#as a teenager you have the brain capacity and probably time to get into a lot

[chynandri]

I really, really love video games… just been feeling kind of sad by how many interesting games exist out there and I can’t keep up, I’m never gonna experience and get into all of them in a lifetime. I wish I could devote my whole life to just experiencing games

[princessfbi]

Fic Author Self Rec

Tagged by the wonderful @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels ❤️😘

I think I'll start with...

Kink Club AU 

Where Buck and Eddie first meet at a kink club before the firehouse! This one was wild because it was an idea I had randomly while driving around. Then I let it sit for like a month or so before I tackled it. It's such an important fic for me too because I think it really taught me the value of my own boundaries? So not only is it emotional and spicy but it taught me something.

Buckley Bookshop AU

Ok but I LOVE this AU so much. I was a little nervous because it was Madney and I don't write their meet cute often just because I love them but I think it came out really well. It felt great getting to explore the dynamic of Doug and Maddie with Buck being such a prevalent variable to their relationship and it's maybe some of my best whump. Also Buckley Siblings. You all know this and getting to write an AU where Maddie is Buck's primary guardian was just 🤌🏻 BUT BUT BUT ALSO...... I LOVED LOVED LOVED getting to write teenage Eddie, Buck, and Taylor. I have a whole head full of HCs for that trouble trio.

Falling Slowly; Sing Your Melody (I’ll Sing It Loud) 

Tortured Musician Buck my beloved. I'm sure I've probably bored everyone with how much I loved writing this fic but I LOVED WRITING THIS FIC. It would keep me up at night and literally wake me up from a dead sleep so I could keep writing. I cried when I finished writing it. I loved getting write Buck's vulnerability and creativity. Also the music. I will convert all of you into liking my music.

00Q!Buddie AU

I wrote that first one not thinking I'd go on to write a whole ass prequel and a possible planned sequel but here we are! I'm going to say: I crushed the smutty parts of this AU. It's maybe some of my best. I loved getting to explore smart Buck and the broody, darker side of Eddie while also showing just how much capacity he has to love some one.

I Don't Mind Waiting (If It's For You)

Trashy romance murder mystery novel AU my beloved. I wrote this while being stuck inside for four days during a blizzard in February and I was having such a fun time. The whole thing consumed by brain. I don't even really remember how I got the idea for it but I'm so glad I did.

I'm going to tag @homerforsure @bigfootsmom @mellaithwen @rogerzsteven @like-the-rest-of-la (fic and art count cus I say so) and @lovebuck

[mangoshorthand]

Arrow of Time: Chapter 3 [Five Hargreeves/ F Reader]

(Hard Feelings Part 5)

SUMMARY: When the mother of all teenage tantrums causes time itself to fracture, Five has to travel back to 1831 to repair the damage. But will he be able to cope with what he finds there? Chapter 4 >> << Back to Chapter 2

A panicked Five calls for help.

Author dicking around with tense to come. Proceed at your own risk.

Chapter 3: Déjà vu

Five’s shout and forward lurch barely registered to Aoife, far too busy staring at the place her mother vanished.

“Mom! Mom?”

Her head turned uselessly, looking to her father with eyes begging him to make it all okay.

“Dad! I didn’t…I didn’t mean.”

But Five ignored her, already feeling around in the air at the point where his wife was only a moment previously.

“Dad, I’m s-”

“Quiet, kid.” he murmured, face screwing up in concentration. Something was wrong…and he couldn’t get a read on it; couldn’t sense its logic. It wasn’t like the nonsense portals she produced when she was in her mother’s womb: the electrical signatures of those were alive with dissonant, illogical calculations: all correct in their constituent parts, but gibberish as part of the whole. This? All he got was resounding silence.

Ok: it was time for plan B. He marched over to Aoife and reached for her, making her flinch, but he only grabbed her upper arm in one hand.

“D-dad?”

He clenched his other fist and summoned the power necessary to turn back the seconds…but nothing happened. There’s no contraction to step into : no thickening of the atmosphere allowing time itself to become pliable. He’d only experienced this once before: when he’d arrived in his father’s custom-made universe and found himself without his powers. 

“Come on,” he murmured, trying again and finding himself unsuccessful again. Aoife, realizing what he was trying and failing to do, began to panic, crying in high pitched little squeaks. No doubt she would bruise from Five’s fingers, cutting painfully into her upper arm in his own fear.

“Hey, are you guys okay up there?” came Diego’s voice.

Aoife started to cry fully now, sniffling and sobbing. Five released her, brain racing a mile a minute. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He breathed hard a few times though his nose, trying to ground himself and not give in to the feeling of his heart thudding in his head.

“No!” he yelled in the direction of the door, “It’s not good. I need help!” 

At the sound of heavy footballs as Lila, Diego and Luther approached at speed, Five finally made eye contact with his daughter. The abject fear in them pulled at his heart, even as his anger towards her grew… but he knew yelling would do no good. He had to keep his mind on the top priority.

Experimentally, Five made a short blink to the other side of the room as Diego opened the door.

“What’s going on?” his brother asked, entering the room with his wife and Luther. When he spotted Aoife’s red, tear-streaked face, he went to her immediately, “you ok, mija ?”

The tears came thick and fast then as Aoife laid her head on her Uncle’s chest. It wasn’t as comforting as if it was Dad, but Dad might not want to comfort her right now.

“Something’s seriously fucked up here,” Five rumbled, staring past the men and straight at Lila: probably his only hope. 

“What’s going on?” she said, business-like.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on, Lila. My daughter’s been playing around with time-travel. She pushed her mother into a portal and I can’t undo it. My time travel capacity is kaput. Nil. Fucked. All I can do is blink.”

His arm spasmed towards his face, slapping himself in the forehead in frustration. He did it slightly harder than seemed appropriate in instinctive self-punishment. 

“Woah there, Five,” said Luther. His voice was kind; quiet. It was understanding in a way that Five would have resisted were his brain not racing on other matter. 

In a flash of inspiration, he looked between Aoife and Lila, “both of you: tell me what you feel. Does something feel wrong to you? Time-wise, I mean?”

“You know I don’t touch the time stuff, old man,” said Lila, hands held up in surrender, “I wouldn’t know what I was feeling for.”

Aoife let go of Diego and took several deep breaths to calm herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated as if she was under her covers practicing short temporal jumps…but there was nothing there.

Trembling, she looked up at Five, “It feels wrong.”

He breathed out through his nose: it confirmed his own feeling. He bagan to pace, sweeping now-sweaty hair out of his eye. For the moment, he continued to ignore Aoife’s sniffles. He was running out of options; running out of opportunities…and he was starting to feel it again: he was backed into a corner, fighting against walls closing inexorably inwards. An icy hand gripped his heart. 

“I’ll be two minutes,” he snapped, blinking out of the room.

When he vanished, Aoife sobbed loudly and fell back into Diego’s arms. He rubbed her hair gently, like he did when she was a baby, looking between Lila and Luther for help. Luther shrugged with wide eyes and Lila looked irritated at the implied question: I know as much as you, shit-for-brains.

“So what happened?” asked Luther, gently but uncertainly.

“I did something to Mom!”

Her shaky breaths overtook speech momentarily and Diego soothed her gently. Lila approached and placed a hand on her arm. When she caught her breath again, it all came tumbling out.

“I’ve been practicing time jumps at night and I got pretty good. But then, today, Mom and Dad were yelling at me about it and I pushed Mom off me and…and I just…I don’t know what I did but she’s gone. She got…swallowed up! And I think I…I think I broke something.”

“You broke something?” Luther’s face darkened further with concern, leaning towards her in an attempt to identify a fractured extremity.

“She doesn’t mean a bone, moron,” said Lila.

 “Right, you,” she continued, turning to Aoife with raised, imperious eyebrows that commanded her attention, “you've got to pull yourself together: nobody ever saved their mum by whining.”

“Lila,” muttered Diego, still keeping one arm around his niece, “give the kid a break.”

Though Aoife was the same height as Lila, the size of the latter’s presence was always twice her stature.She grabbed one of Aoife’s hands and looked her straight in the eye.

“We’ll get her back, okay?”

Five wanted to pace around the study, (he wanted to kick the shit out of something actually), but he didn't have time. Every second might  be putting him further beyond solving this mess, might separate you from him irrevocably. He needed to work out what the hell was going on, fix it, grab you and get you home. You had to be somewhere. You had to be. 

He picked up a pen and scrawled a quick SOS. He was only surprised that Herb hadn't come already. What did it mean? Herb had promised to exhaust every available avenue before putting out another kill order on his family but Five had hoped to keep both of you squarely out of the firing line. Aoife would always be protected here, (he knew his brothers and Lila would fight tooth and nail to keep her safe), but you were in the wrong time or the wrong place or whatever. Even as he considered this, temporal assassins might be being mobilized. And that was honestly the best case scenario: what if you were nowhere? What if you were dead?

Hands shaking, he rolled the note into a scroll and wrenched open the panel concealed in the side of the mantel. Inside, the pneumatic pipeline waited for his communication, a store of canisters below. He seized one, unscrewed it deftly and shoved the paper haphazardly inside. Screwing the lid back on took far too long but he managed it and shoved the canister into place, slamming the seal onto the pipeline with more violence than haste.

But there was no answering suck to take the tube away to the Commission’s HQ. The canister stayed precisely where it was: uselessly in his pipeline. Disbelieving, Five removed the seal and slammed it home again: nothing. Removed it, slammed it, nothing.

“SHIT!”

He slammed the seal onto the pipeline again, again and again, getting more agitated each time it didn’t work. He could feel his teeth grinding, a vein throbbing in his temple.

“No. No! NO! LILA!?”

In under a second, Lila. Diego and Luther blinked into the room, dragged along by Aoife. Diego staggered away from the group, as usual looking as if he was about to barf.

“THE FUCKING STUPID FUCKING PIPELINE, LILA!”

“Calm down! Jesus, Five.”

She took the canister from him and pushed him a few steps away from the pipeline’s hidden cabinet. Five tried to slow his rage-panicked breathing as Lila tinkered with it, trying to get the canister to go. Recovered, Diego again held Aoife tightly to his side. All of them watched Lila, Aoife with pure terror.

Just as Luther approached to place a comforting hand on Five’s upper arm, he shrugged him off and began to pace, finally giving in to the urge. He’d been cut off once before, when the fetal Aoife’s nonsense portals had got her mother on the Commission’s hit list…but this wasn’t like that. The pipeline had been completely gone that time and Herb had sent him a final message to apologize. This…this wasn’t right.

“Yeah,” said Lila, even more worried now, “this pipeline is well and truly fucked.”

Even more dread filled Five as he caught Aoife’s eyes. He knew what this meant. Not again…it couldn't be happening again; he didn’t have it in him anymore. He was too old, too tired of staying one step ahead of impending doom. He’d had over a decade of rest but it just wasn’t enough and it never would be.

“What does it mean?” Luther asked, all of them looking to Five. He didn’t respond:  a  dull certainty flooding through him: he had to whether he wanted to or not. For Aoife and for you, he had to fight it whatever it takes.

To confirm his own dark conviction, he reached for the lower drawer in what was once his father’s desk and took out the Temporal Ambimeter he’s shown Aoife the previous week. He placed it on the desk and, sure enough, the needle representing absolute temporal polarity rolled loose on the dial measuring relative time.  

He was right: they’re screwed. And, again, it’s his fault.

He lifted his impossibly heavy hand to his face, squeezing his eyes closed behind the fingers he pressed hard into them.

“Dad?”

Her voice was small and, like a fine diamond-tipped knife, punctured his despair. He took a couple of deep, centring breaths before spreading his arms wide.

“ Vieni da me .”

She didn’t need to be told twice, blinking from Diego’s side and into his tight hug. He rested his chin gently on the top of her head and spoke comfort into the crown of her head.

“Dad, I’m so sorry !”

“I know, I know. Va bene, bambina. Va bene.”

“I want my Mom!” her tears soaked through his dress shirt as she said it. He rocked her gently and kissed her again. Just a kid. Not her fault.

“I know, sweetie. I know.”

Diego, confused and worried by Five’s lightning-fast change from rage to tenderness, spoke up now:

“Five, what the hell is happening here?”

He looked at his brothers and sister-in-law over the top of Aoife’s head. 

“Short answer: we’re on timeline-break highway heading to apocalypse-city.”

“Fuuuck,” Lila moaned.

“If you want the long answer, then Aoife accidentally knocked time itself off-kilter .” 

He continued to rock and caress his crying daughter, reassuring her without words. He liked to think that nothing would shake her security in how much he and her mom loved her but something like this, that was technically her fault, (even if it was his fault, really)? Anybody would beat themselves up over it. 

“I don’t know how,” he continued, “but it’s become...uncoupled from whatever keeps it on a level...mathematically sound, I mean.”

Lila looked grave.

“And what does that actually mean, grandpa? What's going to happen?” snapped Diego, as usual having little time for ideas that aren’t cut, dry and concrete.

“I don’t know,” Five snapped right back, “it’s unprecedented; absolutely illogical. I didn’t think it was possible. It means that my power won’t work properly, even to wind back a couple of seconds. It means the Commission’s instruments aren’t working because they’re all calibrated based on the idea of time having a logical polarity. That’s why the pipeline isn’t working- Herb will be going into total meltdown.”

Lila, understanding him first, finished for him.

“So…we’re living on borrowed time, right? Until someone cocks up the timeline so badly that they blow us all up or kugelblitz us into oblivion.”

Five pointed at her in a ‘ you got it’ gesture, “Bingo.”

“Shit.” muttered Luther

“But what about Mom?” 

Five’s chest hurt as she spoke the words.

He couldn't tell her what he knew: Aoife producing the exact same portal was the only hope to get you back and the only hope to fix this. There were no calculations he could do any more: no way to replicate what she did unless she did it herself. If she couldn’t do it then you’re lost for good…and the clock was ticking on the entire world (or it would be if the clocks could tick properly). It’s an option he didn’t allow himself to fully grasp. He couldn’t let it in

“I’m going to go get her.”

“Why not fix it and then go get her?” asked Diego, with uncharacteristic shrewdness.

“Because once we’ve fixed it, he won’t have a chance of finding out where she is,” LIla said, “Can’t replicate the maths on a portal with no maths. Am I right, Archimedes?”

Five nodded, ”Maybe…but I’m pretty sure that we’ll need a chronokineticist on either side of this mess to fix it.”

He stared down at the desk top for a few moments before grabbing pen and paper. 

“Give me ten minutes. I got an idea I might be able to turn into a theory.”

You land sprawled in a cobblestoned alleyway, a crack of static above your head signaling the disappearance of the portal. There’s the smell of smoke and what seems like manure. You push yourself to your feet,  the cold, uneven ground leaving sharp stones in your palms.

Staggering slightly, you look back up to where you fell and call, hands cupped over your mouth.

“Aoife? Five?”

Leaning against the alley wall, you can see only gray sky: not a hint of electricity: no self-contained storm of a way home. You jog down the alleyway and into the street, jostling indignant pedestrians and nearly falling down again as you run haphazardly into a horse…a horse pulling a coach along with three others. You fall onto the sidewalk in a sitting position, attracting stares from passers by and a “watch it, you damn lunatic!” from the irate coachman, trying to get his worried horses back under control.

You scramble up again, backing onto the sidewalk. It’s disorientating: bells, hoofbeats, the clack clack of wooden wheels on cobbles, the chatter of pedestrians, especially those staring at the frantic woman having fallen into the street. Desperate now, you look wildly around.

“Five?”

A man wearing a long coat ushers a group of gawking women away from you, forcing them to give you a wide berth as they pass. They’re all wearing long dresses, voluminous sleeves and bonnets.

Shit. This is a long time ago…they’re dressed like the women on the front of Five’s copy of Vanity Fair.

“Excuse me?” you spit out, desperately, “I’m sorry- what year is it?” 

One of the younger women giggles as the man chaperoning them scowls and puts his body in between you and her.

“Please?” you ask, looking the man straight in the face, “please help me!”

He averts his eyes and hurries the women away, “Never mind Louisa. It’s just some madwoman..”

You look down at yourself, wearing nightwear and a robe…this doesn’t look good for wherever you’ve landed. Backing up against a building lining the street, you look feverishly around for a clue. There’s a pawn shop, a bookstore, and a church. The street is lined with gas streetlights. Gigs, coaches and carriages pass by, all drawn by horses. Dogs and ragged children run free to wander the streets.

Another man walks towards you, wearing a top hat and long coat like the one who’d pulled those women away from you. He’s carrying a newspaper.

“Sir! Excuse me, sir! Can I see that newspaper, just for a second?”

More out of shock than a desire to help, he hands it over. You only need to read the date to confirm what you already know.

It's the New York Evening Post. Above all of the advertisements for ladies' corset warehouses, tutors specialising in the harp and pianoforte, and information on when the Napoleon and York ships would arrive from Liverpool, it reads:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24TH, 1830.

Having filled the piece of paper front and back with theoretical scribblings, Five sat back in the chair, the fear flooding back into him now he couldn’t keep his mind on something methodical. 

“Okay.” he said, hiding his panic and stroking his chin. “This looks like it has legs…”

He looked up: Aoife, Lila and Diego stood, watching him expectantly. As always, when shit hits the fan, it was still Five they turned to to fix it. He was scared to show them how much he’s improvising: how little he knew for sure. Trying to project confidence he didn’t feel, he told them:

“We’re sitting on a rip in time here and we gotta fix it from either end…or maybe kinda teach it how to fix itself. Here’s the plan: Lila, you and I are going to work together from either side of the portal, Aoife, it will be your job to send me through the rip you sent Mom through and then you can just leave the rest to us.”

He picked up his paper and waved it in Lila’s direction, 

“This is going to be a matter of  rebalancing. Time wants logic: we just gotta give it something to latch onto…it’s gotta relearn the balance.”

He clapped his hands together once as he stood to resume his pacing. 

“So, we got one thing going for us: because time is a giant ball of crazy right now, when I’m on the other side, a year to me wouldn’t register to you. That means, as long as I do it at some point , you’ll feel it happening the moment I step through, right?”

Lila and Aoife nodded, though Aoife did so uncertainly. Diego and Luther still looked confused but Five carried on regardless.

“The good news is, that gives me as much time as I need to find your Mom before I assess the situation from the other side. Then, I sit down and I work it out.”

“But didn’t you just work it out?” sputtered Diego, gesturing to Five’s sheet of paper with irritation.

Five sighed impatiently, “I worked out the THEORY. I didn’t work out how to put it into practice. I’m going to need to be there to do that. What part of ‘ it needs one of us on either side’ aren’t you getting?”

“Pretty much all of it.”

“Well,” Five said, losing patience very quickly, “I just thank the sweet Lord that this plan doesn’t include your dumb ass.”

“Five.” chastised Luther

Diego looked as if he wanted to snap back, but Lila spoke over him, sidling over and placing a hand on his chest.

“Ignore him sweetie. He's just antsy because his carer’s not around.”

Diego mumbled something about kicking Five’s ass but held his peace when Luther gave him a pained look that begged him to be patient with him. Five continued,

“Lila, all you need to do is stand near where I vanish and mimic me. Plug into my frequency and just spit it back towards me.”

“Roger that,” she barked, giving a sarcastic salute.

Five looked steadily at Aoife. 

“Aoife, when the time comes, you just gotta do the exact same thing to me as you did to your Mom. Just shove me through, don’t think about it too hard. Sound okay?”

She nodded slowly and then immediately shook her head.

“W-what if I can’t?”

“You can.” he said, simply, flashing her a bracing smile. He couldn’t let any seed of doubt sprout in her head….or in his own.

“Right.” he said, keeping the smile hoisted on his face, “I’m going to need a gun, some of Dad’s tackiest antiques and a warm coat.”

Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed.) @dilfjohhny , @sunsunhe, @w4stedtr4sh, @nevbrooke-555, @theredvelvetbitch, @td-miley01, @five-hxrgreeves, @rorygi1more, @jamiebower88

On to Chapter 4 >> Masterpost

[bluedalahorse]

Do you think canon Sara and August will see each other again in the futur ?

Short answer: It’s not impossible! And it’s certainly great fanfic fodder.

Long answer: The question of “canon” Sara and August is what makes this question require a longer answer. The last we see of canon Sara and August is them broken up, and that’s the last we see of them as a pairing. At the same time, an important think about that scene is that Sara owns the part where she still has feelings. I don’t think that means Sara’s going to keep pining for decades, but I do think it means she’s not just girlbossing her way out of that relationship like she doesn’t care. She’s vulnerable and honest about the part of her that’s still in love. Her choosing her friends and Simon and herself has more meaning if she’s actually giving something up.

More importantly, though… I also don’t feel like I have to take all my orders from canon. And canon leaves these characters behind when they are young and their lives can still go any number of directions.

Now that canon is over, the characters belong to the fanfic writers. We are allowed to do what we want with them! Like, I saw some folks lamenting that Rosh/Stella didn’t become a real thing and Y’ALL IT STILL CAN. You can write a thing where Fredrika and Stella break up and adult journalist Stella is interviewing adult women’s national football team Rosh after they win the world cup, and Lisa will not smite you with a canon lightning bolt. She’ll probably kudo your fic with her secret AO3 account. WE ARE THE FANFIC WRITERS. NO GODS NO MASTERS.

Ahem.

A more interesting question for me is, what would need to happen next in Sara and August’s lives for them to one day have a Second Chance Romance? What are the fanfic ideas in my brain?

I don’t think they’re disappearing from one another’s lives entirely. Wille is still going to be interacting with his family members from time to time even if he isn’t Crown Prince, and that includes August. I myself read Wille and August’s reconciliation scene at the party as a new start for their relationship. Not one that forgets the past, but one that is able to move forward into the future. 

If Wille is going to keep interacting with family in some capacity or another, and Wille is going to stay with Simon and Simon is going to stay reconciled with his sister, then it is possible that Sara and August will occasionally still be crossing paths. Maybe not all the time, and maybe they work to keep their distance. Certainly they’ll date different people along the way and maybe they’ll be in situations where they end up meeting one another’s other partners at times. And they’ll both be growing up, you know? They’ll get to see sides of one another they don’t see as teenagers.

On August’s end, I do think if he wants to have any chance with Sara again, he has to make things right with Simon. But I think he’ll want to keep things right and continue to make them better with Wille (deep down what August really wants most is family, like more than he wants to be king, this is a hill I am prepared to die on) which would mean investing in trying to make things right with Simon. Not even for the sake of August’s relationship with Sara, but for the sake of August’s relationship with Wille. 

I know August wasn’t reconciling with Simon at the end of season 3, but I honestly think that a) making things right with Simon is going to take a lot of time, like years actually, and b) August had to start with Wilhelm and with their shared complicated grief over Erik, and that took a whole season. But believing in a universe where Simon and August can actually learn to get along with each other… idk. It’s kind of a cool idea. They have ambition and a sense of dedication in common, and it would be interesting to see them understand that. And I don’t think it’s completely implausible.

(In one of my imagined scenarios of August trying to be a better family member to Wille and Simon, Rosh’s wife—a wonderful OC character who I’ve named Agnes, who is a chill nerdy lady who owns a gaming store—arranges weekly DND campaigns for the three of them + maybe Ayub, and they all work through their stuff by leveling up their characters every week. Please believe in my DND universe with me, it’s incredible.)

Another thing I think would have to happen is August would have to leave the monarchy eventually. Which I think is totally possible too. I got another ask about that, so I’m going to save my thoughts for that post specifically.

Lastly, he needs stronger connections with other friends. Maybe that’s Nils and/or Vincent (both Nils and Vincent have interesting side plots in the future!fic I’m envisioning for August and Sara and the other mains) or maybe he makes brand new friendships he can lean on. That way Sara isn’t doing all the emotional labor ever for him.

On Sara’s list, I have less of a defined set of things I’d like to see, but I feel like growth and more life experience generally can’t hurt. I think it would be great if she’s dated some other people first, both casually and seriously so that she’s built up relationship experiences. And I think it would also help Sara to have some disabled/neurodivergent community, as that seems to be a thing she currently lacks in canon.

I think both of them need a significant amount of time apart (at least five years, but I’m thinking more like a decade) and also more therapy. All that said… neither Sara nor August need to be perfect for them to have a Get Back Together storyline. Otherwise there would be no story! They can be struggling with new grown up things.

Finally, I think it’s worth thinking about how much potential there is for both of them to change with time. When I think back on my teenage self 20 years ago… damn, teenage blue was selfish and sheltered and hadn’t done fuck all to confront her racial or socioeconomic privilege. She was taking out her internalized ableism on herself and other people all the time. It’s taken me a long time to grow up, and the path hasn’t always been linear.

The YR characters are so complex and dynamic that I think it does them a disservice to imagine futures where some of them are Only Ever Good and others of them are Only Ever Evil. I don’t think we have to envision a future where Sara and August get back together—like it’s not a mandate—but I don’t think there’s any mandate forcing us to imagine them apart forever, either.

And you know, after one has put in all that time on character growth… well. The reunion smut has the potential to be pretty hot. So there’s that, too.

[axe8472]

I have thoughts in my brain about six of crows and they may or may not make sense. So. The thing is when people talk about how the crows couldn't possibly be 16-18 because they're overly mature and competent and have life experience etc etc. i get that BUT is that not the whole point? I mean the books really hammer it home that notions of childhood in their world are entirely different from ours, like to the point where i would even say it's a main theme and kinda the driving force behind all the events in the duology.

Kids are taken away from their parent at like 11 to train as soldiers. Kaz was all alone in Ketterdam at 9 years old and there doesn't seem to have been any functioning system of care for kids like him, nor mandatory schooling. In Fjerda, it seems like the closest thing to foster care is being taken on by the Druskelle. Inej started training as an acrobat pretty much as soon as she could walk and was playing starring roles in performances by the time she was 14 (and probably a fair bit younger). I don't remember Jesper's backstory perfectly but I think he was put to work in the jurda fields (a hazardous agricultural job) as a small child, then worked with guns in some way, then got sent to school in a different country when he was like 15. This isn't exclusive to the crows - it's mentioned a lot that there are many kids in situations similar to Kaz and Inej in the Barrel. Even Joost, despite seemingly being quite sheltered, is working full time night shifts as a guard when he's not even old enough to grow facial hair.

It seems that there's just much more of a vocational focus for kids/teenagers in the grishaverse. This makes a lot of sense because many elements of culture across the grishaverse countries come from the ~1800s when the attitude towards kids was that they weren't all that different from small, inexperienced adults, especially in working-class and rural settings where you just had to get on with things. Kerch especially took inspiration from victorian England, where kids as young as 9 could legally work up to 60 hours a week in dangerous conditions. So yeah that's kind of the whole point imo. It's especially interesting because I read the soc duology as a (potentially semi-unintentional?) criticism of capitalism. This is highlighted by the fact that Wylan, the only one of the crows from a rich background, is also the only one who had a childhood and got an education even vaguely comparable to what we would consider normal. So clearly the whole childhood innocence vs being put to work at like 4 thing is closely tied to class. (obviously Wylan did not have A Good Childhood but it seems from the books that the standard for merchers' kids is to give them a really good and varied education with 1-to-1 tutoring etc, which is very different from what all the other characters seem to have had as kids.)

And okay yeah they're unrealistically skillful and competent and just generally smart, but that would be the case even if they were adults. Like you kinda have to just take liberties with your characters of they'll never manage to do anything, especially in a world that's so hostile toward them. And it's actually kinda hard to even say how unrealistic their capabilities are because their experiences are so different from the experiences of real-life modern teenagers. Like kids are crazy adaptable and good at learning things, especially when they've had no other choice, and the crows actually mostly have quite a lot of experience and had time to develop their respective skills because they haven't spent 8+ hours a day in school for most of their lives. The same goes for the degree of adult-ness in their general behaviour - they're really quick thinkers and less likely to panic in a crisis than any teenager I've ever met. Again I'd say that's the whole point. The charaters are acting older than they have any right to because the experiences they've had have forced them to develop the capacity to do so.

Idk maybe i just read it differently to some people but yeah i think that cross-cultrually throughout the grishaverse children just have very very different experiences to kids in real life. It makes sense that they would then grow up to be very different from real-life teenagers, and obviously the crows are an extreme example of that but there is like. clear historical inspiration behind a lot of the crows' backstories and the general cultural backdrop of the duology. And the whole thing with the books is yeah they're doing all of this stuff and they're capable of these amazing things but actually they are literally children and they are doing all of it mostly for the sake of survival and taking back the things that they deserve from the world. And everything they've done for years and the people that they've become has all been for the sake of survival. And they're kids.

[cleromancy]

jason would have the prettiest handwriting in the world bc this is a stationary-loving old school pen pal kind of bitch... in blue devil 19 (and this is teeeeechnically i believe pre crisis jay) the letterer did a sample of one of jasons letters and he has a nice cursive there. and we *can* apply this to post crisis jason who was a fifth grade dropout and would have started again when he was 12 or so-- 5th grade is 10-11 year olds so he probably lost a full schoolyear. i know i started learning cursive (as opposed to printing) in 3rd grade but i also think that leading up to dropping out Jason wouldn't have been able to completely apply himself to school at all incl things like Pretty Handwriting bc yk. sick mom/MIA dad, thats a lot of stress even if you dont factor in what food insecurity does to your capacity to do. anything. SO this would have to be something jason practiced in his own time even moreso than your average teenager who decides to have the most beautiful handwriting in his creative writing class. the question then becomes Would Jason Go Out Of His Way To Devote His Time To Perfecting This and, well. jason would go out of his way to perfect anything under the right circumstances lbr.

but i think more likely than not he would. the only thing stopping me is smth like, if a teacher ever like humiliated him in front of classmates by calling his handwriting unreadable theres always a chance jason would refuse to change the way he writes out of spite (don't @ me, he was a lil petty even in his original run as robin), and like. sidenote. i think something like that would get *steph* to go out of her way to improve her writing to prove them wrong but i think what jason would do would refuse to change his writing but continue to excel in the class, like forcing the teacher to give him perfect marks on smth that was almost but not quite illegible, its a subtle but important distinction to me. anyway--

actually no fkkdkvlffk i just pictured like. jay complaining about the jerk teacher to alfred and bruce and what winds up happening is Bruce comes in to read jasons essay to the teacher out loud for them. but also very jovially suggests that if jasons writing is so difficult to read the school can provide accommodations for typing perhaps instead of berating a disadvantaged child in front of their peers. jason:

but that can actually Still Happen if jason later decides he wants to have the prettiest handwriting bc other things could spark that like. tbh. im fairly certain dick has good handwriting that he didn't actually have to go out of his way to achieve (part of jasons problem imo is that his brain goes a lot faster than he's able to write down so he was just trying to get it all down as fast as possible--dick i think is generally more deliberate about what he actually writes down vs keeps in his head so he never picked up bad handwriting habits by going way too fast). and Jason's competitive about dickie and "nicer cursive" is both an achievable goal (compared to say better acrobatics/better robining in general) and also one he can have plausible deniability about if anyone made the connection. and other things could cause or contribute to wanting to do this too-- a crush on a pen pal for example. or even just talking about it with alfred whose opinion he valued and who always values presentation.

anyway yeah Jason Todd fountain pens jason ajd donna go to the stationary store together send tweet

[sablegear0]

Hello there! Your jjk fix it au is a really interesting idea! Is it ok for you to tell how and why mahito became an assisted duo with shoko?

For sure! I haven't written or made any other notes on it so I'm just working from a loose idea. If someone wants to write or draw it out, go for it I suppose. (It got long, full text under the cut 😅. Tl;dr is Shibuya Incident goes not as bad as canon, Gojo snags Kenjaku and Mahito for some harebrained experiment to fix Geto and bring him back, Shoko is stuck working with Mahito because she's apparently the school's only medic. Things go better than expected.)

I'd have to re-watch the episodes to get the exact order of events but basically the AU begins around the start of the Shibuya Incident arc: the students and other sorcerers manage to catch up to Gojo and not-Geto in time to keep their teacher from being sealed. Instead, the school team is able to turn things around on the curse gang.

I imagined the turning point is that Yuji and possibly others manage to reach the station in the moments before the Prison Realm actually grabs Gojo, leaving it out in the open to be swiped and repurposed. Freed of his momentary distraction, Gojo does some quick mental math on the situation: his friend's body has been stolen - but his soul seems to be intact, the Prison Realm is within reach, as is the cursed spirit with a technique that can manipulate the body via its soul. He can work with this.

So whoever is there (probably Gojo, Yuji, and Todo?) take advantage of the stunning effect of Gojo's domain and the Prison Realm to get Kenny boxed up and grab Mahito while he's incapacitated (probably literally, since Gojo could probably safely 'touch' him with Infinity running), and drag the both of them back to the school for safekeeping.

Gojo's harebrained scheme is to surgically extract Kenjaku and use Mahito's ability to grow a working brain back into Geto's body. It's weird, but it's no worse than having to kill him all over again. Unfortunately to do this he needs to have Mahito's cooperation, which he initially does not. After some negotiation, Gojo enters into a pact with Mahito for his assistance; roughly a "Help us or we kill you" arrangement, since the school staff can guess that not-Geto was almost certainly planning to eat Mahito anyway.

Since Mahito's technique has extensive medical application, he ends up working alongside Shoko for the next little while. With supervision from Gojo at first, to ensure he behaves and to check up on Geto regularly. But the aftermath of the Shibuya Incident still needs attention so Gojo finds himself drawn away more often than not, leaving Shoko alone to deal with Mahito's shenanigans and care for a recovering Geto. Thankfully Shoko has enough experience dealing with annoying teenage boys (and Gojo) that she knows how to handle Mahito's childish temperament. She's the right mix of no-nonsense and easygoing to handle him and they eventually form a more cooperative working relationship. I imagine Mahito is one of those "problem children" that would thrive with clear instruction and strong boundaries. He'd be a good worker, he just needs someone to keep him in line.

If I do end up writing this in some capacity, my impulse right now is to make it 50% heavy SatoSugu angst, as Geto recovers in the care of his mortal enemies and the one person who never gave up on him; and 50% office comedy with Shoko and Mahito getting acclimated to one another and taking care of Geto and the rest of the cast as they heal up from the incident.

[spaceorphan18]

On Chris Colfer, Celebrity Kindred Spirits, and how it's okay to feel connected to someone you don't know as long as it stays appropriate

I think I'm going to share this story because a lot of people around these days probably don't know it --

I was over Glee by the end of Season 2 when it was airing live. I didn't really like it all that much, believe it or not. I didn't relate to any of the characters - and most of them I found annoying. I took a big break from it, and didn't get back in until the Winter of 2012 when I needed something to do, I caught up on Glee. And fell in love with the romantic story of Klaine from The First Time.

And, as I always do when finding a new thing to fall in love with I consumed. Everything. I watched, probably, every interview I could get my hands on. And when you watch that much media on something, you do pick up patterns.

I kind of fell in love with Chris Colfer. Not in a creepy, sexual way. He is a beautiful young man, but I wasn't attracted to him. No - there was something about him, actually, that reminded me of /me/. The way his brain made up responses felt very familiar - they reminded me of how I thought and said things.

And then Struck By Lightning - the book - happened. It was like -- seeing myself as a teenager. Because as a teenager, I was Carson Phillips. More so inwardly than outwardly - I was don't think I was ever so bold in high school. But in ways I won't bore you with - I saw a lot of myself.

Now, look, there are a lot of ways Chris and I are different, too -- a lot of ways. But as someone who has struggled to find people who were at all like them - seeing someone famous be so uniquely weird in similar ways that I was (and am) meant something. And thus Chris has always been my 'celebrity kindred spirit'.

I can't really explain all of it - it's more so a feeling than anything else. I've never had, before or since, a celebrity whom I felt that kind of attachment to? And it's an odd and interesting feeling. Clearly - I do not know this person (even if we have met on several occasions - they've always been in short, professional capacity) and he's got a whole lot of people whom he means a lot to. But it was always something that felt a little private to me - to have this kind of 'oh I get you' feeling.

At the time - I kind of /needed/ Chris, as maybe a way of validating myself. And thus kind of became immersed in knowing everything. And I think I probably know much more that I probably should. I don't have that /need/ anymore though, I have a much healthier sense of self and don't feel so lonely in the big wide world anymore.

But I suppose my point is - I think it's human to see yourself in someone else. As long as you're aware of the boundaries of it all - and as long as you're aware that there's not really any kind of special connection - but it's okay to recognize that you really aren't alone in the world.

Anyway - that's the story of why Chris became such a daily fixture in my life. It's funny - cause I don't even particularly think about him much anymore, outside of the blogging world, but he definitely influenced my life for the better.

[rotating-hyperfixations]

So, like everyone else in the world I watched The Last of Us Finale last night and have my own thoughts on Joel vs The Firefly’s and the ultimate impact it has on Ellie that I figured I’d might as well share with the world. It’s been interesting to be online in the wake of the episode because of peoples reactions to not only the actions of the characters, but how fans should discuss the ending. Ultimately, everyone interacts with media differently and if people want to make memes that’s perfectly normal and if people want to have deep discussions on characterization, motives,etc that’s fine too.

Now, my thoughts. Ultimately I agree with Joel’s decision to remove Ellie from the situation and take her back to Jackson. Was murdering a bunch of people ideal, no, however he will always ultimately be the lesser of two “evils” for me. Both Marlene & The Firefly’s and Joel take away Ellie’s agency, however Joel takes away her agency in an attempt to allow her to keep making choices for herself as a person. The fireflies flash banged the two of them and kept Ellie sedated while lying to her about the outcome of the surgery, Joel only is put in the position where he has to take away her agency because of the firefly’s unwillingness to have a conversation on the issue. And I think this because the firefly’s don’t have faith in their process and don’t have full faith that will consent if she has all of the information and is getting guidance from Joel.

Also, Ellie at this point of the show/game is a passively suicidal 14 year old with some pretty severe PTSD and survivors guilt. Teenagers and children, should always have agency over their own bodies, however they should not be required to choose between life and death (especially if there healthy). 14 is already too young to be able to give proper consent simply because their brains aren’t fully developed and they often can’t grapple with the scope of their decisions, but this is especially true for someone who is as traumatized as Ellie. An orphaned child whose lost everyone around them and survived the horrible event, needs there life to mean something to ease the guilt of surviving while others died. She knows this, firefly’s know this and Joel knows this. The firefly’s prey on this and use it as justification for killing a 14 year old without consent, Marlene especially who uses Riley to coerce her into this whole thing.

I watch the show every week with my mom, who was agreed with me that Joel did the right thing and she game me an interesting line. She said “as a parent, you’d rather make decisions that are in the best decision for your child and have them hate you then the alternative”. Now I was a teenager not long ago, and I think there’s limits to this and that once again children and teenagers need to make their own mistakes otherwise they’ll never really learn but that’s for stupid things like partying or skipping school, not ending your life. And I think this is the principle Joel is operating off of when he gets her out, he knows a time will come where Ellie will find out the truth and probably resent him for it but he can live with that possibility because she was alive to even find out that information.

I think the other key piece of the debate is Joel’s lie and the fact that he double down. Even in this instance, I still ultimately agree with Joel though not as much as I could see both sides. When he first lies to her in the truck, she’s still drugged up and fresh from the trauma of just getting to Salt Lake City. I think he lies here because he wants her to just get some rest and try to heal in some capacity, it was a long journey and neither of them are really in a state to work through all this (Joel is equally traumatized from all this shit which I think also is a huge factor in his decisions). Then when he doubles down on his lie before they get to Jackson, I really think this is to try and take some of the burden off her shoulders. Every since Ellie’s been bit she’s been told and believed that she could be the cure for humanity and she could end the pain and suffering of the world. This is a heavy load for anyone, let alone a 14 year old. In this instance, Joel does what I think any parent would and lie to try and protect the mental stability of their kids which again may not be right but again that goes back to doing things to protect your kids that might make you hate them.

Ultimately, I agree with the consensus that no one is “right” in this situation and both parties have their flaws. However, I think it’s disingenuous to put Joel on the same plane as the firefly’s. He made a selfish decision to save Ellie and committed some atrocities in the process, however it was for the betterment and well-being of Ellie. Who is ultimately the character and the most important part of this conflict, and the fireflies didn’t really care about her. We saw that from episode 1 when they had her chained to a radiator and dumped her in FEDRA school (looking at you Marlene). They had their own selfish reasons as to why they wanted to kill Ellie, it just happened to be under the guise of saving the world. They were the antithesis to FEDRA and really only cared about taking them down and being known as the people who saved the world. We can see this with they’re half throughout plan to kill Ellie to remove her brain with no additional testing or means to even assemble some kind of a cure let alone how to mass produce and distribute. They never saw her as a person, just a potential means to an end that may not even work. So yeah, I’ll always side with the guy who tried to do right by the little girl at the heart of this shitty situation then the organization who was using her for their own personal gain.

[lemonadehtwooh]

just curious, if you were to ship Hector with anyone in FGO (as in...not Andromache or your Mastersona obviously), who would it be and why?

Oh! You wound me with eliminating two of my finest options! XD okay so I actually had to go through the list of Servants in FGO because I actually have no idea! So I have made a list of what I think would be suitable options for shipping him with.

They're are mostly men because FGO seems to not have a lot of women characters who I could even possibly headcanon to be around his age, unfortunately (which being at least around his age, or being able to be headcanoned as such, was one of the traits that was a must to be added to the list). Welcome to Bisexual Hektor Time and also the fact I spent over an hour trying to make a list for this XD

Also anyone and everyone in this list, I can see being friendshiped with Hektor more than anything XD

First, we have Boudica. Reasoning being that they have similar vibes in backstory, also I think they both would enjoy some peace. I think they would have that domestic fluff dynamic. A very peaceful dynamic. Honestly she has the most potential for shipping with him imo, if I had to choose someone

Next is Benki. They both give that moment of wanting to get out of training. I feel like they would have a bromance XD I don't think they would even talk about it, just one day they both sorta realize they're in a relationship and both are fine with it. That's the vibes I think they would give

Lord El-Melloi II (the older one with long hair and smokes). Honestly they give more of "smoking buddies" vibe but ig I could work off of that. With Hektor's carefree attitude, they could probably give that "opposites attract" dynamic XD

I was going to add Saint Martha to this list but I genuinely can't remember why. Maybe someone else can do the thinking for me XD Same with Leonidas? Idk why he's on the list. Someone else can do the thinking for me on that

Next, Georgios. Honestly I just think they would chill. Honestly I'm personally a slight Georgios simp, so that may perhaps be skewing my perception on this XD. Dynamic wise, I think they would have a peaceful life type dynamic, sorta similar to Boudica. Georgios could use Hektor as a model for pictures XD

We have Hassan of the Cursed Arm, but honestly I think they would just be bros more than a bromance. They have that "uncle" vibe ig, which makes me think they would get along. But honestly they're giving a friendship vibe

Out of a joke, I added Miss Crane to the list PURELY out of the idea that she could make him hats. Because he's "Hektor of the Gleaming Helm". XD I rate this crackship: hats/10

Another purely friendship I have with him is Francis Drake. I think they would be buddies. My brain just doesn't have the capacity to romance them, imo. They're friends uwu

Now, here are some ships I personally don't ship and also don't understand the ship for:

Hektor X Achilles. I can see the liking for enemies to lovers, but they lack too much of the respect that is essential for enemies to lovers. I also like their pettiness towards each other too much XD they're so funny to me. Definitely not a ship I personally would enjoy, though. Also it ignores that Achilles already has a boyfriend: Patroclus (lol). Fate give Achilles his boyfriend When

Hektor X Mandricardo. Look, I know in my head that Mandricardo is an adult. But. He gives me too much of an edgy kid vibe XD he reminds me of myself in middle school a little too much XD. He just seems emotionally/mentally too much like a teenager for me to see the appeal, it just feels wrong to ship him with Hektor due to that. But I also can somewhat see why people would ship it. He's one of Hektor's top simps. I can respect him for that frfr XD

[dagranwrites]

assorted thoughts about Dan having a (teenage) body again

Dan is utterly unprepared for the hormonal cocktail that is being a 14yo again, he can deal, but he also wants to scream about it (Jazz suggests for him to scream into pillows, it helps marginally)

he wildly misjudges both his height and weight constantly, he's used to thinking of himself as big and burly, a walking brick wall, and now he's suddenly tiny and kinda scrawny, and he will tell everyone he doesn't fit into places he can totally fit into because he actually has to look at his body to remember that no, he's actually not as big as he thinks he is

this also leads to Dan regularly being out of his depth with what he thinks he can do

he eventually adjusts to the new normal, but it takes a few months until he has a good feel for his body and what it can't and can do

Dan has also absolutely forgotten that sometimes having a body fucking sucks, and he will complain about it, especially in the beginning

this likely being a freshly grown body from Vlad's lab and not some other kind of spare, his vestibular system and balance also needs calibrating, and he is very unprepared for how exhilarating being flung around suddenly is

after one of his rants, Jazz suggests, that if he has that much spare energy, he should go for a walk, or maybe a run if he feels like it

Dan does not feel like going for a run, and Jazz telling him he can scream about it if it makes him feel better is only marginally convincing

Dan goes for a run, but like, his body has never actually done sports regularly, it hasn't done a lot of running since he got it, and he has The Worst beginners experience, stitches, short breath, heart jumping out of his chest, he's probably slightly dizzy and coughing as he tries to regain his breath, because he's been running until his legs almost gave out

he can feel his heart thumping with all its might against his rib cage, so much it almost hurts, he feels fucking awful, like "you have to pay him to ever do this again"-awful, he's sweaty and gross and all he wants is a bath and a nap, but he also feels alive, it's the first time since he got this body that he actually feels alive and his brain chemistry is very ???? about that but in a good way

after a bath, a nap and lots of food, when his brain is finally at normal thinking capacity again Dan realises another thing, and that is that he was Stressed Out Of His Mind, and now he's not, and obviously he hasn't needed to process stress like a human in forever and this body never actually had to do that either, but apparently it helped him overall, ghost and human parts alike

to his utter dismay Dan realises that Running Is Good For Him

the neighbourhood gains a new runner in form of a scrawny, stressed, yelling teenager, because Dan decides Jazz is right, he gets to go "AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH" about it until he's hoarse

to everyone's surprise and most of all Dan's, Dan is The Sports Guy because of this

if he has to go to school with Dash, Dash mocks him once, and within the shortest amount of time Dan can scale walls and suplex Dash into next week (which may earn him begrudging respect, but he and Danny are definitely left alone after this)

Dan is solely fuelled by stress, hormones and anger

Dan, scrawny and small as he is, makes it onto the football team, but his only tactic is rule-compliant-feral, because turns out having a developing vestibular system and being stressed out of his mind makes him ideal for any sort of body contact sport that allows him to tackle people

human Dan and Danny have a very similar body type, which is somewhere smack in the middle of Jack and Maddie, when grown up, they're obviously well-trained and can hold their own in a fight, but they also have trouble putting on muscle mass, so they're visibly more lean than Jack and Plasmius

that being said, Vlad/Plasmius is the beef gene carrier, which means Dan's ghost form is still visibly bulkier than his human body, and while he initially considers this an injustice to his person, he eventually learns to appreciate the advantage of being slightly underestimated

Dan goes on stupid mental health walks for his stupid mental health

Dan sort of tries his way through several types of sports initially, because he doesn't really know what he wants or likes, but he understands that getting hot and sweaty and angry is somehow helpful, but what ends up sticking his parkour since it's plenty helpful for ghost fighting, maybe a bit of gymnastics too so he can flip around on the ground and in the air as much as he likes

[trangenderstan]

Uhhhfhhfhfhf im having thoughts. Thoughts are in my brain. They're in there and i hate it. Stan Pines my beloved.

It's so sad to me that Stanley genuinely hoped that Ford would come out of that portal and everything would be ok??? Like. Of course he did but also it was that kind of... Blind hope that was just. "If this doesn't happen i don't know what i'm gonna do with myself" and its. SO SAD??? TO ME??????

The "Dead End Flats" was Stanley's address on the postcard. Dead end means a situation with no exit. And i strongly believe that this, with Stanley's blank stare as he's sitting in the crappy motel room, Rico's goons on his tail is an allusion to suicide. Just like being pushed into the portal saved Ford from Bill in some capacity, having a goal of bringing Ford back saved Stan from offing himself

Why are people not talking about his mindscape more? Like. It's hideous. Piles of memories just stacked on top of each other with no order or anything, traumatic ones probably buried as far as they could go. And the fact that it's all grey and consumed by fog even BEFORE the memory gun?

Speaking of the memory gun, everyone already talked about this but... Reliving 57 years worth of memories, for most of which you were going by fake names, scamming people, being hunted down or spending your time in utter loneliness is. Traumatizing? In it's own way? I'm a strong advocate for the theory that by the end of the summer Stanley recovered only the good parts, aka his childhood and the kids

Something i'm seeing getting explored from time to time is that Stan never was a good person. And i mean this in the nicest way possible. There's evidence of him getting tested for mental illness during his teenage years, he's rude and hostile towards everyone in Lost Legends, he's talking about how he punched people for no reason in the secret commentary track. He was also incredibly lonely. Especially as Ford started to drift away

And it was all a self-fulfilling prophecy really. He was a troubled kid with problems and mental health issues, which were made worse by his father and eventually reached the point of no return. Someone get this man some help and so many hugs

Am i the only one who noticed how much more open he became after Ford came back? He's joining kids on their adventures, he's becoming a more and more integral part of the plot until the grand finale where he's literally the focus. It's genus. To make an almost secondary character the main fucking plotpoint and doing so smoothly???? Genius shit.

I have. Feelings.

[tiffanylamps]

📖 🌺✨for the ask game! :) (sorry i haven't done the other one you tagged me in yet but i'm thinking abt it-)

Hey friend, please don't apologise! Take your time, I'll read it once it's ready 😊Thank you for sending me this!!

[My Beyond Evil Emoji Ask List]

📖 Give me a fic recommendation I have two (out of three) fic rec lists here and here. I'm not sure how many BE fics you've read but here is my selection for you (one for each rating)

The objects of our affection by tawny_owl Rating: General Short and very, very sweet!

in bloom by synonemous Rating: Teen We have teenager Joo Won being looked after by Dong Sik. I normally don't like de-ageing fics, but this is a delight!

know that i would gladly be by rikli Rating: Mature jwds being dads, need I say more?

fractures by princesskay Rating: Explicit the events after that rain scene... it's intense and so, so brilliant!!!

🌺 Where are your favourite character(s) going next? Uhhhhh.... Okay, I am going to focus on one character in particular as I don't have the brain capacity to write about every single character I love.

So, Dong Sik, Dong Sik, Dong Sik.... My guy! One of my favourite headcanons for Dong Sik is that after his probation and getting court-mandated therapy (and actually finding it helpful), after selling Jin Mook's property, and renting his parent's home out to Jae Yi, he moves out of Manyang. I don't believe he moves very far, perhaps to Munju or a town nearby... perhaps to another smaller area on the outskirts of Seoul?? For a while, he struggles (in general) with what to do next career-wise. But with the help of his probation officer, he gets a job at a youth centre in a quieter part of Seoul.

(In reality, would he be able to do this with a criminal record??? I don't know, but I'm thinking strings were pulled and considering the crimes he committed and why he committed them, and blah blah blah, he's allowed)

He loves it. He's fantastic at it and it gives him a new lease on life. Dong Sik is a natural with those younger than himself and considering the difficult life he has led thus far, he has the skills, the personality and the life lessons to help guide teenagers/young people going through a difficult time. Picture him making stupid jokes in the recreational room, pulling the quiet kids to the side to have a chat about what's going on at home, knowing when parents/guardians are abusive, putting the Little Shits in their place when they get too cocky, etc

He stays late for the kids that have nowhere to go. He has a "great" relationship (it's complicated) with the police, so when one (or three) of the kids end up at the local police station, he's set it up so that he is called before their parents. The kids look up to him, they listen to what he's got to say (even the more difficult ones), and he's able to help guide them in a way he wasn't able to do for Yu Yeon and Min Jeong.

I love this idea so much that I have incorporated it in many of my writing projects, as I just adore the idea of him doing something that involves him being surrounded by community and life.

✨ Tell me one story from a character's childhood and one story from their later years

When Ji Hoon was ten, Ji Hwa picked him up from school. It wasn't common for her to do this, as she was often working, and their mother was usually the one left with this task. However, that particular day was different. The family had recently moved to a different area in Munju, meaning that Ji Hoon had been moved schools and the Oh sibling's mother was busy that day. So, on Ji Hoon's first day, Ji Hwa offered to do it instead.

Now, from my understanding and guessing, Ji Hoon is about 25 in the show (I'm probably wrong), meaning he's roughly 15 years younger than his sister. So, when a 25-year-old Ji Hwa rocked up to the school gates, Ji Hoon's new classmates mistake her for his mum.

Hilarity ensues for years to come (mainly just Dong Sik and Jung Je being absolute menaces about the whole thing).

-

When Ji Hoon is 35, his father passes away. He passes in March, leaving a community feeling empty without the beloved local taekwondo instructor. Ji Hwa deals with it as well as can be expected, but Ji Hoon struggles. One of the many reasons why he struggles is because in the July of the same year, he's due to get married, and the family believed they had enough time left together for his father to attend.

The family of four were all together when Papa Oh died and in the following months, Ji Hoon is supported through a very difficult time. His fiancé is brilliant and is able to stop him from falling into a depression. One of the reasons she's able to help him through this is because her own father passed when she was young, so she knows exactly what he's going through.

This sad turn of events leaves a missing piece in their wedding plans. As [insert name here]'s own father isn't able to give her away during the ceremony, Ji Hoon's father was going to do it instead. But now, without him there, they have to find someone new.

They ask Dong Sik.

Thank you again for sending me these asks! 😊 I have a lot of fun answering them! I hope the last bit wasn't too depressing. Also, people go on about jwds' age gap but not the Oh siblings, like... what's up with that?? Why is there such a big age between their births? Was one of them an unexpected pregnancy? Do they have different mums??? I wish we knew more!

Anyway, bye bye for now!

[thistransient]

Alright, I was tagged by @carrotblr to complete a set of questions which claim to be 15 in number but, well... 1. Do you prefer owls, capybaras, or flamingos? I know capybaras are all the rage right now and thus a bit overdone but I have to admit they exude a serenity I envy. 2. What is your favorite soup? I contemplated this for a very long time and finally decided on a delectable borscht a friend made back in March. 3. What is your favorite…rock (idfk)? This question is unfair to the numerous geological entities I have known and loved, thus I must pick rock’n’roll. 4. Choose a familiar: - very dumb, very loving disobedient dog. He loves you but will never listen to you ever - a raven that speaks but it only ever shrieks the name of various fast food restaurants - a toad that screams like a teenage boy instead of croaks The raven. We can work out a code. 5. Which planet do you feel like would be kind of an asshole if you met them? Jupiter. 6. if you were a worm would you love me? (ah yes me I did this) I feel a worm probably has the capacity for one anthropomorphic act only, thus if it has the capacity to love, it does not have the capacity to be stingy about it. 7. Least favorite type of clothing? I was going to say the greatest crime is shirts that are too tight in the armpits, but anything too tight about the waist might be more heinous. On second thought, I also fuckin’ hate paper/thin fabric hospital gowns, like they give you nice solid cloth pajama-y sets in Taiwan, get with the program America? 8. You are now in a horror movie—so sorry. Chance of survival? Some years ago I was driving along a dark and fairly empty mountain highway around 1 am and, while distracted by some deer by the side of the road, failed to noticed in advance the dead carcass directly in the path of my car. In that split second, my fight-or-flight response was activated and my brain decided on “speed up and ram it!” (I survived. The car had minor damage. The dead deer was obliterated. In light of this I think perhaps in the horror movie I'd be the one inflicting horrors...) 9. Would you rather: the ability to instantly grow a perfect mustache, or ability to talk to vegetables? Oh, the mustache hands down. What if the veg tries to guilt me into not eating it? 10. What do you think of whales? Whale watching is significantly more thrilling than one would imagine.

[random-thought-depository]

I'm going to post some notes for my fanfic, miscellaneous filling in the gaps in canon stuff about Blindsight vampires. I think I'll do three installments: one about vampire childhood, one about prehistoric vampire sociality/pack dynamics, and one about vampire sexuality. I'll do the childhood one first:

Blindsight vampire headcanons: vampire childhood:

Vampires have shorter childhoods than humans. In this area vampires have evolved relatively conservatively; Neanderthals probably had shorter childhoods than humans too, it's the very long human childhood that's weird and extreme and really different from how Homo erectus worked. Being vulnerable and pre-reproductive for so long is a huge risk, one humans can afford because we're a very social species - vampires are less social and ancestrally had a more dangerous lifestyle, so vampires evolved to get big, strong, and smart (relatively) fast. This might be one of the selection pressures that led to vampire superhuman intelligence; humans increased their cultural capacity by lengthening their childhoods, vampires increased their cultural capacity by cramming more learning into relatively short childhoods, which meant more need to be fast learners.

This obviously means vampires go through most development milestones earlier than humans, but there is at least one major exception: language; human children develop language precociously by vampire standards.

Vampires reach full physical, sexual, and neurological maturity at 13-14 years old.

By the age of nine a vampire is most of the way to fully grown, is smarter than most adult humans, would be a serious physical threat to a fit adult human male, and in ancient vampire society would have been ready to join hunts (of deer and aurochs and so on; they'd get some years of practice with easier/safer prey before they started participating in hunting humans). Vampire childhood is not just human childhood but accelerated, things develop not just faster but in different order, and this would be really obvious if you met a nine year old vampire. They'd have the height and proportions of maybe a human 14-16 year old; they'd very possibly be taller than you. But they'd be obviously pre-pubescent. But if you talked to them, it'd feel like talking to an adult (albeit an asexual adult, but I think modern vampires are probably close to being asexual even as adults because they never get to be around their own kind - more on that in the vampire sexuality headcanons post).

That nine year old vampire has just recently developed the ability to speak. Vampires have a long non-speaking stage, from around the age of 3-4 to around the age of 7-8, during which they can understand spoken language and they can talk using sign language but they can't do oral speech. Even pre-speaking language acquisition might be somewhat delayed (or, rather, similar to Homo erectus language acquisition); IIRC a human child who didn't start talking until 3-4 would be considered a slow talker. Ancient vampire culture was built around this, so ancient vampires had a very extensive and sophisticated sign language, which was also useful to them for communicating without making sounds while hunting. When they first recreated the species in modern times they spent years wondering if the species was naturally mute or if they'd messed up somehow, until a seven year old vampire child spoke a complete sentence in perfect English.

Vampires don't really have much of a teenage-equivalent phase. Pretty much all their growth and brain development happens in the pre-pubescent phase; puberty is short (a couple of years, between 12-14 or so) and is a sort of "congratulations, you've developed to your full size, you've reached graduation day, time to get functional reproductive organs, secondary sex characteristics, a sexuality, and if you're male some extra muscle" sort of deal.

Ancient vampires nursed/breast-fed their children for a relatively long time, weaning them around the age of 4-5. This would have suppressed vampire fertility through lactational amenorrhea; feature, not bug, to a predator species dependent on a prey species that bred not all that much faster than them. I assume lactating vampires passed some of that protein they needed to get from eating people onto their offspring through their breast milk, so pre-weaning vampire children got it that way.

Young vampire children are actually kind of well-behaved in a way. Vampires are a less energetic species than humans, and young vampire children have an instinctive sense that the world is dangerous and will instinctively cling to their caregiver and try to remain in close proximity to them most of the time. Vampires don't have terrible twos. Heron once tricked a blind human into getting her pregnant (he didn't realize she wasn't human) to produce an offspring who was immune to the crucifix glitch, and one of her primary impressions of her half-human daughter is "she was an exhausting hyperactive hellion as a kid."

In a lot of ways vampire children seem a lot more human than vampire adults. They are much more curious, energetic, and playful. They spend more time awake. They will cry if upset and express pain if hurt (which adult vampires do not do). They are more expressive, less touch-averse, less avoidant-aggressive, and more interested in social interaction.

Watching vampire children play is a lot like watching a cat play: they love activities that vaguely simulate hunting like chasing and pouncing on wind-up toys, chasing a laser pointer dot, etc.. In ancient vampire society a 4-8 year old child would be following their mother around and helping her trap and hunt small animals. They really like hide and seek games too.

[thegreenlands]

A statement On Goblins

- the life cycle of a goblin male is very different to the life cycle of a goblin female. In fact they are both very different creatures. In terms of I.Q, abilities and culturally. I will write another entry on female goblins later

Let’s start with one of the most ridiculously ugly beings in the Greenlands first: goblin males.

Now when goblin males and females are born they look identical. Incidentally they are born from eggs and are very small. They grow very fast

In the baby stage they are basically small cute green wild animals. They are quick to their feet and very wick. They usually cling to their mothers for the first few months, but very soon start heading off, preferring their own company in large groups. These groups of child goblins are often called just gobs and are very destructive and playful. They will bite your ankles, they lowly hang around the large homes of the goblins males as it is his primary task to take care of them.

It is in the in-between “teenager” phase that things become marked. This kicks in around 10/11 years of life. The female goblins hive off and join the other female goblins, but the males go through some rather extensive changes.

Male goblins proceed to grow from average gob height of 4 feet ish, to around 6/7 feet tall. They bulk out massively. They look more like some kind of ork or ogre then what one thinks of goblins. This is considered the least attractive form a goblin can take .. from the point of view of other goblins. The other races would debate that these big hulking monsters are more attractive then mature goblins .. but let’s not unpack that can of worms.

Now your probably asking yourself, why would goblin males bulk out? To fight? Nope

These big gentle giants bulk out so as to build themselves homes. Goblin males bulk period typically lasts two years maximum. During this time they eat everything they can get their hands on. They are not at all aggressive, despite their size and muscular appearance, in fact these guys are the most docile a goblin male will ever get. They simply eat and build.

Depending on where the goblin male is living he will build himself a large home using the materials he has to hand. They are remarkably good builders. It is a matter of great irritation to the dwarves how good the goblins seem to be able to build instinctually. Some of these homes are similar to low elf homes, build of wattle and daub, or even in some cases stone and plaster. Some are huge woven baskets made of reeds and fine trees. Some are cleaned up and designed caves, so are even floating boats.The variety is quite bewildering and beautiful.

The one problem is… goblins don’t really bother with the whole “other people’s property” thing, and will quite happily rob you blind to build their home. On the other hand if you try to retrieve your items .. you will have to convince a very large bulky and disappointed goblin that it’s not his item. Don’t do it. You can’t take it by force … and words don’t really work. That thing is gone. Let it go.

Once those two years are up, the goblin male then is the proud owner of an interesting and unique home, and thus starts to mature into the arguably sexiest (for goblins that is) form. That of the mature adult male goblin.

They loose all of their former musculature and even height. Their brain capacity increases and they become smarter and more canny. Their body then becomes the shape of old human men. Spindly legs and arms, big wrinkled ears and big noses, very wrinkled faces, big feet and big hands with yellowed hard nails. Often their bellies will become round and stick out like a beer belly. Goblin men are very proud of their bellies, as they are a sign of good feeding. They are also proud of their skinny arms and legs as it demonstrates that the goblins don’t particularly have to work hard to live.

In fact the more skinny a goblins arms and legs are and the larger the belly the more attractive he is to other goblins. Also nose and ear size counts as an important thing.

These mature males then live comfortably in their large houses, often visiting each other and living a general life of Riley. That is until the females come visit.

I shall leave the female goblins to another story. But they travel, female goblins never stay in one place long

Now there are some males goblins who are unable to build a home, or unable to keep it. Either due to the neighbours destroying it, or due to being a terrible builder, or simply extenuating circumstances. (Like building it in an active war zone) These goblins often congregate and live together in large groups, often in caves. Or disused buildings built by others. These goblins will not try to take the homes from other goblins, generally. Barring of course the occasional anti social asshat that turns up. But they will often come and live with the house builders providing labour and company to them. But they will usually be booted out when the females come to stay.

Lifespan of male goblins

Due to the average intellect level of a goblin male, most goblin males do not live past 40 human years. If a goblin male makes it to 50 years of age he is immediately declared a wizard, grand wise goblin by all the other male goblins, and he is immediately believed to have magical powers.

These goblins will then repurpose their homes into grand high wizard courts or towers, and they will begin doing “magic” and helping other goblin males to sort out their problems. These weird old codgers also will often work in tandem with the old female goblins for specific rituals like naming, and death rites etc. These grumpy old bastards are usually quite insane by this age, and regardless of whether or not they actually have magical powers, their belief in themselves is so strong, that they get magic by osmosis.

Crafts and culture (I will make another note on that later)

It should be noted that goblins are very good craftsmen, but tend to specify in very “goblin-Esque” items and this not many of the other races want said items.