by yourself."

"Y-yeah I can't really teach someone that well..."

Bakugo looked over where you sat closely in between Todoroki and Iida. His eyes falling over to you once in awhile, remembering how you'd always sit beside him.

"I've been meaning to ask." Hagakure finished her food before she asked, "Did you end up accepting that date from the second year?"

"Date?.." Bakugo mumbled under his breath.

Kirishima nodded leaning into the blonde's side and whispered.

"(name) got a confession in her shoe locker this morning." He explained, "They ended up meeting together at the roof top."

Bakugo clenched a fist tightly under the table, feeling an ache in his chest. Lately he had been wanting no, hoping that you'd talk to him again. To have a conversation like you used to, instead you had been spending more time with Todoroki than you used to, while ignoring him at all costs.

So it was a surprise when he opened his mouth without thinking.

"That's such a sorry way to give in to someone asking you out." His eyes widened hearing the words coming from his own lips.

As he looked up at you, his eye lids dropped seeing the hurt he had caused you.

A sigh escaped from your lips, placing your chop sticks down on the table. "I never said that I was going to accept it and go out with someone who I don't feel the same way about." You continued and looked at him with empty eyes. "Even if I did there's nothing wrong with doing so. Everyone is entitled to go out with anyone they'd like and so do I."

Getting up from your seat you grabbed your plate and headed to the kitchen without another word. Todoroki got up to follow you but Midoriya pulled on his arm, stopping him from doing so.

Kirishima nudged Bakugo at his side and pointed with his eyes to where you were. He nodded getting up, trying to ignore the stares that followed his every move as he walked to you.

You were getting ready to leave when he walked in.

"(name)-"

Ignoring him you walked passed him, hoping to not engage in a conversation that he himself did not even want to have in the first place.

Bakugo stopped you of course holding your wrist, "Can we talk?." You didn't budge of course. "Please?"

"Fine..." You mumbled stepping back with arms crossed and leaned against the counter not looking at him.

"I'm sorry for saying... all that back there. I crossed the line."

"No," you titled your head to look at him. "You crossed everything, Bakugo. It wasn't your place to say anything when it's not your life. You had no excuse to say all that to me."

"I know...I screwed up and I'm sorry." He breathed out holding on to the bridge of his nose with both hands. "You're right... it's your life and I don't have a say in anything."

"For once I agree." Sighing you shook your head with sad eyes. "Why did you though?... There's nothing going on between us. You rejected me a-and... that should only happen when you have feelings for someone."

Did he have feelings?

Had Bakugo realized how he truly felt about you?

"I-I don't know... what came over me."

"Well until you figure it out..." You bit your bottom lip contemplating on whether to stay quiet or finally finish everything. For your sake and his. "Please do me a favor and don't butt into anything that has to do with me."

"I thought we were going to be able to be friends-"

"I didn't agree."

Bakugo stepped forward, "I know that but in the future we could be (name)."

"I can't stay friends with someone I'm trying to get over still." You spoke feeling tears starting to cover your eyes, crying was the last thing you wanted to do. "I was hopeful that we might one day but the way you're acting is trying to tell me something else, something you're not even sure you are even able to say it yourself."

"(name)-"

"No.." you exhaled a long breath hoping to stabilize your voice. "I-I'm not going to wait around and hoping that you'll come around not with these- these mixed signals you keep sending me. That's how you were when we were friends Bakugo. I can't keep second guessing everything. I'm tired. I don't want to live or be around someone like that."

"W-what are you saying..." He softly spoke looking at you with shiny eyes.

"It's best if we j-just communicate when it's needed." You stated knowing it was the right thing to do even though it hurt everything inside of you. "I need to move on... you need to focus on being the hero you want. We'll be acquaintances... only talk when need to. Nothing more... nothing less."

"Are you seriously going to throw away the friendship we built?"

"No you are, Bakugo." You said, "You could have been honest about how you really felt but chose not to. I can't keep playing that mind game of yours whether you do it intentionally or not. All it'll ever lead to is me getting hurt... again."

You turned to leave but he held your wrist tightly, "(name)..."

Your name sounded so sweet coming from his lips, something you wish you'll be able to forget.

"Let me go..."

Bakugo nodded, letting you go. He could only watch as you walked further away from him.

He harshly wiped away his tears with his forearm, feeling the swelling of pain in his chest again.

"Fuck... I do like you (name)."

#katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki fluff #katsuki angst #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #bnha bakugo #mha bakugo #bnha angst #mha angst #bnha fluff #mha fluff #bnha masterlist

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justineps · 11 months ago

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It was a long battle of “me vs. me;” it was inevitable but i realized that the only way to willingly put one foot in front of the other rather than let the wind’s breeze carry me to places and situations I normally ended up in, was to seriously be on some Musashi, monk, nomad, “supertramp” isolated lifestyle to show myself gratitude, forgive, and then slowly leave me behind in the end too. And damn lol, I had no idea I was capable of uncontrollably crying for periods of times, like to the extent I was watching my ugly ass just let 30 years of things bottled up finally pour out of my body like Niagara Falls. (lol almost forgot about that insider). I remember looking in the mirror and telling myself I looked like I had some allergic reaction or had taken a hit or dab of whatever it is that people call the newest form of potent THC nowadays, since I managed to actually just abruptly stop for 2 years now, along with alcohol. (I fear I will be such a baby lightweight if someone were to offer to smoke or have a drink, that I wouldnt be able to keep my composure, or eyelids open haha. Yes, it was damn lonely, almost like borderline having nonstop thoughts of how others must have felt and decided to leave this world type of lonely, but I did my best to make it into a comfortable type of lonely that the me that I left behind couldn’t ever adjust to. It was the first time in my life, where I felt I didn’t want to understand anyone else except.. well, me, finally. I also think this is a major reason I don’t really make much of an effort to rekindle old bonds with those I share good memories with. Because I know I’d have to spend a lot more energy than needed by having to explain or address any concerns regarding my side of my story or experiences that caused me to pretty much experience out there in the wild safari zone and ending up living in a jail-like room with privileges in a sense. In the end, most people will sometimes ask questions out of pure curiosity or to seek an answer that they can use to start painting their new perspective of what type of person I’m striving to be. And this isn’t in any way bad of them to do, but I’ve learned it’s not so much that they want to know because they care, but more-so for their own convenience and benefit of having their unique “understanding” of me. I can almost assume what most would say if I were ever to actually sit down with someone and .. well, tell a damn long story that even I would find hard to believe as well. And no, I am not a know it all, just because I said I probably know what others would say, although I am aware I exhibited arrogance, stubbornness, and false pride or say things out of my ass but didn’t actually back my ass up on it with actions to prove whatever it is that I said (lol ok i made myself laugh there, note to self: you’re still a loser). I actually have an excerpt from a zodiac personality book that I found whilst learning to appreciate adventuring alone, stating things that sent chills down my messed up spine because everything was actually written to describe myself in a way I’d want people to read if they cared to understand some things about me. Being a “know it all” actually was included but also explained as to why it may seem I come off this way (Leos’ nature of caring for others often and thinking what’s best for them over their own selves often depicts them as bossy or pushy, but I do agree and stopped goading people into doing something I believe they would do well at or is good for them).

I really need to get a new notebook and pen, im tired of texting right now lol. Peace be with you, and also with you (ok sorry last stupid joke)

7/29/24

Being an “understanding person” is the worst kind of thing. i repeat worst. you have to understand people’s situations, their problems, their traumas. but when it comes to you, you will scream alone. absolutely alone.

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eiirisworkshop · 4 years ago

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The Fanfic Author's Guide to Metatext

(As Used on Ao3) by Eiiri

Also available as a PDF here. This thing is 13,000 words. The PDF is recommended.

Intro: What is Metatext?

Metatext is everything we fanfic authors post along with our story that is not the story itself: title, tags, summary, author's notes, even the rating.

It is how we communicate to potential readers what they're signing themselves up for if they choose to read our story, how we let them make informed decisions regarding which fics they want to read, how we get their interest and, frequently, how they find our story in the first place. A lot of metatext acts as a consent mechanism for readers, it's the informed part of informed consent.

Since most of us who write fanfic also read it, we understand how important this is! But, for the most part, no one ever teaches us how to use metatext; we have to pick it up by osmosis. That makes it hard to learn how to use it well, we all suck at it when we first start out, and some of us may go years without learning particular conventions that seem obvious to others in our community. This creates frustration for everybody.

Enter this guide!

This is meant to be a sort of handbook for fic writers, particularly those of us who post on Archive of Our Own, laying out and explaining the established metatext conventions already in use in our community so we (and our readers!) are all on the same page. It will also provide some best-practices tips.

The point is to give all of us the tools to communicate with our audience as clearly and effectively as possible, so the people who want to read a story like ours can find it and recognize it as what they're looking for, those who don't want to read a story like ours can easily tell it's not their cup of tea and avoid it, nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun—including us!

Now that we know what we're talking about, let's get on with the guide! The following content sections appear in the order one is expected to provide each kind of metatext when posting a fic on Ao3, but first….

Warning!

This is a guide for all authors on Ao3. As such, it mentions subject matter and kinds of fic that you personally might hate or find disgusting, but which are allowed under the Archive's terms of use. There are no graphic descriptions or harsh language in the guide itself, but it does acknowledge the existence of fic you may find distasteful and explains how to approach metatext for such fics.

Some sexual terminology is used in an academic context.

A note from the author:

This guide reflects the conventions of the English-language fanfiction community circa 2021. Conventions may differ in other language communities, and although many of our conventions have been in place for decades (praise be to our Star Trek loving foremothers) fanfiction now exists primarily in the realm of internet fandom where things tend to change rather quickly, so some conventions in this guide may die out while other new conventions, not covered in this guide, arise.

This is not official or in any way produced by the Archive of Our Own (Ao3), and though some actual site rules are mentioned, it is not a rulebook. Primarily, it is a descriptivist take on how the userbase uses metatext to communicate amongst ourselves, provided in the interest of making that communication easier and more transparent for everyone, especially newer users.

Contents

How To Use This Guide Ratings Archive Warnings Fandom Tags Category Relationship Tags Character Tags Additional Tags Titles Summaries Author's Notes Series and Chapters Parting Thoughts

How To Use This Guide

Well, read it. Or have it read to you.

This isn't a glossary, it's a handbook, and it's structured more like an academic paper or report, but there's lots and lots of examples in it!

Many of these examples are titles of real media and the names of characters from published media, or tags quoted directly from Ao3 complete with punctuation and formatting.

Some examples are more generic and use the names Alex, Max, Sam, Chris, Jamie, and Tori for demonstration purposes. In other generic examples, part of an example tag or phrase may be sectioned off with square brackets to show where in that tag or phrase you would put the appropriate information to complete it. This will look something like “Top [Character A]” where you would fill in a character's name.

This guide presumes that you know the basics of how to use Ao3, at least from the perspective of reading fic. If you don't, much of this guide may be difficult to understand and will be much less helpful to you, though not entirely useless.

Ratings

Most fanfic hosting sites provide ratings systems that work a lot like the ratings on movies and videogames.

Ao3's system has four ratings:

General

Teen

Mature

Explicit

These seem like they should be pretty self-explanatory, and the site's own official info pop-up (accessible by clicking the question mark next to the section prompt) gives brief, straightforward descriptions for each of them.

Even so, many writers have found ourselves staring at that dropdown list, thinking about what we've written, and wondering what's the right freaking rating for this? How do I know if it's appropriate for “general audiences” or if it needs to be teen and up? What's the difference between Mature and Explicit?

The best way to figure it out is often to think about your fic in comparison to mainstream media.

General is your average Disney or Dreamworks movie, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon shows, video games like Mario, Kirby, and Pokemon.

There may be romance, but no sexual content or discussion. Scary things might happen and people might get hurt, but violence is non-graphic and usually mild. Adults may be shown drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, and some degree of intoxication may be shown (usually played for laughs and not focused on), but hard drug use is generally not shown or discussed. There is little to no foul language written out and what language there may be is mild, though harsher swears may be implied by narration. There are no explicit F-bombs or slurs.

Teen is more like a Marvel movie, most network television shows (things like The Office, Supernatural, or Grey's Anatomy), video games like Final Fantasy, Five Nights at Freddie's, and The Sims.

There might be some sex and sexual discussion, but nothing explicit is shown—things usually fade to black or are leftimplied. More intense danger, more severe injuries described in greater detail, and a higher level of violence may be present. Substance use may be discussed and intoxication shown, but main characters are unlikely to be shown doing hard drugs. Some swearing and other harsh language may be present, possibly including an F-bomb or two. In longer works, that might mean an F-bomb every few chapters.

Mature is, in American terms, an R-rated movie* like Deadpool, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Exorcist, and Schindler's List; certain shows from premium cable networks or streaming services like Game of Thrones, Shameless, Breaking Bad, and Black Sails; videogames like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and The Witcher.

Sex may be shown and it might be fairly explicit, but it's not as detailed or graphic or as much the focus of the work as it would be if it were porn. Violence, danger, and bodily harm may be significant and fairly graphic. Most drug use is fair game. Swearing and harsh language may be extensive.

Explicit is, well, extremely explicit. This is full on porn, the hardcore horror movies, and snuff films.

Sex is highly detailed and graphic. Violence and injury is highly detailed and graphic. Drug use and its effects may be highly detailed and graphic. Swearing and harsh language may be extreme, including extensive use of violent slurs.

Please note that both Mature and Explicit fics are intended for adult audiences only, but that does not mean a teenaged writer isn't going to produce fics that should be rated M or E. Ratings should reflect the content of the fic, not the age of the author.

Strictly speaking, you don't have to choose any of these ratings; Ao3 has a “Not Rated” option, but for purposes of search results and some other functions, Not Rated fics are treated by the site as Explicit, just in case, which means they end up hidden from a significant portion of potential readers. It really is in your best interest as a writer who presumably wants people to see their stories, to select a rating. It helps readers judge if yours is the kind of story they want right now, too.

Rating a fic is a subjective decision, there is some grey area in between each level. If you're not quite sure where your fic falls, best practice is to go with the more restrictive rating.

*(Equivalent to an Australian M15+ or R18+, Canadian 14A, 18A or 18+, UK 15 or 18, German FSK 16 or FSK 18.)

Warnings

Ao3 uses a set of standard site-wide Archive Warnings to indicate that a work contains subject matter that falls into one or more of a few categories that some readers are likely to want to avoid. Even when posting elsewhere, it's courteous to include warnings of this sort.

These warnings are:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Major Character Death

Rape/Non-Con

Underage

Just like with the ratings, the site provides an info-pop up that explains what each warning is for. They're really exactly what it says on the tin: detailed descriptions of violence, injury, and gore; the death of a character central to canon or tothe story being told; non-consensual sex i.e. rape; and depictions of underage sex, which the site defines as under the age of 18 for humans—Ao3 doesn't care if your local age of consent or majority is lower than that.

In addition to the four standard warnings above, the warnings section has two other choices:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

These do not mean the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. “No Archive Warnings Apply” means that absolutely nothing in your fic falls into any of the four standard warning categories. “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” means that you the author are opting out of the warning system; your fic could potentially contain things that fall into any and all of the four standard warning categories.

There's nothing wrong with selecting Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings! It may mean that some readers will avoid your fic because they're not sure it's safe for them, and you might need to use more courtesy tags than you otherwise would (we'll talk about courtesy tags later), but that's okay! Opting out of the warning system can be a way to avoid spoilers,* and is also good for when you're just not sure if what you've written deserves one of the Archive warnings. In that case, the best practice is to select either the warning it might deserve or Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, then provide additional information in other tags, the summary, or an initial author's note.

Unless you're opting out of using the warning system, select all the warnings that apply to your fic, if any of them do. So if a sixteen year old main character has consensual sex then gets killed in an accident that you've written out in excruciating detail, that fic gets three out of the four standard warnings: Underage, Major Character Death, and Graphic Depictions Of Violence.

*(Fandom etiquette generally favors thorough tagging and warning over avoiding spoilers. It doesn't ruin the experience of a story to have a general sense of what's going to happen. If it did, we wouldn't all keep reading so many “there was only one bed” fics.)

Fandom Tags

What fandom or fandoms is your fic for? You definitely know what you wrote it for, but that doesn't mean it's obvious what to tag it as.

Sometimes, it is obvious! You watched a movie that isn't based on anything, isn't part of a series, and doesn't have any spinoffs, tie-ins or anything else based on it. You wrote a fic set entirely within the world of this movie. You put this movie as the fandom for your fic. Or maybe you read a book and wrote a fic for it, and there is a movie based on the book, but the movie is really different and you definitely didn't use anything that's only in the movie. You put the book as the fandom for your fic.

All too often, though, it's not that clear.

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book? In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags. If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

In a situation where one piece of media has a spinoff, maybe several spinoffs, and you wrote a fic that includes things from more than one of them, you might want use the central work's “& related fandoms” tag. For example, the “Doctor Who & Related Fandoms” tag gets used for fics that include things from a combination of any era of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

And don't worry, from the reader-side of the site the broadest fandom tags are prioritized. The results page for an “all media types” or “& related fandoms” search includes works tagged with the more specific sub-tags for that fandom, the browse-by-fandom pages show the broadest tag for each fandom included, and putting a fandom into the search bar presumes the broadest tag for that fandom. A search for “Star Wars - All Media Types” will pull up work that only has a subtag for that fandom, like “The Mandalorian (TV).” You don't have to put every specific fandom subtag for people to find your fic.

If you wrote a fic for something that's an adaptation of an older work—especially an older work that's been adapted a lot, like Sherlock Holmes or The Three Musketeers—it can be hard to know how you should tag it. The best choice is to put the adaptation as the fandom, for instance “Sherlock (TV),” then, if you're also using aspects of the older source work that aren't in the adaptation, also put a broad fandom tag such as “Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms.” Do not tag it as being fic for the source work—in our Sherlock example that would be tagging it “Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle”—unless you are crossing over the source work and the adaptation. Otherwise, the specific fandom subtag for the source work ends up clogged with fic for the adaptation, which really is a different thing.

By the same token, fic for the source work shouldn't be tagged as being for the adaptation, or the adaptation's subtag will get clogged.

The same principle applies to fandoms that have been rebooted. Don't tag fic for the reboot as being for the original, or fic for the original as being for the reboot. Don't tag a fic as being for both unless the reboot and original are actually interacting. Use an “& related fandoms” tag for the original if your fic for the reboot includes some aspects of the original that weren't carried over but you haven't quite written a crossover between the two. Good examples of these situations can be seen with “Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)” vs. “Star Trek: The Original Series,” and “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)” vs. “She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985).”

Usually, this kind of mistagging as a related fandom happens when someone writes a fic for something that is or has a reboot, spinoff, or adaptation, but they're only familiar with one of the related pieces of media, and they mistakenly presume the fandoms are the same or interchangeable because they just don't know the difference. It's an honest mistake and it doesn't make you a bad or fake fan to not know, but it can be frustrating for readers who want fic for one thing and find the fandom tag full of fic for something else.

In order to avoid those kinds of issues, best practice is to assume fandoms are not interchangeable no matter how closely related they are, and to default to using a tag pair of the most-specific-possible sub-fandom tag + the broadest possible fandom tag when posting a fic you're not entirely sure about, for instance “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

The Marvel megafandom has its own particular tagging hell going on. Really digging into and trying to make sense of that entire situation would require its own guide, but we can go through some general tips.

There is a general “Marvel” fandom tag and tags for both “The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom” and “The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types.” Most of us who write Marvel fic are working with a cherry picked combination of canons from the MCU, various comics runs, both timelines of X-Men movies, and possibly several decades worth of cartoons. That's what these tags are for.

If your cherry picked Marvel fic is more X-Men than Avengers, go for the “X-Men - All Media Types” tag.

If you are primarily working with MCU canon, use the MCU specific tags rather than “all media types” and add specific tags for individual comics runs—like Earth 616 or the Fraction Hawkeye comics—if you know you're lifting particular details from the comics. If you're just filling in gaps in MCU canon with things that are nebulously “from the comics” don't worry about tagging for that, it's accepted standard practice in the fandom at this point, use a broader tag along with your MCU-specific tag if you want to.

Same general idea for primarily movie-verse X-Men fics. Use the movie-specific tags.

If your fic mostly draws from the comics, use the comics tags. If you're focusing on an individual run, show, or movie series rather than an ensemble or large swath of the megafranchise, tag for that and leave off the broader fandom tags.

Try your best to minimize the number of fandom tags on your Marvel work. Ideally, you can get it down to two or three. Even paring it down as much as you can you might still end up with about five. If you're in the double digits, take another look to see if all the fandom tags you've included are really necessary, or if some of them are redundant or only there to represent characters who are in the fic but that the fic doesn't focus on. Many readers tend to search Marvel fics by character or pairing tags, it's more important that you're thorough there. For the fandom tags it's more important that you're clear.

If you write real person fiction, you need to tag it as an RPF fandom. Fic about actors who are in a show together does not belong on the fandom tag for that show. There are separate RPF fandom tags for most shows and film franchises. Much like the adaptation/source and reboot/original situations discussed earlier, a fic should really only be tagged with both a franchise's RPF tag and its main tag if something happens like the actors—or director or writer!—falling into the fictional world or meeting their characters.

Of course, not all RPF is about actors. Most sports have RPF tags, there are RPF tags for politics from around the world and for various historical settings, the fandom tags for bands are generally presumed to be RPF tags, and there is a general Real Person Fiction tag.

In order to simplify things for readers, it's best practice to use the general Real Person Fiction tag in addition to your fandom-specific tag. You may even want to put “RPF” as a courtesy tag in the Additional Tags section, too. This is because Ao3 isn't currently set up to recognize RPF as the special flavor of fic that it is in the same way that the site recognizes crossovers as special, so it can be very difficult to either seek out or avoid RPF since it's scattered across hundreds of different fandom tags.

On the subject of crossovers—they can make fandom tagging even more daunting. Even for a crossover with lots of fandoms involved, though, you just have to follow the same guidelines as to tag a single-fandom work for each fandom in the crossover. The tricky part is figuring out if what you wrote is really a crossover, or just an AU informed by another fandom—we'll talk about that later.

There are some cases where it's really hard to figure out what fandom something belongs to, like if you wrote a fanfic of someone else's fanfic, theirs is an AU and yours is about their OC, not any of the characters from canon. What do you do?! Well, you do not tag it as being a fanfic for the same thing theirs was. Put the title of their fic (or name of their series) as the fandom for your fic, attributed to their Ao3 handle just like any other fandom is attributed to its author. Explain the situation in either the summary or the initial author's note. Also, ask the author's permission before posting something like this.

What if you wrote a story about your totally original D&D character? The fandom is still D&D, you want the “Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)” tag.

What if there's not a fandom tag on the Archive yet for what you wrote? Not a problem! You can type in a new one if you're the first person to post something for a particular fandom. Do make sure, though, that the fandom isn't just listed by a different name than you expect. Many works that aren't originally in English—including anime—are listed by their original language title or a direct translation first, and sometimes a franchise or series's official name might not be what you personally call it, for instance many people think of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series as The Golden Compass series, so it's best to double check.

What if you wrote an entirely new original story that's not based on anything? Excellent job, that takes a lot of work, but that probably doesn't belong on Ao3! The Archive is primarily meant as a repository for fannish content, but in a few particular circumstances things we'd consider Original Work may be appropriate content for the Archive as well. Double check the Archive's Terms of Service FAQ and gauge if what you wrote falls under the scope of what is allowed. If what you wrote really doesn't fit here, post it somewhere else or try to get it published if you feel like giving it a shot.

Category

What Ao3 means by category is “does this fic focus on sex or romance, and if so what combination of genders are involved in that sex or romance?”

The category options are:

F/F

F/M

Gen

M/M

Multi

Other

The F/F, F/M, and M/M categories are for stories focused on pairings of two women, a woman and a man, and two men, respectively. These refer to sexual and/or romantic pairings.

The Other category is for stories focused on (sexual and/or romantic) pairings where one or both partners are not strictly male or female, such as nonbinary individuals, people from cultures with gender systems that don't match to the Western man-woman system, and nonhuman characters for whom biological sex works differently or is nonexistent, including aliens, robots, and inanimate objects or abstract concepts. There are some problems with treating nonbinary humans, eldritch tentacle monsters, sexless androids, and wayward container ships as all the same category, but it's the system we currently have to work with. Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Multi is for stories in which several (sexual and/or romantic) relationships are focused on or which focus on relationships with multiple partners, including cases of polyamory, serial monogamy, strings of hookups with different people, and orgies. A fic will also show as “Multi” if you, the author, have selected more than one category for the fic, even if none of those are the Multi category. Realistically, the Archive needs separate “Multiple Categories” and “Poly” options, but for now we have to work with this system in which the two are combined. Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Gen is for stories that do not contain or are not focused on sex or romance. Romance may be present in a gen fic but it's going to be in the background. While rare, there is such a thing as a sexually explicit gen fic—solo masturbation which does not feature fantasizing about another character is explicit gen fic; a doctor character seeing a series of patients with sex-related medical needs following an orgy may qualify if the orgy is not shown and the doctor is being strictly professional—but such fic needs to be rated, otherwise tagged, and explained carefully in the summary and/or author's note.

Much like the warnings section, category is a “select all that apply” situation. Use your best judgement. For a fic about a polyamorous relationship among a group of women, it's entirely appropriate to tag it as both F/F and Multi. A poly fic with a combination of men and women in the relationship could be shown as both M/M and F/M, Multi, or all three. A fic that focuses equally on one brother and his husband and the other brother and his wife should be tagged both M/M and F/M, and could be tagged as Multi but you might decided not to just to be clear that there's no polyamory going on. If you wrote a fic about two characters who are both men in canon, but you wrote one of them as nonbinary, you could tag it M/M, Other, or both depending on what you feel is representative and respectful.

When dealing with trans characters, whether they're trans in canon or you're writing them as such, the category selection should match the character's gender. If there's a character who is a cis woman in canon, but who you're writing as a trans man, you categorize the fic based on his being a man. If there's a character who is a cis man in canon, but whom you're writing as a trans man, he is still a man and the fic should be categorized accordingly. When dealing with nonbinary characters the fic should really be classed as Other though, by convention, fics about characters who are not nonbinary in canon may be classed based on the character's canon gender as well or instead. When dealing with gender swapped characters—i.e. a canonically cis male superhero who you're writing as a cis woman—class the fic using the gender you wrote her with, not the gender he is in canon.

Most of the time, gen fics should not be categorized jointly with anything else because a fic should only be categorized based on the ships it focuses on, and a gen fic should not be focusing on a ship in the first place.*

*(One of the few circumstances in which it might make sense to class a fic as both gen and something else is when writing about Queerplatonic Relationships, but that is a judgement call and depends on the fic.)

Relationship Tags

The thing about relationship tagging that people most frequently misunderstand or just don't know is the difference between “Character A/Character B” and “Character A & Character B.”

Use a “/” for romantic or sexual relationships, such as spouses, people who are dating, hookups, and friends with benefits. Use “&” for platonic or familial relationships, such as friends, siblings, parents with their kids, coworkers, and deeply connected mortal enemies who are not tragically in love.

This is where we get the phrase “slash fic.” Originally, that meant any fic focused on a romantic paring, but since so much of the romantic fic being produced was about pairs of men, “slash fic” came to mean same-sex pairings, especially male same-sex pairings. Back in earlier days of fandom, pre-Ao3 and even pre-internet, there was a convention that when writing out a different-sex pairing, you did so in man/woman order, while same-sex pairings were done top/bottom. Some authors, especially those who have been in the fic community a long time, may still do this, but the convention has not been in consistent, active use for many years, so you don't have to worry about putting the names in the “correct” order. Part of why that died out is we, as a community, have gotten less strict and more nuanced in our understandings of sex and relationships, we're writing non-penetrative sex more than we used to, and we're writing multi-partner relationships and sex more than we used to, so strictly delineating “tops” and “bottoms” has gotten less important and less useful.

The convention currently in use on Ao3 is that the names go in alphabetical order for both “/” and “&” relationships. In most cases, the Archive uses the character's full name instead of a nickname or just a given name, like James "Bucky" Barnes instead of just Bucky or James. We'll talk more about conventions for how to input character names in the Characters section. The Archive will give you suggestions as you type—if one of them fits what you mean but is slightly different from how you were typing it, for instance it's in a different order, please use the tag suggested! Consistency in tags across users helps the site work more smoothly for everybody.

This is really not the place for ship nicknames like Puckleberry, Wolfstar, or Ineffable Wives. Use the characters' names.

Now that you know how to format the relationship tag to say what you mean, you have to figure out what relationships in your fic to tag for.

The answer is you tag the relationships that are important to the story you're telling, the ones you spend time and attention following, building up, and maybe even breaking down. Tagging for a ship is not a promise of a happy ending for that pair; you don't have to limit yourself to tagging only the end-game ships if you're telling a story that's more complicated than “they get together and live happily ever after.” That said, you should generally list the main ship—the one you focus on the most—first on the list, and that will usually be the end-game ship. You should also use Additional Tags, the summary, and author's notes to make it clear to readers if your fic does not end happily for a ship you've tagged. Otherwise readers will assume that a fic tagged as being about a ship will end well for that ship, because that's what usually happens, and they'll end up disappointed and hurt, possibly feeling tricked or lied to, when your fic doesn't end well for that ship

You don't have to, and honestly shouldn't, tag for every single relationship that shows up in your fic at all. A character's brief side fling mentioned in passing, or a relationship between two background characters should not be listed under the Relationship tag section. You can list them in the format “minor Character A/Character C” or “Character C/Character D – mentions of” in the Additional Tags section if you want to, or just tag “Minor or Background Relationship(s)” under either the Relationship tag section or in the Additional Tags section.

There are two main reasons to not tag all those minor relationships. The first is to streamline your tags, which makes them clearer and more readable, and therefore more useful. The second reason is because certain ships are far more common as minor or background relationships than as the focus of a work, so tagging all your non-focus focus ships leads to the tags for these less popular ships getting clogged with stories they appear in, but that are not about them. That is, of course, very frustrating for readers who really want to read stories that focus on these ships.

If your fic contains a major relationship between a canon character and an OC, reader-insert, or self-insert, tag it as such. The archive already has /Original Character, /Reader, /You, and /Me tags for most characters in most fandoms. If such a relationship tag isn't already in use, type it in yourself. There are OC/OC tags, too, some of which specify gender, some of which do not. All the relationship tags that include OCs stack the gender-specific versions of the tags under the nongendered ones. Use these tags as appropriate.

For group relationships, both polycules and multi-person friendships, you “/” or “&” all the names involved in alphabetical order, so Alex/Max/Sam are dating while Chris & Jamie & Tori are best friends. For a poly situation where not everyone is dating each other you should tag it something like “Alex/Max, Alex/Sam” because Alex is dating both Max and Sam, but Max and Sam are not romantically or sexually involved with each other. Use your judgement as to whether you still want to include the Alex/Max/Sam trio tag, and whether you should also use a “Sam & Max” friendship tag.

Generally, romantic “/” type relationships are emphasized over “&” type relationships in fic. It is more important that you tag your “/”s thoroughly and accurately than that you tag your “&”s at all. This is because readers are far more likely to either be looking for or be squicked by particular “/” relationships than they are “&” relationships. You can tag the same pair of characters as both / and & if both their romance and their friendship is important to the story, but a lot of people see this as redundant. If you're writing incest fic, use the / tag for the pair not the & tag and put a courtesy tag for “incest” in the Additional Tags section; this is how readers who do not want to see incestuous relationships avoid that material.

Queerplatonic Relationships, Ambiguous Relationships, Pre-Slash, and “Slash If You Squint” are all frequently listed with both the “/” and “&” forms of the pairing; use your best judgement as to whether one or the other or both is most appropriate for what you've written and clarify the nature of the relationship in your Additional Tags.

Overall, list your “/” tags first, then your “&” tags.

Character Tags

Tagging your characters is a lot like tagging your relationships. Who is your fic about? That's who you put in your character tags.

You don't have to and really should not tag every single background character who shows up for just a moment in the story, for pretty much the same reasons you shouldn't tag background relationships. We don't want to clog less commonly focused on characters' tags with stories they don't feature prominently in.

You do need to tag the characters included in your Relationship tags.

A character study type of fic might only have one character you need to tag for. Romantic one shots frequently only have two. Longfics and fics with big ensemble casts can easily end up with a dozen characters or more who really do deserve to be tagged for.

Put them in order of importance. This doesn't have to be strict hierarchal ranking, you can just arrange them into groups of “main characters,” “major supporting characters,” and “minor supporting characters.” Nobody less than a minor supporting character should be tagged. Even minor supporting characters show up for more than one line.

If everyone in the fic is genuinely at the same level of importance (which does happen, especially with small cast fics), then order doesn't really matter. You can arrange them by order of appearance or alphabetically by name if you want to be particularly neat about it.

Do tag your OCs! Some people love reading about OCs and want to be able to find them; some people can't stand OCs and want to avoid them at all costs; most people are fine with OCs sometimes, but might have to be in the mood for an OC-centric story or only be comfortable with OCs in certain contexts. Regardless, though, Character tags are here to tell readers who the story is about, and that includes new faces. Original Characters are characters and if they're important to the story, they deserve to be tagged for just like canon characters do.

There are tags for “Original Character(s),” “Original Male Character(s),” and “Original Female Character(s).” Use these tags! If you have OCs you're going to be using frequently in different stories, type up a character tag in the form “[OC's Name] – Original Character” and use that in addition to the generic OC tags.

Also tag “Reader,” “You,” or “Me” as a character if you've written a reader- or self-insert.

You can use the “Minor Characters” tag to wrap up everybody, both OC and canon, who doesn't warrant their own character tag. Remember, though, that this tag is also used to refer to minor canon characters who may not have their own official names.

Just like when tagging for relationships, the convention when tagging for characters is to use their full name. The suggestions the Archive gives you as you type will help you use the established way of referring to a given character.

Characters who go by more than one name usually have their two most used names listed together as one tag with the two names separated by a vertical bar like “Andy | Andromache of Scythia.” This also gets used sometimes for characters who have different names in an adaptation than in the source text, or a different name in the English-language localization of a work than in the original language. For character names from both real-world and fictional languages and cultures that put family or surname before the given name—like the real Japanese name Takeuchi Naoko or the made up Bajoran name Kira Nerys—that order is used when tagging, even if you wrote your fic putting the given name first.

Some characters' tags include the fandom they're from in parentheses after their name like “Connor (Detroit: Become Human).” This is mostly characters with ordinary given names like Connor and no canon surname, characters who have the same full name as a character in another fandom, such as Billy Flynn the lawyer from the musical Chicago and Billy Flynn the serial killer played by Tim Curry in Criminal Minds, and characters based on mythological, religious, or historical figures or named for common concepts such as Lucifer, Loki, Amethyst, Death, and Zero that make appearances in multiple fandoms.

Additional Tags

Additional Tags is one of the most complicated, and often the longest, section of metatext we find ourselves providing when we post fic. It's also the one that gives our readers the greatest volume of information.

That, of course, is what makes it so hard for us to do well.

It can help to break down Additional Tags into three main functions of tag: courtesy tags, descriptive tags, and personal tags.

Courtesy tags serve as extensions of the rating and warning systems. They can help clarify the rating, provide more information about the Archive Warnings you've used or chosen not to use, and give additional warnings to tell readers there are things in this fic that may be distasteful, upsetting, or triggering but that the Archive doesn't have a standard warning for.

Descriptive tags give the reader information about who's in this fic, what kind of things happen, what tropes are in play, and what the vibe is, as well as practical information about things like format and tense.

Personal tags tell the readers things about us, the author, our process, our relationship to our fic, and our thoughts at the time of posting.

It doesn't really matter what order you put these tags in, but it is best practice to try to clump them: courtesy tags all together so it's harder for a reader to miss an important one, ship-related info tags together, character-related info tags together, etc.

There are tons and tons of established tags on Ao3, and while it's totally fine, fun, and often necessary to make up your own tags, it's also important to use established tags that fit your fic. For one thing, using established tags makes life easier for the tag wranglers behind the scenes. Using a new tag you just made up that means the same thing as an established tag makes more work for the tag wranglers. We like the tag wranglers, they're all volunteers, and they're largely responsible for the search and sorting features being functional. Be kind to the tag wranglers.

For basically the same reasons, using established tags makes it easier for readers to find your fic. If a reader either searches by a tag or uses filters on another search to “Include” that tag, and you didn't use that tag, your fic will not show up for them even if what you wrote is exactly what they're looking for. Established tags can be searched by exactly the same way as you search by fandom or pairing, your off the cuff tags cannot.

Let's talk about some well-known established tags and common tag types, divvied up by main function.

Courtesy

A lot of courtesy tags are specific warnings like “Dubious Consent,” “Incest,” “Drug Use,” “Extremely Underage,” “Toxic Relationship,” and “Abuse.” Many of these have even more specific versions such as “Recreational Drug Use” and “Nonconsensual Drug Use,” or “Mildly Dubious Consent” and “Extremely Dubious Consent.”

Giving details about what, if any, drugs are used or mentioned, specifying what kinds of violence or bodily harm are discussed or depicted, details about age differences or power-imbalanced relationships between characters who date or have sex, discussion or depictions of suicide, severe or terminal illness, or mental health struggles is useful. It helps give readers a clear sense of what they'll encounter in your fic and decide if they're up for it.

One the most useful courtesy warning tags is “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” which basically means “there are things in this fic which are really screwed up and may be disturbing, read at your own risk, steer clear if you're not sure.” This tag—like all courtesy warnings, really—is a show of good faith, by using it you are being a responsible, and thoughtful member of the fanfic community by giving readers the power and necessary information to make their own informed decisions about what they are and are not comfortable reading.

Saying to “Heed the tags” is quite self-explanatory and, if used, should be the last or second to last tag so it's easy to spot. Remember, though, that “Heed the tags” isn't useful if your tags aren't thorough and clear.

“Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is one of only things that should ever go after “Heed the tags.” If you use this, your additional warnings need to go in the author's note at the very beginning of the fic, not the one at the end of the first chapter. If your additional warnings write up is going to be very long because it's highly detailed, then it can go at the bottom of the chapter with a note at the beginning indicating that the warnings are at the bottom. Some authors give an abbreviated or vague set of warnings in the initial note, then longer, highly detailed, spoilery warnings in the end note. It's best to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for readers to access warnings.

Tagging with “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” “Heed the tags,” or “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is not a substitute for thorough and appropriate courtesy tagging. These are extra reminders to readers to look closely at the other warnings you've given.

While most courtesy tags are warnings, some are assurances like “No Lesbians Die” or “It's Not As Bad As It Sounds.” A fic tagged for rape or dub-con may get a tag assuring that the consent issues are not between the characters in the main ship; or a fic with a premise that sounds likely to involve lack of consent but actually doesn't may get a tag that it's “NOT rape/non-con.” A tag like “Animal Death” may be immediately followed by a freeform tag assuring that the animal that dies is not the protagonist's beloved horse.

Descriptive

There are a few general kinds of descriptive tags including character-related, ship-related, temporal, relation-to-canon, trope-related, smut details, and technical specifications.

Many character- and ship-related tags simply expand on the Character and Relationship tags we've already talked about. This is usually the place to specify details about OCs and inserts, such as how a reader-insert is gendered.

When it comes to character-related tags, one of the most common types in use on Ao3 and in fandom at large is the bang-path. This is things like werewolf!Alex, trans!Max, top!Sam, kid!Jamie, and captain!Tori. Basically, a bang-path is a way of specifying a version of a character. We've been using this format for decades; it comes from the very first email systems used by universities in the earliest days of internet before the World Wide Web existed. It's especially useful for quickly and concisely explaining the roles of characters in an AU. Nowadays this is also one of the primary conventions for indicating who's top and who's bottom in a ship if that's information you feel the need to establish. The other current convention for indicating top/bottom is as non-bang-path character-related tags in the form “Top [Character A], Bottom [Character B].”

Other common sorts of character tags are things like “[Character A] Needs a Hug,” “Emotionally Constipated [Character B],” and “[Character C] is a Good Dad.”

Some character-related tags don't refer to a particular character by name, but tell readers something about what kinds of characters are in the fic. Usually, this indicates the minority status of characters and may indicate whether or not that minority status is canon, as in “Nonbinary Character,” “Canon Muslim Character,” “Deaf Character,” and “Canon Disabled Character.”

Down here in the tags is the place to put ship nicknames! This is also where to say things like “They're idiots your honor” or indicate that they're “Idiots in Love,” maybe both since “Idiots in Love” is an established searchable tag but “They're idiots your honor” isn't yet. If your fandom has catchphrases related to your ship, put that here if you want to.

If relevant, specify some things about the nature of relationships in your fic such as “Ambiguous Relationship,” “Queerplatonic Relationships,” “Polyamory,” “Friends With Benefits,” “Teacher-Student Relationship,” and so on. Not all fics need tags like these. Use your best judgement whether your current fic does.

Temporal tags indicate when your fic takes place. That can be things like “Pre-Canon” and “Post-Canon,” “Pre-War,” “Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “1996-1997 NHL season,” “Future Fic,” and so on. These tags may be in reference to temporal landmarks in canon, in the real world, or both depending on what's appropriate.

Some temporal tags do double duty by also being tags about the fic's relationship to canon. The Pre- and Post-Canon tags are like that.

Other relation-to-canon type tags are “Canon Compliant” for fics that fit completely inside the framework of canon without changing or contradicting anything, “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence” for fics that are compliant up to a certain point in canon, then veer off (maybe because you started writing the fic when the show was on season two but now it's at season four and you're not incorporating everything from the newer seasons, maybe a character died and you refuse to acknowledge that, maybe you just want to explore what might have happened if a particular scene had gone differently), and the various other Alternate Universe tags for everything from coffee shop AUs and updates to modern settings, to realities where everyone is a dragon or no one has their canon superpowers.

The established format for these tags is “Alternate Universe – [type],” but a few have irregular names as well, such as “Wingfic” for AUs in which characters who don't ordinarily have wings are written as having wings.

If you have written an AU, please tag clearly what it is! Make things easy on both the readers who are in the mood to read twenty royalty AUs in a row, the readers who are in the middle of finals week and the thought of their favorite characters suffering through exams in a college AU would destroy the last shred of their sanity but would enjoy watching those characters teach high school, and the readers who really just want to stick to the world of canon right now.

Admittedly, it can get a little confusing what AU tag or tags you need to describe what you've written since most of us have never had a fandom elder sit us down and explain what the AU tags mean. One common mix up is tagging things “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” when what's meant is “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.” The misunderstanding here is usually reading “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” and thinking it means an alternate version of the canon universe that is set at the same time as the canon universe, but is different in some way. That's not how the tag is meant to be used, though.

The Modern Setting AU tag is specifically for fic set now (at approximately the same time period it was written), for media that's canonically set somewhere that is very much not the present of the real world. This can mean things set in the past (like Jane Austen), the future (like Star Trek), or a fantasy world entirely different from our own (like Lord of the Rings or Avatar: the Last Airbender). Fic for a canon that's set more or less “now” doesn't need the Modern Setting AU tag, even if the world of canon is different from our own. If you're removing those differences by putting fantasy or superhero characters in a world without magic or supersoldier serum, you might want the “Alternate Universe - No Powers” tag instead.

Some of the most fun descriptive tags are trope tags. This includes things like “Mutual Pining,” “Bed Sharing” for when your OTP gets to their hotel room to find There Was Only One Bed, “Fake Dating,” “Angst,” Fluff,” “Hurt/Comfort” and all its variants. Readers love tropes at least as much as we love writing them and want to be able to find their favorites. Everyone also has tropes they don't like and would rather avoid. Tagging them allows your fic to be filtered in and out by what major tropes you've used.

Explicit fics, and sometimes fics with less restrictive ratings, that contain sex usually have tags indicating details about the nature of the sexual encounter(s) portrayed and what sex acts are depicted. These are descriptive tags, but they also do double duty as courtesy tags. This is very much a situation in which tags are a consent mechanism; by thoroughly and clearly tagging your smut you are giving readers the chance to knowingly opt in or out of the experience you've written.

Most of the time, it's pretty easy to do basic tagging for sex acts—you know whether what you wrote shows Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, or Non-penetrative Sex. You probably know the names for different kinds of Oral Sex you may have included. You might not know what to call Frottage or Intercrural Sex, though, even if you understand the concept and included the act in your fic. Sometimes there are tags with rectangle-square type relationships (all Blow Jobs are Oral Sex, but not all Oral Sex is a Blow Job) and you're not sure if you should tag for both—you probably should. Sometimes there are tags for overlapping, closely related, or very similar acts or kinks and you're not sure which to tag—that one's more of judgement call; do your best to use the tags that most closely describe what you wrote.

Tag for the kinks at play, if any, so readers can find what they're into and avoid what they're not. Tag for what genitalia characters have if it's nonobvious, including if there's Non-Human Genitalia involved. Tag your A/B/O, your Pon Farr, and your Tentacles, including whether it's Consentacles or Tentacle Rape.

Technical specification tags give information about aspects of the fic other than its narrative content. Most things on Ao3 are prose fiction so that's assumed to be the default, so anything else needs to be specified in tags. That includes Poetry, Podfics, things in Script Format, and Art. If it is a podfic, you should tag with the approximate length in minutes (or hours). If a fic is Illustrated (it has both words and visual art) tag for that.

Tag if your fic is a crossover or fusion. The difference, if you're not sure, is that in a crossover, two (or more) entire worlds from different media meet, whereas in a fusion, some aspects of one world, like the cast of characters, are combined with aspects of another, like the setting or magic system.

If the team of paranormal investigators from one show get in contact with the cast of aliens from another show, that's a crossover and you need to have all the media you're drawing from up in the Fandom tags. If you've given the cast of Hamlet physical manifestations of their souls in the form of animal companions like the daemons from His Dark Materials but nothing else from His Dark Materials shows up, that's a fusion, the Fandom tag should be “Hamlet - Shakespeare,” and you need the “Alternate Universe - Daemons” tag. If you've given the members of a boy band elemental magic powers like in Avatar: the Last Airbender, that can be more of a judgement call depending how much from Avatar you've incorporated into your story. If absolutely no characters or specific settings from Avatar show up, it's probably a fusion. Either way, if the boyband exists in real life, it needs to be tagged as RPF.

Tag if your fic is a Reader-Insert or Self-Insert.

You might want to tag for whether your fic is written with POV First, Second, or Third Person, and if it's Past Tense or Present Tense (or Future Tense, though that's extremely uncommon). For POV First Person fics that are not self-inserts, or POV Third Person fics that are written in third person limited, you may want to tag which character's POV is being shown. Almost all POV Second Person fics are reader-insert, so if you've written one that isn't, you should tag for who the “you” is.

A fic is “POV Outsider” if the character through whom the story is being conveyed is outside the situation or not familiar with the characters and context a reader would generally know from canon. The waitress who doesn't know the guy who just sat down in her diner is a monster hunter, and the guy stuck in spaceport because some hotshot captain accidentally locked down the entire space station, are both potential narrators for POV Outsider stories.

Other technical specifications can be tags for things like OCtober and Kinktober or fic bingo games. Tagging something as a Ficlet, One Shot, or Drabble is a technical specification (we're not going to argue right now over what counts as a drabble). Tagging for genre, like Horror or Fantasy, is too.

It's also good to tag accessibility considerations like “Sreenreader Friendly,” but make sure your fic definitely meets the needs of a given kind of accessibility before tagging it.

Personal

Even among personal tags there are established tags! Things like “I'm Sorry,” “The Author Regrets Nothing,” “The Author Regrets Everything,” and “I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping” are common ones. Tags about us and our relationship to the fic, such as “My First Work In This Fandom,” “Author is Not Religious,” and “Trans Porn By A Trans Author,” can help readers gauge what to expect from our fic. Of course, you are not at all obligated to disclose any personal information for any reason when posting your fic.

The “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag is common, but probably overused. Tagging is hard; very few of us have a natural feel for it even with lots of practice. It's not a completely useless tag because it can indicate to readers that you've probably missed some things you should have tagged for, so they should be extra careful; but it can also turn into a crutch, an excuse to not try, and therefore a sign to readers they can't trust your tagging job. Just do your best, and leave off the self depreciation. If you're really concerned about the quality of your tagging, consider putting in an author's note asking readers to let you know if there are any tags you should add.

You might want to let readers know your fic is “Not Beta Read” or, if you're feeling a little cheekier than that, say “No Beta We Die Like Men” or its many fandom-specific variants like the “No Beta We Die Like Robins” frequently found among Batman fics and “No beta we die like Sunset Curve” among Julie and The Phantoms fic. Don't worry, the Archive recognizes all of these as meaning “Not Beta Read.”

The Archive can be inconsistent about whether it stacks specific variants of Additional Tags under the broadest version of the tag like it does with Fandom tags, so best practice is usually to use both. You can double check by trying to search by a variant tag (or clicking on someone else's use of the variant); if the results page says the broader or more common form of the tag, those stack.

There's no such thing as the right number of tags. Some people prefer more tags and more detail, while other people prefer fewer more streamlined tags, and different fics have different things that need to be tagged for. There is, however, such a thing as too many tags. A tagblock that takes up the entire screen, or more, can be unreadable, at which point they are no longer useful. Focus on the main points and don't try to tag for absolutely everything. Use the “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” strategy if your courtesy tags are what's getting out of hand.

Tag for as much as you feel is necessary for readers to find your fic and understand what they're getting into if they decide to open it up.

A little bit of redundancy in tags is not a sin. In fact, slight redundancy is usually preferable to vagueness. Clear communication in tags is a cardinal virtue. Remember that tags serve a purpose, they're primarily a tool for sorting and filtering, and (unlike on some other sites like tumblr) they work, so it's best to keep them informative and try to limit rambling in the tags. Ramble at length in your author's notes instead!

Titles

Picking a title can be one of the most daunting and frustrating parts of posting a fic. Sometimes we just know what to call our fics and it's a beautiful moment. Other times we stare at that little input box for what feels like an eternity.

The good news is there's really no wrong way to select a title. Titles can be long or short, poetic or straight to the point. Song lyrics, idioms, quotes from literature or from the fic itself can be good ways to go.

Single words or phrases with meanings that are representative of the fic can be great. A lot of times these are well known terms or are easy enough to figure out like Midnight or Morning Glow, but if you find yourself using something that not a lot of people know what it means, like Chiaroscuro (an art style that uses heavy shadow and strong contrast between light and dark), Kintsukuroi (the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold), or Clusivity (the grammatical term for differences in who is or isn't included in a group pronoun), you should define the term in either a subtitle, i.e. “Chiaroscuro: A Study In Contrast,” or at the beginning of the summary.

As a courtesy to other writers, especially in small fandoms, you may want to check to make sure there's not already another fic with the same title in the same fandom, but this is not required. In large fandoms, there's no point in even trying. After all, there are only so many puns to be made about the full moon and only so many verses to Hallelujah.

It may be common practice on other platforms to include information such as fandom or ship in the title of a fic, but on Ao3 nothing that is specified by tags belongs in the title unless your title happens to be the same as a tag because, for instance, you've straightforwardly titled your character study of Dean Winchester “Dean Winchester Character Study” and also responsibly tagged it as such.

Summaries

Yes, you really do need to put something down for the summary. It might only need to be a single sentence, but give the readers something to go off of.

The summary is there to serve two purposes: one, to catch the interest of potential readers, give them a taste of what's inside, and make them want to know more; and two, to give you a space to provide information or make comments that don't really fit in the tags but that you want readers to see before they open the fic.

We've already talked some about that second function. When you put an explanation of the title or clarification about tags in the summary, that's the purpose it's serving. You can also put notes to “Heed the tags” or instruct readers that there are additional warnings in the author's note here in the summary, rather than doing so in the tags.

The first function, the actual summarizing, can be very hard for some of us. It's basically the movie trailer for your fic, butwhat are you even supposed to say?

There are two main strategies as to how to approach this: the blurb, and the excerpt. Blurbs are like the synopses you at least used to see on the backs of published books, or the “Storyline” section on an IMDb page. Writing one is a matter of telling your readers who does what, under what circumstances.

Depending on the fic, one sentence can capture the whole thing: “Sam and Alex have sex on a train.” “Tori tries to rob a bank.” “If anybody had mentioned Max's new house was haunted, Jamie wouldn't have agreed to help with the move.”

Sometimes a blurb can be a question! “What happens when you lock a nuclear engineer in a closet with a sewing kit, a tennis ball, and half a bottle of Sprite?”

Of course, plenty of blurbs are more than one sentence. Their length can vary pretty significantly depending on the type and length of fic you're working with and how much detail you're trying to convey, but it shouldn't get to be more than a few short paragraphs. You're not retelling the entire fic here.

An excerpt is a portion of the fic copied out to serve as the summary. This, too, can vary in length from a line or two to several paragraphs, but shouldn't get too long. It should not be an entire scene unless that scene happens to be uncommonly short. It's important to select a portion of the fic that both indicates the who, what, and under what circumstances of the fic and is representative of the overall tone. Excerpts that are nothing but dialogue with no indication of who's talking are almost never a good choice. Portions that are sexually explicit or extremely violent are never ever a good choice—if it deserves content warnings, it belongs inside the fic, not on the results page.

Counterintuitively, some of the best excerpts won't even look like an excerpt to the reader if they don't contain dialogue. They seem like particularly literary blurbs until the reader reaches that part in the fic and realizes they recognize a section of narration.

Some of us have very strong preferences as to whether we write blurbs or use excerpts for our summaries. Some readers have very strong preferences as to which they find useful. Ultimately, there's no accounting for taste, but there are things we can do to limit the frustration for readers who prefer summaries of the opposite kind than we prefer to write, without increasing our own frustration or work load very much. Part of that is understanding what readers dislike about each type so we know what to mitigate.

Blurbs can seem dry, academic, and overly simplified. They don't automatically give the reader a sense of your writing style the way an excerpt does. They can also seem redundant, like they're just rehashing information already given in the tags, so the reader feels like they're being denied any more information without opening the fic.

Excerpts can seem lazy, like you, the author, don't care enough to bother writing a blurb, or pushy like you're telling the reader “just read the fic; I'm not going to give you the information you need to decide if you want to read or not, I'm shoving it in front of you and you just have to read it.” That effect gets worse if your tags aren't very informative or clear about what the plot is, if the excerpt is obviously just the first few lines or paragraphs of the fic, if the except is particularly long, or, worst of all, if all three are true at once.

A lot of the potential problems with blurbs can be minimized by having fun writing them! Make it punchy, give it some character, treat it like part of the story, not just a book report. A fic for a serialized show or podcast, for instance, could have a blurb written in the style of the show's “previously on” or the podcast's intro. Make sure the blurb gives the reader something they can't just get from the tags—like the personality of your writing, important context or characterization, or a sense of the shape of the story—but don't try to skimp on the tags to do it!

Really, the only way to minimize the potential problems with excerpts is to be very mindful in selecting them. Make sure the portion you've chosen conveys the who, what, and under what circumstances and isn't too long. You know the story; what seems clear and obvious from the excerpt to you might not be apparent to someone who doesn't already know what happens, so you might need to ask a friend to double check you.

The absolute best way to provide a summary that works for everybody is to combine both methods. It really isn't that hard to stick a brief excerpt before your blurb, or tack a couple lines of blurb after your excerpt, but it can make a world of difference for how useful and inviting your summary is to a particular reader. The convention for summaries that use both is excerpt first, then blurb.

If you're struggling to figure out a summary, or have been in the habit of not providing one, try not to stress over it. Anything is better than nothing. As long as you've written something for a summary, you've given the reader a little more to help them make their decision. What really isn't helpful, though, is saying “I'm bad at summaries” in your summary. It's a lot like the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag in that it's unnecessarily self depreciating, frequently comes across as an excuse not to try, and sometimes really is just an excuse. Unlike the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag, which has the tiny saving grace of warning readers you've probably missed something, saying you're bad at summaries has no utility at all, and may drive away a reader who thought your summary was quite good, but is uncomfortable with the negative attitude reflected by that statement. Summaries are hard. It's okay if you don't like your summary, but it's important for it to be there, and it's important to be kind to yourself about it. You're trying, that's what matters.

Author's Notes

Author's notes are the one place where we, the writers, directly address and initiate contact with our readers. We may also talk to them in the comments section, but that's different because they initiate that interaction while we reply, and comments are mostly one-on-one while in author's notes we're addressing everyone who ever reads our fic.

The very first note on a fic should contain any information, such as warnings or explanations, that a reader needs to see before they get to the body of the story, as well as anything like thanks to your beta, birthday wishes to a character, or general hellos and announcements you want readers to see before they get to the body of the story. On multi-chapter fics, notes at the beginning of chapters serve the same function for that chapter as the initial note on the fic does for the whole story, so you can do things like warn for Self-Harm on the two chapters out of thirty where it comes up, let everyone know your update schedule will be changing, or wish your readers a merry Christmas, if they celebrate it, on the chapter you posted on December 23rd but is set in mid-March.

Notes at the end of a fic or chapter are for things that don't need to be said or are not useful to a reader until after they've read the preceding content, such as translations for that handful of dialogue that's in Vulcan or Portuguese, or any parting greetings or announcements you want to give, like a thanks for reading or a reminder school is starting back so you won't be able to write as much. End notes are the best place to plug your social media to readers if you're inclined to do so, but remember that cannot include payment platforms like Patreon or Ko-fi.

As previously mentioned, warnings can go in end notes but that really should only be done when the warnings are particularly long, such that the length might cause a problem for readers who are already confident in their comfort level and would just want to scroll past the warning description. In that case, the additional warnings need to go in the note at the end of the first chapter, rather than at the end of the fic, if it's a multi-chapter fic; and you need to include an initial note telling readers that warnings/explanations of tags are at the bottom so they know to follow where the Archive tells them to see the end of the chapter/work for “more notes.”

When posting a new work, where the Preface section gives you the option to add notes “at the beginning” or “at the end” or both, if you check both boxes, it means notes at the beginning and end of the entire fic, not the beginning and end of the first chapter. For single-chapter fics this difference doesn't really matter, but for multi-chapter fics it matters a lot. In order to add notes to the beginning or end of the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic you have to first go through the entire process to post the new fic, then go in to Edit, Edit Chapter, and add the notes there.

Series and Chapters

Dealing with Series and Chapters is actually two different issues, but they're closely related and cause some of us mixups, especially when we're new to the site and its systems, so we're going to cover them together.

Series on Ao3 are for collecting up different stories that you've written that are associated with each other in some way. Chapters are for dividing up one story into parts, usually for pacing and to give yourself and your readers a chance to take breaks and breathe, rather than trying to get through the entire thing in a single marathon sitting (not that we won't still do that voluntarily, but it's nice to have rest points built in if we need them).

If your story would be one book if it was officially published, then it should be posted as a single fic—with multiple chapters if it's long or has more than one distinct part, like separate vignettes that all go together. If you later write a sequel to that fic, post it as a new fic and put them together in a series. It's exactly like chapters in a book and books in a series. Another way to think of this structure is like a TV show: different fics in the series are like different seasons of the show, with individual chapters being like episodes.

If you have several fics that all take place in the same AU but really aren't the same story those should go together as a series. If you wrote a story about a superhero team re-cast as school teachers, then wrote another story about different characters in the same school, that's this situation.

Series are also the best way to handle things like prompt games, bingos, or Kinktober, or collect up one shots and drabbles especially if your various fills, entries, and drabbles are for more than one fandom. If you put everything for a prompt game or bingo, or all your drabbles, together as one fic with a different chapter for each story, what ends up happening is that fic gets recognized by the Archive as a crossover when it isn't, so it gets excluded from the results pages for everyone who told the filters to Exclude Crossovers even though one of the stories you wrote is exactly what they're looking for; and that fic ends up with tons and tons of wildly varying and self-contradictory tags because it's actually carrying the tags for several entirely different, possibly unrelated stories, which also means it ends up getting excluded from results pages because, for instance, one out of your thirty-one Kinktober entries is about someone's NoTP.

Dividing these kinds of things up into multiple fic in a series makes it so much easier for readers to find what of your work they actually want to read.

If you've previously posted such things as a single fic, don't worry, it's a really common misunderstanding and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reposting them separately. You may see traffic on them go up if you do!

Parting Thoughts

Metatext is ultimately all about communication, and in this context effective communication is a matter of responsibility and balance.

Ao3 is our archive. It's designed for us, the writers, to have the freedom to write and share whatever stories we want without having to worry that we'll wake up one day and find our writing has been deleted overnight without warning. That has happened too many times to so many in our community as other fanfic sites have died, been shut down, or caved to threats of legal action. Ao3 is dedicated to defending our legal right to create and share our stories. Part of the deal is that, in exchange for that freedom and protection, we take up the responsibility to communicate to readers what we're writing and who it's appropriate for.

We are each other's readers, and readers who don't write are still part of our community. We have a responsibility as members of this community to be respectful of others in our shared spaces. Ao3 is a shared space. The best way we have to show each other respect is to give one another the information needed to decide if a given fic is something we want to engage with or not, and then, in turn, to not engage with fic that isn't our cup of tea. As long as our fellow writer has been clear about what their fic is, they've done their part of the job. If we decided to look at the fic despite the information given and didn't like what we found, then that's on us.

Because metatext is how we put that vital information about our fics out in the community, it's important that our metatext is clear and easy to parse. The key to that is balance. Striking the balance between putting enough tags to give a complete picture and not putting too many tags that become an unreadable wall; the balance between the urge to be thorough and tag every character and the need to be restrained so those looking for fics actually about a certain character can find them; the balance between using established tags for clarity and ease and making up our own tags for specificity and fun.

Do your best, act in good faith, remember you're communicating with other people behind those usernames and kudos, and, most importantly, have fun with your writing!

#THE GUIDE #metatext #fandom meta #fandom etiquette #Eiiri made this

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introvert--weeb · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! I dont know if you still do requests, but ill ask just in case.

Can I ask for a tokyo revengers x gn! Reader? (pLEASE MAKE IT PLATONIC)

So basically, reader is this fearless, calm person. Reader isnt particularly strong or sporty nor are they good academically(is thag how u spell it)

Prompt : Reader is Mikey's and Baji's childhood friend.

Reader meets them again in coincidence and tries to cactch up and feels inferior due to their somewhat success? And then reader meets the other members.

Also bonus if mikey and baji is lowkey scared of reader

ALSO BONUS BONUS IF THE OTHER MEMBERS SEES MIKEY AND BAJI AFRAID OF READER

Thank you :]]

Hey!

Of course I can do this!! I love the idea!

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy the end product! Also, I'm so sorry for how long it's taken me to get this out! 😭❤️

Mikey, Baji with childhood friend!reader (ft. Toman Captains, Vice Captains)

TW: mentions of feeling inferior, friendly violence (boys getting kicked)

There had always been a third. Every great group consisted of a trio, mainly two boys and a girl. And this was no exception.

When Mikey and Baji were young, learning at the Sano Dojo together, they had met a girl. This girl was decent at karate but not on their level. What had started out as teasing the small girl had quickly developed into a friendship. You were the one needed to reign these two boys back in.

You were not known for being strong like Mikey and Baji, and you weren't particularly academically smart. In fact, a word that would best describe you was average. You didn't excel in any area except maybe some people would call you cute. But you feared nothing, not even a fight against someone twice your size. You faced every challenge in your life with a calm mind and calmer attitude.

All throughout your childhood, you would follow the two boys around and cause chaos that only children could get away with. But eventually, you had stopped attending the Dojo. Next thing you knew, you were in middle school and had lost contact with the duo. It was heartbreaking when you thought about it. You were all so close but time had taken its toll on that friendship.

Years had passed since you had seen the two boys. In no time, you were a 3rd year at Mizo Middle and deciding what you wanted for your future. It was too early to come to a decision in your mind but your parents had insisted that the earlier you decided, the better.

School had ended and you were already planning on hanging out at the riverbank to clear your mind. After all, it was a Friday and your homework could wait for now. The walk to the destination was calm enough, having parted from your friends half way due to differing destinations.

Once you had reached the grassy bank, you threw your bag and settled yourself besides it, paying little to no attention to what was happening around you. If you were, you may have noticed a familiar pair of boys relaxing a little way from where you flopped down.

Mikey had noticed you first, asking his friend if he thought you looked familiar. Sure, it had been a couple years but you hadn't changed that much. Your hair was still the same except a little longer, your eyes still held that childlike wonder in them although it had been dulled, and the way your body positioned itself was the exact same. Baji looked over as well and almost instantly knew it was you. The missing part of their trio.

"Hey! Y/N!" Why was someone calling your name? Feeling a. little irritated that your peace was being disturbed, you glared over in the direction of where the voice had come from. However, once you caught sight of two familiar boys, the glare softened and a small smile tugged at your lips. It was them.

Baji and Mikey stood to their feet and made their way over to where you sat, grins pulling at both of their faces. All of you spoke about what had happened over the years. How you were attending Mizo Middle and knew of Takamichi and his small group of friends. Baji explained how he had been held back a year due to his grades but had met a boy named Chifuyu through it. And Mikey explained how he created Toman, a biker gang that consisted of 50 loyal members.

You couldn't help but feel inferior while you listen to the boys explain their lives. They were spending their youth as it should be, having fun and surrounded by people they care about. While you were simply floating through life, taking everything as it comes.

The boys expressed their desire for you to meet the rest of Toman, wanting to introduce you back into their lives. After all, it would be good to have the trio together again.

Mikey had decided to meet everyone at the park the next day. He had taken your number at the river bank so he simply text you the details along with everyone else. Thank God it was a Saturday so you had no obligations to school and the like.

Since you were meeting new people, you decided to at least dress up a bit. So a pair of jeans, a nice t-shirt and sneakers was your go to. Casual yet didn't look like you just rolled out of bed. Once ready, you checked the message again to confirm the location and time within your own mind.

It didn't take you long to reach the park. In fact, you were 10 minutes early so you decided to play a game on your phone to pass the time.

"Waiting long, Y/N?" The familiar voice of Mikey snatched your attention away from the mobile game. Shutting the game and shoving the device back into your pocket, you looked up to find a small group of boys with Mikey and Baji front and center. Once they reached you, the introductions began.

As the day went on, you all decided to sit in the field to properly talk. You sat besides Baji and a boy you now knew as Chifuyu. It was all going great, the conversation was flowing with very little awkward moments. That was until Mikey and Baji had brought up on thing.

"I remember when Y/N couldn't even land a kick properly!" Baji laughed, memories of his childhood friendship coming to light to the group. Mikey chuckled, seeming to also remember.

You couldn't believe that the boys had just said that in front of their friends. Sure, you had a time where you couldn't kick properly but you were new to Karate and hadn't spent as much time as them two practicing. Your gaze turned to the culprits, face calm yet eyes giving a warning that they ignored.

"You want to see how well I can kick now, huh?"

Mikey and Baji couldn't help to feel scared of your calm words. They had forgotten how scary you could get when provoked, obviously omitting that from their fond memories of you. Their facial expressions changed from amused to fearful as their own gazes moved to your face.

In no time, you were chasing the pair as they ran away from you, threats about how you would 'give them firsthand experience at how good you could kick'. Mikey and Baji, although scared of you, couldn't stop the laughter as memories from the past filled their minds. It would always end up like this.

The rest of Toman couldn't believe how scared their leader and First Division Captain was of you. Mikey, the boy who would take on anyone, was scared of a girl that wasn't even part of the gang life? And Baji as well? Chifuyu was the first one to laugh, followed quickly by the rest.

Having proved your point finally, the trio joined back with the group. Draken and the others had taken to teasing the boys over being scared of a kick but they didn't know just how hard it was. Baji and Mikey were wary of what they said from that point on.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #anime drabble #mikey sano #manjiro sano #baji keisuke #keisuke baji #platonic friendships #requested #tokyo manji gang

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aro-is-gay-af · 4 years ago

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The Midnight of Despair | Volturi Kings x fem!reader | Part 3

I reckon, that if you’re reading Part 3, then you know two previous ones. In case you didn’t read them yet: Part 1 | Part 2

Thank you for all warm words and praise! It means world to me.

I also love this series, folks! I need to admit, I did get addicted to it a little, so I thought it’d be great to set updates schedule. It won’t be precise, but you can expect another part roughly in two weeks time from now.

As per usual, sorry for any confusion and grammatical mistakes.

Warnings: Rape (mentioned), Depression, PTSD, Forced Pregnancy, Blood

Word count: 6200

No summary this time. Also, this one has very sweet parts in it!!!

ENJOY!

The next day, you had your appointment with the doctor. A doctor was apparently a woman and you were sure the kings were paying her something extra for the visit to be immediate. Unfortunately, she didn’t know any English, as she was a local gynaecologist. Your mates didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable in any way, so before the visit, Aro asked you, who you’d like to be the translator for you.

The ideal situation would be a woman, but you didn’t trust anyone in the castle, except the kings. For this reason, your first shot was Aro, as he had already seen your memories. There was nothing that would shock him, you also didn’t need to hide anything from him and you knew, he was the best at dealing with others. You figured it’d be an ideal solution and you had to admit to yourself that you simply wanted him to accompany you.

The whole visit took place in your room, which meant a lot of carrying the necessary equipment, but more mental comfort for you. In those two days, you managed to get quite settled in and didn't want to leave the castle. You felt safe and secured in your suite. Kings seemed to notice that, as it was Marcus, who proposed, it would be a great idea to have an appointment without the need of leaving your room.

While you both were waiting for the doctor to come, it was the first time you had seen Aro with brown eyes. He looked really out of place. You shared this thought with him, by saying you prefer when his eyes are normal. That’s what it took. Two days, to consider red eyes normal. As usual, he was polite and revealed to you that he also hated the colour, let alone the lenses.

When the doctor finally arrived, you were already a nervous wreck. Aro tried to distract you, asking questions mainly about your house in Forks and whether you had already spoken to Bella about family heirlooms. He succeeded for a while, but it couldn't last forever, could it?

The lady was extremely kind and gentle. The truth was, it was hard to hide how stressed you were about this visit. You didn't want anyone to touch you, not when you weren't ready, and this time you definitely weren't. Despite the doctor's initial efforts, you were unable to shake her hand in greeting. She only smiled sadly, as if understanding perfectly what you were going through. Aro assured you beforehand, for he had not told her anything and only if you wanted to, you should share your trauma with her.

The doctor, seeing your nervousness, decided that you should talk first. While she asked you questions, you noticed that she chose her words carefully and only then did you realise that she was also stressed, but in her case it was probably Aro's presence that made her uncomfortable. Although Aro tried not to impose his presence on her, you understood why it might overwhelm the doctor. You felt confident being in the same room with Aro, while she probably sensed danger, even if she could not rationally explain it to herself. You promised yourself that you would try to learn at least the basics of Italian before the next visit.

She needed to ask you about exactly everything since, unfortunately, you didn't have any medical records with you - neither from the obduction, nor from the subsequent visit to the doctor, where you confirmed the pregnancy. You made a mental note to tell Bella about it, so she could send your documents, along with the things she was supposed to take from your house.

Aro was great in his translator role. Of course, you were still looking at the doctor, while answering the questions, but Aro’s voice, at least, soothed your shattered nerves just a little bit. When the questions started to get more complicated or more intimate, Aro used such words as to not make you feel uncomfortable, while still conveying the meaning. The more difficult part started, when you had to describe the situation from the hospital and how long it took for the bleeding to stop. Every word seemed linked to a particular image or smell from that night, until finally, you were unable to say anything at all.

The doctor was very understanding, probably having already guessed what exactly was your weird behaviour all about. You didn't say anything directly, you only described the situation from the hospital and then told her the details of this strange bleeding after the rape. Mainly because the doctor was very concerned about it. She explained to you that it was definitely not normal, even if you had wounds inside.

The worst part, however, was the examination. You didn't even want to think about whether you would have to undress, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The doctor had a great intuition, even if she herself was under a bit of stress. You told her that, indeed, you had been to the check-up before and that was how you found out you were pregnant. And that the doctor then checked if all the wounds had healed. The lady didn’t discuss the issue, for which you were very grateful.

After the interview, the doctor told you to lie down on the bed and only pull your blouse up, high enough for your belly to be visible. You didn't feel comfortable with this, but you preferred this way to undressing from the waist down. This was the first time you didn't feel comfortable lying on that bed. You knew that once the visit was over, everything would return to normal, but it wasn’t meant to become a memory you would return to with pleasure.

As it turned out, your first trimester was long over. The pregnancy was about 14 weeks old and that would explain the slight curving of your belly. Before the appointment, you were not sure if you would even look at the monitor to see the baby, but you did. You could not deny yourself this. The room fell silent and you could not tell what you were feeling.

The doctor pulled out some kind of a strange device and after a moment, you could hear the baby's heart. You glanced in the direction of Aro, who was obviously alarmed by your face. You grimaced, too overwhelmed to say anything to him. Up until this point, you were sure that the decision, if you should terminate the pregnancy or not, would be fairly easy. Now, you were certain that nothing in your life could be simple enough.

Over the next few weeks, your day usually looked the same or similar, yet you managed to do something completely different every day. You were glad you had so much to do, because you didn't have time to think about what had happened. You didn't want to analyse it over and over again. The kings respected your choice - unless you yourself mentioned the traumatic events, not a single insinuation or implication about it fell from their lips.

Your days were filled with various activities. Every day you spent at least some time with each king in private - you knew you needed this to create and strengthen your bond. To keep you from being inundated with information, you learned something new from each of them about vampires and their lifestyle. After all, it was supposed to become your lifestyle in the nearest future. You discovered that thinking about your transformation caused you far less anxiety, than any memory associated with rape. Even after you learned that it more or less consisted of burning alive for a few days.

During your time with the kings, you tried not to show the insecurity you had acquired about your body, and yet, you were sure they knew anyway. However, the time spent with them was what you treasured most. With each of them you did something different, as you wanted to know what they like to do in their free time. Marcus, as he had promised on the first day, taught you Italian for two hours every day. It was not easy, but after a few weeks of intensive course and communicating in broken Italian, not only with Marcus, but also with the other two, you were able to maintain basic conversation.

Marcus was a great teacher, but that wasn’t the only reason why you loved spending time with him. He was the one who had the most time for you - he wasn't as busy as Aro or Caius, and besides, he had countless amounts of patience. He wasn't tired of your constant questions, not only about vampirism, but also about his past. You would often sit for hours in the library or in the gardens, which, by the way, were breathtaking. You both loved books and your only regret was that you weren't able to read most of their vast collection. Marcus assured you, you would have all eternity to do so. You could talk with him endlessly, as these conversations were truly effortless – even the most difficult topics seemed simple and uncomplicated.

You were surprised to learn about a gift of his. Your human mind was unable to comprehend it in the full sense of the word. Mostly because of this, he was the one to explain to you, what your bond even was and how exactly it worked. You have learned that after your transformation, you will feel the bond even more strongly. It is not often that one person has as many as three matches and is able to feel the bond while being human. Marcus explained to you that for now, both your mind and body are only subconsciously sensing the presence of the mates, as it’s impossible for human senses to do anything else.

It was so remarkable to you that you discussed it for hours. You also learned that the bond can be broken, as it is not forced in any way. However, this would be emotionally painful and very few vampires would choose to take such a desperate step.

One afternoon you were spending time in the garden again. You loved being outdoors, but for your own safety you did not go outside the castle grounds. Together, you decided that it would be safer to do only after your transformation. Besides, you didn't want to go anywhere. You were safe under the watchful eye of your mates and Renata, who, apart from the time spent with the kings and in your room, followed you in a constant manner.

The gardens were gorgeous and you wondered, who was taking care of all those magnificent flowers. You were strongly convinced that this was exactly what Eden might have looked like. You and Marcus had your favourite bench. You spent a lot of time outside, especially on sunny days. When you first found out why sitting in the sun might be a problem, you couldn't take your eyes off Marcus. He shimmered brilliantly, but your eyesight couldn't stand it for too long, because of the blinding effect. The gardens, however, were fenced off and inaccessible to the common passer-by, so you were safe to stay, as long as you wanted to.

“I asked Aro recently, if vampires can be killed in some way,” you began cautiously, not wanting to scare him away from this conversation. No one had talked to you about it, however, it still crossed your mind what state Marcus was in when you first saw him. You were willing to swear you looked exactly the same after your mother died. Now, knowing what all the mating bond was about, you were convinced that Marcus had lost someone dear to his heart.

As per usual, he smiled gently at you.

“I'm sure his answer was sufficient, my dear. What are you aiming at?” he asked, looking at you obliquely.

You took his hand in yours. With Marcus, physical contact was as easy as a conversation. He, however, never initiated any touch. He waited for you, just like he was waiting now, to reach for his hand or gently grasp his arm. The only movement he allowed himself was to stroke your hair every now and then, but only when he was absolutely sure you were willing.

“I wanted to ask what happens to the bond, when the vampire…is no longer here,” you said bluntly, not taking your eyes off him. Your understanding was unique. Marcus was gentle in manner, patient and extremely caring towards you. In no way did you want to ruin, what you had built over those few weeks.

His smile turned into one of the saddest you've seen on his face. By the time he answered, you regretted asking at all. You didn't want to cause him pain. You squeezed his fingers in your palm.

“Until you came to Volterra, I was sure that a vampire could only experience this special, unique bond once in a lifetime. I did experience it, yet this story does not have a happy ending,” he said, with utmost sadness in his voice.

Your heart ached, as you watched his suffering and grief. You had asked the question unnecessarily, but now there was no turning back. You continued to stroke his fingers, holding his hand securely in yours.

“When one of the vampires connected by mating bond dies, it does not mean that the bond disappears. It exists, but only on one side. It cannot be cherished, it cannot be repaired in any way. It isn’t reciprocated. What remains are the memories, and they are the only reminder of what the bond really meant, when it existed,” he explained in a distressed voice, slowly and carefully.

Holding his hand, you laid your head on his shoulder and sighed heavily.

“I'm so sorry this happened to you,” you whispered after a moment, feeling tears stinging under your eyelids. Even now, you couldn't imagine losing any of them and you couldn't possibly envision the amount of pain Marcus had gone through.

He embraced you carefully and gently hugged you to his side.

"Don't fret over it, cara. I've made my peace with it. However, that doesn't mean I've forgotten. I still miss her, after all these years," he said with longing in his voice, stroking your shoulder gently.

After a long moment of silence, you were in a genuinely poor condition. Tears dripped down your cheeks and your breathing quickened. Not only because of the pain Marcus must have gone through, but also because of your own yearning. You had come to terms with the death of your parents, but you missed them so much. You wanted to have them at least a little longer. Now, standing on the verge of immortality, you wished you had spent more time with them.

Marcus placed a kiss on your hair.

“Sob it out, dear. Nothing helps the soul more than honest tears,” he whispered, and you were ashamed, because you should be the one providing comfort for him. However, the memories were too fresh and you couldn't hold it back.

Once you had calmed down a bit, he handed you a handkerchief to wipe away your tears.

“I wish I could change my memories. Even if it was only for a brief moment to be able to forget that I will never see them again. To be able to forget what this…this monster did to me,” you whispered, snuggling tighter into his shoulder.

You heard his sigh and his embrace around your shoulder tightened.

“You have been terribly abused, cara. No one deserves such a fate. The most important thing now, is to get on with life. Our loved ones would not want us to dwell on their deaths,” he said, as wise and thoughtful, as ever. The hatred towards your abuser was palpable in Marcus’s voice.

“You are so good to me. I don't deserve this,” you whispered after a while, your voice swollen with emotion. He only smiled indulgently.

“You deserve the very best, dear. I've already lost one mate. I won't let anyone hurt you.”

“I’m sure she would be proud of you,” you said with compassion, after another moment of silence.

“I’m not quite certain about that,” he said, placing another kiss on the top of your head.

But you were sure. You were also sure, you would do anything to prevent Marcus from experiencing something like this again. You knew all too well the taste of grief.

You truly had little time to think about the rape and pregnancy at all. If you weren’t with Marcus, it was Caius who loved to kidnap you, so he could spent some private time with you. Caius was the complete opposite of Marcus – absolute chaos, you could say. You had no idea how the brothers even got along. You had already noticed that Marcus rarely spoke, while Caius was rather impulsive and liked to discuss things in detail. However, until you started spending time alone, you had no idea what he was really passionate about.

It turned out that his greatest passion was art. He would show you countless paintings he himself had painted throughout the centuries. He could talk for hours about types of paint and how to mix colours properly. Although you were not very good at painting, you tried to learn a little with Caius’ help. When he was alone with you, he was still abrupt and impulsive, but in a charming way. He never imposed himself on you and you discovered that annoying him was really great fun. So banter and frequent teasing were the order of the day.

You often spent afternoons and evenings with Caius. He taught you how to paint, but not only. Art history was his passion and you loved to listen to him tell stories. His voice was mesmerising and hypnotic. He also eagerly answered all your questions about vampire race. You listened about the horrible children of the moon and how Caius singlehandedly had almost slaughtered them all. He warned you that after the transformation you would be violent and impulsive, that you would have nothing on your mind but to satisfy your thirst. This frightened you slightly, but at times when things got weird or dangerous, Caius assured you that you would always have full support of your mates. You never doubted that. You knew they would help you to grow accustomed to your new life.

Caius loved every variety of art you could name. When he asked you for permission to sculpt you, you were so surprised that you made a strange sound. He said that, of course, he wasn't going to overstep your boundaries and you yourself would choose some beautiful casual attire, so he could portray your beauty in sculpture. All you had to do was dress once as he asked and stand in the right pose. He remembered every detail of your posture, including your facial expressions. Often, he would sculpt you, while you would talk about insignificant things also learning how to sculpt...well, things that didn't resemble anything. Yet, you wanted to be as good as he was.

You were in your nineteenth week, when he invited you for a long painting session. His studio was huge and consisted of nothing but breathtaking works of art. You were decorating some random sculpture that you had never seen before. Caius also loved contemporary art, so you could go wild. Taking classes with him was better, than any therapy. You could smear paint on everything - the canvas, the sculptures, yourself, and even him, because he was usually in a good mood and you could enjoy it. He never showed you even a trace of anger, and you, fooling around with him like that, were genuinely pleased and happy.

When you finished, the room looked rather bad, not to mention the clothes or your hair. Caius would never have appeared that way to the guards, let alone on trial, but with you it was different.

“I wanted to show you something,” he said, wiping the paint off your cheek.

You took his hand. Caius, like Marcus, did not invade your personal zone, unless you specifically gave permission. However, carnality and touch were important to him, and so, once you were more comfortable in his presence, he liked to show you affection by stroking your cheek or your back, and intertwining his fingers with yours, when you held hands. You didn't mind his cold skin – by now you were accustomed to it, as three of them had similar body temperature. You were the hottest here. Literally.

You walked slowly to another room.

“I didn't tell you, but I finished craving” he said, and you could hear the excitement in his voice. You smiled at him. That was the main reason why you had agreed to have yourself sculpted in the first place. You wanted to get close to him on a level, which was inaccessible to do in any other way.

“Before you show me, will you tell me as to where you even got the idea of carving me?” you asked, amused. Caius was much taller than you, you had to slightly lift your head to look him straight in the eye.

At first, he smiled archly, but immediately his smile softened. He pulled at the material that covered the sculpture, so that it fell to the floor. You were simply speechless. The woman, who stood opposite to you was over four metres tall. The sculpture was made of marble and the woman looked, as if she was an actual person. There was something elusive about her. Her face, thoughtful yet serene, her hair flowing freely over her shoulders onto her back. She was clad in a fine fabric that flowed in waves down to her bare feet. She looked nothing like you and yet, you two looked exactly alike.

You had no idea that you started crying. The woman was beautiful. You could feel the power and dignity emanating from her, and on the other hand, she seemed to you as if... fragile and ephemeral. Caius had captured in this sculpture all the feelings you had been feeling, without even knowing it.

You felt his hand on your cheek, his fingers gently wiping away your tears along with some paint, which remained on your face.

“I thought I would like you to see yourself through my eyes. Exactly as I see you – without a single flaw, yet with all your imperfections. I don't want you to be unable to look at yourself, because of what this animal did to you. I don't see it. I only see you, [Y/N]. The real you. Beautiful and fragile, yet powerful, without inhibitions or scruples. Capable of anything.”

The words were trapped in your throat. You wanted to say something, but you were sure, that as soon as you were going to open your mouth, uncontrollable sob would come out. You looked first at Caius, then at the woman carved in marble, then back at Caius. He only smiled gently.

“Who we are – we decide that ourselves. No one else does. To me, you are beautiful. Pure. Never think otherwise, dolcezza.”

Without warning, you hugged him so hard, that it hurt. You forgot that his skin was different from yours. He embraced you without hesitation, even though you were all covered in paint. You wept, cuddling into his chest, as he soothingly stroked your hair and back.

Once you had slightly calmed down, you looked up at him. His blond hair looked like a halo over his head. He amazed you in every sense of the word.

“Thank you. Thank you for letting me see this,” you whispered poignantly, and then went straight back to hugging him.

“There's nothing to thank you for, my lovely [Y/N]. I would like you to accept yourself as you are. Because you are truly magnificent.”

The only person you talked straightforward about pregnancy was Aro. Was it because of his gift? Most likely, and you simply felt you could trust him. From the moment you first found yourself in his arms, the bond between you two only strengthened. Also, a memorable visit from the doctor was also significant, and then, together with him, you went through the documents that Bella had sent you. To say he was furious, was an understatement. Yes, Aro saw your memories, but the reports were written from a third-person perspective. And the other evening was really awful – you couldn't stop crying because you couldn't block out the flow of memories.

You were close with each other; close enough for you to try to overcome your insecurities, to talk about how you really felt about this whole situation you found yourself in. It was far from easy, but Aro was a really patient specimen. In the course of these talks, you discussed practically everything. You knew that every scenario had to be worked out and discussed, because there were many different options of the outcome.

Despite many conversations, you were still unsure about keeping the baby. You didn't know if you wanted to, if you would be able to raise it and then tell it that it would forcibly have to become a vampire. After the doctor's appointment, things did not get any easier for you. You heard the heart and knew that the child was not to blame for its father’s actions. You were raped, but this child had nothing to do with it.

So you waited. You waited for a miracle to decide for you or for the baby to move when you were thinking of having it removed. It’d be a sign not to do it. However, nothing of the sort was happening and fate was not deciding for you. Aro convinced you that, even if you decided to have an abortion, there was nothing wrong about it. No one would blame you for it. The only person to blame here, was the monster who raped you.

You hadn't decided what you would do about the pregnancy, but you and Aro knew what would happen, if something went wrong. For your mates, it was your health and life that came first. Aro assured you of that a thousand times over. Because of this, if anything went wrong with the birth or if there were any complications, you were to be changed immediately. Also because of this, Aro talked to you about all aspects of your transformation. He was the one who introduced you to what transformation actually looks like. He didn't scare you with the pain you were about to go through, but only gave you the facts. Facts that you needed to know.

When you weren't talking about such serious matters, Aro also loved to spend time talking to you, but about different topics. He seemed to know all your thoughts, but you were still able to surprise him. He explained to you, that the human mind was more disordered and chaotic, than vampire one and that he certainly didn't see everything. Your brain chose the memories, often associated with strong feelings and emotions, which were meant to be remembered. You were joyful about this, because you could talk endlessly and he kept finding out something new about you. And you kept finding something new about him. You knew from the first moment that he was extraordinary, and the more you talked, the more you became certain about it.

Besides, Aro adored dancing. You were not convinced about this form of activity, but it was the intimacy of this act that convinced you. In his arms, no one was able to hurt you. You felt safe and, after many attempts, quite confident in your movements. He literally beamed, being able to teach you to dance and to be so close to you. You found nothing in his eyes but the infinite adoration he had for you. When you found out the reason behind this, your heart almost broke with sorrow and compassion.

“I must confess something to you, cara mia,” he whispered, holding you securely in his arms. It was evening, you had long since been prepared for sleep. He found your long nightgown to his liking, when he came to check how you were doing and if you needed anything. You rested your head on his shoulder. There was no music, he was the one giving the rhythm to your movements, yet it was the most wonderful dance you had yet had the chance to dance with him.

“Do tell, please,” you said, trying not to lose the rhythm. You were tired, as throughout the day you sorted through the things Bella sent you from Forks. In addition, you worked with Marcus to sell your house, because you were, after all, a little concerned about what hands your family home would pass into.

“I have been bound over the centuries to both men and women. My ex-wife, Sulpicia, whom you know and, to the best of my knowledge, whom I permitted to leave, was my faithful companion, basically from the beginning of my immortality. However, until now, I did not know what it meant to have a true mate.”

He tilted you gently, wishing to look into your eyes. You continued to sway to a non-existent rhythm, completely oblivious to your surroundings. You furrowed your brows.

“Are you serious?” you asked in a whisper, not wanting to ruin the moment. The light emanating from the candles, illuminated half of his face. He smiled, and you were unable to take your eyes off his red irises.

“Yes, my dear. I have waited over three thousand years for you. I must tell you, that I could wait another three millennia, only to see your beautiful face,” he said affectionately, holding you tighter against him to stroke your flushed cheek with his fingers.

Your eyes welled up with tears and he slowly bent down and kissed your forehead.

“That's enough for today, cara mia. You must rest well. Caius has something planned for tomorrow, but he didn't want to reveal what, under any circumstances,” he said amused, giggling under his breath. You loved when Aro was in a good mood, because then you were in a good mood too. Before he walked you to bed, he wiped away your tear. You squeezed his hand in yours, then climbed onto the bed. He covered you carefully with a duvet and stroked your hair.

“I'm glad I came here,” you whispered, looking into his eyes. “I never want to leave you,” you said with force. He smiled softly at you and stroked your hair once more.

“We will always be by your side, [Y/N]. Good night, cara.”

His voice so soft and tuneful that as soon as he snuffed out the candles, you drifted off to sleep in an instant.

Apart from the fact that almost everything was going great and your mental state was in constant improvement, your relationship with Bella had severely worsened. In the beginning you talked every evening. She still couldn't understand why you were selling the house and why you wouldn't, at least, want to visit Forks. After a while, you got fed up with explaining it to her. There were an awful lot of things she wasn't happy about and she didn't hide it. She kept criticising the Volturi without knowing them and having no idea, what they were actually doing.

You loved her like a sister, but because of that, she could annoy you exactly like one. Because of her pinching remarks and your lack of patience, you called each other less and less. You didn't want to keep getting annoyed and you were tired of explaining things to her. Besides, you didn't like that she didn't say a single good word about your mates. You at least tried to accept Edward. Suddenly, what he did to her was all forgotten and you couldn't understand it. You didn't know, what was happening to your sister and your stay in Italy didn’t exactly make things better. You still hoped that once you saw each other after the transformation, you would be able to explain it all to one another. You didn't want to lose Bella, the last person you considered family.

So you talked less and less or not at all, and when you did, you avoided difficult and sensitive topics. It was not like with Bella at all and it made you anxious. You were at ease with each other, almost always, and you didn’t get why she was so bitter and hateful towards your knew, chosen life. Especially, because partially your presence right then, in the trial chamber, was the reason for her to be alive at all.

Shortly after Caius presented you with your sculpted self, you were to spend the whole day together, the four of you. These were the days you loved the most. Although you cherished the time spent with each of your mates separately, the presence of all three put you in an ecstatic mood. You usually spent your afternoons like this – there were still a lot of things to do and solve, and a lot of trials to carry out.

Being in Volterra for so long, you learned a lot about the existing laws and how to enforce them. You knew that kings were not flawless, but it was logical to you that keeping the entire vampire world in line, required some sacrifices. Some greater than the other ones.

You usually sat down in the study, where you had ended the very first day, at a round table. You listened to the discussions and arguments, but also just spent time with your mates. You often sat on Aro's lap or tried to calm Caius down, when he became too agitated.

You were extremely excited since the morning, because they promised you a whole day outside. It wasn't often that all three of them wanted to spend time with you in the gardens, so you couldn't restrain your exhilaration. However, there were also days, or rather moments, when, under any circumstances, you could not leave your room. Such a moment was to occur today, after breakfast. You slept for a long time, almost until eleven o'clock. When you ate your breakfast, it was Renata who informed you that it was time to eat. Of course, you knew what it was about.

The only situation, in which you could not leave your chamber, was at lunchtime. Not yours, though, but the lunchtime of all the vampires, who inhabited the castle. For your own safety, usually for about two hours, you were not to leave and to occupy yourself with whatever you wanted. The only two hours, in which Renata or anyone else was not around you. Not many people knew about your stay in the castle and because of this, the kings decided that Renata should eat with the rest of the company.

You did not consider it strange in the slightest. Of course, you tried not to think about the fact that people would die, but you knew that they were chosen at random. Which meant that they could just as well have been run over by a car or they could have died in a fire. You did not think about it. You were just enjoying your two hours of freedom. Sometimes you sunbathed on the balcony, prepared your outfit or just played on the computer. These were little things that still reminded you of being human.

This week, when Renata told you that she would be gone for a while, you were already enjoying a long soak in the bathtub. The home spa was one of the favourite things you and your mum liked to do together. You poured hot water into the tub, applied a mask that you had prepared yourself with a few ingredients and relaxed.

Since you had no idea when, you were no longer afraid to look in the mirror. Sure, your body shape was far from ideal, but at least you weren’t terrified to look. You weren’t terrified to acknowledge that, yes, your body was raped, but you were recovering from it. And that you started to think that your body didn’t cause any of this.

After some time you spent in the bathtub, you felt a little dizzy. It wasn’t exactly a good sign, so you figured it’d be wise to get out of the tub. When you rinsed yourself off with clean water, you stood up, and that was the moment of terror. The room immediately started spinning, like you were on roundabout for the last forty minutes. You felt nauseous, but there was nothing near you to which you could cling to. You managed to step out of the tub, on the marble step, and then you felt it. Pain, excruciating pain, suffocation. Streams of blood went down your legs and before you fell onto the ground, you could only see white marble floor all covered in sanguineous blood.

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