#if anyone wants to expand on this pretty please tag me so i can see

[gloriousbookwyrm]

Had an idea for an Azul/Jade thing, but I didn’t want to write a whole fic for it, so it’s just a snippet

Features: Eel Mating Behavior, Azul being oblivious, slightly suggestive

Azul walked into his office in the Mostro Lounge to see his laptop lying open. He wasn’t particularly concerned, Jade had been watching the door, so he knew it could only have been him or Floyd. That said, even if he didn’t have to worry about his secrets getting out, the both of them did like to mess around with it whenever they figured out his password. If it had been Floyd, there would be something mortifying, likely involving tentacles, with the volume set high, but he would have stuck around to see his reaction, and only Jade was standing outside. So it was probably him, but he was a bit more unpredictable.

That concerned Azul. Lately, Jade had been occasionally yawning when Azul tried to plan things with him, big exaggerated ones, showing all of his teeth, even the pharyngeal jaw. Concerned about this sign of disinterest, Azul had tried coming up with bigger, more complicated schemes, but that had only increased the frequency of the yawns. Clearly, Jade was growing bored of their games, and if he was bored, Floyd probably was too, or would be soon. Both twins had made it clear that they were only sticking around as long as Azul stayed interesting. He knew he couldn’t hold their attention forever, but this just felt too soon, there was so much he’d had planned. He’d hoped they would stay for the rest of their time in school, at least. Anyway, with Jade so clearly bored, he could have done anything to Azul’s laptop in the hopes of getting an interesting reaction, and he had no way of predicting what. He breathed deeply, and pressed the trackpad to wake it up.

It was an article on moray eel behavior. It seemed to be written by humans, and they tended to get things about the denizens of the deep about as accurately as the Atlantica Memorial Museum labeled their human artifacts. Perhaps the joke here was just that there was an error that Jade found particularly funny? He had highlighted a section under “Mating,” so Azul cautiously scanned it.

“Moray eels indicate a desire to mate by opening their mouths wide and displaying their teeth.”

Well that couldn’t be true, Floyd tended to show his teeth off whenever he spoke, even around people he found too boring too even want to squeeze. Maybe they meant their mouth had to be open wide enough to see the pharyngeal jaw? But Jade was extremely conscientious about how he presented himself. Surely he would make sure to cover his yawns with a hand or something if they could really be construed as sexual interest.

As Azul felt a blush crawl up his cheeks, he realized what the trap here was. Obviously Jade knew he had noticed his growing disinterest, and Azul suspected that he had not been as subtle as he had hoped in trying to step up his schemes to prevent this. By putting this (likely highly inaccurate) article in front of him, Jade was giving Azul an alternate interpretation of his behavior to latch onto in his desperation not to be left behind, and a way to inevitably embarrass himself if he ever acted on it. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to fall for this now!

Unfortunately, he did not come to that resolution in time to stop Jade from seeing his blush, and he immediately spoke up, smirking slightly. “See anything interesting?”

“This amusing article you left open. The humans who wrote it seem to think the oddest things about how you mate. If any of this were true, you’d practically be flashing me every time you yawned!”

“Yes. Yes I would.” To Azul’s distress, Jade’s tone sounded annoyed and he pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a headache as he walked away. That was not at all the sardonic grin Jade normally had when Azul saw through him. He really was planning to leave, wasn’t he?

Azul was so fucked.

[drowninginships]

Wip Wednesday

Very excited that I finally made a banner! Did I do this instead of actually writing something for this post? Yes! Did I let it stop me? Absolutely not. Everyone has a banner and I wanted to fit in.

Anyway, thank you for @monbons for tagging me! You're so nice and you make my heart happy <3

So I guess I'm finally gonna share a snippet from the (currently untitled) Wing Fic. I'm writing this as a gift for my best friend @valeffelees even though I have never ever written wings in anything. But I love him, and for him, I will learn.

I'd rate this M, but I'll just put a disclaimer here, this is pretty mild but technically NSFW :)

Against my will, my eyes slip closed and my world goes dark. There's only pressure, only friction, only heat. Only Simon. Only ever Simon. When I finally manage to pry my eyes open again, hoping to see the expression on his face, my breath is stolen from my lungs. Red. Everything is red, and orange, and soft, and warm. Simon's wings have fully expanded in his passion, and as I gaze through the clouds of my lust, I can see the sunlight shining through the thin leathery membrane. Small, delicate red veins spread like a mosaic before me. I've never seen something so exquisite.

And there, that's all you're getting from me today. I hope you like it, please let me know what you think!! And I'm gonna add some no-pressure tags <3 @beastmonstertitan @valeffelees @roomwithanopenfire @mooncello @thewholelemon @youarenevertooold @raenestee @blackberrysummerblog @prettygoododds @brilla-brilla-estrellita and anyone else that wants to participate!

[cockslutpadalecki]

Fifteen Sentence Challenge

Yes, I am back with another sentence limit challenge to celebrate 15K of you (wut?) I had so much fun the last time, I couldn’t resist hosting another! You can see masterlists for the previous rounds of this here and here.

Same advisories/conditions apply as before which are as follows;

✎ All of the prompts are sexual in nature, so respectfully, all participants, and anyone requesting anything from me must be 18+.

✎ Send an ask to request the prompt number or the line itself included with your character of choice. Include any specific kinks you’d like (if any). Please make it clear if your ask is for ME to write for you or if you are the one taking the prompt to write for yourself.

✎ Characters (please note: you can alter/expand on these if you wish to participate— these are just the characters I’m limiting myself to). 

TO WRITE:

Steve Rogers/Lloyd Hansen/Andy Barber/Ari Levinson/Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans)

Rafe Cameron (Outer Banks)

Joel Miller (The Last of Us)

TO READ:

All of the above plus Bucky Barnes/Lee Bodecker/Steve Kemp/Lance Tucker (Sebastian Stan)

✎ ALL tropes/kinks are welcome except for lactation/holding kink/underage. I will not read/write those. Everything else is very much encouraged. Bonus points for meanness or step-relations. And I reserve the right to decline a prompt/character if, for any reason, I cannot fulfil that particular combination/it goes against what I am willing to write.

✎ Reader inserts only however every kind of reader is welcome. F/M, GN, POC, etc— I don’t exclude anyone here. 

✎ No word limit BUT it must not exceed fifteen sentences. That’s the whole point of the challenge.

✎ Warnings must be tagged appropriately. That being said, I reserve the right to not reblog any post.

✎ You don’t have to be following me to participate, but I’m always down to make new friends.

✎ Tag me in your work and use the tag “look ma I did it - fifteen sentences” within the first five tags.

✎ There is no definitive end date, but I will be compiling a masterlist from 1st April onwards.

✎ Please reblog and share this post if you can, the more people involved, the better and if you have any questions or queries, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Hey! Why not reblog this post and ask your followers to request something from you? 

PROMPTS

There are no limits on how many people can choose the same prompt. And if you finish with one prompt, you can pick another… and another… and another. Go wild! This challenge is meant to inspire. If you want to message me and let me know what prompts you’re thinking of using, that’s fine, but it’s not mandatory.

“Do I look like I’m messing around? Do I look like I won’t punish you?”

“Fucking is a reward, but you haven’t been good.”

“Move an inch and you won’t be coming tonight.”

“I won’t apologise for marking you up, everyone should know you’re taken.”

“Come one more time for me, I know you’ve got it in you.”

“I don’t care if it takes all night, you will submit.”

“Are you holding back? Don’t.”

“It’s hot when you talk back.”

"Maybe I should get you a collar so you don't forget who you belong to."

"I think I like you better with a gag in your mouth."

“You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat.”

“I know you said no marks… But what if I put them where nobody except for me will see them?”

“When I tell you to sit on my face, I want you to sit, is that clear?”

“It’s more fun for me when you beg.”

“You better shut that pretty little mouth before I put it to work.”

(No pressure) tagging some mutuals: @princessmisery666 @sweeterthanthis @darkficsyouneveraskedfor @springdandelixn @cherienymphe @navybrat817 @targaryenvampireslayer @flordeamatista @mypoisonedvine @letsby @late-to-the-party-81 @xsapphirescrollsx @boxofbonesfic @sgt-seabass @b3autyfuldisast3r @straywords​ @sparkledfirecracker @americasass81 @slothspaghettiwrites @dreamlessinparis @hansensgirl @syntheticavenger @sagechanoafterdark @caffiend-queen

[365runesoftheamalgamations]

The Not Yet Forgotten Introduction

hello and how are you?

This has been far too long since we have been active and we've wanted to get back into the flow of things! And we believe it is time for a Reintroduction! So, without further ado,

A Proper Introduction

Welcome to the Writing Blog! We are the Not Yet Dead Authors, the Natsume Rune! You may refer to us as Natsume as a whole, or say hi to any of the specifics who run the blog/do the writes! Our pronouns are we/they, and we are an aromantic/asexual genderfluid cluster of whispers drowning in the Void for more than two decades. So just another set of Wanderers who wish to reach out and touch the Worlds in a more pronounced way!

Full Writeblr Introduction under the cut!

Getting To Know Us

We are most comfortable writing and conversing in italics! It just feels like it speaks with our souls, so please be aware that most of the posts and such will be within that realm of writing.

Our most comfortable sense of writing is in third person present tense! We also write in first person (sometimes) and second person (rarely) but our comfort lies in others and their present.

We write mostly fantasy but also dabble in horror, science fiction, dystopian and other works and writing styles. We do hold our own universe, the Storyverse, that we will hint, note, and talk about, depending on things, as well as a multitude of Worlds that will be given over to the Stories happening within in. Hardcore about both worldbuilding and storytelling, so we will probably have a lot to say about both the Worlds and Stories that come with our hyperfixations.

Our writing forms include: fanfiction, short stories, drabbles, flash fiction, novels, poems, and role playing! We enjoy rolling through forms and trying out different ways of telling and sharing stories, so please note that there will be a lot of everything on here.

We follow from the System's Blog, @365runesofthesystem, and will try to be really active in the community, so if you see us around, then feel free to indulge us! We love to be tagged in games and sent asks and the like and will try to get to all of them in due time. [ yes, we do hoard Tag Games, shut the fuck up about it. ]

If there is anything else anyone would like to know, do not hesitate to ask or message us! But be aware that we are not afraid to deal with anything impolite or inappropriate, we have a zero tolerance standard and we will keep it without hesitation.

The Amalgamations of our Creations

We have a lot - and yes, we mean a fuck ton - of Works and Stories that we want to tell at some point in our lives, so this list will definitely grow and expand and shift as we go through our journey.

If you want a full list of all of our Works, check our both our Original Works Masterlist and our Fanworks Masterlist!

All Links to WIP Pages and Intro Posts will be added as we get things sorted and settled!

But here are a few of our more pronounced Works, [ yes, they can and will probably shift and change. No they are not in any particular order, we hate figuring out orders. ]

Grayland's Shadow

Original Work | Fiction, Low Fantasy, Horror Elements First, Second, Third Person | Second Drafts

Ecstasy. The screaming, the struggling, the pleas for mercy, he loved them all. He loved the way they always seemed to think that he would set them free. That, if they were good and tried hard enough, he would just let them live, bleeding and knowing. As if he would ever let anyone go. He never did. He never wasted an opportunity either. So when a girl, around her way into adulthood, sat down next to him on the bench that day, he had no intention of letting her go. None.

Constellations By Orion

Original Work | Fiction, High Fantasy, Action and Adventure Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Worldbuilding

Orion is the first one she goes for, as he always points North. "I am just saying, your little stowaway is pretty cute." "I don't need a man Orion, I need directions across the sea." "Trust me, if you want a purpose, you should find Ursa Major. She's the guide of adventure, new life." "And where can I find her?" "At the heart of the ocean. She is the Guardian of Polaris and her baby, Ursa Minor."

The Queen & The Heir

Short Story | Fiction, High Fantasy, Medival Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Prompt Response

She hates herself for hesitating. She stares at the note, gentle cream instead of stark white in order to hold the same connotations of the maid notes that she, and more importantly he, was accustomed to seeing. She glances at the Guard, barely catches the door closing completely, locking her in with the words that would prove herself justified. Or truly and quietly mad.

The Rapunzel Witch

Short Stories | Fiction, High Fantasy, Fairytale Retellings, LGBTQIA+ Third Person Present Tense | Chapter/Scene Drafting

Vibrant and sharp, it is another small check to his identity; the Queen is staring at him, though instead of the hard determination of a leader, he stands before the soft gentleness of a person unused to such direct contact. Something shifts in those eyes; the Royal Majesty frowns more before he lets his eyes drop to the ground between them. “Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?” The Knight feels a soft pang; he almost takes a step forward, hand twitching at his side before the Royal spins around and walks away from him. “Your obligations are fulfilled; the Rapunzel Witch lives.”

The Plague Begins With Me

Original Work | Dystopian, Horror Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting

Lost to the devastation of the Plague and destroyed by the aftermath of Humanity’s Fall, the World of Zeomia holds nothing but the dystopian devastation of disease and decay. Shouldering a responsibility that no one else is allowed to know, Zero tries to give mercy to those who have fallen from her own twisted fate.

Main Tags of the Blog

rune ⊹ writings | general writing tag rune ⊹ works in progress | where you can find all of our works rune ⊹ wanderlust | general tag for other blogs rune ⊹ nonsense | fun and silly things outside of the writings/writeblr rune ⊹ beloved | general tag for the mutuals of the writeblr rune ⊹ asks | tag for answering asks and anything from the inbox rune ⊹ authors | writing updates and softer thoughts of us rune ⊹ background noise | anything to do with the blog

[bobafett]

stealing this because the boops made me realize how much i miss tag games.

How many works do you have on AO3? A grand total of 14. I am not a prolific writer.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 63,880. Please see above answer.

What fandoms do you write for? Batman and Star Wars. I have a little bit of Supernatural fic posted on an alt account, and I've been turning over an idea for an OW fic in my head for a while, but it takes me a long time to figure out how to write in a fandom in a way that still captures the "vibes" of the source material (which is always one of my goals). So I rarely branch out.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? New Cornerstone (suitless!Vader AU from a million years ago), Brothers in Arms (Jon starts to get an inkling that his best friend has perhaps not had a normal childhood), Setting the Bone (Selina Kyle: reluctant parental figure), In This Twilight (Damian and Jason brotherly bonding, first batfam fic I ever wrote), and Try to Sweep the Darkness Out (batfam Christmas special that I've almost orphaned 10 times because I hate the writing choices I made in it so much). None of the fics I'm actually proud of are on this list. Tragic.

Do you respond to comments? Irregularly and unpredictably! I will if I feel like I have something to say and it catches me in the right mood.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uh, that would be High Water Mark since it starts with a scene of Cody contemplating suicide and ends with the instant right before Order 66 kicks in.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably Problem Solving since it's the only fic I've ever written where I was actually trying to be light hearted.

Do you get hate on fics? Never, thankfully.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If I thought I could do it successfully, I would. But I'm not, so I don't.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Basically never. There is a Doctor Who/Sherlock fic buried on my old FF.net account. There's also a Super Smash Bros fic on there that I wrote in 2009, which I suppose also counts.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I can't imagine why anyone would.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, and I never would. I'm too much of a control freak about my writing. Writing, say, shared universe stuff might be fun, but actually co-authoring something would drive me nuts.

What’s your all time favorite ship? What a question. I come back to Jaime/Brienne a lot for reading, but I don't think I'd ever write it. I write a ton of BatCat, but rarely read it because I'm particular. I like Lois/Clark, but I almost never write OR read it. I'm honestly not very ship motivated. Most of the time I filter for a ship because I'm in the mood for its attendant tropes, and if the writing is good, you can sell me on just about anything.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Hmngh. New Cornerstone again. There's 20k of an expanded version of it on my hard drive that I haven't added to since probably 2017. There's something very fun about suitless!Vader as a character because he's such a sparking, destructive livewire of a person, but also I'm experienced enough now to realize how difficult doing justice to that premise is. Also, I'd have to rewatch TCW to get Ahsoka's voice down, and I just don't got time for that shit.

What are your writing strengths? Description and sense of place. Also pretty good at dialogue.

What are your writing weaknesses? Fucking. Long fic. Plot in general. I'm horrifically bad at it.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'm usually inclined to keep all my dialogue in English, but it would depend on the context and the effect I was going for.

First fandom you wrote for? Purposefully? Inuyasha. Without having any idea what fanfic was? I created an Artemis Fowl fairy OC and stuck her in Indiana Jones when I was 10 years old.

Favorite fic you’ve written? They Don't Sing Songs For Me. No contest. It's perfectly captures what I think is the ideal form of fanfic: two characters who have absolutely no business interacting with each other building a compelling relationship dynamic over the course of 9k words.

I will be tagging @panharmonium, @apostatefrog, @dead-ghost-walking, @ryehouses, @yellowocaballero, @lazuliquetzal. Also anyone else who wants to. I will bring back tag games by force of will, so help me God.

[marley-manson]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

I was tagged by @majorbaby, thank you!

I'm tagging @beansterpie @undecimber-of-joy @hetakiba @ofdemonsandangels @yeehawkpierce @hawkfawun @nimuetheseawitch @ofmdmash @quordleona03 @pomegranate @actingcamplibrarian and anyone else who sees this and writes fic and wants to do it, please do and tag me.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

7 fics, 15 works if we're including vids.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

68,280 words!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mash and Berserk are the only fandoms I've ever finished fic in.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Refraction, Snowmelt, Presumed Dead (though that one may be off slightly because it got hit with a kudos bot for a couple hours before I privated it for a day :| Still, idt it's inflated by much), Army Style, and Under the Influence

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yep!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Toss up between Army Style and War Bonds, but they're both variations on the same theme of Hawkeye's friends dragging him into army conformity. Army Style is probably a little worse actually since I do subtly imply that his post-war life is impacted too.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Presumed Dead and Snowmelt are the ones that end with happily ever after vibes. Snowmelt might be the happiest just in contrast to the source material lol, plus Presumed Dead does have a reminder of the issues they still need to overcome, while I kinda breeze past those in Snowmelt.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not to my knowledge. Never gotten any mean comments.

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

I have 2 fics I'd consider smutfics, but I don't think it's really my wheelhouse. I feel like I can write sex okay, but not when the point is just to be sexy. I'd classify the kind of smut I write as thematically driven lol, or character driven. I need there to be a point, even in basic smut, or I can't write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No lol I don't have the imagination for it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I'm aware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

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

Nope.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

idk! I still go back to Fraser/Vecchio every few years, my love for them just doesn't die for some reason. Griffguts definitely wins in terms of content I've created though, if you put all my meta about them together it's probably encylopedia length.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My apostle Guts concept. I'd love for it to exist in full, but I just don't think it's something I can write. Even if I have the ability, I don't have the drive or the creativity to expand it into a full longfic, which I think it needs to be.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm pretty good at characterization and character voice. I've got a solid handle on grammar, and I think I'm decent at general flow with my prose. I feel like my fics are reasonably readable. And I can be funny imo. I also think my lack of ~poetic soul~ can be a strength, at least for myself, because I personally am not very into particularly poetic writing. I like concrete, in-the-moment action rather than more abstract vibes, and I think my writing reflects that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I feel like I'm bad at conveying emotion lol. Others have said that they found some of my fics effectively emotional and I'm very happy about that, but if so I think that's incidental of what I'm writing, rather than how I'm writing it. My lack of poetry here is maybe more of a flaw than a strength.

I also worry about my prose being dry, feeling like a slog to read, and/or ungrounded in descriptive detail. I'm inclined towards talking heads floating in a void exchanging dialogue and I have to work to add a sense of setting.

And I have a dismal work ethic lol. I write when and what the mood takes me, I can't sit and force myself to knock out a few hundred words. I have many wips going at once so that when inspiration for one dries up I can turn to another, but I often go long stretches without writing at all. It took me like 2 years to write Army Style.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Idk. I guess I'd say do it if it makes sense for the character and you speak the language or know someone who can effectively translate what you want to say, rather than relying on google translate? Though I feel like you shouldn't include a translation if you're doing this lol, unless it's like, a Discworld or Good Omens fic where end notes are part of the prose style and you're doing something funny with it. It's just clunky in terms of reading experience. Make the meaning obvious through context, or irrelevant but a bonus for multi-lingual readers. Or just use translation convention.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I guess it'd be Harry Potter lol, scribbling mary sue marauder-era fic ideas out in a notebook back when I was 12.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It's Army Style. I'm still kinda coasting on a warm glow of pride for finishing it lol. It's the longest thing I've ever written, a fair amount of research went into it (albeit reading I was doing anyway because I enjoy it lol), and imo it's honestly pretty good as a Hawkbi character study that balances real history and Mash vibes. Better than I thought I'd ever be able to write a few years ago.

[sandradoodles]

oh my gosh, I love you adrienette bffs and ladynoir obsessively in love with each other idea. it gives amazing development and irony to both main ships of the love square at the same time! can’t imagine the looks of adrien & marinette’s faces when the reveal happens and they’re just like, “I can’t believe how stupidly in love I was and still am with you?? I should be thrown but I want to marry you even more now???”

(This is the original post, for the uninitiated; anyone who is interested should please check all the tags and comments over there because people have expanded on the idea in absolutely brilliant amazing ways that I never would have thought of. TEAMWORK IS BEAUTIFUL, I love this fandom.)

I have developed such a fast attachment to this au haha. Best Bros Adrienette and Actual Couple Ladynoir have sooooo much potential for consistent development throughout the whole story, more so imo than the actual canon setup. I do have an idea of how I think events would progress and cobbled various scenarios into this rough timeline fic that devolves into notes and then almost-fic again and then more notes at the end because I can't seem to decide if I'm writing a real thing or just yelling my story ideas at everyone. Either way, I WROTE A LOT, hope you enjoy!!

----

Seeing her ladybugs repair everything for the first time fills her with a sense of wonder and triumph, erasing her first mistake with Stoneheart so thoroughly that she feels like they repaired something inside of her as well. Ladybug's confidence swells, and she thinks to herself: yes, they can do this!

"All right, now we've got to get out of here before we transform back!

"Wait-- Ladybug!" She stops and turns back to her new superhero partner, who reaches out to take her hand. She allows it, considering what they just went through. "That was incredible." A smile spreads across her face. He's as much in awe of her new powers as she is, it seems, and he's right. They've done something incredible together.

"I’ll be quick. I just want to say..." He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "I know I was a little over-eager before. Getting the chance to be Chat Noir, it changes everything for me."

He's been full of jokes until now, and this sudden rush of sincerity touches her. They don't have much time before they transform back, but she's transfixed, unable to bring herself to hurry him along for some reason. Her face feels strangely warm.

"I was already looking forward to being a superhero, and now, knowing that I get to do it all with you? Well..." He gives her a grin, back to playful sauciness, but this time it doesn't trigger her impatience. She isn't sure what it's triggering. "I'm ready to follow you anywhere."

She ends up barely getting to cover before her earrings run out of time, and she tells herself that her heart is pounding because of the close call. But that is definitely not the reason.

----

As soon as Nathaniel--well, the akumatized version of him--leaves her room, Marinette leaps to her feet and transforms. What a crazy day! She’s going to have to think of something clever if she wants to manage this situation from both the Marinette and Ladybug sides...

There’s an alert from her yo-yo before she can fully settle on a course of action.

“Hey Chat Noir,” she answers, trying to sound casual. “How are things going with Chloe?”

“Oh, charming.” She is privately beyond pleased to hear the dripping sarcasm. “Listen, she did give me a clue though, by accident. I think the villain might be after this girl--” There’s a chime from her bug phone. Ladybug checks the screen to see a picture of herself (her other self, that is), giving a wide smile and cheesy victory sign. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Pretty cute, isn’t she?” 

“Wha-- buh-- you think-- Marinette-- cute?” GET IT TOGETHER, GIRL; why is she talking like this all of a sudden??

He laughs, a dreamy sound even over the phone.

“Not as cute as another girl I know. It sounds like there’s something wrong with our connection, so I’ll make this quick. Can you keep an eye on her? I’m sending you the address.”

“I-- I can’t,” she stammers, trying to figure her way out of this one. “You’re going to have to do it. I've got... a special mission!” Oh no that sounds so fake; he’s going to figure her out--

“Great! Chloe can do her own homework.” Okay, he’s just relieved. “I’ll head right over there.” He hangs up without further question and she experiences a moment of relief herself before the panic sets in.

Wait, Chat Noir is coming to her house? Noooo, what if she turns into a complete babbling disaster again? 

(Spoilers, that is exactly what happens.)

----

The first time Marinette suspects Adrien of being Chat Noir she is very uncomfortable with the possibility. It doesn’t even make sense, like why is she even considering something so insane... Just because they have the same allergy?? Chat Noir is a handsome, confident, utterly swoon-worthy daredevil; Adrien is a very nice, kind of awkward, and totally naive boy in her class. Once she gets the tiniest piece of evidence that swings in favor of them being different people, she is more than happy to lay that silly theory to rest.

After a while, she's put the thought so far out of her mind that she forgets she ever had it in the first place.

----

“There’s this... girl.” Adrien blushes, and he looks so adorable that Marinette just wants to put him in her pocket.

“A giiirl? That is so cute! Who is she? Do I knooow her?”

He flaps his hands at her, possibly regretting the decision to say anything. It’s too late now; Marinette is like a dog with a bone.

“No, no, you don’t know her. She’s my-- my pen-pal!”

“You have a pen-pal?” Well, if that isn’t just the sweetest thing she’s ever heard. And kind of sad. Was that his only way of making friends before he was able to come to school? 

“Right. And sometimes we... video chat?” He’s so awkward; why does it sound like he’s asking a question?

Marinette continues to press.

“And you liiike her?”

Adrien hesitates, and she thinks about how rarely he must have the chance to talk to anyone about his feelings. He’s barely allowed to leave the house (seriously, the scheme she had to come up with just to get him permission to visit her today...), his mother is gone, and his father might be one of the most emotionally withholding people on the planet.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she assures him. “But I might be able to help you out. I can give you insight, from a feminine perspective.” It’s a bold claim from a girl sitting with her legs spread-eagled on the floor and croissant crumbs on her shirt.

“She’s... so amazing,” Adrien sighs, and at that moment a new level of friendship unlocks between them. Love guru Marinette is on the case. She’s already formulating a plan; gosh, she is going to help this sweet naive boy so much and definitely not make everything more difficult for anyone involved!

----

Ladybug saves Chat Blanc but wrecks her own heart in the process. Now she's seen for herself what it would mean for her to act on her feelings for her superhero partner. Her love doomed him to the most miserable existence she can imagine; how could she ever allow herself to risk that happening again?

But she's shown Chat Noir too much of her hand, too much of her heart. In order to convince him to give up on her, she has to do something unforgivable: she has to lie to him.

Two days later, Marinette and Adrien are hanging out in the safe space of her room. He sighs and admits, "She turned me down. She said... there's someone else."

He looks absolutely wretched, and Marinette immediately flies into a frenzy. That sounds fake, just-- utterly ridiculous (and you know she wouldn't borrow words from Chloe of all people unless they actually suited the situation.) Who would turn down Adrien? He's kind, and cute, and multi-talented, and tons of other positive things! She tells him as much, with a great deal of emphatic gesturing and stomping back and forth across her room.

"You can't give up, Adrien! Promise me you'll keep trying!" Even if her own happiness can never be realized, she will NOT allow the same fate to befall her friend, who deserves some happiness more than anyone!

The next day, after they've captured the latest akuma, Chat Noir catches Ladybug by the wrist before she can yo-yo away.

"Hey, I'm about to change back!" She still has a good three minutes and they both know it, but the feel of his hand is dangerous and she wants to run.

"I have to tell you something first. I... I'm not giving up. I'm in love with you, and my feelings aren't going to change. I just want you to know that." He releases her hand as soon as his declaration is finished. She wants to throw her arms around him. She wants to throw him off the roof. She manages to keep herself from acting on either impulse, and instead just... bails without a word.

Later, as Marinette lies in bed with her insides doing some sort of crazy churning, fluttering dance between guilt and hope, a thought worms its way into her brain: isn't the timing of her love life and Adrien's a bit... coincidental?

She doesn't voice this thought aloud, to Tikki or even herself.

----

Ladybug keeps up the facade as best as she can, though there are times where her acting becomes so flimsy she just knows Chat can see right through her. Surely all of Paris can see right through her.

Then one day everything really falls apart.

"I don’t... I don’t know if I can do this.”

Chat Noir is right by her side, as he's always been, despite her repeated attempts to create some distance between them. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, firm and reassuring, and she leans in towards him despite herself. "Don't say that, m'lady... You're going to be an amazing guardian. I know it."

"No, I--" She shouldn't be saying this, not to him. But she can't go to Alya, who is too curious for her own good and would want all the details she can't share, and Adrien... Well, Adrien would be the perfect person to talk to about her anxieties if not for the fact that Kagami has somehow gotten it in her head that he and Marinette are, what? Secretly in LOVE with each other or something? Marinette can't confide in him right now; she needs to give them both some space so he can figure out his feelings and ask Kagami out already, then she'll realize that Marinette was never a threat and they can all be friends again. (And Adrien can fully move on from his mystery girl, who only seems to hurt him lately.)

Until then... staying away from him is painful, more than she wants to admit. The pressure, the isolation, the fear of failure have all been creeping up on her so long. Why does it feel like she always has to be the responsible one, always has to make a sacrifice so that someone else can be happy?

“I’m so tired,” Ladybug admits, a faint quaver in her voice. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up-- being responsible for everything, protecting other people, always... lying to everyone.”

"You've never lied to me," Chat Noir says, and tries to put his arm around her shoulders. She ducks away from him.

"Are you serious? I lie to you all the time! I've been lying to you since the day you told me how you feel about me! Don't tell me you really think--" 

Wait.

Wait. 

How is she only just now realizing that Chat Noir... is an idiot? 

"Do you actually believe I’m not in love with you?" She’s been fighting so hard but her true feelings are still so obvious, aren't they? Aren't they??

Apparently not. He’s just... staring at her, absolutely dumb-founded. Oh no. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, this was a terrible idea, now she has to figure out how to fix this before it blows up in her--

That thought falls right out of her brain because Chat Noir has now pulled her into the kind of embrace that Marinette used to have wistful daydreams about on a regular basis.

“Do you mean that?” he asks, breathing the words into her hair, and his voice is actually trembling with hope. How she wishes she could feel the way he does, like the doors of possibility are flung wide open. Even for a second...

“Of course I do, but--” The words start tumbling out of her mouth, and before long she's telling him things she never meant to tell him, about her feelings, about her fears, about Chat Blanc. Not everything about Chat Blanc; even as all her walls are crumbling, she shields him from the worst of it. But she shares enough for him to understand.

“And that’s why I’ve had to keep pushing you away, pretending like I’m not in love with you! If I let it happen-- if I tell you my identity--”

He interrupts her with a brush of his hand against her cheek. “I’ve never needed to know your identity to be in love with you.”

She somehow manages to meet his eyes. How is he like this? She just told him that he might end up miserable, alone and devastated if he takes a chance on her, and his response is to make a tender declaration that weakens her at the knees.

"Did you even hear what I just said?"

"I heard you,” he assures. “But... just because that happened once doesn't mean it's the only thing that can happen! It could be something different this time, something incredible. We could be something incredible."

Something about his sincerity is infectious. She's dizzy, his words are giving her a fever. He loves her so much.

"Please... take my hand, m'lady. We could go anywhere together."

She doesn't bother with his hand. She grabs him by his face, feels the exact plunging physical sensation that accompanies a leap from a tall cliff, and kisses him with the fervor of a love long deferred.

----

AND BOOM, power couple Ladynoir is a thing. There are a few bumps in the road but about 95% of the dysfunction that arises in S4 (in canon) is eliminated because they TALK TO EACH OTHER and RESPECT EACH OTHER’S FEELINGS. Chat Noir is all too happy to bring in new team members because she trusts him with the details (and it’s hard to be jealous when you’re getting regular smooching time with your superhero gf.) He’s her #1 confidant and he knows it. She can finally let herself trust someone else and step out of the pressure cooker that is her own expectations/need to control everything all the time.

Meanwhile bff Adrienette have been working on the problem of Adrien’s crappy life (in this au the dodgeball conversation from Risk happens about two seasons earlier and without requiring the influence of an akumatized villain.) With Marinette having his back, Adrien is able to start looking forward and thinking about what he wants for HIMSELF and his OWN FUTURE. His entire circle of support is expanded because Marinette helps him assimilate more closely into their friend group, and because her parents have essentially adopted him. He gets the chance to process the fact that his father is a terrible person in a gradual, healthy way (which better prepares him for the eventual revelation that the guy is a legit supervillain.)

Felix has to come up with some new sneakiness to take Adrien's place in Risk, because Adrien turns down his offer to help in this version. Later, when Ladybug tells Chat to de-transform and prevent Strikeback from duplicating his power, he has nothing to prove and actually listens to her, meaning... he's not around when she comes up with her plan to recruit a new hero. She goes to grab Adrien, her dear friend, and Marinette lizard brain knows something is wrong but she tells herself it's because of the akuma, and because not having Chat by her side is messing with her head too. They capture the akuma and defeat the sentimonster, Strikeback never gets to Cataclysm anything and Paris is 90% less destroyed than it is in canon, so things seem pretty good until the inevitable happens and Felix steals Ladybug's yo-yo.

Panic attack in Adrien's room. Miraculous, gone. When Adrien throws open the bathroom door, Ladybug hasn't run off yet because Marinette needs him--Adrien, her friend, the person who hands out second chances like candy. It's a character trait that annoyed her when those chances were being handed to Chloe, or Adrien's father, or anyone else she deemed undeserving, but now Ladybug is the one who's made an unforgivable mistake, the one who’s lost everything--

"You can't blame yourself," he insists, and he's putting his arms around her for some reason, pulling her close. "If I'd only told you before... I've wanted to so badly, from the beginning. This wouldn't have happened if you knew who I am... m'lady."

She clings to him. While everything else collapses around her, one thing suddenly falls into place. She's been in love with Adrien Agreste this entire time.

----

And THAT'S AS FAR AS I'VE GOTTEN IN ANY DETAIL. Adrien doesn't totally blame himself for the mistaken identity, he just helps her lift some of the blame off herself. I feel like there's a good chunk of time where Ladybug knows who Chat is but they mutually agree she should stay anonymous. The Ladrien is GLOWING. Marinette has to pretend everything is normal and also like she's not absolutely head over heels in love with her bff, which is... exactly as convincing as one would expect. The final reveal is beautiful!!

[another-danganronpa-fan]

Adding on to my DRDT Heathers AU????

Admittedly I've had this AU in my drafts for a really long time and finally decided to post it one day to clean out my drafts. But seeing someone make art for it has made me plunge into obsession once again.

OKKK SO!!! Since @ccrisntok made art of the Heathers AU recently (I seriously can't thank them enough, they're super talented so please check their page out!!) and added some things which I thought made so much sense, I've decided to expand on the Heathers AU a little bit as well with things I realized after I clicked post!! Consider this like a part 2 LOL -Everything that @/ccrisntok said in their post is canon to this AU now LOL (and they made some really good points too), including but not limited to Eden liking Arei, Xander outing Eden by accident, Arturo's red bowtie being the red scrunchie, Ace and Levi lying about Xander beating them up, and Levi being more of a "bodyguard" -Xander is someone who wants to hold on to the past as said in his bonus episode, so this fits well with Veronica, who wishes things would go back to they way they were when everyone was young. -During Fight for Me, I can kinda imagine Teruko and Ace absolutely going for each other's throats while Levi's kinda just there to make sure Ace doesn't die. This one's more of a joke and is optional to the AU LOL

-Teruko genuinely cared for Xander. So if in this AU the events in the killing game like Xander betraying Teruko never happened, and all the stuff with Chariton never happened, I think Teruko would still like Xander more than everyone else.

-Teruko was already distrusting of others even before the killing game. In Prologue EP 4, we see her asking Xander something like "What reason do we have to trust one another?" Considering that Westerburg High isn't exactly welcoming or kind, seeing all the bullying around her might drive her to act more like her Chapter 2 self. Instead of thinking "Even my best friend in the killing game betrayed me. I can't get close to anyone because of my luck and people will always end up betraying me", her thought process might end up like "Look at all this bullying and betrayal in this stupid school. No one here has been trustworthy or been kind towards me except Xander." -Adding on to that, Xander says to Teruko that he chooses to trust everyone there. Just like how Veronica sees the good in everyone. -Teruko's luck. Her luck would probably be a factor in this AU. Like @/ccrisntok said, it would explain why her life was so messed up and she was constantly moving school to school before meeting Xander. At the end, by blowing herself up, she could say to Xander something like: "After I make sure I die, I hope all this chaos in the school will finally stop." Or something like that. She might believe her luck influenced all the deaths and chaos, when in reality, her mindset, which she had BECAUSE of her luck and the people around her, was the true reason.

-I think the reason Teruko's a loner like JD would be 1: The same reason as JD, who didn't want to get attached to anyone, and 2: because she's canonically in a lot of debt and had to constantly move. -Even though Teruko can't die for some reason, I think being directly blown up by a bomb would probably end her. She might also say something like: "I committed all these murders, and I'm facing the consequences.", since while she says that murders should have consequences in Chapter 2, she's also pulled a knife on Charles and held said knife to J's throat. In this AU, Arturo, Ace, and Levi would've hurt the only person that's shown her kindness. She'd probably go for their heads. -Arei's development (credit to artist tagged above)!! Since she has it pretty rough in this AU, she'd think of Arturo and David as her first friends, even if they're not close like her and Eden here. She might still consider them friends who've protected her from being bullied just because they're popular. So like the development she got in the killing game, she would start to soften up after making friends, while she'd still be a bully because her friends aren't kind either. That changes after meeting Eden, which makes Arei realize that to be truly happy with her friends, she needs to act kind and be with good people. Since her sisters were still around, she didn't feel like she was in control yet, so she wasn't like how she was in canon DRDT.

-Xander's prone to getting into fights. Not physical fights, but his hot-blooded and emotional nature makes him get into a lot of arguments. He also stands up for people, which makes sense for that pool scene where Veronica says she doesn't want to be with the Heathers anymore. ("What's your damage, Arturo?" ykyk) -What drives Teruko to completely blow up the school would be Xander's fake death. She was already gonna do it, but seeing Xander "dead" would destroy her. He was the only one she could trust, after all. I think JD knew Veronica was faking her suicide, but in this AU either Xander was so convincing she didn't realize he faked his death or Teruko didn't notice in a moment of panic. She'd say something like "You were all I could trust..." or "Of course my luck made this happen."

-Since Xander has kind of a "saving the day" attitude, it'd match Veronica deciding to kill both herself and JD during Dead Girl Walking (Reprise) to save the rest of the school.

[hippolotamus]

Worthy Wednesday Fic Challenge

@trickiwooao3 says

We see the same (admittedly excellent) stories recommended over and over and over. Let's expand our horizons! Recommend and briefly describe a fic or two or three (or more) that you've never (or rarely) seen mentioned. Extra points if you don't personally know the writer. Tag @trickiwooao3 or #Worthy Wednesday

Thanks for the tags trickiwooao3 @apothecarose @stereopticons @jesuisici33

Schitt's Creek

communion by coffee_and_glitter / @fictasticvoyage

A short lil fic, clocking in at just 611 words, but I love it. Anyone who's known me for more than 5 seconds knows I have a thing for rain and storms. This fic hit just the right notes for that mood.

Their summary:

In the early days of their relationship, thunderstorms are the background for some important feelings.

Boys don't wear makeup by @myolivebranch

A slightly longer one that I'm shamelessly in love with. If you're in it for the queer feelings (and the unintentional well meaning practices of adults) may I direct you to this fic? Please. Sit. Read.

Their summary:

When Patrick is seven years old, he spends a Friday afternoon with his cousins, and they practise putting on makeup.

9-1-1

i wouldn't call it a mission by ASweeterArrangement / @eddiequinns

This time travel fic had my heart from the summary. The author tags it as 'silly'. I say it's anything but. I sure got very weepy for a silly little fic.

Their summary:

It’s not commonplace but it’s not unusual either for Buck to wake up in his loft to the sound of Eddie puttering around in the kitchen downstairs. What is unusual is that when he gets close enough to see him, Eddie looks a little... different - his hair’s got a good amount of gray in it and his cheeks are a little rounder and - is that a wedding band on his finger? “You’re up,” Eddie says, and his voice is pretty much the same, if not the tiniest bit raspier, which is at least a little relieving. Buck looks up from Eddie's left hand to his face and realizes there are more lines around his eyes than there were yesterday. Plainly put, Eddie looks older. Like, quite a bit older. “I uh - I don’t really know how to start this…” “Uh,” Buck says unhelpfully.  “I’m sure you can probably tell I’m - well, I'm not your Eddie.”

whatever it might have been by onegirlandherpen

A subtitle for this could be or how to destroy your heart in 400 words or less. Because that's exactly what happened. Be warned there is no happy ending to this one, but you'll thank the author anyway.

Their summary:

Eddie and Buck flirted and joked and came so close many times to falling head first over that line between best friends and lovers. Then, lightning struck and Eddie’s world stopped with Buck’s heart.

It's late so no pressure tagging @alyxmastershipper @panbuckley @mammameesh @ramonaflow @elvensorceress @rmd-writes @monsterrae1 LOML @lizzie-bennetdarcy and anyone else who wants to play along

[andithiel]

Snippet tag

Thank you for tagging me @uncannycerulean (you can find her lovely snippet feat. Pansy here).

I’m currently writing agonising over an anon fest (while being away with extended family, yay, life is great!) so I can’t share a snippet of that. And I feel like maybe I’ve shared enough of the brain rot that is “Draco got a vibrator stuck in his arse and Harry needs to help him get it out”? And this is probably a bad idea because I can’t be distracted from the fest fic and I’ve no idea when I’d be able to finish this, but I’ve been toying with the idea of a werewolf A/B/O fic where Harry goes into his first heat and Draco needs to help him out by having him in his home and trying his best not to give into his rut. This is a pretty rough section (but the most polished I have for this WIP) where Draco’s asked Luna to come over and give Harry some special lycanthropy sex aid.

Luna hums and Draco’s not sure if she agrees or not. “He likes you though.”

“Luna, I’m sorry, I know you live on another planet, where I’m sure that statement is true. I, however, live on this one, the one where Harry Potter does not like Draco Malfoy. He’s not in his right mind right now, he doesn’t want— He’d want anyone who happens to—”

Luna regards him and it’s eery, he squirms.

“And what would the harm be in that? If he wants you for this problem, and you want him for the exact same—” Draco looks up and then down again. “Oh.”

Draco rubs at his nose, trying to quell his embarrassment.

“Maybe ‘like’ isn’t the right word,” she says. “But you were both heavily obsessed with each other in school.” Matter of factly as she always does.

Draco doesn’t feel like elaborating on this. “As pleasant as talking about Potter and me is, there was a reason I asked you to come over.”

“Oh! Yes, you did! I’m sorry Draco, I was so happy to see you that I forgot.”

Guilty that she feels that way about him and that he’s not good at keeping in touch. Luna rummages around in her bag and pulls out a box.

“Here, this is the latest in our lycanthropy collection: the inflatable dildo.”

Draco frowns while Luna unpacks the contents of the box. She pulls out a regular looking dildo. It’s purple, of course it’s purple.

“Right,” he mutters, unreasonably jealous of a piece of plastic. “Thanks.”

“Shall I give you a demonstration?”

“I’ve used this kind of thing, and I would venture that Potter has, too.”

“Oh, but this isn’t a regular dildo. It can sense when the user is about to reach climax, and then it expands at the base, like this.” She taps the dildo with her wand, and sure enough, it expands around the base, mimicking a knot that Draco is all too familiar with. “It won’t stay inflated for as long as a knot does, we’ve reached the conclusion that our clients find it a bit uncomfortable to keep it for that long when there’s not a body attached to it. It automatically deflates after about five minutes, but the user can postpone or shorten that time as they choose.”

Okay! That was fun right? *sweats nervously*. Onto the tagging! No pressure @rei382 @phdmama @dragonbornphoenix @crazybutgood @fictional @thehoneybeet and YOU who see this and want to share, please do!

[abyssal-ali]

Welcome to the Cardigan AU!

This is one of my "Inspired by Taylor Swift" works; as you may have guessed by the name, it is inspired by her song Cardigan.

This would be a pretty long author's note if I left it in the first chapter of SAMS, so I'm making a separate post instead🙂

This was originally supposed to be a sweet, fluffy one-shot, maybe 7 or 8k.

Well, I started typing it up, and editing it turned into adding more scenes and expanding on points for cohesiveness, and somehow this is now a two-shot, over 12k words, with some very angsty parts!

Thank you so so much to my lovely betas!

This AU would not be nearly as polished as it is without my amazing, beautiful, capable, beta reader @sarcasticbambi💜💜💜

Thank you so much for all your help and support!

@boldlyanxious also helped me with a couple scenes, making sure they were realistic, and sent very helpful inspiration😉

This is my longest published work so far, and I'm really proud of how it has turned out. (For those curious, my Daminette fic 'Invisible String' is my longest work ever, I believe, at 60+ pages of tiny handwriting in my notebook [my estimate is ~17.3k words, minus future edits].)

Constructive criticism (or any feedback) is very welcome, but please be kind 💜

Gushing over my work aside, here's some important-ish background information about the Cardigan AU that will help it make more sense. Drop an ask or a comment if something doesn't make sense or you want to know more!

This is a Maribat work, which means Canon has already been tampered with, so don't look too closely at certain aspects of this. Please. There is no set timeline or defined ages, besides Marinette and Jason being a little over 18 in this story, and in their final year of high school.

Jason is still mostly estranged from his family, although he has started working with the Bats more often and trying to repair his relationships with Bruce and the others.

I wouldn't tag this as *good* dad Bruce, but he's trying.

The two-shot tells the main story, but I will be adding extra or deleted scenes* to this AU, hence the "Cardigan AU" tag, for anyone who wants to look all the content up at once. There's also a masterlist here.

If anyone wants to be added to the Cardigan AU tag list or a general/maribat/jasonette tag list, let me know!

*I already have them planned out, but I'm open to adding other extra chapters if anyone has a specific scene they'd like to see. Just send an ask, and I'll see what I can do!

Cardigan AU masterlist here

[lamare-sims]

Hi Lamare, I was hoping you might be willing to help me with something please? I'd like to make some custom changes to WantTrees, but I'm a first-time modder (other than making buy/build/CAS content and some simple BCON edits), so I could really do with some guidance from an expert. I've taken a look at the WantTrees XML and I think I have some idea what's going on, but before I start tinkering with it, I wondered whether you could please give me some general guidelines as to how to read and edit it correctly? Thank you!

Hi, Fran. Not really an expert on WantTrees, pretty much just like you, trying to make sense of what I see, but I'll try.

General Thoughts on Want Trees

(mostly assumptions to take with a pinch of salt)

Want Trees are called trees because their logical paths are like branches. They go from root to child node, and then to its child node, and so forth. Each node may have several children, like a tree stems from one point and has multiple branches with each branch having its own little branches. The way it works for sims is, I think, as soon as one node is triggered, its children become available and may pop up as wants, and so on.

By looking at sims' wants history I noticed that wants are triggered not only when you see them on their panel, but any time sims do the thing that would fulfill this want. Like, even if a sim didn't have a want for a new best friend on their panel at the time of making a new friend, the want gets registered in their wants history and probably will be taken into account by want trees. (This needs more proof, it may have conditions that complicate the logic, but at least in some cases this is how it works.)

There are invisible wants that won't appear on sim's panel -- I assume they serve as turning/filtering points, to stir sim's wants and fears in a certain direction. They're usually called triggers.

One want may appear in different nodes in one or many want trees and have different settings in all cases. Some trees/branches are tailored to certain types of sims, don't be too quick to enable a node for every sim before you looked at all "duplicates".

Node relations may be hard to trace, but the idea is this: each node tag is supposed to wrap around all its children. The root node, being the parent of all parents, wraps the whole tree. Code editors help by collapsing and expanding tags, except for some trees with multi-line comments that get in the way.

Some properties are self-explanatory, some puzzle me, like how frequency and regeneration work or why relationship fields are sometimes backwards with minimum value higher than maximum. This "seeing is deceiving" sort of thing makes me doubt things that look self-explanatory in want trees, but I'll say a few words anyway.

Ads affect probability of a want/fear to pop up. Presumably, the higher the score the more prominent it is. I'm not sure what weight does -- either affects how important a certain characteristic is in overall calculation, or directly adds points to ad score, or else.

When all age, personality or aspiration fields are False, it doesn't necessarily mean the want won't appear, it may mean that those characteristics are irrelevant or not strict. I suspect it may have something to do with the super zero setting: if it's true, then it probably means it's a strict filter, if false -- it's not. I'm not certain.

One property you may not be familiar with is person data -- it refers to things like skills, interests, hobbies, etc. You can tell which is it by index, for example 207 is Film & Literature Enthusiasm. (For those familiar with person data in BHAV editing, the count seems to be +1 in want trees, presumably because 0 is invalid value there. Normally, film & lit is 206.)

If anyone has anything to add, please do :)

More:

How to search through XML resources

Wants and Fears and Triggers

[mydaroga]

I know it's been awhile, but I had to start reading Tune In over, because I got the expanded one. Some notes, partly for myself but I'm happy for anyone to weigh in if I'm not too disjointed!

The Prologue (the bits in the longer one anyway: see tag for previous edition)

They also shared the same goddesses, the fantasy figures who kept men awake at night in the late 1950s, like Anita Ekberg, Juliette Gréco and Brigitte Bardot.

Look I just want a record of what types of girls they jacked too, so thank you, Mark.

I'd heard about some of the following but not seen or maybe just not noticed the actual words, so here are some 'lost' or early Lennon-McCartney originals:

Too bad about sorrows, too bad about love, There’ll be no tomorrow, for all of your life.

Emo AF, boys.

They said our love was just fun / The day that our friendship begun. There’s no blue moon that I can see / There’s never been in history.

@inspiteallthedanger mentioned this to be once and it's not that I didn't believe her but seriously.

Another number seems to have been called Because I Know You Love Me So.

...

I’ve Been Thinking That You Love Me, If Tomorrow Ever Comes, That’s My Woman, and Won’t You Please Say Goodbye. A song called Years Roll Along (‘It might have been winter when you told me…’) was never completed.

Just noting for my obsessive fic historiography.

From the outset, John and Paul settled on Lennon-McCartney as a partnership. Neither planned to do anything with these songs (to send them off to singers, publishers or record companies) but they agreed – by actually discussing it, albeit briefly – that each could continue to operate independently, writing songs on his own and then bringing them to the other for approval and the joint Lennon-McCartney credit. ‘We decided on that very early on,’ says Paul. ‘It was just for simplicity really, and – so as to not get into the ego thing – we were very pure with it.’

Pretty sure I flagged this last time, but I'm sorry. This just doesn't get the attention it requires, though not, I think, for lack of our fascination. There are so many questions here. How did this conversation go? Why did they decide it applied to songs written alone? Did they simply never talk about revising it, and if so, why not? If they did, which surely they must have, why did it never change? It's BONKERS. And as always, Paul is so difficult to parse. When he says "so as not to get into the ego thing" is he speaking in present tense, like he's not going to discuss it? Or is he saying this decision had something to do with ego at the time? Sadly, it's an author interview so I can't see the whole context. Which probably wouldn't help, because it's Paul. Using words.

Paul, who knew no one else with a typewriter and counted no other poet among his friends, was heavily impressed. John was deep , and there were few higher compliments.

Oh Paul. Bless.

And so Lennon-McCartney stood shoulder to shoulder as equals, connected at every level, their considerable talents harmonised, their personalities meshed, their drive unchecked, their goal in focus. They were a union, stronger than the sum of their parts, and everything was possible.

I mean, I don't disagree. But this is the sort of thing I'm not enjoying about Lewisohn's style. He's clearly not unbiased or detached, and I find his "I'm writing!" voice so labored. I value this tome and everything he is trying to do but I'm going to continue to remind myself that he's just like everyone else and this is not the final word, end all be all Beatle book.

[darcymariaphoster]

Welcome! New Year, New Pin!

Idk how you found this space, but you're more than welcome to stay! 💕 I've somehow turned into a Hetalia/Nordic Hetalia blog, so I thought I'd better change up my pin to better reflect that.

Quick notes: I really only tag things to either gush about whatever I'm reblogging or because I believe that one day it will actually work as a functioning system that I can use to reference. So my tagging system is mostly useless to you. I rarely reblog or post anything nsfw and I haven't quite found a personal tag that will work for that, so sorry if you stumble into one of those posts.

This is a "please interact" blog! More details below! ⬇

I am an author! I have been writing fanfiction since I was 13 and I still have a lot to learn and improve upon. You can find my writing here. My top 5 fave fics that I've written this last year are (in no particular order):

Your Guardian Ghosts

Anything Goes

Finding You

I Asked for Coffee and Got You

Phantom Hearts

Ships: I am, at my core, a SuFin and DenNor shipper. However, I have also become an avid NorFin shipper, along with SuNor, SuDen, and DenFin. I have also been introduced to RomNor and ScotNor, and the people involved know that they are in the process of converting me to those ships. I'm pretty sure Iceland is aro/ace in my head because I really just don't love shipping him with anyone. (I don't hate HongIce, I just don't personally go out of my way to ship it. 🤷 Ice is just a solitary creature to me.)

This year (2023): My intention is to slow down on how many stories I write in one year. I kinda overdid it this last year, and I got burn out a couple of times. My focuses for this year are to wrap up my two almost finished wips and continue progress on my longer wip. I also have a new series I started, based off an AU I wrote in 2021 that I look forward to sharing with you! Other goals I have are to write a few more character studies and maybe expand on some of the pairings I have been exposed to, and really challenge my writing skills. There are some aspects that I feel like I've left behind recently that I'd like to bring back and hone better.

Bonus: I've decided to open my askbox this year for 1k story prompts, headcanons, refs, and some get-to-know-me's. If you have questions about my writing, writing processes, or other things about me that I haven't answered before, send them in. I'd also like to work more with 1k sprints to challenge my writing, so please send me a prompt and a pair/writing request at your leisure. I usually only write human AUs, so if you'd like any headcanons, give me a character and I'll see what I can come up with. (All of my country-verse headcanons, I feel like, are meh but I'm willing to give it a go if you want some of that, too! After all, I have done a few of them in the past.) If you want blog/artist/fic recs, lemme know!

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! And please enjoy your stay! [And don't forget that spam-liking/reblogging is not only appreciated but encouraged here!]

[beastlybardou]

hey; a few days ago you were talking about zoophilia & coping mechanisms, can i ask you to expand on that? the best coping mechanism i can think of would be petplay/primal play but unfortunately i don't have anyone to do that with... tips for lonely anti-contact zoos please? 🙏🏿

Discussion of animalistic kinks and sexual acts below.

Dead dove do not eat situation. You see the ask, you see what I said, don't read it if it's gonna be upsetting for you.

Additionally this is not a reflection of any of my personal interests, this is just an attempt to be helpful to someone that has asked me a question.

Anyways.

So, I've thought about this one for a while and I think I have some decent ideas. Obviously all of these are up to you and should only be done if it feels like they're helping you. If at any point it feels like doing these things is more of a slippery slope into committing beastiality than a helpful coping mechanism then please look for proffesional help - I'm just a Tumblr blog etc etc.

My #1 recommendation would just be good ol e621. There's mountains of content on there for whatever it is you're into and the tagging system is pretty great. Additionally since its all art no pictures or irl video, you don't have to worry about coming across any harmful and illegal content.

I don't know your comfort level when it comes to sexual interactions with strangers, but there are also lots of roleplays out there that you could join. This could be discord servers or one-on-one RPs. Reddit is a pretty good place to look for that kind of thing. There are lots of themed r4r subreddits where you could place a personal ad. There also might be servers on Disboard if you look, I've run into sort of related ones in the omegaverse tag on accident before so I'm sure if you're actually looking for it there would be more.

If you want something more physical than a roleplay - I'd recommend the world of fantasy toys. Theyyreee a little pricey, but they're a lot of fun. I've come across furry shop toys themed after just about every animal under the sun I think, so if you have anything in particular you're looking for I might be able to help, but this post has a lot of great shops to start with.

Just make sure to stay in the realm of fantasy and fiction, don't violate anyone else's consent, get help if its causing you distress or is becoming a threat to anyone/thing else, and it should all be good.

[sailor-spaghetti]

I should make one of these probably. This is NOT a DNI - anyone can follow, but this is a summary for you to decide for yourself if you'd like it here.

Hi, my name is Sailor, I'm 25, and I'm an undergrad student who is double majoring in Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) with a minor in African-American Studies and a certificate in Civic Engagement and Public Service. I am a radical leftist and a Marxist who has recently been flirting with anarchocommunism. I hope to go to grad school one day to continue studying and learning, because I want to be a teacher someday (and I really want to help bring the pop university to the US).

I am transmasculine and use they/them pronouns primarily, but will also accept he/him if you're struggling with they/them for any reason. I gay and autistic, but I am also white and do carry that privilege. With this in mind, please ask before tagging me to contribute to a conversation. Not every political discussion is within my wheelhouse, and while leftist and liberatory politics fall firmly into special interest territory for me, I have no desire to speak above people who have more stakes in an issue than I do.

I am a crochet/fiber artist and I'm definitely going to be putting some of my art here. I also intend to open a BigCartel shop (fuck Etsy) for small items I've crocheted, but it's not live yet. I will update this post when it is.

This blog is kind of a mixture of everything. My art, politics, a place where I'll be putting some recommended reading/viewing/book/media reviews (at the time of writing this, I am currently reading Warped: Gay Normativity and Queer Anticapitalism by Peter Drucker and so far I highly recommend it), some miscellaneous fandom stuff, a lot of shitposting, just things I think are pretty or fun (there will be a lot of faerycore and liminalcore here), etc. I don't plan on reblogging porn or anything, but there's definitely some 18+ and 21+ humor here, so if you're a minor it might be best if you just look through my art tag instead of following me. I'm tagging all of my fiber art with #spaghettistitchery, so there's even a convenient tag to work with.

I will gladly engage in good-faith conversations about politics, history, etc., but the key word there is "good-faith". Things I do not consider to be good faith include:

Bootlicking

Playing devil's advocate

Hypotheticals

Tone policing

Peace policing

Liberal and neoliberal ideology in general

Moving the goalposts

Slice-of-the-pie discourse

Anything that discourages solidarity with people who are more oppressed or people living under different conditions from my/your own. Solidarity is a necessary tool of resistance.

Respectability politics

Purity politics - being a comrade does not require knowing exactly the right thing to say, it requires class consciousness and a willingness to learn from those whose experiences you do not share

Etc. This list may be expanded as time goes on.

Unless a post is immediately relevant (current news, mutual aid request, active/ongoing conversation, etc.), I only reblog to the queue so that hopefully this place can be active even if I'm too busy to post. I am a very busy person between school and real-life activism/organizing, and so I might not always get back to you right away if you message or tag me.

If any of my academic writing ever gets published, you also have my permission to DM me to ask for a free copy. If you need help accessing a book or a paper, feel free to DM me and I will use my student privileges to see if I can access a PDF to send you. I hate the inaccessibility of knowledge under capitalism and want to do everything in my power to combat it, and I encourage any other students or teachers on this site to do the same.

Some free resources that are available:

The Marxist Internet Archive - you can access a lot of Marxist texts here, for free, in multiple language.

Libcom.org - Another site where you can access leftist writings, this one focusing more specifically on anarchocommunist texts.

Kanopy - You can watch documentaries for free here with your library card. I definitely recommend using this site and I especially recommend watching Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialist Self-Defense.

Open Library - If you can't access an in-person library for whatever reason, you can also borrow PDFs for free from here.

Anarcho-Communist Playlist - I didn't make this but I shit you not there's so much here that every time I put it on shuffle I feel like I'm learning a history lesson.