#complicated love triangles is my flavor

[ckret2]

@horridrabbitcreature said: Ok now tell us how they breed. For educational purposes

Honestly and sincerely, I do not know how Bill's species breeds lmao.

It's a problem of aesthetics, to me. A shape in the style of Bill Cipher has a simple, clean, minimalist perimeter, with perhaps only a couple of arms and legs and (in their home dimension) an eyeball on one corner.

If you headcanon they have the traditional hole or pole anatomy like humans do, it mars their nice, simple perimeter. If you come up with some complicated way to hide the equipment—something like a cloaca—that still will probably be seen on their edge, which I don't like, and anyway I personally feel like "yeah they've got equipment (it's just perfectly hidden most of the time)" is a little goofy and the coward's way out.

You could incorporate it into their existing anatomy—make up an alien way to stuff a reproductive system into their eyeballs, for instance—but I already do SO MUCH with their eye (it's for seeing AND it's their mouth hole AND they probably hear through there) that trying to find a way to shove in a reproductive system feels like too much, so I'm not doing that.* And they don't have much visible anatomical features OUTSIDE of eyes to work with.

(* "What do you mean you're not putting their genitalia in their eyes, you just wrote a whole chapter about Bill being into weird eye stuff?" The eye stuff is Bill's fetish, not a reflection of normal shapes' sexual behavior, and all Bill's shape buddies think he's a freak for it. Glad we clarified this.)

You could invent an entirely new alien reproductive method that gets around the issue, but unless how they reproduce becomes relevant to the fic I'm writing (doubtful), that's a HUGE superfluous avenue of worldbuilding that wouldn't contribute anything but pointless complicated info.

So I don't know how they breed because right now it just doesn't matter to the story I'm telling.

Here's what I do know about their reproduction:

It requires one line and one polygon (triangle, quadrangle, pentagon, etc). (This is not without purpose; I'm all for alien reproductive methods that don't involve pairing up, but in this case for "Bill keeps accidentally paralleling the human characters' experiences" reasons it was necessary to give him a crummy mom-and-dad like Pacifica, Gideon, and Stan+Ford.) Each kind of shape (lines included) is genetically a separate sex and socially considered a separate gender.

"each shape is a separate sex" actually only goes up so far. Shapes with a ridiculously high number of sides aren't naturally occurring and are the result of selectively breeding for extra sides, and often requires mutations or inbreeding. Creating a circle is like spending several centuries selectively breeding humans for polydactyly until you have a baby with thirty fingers. By Bill's time the practice of selectively breeding for sides was scientifically discredited and effectively dead.

Similarly, "each generation your angles/sides should increase" was proven to be rubbish. It's all sex chromosomes.

I've been toying with the idea of making lines a small proportion of the population rather than 50%, to reduce how much it feels like the species is a binary "50% female (lines) and 50% male of various flavors (polygons)"; but if there's so few lines then to maintain the population there might be some kind of "a line can have multiple spouses" rule; maybe a line can legally take one spouse of each shape but NOT, say, two triangles or something; but then that's verging on "to what end am I making this so complicated? What's the point? Does it have any impact on Bill's life?" so I might just chuck that idea. (A lot of my worldbuilding is driven by "Bill's species is extinct in the wild, so justify why exploring this matters?")

Similarly, I've considered maybe making the way the species experiences romantic feelings vary between sexes—like, maybe usually only lines fall in love for some reason, or maybe if there's a town that's 10% line 10% square 10% miscellaneous and 70% triangle then newborn triangles are naturally inclined toward being ace/aro to rebalance the population numbers. Sorta inspired by like how frogs spontaneously change sexes if the pond's population is too unbalanced. The reason I'm considering this is because having Bill experience romantic feelings & falling in love at the same rate as allo humans (like, what, every few years? Constantly maybe?) is just ridiculous for a character who's a trillion years old; but if I'm gonna say "oh he only falls in love once a million years or whatever" I want a good reason that isn't just he hasn't met someone ~special~ enough; and I DON'T want the reason to be "he's ace and/or aro and could reasonably identify that way" because having Bill frigging Cipher grapple with that queer experience just does NOT excite me. Basically—as an ace/aro myself, I don't want it to be possible for ace/aro-ness to be one of the reasons Bill feels fundamentally Weird. Turns me off. So I'm toying with, maybe I could build his species in such a way that, for him, being aro-ish or ace-ish would be seen as normative & expected, rather than queer; so I could still have him only wanna date once every million years WITHOUT feeling like that's a part of his identity he needed to explore at some point. But idk futzing around with how his species experiences romance might be unnecessarily complicated when I could just, like, not point out that only dating once every million years is unusual, and most readers would just roll with it without question.

So, these are the thoughts I've had about how reproduction works in Bill's species.

Still have no idea how they fuck.

[smillingsad1st]

MY FIRST EVER LEGIT FIC YALL

Spaghetti x Cassarole (They're ex-es)

Spaghetti x Detergent

I shall call it....

THE ODD TASTE OF SOAPY LOVE ‼️

Tw:Objects turned sentient,uhh exes??Cassarole goes bye-bye

In the bustling kitchen, Spaghetti twirled with zest, its saucy tendrils exuding confidence. Detergent, harboring a hint of rebellion, yearned(for deez nuts) to break free from the monotony of the soap dispenser. Little did they know, their culinary destinies were about to collide, complicated by the entrance of Casseroles, Spaghetti's former flame, now a rival seeking reconciliation.

"Spaghetti, I miss our savory blend. Come back to me, and we can create dishes that no one else can!"

Cassaroles yelled out towards spaghetti in a haste.

"I've moved on(from deez nuts), Casseroles. Detergent brings a new spark to the kitchen."

Spaghetti spoke with regret

"That's right. Spaghetti and I are a dynamic and deadly duo, creating flavors you can only dream of."

The detergent spoke in pride.

The kitchen became a battleground, with Casseroles and Detergent vying for Spaghetti's attention. Amidst the chaos, pots and pans clashed, echoing the turmoil of a culinary love triangle.

"Detergent, you're nothing but a soap. Spaghetti deserves a dish with substance, not just bubbles!"

"And you, Casseroles, are stuck in the past. Spaghetti and I are forging a new path, one filled with sizzle and spice and death."

As the rivalry intensified,one of the kitchen staff, once relying on Detergent for cleanliness, started using it more frequently to wash away the remnants of the conflict,causing Detergent to lose half its lifespan. Meanwhile, Casseroles, in a fit of frustration, dropped to the floor, leaving a mess that went unnoticed.

"This feud is tearing the kitchen apart. Couldn't we all just....find a way to coexist,somehow?"

Spaghetti spoke in haste.

"Spaghetti's right, Casseroles. Maybe it's time to set aside our differences and create something truly extraordinary together."

The soapy substance muttered.

But the reconciliation proved elusive. As Casseroles lay forgotten on the floor, the once-delicious blend became as stale(as ur mom) as a piece of bread gone rotten, leaving Spaghetti alone, torn between the bubbly soap and a casserole gone cold,not ever moving a single limb again.

"I thought we could all complement each other. Now?It's just a tasteless mess."

Spaghetti spoke with utter dissapointment.

"Perhaps, in our pursuit of(deez nuts) rivalry, we forgot what brought us together in the first place,this wretched kitchen we call home."

As the kitchen settled into a somber atmosphere, Spaghetti reflected on the unexpected turn of events. The passionate trio that once danced through the kitchen had unraveled, leaving behind a lingering taste of what could have been.

And so, in the now subdued kitchen, Spaghetti, Detergent, and Casseroles each carried the weight of their choices, their once fiery love triangle reduced to echoes of a culinary story that ended in bitterness and stale flavors.

Last count!!!

Deez nuts jokes=3

Ur mom jokes=1

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Beast Anon back again xP I apologize for the late reply and I'm sorry to hear you were stressed. As always I would encourage you to take it easy where you can, friend :) I'm doing well, thank you for asking, and to answer your question, the reason I like those kinds of AUs and relationships isn't anything that complicated, I just...find them really wholesome ^^ With them, you're always guaranteed a certain level of fluff and slice-of-life goodness that's easy to imagine and can help get you through your day when you need that extra little bit of warmth in your day, ya'know? :D As for why I prefer it with some X-Men characters, well, I have two reasons. Firstly, with the multiverse being an extremely canon thing in Marvel, especially X-Men in this case, it makes the idea of these relationships and stories a kind of canon in themselves, and it's always so fun to explore that ^^ To explain that a little more and get into the second reason, when you're dealing with the X-Men, some of the most exciting and complex Marvel characters of all time, you know these situations are going to be more than just a daily routine, there's always going to be some twist/emotional adventure to explore along the way, and it adds a whole new depth to the situation. True, you could argue that to be the case with just about any fictional character but...c'mon, it's the X-Men! xD As for your soon-to-be recent viewing of the first two episodes of X-Men '97, I promise you a real treat, but, I am obligated to not spoil a thing ^^ Except this: OMG HANK FINALLY SAID THE THING!!! :DDDD

No worries, Beast Anon! I am glad to hear from you again, and there is no set time or need to respond immediately. What happens happens. And I finally started watching the first episode of X-Men 97 and so far, my thoughts are as follows:

• Roberto you sweet, poor child... You don't know the half of it-

• Who the f*ck is hiding Sentinel parts?! They're fr*cking HUGE, how does someone just move that around?! Someone knows something, how can you not when a single Sentinel arm is bigger than a car-!

• Go Morph! Mighty Morph-ling Power Ranger! (Well, X-Man)

• Wolverine, dude, please get over the love triangle; you and Scott were friends once, can you two get some team or friend therapy and try to talk about it for once?

• Where is the official team therapist? Nor the therapist friend, the actual certified therapist-

• Let the kids have fun!

• Roberto, they viewer-insert/new guy who is how everyone would react to the crazy shenanigans of the X-Men and Marvel

• Mr. Xavier, I am starting to believe you and Magneto really WERE more than friends, or were some form of QPR at the least

• And Magento is back! And more... oddly looking well for someone who is in their... 70s, I think? Wow. He's doing good (if you aren't counting losing his best bud and possible boyfriend, not to mention inheriting aforementioned friend's family, school, and property)

Aaaaand that is about how far I've gotten. I need to play a little catch-up😅😊

And now I really want to see Beast and Carla get together/have a secret date, watch Wolverine and Morph or Wolverine and Storm become a couple, get more Sabretooth and the Brotherhood in this show (please please please let them be brothers) (sorry fandom members who ship them, I view them platoncially!), hopefully they introduce Laura/X-23 at some point, someone let Rogue and Gambit get together, we know that is likely endgame, and yes yes yes Roberto can be Jubilee's friend (and maybe sibling?) (Whatcha wanna bet she's wanted one since the first year?)

And woo! Yes, platonic yandere genre! I get the points you've made: Platonic yandere could be canon in some way, and it's Marvel, so canon is a bag of 40+ flavor jellybeans and a 45+ flavor milkshake stand... Also, yes, X-Men add a certain flair to the platonic yandere trope. Surprise, super-poweree genetically enhanced people, and this random teen/young adult/child who they somehow procured. Que a normal Tuesday of crazy villains, more insane humans, some weird relationship issues and the break-up then make-up, and (gasp) surprise! You have been blessed with this new character to love! They're called Reader, they can be sweet at times, they are willing to use a metal bat as a weapon, and oh, and they are as addictive to y'all as catnip is to cats!

May I ask your top three favorite X-Men characters? Top three favorite heroes, and favorite villain, so four favorite characters? Do you enjoy how I write them (if I have written for them) as platonic yanderes? Do you want an older teen/adult cartoon or anime where the X-Men are platonic yandere over someone? I myself do, and I would have so manh ideas on it! Are there any duo platonic yanderes you like, where two team up over Reader or are both interested in the same one? (Ex. Rogue and Gambit, Kurt and Rogue, Wolverine and Sabretooth, etc.)

I hope you have a good night/day! I will hopefully get to the second episode of X-Men 97 tomorrow, and once the first season is finished for the series, I can add X-Men 97 to the X-Men media I will write for😊 (And if you want to discuss any if this more, I am all ears!)

[aeide-thea]

[psychiatric/pathologizing terminology, holocaust imagery, slurs, in-group/reclamatory deployments of]

i've seen people complain in the past that the term 'paranoid reading' is ableist, and i thought, μέν i'm always open to refining the framings i use for things, δέ maybe i should, you know, actually go look at the sedgwick before formulating an opinion—only it turns out 4 in the morning is not, shocker, actually the best time to be trying to wrap yr head around anything complex? however at first glance it does seem worth noting that whatever one's stance on psychiatric-flavored terminology, the original essay is not in fact deploying it accidentally or, i'd argue, wholly appropriatively—it's very explicitly connecting the label to its history of use against queer people to pathologize queerness. so my initial instinct here is that while i do still see why the term might make people flinch, it does seem like sedgwick's deployment of it was deliberate, informed, and in a certain sense reclamatory. doesn't mean it's therefore invalid to flinch at it! but does make flinching at it fairly analogous to flinching at deliberate, informed, reclamatory deployments of the pink triangle, or of language like queer, fag, dyke, etc—id est, something it's valid to want to avoid, if it triggers you, but not in fact categorically inappropriate.

it obviously gets more complicated as we move away from 'queer [still at the time of writing literally pathologized in the DSM!] theorist discussing/attempting to practice antihomophobic theorizing' towards 'people of unspecified positionality applying sedgwick's concepts to arenas farther afield from either queerness or pathologization,' and i do really want to be mindful here of how comparatively little i've personally been subject to this sort of involuntary pathologizing labeling and how that positions me vis-à-vis this discourse, and also of hierarchies of psychiatric pathologization more broadly, but. my initial sense (while still not, to be clear, having fully digested or even finished reading the sedgwick piece!) is that the action item wrt this particular language is less 'strike it from our lexica' and more 'be mindful of its potential to twist in our hands and cut people, and use it with the respect any knife is due, and with attention to our safety circle.'

which is really, i think, the answer more often than not: we often seem to want things to be an automatic, no-thought-required yes/no, when in fact there's very little that has no potential for harm and requires no thought, and also very little that ought to be categorically off limits. most things are situational, really, and deserve more active (re)examination than they often get; but we do so love our thin-slicing!

[zeroducks-2]

🏷 and 💌!

Maybe something specific you like to read that's different than what you like to write?

🏷 Is there a tag you like to search for when looking for fanfics to read?

Welp being the freak that I am I tend to mostly search under the Rape/Noncon tag, but in fact my main method of fanfic searching is relationship tag (like Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson).

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

I love found family, all flavors of enemies to lovers and complicated relationships (abusive or not), which probably is my favorite trope to write.

There really isn't a discrepancy between tropes I like to read and tropes I like to write, my tastes go hand-in-hand enough when it comes to that. But tbh when it comes to my blorbos I will read just about anything, even tropes I'm not too fond of like childhood friends to lovers or love triangles.

[duskbornbaker]

Happy Valentine's Day

@midnight-blue-blood

A present arrives for the Seneschal. Inside is a small tin of about 24oz amd a heart-shaped box each decorated with a symbol of an incomplete pentacle interlocked with an inverted triangle: the alchemical symbol for water.

If Fina opens the box, the inside is outlined in a dozen chocolate covered cherries and a small note which read:

Dear Fina Motisi,

I know you said you were wary, but remain wary you may. Feel free to share these morsels with others if you don't feel comfortable partaking yourself. They each feature a light enchantment, nothing too complicated. After consuming one, you will be able to eat and enjoy regular food with the normal limitations of our art. Namely, that the effect wears off with your (or whosoever-you-choose-to-share-with's) next proper feeding.

In the tin, you can find a food supplement. Adding one ounce of the contained material per 8 oz of simmered coconut water will provide a sustenance through your family curse, courtesy of my own family's curse. Further, this will produce and be flavored like a hot chocolate, best served in a warm mug while thinking of home.

We appreciate all you have done for us and hope for the stability of you and yours.

With love,

the Δβο

[greatwyrmgold]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the hidden city! I always enjoyed the message you get when you fight an accountant through the noncombat in the office building, but I think they were trying to give the pygmies this whole complex society equivalent to ours but fell short with some pretty stereotypical jokes. (That's what I'm gathering from the wiki, I don't spend enough time reading the words in this game full of words to be read.)

I mean, that's a big part of my thoughts on the Hidden City. I have a less charitable reading of Asymmetric Games's intent, but that tension between primitivism and modernity is core to those thoughts.

For people who either don't read the text in KOL or (more likely, given my followers) don't play it: Kingdom of Loathing is a browser RPG set in a vaguely generic-fantasy kingdom (of loathing). The Hidden City is a...city which is hidden in the jungle, inhabited by "pygmies".

While the kingdom as a whole is an anachronistic mishmash of fantasy tropes and pop culture references, the Hidden City is one of the more "modern" parts of the setting...in theory. They have lawyers and bowlers and surgeons and janitors. But all of these are flavored with tropes about primitive savages (and short jokes).

I can see ways that this tension could produce a result I found artistically compelling. Like, if the Hidden City had some aesthetic trappings of savagery, but it was obviously a less dysfunctional society than whatever the Council is doing. Maybe have the narration mistake their civilization for savagery, in ways that are obviously and humorously flawed. But that's not what we get.

Let's look at a few monster descriptions—bits of narration we get when you enter combat. And let's also look at the associated monster art.

Your typical witch doctors are generally witch GP's, or witch pharmacists. When a pygmy has a really serious ailment -- for example, if there's a demon trapped in their skull that needs to be let out -- they get referred to a witch surgeon to perform the operation.

This is a pygmy in a suit and tie, attempting to recruit all the best pygmies out of neighboring tribes and into his own. Or, failing that, to cut off their heads and impale them on pointy sticks. It's win-win!

Similarly to how golf was invented by a Scotsman who knocked an enemy's head off with a club (wherepon it fell into a gopher hole), bowling was invented by a pygmy who threw an enemy's head at ten more enemies who were standing in a perfectly triangle-shaped formation. To this day, they take the sport very seriously, and rabid xenophobia is not considered to be against the rules.

Most tribal societies invent money fairly quickly, because it doesn't take long to come up with a business transaction more complicated than "I will give you this cow for those two goats right now". Once someone has the idea "if you give me those two goats right now, I'll give you twelve of these particular kind of seashell, and then another six of them next week, and you can give them to my cousin for a cow plus a sack of monkey heads", that's when witch accountancy is born.

Yeah, everything in KOL is a stick figure; I find it charming. What I find considerably less charming is how the Hidden City is painted as a band of primitive, ignorant savages with aesthetic trappings of civilization. And they're the trappings of a ruined civilization. Look at the holes in the walls of every building (except the Mayincatec ziggurat and shrines).

It gets worse when you think about the Hidden City questline. At first glance, it's basically just a "take culturally significant artifacts from an unimportant primitive culture" questline, with one weird twist. You're guided in your quest by the gods who the artifacts are significant to.

So, let's take this leg of the Holy MacGuffin quest more seriously than anything with that kind of name was intended to be taken.

You cut your way into four shrines overgrown with vines. Once there, you receive visions from Bulbazinalli, Charcoatl, Pikachutlotal, and Squirtlcthulli, directing you to nearby ruins where you can retrieve their magic stone spheres. To do so, you must fight four "ancient protector spirits" who are protecting the spheres. Once you do so, each gives you a stone triangle; when you have all four, you can enter the massive ziggurat, fight the Protector Spectre, and steal a couple artifacts, one of which is plot-relevant.

So the Poke-gods send you to fight protector spirits to claim the pygmies' artifacts and return them to their gods, at which point those gods send you to beat up another protector spirit to claim another of the pygmies' artifacts to take home.

There are ways you could fanfic something coherent out of this plotline, but it's not based on anything in the actual game. It would be whole-cloth worldbuilding, driven by a reluctance to accept how callously thoughtless the game is about sensitive subjects.

I think the origin of the Hidden City is obvious. Asymmetric Games stirred a bundle of common tropes, pop culture references, and modern-world anachronisms to produce a novel setting and a truckload of dumb jokes. And when that results in a fraternity composed entirely of drunk orcs or a mountain where ghost fanboys fight each other for eternity or something, that's fine!

But KOL doesn't seem to have any idea when the tropes it's stirring in have significance beyond dumb jokes (or possibly doesn't care). It regurgitates racist depictions of real people in its world without any more care than it regurgitates band references or stale Harry Potter jokes.

Meanwhile, in another branch of this quest, you have this:

This is one of the performers at the Copperhead Club. She wears very little, and dances with two very big fans, so that the fans can always cover up the parts of her that the customers are most interested in seeing. I'll have you know that fan dancing is an art, and that she studied for years to perfect her technique. Also, she has an IQ of 180 and builds working Stirling engines in her spare time. So spare me the outrage, please.

Asymmetric Games knows some tropes provoke "outrage," but clearly doesn't understand which or why. And they don't seem to care.

The Hidden City is probably the worst effect of this...creative apathy. And most of its competition is well off the beaten path. But you have to solve the Hidden City in every ascension (except Community Service runs, but those are weird). In addition, the Hidden Hospital is a great place for farming meat and elemental wads, so I spend a lot of time there after beating the Naughty Sorceress. (It's a good place to spend extra adventures.) So I think about the Hidden City a lot.

Does it ruin KOL for me? No. Does it push me away from thinking of the game as a world worth exploring and towards thinking of it as a set of mechanics to advance through? Unfortunately, yes.

[maddiem4]

Okay. I can’t talk for shit right now, and people know what I sound like. There’s one part of the plan we’re doing my way. I’m tired. My body’s starting to give up taking orders, I’ve fucking had enough. So I’m enlisting.

~ Lisa Meyers, Reposado Ch. 12

More cast! More cast! More cast!

The last half hour has been a real day for Lisa and Citrine. And this next person to go from "mentioned a little and a few lines" to "actively fleshed out character" is actually extremely vital to like, the main emotional dilemma of the story.

With Chapter 3 out, and Chapter 4 next to drop, I think some readers could maybe predict who I'm talking about. But the devil's in the details. Like, yeah, I'll write a love triangle.... if it's morally complicated, massively fucked up, and pulls you between two incompatible ways you're "supposed" to feel in this world. Choosing should feel like dying, and you should get forced into it instead of being able to stall forever. These aren't ice cream flavors. They're people. You double booked your heart because you thought one of them was gonna fall through, and now you're fractally screwed.

You could maybe say the same sort of trope-and thing about Lisa being, in so many ways, a self-insert of (a facet of) myself, and having a voice that's a very teenager-ized version of one of my main online voices. Where the level deeper is: "So? You think that's a free ride? You think that's a good thing for her? This is the meat grinder. Putting her in this story is most unkind thing I've done to a self-like character to date, and she'll have to work harder for her powers than anyone. Stack problems like pancakes bitch, this is Reposado."

[loopy777]

The funny part for me, is that I'm very much going to relentlessly mock the "will they, won't they?" Trope(Something I have come to just not being able to stand at all in manga as i grow older, having reached the point i completely drop anh romance series that has if if there isn't an actual plot beyond romance to distrqct me from my single most hated manga trope of all time.).

(there was a pretty sweet and funny romance manga called Dosanko Gyaru ha Namaramenkoi i found earlier this year that I really liked... Then when it seemed the main couple would finally get together, it pulled a deus angst machina to make the more comedic love triangle that obviously wasn't gonna go anywhere, into a real, melodramatic one that we still know won't go anywhere), and man, once I read that, i just dropped the thing immediately, as i knew exactly how this would go, and sure enough skimming it's newer chapters half a year later, it has completely changed tones into a melodramatic soap opera all about that complicated love triangle, rather than a tale about two young people clearly in love with a good dynamic between them. The fact this trope is so ingrained in manga culture means it's so often rammed into stories with a couple that does NOT need it to be entertaining.)

my plan for was always to hook up my main couple for Symbiosis relatively early in the story. The stain arc, which is about 20-25% of the story's planned length. Which i thought was about the time i estimated i would need for them to form a real, genuine mutual bond while introducing their dynamic.

All well and good, and I'm rather proud of my work with them, and its been well recieved... But the part about mocking the trope where couples spend their entire time together in will they, won't they rather than getting together, is kinda undercut by the fact that despite my original plans to have them hook up in chapter 20, or maybe 26 at most, the story exploded in length the moment I hit the tournament arc, and in the end it took me 50! Chapters for them to get together :P

Kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This is from @thekingofwinterblog, who followed up with:

Also just wanted to clarify that rant against will they or wont they? Wasnt directed at you. I actually liked your handling of aang x mai, even if i think they should probably have hooked up sometime during their stay in the fire nation). It's more directed at manga and anime specifically, rather than fanfiction, given the INSANE lengths the genre will go to in order to not have the main couple actually hook up.

No worries, I didn't even consider that this applied to Traitor's Face. I never had a Will They Or Won't They Thing going, as the age difference between them in this AU (Mai is 16-17, and Aang is 12-13) is too great at this point in their lives for them to be comfortably together as a regular teenage couple, so it just didn't happen in the traditional way.

(For those who haven't read Traitor's Face yet, that's not really a spoiler.)

Overall, I agree with you, but the thing is that I'm not a fan of romance stories. Unless there's some else that's good -- like comedy, or a wholly separate mystery/action/thriller/political plot -- I'm not going to enjoy it. There is nothing about the actual feelings of romantic love or the processing of falling in/out of love that interests me. My attention cannot be held by a plot consisting of the actions of people reacting to or sorting out their romantic inclinations. I cannot relate in any way to conflict based on romantic feelings.

This apathy includes both melodrama/angst as well as happy fluffy stuff. Neither one gives me any pleasure in a story.

No doubt the people who really enjoy my Maiko stories are scratching their heads now.

For me, romance is an element that either flavors a story about something else or drives a series of events that are interesting and/or amusing in and of themselves. It's a lubricant for otherwise fun storytelling. It's a great excuse for characters to act irrationally, but that needs to be used strategically; too much will spoil the taste of the whole thing.

I guess that's also why I tend to use romance as a climactic element of my stories or just start with the couple already together. I use the romantic portion only as needed. And I never have nor ever will write fluff in my life. I honestly wouldn't even know how to do it. If I tried, I'd end up with a sitcom with some scattered lovey-dovey moments.

It sounds like you hit the same problem I did- once the action scenes start up, everything takes longer. That's where my passion lies.

It's possible I'm a bit miswired in my psychology. XD

[saulbaby]

It's missing ocs I cut hours folks

[moved-attre]

info dump for my v! was gonna make this into a whole tag meme but the prompts aren’t very original. oops.

THE BASICS:

FULL NAME: Valerie King.

ALIAS: V / Veronica Li.

DATE OF BIRTH: August 27th, 2049.

AGE (AS OF 2077): 28.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Heywood, Night City.

RACE/CULTURE: Chinese American.

RELIGION: It’s complicated. (Raised Catholic... Now unsure.)

SEXUALITY: Bi

GENDER / PRONOUNS: Cis female, she/her.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English and Spanish.

RIGHT OR LEFT HANDED: Right handed.

EDUCATION: College drop-out.

OCCUPATION: Agent at the counterintelligence division of Arasaka, second to Assistant Director Jenkins. Later, mercenary. 

APPEARANCE: 

HAIR: Black. Mid length. Straight. Loose. Briefly changes to neon green, bob cut. Then, back again.

EYES: Dark brown. 

NOTEABLE FEATURES: Freckles on face and body. 

TATTOOS: Snake wrapped around left wrist / Dragon wrapped around left shoulder / Lovers tarot card on left inner forearm / ‘LUCKY YOU’ on left hip joint just above crotch. Angel wings & halo with ‘JACKIE’ on right inner wrist / Collection of roses on right hip and upper thigh / ‘DEATH CAN WAIT’ on bottom of right ribcage. “Johnny + V” in a heart on right inner forearm. 

PIERCINGS: Right and left lobe, double piercing. Philtrum piercing. Navel piercing.

CYBERNETICS/PROSTHETICS: Visible golden cybernetic... plate? on her neck. It can have a skin-like texture covering but it’s sorta transparent. Replaced right hand, and again: has a skin-like texture finish but slightly transparent so the gold chrome is visible. Kiroshi eyes (natural color). Enhanced knee caps/ankles for long distanced jumping. Mantis blades. Cardiovascular and Respiratory system is almost all tech, as is much of her nervous system etc. 

SCARS: None from combat. She has stretch marks on her butt, boobs and tummy.

BODY SHAPE: Curvy / plus size. Not skinny or muscled. Soft.

HEIGHT: 5′3. 

FASHION SENSE: Neon, metallic, holographic. Short skirts, crop tops and big coats / jackets. Wedged sneakers or heeled boots. (Johnny says her style is “hooker”, but what the fuck does Johnny know. He’s worn the same outfit for like 70+ years. Get with the times, grandpa.)

MAKE UP: Neon. Loves yellow or green eyeshadow / eyeliner and shiny colored lip gloss.

NAILS: Long and pointed, like triangle shaped. Always with a metallic finish, colored either: Red, blue or silver.

PERSONALITY: 

ZODIAC: Virgo sun, Aries moon.

MBTI: INTP.

5 FLAWS: Anxious, high maintenance, clingy, emotionally unavailable, jealous.

5 STRENGTHS: Patient, detail-oriented, ambitious, witty, passionate.

SECRET TALENT(S): Can sing.

LIKES: Crappy daytime soap operas, artificial strawberry flavored foods and skin care, MONEY!! and NC in the rain at night.

DISLIKES: Healthy food (She has never touched a vegetable... She’s pretty gross.), other people’s mess, anything with a matte texture and rock music (Sorry to Johnny. But she’s never heard a Samurai song and never will.)

HOBBIES: Boxing. (Not that she ever actually goes more than once a month... She’s got 50+ missed calls from Coach Fred.)

FEARS: Loneliness / being left behind. Being replaced. FOMO.

DREAMS: Stability. A family, whether that’s with a romantic partner or friends. Just someone who’ll stick around.

MUSIC TASTE: Pop, dance, rap. The majority of her library is filled with “girl power” tracks about making money, beating people up and being sexy. 😙

DRINK AND DRUGS: Weed. Likes beer. Smokes cigarettes, thanks to Johnny. Tried various other, harder drugs as a teen but outgrew it.

BAD HABITS: Chews her bottom lip / plays with jewellery when nervous. Tends to bottle up her emotions until she explodes. Has a perpetually messy apartment and will not tidy up.

REASON FOR WANTING TO MAKE IT BIG IN NC: To prove a point. She’s not quite sure who to, sometimes it’s her mom... Other times it’s herself... (She puts a lot of importance on being “self-made”.) For a while, she wanted to succeed for Jackie. Until it got him killed. Now she just wants to survive.

CHILDHOOD HERO: Morgan Blackhand. Corpo-backed mercenary who took on Adam Smasher and may or may not be alive yet? He was like a comic book character to baby V. 

COMBAT/VEHICLES: 

COMBAT STYLE: Netrunner. (Stealth.)

PREFERRED WEAPONS: Her hands. Hacking. A pistol with a silencer. Mantis blades, in an emergency. 

WEAKNESSES: Open combat. She can be slow to react, as she’s overthinking everything. This isn’t the Matrix, unfortunately. 😔

SIGNATURE VEHICLE: Type-66 Avenger, or Jackie’s ARCH.

FAMILY/OTHER RELATIONSHIPS:

FATHER: Everett King, deceased. Low level office worker for Militech.

RELATIONSHIP WITH FATHER: Generally positive. He was her only family for a long time, so V grew very attached. When he passed, she was very angry.

MOTHER: Chloë Li, unknown. Housewife.

RELATIONSHIP WITH MOTHER: Non-existent. Her mom left the family years ago when V was a young child, so her memories of her are vague at best - and clouded by V’s feelings of abandonment.

SIBLING(S): Jordan King (younger brother), deceased.

RELATIONSHIP WITH SIBLING(S): She loved her little brother lots, for the very short time she knew him.

PETS: Nibbles the (creepy) cat.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A. Briefly, River Ward. (Johnny... but it’s complicated. 😢)

CHILDREN: N/A. She doesn’t want children, ever.

OTHER MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS: Jackie, Mama Welles, T-Bug, Misty, Vik, Judy, Panam, River, Kerry, Padre. Jenkins, in a mentor role.

META: 

LIFE PATH: Corpo. 

CHOSEN ENDING: Worst ending. V [redacted] and dies with Johnny by her side. She doesn’t see the point in struggling on and letting other people die for her, nor does she want to run away. She’s bound to Night City, for better or for worse, and she’d rather go out on her own terms with the most important person in the world to her by her side.

ACTUAL ENDING: V explores the Old City ruins, finds Arasaka’s top secret cryogenics facility. Johnny’s body is recovered, his engram restored and they live happily ever after in Night City. Tah dah! The end!

PRIMARY SKILLS: Intelligence and Cool.

SECONDARY SKILLS: Body and Technical ability.

[icyowl]

What’s ur fave show? And what shows (anime, or literally anything) do u recommend ?

Oohhh, great question!!!

My top three fav shows of all time got cancelled after their first seasons, and my fourth fav got canceled after 2 seasons. That being said, they were all amazing and I would recommend them to pretty much everyone!

So, Almost human (2013) is my number one show of all time. It’s near-future and got action and sci-if and plenty of dry humor and I just love the premise of each episode (there’s about 20 I think). John Kennex is a grouchy, irritable, injured, washed up cop who returns to duty after a mysterious leave of absence following a tragedy. Things have changed since he was last in the office and now he is forced to be paired with a chipper, lively robot with some defects of his own. Together they learn about each other all while fighting a rapidly evolving crime wave outfitted with the latest futuristic gear.

Next is Forever (2014). Ioan Gruffudd plays a medical examiner who for some reason can’t seem to die. He’s not a vampire, just immortal. In his quest to find out more about his “condition”, he kind of gets roped in to being a consultant for a cop, and they go on plenty of death-defying adventures while he attempts to hide his secret from her. Since he’s 200 years old, there’s a lot of old-fashioned flavor thrown in so if you like the aesthetic of pocket watches and antiques and three piece suits, you’ll fall in love with this. It’s very charming in its development of various relationships and I just adore it all around.

My third fav is Pitch (2016). If you like sports anime, this is basically a real-life version of one. It centers around the first female baseball player and all the struggles she has had to and currently overcomes to live a dream she isn’t really sure she even wants. Ginny struggles with instant stardom and the pressure that comes with being the first female pitcher in the MLB. Her catcher attempts to guide her but their relationship gets complicated by an age gap and the various baggage they both go through throughout the show.

Lastly there’s Prodigal Son (2019). It’s arguably a very typical crime drama but I can’t get over the emphasis on the mental side of criminals. Our main lead is a criminal profiler with enough mental issues for Freud to write an entirely library full of books. This is because his father is the most infamous serial killer since Jack the Ripper and who was and still is trying to convert his son to his like of thinking. Michael Sheen plays the father and the character is the prefect balance of barely-concealed psychosis and scheming mastermind. Never believe anything Martin does at face value. Anyways, it’s praised for portraying PTSD and other problems in a realistic way. If you like crime stuff please give it a chance.

Anime is hard to recommend without having a genre to help narrow it down. I’ll try to give the more obscure ones since we all know about jjk, demon slayer, mha blah blah. If you like sports stuff, try Ace of Diamond and Big windup (both baseball). If you like wolves, Wolfs Rain is good but very depressing and can be gory. It has an air of magic and mystery to it that I find alluring. For romance I recommend Ancient Magus’ Bride (a bit of an acquired taste since the male isn’t strictly human, but it’s cute and mystical) and Devils Line (it’s what Vampire Knight wanted to be and there’s no love triangle so woo). The last two I’ll recommend are Toriko, which is all about adventure and seizing the day and lots of amazing-looking food so I recommend watching this with something good to eat, and Fire force, which is classic shonin anime that’s basically MHA but the quirks are all fire based. There’s lots of others I want to elaborate on but this is long enough as it is. If you still want more, hit me up!

- io

[perhapsitmaybedragons]

Of Gingerbread and Flies

For creativerocket-jpg - I’m your gift giver for Good Snowmans. I hope this is ok - this is what came out when I tried to write using your prompts (which I loved, by the way). Plenty of The Them, Crowley, Aziraphale and Beelzebub.

         Summary:            

Beelzebub would like to challenge Crowley. But the Them step in to make sure the competition is more appropriate for winter activities. And of course, no one likes games more than The Them. So who will triumph in making the best gingerbread house?

Can be read on ao3 here or read below: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534104

Crowley grumbled, unsure of what had awoken him. Whatever it was, he decided to ignore it and rolled back over, resolute in his decision to sleep in. It was a cold day and best spent, in Crowley's opinion, bundled up under the covers. Maybe he could talk Aziraphale into joining him if he offered the angel some cocoa. It wasn't Crowley's favorite but it could be all right if you punched it up with the right kind of alcohol.

“Seriously, wake up,” Came the voice that had first roused him. That wasn't Aziraphale's voice. Crowley bolted up, startled. His eyes went a little wider when he found the Them standing around his bed. “We can't get started without you,” Adam repeated.

“Get started with what, exactly?” Crowley grabbed for his sunglasses and shoved them on. The Them didn't mind his eyes, but he still preferred covering them up.

“Dear,” Aziraphale finally joined the others in the bedroom. “The Them has uh...made a bargain on your behalf, it seems.”

Crowley pulled himself out of bed and snapped his fingers to replace his sleeping outfit with his preferred tailored suits (well, if miracles can be counted as tailored). “Someone needs to start at the beginning with this,” He snapped his fingers again, this time in the direction of Wensleydale, “You. Nerdy little human. You tell me – No, Adam,” He shushed Adam before he could start in, “I want this straight and to the point. Wensley's better at that stuff and you know it.”

Adam opened his mouth to argue but then seemed to think better of it. Instead he just shrugged. Excited to be the one chosen, Wensleydale launched into his explanation. “So Adam knew something bad might happen here at your cottage today so he said we should come over here and sure enough,” Normally he wouldn't speak so quickly, but he was also keenly aware that they were on a time limit. Which he really should explain to Crowley immediately, but well...first things first. “We found Beelzebub outside your window – that's what Adam said their name is, anyway, and-”

“Beelzebub?!” Crowley yelped. “Angel, Why didn't you wake me up?!”

“Because, by the time I knew about it the Them had already taken care of it. Beelzebub's waiting for us in the living room.”

“We moved all the way out here to the Downs to get away from everything. How is it you four keep showing up here?” Crowley tried to look cross. Apparently he was failing, given the way all of the Them were smirking at him. For a mad moment he thought he saw the same expression on Dog.

Wensleydale cleared his throat to get permission to continue. Crowley nodded at him and gestured for him to get on with it. “So we found Beelzebub outside your window,” he repeated, “And they said they were here to challenge you and Aziraphale because apparently you made them a laughingstock-”

“I never zzssaid that,” Beelzebub pushed the door to the bedroom open and glared at everyone. “No one zssaiid that I was ever a laughingstock.”

“You didn't have to say it,” Pepper shrugged. “It was kind of obvious by you being here in the first place.”

Beelzebub vibrated indignantly at them. Crowley wondered for a moment how they managed to do that in a humanoid form, but decided it wasn't worth it to ask. “So they asked me to join them in this ridiculous challenge.”

“I mean, maybe it is ridiculous,” Brian shrugged, “But you agreed to it. Didn't have to twist your arm or anything, either. You just said yes.”

“Demons must take on what we're challenged to,” Beelzebub insisted. Crowley made a face at them.

“I don't think that's true,” He pondered all the times the Them had challenged him to increasingly ridiculous things, wondering if he hadn't been able to say no due to some demon bylaw he wasn't aware of or whether it was his own fondness for them. He was pretty sure it was the latter, but he would probably be pretending the former was true going forward.

“So here we are,” Wensleydale continued. “We're all building gingerbread houses and who ever has the best one wins. Aziraphale is the judge.”

“Because since he's an angel he won't be biased,” Adam explained. Crowley resisted the urge to laugh at that.

“Okay. So I'm ...making a gingerbread house? Or you lot are?” he asked the Them. They all nodded. “So I'm making on or you are?” he repeated, hoping for a real answer this time.

“All of you are,” Aziraphale cut in to explain. “I judge, but everyone else makes them. If Beelzebub beats you they get to take you with them. If they beat the Them, they take me. If they don't beat either of you then they don't get anyone and owe something to the Them. Though they haven't told me what it is they want.”

“Isn't hell supposed to be leaving me alone?” Crowley demanded. “Pretty sure that was a condition for me leaving you all alone after that holy water incident.”

“I'm not all of hell, am I?” Beelzebub pointed out. “I'm not in hell, I'm here. And this is personal.”

“Of course it is,” Crowley rolled his eyes at them. “Do I miracle in the gingerbread or do we have to waste time making it first? Or are we doing one of those annoying kits?”

“You slept in quite a while, dear,” Aziraphale shrugged. “The Them and I already got all the gingerbread made. It's only fair if it's all the same kind of biscuit, after all. So I helped them with that step – did you know it's rather difficult to make a biscuit that can be used for construction but still tastes nice? But I think we succeeded. They're still gingerbread, but they're also chocolate and I put some ancho powder in there, quite lovely-”

“Can we get on with thisszzz?” Beelzebub insisted. “I don't have all day.”

“I mean, don't you?” Pepper asked innocently. “What do you do all day down in Hell, really? Just ...sit over and poke souls with a pitchfork, I imagine. This is probably way more fun.”

Beelzebub didn't answer.

“At any rate, we should probably move on. Let's stop standing around in my bedroom and get started on this whole …” Crowley wanted to call it a fiasco. He'd never baked before and never decorated any type of dessert before. And he supposed the rules probably demanded that he not use any miracles. He confirmed this with Adam, who looked indignant at the suggestion.

“What kind of competition would it be, then? Pepper, Dog, Wensley and Brian can't do miracles. Where would that leave them? I mean, yeah, I'm on their team but it still wouldn't be fair. Even though we have been practicing.”

Apparently this rule was news to Beelzebub. They stamped their foot in irritation. Crowley smirked at how childish they were being, but didn't say anything. “You mean I have to do this the ...human way?!”

“Yeah. That's what makes it fun,” Adam insisted.

The kitchen was already well prepared for the competition. Aziraphale had even thought to put some tarps down on the floor to minimize the mess, as though they weren't going to just miracle it all clean later. There were three long tables set up in different parts of the room, and Crowley made a mental note to tell Aziraphale to stop watching so much Great British Bake Off. Each table had a stove built into it, the gingerbread on the side, paper and a pencil to draw designs out with and of course tubes of frosting.

“Crowley, dear, you'll be over here,” Aziraphale gestured to the table closest to the front, directly in front of a stool that Aziraphale now perched on. Beelzebub took the table to the left behind Crowley and the Them took the one on the right.

“Aziraphale, sir?” Wensley piped up from their table. “Actually, could we have some water and sugar? I read that burned sugar holds the houses together better.”

“Are you old enough to cook?” Aziraphale asked, looking embarrassed as he was clearly trying to puzzle out the Them's ages. “I just don't want any of you to hurt yourselves.”

“I can do it,” Brian insisted. “My mom taught me how to cook. She said it's the first step in learning to look after yourself. I just have to clean up any messes I make.” Brian always tried to clean up said messes, but no matter how hard he tried his mother always found a spot later. Multiple spots, really.

Aziraphale did a complicated gesture with his right hand and a boiling pot of water appeared in front of the Them on their stove. Brian checked it carefully and confirmed the sugar was already in it.

Crowley watched them carefully, then glanced over at Beelzebub. They hadn't started any construction yet. In fact, instead of even attempting to build they'd popped a piece of gingerbread in their mouth. Crowley watched as Beelzebub closed their eyes, apparently savoring the flavor. Their eyes popped open and they grabbed another handful, scarfing it down. Crowley couldn't blame them. Aziraphale had become an excellent baker. Even Crowley could be easily tempted by Aziraphale's treats.

He took a nibble off one piece of his own gingerbread and conceded that it was definitely very tasty. But unless Beelzebub ended up eating all of theirs and had to forfeit, he still had to construct something. He took two pieces and frosted them together, wondering if he should follow the Them's example and make burned sugar. He decided against it. He didn't know how to make it and would probably just burn through one of Aziraphale's pots and make the angel grumble at him.

He stepped back, trying to admire his handiwork. All he had done was make a triangle. It slumped the moment he let go, the pieces falling over each other. He sighed and glanced over at the Them. They were remarkably good at teamwork. Brian was cooking, Pepper was assembling, Adam was the designer and Wensleydale was making adjustments on the fly when things didn't work out. And Dog ate any pieces that fell on the floor. Crowley sighed and turned back to his own gingerbread, trying to figure out what to do.

After several minutes of trying several things only to have them work out disastrously, Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who smiled back at him, then pulled out his pocket watch. “I do believe we forgot to tell Crowley about the time limit.”

“Sorry Crowley!” The Them chorused, none of them looking up from their creation.

“How long?”

“You have ..oh, ten minutes left.”

“Ten minutezz?!” Beelzebub grumbled. Crowley checked out their table and snickered. Beelzebub really had spent the whole time eating instead of working. They now had two sad little pieces of gingerbread left. Nothing someone could really make something out of.

“Nine now, since you both groused for so long,” Aziraphale corrected cheerfully.  Crowley hissed at him.

Crowley took a few marshmallows from a nearby pile and started fiddling with them, then slapped some of his gingerbread together in heaps that he thought vaguely resembled what he was going for. By the time Aziraphale called that time was up Crowley figured he'd done about as well as could be expected.

“First, Beelzebub's,” Aziraphale motioned for everyone to join him at Beelzebub's table. They had a single piece of gingerbread left, which they had stuck a chocolate chip on.

“It's uh. Modern art,” Beelzebub tried.

“Excuse me. I invented modern art,” Crowley piped up, “I know modern art when I see it and this isn't it. Unless you have a pretentious way of explaining why the chocolate chip is alone – like it's meant to be a fallen and the gingerbread is the cruelty of -” Aziraphale caught him in the ribs.

“Crowley, you're not helping.” Which wasn't true. Rather, Crowley was helping the wrong one in this case.

“A lovely attempt, Beelzebub,” Aziraphale said graciously. They glowered at him. “Ah, now to Crowley's creation,” They all moved together from Beelzebub's table to Crowley's.

Crowley had haphazardly thrown what was passable for a house together, but more interesting were the two snowmen out front. Both were composed of two marshmallows shoved together. He'd melted some away from one so that the snowman looked skinny. To this one he'd added a piece of black licorice as a scarf. To the other he'd placed a yellow M&M on the top, pressed down so that it might give the appearance of a halo. “'S Me. Me and Angel,” He explained unnecessarily. Aziraphale looked touched. Adam let out a small “aww,” which the rest of the Them then echoed (Well, Dog barked it, but softly).

“Well, that's enough of mine. Let's see what Hellspawn and the others came up with, shall we?” Now it was Crowley who led everyone to the final table. He felt immediately sheepish on seeing what the Them had come up with.

The house was something to look at. A Victorian model all done up in gingerbread – as the kids had planned it was held together by burnt sugar but the frosting had been utilized to draw bricks on the sides and shingles on the roof. A dog – Dog by the look of the one inside out ear – had been carefully crafted out of modeling chocolate. There were four kids building a snowman (and here Crowley was surprised to find they'd also used marshmallows for their snowman – it made him feel he'd done something correctly). The kids looked to be made of a mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant. It wouldn't pass for professionally done – some of it was lopsided, one kid was missing an ear and they hadn't bothered to mold feet on any of them – but it was still a triumph.

“Fine, fine, they won,” Beelzebub threw up their hands. “I concede. Even Crowley's was better than mine. I'll leave now.”

“You can't!” Adam insisted. “There's too much gingerbread for all of us, and it's really cold out there.”

“You do understand they're going back to hell, right?” Crowley interrupted. “Cold is not exactly the problem there.”

“It doesn't matter. It's cold, we have all this gingerbread, we should eat it together,” Pepper argued. “You rarely ever eat, Crowley. This is too much for just us and Aziraphale. And Beelzebub really liked the gingerbread, didn't you?”

“Er uh...maybe,” Beelzebub's eyes darted away from the kids and Crowley found himself snorting at the situation. These kids could easily face down all the forces of hell, just by being their usual sweet selves, he figured.

“So?” Crowley asked. “Will you be staying?”

Aziraphale's eyebrows went up. “Crowley, are you asking Beelzebub to spend the rest of the day with us and the Them?”

“Do we have a choice? This lot already decided for us, I think. Besides, they like your gingerbread. Thought you'd be happy about that, at least.”

“It was very good,” Beelzebub admitted, their voice small. “I'd like to stay.”

“Good,” Pepper said with a nod. “I think that's what we were going to ask from you anyway, for our winning.”

“Right,” Brian agreed. “You have to stay.”

“All right. But any tricks and Angel here gets out the holy water.”

Beelzebub's eyes grew to the size of saucers. Apparently it hadn't occurred to them that Aziraphale could get holy water whenever he pleased. The truth was there was never any in the house and Aziraphale was unlikely to allow it for fear of any of it accidentally splashing on Crowley.

It was agreed that Beelzebub could spend the rest of the day with them. Crowley and Aziraphale had both learned that it was almost impossible to argue with the Them once their mind was made up and well, if they ended up with another demon who, while not on their side exactly might be ...adjacent, well, where was the harm?

So they passed the rest of the day with Aziraphale showing Beelzebub how to make the gingerbread, the Them showing them how to make snowballs (and of course, then having an ensuing snowball fight – Beelzebub had excellent aim and was delighted to find that the Them kept arguing about who got them on their team). By the time the sun was setting they were all back inside, gathered in front of the fire. Aziraphale threw a blanket around Beelzebub's shoulders, then wrapped himself and Crowley in another one.

“Your hands are always freezing, dear,” Aziraphale complained. In answer Crowley put his hands up Aziraphale's shirt. “Ughk! That's not funny!”

Beelzebub chuckled then took a long sip of their hot cocoa. “This is why you like it here, huh?”

“It's part of why I like it here,” Crowley answered, his arms wrapping protectively around Aziraphale. “There's even more good stuff. You'd be surprised... You should come up again. Let the Them show you around.”

Beelzebub took another sip, mulling it over. “I'd like that.”

“Oh look!” Adam pointed out the window, “The snow's started!” Crowley resisted the urge to point out that it was only snowing because Adam felt it should be, deciding to enjoy the view instead.

All in all, even he had to admit, snuggled up with Aziraphale like he was, surrounded by some of the people he liked most (minus Newt and Anathema and plus Beelzebub, who may be coming around but was still not someone to be trusted or liked, at least not yet). Even Crowley had to admit this was a pretty perfect day.

[flying-elliska]

Ok I caught up with wtfock s3 because well, it felt weird to leave unfinished (except a few clips i just didn’t want to watch, like the attack one). here’s what worked and didn’t for me (i’m pretty critical so don’t read if that sort of thing upsets you or you’re not in the mood) because i still think having this story remade so often is an unprecendented storytelling experiment worth thinking about even when it doesn’t entirely work (and i think argumented criticism is good, but if you post hate about the actors/fans etc you really suck tbh) : 

- to start with positives : like many said, the acting was pretty damn good. overall wtfock has a really solid cast. the willems have succeeded in creating an onscreen queer intimacy that feels very believable, no holds barred and no awkwardness, and they have to be commended for that. there’s a lot of chemistry and tension at first between them, which then turns into something very soft and sweet and puppy-love-like. it was nice seeing Robbe evolve and the sweet bean energy that emanates from how the actor plays him is very very powerful. i also loved the warmth of the flatshare, and as a Dutchie I just adored the Sinterklaas bits, it was so funny and i loved the found family vibes. warmth is just something they do really well, esp with the last clips, perfume shopping, playing board games, the party at the end. They use the Christmassy vibes really well. the cinematography has its moments too, contrasts between warm and cold, the episode at the beach is gorgeous, the sequence in the tunnel, the light on their faces when they are in that classroom surrounded by drawings. wtfock as a whole is also good at creating some very lovable secondary characters, be it Milan, Yasmina, Noor, or especially king Senne. So, I do understand that there are things to love about this remake, which is probably why my disappointment feels so strong. I really wanted to care about these characters in their journey. 

- on to the controversial : i don’t necessarily fault them for wanting to show a more prononced aspect of homophobia. i think the debate about this often lacks nuance. on one hand, this is the sixth remake, and homophobia is something that is still often prevalent, and having one remake show that out of six is not in itself a problem. on the other, yes, happy fluffy stories are important, but sometimes people who have gone through stuff like this also need to see their experiences represented. the power of skam is that it shows difficult experiences BUT ALSO a happy ending. that can be very healing, i think, compared to other stories which focus only on the drama. the trouble is, i don’t think they dealt with it very well, or put any effort into processing the consequences of these harrowing things. and if you don’t, it feels cheap.

- on to my main gripe : the writing. previsible, i know. but to me, essential. and this is not about them ‘changing things’ - i like when remakes change stuff, when they do it well. the thing is, i have been burned too many times before. and when i sense that the writing is being wack, it makes it automatically much harder for me to invest emotionally in the characters. and simply put there were signs early on that made me distrust the writers. for starters, the first two episodes gave me a feeling that they didn’t have their priorities in order. the POV-immersion and depth is one of the most powerful aspects of skam, and it was lost. too many early clips felt out of Robbe’s perspective, and when it was him it was about Noor ; a few clips to show his discomfort were on point, but there were too many of them, and there were repetitive, losing time on what isn’t really an essential part of Robbe’s journey. and while they were spending time on clips that felt like misery flavored filler, they decided several times to condense original clips focused on Isak and Even, together ; like their first meeting and then their first hangout, or later in the series OHN and the minute by minute talk. and i think their story suffered from that. i think because they don’t have a real discussion early on, the buildup of their relationship feels mostly based on physical attraction. and while it certainly is a thing that happens, it just isn’t my fave love story thing. i missed the sweet pining from afar and tension that makes later drama believable. it felt like they brought the drama comparatively too fast without enough character work to make it worthwhile. Also there is just too much time spent on Zoenne drama, and their breakup seems like it foreshadows the dreaded s4 love triangle, which, yikes. the focus is all over the place, the rythm felt incoherent. 

- what’s more, they decided to introduce pretty grave elements of plot, like Robbe using slurs against Sander, the homophobic attack, the suicidal urges on both their sides, Sander kissing Britt while he was still saying I love you to Robbe in the morning, without either proper build up or resolution. It made it all feel cheap, jarring, and unearned, especially when they didn’t put trigger warnings or made jokes about it on insta or waited forever to give news about the characters being ok. it felt like drama for the sake of drama, and definitely not written with a vulnerable audience of queer teens in mind. and at the same time, when it came to the ‘big scenes’ of their relationship, like the first kiss or the universes talk or sander’s episode, it felt more or less lifted from OG without a lot of effort made to adapt it to them. i actually quit live watching/blogging after the first kiss scene, because of how similar it was, and how uninspired it felt, and lukewarm. it felt like a lack of imagination. when it came to OHN, the scene in itself was lovely, but the weird time gap, random timing and people seemingly doing nothing after a suicidal Sander disappeared, sort of broke it for me.  In the OG the combo of buildup, longing, realisation, fear, release works so well in a sequence, and splitting it over time really diluted it, to me. Similarly the quickly thrown out ‘life is now’ at the ending felt sort of out of nowhere, while in OG it was such a lovely bookend, him apologizing to Eva and reflecting on his growth. The symbolism, which ties everything so beautifully together in themes of rebirth, salvation, baptism, union, faith, deciding your own narrative in OG, here feels inconsistent. There is an attempt I see, something about wasteland vs. warmth/family, but it’s often absent of main clips. It’s nowhere near as coherent as it could be. 

- all of this builds up to the main problem for me, of the season. which is, i didn’t really get into Robbe and Sander’s relationship. Or their individual arcs for that matter. When it comes to Robbe, I guess he just isn’t my type of character. I feel like he is missing the fire of an Isak. A lot of the time he just felt too passive, like he let other characters make his decisions. I was waiting for him to stand up for himself more than he did. And there are too many scenes of another character doing his coming out for him. And then Sander ; I have to say I don’t understand all the love his character gets. Maybe because that’s because he sort of gives me Dutch fuckboi vibes...but there were several times he just came accross as a flat out asshole. I found him intriguing in his intro clip, chaotic and charming, but that never really went where i expected it to. i didn’t get his passion, what drew him to art. the symbolism around his character - basically Bowie, and drawing Robbe, and Chernobyl (which is a bit tasteless imho, turning a tragedy like that into a cutesy romantic thing), feels ...disjointed, and shallow to me. Like I never really got into it. And maybe some people did and noticed deeper links but to me, I got stuck at the surface. I saw a lot of interesting theories with what was going on with him but in the end they just copied OG. And I’m sad to say, but he ended up feeling like a manic pixie dream boy cliché to me, and i just didn’t understand what drew them to each other so strongly. Yes, Robbe is caring and Sander is in need of care, but that feels like a very reductive reproduction of OG. Beyond that...i don’t know. Certain complexities of the OG i loved  just...were sanded away, like Isak being ignorant about MI and learning compassion. This just...didn’t feel like it had the same depth, and often felt like soapy teenage drama, leaning too hard and too lazily on the actors’ chemistry. i like my romances wordy and solidly enmeshed in character development, and this was not it. It never felt like they had a real conversation about things, esp after the drama. 

- i think this is the first remake that made me actually angry for reasons not related to problematic cast shit, and so i’m trying to analyze that emotion. for me it comes down to too much drama, too heavy handed. Too much of the boy squad being shitty to Robbe, too much Noor, too much filler clips without any deeper meaning, too much things distracting from getting to know the main characters and going into their issues in depth. They changed stuff, but didn’t have the guts to actually follow through. They broke the mold but only in ways that ended up feeling shallow and unconsequential. Like I would have loved seeing Robbe go to therapy ! see his mom ! Zoe and Robbe go to the police together ! Sander have a complicated home situation ! or doing a Bowie related art installation to express his feelings of alienation ! seeing more of the underground graffiti scene ! or just...something, idk. And them also removing the faith-related themes also felt disappointing. and the ohn clip taking place in the place where sander draws feels very....basic to me, even if it was pretty. very ‘oh he’s an artist, here is his safe place’....hm, okay. I didn’t like that they made Britt into such a villain, I didn’t like how the boy squad showed no care for Robbe whatsoever for weeks until the plot said it was time for them to be redeemed in a way that felt too jarring, and I didn’t like that they made Moyo so horrible but redeemed him so easily. I actually thought they would show that it’s okay to separate yourself from friends who are that bigoted, because it just shows they are not willing to care for people. And him suddenly saying those sweet and mature things felt too out of characters and a ahah ‘gotcha’ rather than depth . I didn’t like that Robbe, too, was made so virulent by his internalized homophobia but got over it so quickly. I think what disappointed me most, in the end, was that I kept picking up potential and the show kept doing absolutely nothing with it, or confirming my fears, and it made me feel stupid and out of tune with whatever they were doing. And it’s, to me, symptomatic in modern storytelling of a trend to privilege shocks and twists over inner coherence and build up. And it makes for...Very underwhelming stuff, in the end. 

- all in all, i think this remake illustrates why s3 of OG is not as easy to remake as it sounds. it’s very intricate machinery, with a pitch perfect rhythm (and an extremely passionate nitpicky fanbase lmao). and if you don’t get all the parts of why it’s so great, you’re going to lose a lot of it. (and all the remakes ended losing up stuff in translation ; more or less compensated by inventivity and charm of their own.) so many mainstream press articles praise the real time/social media format and the ‘real talk about teen issues’ which, yeah, is part of the success, but doesn’t explain the devotion on its own. there’s the way the story uses real time to build up a storytelling rythm that feels organic and makes sense as if it was part of the lives of the viewer. There’s foreshadowing and aftershocks. Wtfock often feels like they wrote the clip numbers on darts and randomly threw them at a week planner. If an episode of a regular series ends on a cliffhanger, we can be thrilled and frustrated and put it aside for next week. but if you end an episode with a character shown to be suicidal, or you don’t show them being okay after a beating, for hours or days, that’s the emotion you leave your viewers with, because skam is a continuous experience. and remakes who pile on drama moments without respite (looking at you too skamfr s4) don’t get how tiring and disengaging this can be, in this format. skam worked so well because of how benevolent it was, on the whole. and also, cheeky, with that ‘don’t take it too seriously’ deflating humor. grumpy isak in ‘hate me now’ mode getting bumped into. this lightness and comedy often feels missing here. also my god the social media is absolutely terrible. plus...there is too much filler. honestly, them having more time, on the whole...ended up being a bad thing. Plus Wtfock feels like it has so much more unadressed plot points, like...why did Sander change his mind exactly and kiss Britt again ? How did Robbe’s mom react ? Who did the attack ? What is happening w Senne now ? etc. And it feels like they just missed the fact that OG, however subtly, did adress those things. 

- now, don’t get me wrong, i’m happy it’s popular in Belgium. On the whole it’s still a beautiful story of love and acceptance. and that people found something in it that spoke to them. but as a remake, it’s probably one of the most disappointing yet, to me. and i sort of...don’t get the hype. and i don’t want to be too ‘oh cute boys kissing’ cynical about it. but i think this illustrates why in the end, this is also very subjective. there are probably things i missed because i didn’t feel the need to examine it in depth or do the extra emotional work that comes with being a devoted fan of something. and some of their choices made me angry, and i’m not forgiving when it comes to these things. i still wish them success for s4 and whatever else, but i don’t think i will watch live, at least unless it gets really rave reviews about their treatment of Yasmina’s season. i mean they got s2 right, who knows? 

[lucindarobinsonvevo]

This week, a record made and released by close collaborators Eerie, Indiana and Heart on a Chain received a re-release with a deluxe edition to celebrate its 20th birthday 

Though the front cover of Marshall’s Theory of Believably, the joint album by bands Eerie, Indiana and Heart on a Chain names only those two bands, the project was a collaboration between all the members of the Indiana seven. The Indiana Seven were a close group of collaborators who had a close working relationship in the 90s, creating iconic tracks and albums. The cover, which depicts a lone man in a ghost costume was shot by Sara Sue, an artist/photographer who shot most of the Eerie, Indiana’s album covers, and a track labeled ‘we gave this track to Tod’ features the enigmatic artist known as Tod, who also helped on the band’s delayed record Broken Record. The album art is different from the works of both bands, with Eerie, Indiana frequently having a sort of DIY feel to their photoshoots and Heart on a Chain tending to the more abstract kind. These particular photos (remastered for the deluxe edition) depict various band members in the dessert wearing a sheet over their heads with large black eye holes. The cover is Holmes, peering from behind a large unlit bonfire at the viewer. The title is written in the handwriting of Janet Donner, who also features as the figure on the CD itself. Teller features on the back of the album, and the back page of the liner notes, waving goodbye. Inside the liner, there are images of X, with Monroe being absent, apparently due to having a broken leg at the time of the shoot following an incident at a waterpark.

The album features twelve tracks, with many of them focusing on the idea of cryptids and other mysterious entities to make up the metaphors of the song. On the idea for the Album, Donner said: We wanted to talk about love as we knew it. This broad, mysterious concept that so many people in their twenties make love out to be.” On what she thinks of love now, Donner then remarked: Love is being glad the world hasn’t ended yet. I’ll leave you to make of that what you will. On the album, both X and Teller have cited the other as an inspiration behind the tracks, which will not come as a surprise to anyone who frequently listens to Eerie, Indiana as the pairs sometimes tumultuous relationship is often at the center of the most controversial and interesting projects done by the band. But this album is, more than anything else, a happy one. 

The first single released from this album was the track ‘Sometimes I Almost Miss You’ in the one-two punch style of Eerie, Indiana the track is titled like a break-up but is a love song. Over an energetic guitar track and drum machine, Monroe sings about the heart transplant she’d had some years before and how she believes that she can still feel the donor even though he’s (according to the lyrics) long gone and sweetly resting. The track is careful to avoid any religious implications, instead suggesting that the donor (who has since been identified as Devon Wilde) instead rests inside her chest. With X on the guitar and Holmes on the drum machine and (of all things) the triangle, Teller is free to singe verses from the perspective of the heart donor, viewing the world from inside Monroe’s chest while Donner provides very beautiful backing harmonies. The overall mood of the track is one of quiet love and happiness, as well as gratefulness to the young boy who gave her the second chance. Those familiar with the work of Heart on a Chain know that the transplant features heavily in their songs and it’s no surprise to see it here. 

The second track released in the work was ‘Me and My Jackalope’ and fueled rumors about a relationship between Teller and his bandmate, Dash X. At the time, both were closeted at the request of the label to avoid scandal. “Being in the closest literally almost killed me.” Teller would reflect later, interviewing for a project he did, releasing tracks for an LGBT themed album in the 2000s.”The funny thing is, I don’t think anyone who listened to us gave a damn. We’d go on stage, and we used to stand so close our knuckles were almost touching getting up in each other’s face and people would just go crazy.” Me and My Jackalope is, as you may have guessed, a song about impossible love. A love that the singer, in this case, mostly Teller, keeps hidden under his bed, only bringing it out to play when he’s alone. It’s a slow, sad track with Teller crooning to his animal “If they saw you, then they’d send you away.” Both Holmes and Monroe are credited as writers on the track, with the usual Eerie, Indiana flavor of complicated guitar playing set aside in favor of Donner and a violin and Holmes playing an assortment of other instruments. 

The third and final promotional single was meant to be Skylines, which lyrics from are also featured on the inside booklet of the album however at the last minute it was swapped out to the Meatloaf cover in the center of the album, Midnight at the Lost and Found due to ‘label meddling’ after it was decided they needed another upbeat track after Me and my Jackalope. The track is nothing special, a seemingly typical Eerie, Indiana cover. Eerie, Indiana frequently covered Meatloaf and Jim Stienman tracks, hoping to work with one or the other someday. Sadly, this collaboration never came to be. But it’s a fun song, much like the original version from the 1983 album by Meatloaf. Somewhat of a deep cut by today’s standards, but it’s fun. Which I think was probably the mission statement of this album if Dash X is to be believed (Yes, that’s his stage name, no I do not know his real name). ‘We were a bunch of 20 something friends given a studio and a year or two to do whatever we wanted. So we did whatever we wanted, which was being weird.’ 

Skylines and it’s reprise is a group effort, with every member of the group joining in with the writing process to produce something that could have gone astray but managed to come together into something coherent. Skylines covers the re-treaded ground of many bands, it’s a song set about missing people while on tour. Set against New York’s bright, iconic skyline the track is mostly led by Donner as she wonders what her lover is doing right now. Her lover, played by Teller wonders about if his lover will stay in New York, swept up by the bright skylines, and pleading for them to simply be theirs. The track has backing vocals from all of the members involved, including Holmes who mostly shies away from singing parts. ‘It’s not that I don’t love to sing.” He explains, “I’m just not very good at it. Marshall was always the singer, I’m much happier playing the drums, or a cello or something.” 

The final track on the album, clocking in at nine minutes, is Cryptids (I Still Believe in You and Me). This track shows off the impressive guitar skills of Teller and X, this time paired with the violin playing from Donner who shows she can keep up with the boys by playing speedy, intense sections with precision. This Dash X penned track also has extensive work by Holmes on the drums and a solo from a very jazz saxophone in the third act. Ultimately, the song doesn’t quite come together, feeling disjointed and a little over-complicated. But...Maybe that’s how it’s meant to feel. Dash was never brought into Eerie, Indiana as a writer, he was brought on to foil with Marshall on stage and because he was the only person the label could find that could play the punishingly difficult riffs Teller produces. On his Instagram speaking about pride X has suggested that a lot of his music was changed during production because it was too overtly about men, while Donner and Teller both proficiently changed pronouns in there songs, or stuck to calling their love interests you. 

The album has three tracks that feel like filler, the intermission track which is not unusual on the cinematic, large scale Eerie, Indiana albums, a seemingly ‘story’ track called ‘Lost in Time’ which is a piece of Holmes poetry performed by Donner and an odd little track called ‘We Gave This One To Tod’ While the enigmatic Tod was often credited on Eerie, Indiana albums and opened for them at live shows he never quite reached the level of recognition his peers did. However, seeing the bizarre and experimental nature of his work, and his goth and punk leanings I think it’s safe to assume he was happier underground than his friends were blinded by the lights of showbiz. This piece features heavy synths and a drum machine. It doesn’t hit for me, but perhaps for a fan of Tod, it could be a holy grail. 

On this version of the album, known as the deluxe edition, we’re given three additional tracks. A demo version of Elvis and the Mothman, which is lyrically the same slowed all the way down with the shouting chorus replaced with a mouth against the mic crooner style. The released, upbeat anthem style track is a far better fit for the album. Baba Yaga in Heels is a Heart on a Chain only track, perhaps why it was discarded. It features a techno style dance beat, with the lyrics being about a night out with Baba Yaga, a Banshee, and a harpy. Ultimately, the lyrics are not that impactful but they don’t need to be. The final listed track is a cover of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell, which lyrically and sonically is almost identical to the original. 

Overall, what Marshall’s theory of Believability tries to do is ambitious. It’s an album between two experiential groups of friends trying to make something that they enjoy. But it’s not the best work of either group, which is a shame because it could have been something very special if they were given a little more time to work out some of the kinks and if they pruned some of the tracks that are superfluous to the story of the album. I’m happy to have a copy in my collection, but honestly, I’d rather listen to something the group produced independently anyway. 

[ourimpavidheroine]

An Anniversary

Five years ago today, the 13th of February, 2015, I published, all in one shot, a piece of fanfiction called Please Excuse My Penmanship.

I hadn’t, at that point, written - never mind published - any fanfiction for over fifteen years. I had written some X-Files fanfic back in the day but I’d lost it; my backup floppies disappeared when I moved to Finland and, like just about everyone else back then, the places I had posted it to online disappeared without warning. (Toss a coin to your Archive, oh valley of plenty.) I’d been pretty torn up about losing my fic that way, which put me off writing. Time went on; I had twins in 2002 and they both turned out to have non-verbal autism and different flavors of ADD/ADHD and my life got very complicated and very difficult for a lot of years there. Writing for pleasure wasn’t even on the table.

By 2015 my life had settled a bit. My wife was disabled and suffering from severe and untreated depression and the kids were in special ed and a lot of therapies but we were managing. I had watched Avatar: The Last Airbender with my kids (on DVD - they were too young for it when it first aired) and had gone on to watch The Legend of Korra with them as well. 

I really liked Mako as a character; he was too internal and complex for most of the kids watching, however, and wasn’t well liked. Most fans saw an inflexible jerk who caused and fucked up a love triangle; what I saw was an autistic man who was suffering from pretty severe PTSD. He grabbed my interest. I related.

I really liked his dynamic with Prince Wu, despite the fact that he was a really annoying character. Queer-coded as fuck, although the showrunners were plainly ignoring it. And I started to headcanon who they would be as a couple. How to make Wu less annoying while still making him canon Wu? How to humanize Mako while still acknowledging his autism and PTSD? Headcanon was all it was, though, a way for me keep myself occupied. I’ve been writing stories inside my head as long as I can remember. It’s what I’ve always done.

I read a post on here on Tumblr where the OP stated that there was no such thing as a good Letter Fic; I thought to myself, Bet I could do it. And so in the end of January 2015 I sat down at my PC and started to type up all of my headcanon.

I went back and forth with Wu. What I first started to write was too clumsy, by half; I tried to stick to his endless slang and it was as annoying as it had ever been on the show. I knew if I stuck to that shallow, silly, stupid, canon Wu he wouldn’t be interesting to read. I struggled with it for a time until I remembered something.

My maternal grandmother told me a story once about a girl from Mexico. Claudia was her name; she was a year older than my mother. Her own mother had died when she was born; her father, who was one of my grandfather’s business partners in Mexico, had left her in the care of her grandparents, who were extraordinarily wealthy denizens of Mexico City. At some point the adults involved thought that it would be a great idea to send this girl to stay with my mother’s family to learn English; in return, my mother would then go and stay a summer in Mexico City to learn Spanish. (Which she did; she’s fluent to this day.) Claudia had no English at all but my grandmother had working Spanish and I guess they all figured it would be enough for this poor girl? 

The first day Claudia arrived in San Francisco my grandmother kindly showed her into the bathroom and told her to take a shower. My Grams realized about ten minutes or so later that the water hadn’t turned on; she went to check on her and there she was, sitting obediently on the toilet seat, fully dressed, waiting for the maid to come and undress her and turn the water on for her shower. 

She had no idea how to do either of those things for herself. She had never, at the age of thirteen, undressed herself or operated a shower. And there it was, the opening of my story. Wu remembers arriving in Republic City on the run from the Red Lotus, checking into the hotel, and having no idea whatsoever what to do next. And I thought to myself...What if he isn’t actually stupid? 

And there he was. My Wu. Just like that.

I wrote feverishly for a week, drawn into the story that was sitting in my head, waiting to be told. I didn’t have a Betareader; my wife liked my writing but rather tersely told me that TLOK wasn’t her fandom and she wasn’t interested in reading it, something that hurt me pretty deeply, especially since my X-Files fanfic was how we’d actually connected in the first place. 

(She was, at that time, in the process of slowly dying of heart failure, but I didn’t know that then.)

I wasn’t going to publish it. I just wanted to write it, to see if I still had it together after a seventeen year hiatus. Wuko wasn’t at all a popular ship; after the show finale a couple of months prior all the fanfiction being feverishly written and published was Korrasami. (In fact, I checked AO3 at the time and found exactly two Wuko fanfics, both of which were one-shots and not to my particular taste.) I went back and forth with it and then thought, Fuck it. I’ll just do it. And maybe no one will read it but at least I’ll have done it. I read it through one more time and then, on the thirteenth of February, took a deep breath, told myself to stop being a coward, and posted the entire fic at once. 

I got my first comment, and I was elated. And then I thought to myself, Well, fuck, you may as well write some of the other stuff in your head. You might learn something about yourself as a writer on the way.

Then, a few months later, on the seventeenth of June, my world fell apart. My wife, staying at our summer cottage with our twelve year old twins, died of a heart attack while the kids were off playing and I was here at home, getting ready to travel down the next day on the train to meet them all for the summer. My daughter was the one to find her; she was long past saving at that point. Family friends brought the children, our pets, and our car the two hours back home as I collapsed on the floor of our flat and rocked myself back and forth, wordlessly keening, my hands trembling uncontrollably.

The next year was unspeakable. I was a widow at forty-six; I was living in a foreign country with two disabled children, with no family or friends nearby and an imprecise grasp of the language. My wife had told me she had life insurance; she lied. I was flat broke. My grief was deep and whole and devastating; my children were traumatized and barely functioning. I had no one to help me, and I’d cook meals at midnight so my sleeping children wouldn’t hear me sobbing in the kitchen.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

I wrote out of desperation; I had to do something to keep me tethered to this world. I wrote of love and families, of a traumatized child from the street that was my daughter’s age, full of bravado and choked fury. I wrote of an autistic boy growing into a man, bullied and shunned, aching to be free, much like my own. 

I took my children to more therapists. I took myself to a therapist that turned out to be homophobic; I found another one. I made dinners; I cleaned the house, I walked in circles around my living room, whispering over and over to myself, You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay, before making another phone call.

And I wrote.

In August of 2018 my daughter attempted suicide and was hospitalized. I was trying to write I Do Not Ask The Night For Explanations and I had to stop. I had severe panic attacks whenever I tried to work on it. I brought her home and I cut my work hours down to four hours a week so that I could be with her at all times; she wasn’t safe to be left alone. I cared for her. I cared for her twin, who was terrified, unable to sleep, afraid that if he wasn’t watching her she’d try it again. I fought until I got them different therapists. I stopped sleeping. My health suffered.

And I wrote. When I could. It was, without any doubt at all, the only thing that was keeping me going during that time. I would tell myself that I had to keep going, that I still had so much of this story in my head, I needed to get it out. Sometimes I would write while sobbing. Sometimes I would sit here at my desk and nothing would come. I just kept going, though.

It’s better now. She missed most of last year of school and is making it up this year and doing so well. Her brother is at a new school and has, for the first time in his life, made friends. I was able, in December, to actually leave them for three days; the first time I had been away from them since we lost their mother. 

They’ll be eighteen this summer and we’re finally able to breathe. We’re moving forward, the three of us. We’re still broken, but we’re making something new out of the pieces instead of trying to put them back together.

My writing is what saved me. It wasn’t about how many hits/comments/kudos I got; I appreciate every single one I get, believe me. But the writing was making me hold myself accountable, making myself get out of bed, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, sit down and try. Sometimes that was all I could manage; the writing just wasn’t happening. But it gave me a goal when I needed one. And boy, did I need one.

Thank you all for reading. For those of you that have been there since the beginning and those who just started reading now. For those who faded away from the fandom over time or who left because they didn’t like how the story was going; I wish you well and thanks for reading when you did. Thank you for the hits and the kudos and the comments. You may not have known you were helping to save me, but you were. So thank you.

I am not done writing yet. I am not oblivious; I know I am so far in AU territory now that you’re for all intents and purposes reading original fic. That’s okay. It’s the story that was in my head, that is still in my head. Maybe someday I’ll try to publish it and maybe I won’t, and I’m fine with that. I’m not ready at this point to do what’s necessary to take it past fanfic and that’s okay. It has served and is continuing to serve its purpose for me; if you all enjoy it then that’s just biscuits and gravy, as my Great-Aunt Margie used to say.

I wrote us all a little anniversary ficlet; this takes it full circle for me. (And then back I go to Wu and Qi’s wedding!) 

Mind the warnings at the bottom if you think you need them.

Chapter 132: 252: Wu