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yuujispinkhair · 10 months

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Alpha!Yuuji headcanons

A sweet anon sent me an ask wanting to know my thoughts about Alpha!Yuuji and my brain went grrr. Thank you!! I finally had an excuse to write about this strong and sexy Alpha with the sunshine smile and the knot so thick that it makes us sob ;) As you can see, I wrote this very shamelessly with my omega pussy lol but I hope my fellow Yuuji lovers can enjoy this self-indulgent piece too ;)

Pairing: Alpha!Yuuji x Omega!Reader (female) Genre: smut + fluff, Omegaverse AU Word Count: 3k Warnings: 18+, omegaverse, smut, breeding, knotting, creampie, pregnancy, biting, a bit of rough sex when Yuuji is in a rut, slight lactation kink, praise, mentions of blood and scars. Yuuji has to kill to protect his pack. All characters are of age. This story is 18+. Minors don't interact. Thank you for the star divider @/benkeibear. There is now fanart for this AU!! Thank you so much to @sandiaarts !!

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is the strongest Alpha in the city but never planned to become a leader. Until the former boss-Alpha dies and is succeeded by his cruel son, who puts the whole city under his reign of terror. That's when Yuuji's heroic instincts are triggered, and he decides to step up and claim the position as the ruling Alpha.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who you see for the first time during his fight for dominance in a back alley behind a nightclub where the packs are gathered to watch the fight that will decide who becomes their new leader. You get one look at this gorgeous pink-haired Alpha and already know he will win. Tall and buff, with firm muscles and a feral conviction in his golden eyes. A true Alpha!

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who wins the fight after just a few minutes. He lifts his face while pinning his opponent down, one hand on the man's head and one foot on his back. His golden eyes find you in the crowd, and you feel a shudder run through you, your Omega cunt slicking up just at the sight of this strong and brave Alpha. Your new leader, who you will submit to all too happily.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is so attractive with his boyish good looks and that muscular, powerful build. He has such a pretty sunshine smile but also such a broad, tall body packed with buff muscles. His skin is littered with scars that show the feral fighter he is, making him look so sexy and strong that it causes the most primal needs to awaken in you. You want to offer yourself to him, offer your slicked-up Omega cunt to him so he can breed you full of his strong pups.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who finds you later on in the nightclub, where you celebrate his victory. Who smiles sweetly when you congratulate him on his win. Who is so kind and easy to get along with despite how powerful he is. Who tells you he hates fighting, but since he is unfortunately very good at it, he thinks it's his duty to use his fists to protect the ones who are weaker than him.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who makes your Omega cunt throb with his words. All your primal instincts scream that you need this big, strong Alpha who is so brave and kind. You feel dizzy when you smell his enticing scent, filling your nostrils with its sexy, musky smell of wood and sunlight and the deep, rich aroma of ripe cherries. You gulp nervously as you tilt your head to look up at Yuuji's gorgeous face and see the same craving you feel mirrored in his golden eyes.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who mounts you only a few minutes later. Bending you over a table in the backroom of the nightclub, his pants and boxer briefs hastily pushed down while he ruts feverishly into you from behind. Riled up from the fight and exhilarated from the victory, needing to sink his Alpha cock into a willing slicked-up Omega cunt to come down again.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who fucks you like the leader that he is now. Who leans down to cage you between his big buff body and the table, interlacing his large fingers with your smaller ones while he fucks into you, making you cream again and again on his fat Alpha cock. His canines graze your skin as if he can hardly restrain himself from marking you as his mate right then and there.

+ Alpha Yuuji, who presses his nose against your neck and sniffs you, inhaling your scent hungrily and moaning against your neck, "Fuck. Fuck. You smell so good, baby." His big, heavy body shudders behind you while you feel him pulse his hot seed into you. And you know at that moment that you want to be his. That you want him to be your Alpha and your mate. You hope he will claim you one day!

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who doesn't pull out and leave after your needy fuck, like most new pack leaders would. Many of them would go from unmated Omega to unmated Omega to show them that the new Alpha has a right to take them now. But Yuuji stays with you. His big, broad body slumps against you, his muscular arms wrap around you, hugging you while he kisses your neck, sweet and caring. His seed and your slick run down your thighs in hot sticky rivulets, and your pussy twitches around his gorgeous thick cock, instinctively asking him for more, as if your Omega cunt is begging her Alpha to mate her and claim her for life.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who tells you that he needs to see you again when he finally pulls out of you. He turns you around, a large calloused hand cupping your chin tenderly, and he captures your lips in a sweet kiss before he lifts you up and places you on the table so he can clean your pussy with his loving mouth, taking proper care of you, moaning against your wet cunt how sweet of an Omega you are.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who keeps you close after that first night and makes an effort to get to know you. He buys you flowers and chocolates and asks you on dates, making sure to appreciate you and not just see you as a willing and breedable Omega but as a woman he cherishes and adores.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is such a good pack leader, kind and protective. He is so sweet to the little ones, playing with them and teaching them how to box so they can learn how to protect themselves. He also cares about the older members of the pack, telling them he looked after his sick grandpa for many years and, therefore, understands the struggles of the elderly and that they can always come to him and ask for help. He is a natural leader. A real Alpha. It makes him even more attractive in your eyes, and you catch yourself getting nice and slick for him anytime he is in the same room.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who makes your scent glands throb hotly anytime he fucks you, your body trying to lure him in, wordlessly signaling to him how bad you want to be his. How bad you want him to mate you. He growls brokenly anytime it happens and licks hungrily over your scent glands, making you cum instantly around his powerful Alpha cock.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is so sweet and caring that he tries to hold back as long as possible before he claims you. Who fucks his balls empty into your sweet Omega cunt and grunts and growls as he tries his best to stop himself from forcefully claiming you as his mate.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who kisses you in front of the nightclub that belongs to him now, smiling against your lips while his strong arms hold you so tightly, pulling you against his tall, buff body, offering you a feeling of safety you have never known before. He tells you he loves you while he holds you in his strong arms, and you almost cry from the happiness you feel.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who reaches his breaking point that night after you both confessed your love to each other and pushes his cock extra deep into you, letting you get a little taste of his knot, making you sob in need while he groans in your ear: "I want to mate you so bad, cutie. Want to make you my Omega. I can't hold back much longer, sweetie. Want to mate you and breed you and cherish you and give you my pups. Fuck... please let me mate you! Please be my Omega and my mate!"

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who waits for your consent even while his muscular body is shaking from the effort it takes to hold back before he sinks his teeth into your neck and bites you with a mating bite that hurts and arouses you at the same time.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who mounts you again to seal your bond with another load of his Alpha seed. He fucks you deep and feral, claiming his mate thoroughly, making sure you know how much he loves you and that he is yours now and you are his. He moans and growls and tells you he will give you his knot, will give you his everything for the rest of his life, while mounting you so hard and good that you see stars.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, whose knot is so big that you are worried you won't be able to take him when you feel the first swelling at his thick base. But Yuuji is such a caring Alpha and such a sweet mate. He soothes you with his low, sexy voice, whispering the sweetest praise to you while he prepares you thoroughly for his knot. He will give you his all, even if it takes hours to prepare you for his knot. He kisses you and rubs slow, tender circles around your swollen clit, loosening your cunt with several orgasms on his cock before he allows his knot to grow and plug you up.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who makes you mewl and orgasm instantly when you finally feel his fat knot plugging you up, claiming you as his alone while he moans I love you's in your ear. His calloused fingers rub your puffy clit, making you squirt over and over again on his fat knot while he pulses his hot seed into you, sealing your mating ritual with both of your cum.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who kisses you deeply and tells you how sweet and beautiful you are while he slowly slips out of you after a night spent mating you. You sigh happily, so content and happy that you found such a strong Alpha and such a caring mate. Yuuji stays with you for hours afterward, refusing to leave your side after such an intimate experience. He holds you tightly, lets you rest and sleep in his strong arms, safe and warm in your mate's embrace, knowing he will take care of you for the rest of his life.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is loved by his whole pack for his kindness and strength. A caring and protective Alpha. His large, calloused hands touch you with so much love and tenderness, but they can also deal the hardest punches against the ones who dare attack his pack. And if anyone tries to hurt his mate, Yuuji will see red and become a feral predator so powerful that his enemies will grovel before him and beg for mercy.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who won't start a fight without a reason. But he hunts down the ones who break the rules of peace and are cruel and dangerous to others. He kills if he has to, but it bothers him greatly to take a life, and he always seeks comfort and reassurance in your arms after every kill.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who comes back home to you after a deadly fight with bloody scratches all over his body, which will heal into a few more sexy scars that show his dominance and strength. There's a feral glint in his golden eyes, making them glow like two full moons, angry and unrelenting. The eyes of a powerful predator who was forced to unleash his fury against his enemies. A gaze that makes you moan and grab the bed sheets tightly, your legs instinctively falling open to present your panty-clad slick cunt to this strong Alpha in front of you.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who craves you badly after every kill. Who rips off his shirt and lets it fall to the ground, looking at you with that feral, primal need in his eyes while he opens his belt with one large hand, so riled up from the fight and ready to fuck his anger into the comforting wet heat of your sweet Omega cunt.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, whose buff body is bloody and sweaty from the fight. Veins standing out on his taut, flexed muscles. His fight triggered a rut, making his thick fat Alpha cock slap heavily against his firm abs when he frees himself from his trousers. The irresistible primal scent of his pheromones fills the whole room, making the slick run down your thighs even before Yuuji has laid a single finger on you.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who tears your soaked panties down, presses his face against your slick cunt, and growls wildly when he inhales your scent and licks up your sweet slick. He needs to fuck all his worries and anger into you. Needs you so bad to make things ok again. He growls a thank you after you tell him to let it all out on you, to fuck you as hard as he needs. "Don't hold back, Yuuji. I can take it. Fuck me as hard as you need, Alpha."

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who always fucks you harder after a kill. Using his strength on you and manhandling you with rough, calloused hands. He growls when he has you on all fours for him, with your cute ass in the air and legs spread, presenting him your pretty Omega cunt to claim and fuck. He groans behind you, low and feral, in full Alpha mode, giving your ass a hard slap as he splits you open around his fat cockhead.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who mounts you wild and hard, slapping your ass and fucking you with rough hard thrusts that go so deep that you howl with the most primal need and lust every time he ruts into you. He takes you in such a primal way, like an animal, hard and deep, while biting your neck and drooling all over your skin. He is so loud and feral, not holding back at all, fucking you unrelentingly from one orgasm to the next.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who only pulls out after he has exhausted himself completely, taking all his anger and pain out on your sweet, willing Omega cunt. You know that on those kinds of nights, he needs you to give him comfort, and so you pull him in your arms, hug him and cuddle him, and stroke his pretty pink hair, telling him he did the right thing and that you are so proud of him for protecting his pack. "You are such a good Alpha. And such a good man."

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who not only wants you as his mate, but also as his wife, giving you a double promise of always protecting and loving you. Now you wear his teeth imprint on your neck and a beautiful golden wedding band on your ring finger.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, whose need to breed is so strong that he practically begs you to please let him fuck his pups into you anytime he smells your heat approaching. Your fertile pussy always drives him insane, making him lick up your slick needily while shooting his first load all over the bedsheets and himself, unable to hold back with your sweet taste filling his mouth and nose.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is the happiest man ever, when you tell him you stopped taking your birth control. "I want your babies, Yuuji. Want to give you so many cute and strong pups, just like their daddy." And your man instantly has you under him, pinning you to the bed with his heavy, muscular body, snapping his hips furiously, shooting load after load into you while thanking you. "Thank you, baby, oh fuck, thank you so much! I will give you so many cute pups, my angel! Will fuck so many into you!"

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who always breeds you anytime he claims you, now that he knows you want his pups. He fucks to breed. He wants a whole litter of cute little pups with you. He moans and growls ferally into your ear while he mounts you from behind and fucks you with such savage, needy, and deep thrusts that he almost breaks the bed.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who loves to put you in a mating press with you all needy under his heavy buff body, your knees pressed to your tits while he bucks his hips ferally against you, going wild at the thought of his fat cock so deep in you.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who wants to knock you up so bad that he is in a permanent rut now, triggering your heat over and over again, making you so wet and horny for him that you can barely walk anymore.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who has so much stamina that when he knots you, his knot stays inside you all night. Slow rolls of his hips while he is in you balls-deep, shooting thick load after load of his hot fertile seed into you, his balls so big and heavy that they slap loudly against your slicked-up swollen clit, making you cum over and over again until you are delirious from it, babbling how much you need him, "Please, Yuu, please make me a mommy. Please gimme your pups, baby."

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who hugs you in his strong, buff arms and kisses your neck and lips lovingly while his knot is throbbing in you and plugging you up to keep his hot, fertile seed deep in you, breeding his sweet wife so thoroughly while praising you the whole time. "Look at you taking my knot so well. Fuck, I love you so much, cutie. I can't wait to see your belly so big and swollen with our pups. You'll be such a beautiful mommy."

+ Alpha!Yuuji, whose seed is strong and fertile and takes immediately. He smiles brightly at you and hugs you tightly when you tell him you are pregnant. He goes out to buy materials to build a cradle immediately, so eager and excited to start his family with you. And then repeats the same thing a few weeks later when you find out he fucked twins into you on the first try.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is always very protective but gets even worse when you carry his pups in you. Who growls at everyone who comes too close to you, always ensuring his mate and pups are safe. Who leaves his scent all over you to keep potential threats away.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who goes feral when your belly grows. He loves you so much, and it drives him crazy with lust and love to see that he successfully bred you, making you round and big with his pups, with his strong and chubby babies. It makes Yuuji so hard to see you like that. He has to take you every night while he caresses your belly and kneads your swollen tits, already milking a bit of milk out of them that he hungrily licks up.

+ Alpha! Yuuji, who pulls out of your cunt and cums all over your swollen belly because the sight turns him on so much.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who kisses and licks you clean afterward before he rests his head on your belly and talks to his little ones, telling them how much their mommy and daddy love them. And he looks up at you with those gleaming golden eyes full of love and tells you, "And I also love you so much, baby. Thank you for being my mate and my wife. I am so lucky!"

+ Alpha!Yuuji, whose genes are very dominant, so all your pups will have his pink hair. But you definitely don't mind because it looks so cute when your twins are born with a soft tuft of pink hair on their little heads! Your pups are two big, strong boys with chubby thighs and cheeks and loud voices. Strong, just like their daddy.

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who is such a proud mate and daddy. He never gets tired of spending time with his wife and his little ones. He gets up in the middle of the night to feed and cuddle his little boys so his sweet wife can rest. He carries the twins around in his strong arms, showing them off all proudly with a big happy smile on his face, cooing at them, playing with them, and petting their pink hair. And you watch him with happy tears in your eyes, so happy that you found such a good Alpha and loving husband!

+ Alpha!Yuuji, who beams at you and pulls you against his buff, tall body to kiss you thoroughly. Who doesn't let you go again because his heart feels so full and his cock is already swelling again, knowing that you are such a good mommy and such a sweet mate. He needs to bend you over the nearest surface and mount you again until your cute Omega cunt is stuffed with his fertile seed again, making more cute little pink-haired pups with the love of his life.

FUCKKKKK HE MAKES ME FERAL!! I don't know why, but there is something about Yuuji that fits Omegaverse so well, in my opinion. My head is spinning!!! Thank you so much, dear anon, for sending me this ask! When I wrote my Sukuna Omegaverse story, I already low-key wanted to write for Yuuji (and Megumi) too, and you motivated me to do so!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked Alpha!Yuuji and enjoyed this sexy little story!

Comments and reblogs would be very sweet!

#yuuji x reader #itadori x reader #yuji x reader #jjk x reader #jjk smut #yuuji smut #itadori smut #yuji smut #yuuji x you #itadori x you #yuji x you #itadori yuji x reader #itadori yuuji smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #tw omegaverse #tw pregnancy

4K notes · View notes

theplotmage · 14 days

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How to Get Started with Worldbuilding for Fantasy Writers

Hey fellow writers!

Worldbuilding can feel like a Herculean task, but it’s one of the most rewarding parts of creating a fantasy novel. If you're getting stuck, Here are some tips that have helped me, and I hope they’ll help you too!

Start with the Basics

Geography

- Map out the physical layout of your world. Think about continents, countries, cities, and natural features like mountains, rivers, and forests.

Climate and Ecosystems

- What are the climate zones and ecosystems like? How do they shape the lives of your inhabitants?

Create a History

Origins

- Dive into how your world came into existence. Are there creation myths or ancient civilizations that set the stage?

Major Events

- Outline key historical events. Wars, alliances, discoveries, and disasters can add so much depth.

Develop Cultures and Societies

Cultures

- Craft diverse cultures with unique customs, traditions, and values. What do they wear? What do they eat? How do they express themselves through art?

Social Structure

- Define the social hierarchy. Who holds power? What are the roles of different classes or groups?

Establish Magic and Technology

Magic System

- Set the rules and limitations of magic. Who can use it? How does it work? What are its costs and consequences?

Technology

- Decide on the level of technological advancement. Is your world medieval with swords and castles, or does it have steampunk elements?

Design Political and Economic Systems

Governments

- Create various forms of government. Are there kingdoms, republics, or empires? How do they interact?

Economy

- Define the economic systems. What are the main industries and trade routes? How do people earn a living?

Build Religions and Beliefs

Religions

- Develop religions and belief systems. Who are the gods or deities? What are the rituals and holy sites?

Myths and Legends

- Craft myths and legends that influence the culture and behavior of your characters.

Craft Unique Flora and Fauna

Creatures

- Invent unique creatures that inhabit your world. Consider their habitats, behaviors, and interactions with humans.

Plants

- Design plants with special properties. Are there magical herbs or dangerous plants?

Incorporate Conflict and Tension

Internal Conflicts

- Think about internal conflicts within societies, such as class struggles, political intrigue, or religious disputes.

External Conflicts

- Consider external threats like invading armies, natural disasters, or magical catastrophes.

Use Maps and Visual Aids

Maps

- Create maps to visualize your world. This helps you keep track of locations and distances.

Visual References

- Use images or sketches to inspire and flesh out your world.

Stay Consistent

Consistency

- Keep track of the details to maintain consistency. Use a worldbuilding bible or document to record important information.

Feedback

- Share your world with others and get feedback. Sometimes fresh eyes can spot inconsistencies or offer new ideas.

Let Your Characters Explore

Character Perspective

- Develop your world through the eyes of your characters. How do they interact with their environment? What do they know or believe about their world?

Be Flexible

Adapt and Evolve

- Be open to changing aspects of your world as your story develops. Sometimes the best ideas come during the writing process.

Worldbuilding is an ongoing journey, and it’s okay to refine and expand your world as you go. If you’re stuck or need specific advice, drop a comment or message me. Happy worldbuilding! 🌍✨

Feel free to share your own tips and experiences below. Let’s build some amazing worlds together! 💫

By the way, if you’re looking for a tool to help you keep track of all your worldbuilding details, check out my worldbuilding bible on Etsy! It’s designed to help you organize every aspect of your world, from geography and cultures to magic systems and conflicts.

I poured my heart into creating this, and I hope it inspires you as much as it has inspired me. Writing is such a beautiful journey, and having a structured way to keep your ideas organized can make all the difference. So go ahead, dive deep into your imagination, and let your creativity flow. You’ve got this! 💖📝

Happy writing, friends!

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ruruvxz · 30 days

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have u seen the new pics of yunjin😍😍office siren yunjin has me on a chokehold

Please write boss!yunjin and worker!reader and basically everyone has a crush on her, but she tries to be so badass but she has the strongest crush on u. And it’s so awkward when u find out she has a crush on u, basically if uve ever read “finding secretary Kim” it’s like that☺️

-🍒

“Finding designer L/N”

Creative director!Huh Yunjin x Designer!Reader

↳synopsis: Huh Yunjin was the most prolific fashion designers in the industry, being the head of the “Huh House” she acquired the attention of plentiful suitors. Thinking she would never find love, she finally set her sights on one of her subordinates yet messes up everything completely when she sent a message confessing her love, to all her workers.

↳cw: swearing, overworking, mean!yunjin, rookie designer, pure fluff, yunjin absolutely embarrassing herself, dense reader, fictional character for plot, mentions of intoxicating, mentions of sexual acts

↳wc: 3.5k

a/n: hehehe i love finding assistant manager kim, so the the plot is basically the same thing minus the freaky deaky stuff. also her post saying “bayonetta” made me absolutely bust… sigh i love my wife so much and she doesn’t even know who i am. i absolutely loved writing this it was so fun

The day you got the acceptance letter to work under the "Huh House" a group filled to the brim with promising designers, you were more than ecstatic. Not only with the fact this could thicken your portfolio twice fold, but this also meant that you got to work with THE Huh Yunjin. She was undoubtedly one of your "celebrity"-like crushes, but her whole career was astonishing. Being the same age as you, you couldn't help but envy such a successful woman, and you knew she was a tad bit mean, but who wasn't?

Needless to say, you could barely contain yourself as you stood in front of the work facility, your palms sweaty as you held the doorknob. The thought of finally beginning a designing job next to one of— if not your favorite designers (not including Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, or Vivienne Westwood) was almost a dream come true. If it wasn't for the fact that woman was the most viscerally heinous person you've ever encountered!

Before you could even peer your silly little head into the building you felt someone shove you inside with their broad shoulder, scoffing obnoxiously loud as they made contact. And without even apologizing, the woman continued to plow through you, paying no mind to the fact you were carrying a thick binder filled with your precious designs. But you were no pushover, and couldn't help but almost curse them out—well not until you locked eyes on who just assaulted your shoulder.

Furrowing your eyebrows as you jolted your eyes at the woman, it didn't take long before your mouth was slightly ajar as the redhead with her occupational lenses peered through oval glasses. Rightfully, trembling at her cold gaze before she spoke, clearly about to tell you off on your first day.

"You should learn to move out the way, dear." She hastily spoke, her eyes softened just a smudge, before ripping her gaze from yours and continuing to strut away. How surprising you thought, usually all the horror stories you heard from ex-designers (that so happened to hook you up with the position you're in now) always ended their stories with Yunjin acting out in some hostile way. But she took that a lot better than you expected, maybe it wasn't going to be all that bad!

Before you could regain your composure after being knocked down by the redhead, you felt yourself getting shoved back down once more. Looking up you fixated your gaze on the woman standing over you, she apologized profusely, reaching out a helping hand. She was much nicer than Yunjin just by this base interaction, so you happily expected her hand as she pulled you back up. She explained that she was a fellow designer named Jasmine L/N, someone who worked directly under Yunjin and who helped her procure various items for the Creative Director.

She was surprised to learn that both of you had the same last names and continued to explain that 2 other designers under the house also had the exact same last name. After a small pleasant conversation, you both ended the interaction quickly as the clock continued to tick off the seconds. Giving her a courteous wave, you jogged over to the assigned meeting room to get introduced to the whole system and facilities in the company. It was a little extraordinary that it so happened that the person guiding you happened to also have the same last name, but it was a small world after all.

After the short tour ended, your escort assured you to get settled as there were no upcoming shows to prepare for. Since everything was underwhelming at the moment, it gave you enough time to explore a little more. Taking in all the twists and turns of the facility, it was unexplainable and huge, but not unexpected. Each room was tailored completely to Yunjin's aesthetics or what she found was exceptionally unique, and her office specifically was eye-catching. The walls leading to her office were plastered with photos and awards congratulating her for her success and everything else of that sort.

If it was anyone else, you most definitely would've thought they were stuck up to pridefully display everything like this, but it was somehow different with her. You were in awe that she could achieve so much, that your hands mindlessly rubbed the plaque with her name beautifully etched onto the gold plating. It didn't take long for you to gain attention from a certain someone, may I say, the owner of that plaque you were caressing so gently.

"That tag is beautiful isn't it?" The redhead spoke up, slinging your head over your shoulder in surprise, I mean, you shouldn't be all that shocked since this was next to her office but you were still a little scared.

"Gah! Oh my— you scared me!" You spit out, quickly removing your hands away and tucking them behind your back as you rotate your body towards her.

"Haha, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that." Yunjin smugly laughed as she brought up her hair to tie it into a beautifully messy bun.

"No— it's my fault I shouldn't have been lurking around here." You sheepishly admit as you pull your hands from your back to fidget with your fingers embarrassingly. Only making her chuckle louder as she examined your body movements, she would've probably scared you off by now, but by some odd circumstance, she didn't.

If it wasn't for your preconceived negative notion that she was absolutely terrifying, you probably would've found her endearing by the way she giggled, whilst pushing up her glasses to not falter it for its original position. Honestly, everything about her was charming in some odd sense, like how she came closer to you to explain how she won each and every one of these achievements by herself. Undoubtedly cocky, but it was so flattering the way Yunjin carefully explained everything to your basic understanding, she was full of herself for sure. (Or maybe she was just trying to impress a certain someone.)

"Oh and this one," Yunjin pointed at one of the brightly colored magazines framed perfectly on the wall, which had her face and a full body shot plastered smack dab in the middle. "This was for a photo shot for 'Dazed', not one of my personal favorites as they only really cared for my facial aesthetics not my work." She mumbled memories of all those discouraging discussions about her becoming a designer flooded her mind.

"I mean, usually when someone's work is beautiful, the apple doesn't stray that far from the tree doesn't it?" You mindlessly commented as your eyes fixated on her portrait, and back to the old designs she created during her high school days. "Your works really inspired me to be a creative myself, I used to be so insecure about producing my own line for the longest time, and seeing someone my age do it really put me out of my shell. Y'know?"

Yunjin turned her head, just enough to meet your gaze with a side eye, you honestly thought she was offended, but that was far from the truth. She saw herself in you, a young designer so eager to work without any real goal but only their passion inside of them, it was incredible. Yunjin was swayed that anyone, let alone someone who showed so much promise, took inspiration, from her?!

"Oh." She stuttered as she snatched her gaze away from your face, looking towards an old portrait from high school sophomore year, the year she was thrusted into the industry. "Thank you... Y/N was it?"

"You know my name?— Oh, and yes that's it."

"I think you should get back to work." She mumbled, turning her head sharply away from you, her cheeks burning ferociously red, but she was Huh Yunjin, she couldn't show any of this, let alone to her subordinate. "Oh okay!" You chirped as you backed away from her, wondering about her sudden change of emotions.

✄

It had been months since that interaction, and to be honest, you haven't seen her ever since then. Particularly due to the fact that she suddenly booked multiple shows in the span of a few months to launch her spring collection mainstream. Though it was extremely exhausting, to say the least, you enjoyed working with your colleagues, and the fact you could finally produce physical copies of your designs. Your designs were so well loved that you started to get lost in your craft, working day and night tirelessly to make the most breathtaking pieces.

So this day wasn't any different, you had slept on the faculty room's couch and was abruptly woken up by someone aggressively tapping your shoulder and calling out your name. "L/N... L/N? L/N!" A woman shouted in your ear, springing you awake, a little disoriented since you just woke up in an unfamiliar place you usually wake up to.

"You're finally awake, I got you coffee." The woman said next to your ear, jerking your head to the side to find you were at eye level with your boss who was leaning down to your sitting level. "AHH! You scared me!" You squeal, dumbfounded by how casual she was about the fact you slept so soundly in her facility. This undoubtedly caught the attention of fellow designers as you could feel some eyes peer towards you and Yunjin.

"I apologize, take this to wake you up," Yunjin suggested as she handed you a tall cold Spanish iced latte, in contrast to the fact she brought the others a small shot of americano. As quickly as she handed it to you, she scurried away back to her office, as if she just completed the most rigorous quest of her left. It hadn't taken long for everyone to crowd around you, wondering what just happened as Yunjin hated interacting with her subordinates let alone going out and by everyone's coffee.

As you all converse, you were quickly shut up by the fact that someone brought up the Milan Fashion Week deadline that was inching ever so closely. Mentally cursing yourself out, as you only completed a small minority of the pieces you were working on before crashing out on the couch. You lugged yourself up and over to your workstation, quickly pulling up the designs on your computer as a reference. Forgetting to close your other tabs as you were too unbothered to care about that at the moment.

You scanned through your material checklist and back at the dress you were designing to figure out if you needed to grab some more fabrics. It so happened that you were out of some decorative textiles, and needed to haul your way to the back to grab some. As you do so, you pull on your headphones and jam out to some tunes, ignoring your coworkers looking bewildered at their computer screens. Whatever they were looking at was none of your business as you needed to finish your dress quickly.

"Such procrastinators gosh!" You mumbled to yourself, not batting an eye at the fact they were all stealing glances at their computer and then at each other. It wasn't until another coworker "James L/N" stood proudly in his seat, throwing his fabrics all over the place that it caught your attention. You tossed your headphones to hang around your neck and walked towards him, questioning why he was acting out irrationally.

He responded by grabbing his monitor screen and turning it towards you, with a message that was sent on the company's group board displayed brightly. You titled your head as you read it out loud, with others eagerly awaiting your reaction.

"Dear L/N,

I hope you enjoyed the coffee I brought, I want to tell you how I feel.

Would you like to grab a drink together after you're done?

- Huh Yunjin"

You were most definitely appalled as you continued to read, that the stoic creative director Huh Yunjin, was confessing her feelings. This was astonishing, the utter fact she'd like anyone, let alone her subordinate was a red flag in itself, but your coworker, James, was jumping around like a crazed bear.

"What the— James wait— You aren't the only one with that last name though." You spoke up, recalling the three other people with that last name, not including yourself of course. "Jasmine, Daniel, and Matteo..." Another designer spoke up, instantly shooting James down, as he sat back in his seat with a winded expression. You felt a bit bad about how defeated he looked but he was kind of a jackass, so even if Yunjin did like this loser out of anyone, you were glad he didn't think so.

Jasmine, the woman you first met, spoke over everyone, finding it uncomfortable why anyone would think this message was directed at her, as she was happily engaged and had known Yunjin for far too long. "It isn't mean dumbass," She shot a glare at everyone, wanting to make it dead clear, "Besides there's still 2 other people we need to check off, Matteo and Daniel."

After a lengthy discussion, a crowd of people, all of which consisted of the fashion designers, formed a circle in the break room to figure out who this designer was. You didn't speak up as you didn't find anyone but Jasmine suited for the pick. Matteo was stuck up, and cared strictly about others' personal opinions of him, Daniel on the other hand was almost about as bossy and uptight as Yunjin. Both of them were unlikely partners for Yunjin but to each their own.

You found this whole debacle irritating, yet you had an excuse to leave the conversation as you genuinely needed to go back and finish up all your pieces. You worked tirelessly, eating up your whole afternoon and even biting time into the night as you continued to work. Only being interrupted by your 3 other coworkers wondering if they'd be the perfect suitor for Yunjin. Thankfully Jasmine had enough time to yank them away and send one of the slackers back home to rest.

As the clock struck 10:30, you spent the next 6 minutes working and glancing at the two other people left in the building. Matteo and Daniel, who had been preparing themselves after work for your boss, it was kinda freaky, but you know what, you were beyond tired to care. And to be fair you were only still here to pack up your stuff and also see the both of them get brutally turned down.

"Ah, you three are still here?" The redhead questioned as she pushed herself out of her office, still distraught about what she had done prior. "You both should go home, it's far too late." Yunjin imposed as she shot them her iconic icy glare, without a hitch, they scurried away like mice.

"Ah L/N, are you heading home now?"

"Yup! Just packing up all my paper designs and I'll be out of here." You replied, trying to hide your joyous laughter while you watched both the boys pack up and leave the building.

"I'll drive you home."

"Oh alright! Thank you!"

The car ride was far more awkward than you'd originally expected, you both sat in silence with the radio playing softly in the background, with Google Maps speaking loudly to add some "spice" to the ride. Yunjin's eyes never faltered from the road, almost as if she was trying her utmost to not look at you.

"Thank you for all your hard work today Y/N, I know how difficult it is to pump out so many designs in such a short period." Finally breaking the silence she complimented how tirelessly you worked, while she gave you a glance and back at the traffic.

"Thank you Ms.Huh! Honestly it's nothing, I love working for you, it must be Ms.Huh who's having a hard day today—" Whoops, you didn't process her words fast enough to understand she was talking about your hard work and not about having a hard day.

"I'm so sorry, I meant that—" You stumbled over yourself trying to explain the situation, "What I was trying to say—" You stop yourself momentarily to handpick the perfect words to tell her. "It's just that you always seem so stressed and uhm..."

"I'm sorry Y/N." She cut you off.

"I'm so sorry," Yunjin spoke up pushing her head down onto the stirring wheel, the street light illuminating her blushing red cheeks.

"Oh no! It should be me apologizing Ms.Huh—"

"Please call me Yunjin, we're the same age after all."

"Yunjin— I didn't want to say this but, everyone was so curious about who you meant to send that message to, it seemed so serious. If you sent that to me I'd be so scared!" You admitted, fiddling with your hands as she lifted her head from the wheel and turned her head towards you. Yunjin was far too deep into what she did, that at this point she didn't care about what she was about to say next.

"Actually..."

"I meant to send that to you, Y/N L/N."

You turn your head towards hers as she blushes madly, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose, not bothering to push it back up to her eyes. It was all so clear now, that was your last name after all wasn't it? And she was talking about giving you coffee in the message, so why did you assume it would be anyone else?

"Oh!" You hiccuped, trying to decipher that dreadful look in her eyes, the anticipation killing her, awaiting what you would say next. "I.. Uhm... would you still like to grab a drink with me?"

✄

You arose from the plush comforter your head pounding from a clear hangover, the bright New York sunlight hit your head like a train. Everything was once again disorienting like when you awoke in the facility room, your surroundings were completely unfamiliar, and your body was covered only with a baggy sweater and your undergarments. Your body was sore and drowsy, scanning your surroundings everything was unfamiliar yet beautifully decorated with whites and greys.

"What the..." You continued to inspect the room, slowly moving to the edge of the bed, ready to leave until a familiar delicate hand yanked you back down. As if you were in a horror movie, you snapped your head at the woman, realizing it was that darn redhead again. Which added more questions in your head than answers, why exactly, are you in her house?

Replaying the memories in your head, you connected the dots, oh, you may-haps slept with your superior, and creative director of the fashion line you worked on. You weren't a drunkard nor a lightweight so how could you forget such a detail?

"Y/N, don't go— not yet." She groaned, clearly still tired from last night. (You both came back to her house after only a few drinks, the both of you somewhat drunk but one more plastered than the other, actually— you were practically wobbling under her trying to get in. She led you to the living room to sober you up, as you kept spewing some nonsense about how much you idolized her. Talking about how jealous you felt when everyone was claiming that message was meant for them, and how much you loved her the moment you set your eyes on her. She was amazing, and you kept reiterating that as she listened carefully, falling deeper for you as you continued to yap all the alcohol out of your system. Finally passing out in her arms for a few moments before jolting awake. Yunjin expresses to your mainly sober state how much your speech meant to her, and how she felt the same way. Cutting her off with short kisses around her cheeks and then to her lips. And the rest was history.)

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm just stretching." You lied, hiding your embarrassment as you leaned down to kiss her forehead. Her expression softened as you pulled away and began stroking her dark red hair A small smile filled her lips, just for a short while, before she dozed back to sleep at your touch. When she didn't look like she was about to maul someone, she was very much adorable.

"I'm gonna go get us some breakfast okay? I'll be back in a few minutes Yunjin."

"Mhm..." She mumbled, pushing her head back into the pillow as she fell deeper into slumber.

“Be right back Ms.Huh.”

She lifted her head back up, clearly a lot more awake than last time, registering the name you called her. “I said call me Yunjin.” She barked, offended by the change in honorifics, letting you tease her, before stroking her head once more, running your fingers through her hair. “My bad, Yunjin.”

#idol x female reader #idol x reader #female reader #gxg #girl group imagines #huh yunjin x reader #Le sserafim x reader #huh yunjin #Le sserafim imagines #yunjin x reader #huh Yunjin x you #huh yunjin x female reader #huh yunjin imagines #yunjin imagines

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writingwithcolor · 9 months

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Characters reconnecting with their ancestral cultures in an interplanetary setting

@pixiedustandpetrichor asked:

Hi! I am writing a novel with three main female characters in an interplanetary setting. They grow up as orphans in an Irish-coded country and as children are mostly exposed to solely that culture, but they leave after becoming adults. Character A is Tuareg-coded, B Mongolian-coded, and C is Germanic-coded. It isn’t central to the story, but I would like them to get in touch with/learn more about their ancestral cultures, especially in terms of religion. A does this by actually visiting the planet her parents came from, but B and C do not. What can I do to depict their relationships with said cultures and their journey to reconnect with them? Would it be realistic for each of them to have different mixed feelings about participating in these cultures and for them to retain some sense of belonging to the culture they grew up in as well? Thank you for your time.

Hello, asker! WWC doesn’t have Tuareg or Mongol mods at the moment, so we're not able to speak to the specifics of cultural and religious reconnection for these particular groups. Still, I want to take this opportunity to provide some general context and elements to consider when writing Tuareg-coded characters, or other characters from groups that have experienced colonization in the real world. My fellow mods will then share thoughts about cultural reconnection in general and with respect to Germanic heritage in particular.

Drawing inspiration from groups that have experienced colonization

As you’re probably aware, the Tuareg are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. As with many indigenous groups, they have experienced colonization multiple times over the course of their history. Colonization often leads to the loss or erasure of certain aspects of culture as the colonized people are pressured to conform to the culture of the dominant group. In many cases, it’s near impossible to say what the ancestral culture of a colonized group was prior to colonization.

When coding a fictional culture based on a group that was colonized in the real world, it's important to ask questions about:

Which aspects of culture you're portraying

Where these aspects come from

Whether you're ready to tackle their implications for the world you're building

It’s not necessarily wrong to use elements of coding that draw from cultural aspects influenced by colonization. As I said, it can be very difficult, even impossible, to portray a “pure” culture as it would have been had colonization not occurred–because we simply can’t know what that alternate history would look like, and because so much has been lost or intentionally suppressed that the gaps in our knowledge are too wide to breach. But it’s important to be aware of where these cultural elements are coming from.

Where is your coding coming from and what are the implications?

For example, while the Tuareg today are majoritarily Muslim, this was not the case prior to the Arab conquest of North Africa. Some elements of Tuareg culture today, such as tea ceremonies, are derived from the influence of Arab and Muslim culture and likely did not exist prior to the 20th century. As you’re developing the culture of the Tuareg-coded group in your fictional setting, you have to decide whether to include these elements. There is no right answer–it will depend on what you’re trying to do and why.

Is your setting in our far future, in which case we can assume your Tuareg-coded group is distantly related to today’s Tuareg?

In that case, they will probably have kept many cultural aspects their ancestors acquired through their interactions with other cultures around them–including cultural groups that colonized them. They may–let’s build hopeful worlds!–have reclaimed aspects of their ancestral culture they’d been forced to abandon due to colonization. They may also have acquired new aspects of culture over time. This can be very fun to explore if you have the time and space to do so.

I would recommend speaking with Tuareg people to get a better grasp of how they see their culture evolving over the next however many centuries or millennia, what they wish to see and what seems realistic to them.

Alternatively, maybe your setting is a secondary world unrelated to ours and you only want to draw inspiration from the real-world Tuareg, not represent them exactly. In that case, you need to decide which period of history you’re drawing from, as Tuareg culture is different today from what it was 50 years ago, and different still from 200 years ago or 1000 years ago. You’ll need to research the historical period you’re choosing in order to figure out what was happening at that time and what the cultural influences were. If it’s pre-colonial, you’ll probably want to avoid including cultural elements influenced by colonization from groups that arrived later on.

Finally, if the time period you’re drawing from is post-colonial:

Are you planning to account for the effects of colonization on Tuareg culture?

Will you have an in-world equivalent for the colonization that occurred in real life?

For example, will the Tuareg-coded characters in your world be from a nomadic culture that was forced to become sedentary over the years and lost much of their traditions due to colonial pressure to conform?

Where did this pressure come from in your world–is it different from what happened in ours? If so, how different? And what are the consequences?

Writing about colonization can be quite the baggage to bring into a fictional setting. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it will certainly require sensitivity and care in portraying it.

In summary: think it through

I’m not saying all this to discourage you, but to point out some of the considerations at play when drawing inspiration from a real-life culture that has experienced colonization. Similar challenges arise for coding based on any other indigenous group in the world.

My advice to you, then, is to first sit down and decide where and when in history your coding is coming from, and what you’re trying to achieve with it. This will help you figure out:

which elements of contemporary Tuareg culture are pertinent to include

How much your coding will be influenced by the Tuareg’s real-life history

To what extent that will inform the rest of the world you’re creating

This, in turn, may help in deciding how to portray your character’s reconnection journey.

Again, I am not Tuareg and this is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of considerations for writing Tuareg-coded characters, only a few places to start.

If any Tuareg or Amazigh readers would like to chime in with suggestions of their own, please do. As always, please make sure your comments adhere to the WWC code of conduct.

- Niki

Pulling from diaspora and TRA narratives of cultural reconnection

Marika here: This ask plotline could also pull directly from diaspora and TRA narratives of cultural reconnection. Many diaspora and TRA cultural reconnection stories are, in effect, about navigating the difficult process of resuscitating, or renewing ties to culture using limited resources in environments that often lack necessary cultural infrastructure or scaffolding.

See this question here to the Japanese team for suggestions of how to handle such a storyline in a similar sci-fi setting.

More reading: Japanese-coded girl from future

-Marika

Reconnecting with German heritage

Hi, it’s Shira. I’m not sure whether German-Jewish counts as Germanic for the purposes of your post but since German Jews were more assimilated than other Ashkies, Germanness does feel real and relevant to my life (especially because my father worked there for approximately the last decade of his life.) NOTE: when I see “Germanic” vs German I think of cultures from 1500 years ago, not 100-200 years ago, so I can’t help you there, but I’d be surprised as a reader if a character focused on that for reconnection to the exclusion of the 19th century etc.

People in the United States specifically, reconnecting with German heritage, often lean into Bayerischer/Bavarian kitsch, I’ve noticed. Personally, though, what I find most relevant is:

1. The food (although I’ve come to learn that what I grew up eating was closer to veal/chicken scallopini than actual schnitzel because it was drenched in lemon, but I do like the other foods like the potato salad and sweet and sour red cabbage etc.) Your character could try making one of these “ancestral” foods as a way to reconnect?

2. The classical music, because I’m a second generation professional musician – if character C plays an instrument, leaning into that might be meaningful (Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and her husband Robert, etc.)

3. The nature, especially specifics that I enjoyed during my time there – personally, I loved the bright pink flowers all over the chestnut trees, but there are a lot of choices especially because of the Alps. If C is an artist maybe they can sketch something Germany-related from old photographs they found on the Space Internet?

I think it is VERY realistic for the characters to remain connected to the culture in which they were raised, by the way, whether or not they have positive feelings about it. Culture isn’t an inherited trait. Sure, if they want to completely walk away, they can, but I bet there are still ways it will creep back in without them realizing it simply because it’s really hard to have universal knowledge of the origins of all our quirks. Plus, not everyone feels alienated from their raised-culture just because they’re genetically something else.

P.S. There is also Oktoberfest, which I don’t really get into but is a thing, and beer, which is another point of German cultural pride.

German gentiles, weigh in – y’all have your own stuff, I know! OH YEAH so for German Christians, Christmas “markets” are a whole thing. That’s worth looking up.

–S

What do you mean by Germanic?

Hello it’s Sci! I had to study German history for my historical fantasy novel set in the late 18th century Holy Roman Empire. I am not sure what is meant by Germanic as that can encompass a variety of things.

Germanic people: from the Classical Period of Roman Empire and early Middle Ages. Similar to Mod Shira, I unfortunately can’t help very much here.

The Germanosphere: regions that spoke German, which includes modern day Germany, Austria/Hungary, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Belgium, and Luxembourg. I generally define this as the regions captured in the Hapsburg Empire along with Switzerland usually encompassing “Central Europe.”

Modern German national identity (i.e. German): post Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (> 1815) only including the territory of modern day Germany.*

I ask this because modern German national identity is surprisingly recent since Germany only popped up in 1871 under Otto von Bismarck. Previously, Germany was divided into smaller states and city states as a very decentralized region under the German Confederation and before that, the Holy Roman Empire. Depending on the era, you can see different conflicts and divides. During the early days of the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther, the northern and southern German territories generally split along Protestant-Catholic lines. The 18th century saw Austria and Prussia as the foci of global power who warred against each other even though both were part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Other states and city-states like Baden-Wurttemberg or Saxony sometimes had power but it was typically more localized compared to Austria. Post-WW2, you saw the split of Germany into West Germany run under capitalism and East Germany run under communism as a satellite Soviet state leading to more modern cultural divides. Due to heavy decentralization historically, each region had its own character with religious and cultural divides.

Assuming that the Germanic character is not from the classical period or early Middle Ages but not from the 19th century either, you can include your character reconnecting to classical folklore like that of Krampus (if they’re Christian), German literature and music like the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Mozart, or German philosophy like Immanuel Kant.

*A major wrinkle: German royals and nobility married into other states and nations frequently with Britain and Russia being notable examples. In Britain, the House of Hanover took over after the Stuart House died without clear direct heirs. When Queen Victoria married the German prince Albert, they celebrated Christmas with a tree and brought the German tradition of a Christmas tree to Britain and the British Empire. Only during World War I did the royal family’s house of Hanover name change from House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more “English-sounding” Windsor. As a result, the German cultural influence may be even more widespread than we think.

However, without more specific descriptors of what Germanic means in the context of your story, it can be difficult to determine which aspects of German culture your character could reconnect to.

-Mod Sci

#culture #cultural disconnect #cultural reconnect #race coding #ethnic coding #German #Mongol #Tuareg #setting #science fiction #Jewish #Colonialism #History #North Africa #Arab #Muslim #history

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artist-issues · 1 year

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Screentime For the Prince

You know how in the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, each character's true nature is revealed by what they choose to treasure?

You know, Grumpy treasures safety because his true nature is vulnerable, the Queen treasures beauty because her true nature is ugly, and Snow White is the only one who's treasure is as true as her nature: pure love?

And how the Prince only gets around 5 minutes of screentime, and in those 5 minutes, proves that he A) treasures Snow White's true nature of pure love and B) keeps his promises?

Well, I was thinking. In the new Live Action, they're basically writing in a different male character in place of the Prince and not focusing on any kind of love story. So it's not actually "Snow White." But what would a good, faithful, beautiful adaptation of Snow White look like? (You know, one that actually does adaptations correctly--like Cinderella 2015?)

What should they be doing with the Prince?

I have a general idea below.

I mean, they can't introduce him in the same way they did in the classic animation. Obviously modern people aren't used to so much nuance in their big-screen fairy tales anymore; 5 minutes of screentime isn't enough, we prefer Mr. Darcy & Lizzie Bennet-levels of couple-building interactions, at least. And that's okay.

But it means we have to fill in a lot of the blanks about where this Prince comes from and why he values Snow White's "pure love nature" so strongly.

So I figure, in my head, it might look something like:

The Prince (let's call him Walther, German for "Walt," since basically everybody who worked on the original movie agrees that it was Walt's big brain child, and the popularized "Ferdinand" is not only fan-made but makes me think of a kindhearted bull) is the heir to a neighboring kingdom's throne.

Prince Walther isn't King yet, not because his parents are still King and Queen (they're dead,) but because tradition states he can only take the throne once he's come of age. Prince Walther's like 17, turning 18. So instead, his kingdom is essentially run by this council of busybodies, with one Regent holding the throne until he's old enough to take it. Something like that.

(the picture is of Dean Stockwell who's the son of the original voice actor for the Prince, I think someone who looks like him ought to be cast.) Prince Walther experienced pure love from his parents, who treated him like a normal boy and didn't place much emphasis on courtly manners or politics when raising him. But then they died tragically, leaving their honest and innocent son to be raised by a bunch of old people who put way TOO much emphasis on those things.

Because everyone in Prince Walther's court has had to handle being next-door neighbors to the Wicked Queen's country. They're all super political, and afraid of appearing weak, and therefore, very insincere. That's what I'm saying.

Everyone he interacts with on a daily basis never comes out and says what they really want. Nobody is genuine. He lives a life of hearing words like, "good morning Your Majesty, I hope you slept well. The Grand Duke could certainly stand to sleep better; the poor fellow looked run down at breakfast." but learning that what they actually mean is, "The Duke is getting old and ineffective and when your birthday passes you should decree that he give his land and resources away to me."

And he misses the genuine love the court used to feel from his parents' kind, simple way of ruling. No political games, no complex feuds. Plus, he misses the personal love they shared as a family, genuine, uncomplicated. He missed the days when people just say what they really want, unafraid, so that their rulers can take care of their needs.

Then there's the problem of why Prince Walther's in the Wicked Queen's realm in the original movie--that's not his territory, if he has his own kingdom.

So I think it would be neat and interesting if the Queen wants Walther's land. Maybe she invited his parents, way back when, to a kind of audience to negotiate an alliance. Then she got jealous of his mother's beauty, maybe even tried to seduce Prince Walther's father, and assassinated them both when he rebuffed her. Oo, maybe even the Huntsman (her FAITHFUL Huntsman) helped her do it all those years ago.

But she didn't realize they had a young son, so she couldn't just raise her hand and say, "Hey Neighboring Kingdom, it's too bad your monarchs both mysteriously died--don't worry, I'll be your new leader" because Prince Walther's council suspected foul play (they always do, they're suspicious people) and were preemptively like "NO NO WE HAVE A PRINCE, WE HAVE A PRINCE! We're fine, we don't need help, everything's fine."

So she sort of had to stew on that. Maybe she even tried a couple more halfhearted attempts to get their throne, and they just never worked out--then eventually her attention was occupied by how much older her stepdaughter was getting, and how much prettier.

Anyway, Prince Walther asks for an audience with the Wicked Queen; he's about to become King, and he knows that the council fears their neighbor, and he sort of wants to go over and size the next-door ruler up for himself. So he rides over with a little delegation of the members of the Court he can actually tolerate the best, and is visiting.

It's not fun. They're only there for a day, but the Wicked Queen is definitely scary. For one thing, she's unnaturally beautiful and everyone he brought with him is either stupefied in her presence or terrified. He himself is very confused by her; he's an open-hearted guy, with a touch of naïveté even though he was raised with good intuition and doesn't trust the Queen. All audiences with her are full of all the formal, double-and-triple meaning conversations that he hates back home; except worse, because she makes everything seem more sinister.

So after a particularly weird conversation with the Queen where he can't decide if she was flirting with him or threatening his kingdom, he goes for a ride around the courtyard to clear his head. And what should he hear, like a breath of the freshest air since his parents died?

A pure, beautiful voice. A young girl singing--and not just singing about anything, but singing about what she really wants. Genuinely. Her heart's fondest desire--and it's not power, or land, or even freedom. Just love. She's singing loudly, like she doesn't care who might hear such a vulnerable longing.

And he climbs over the wall and sees this scullery maid. She's absolutely beautiful, even though she's dressed all in rags, and he loves the picture of her: sharing her heart with doves, who feel completely safe with her, and not having to worry about what anyone thinks of her.

He sort of eavesdrops on her for a little bit, and in this part of the movie, maybe we learn how impulsive he is. He just jumps over and tries to join in. Maybe it's even a little funny. And we can stretch out the feelings behind the part where Snow White runs from him--that feeling of her being unsure of a stranger, not because she worries about what he thinks, but because it's so surprising that anyone is taking notice of her so abruptly at all. And she doesn't know him.

Maybe he asks to extend his stay at the Queen's palace and keep negotiating or whatever, but he really just wants to get to know the scullery maid better.

Then the romance is sort of still fast, but built in a way that the audience can sink their teeth into. The Prince and Snow White have a few more mutually-agreed-upon meetings, not necessarily hiding them, but just in breaks between courtly audiences with the wicked Queen. They're both enamored with each other: she's never been treated so kindly by anyone and his whole faith in pure, innocent love and uncomplicated, genuine people is being restored just by talking to her. They bond chiefly over missing their parents.

Eventually he learns that she is the Queen's daughter--maybe from the Huntsman, maybe from Snow herself in an innocent way. He's stunned that she's treated so poorly, but the second he learns it, he confesses that he loves her and he wants to take her away from there. Plus, this solves the whole "will my kingdom go to war with the Wicked Queen or be allies even though we can't trust her" diplomacy thing--Snow White is her heir, so it would be a beautiful twist of Providence that the girl he has fallen in love with can also be the alliance of peace for the kingdoms through marriage.

Snow White accepts his proposal, but she's afraid for a moment that her stepmother won't allow it. The Prince urges her not to be afraid: he'll take her to his castle and they'll be happy no matter what: he promises it, he gives her his word, he encourages her not to worry because he won't let anything stop him. It's lovely. She finally has someone she can gift her superpower of pure love to, and someone who can treasure her like she deserves.

Problem is, the Queen overhears this last conversation, right after learning that Snow White is the new "Fairest of All" from her mirror, just like in the original film.

So while the Prince is convincing his council that he's proposed to Snow White, the Queen's largely-unknown secret stepdaughter, and is going to reveal the fact to the Queen tomorrow, the Huntsman and the Queen herself are plotting the assassination attempt that eventually leads to Snow running for her life and living with the Dwarfs before she ever gets the chance to see her betrothed again.

Then the movie unfolds largely the same way it did, but with more dialogue and nuance strengthening the original's main themes: Snow White is pure love in nature, and that's everything the Prince has been missing, and he fulfills his promise which she has total faith in. And along the way, the Dwarfs learn to care more about protecting an innocent girl than they care about protecting themselves, and treasuring a person over jewels. Grumpy in particular. And the Queen dies because she's a jealous witch who's self-love has twisted her into something ugly.

Basically, what I'm saying is, there's a way to make the Prince compelling for audiences who are now used to more fleshed-out interactions in movie couples. Just give him a background that is longing for pure, uncomplicated, innocent love. Then when he runs into Snow White, who's never been treasured and valued since her parents died, they give each other everything they've been longing for--and then they have faith in one another when circumstances, both funny and sinister, force them apart.

It's like the Notebook (just in story structure)--you build up romance in the first act through a few poignant scenes, but then the rest of the movie is about waiting for that romance to be fulfilled.

Anyway. I guess I could've said all this more succinctly, but I was kind of making it up as I went. 🤷‍♀️

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nanowrimo · 11 months

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How Finding the Right Writing Community Can Support You as a Writer

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Novlr, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is the world’s first writer-owned creative writing platform, built by writers, for writers. Today, professional writer and Novlr Community Lead Pamela Koehne-Drube shares some of the benefits a writing community can provide:

I’ve been a storyteller since I first learned to speak and a writer since I first held a pen. The writing journey is an emotional roller coaster, and no single day is ever the same.

There are moments of delight, like when a scene I’ve struggled with finally comes together, or the satisfaction of building a character who comes to life on the page. There’s the sense of accomplishment when my first draft is finished and I get to read my completed story, and the nerves of putting those same words in front of readers for the very first time.

There are lots of silent rooms, the soft tapping of keys, or the scribble of a pen. Sometimes the isolation gets too much, and that’s when I grapple with writer’s block, wrestle with stubborn plot holes, or have to slog through edits I’m just not in the mood for.

In my years as a working writer, the most important thing I’ve learned is that while only I can do the writing, I don’t have to go on the journey alone. A writing community can make all the difference in keeping me motivated.

What is a writing community?

Writing communities are as diverse as the writers who are part of them. Every writer will have a different need from their community, but what they do share is giving writers the opportunity to interact, share knowledge, and provide mutual support.

Some communities come ready-made. NaNoWriMo is a prime example, where diverse writers all rally together to achieve a common goal and support each other along the way. It has been one of my biggest encouragements over the years. And at Novlr, we’ve built an entire writing workspace around the idea of community, not only offering a virtual space for writers to come together and share their wins, struggles, ideas, and techniques but also giving our writer-owners a real say and influence in how our platform grows and develops.

Why are writing communities important?

Writing communities are a lifeline for many of us, offering a nurturing environment where we can learn, grow, and find kinship. Whether it's seeking feedback, gaining inspiration, or just breaking the isolation often associated with writing, they play an invaluable role in any writer's journey.

Encouragement

Sometimes, as a writer, all you need is someone telling you you’re doing a good job. Positive affirmations and encouragement can make all the difference, not only to your confidence but also to motivate you to stick with it. Being able to share ideas, troubleshoot plot holes, and celebrate even the small victories with people who get it is the perfect motivation.

Accountability

Being part of a writing community that openly shares its goals and commitments is a surefire way to motivate you to follow through. Again, NaNoWriMo is a perfect example of this; announcing your intention to the world and to the wider NaNo community makes your 50,000-word draft more than just an idea you have. It makes it real.

This accountability works for smaller goals too. Just sharing them with people makes them a tangible thing to work toward, keeping you accountable and on track to achieve your writing goals.

Become a better writer

Writing groups offer the perfect opportunity to get real-time feedback on your work and expose yourself to diverse and unique perspectives from fellow writers. Not only can they learn from you and your experiences, but you can learn from theirs by championing supportive and constructive criticism.

Rediscover the joy of writing!

There’s something truly special about the collective joy and camaraderie of sharing your writing journey. Writing groups help foster friendships where you can celebrate your shared successes. The challenges of writing become less daunting and more like puzzles to be solved together, and if you involve group activities, like writing prompts or collaborative projects, the process of writing becomes much more vibrant and enjoyable.

What types of writing communities are there?

Writing events

Writing events foster writing communities where each member shares a single goal or focus. NaNoWriMo is, of course, the biggest and most well-known goal-focused event in the creative writing space. I have lifelong writing pals I’ve met over NaNoWriMo, and we still regularly get together for critiques. Last year, I even did a 24-hour novel challenge where we took the NaNo goal of 50,000 words but tried to fit it into a single 24-hour period. It was one of the toughest writing challenges I’ve ever done, but the community that came from it is amazing.

Similarly, online communities, like our Discord, that host regular writing sprints, often attract goal-focused individuals who enjoy the thrill of time-bound writing challenges.

In-person writing groups

In-person writing groups meet at a dedicated time and place, like a local coffee shop, library, or someone's home. I host a writing group at my local pub on one of their quieter afternoons, and there’s a handful of us who get together, exchange ideas, play writing games, provide real-time feedback, and just generally share our work in the spirit of improving our craft.

The value of personal contact can't be underestimated, as it does allow for more nuanced discussions about works in progress and provides a structure that many writers, myself included, find beneficial.

Critique groups

Critique groups, as the name suggests, focus primarily on providing constructive feedback on members' work. These groups are all about sharing drafts and receiving detailed criticism about your writing — anything from accuracy to style and accessibility.

Peer critiques can offer a variety of perspectives on your writing. It’s a great way to find plot holes, character inconsistencies, or stylistic improvements that you might have overlooked early on. Furthermore, by critiquing others' work, you learn to sharpen your own editing skills and gain fresh insights into the writing process.

Writing retreats

Writing retreats are designed to provide writers with a break from their everyday environment and immerse them in a space dedicated to their writing. These retreats can range from weekend getaways to month-long residencies and are often situated in inspiring locations, from country houses to beachfront cabins.

The tranquil and focused atmosphere of a retreat is designed to spark creativity and reduce distractions, allowing writers to concentrate solely on their craft.

Online writing communities

Not everyone lives near other writers or is comfortable seeking out strangers in person. Online writing communities offer a digital space for writers to interact and learn from each other, extending the possibility of collaboration regardless of geographical location.

Platforms like Reddit, Discord, and the NaNoWriMo forums are popular for hosting vibrant writing communities, providing a dynamically interactive space that keeps writers connected, inspired, and motivated in their writing journey, even if they can’t be with other writers in person.

Social media

Social media channels offer various ways for writers to connect, exchange ideas, and foster communities. On Twitter and Tumblr, writers can follow trending hashtags like #writingcommunity, #amwriting, #writeblr, #writingtips, or #NaNoWriMo to engage in conversations, share inspiration, or get advice. TikTok has also recently emerged as another hub for writers, with the #BookTok and #WritingTok trends really taking off.

To sum up

Writing communities come in many forms and serve different purposes, but each offers unique benefits to support and enrich your writing journey. They provide the encouragement, accountability, feedback, and camaraderie needed to navigate the often solitary path of writing. It may be your journey, but you don’t have to take it alone.

As you seek to join or create a writing community, consider what you want from the experience and explore various options that align with your needs, preferences, and schedule. Remember, writing doesn't have to be a lonely endeavour. In the company of fellow writers, the journey becomes a shared experience, making the process less daunting and far more rewarding. Happy writing!

Novlr is free to use. However, for those who need the extra bits, there’s a 40% discount on Novlr Pro for 12 months for NaNoWriMo writers. Simply add the NANO23 coupon code when subscribing at Novlr.org. Offer expires December 31st, 2023.

Pamela Koehne-Drube is all about building creative writing communities where imagination thrives and writers achieve their goals. As a professional ghostwriter and editor, Pamela has first-hand experience in the book trade, from supporting fledgeling writers all the way through to working with the Big Five publishers. She’s an expert on all things writing. In her role as Writer Development & Community Lead at Novlr, you'll find her organising challenges and chatting about writing in Novlr’s Discord and building a repository of amazing writing, editing, publishing, and marketing resources for the Reading Room.

Top photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #writing community #community #writing advice #by nano sponsor #novlr #pamela koehne-drube

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deirdra-hearts-nadia · 1 year

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I've been thinking about the fandom for The Arcana, and I have come to the conclusion that it's weird as hell. In my 20+ years participating in online fandom spaces, I've never seen a fandom quite like this one. I've seen drama, sure, but the core of most fandoms is a large community of people who love the same media and come together to celebrate it.

The Arcana fandom is not like that. From the very beginning we're more fractured, more factional, more fragile than most. You just have to look around at all the posts lamenting the death of the fandom every 2 weeks to see that something is really wrong here.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the canon. I am not saying this to criticize The Arcana, the devs, Dorian, or my fellow fans. I have just noticed that, as a piece of media, this game occupies a very unique space that is reflected in the way its fans interact with canon and with each other.

Welcome to the TED talk ain't none of y'all asked for.

Part of what makes this fandom unique is the evolution of fandom as a whole in the face of new types of media. As gaming becomes more mainstream and games themselves become more complex, the way we engage has necessarily changed in response.

Books/ movies/ shows are slightly more static in terms of canon than video games; canon is what it is and how you interact with what is there is largely to do with who you are. Everyone has the same base material to engage with, and that results in a certain amount of constancy. You can't interact with The Princess Bride in a way that changes the movie, only in ways that change your own perception. There isn't a whole lot of room for OCs without rewriting canon, so fans tend to consume OC-based fiction and art with the assumption that it's likely to be self-insert wish fulfillment fantasy time. That isn't always true, but there is a reason the term Mary Sue was coined.

Otome games and other choice-based video games make a very different fan environment, because the way you interact with canon is completely different. You have to build a character in order to interact with the story, and your choices directly impact your experience of canon.

But most western choice-based games are in the context of a larger RPG universe, e.g. Fallout or Dragon Age. There is a lot more to the story than the romance plot and so there's a lot more world to experience, contextualize, and build upon. There's certainly plenty of unhinged ShepxGarrus erotica, but there's also an abundance of fanworks that engage with the plot, the worldbuilding, and the canon characters with relatively little of the player's character needing to be on the page at all.

By contrast, most otome games that make it to English-speaking fandom spaces are Japanese. The romance is the point, but we also start from a place of wariness of our fellow fans. Because there's a huge difference between "harmless weeb" and "orientalist fetishizing creepo," and you know going in that both ends of the spectrum are possible, there is an amount of caution. We curate our space, looking for the creators who align with our expectations and values before we ever begin to interact.

The Arcana falls in a very unique and odd space because it is an otome, but made by Americans, with an attempt at a diverse fantasy cast. It's intended to be for American/ English-speaking audiences and is marketed as such. But making a romance game in America is challenging. Our way of approaching online media, especially smartphone-accessible media, is super fucked up, right? We are constantly trapped between the dichotomies of moral duty (Must Protect The Children) versus appealing to the customer base (Boom Anime Babes with Tig Ol Bitties). Because this is a mobile game, the developers can't make money if the game is removed from the app store, so they want it to be rated teen at the most. But the enticing bit, the thing that captures a potential fan's attention, is the flirtation and sexy implications. So from the jump they're in a weird space purely because they chose to make a mobile game instead of an indie video game released on Steam or similar.

So now you have an inherently split audience: mature adults who know they're getting into a potentially explicit romance game, and young adults/teens who have grown up in a more insulated internet culture where normal words are replaced with Orwellian doublespeak, like "unalive" and "spicy time".

THEN you add in the fact that the developers tried to build a diverse fantasy world, which is a fantastic idea both from an inclusionary standpoint and a broader audience standpoint. But because they didn't employ any actual sensitivity readers (did they think they didn't need them because fantasy can't have racism? Did they justify it as not being in the budget? Would love to know what's going on there) they fell right into a lot of the classic traps. We've been over these time and again, so I won't get into them here. Suffice to say, there has been Discourse. The presence of those issues means that more experienced fans will see those things and call them out, and that criticism causes even more of a split: the zealous apologists versus the critics. And critics can fall into two further categories: those who love the canon and want to see it do better, and the bitches who just love having something to bitch about.

Unfortunately, this combination means that there are inherently factions to this fandom, with staunchly opposed approaches to the media. So even before you enter a fandom space, it's already wildly fractured simply because of the nature of base canon.

THEN add to that the fact that this game is a dating sim. And to engage with a dating sim, you have to build a character and make choices based on that character. Some people will approach this work as storytelling, and some will approach it as an escapist expression of self. Neither of these ways of engaging with canon is wrong. Enjoying a dating sim as Me But Better is fun and completely valid! Engaging with a dating sim as a storyteller collaborating with the developers is fun and completely valid! But the two approaches are opposed in purpose, and that can make it difficult for the two types of fans to engage with one another's work.

Storytellers will well and truly invest in building a character. They may even build out communities, countries, cultures, and languages to make their world all the richer. They are investing hours of blood, sweat, and tears into Their Craft, pouring themselves into an opus of quality fanwork. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to big feelings. Fan artists and writers may feel underappreciated if all they get out of their hard work is 2 likes and a gif of a wolf making AWOOGA eyes. They may feel that critique of their work is unwarranted, or that there's no point creating if no one will engage.

The romantics will engage with canon and fanwork from the perspective that "this is my fantasy romance time". Their OC isn't so much Original Character as Optimized Characteristics--that is, their perfect self. They are here for wish fulfillment fun times in the relative privacy and anonymity of the internet, and good for them! But that may mean that criticism of canon or their fan work feels excessively personal--it is very hard to detach the ego from the OC when that OC is a projection of your best self. They may view any critique as a personal attack as opposed to a good-faith attempt at engagement or conversation. This can lead to defensiveness, or to leaving the fandom outright if it feels too hostile.

Unfortunately all of these factions cause rifts in the community. This sometimes turns into fandom vigilantism, where people begin to see any fan who doesn't wholeheartedly agree with them as an enemy. I've seen friends experience bullying and cruelty over their OCs and their art. I've seen predators use the isolated nature of the fandom to further isolate and prey upon already vulnerable individuals. I've seen some really shitty stuff.

But I have also seen beautiful community flourish. I've made friends who feel more like family than my actual relatives. I've seen people work through struggles and overcome deliberate attempts to tear us apart, finding forgiveness and friendship along the way. I've seen myself and others grow because of the community and inspiration we found here. And I saw all of that because I found my people. And I hope, Arcana fandom, that the rest of you can find your people too.

#the arcana #oops i did a ted talk #fandom discourse #the arcana fandom

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jo-harrington · 2 months

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Charitas. (An As Above, So Below Story)

Gratia. Charitas. Solamen. Grace. Charity. Peace. The oath of the Knights of the Holy Order.

Summary: You and Eddie--separated by time and endless suffering--don't realize how many strings keep you connected on the web of fate. What players are there trying to cut those strings? And when will you both find out that they are unbreakable?

Word Count: 3.7k

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!OC (The Knight - Written in 2nd Person POV - You/Your - No Use of Names of Physical Descriptors)

Warnings/Themes: Soulmates, Kas!Eddie, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Grief, Minor Character Deaths, Manipulation, Transformation, Corruption, Supernatural Encounters, Religious Elements, Discussion/Criticism of Religion, Biblical and Other Literary and Pop Culture References

Note: Sorry this one has taken forever. The next part is already written, just gotta clean it up. Shouting out @powderblueblood and @rosewaterandivy for being my fellow media vacuums and not only enabling me to do this/what's next but also Powder specifically for her love of the Archie-verse because CAoS is one of my favorites and why would I not let the Knight get a chance to face Faustus Blackwood one on one while also maybe alluding to The VVitch and criticizing religion even more?

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

“But the rage passes and leaves no trace behind.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

November 12, 1986

You'd developed a dislike for small towns.

Hawkins might still be home in some ways, but it was more because of the people who had lived there--the memories--than the town itself. But it, too, fell into the category of small towns that you'd grown to hate:

Small, unassuming places that held some kind of dark, terrible, dangerous secret. Atrocities in the making.

You'd walked into Hawkins fully oblivious to the monsters that lurked there, though.

Here and now, with Greendale, you were almost too aware.

Jinette had entirely too much to say about it and that unsettled you.

Strange energies and missing children and sudden turns of fortune for seemingly innocent townspeople. Rituals performed in the woods and a possible portal straight to hell.

"I'll knock on the door," you joked as you read through a report he'd provided about the Greendale Mines. "Maybe I'll get some kind of time off for good behavior if I hand Satan my soul in person, instead of waiting to die for him to take it."

Jinette ignored you; jokes were lost on the clergy.

Instead of a lecture though, he simply gave you a warning: to be on the lookout for witches.

"Thought the Order vowed not to discriminate against religions," you'd scoffed at him. He ignored you again and just sent you on your way.

The Order against discrimination? Sure. The Catholic Church? Definitely not. And Jinette? The most judgmental bastard of all.

Still, his warning was front and center as you felt an unnatural, chilling frequency of magic in the air upon your arrival in Greendale.

"Let's get this over with," you slammed the door shut and shouldered your backpack so you could start investigating.

Greendale was nice enough--it had that hazy, natural beauty of the late fall that was synonymous with upstate New York--and if you weren't in such a sour mood, you probably would've enjoyed it. This stage of your work was always somewhat fun. Talking to people and learning local histories, seeing different buildings as you walked around, eating a little lunch at some hole-in-the-wall off-the-beaten-path type of place.

But you were surrounded by ghosts. Both literal and figurative.

Someone died on that street corner, heart stopped cold as though someone had stuck a pin in it.

There was a bakery that had apricot kołaczkis; not Italian but still one of Nonna's favorites.

The dentists office used to belong to a serial killer who'd never been caught; the spirits of his victims rapped on the little window at street-level, begging to be let out even decades later.

Cerberus Books was a beacon for classic horror with neon lights and mannequins dressed as monsters in the windows...and Eddie would have loved it.

You fought the urge to flinch as you felt the phantom feeling of his hand in yours, his voice in your ear urging you to go inside and look around.

You closed your eyes and took several calming breaths to clear your mind. Little by little those ghosts were banished and you'd regained your cool, your focus.

If the Order wanted you to be a weapon, you would be one. You'd break whatever darkness lurked in Greendale and then onto the next job, and the next one, and the next one. Until you could go home. Your real home.

Then you wouldn't need to rely on ghosts anymore.

Or fear them.

Your world was knocked off its axis as someone exited Cerberus Books and crashed into you. Even moreso as a surge of unearthly, dark power clashed with your heavenly one, and you fought the urge to tap into that power to repel the intruding force away from you.

The man that crashed into you grabbed your shoulders to steady you before you fell, and you breathed in the smoke-and-brimstone tinged air that surrounded him. It was suffocating and further tapped into that instinct towards defensiveness.

But as you regained your bearing, all you could see was how unassuming he looked.

Truly, his visage belied that imposing aura--a kind older man in a suit and fedora, with neatly-trimmed facial hair, and a gentle smile--but you could sense that he was a witch, just as he sensed you were...

What were you?

He held you there for a moment and you watched as his brow quirked. He read you, just as you read him. A mutual discovery. Tenuous, so as not to alarm one another, but curious.

Although naturally adverse, you could sense no danger to each other.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized softly. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"N-No, no," you insisted. "I was caught up in my head, it's my fault."

"You're...new to Greendale." he stated.

"Just driving through," you answered, an excuse that was well-used in the past few years. This time you had a feeling you meant it. "Maybe sticking around for a few days."

"The diner has a great cherry pie."

"Cherry's my boyfriend's favorite."

"Is he traveling with you?"

Yes.

It was on the tip of your tongue. Because yes, actually he was just here with you. The memory of him, the ghost of him. You wished he was, and maybe that was enough to make him real.

Maybe that was enough so this witch felt him.

"No," you said instead. "It's just me."

His gaze softened as you continued to study each other. You held out your hand to him.

"Anyway, I should get going," you told him and you held out your hand to shake. "Thank you for the recommendation, and sorry again Mr..."

"Spellman," he replied, hands letting go of your shoulders so he could shake yours, but his words were like a shot to your heart. "Edward Spellman."

November 6, 1983

Henry was an observer, a thinker, a visionary.

He took care of them, offered mercy when he wasn't required to. He simply demanded obedience in return for all that he provided for his children in the Upside Down.

But for some reason beyond understanding, chaos had broken out.

And he was livid.

Eddie stood tall and received the images that his master filtered through his mind; strange growths, riotous creatures, and the partial reformation of the beast that Henry himself gave life to: the Mindflayer.

All with a will of their own.

"You must fix this," Henry demanded of his right hand, his general. "You must restore order."

The efforts of the physical communication winded him, as he was still fragile and healing from the attack by Eleven's friends, so he continued to relay unspoken demands through the collective consciousness. He strained to spread his authority as far through the dimension as he could.

Destroy the malcontents or you shall be destroyed.

A warning not just for Eddie, but for any of the creatures that resided under his rule to reconsider their rebellion before they met their demise.

Then came a jarring mental image of a wasteland of bodies, torn apart but still writhing and alive. The pain that would come in the wake of any betrayal would be immense, and he would keep all of them alive for as long as he saw fit to extend their suffering.

No Gods or devils could enact the devastation he could, if only they tested him.

"Does that mean you too?" you sowed doubt inside of him. "The destruction? What would happen if you didn't listen?"

Eddie stiffened as he felt the tug of your presence at the corner of his mind, hidden in that deep, dark pit. A spark amidst the void. He growled, both in acceptance of Henry's orders and to silence you.

"Do you know what this reminds me of?" He fought the urge to twitch under Henry's all-knowing gaze as you continued. "The Emperor. And Vader. Do you remember Return of the Jedi?"

His mind was a flurry of images again, these vague and distant though, twining with the ones that Henry had just relayed to him: spaceships and planets and furry little creatures, and Vader towering over Luke--

"Do you question me?" Henry snapped at him, gnarled body shaking with the effort. Eddie's eyes focused on his master once more. "Beast?"

He ducked his head and growled again. Grumbled. Repentant in his errors.

"Question him," you hissed, emboldened to no longer stay buried and hidden in the pit but slithering along his skin. Unseen, but acutely felt. "Do it. What's happening? Why are they rebelling? Ask him."

He let the growl turn into a roar, a battle cry and a warning to keep you silent. He then took to the air, determined to succeed in snuffing out this insurgent blight that had taken root in the Upside Down.

His master needed him, relied on him.

He wouldn't fail.

No matter how much you tempted him to.

November 14, 1986

To find witches, one often had to think like a witch.

Though the term witch when it came to those who practiced magic was just as broad as the term Abrahamic when it came to some of the so-called “major” religions of the world. One of your fellow Knights considered themselves a witch, more of a polytheist with an affinity for Hecate, but they derived their abilities from nature.

Technically you did too, your powers rooted as deep within the earth as they were tied to the Heavens.

Maybe it was all the same? Or maybe it was all bullshit.

The type of witch that you were looking for though, the type that Edward Spellman was, was something else. Dark rituals, blood curses, deals with demons, names signed in books, machinations with The Devil himself.

“Arthur Miller was popping a boner somewhere right now,” you muttered.

You supposed it felt a little unsettling, but less in a way that made you fearful, and more in the way that oil floated on water. Similar, both liquids, just...not meant to mix.

Which is why you kept yourself calm and open minded.

"I'm not here to kill them," you reminded yourself. "Find out why innocents are disappearing...stop them, maybe...but they'll carry on unharmed."

Truly, you could have just followed Edward Spellman as he went about his business in town, but you figured that that would have probably been as suspicious and rude as you could get.

That's why you enacted your own sort of a tracking spell.

Witches didn't always move in the world like mortals did; they transmuted, teleported, moved along the shadows cast by clouds and trees and blades of grass.

But if you reached out…asked the clouds and trees and grass to show you what they’d seen? Well, then it would be impossible for them to stay hidden.

So you walked.

Left your car at the motel and set foot into the lush forests surrounding Greendale, letting instinct guide you.

The further away from town you got, the more unruly your surroundings became, until you ended up following an old, overgrown set of railroad tracks deeper into the wilderness. Bats or birds--you couldn't quite tell--flew overhead; omens of some sort urging you to give up and go back to safety.

"How bad could it be?" you asked aloud, only to skid to a halt as something larger and shadowy crossed your path ahead.

Once again, you couldn't make out what it was, but the energy it left behind felt dangerous and smokey, an ephemeral stain of dark magic.

You took a calming breath and clenched your fists, ready for whatever you might find, and soldiered on.

Eventually, the treeline thinned, and power lines sprung up along the track, and then a structure. Large, looming, and made of stone and glass; it was overgrown with dead ivy and surrounded by tall, dry grasses.

Gehenna Station.

You scoffed at the name, at the implication, but the longer you observed the structure, the more you felt the underlying darkness that churned within. In fact, the longer you stared, the less sure you seemed to feel of the building's existence itself. Your eyes started to lose focus of the structure; your perception wavered, almost like it didn't want you to know that it was there.

Maybe it wasn't even there at all?

"Good afternoon Miss."

You whirled on your heel, ready to defend yourself, only to find a young boy standing there. His eyes were large, cheeks round and soft, and there was a small smile on his lips; kindness and innocence emanated from him, but also a deep sadness.

It didn't take long for you to realize that he was dead.

"You don't belong here," he stated matter-of-factly. "You should go."

"I'm here to help," you told him instead. There was no duplicity when it came to ghosts; they could see through you, no pun intended. "Kids are dying. Kids like you. Can you tell me what happened? I can try to stop it and find you some peace."

His brow furrowed, and he pouted.

Then he held his hand out to you, palm upwards for you to lay your own hand in his small grasp. You hesitated for a moment, but gave in.

He was solid and your hand didn't sink through his form like you expected. But as your palms touched, you saw.

A dank cell illuminated by the moonlight with sights that would drive one insane.

A desolate forest full of dead trees and a clawed beast that slunk unseen.

And a looming tree laden with thirteen rotten apples and a swinging noose.

The Harrowing. And it truly was as it's name described, as you watched one child after another succumb to the trials.

You blinked and the images were gone, but the sound of screaming still rang in your ears.

"It's always been this way, Miss," the boy said sadly as he pulled his hand away again. "You can't help us. No one can."

Something burned in your chest at his words, the finality of it, the acceptance of this fate. How many times had you heard that from your father or Jinette or the other Knights? This is the way it always would be. Cycles. Downward spirals.

You'd already decided that that would end with you.

This would too.

"The hell I can't."

You let go of the boy's hand, turned back towards Gehenna Station, and started walking.

Every step felt heavier and heavier, but you proceeded onwards until the doors of the building opened of their own volition and then slammed shut behind you once you were inside.

November 6, 1983

Eddie soared over the vast landscape of the Upside Down alone.

He had gotten used to flying with legions of bats at his sides, wings beating in tandem. It was a euphoric experience to be with them. Be one with them. To dip and roll, swarm, and even play.

He tried calling out to them through the bond—

Help me, the master demands your cooperation, your obedience.

—but there was no response. Not even a reluctant one.

It was irritating. He was leader after Henry, for all intents and purposes. Even their friend in some cases, their own flesh and blood.

Why wouldn't they come at his call?

He could feel them. Some waiting in the trees, cowering. Some were tempted to fly with him, soar with him, safe with him in the lead.

But there was something in the air that stopped them from answering the call.

A strange sense of foreboding, a shift in the presence of the dimension itself. A change in frequency, in the fragile balance of control that Henry had over everything.

Even the particles floating around him didn’t seem right.

“Are you sure he’s in control?” you whispered deep within him. “Are you sure Vecna is telling you the truth?”

Of course, you were still there clinging to the edges of the pit inside of him, snatching at his thoughts like the parasite you were.

He curled his lip and growled at you again, willing you to be silent. But you simply refused. Whispering worries and warnings.

It was curious how your tone had changed. You seemed weaker here. Unsure. In contrast to how you’d been earlier in his master’s presence. There was a tenuous quality to you now.

He had considered, more than once, that you were some machination of Henry’s. To weed out the disloyalty in him. A little remnant of his humanity to taunt him and tempt him. A test.

But even with unhindered access to Eddie’s mind, there were simply things Henry couldn’t be bothered with. Memory, emotion, humanity. Those were all things he sought to destroy when he created the perfect weapon.

All of the things that you tried to bring out of him.

“Be careful,” were the final words slithering from you before you went silent once again.

He scoffed despite the pang in the hollow space where his heart should be.

Careful.

That was another indicator that you couldn’t possibly be of Henry’s design.

Careful wasn’t in his nature anymore.

Had it ever been, though? Even when he was alive, even when he was truly Eddie Munson, had he ever been cautious or careful? If he had been, he wouldn’t have brought Chrissy Cunningham to his trailer that fateful night.

Then he wouldn’t have shed that fragile body and become something greater.

This was fate.

He could feel you scoff at the thought now, and he grinned ferally, hoping his great and dark destiny would keep you quiet.

His wings beat harder, propelled him faster, motivated by the thought of some peace and quiet from you. At the prospect of being his master’s great weapon and champion.

He preened so hard, he didn’t realize how human the action actually was.

Until he crossed some seemingly invisible threshold, some metaphorical membrane made up of static electricity, that made everything go quiet.

The constant buzz of the hive mind was suddenly gone, thousands of consciousnesses silent, and his body seized momentarily as he reacted to the tangible loss.

Everything felt harder to do--breathing, thinking, feeling--and he went into freefall.

Down he went. Falling and flailing, air whipping about him. If he thought flying had been a freeing feeling, falling was another kind of freedom; something deep down and dark inside of him welcomed it, the prospect of a hard and fast demise.

But as his eyes drooped closed, the phantom feeling of your hands grasped at him, encircled his torso and willed him to take flight once more. Your phantasmic voice sounded underwater to his uncooperative ears, to his non-existent soul, as you screamed for him.

“Eddie!” His name brought him back into focus as hands grasped his face. Your invisible touch was electric and abruptly brought the world back into focus. “Eddie, wake up!”

He gasped a breath as your spark kickstarted his reflexes, but it was simply too late. He crashed heavily into the ground, barreling through the earth, until he came to a halt.

His body, unbreakable, seemingly bent with the impact. His ears rang, he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

There was a distinct absence of being.

An absence of everything.

But he swore, before he lost himself, he saw the impossible.

He saw your face.

November 14, 1986

The inside of Gehenna Station was exactly what you expected.

That is to say, it was nothing that you expected; you had expected the unexpected.

If you reached out with your consciousness, you felt...a vast infinity. Halls that led everywhere, rooms of an unimaginable quantity. No wonder the outside of the building felt as if it wasn't there, because it really wasn't. This pocket reality was folded inside of it.

And what this pocket reality was, was a school.

A suspiciously empty school.

There were empty classrooms and hallways, an auditorium with a slide projector showing a list of incantations on a screen at the front, a cafeteria with trays of abandoned lunches.

You explored and searched--looking for someone, anyone--until you found yourself back in the main atrium, before a statue of a man with a goat's head and lower body, winged, with two fingers pointed up and two pointing down, surrounded by statues of children.

Baphomet.

"Interesting," you muttered as you encircled it.

You'd think a place like this, a place of satanic witches, would have some kind of idolatry towards Satan himself. Traditional depictions of devils and demons, maybe even some kind of artistic imagery of the archangel Lucifer?

Not this.

Your thoughts raced.

Hadn't you just contemplated your fellow Knights and their differences of beliefs outside? Yes. And that was where the mystery of this school and these witches remained. Everything had meaning; imagery like this had meaning, words had meaning.

Gehenna had ties to Hell and eternal suffering, places of divine punishment, and yet this was a school. A place for children to learn and grow. And Baphomet? People often mistook it for something sinister but Baphomet symbolized balance, the equilibrium of opposites; as above, so below and all that. Equal light and darkness inside everyone and everything. Peace at finding a balance with it. Equality in all and for all.

How could a statue that depicted children, trusting and reverent, stand for an institution that killed kids?

You supposed that the contradictions found here were akin to those in your own beliefs; how the church was supposed to be merciful, but you only found wickedness--like Jinette...like yourself--tied to it. That's how you were in this mess in the first place; someone using God as a justification to kill and steal.

"Guess all religions are shit," you snorted.

That's why you needed to find out what was actually happening here and stop it.

Unfortunately, in your rumination, you'd let your guard down.

You felt it before you saw it, the slide of your sneaker on the uneven floor. When you looked down to investigate, the tiles--made to look like a thousand eyes--began to fall away right under you.

The last thing you did before the floor beneath you disappeared and you fell into some dark oblivion wasn't an attempt to save yourself or find something to hang onto.

Instead you snorted and thought:

Guess the whole thing about being delivered right to Satan wasn't such a joke after all.

"I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil." — Marilyn Monroe

#aasb #as above so below #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #Eddie Munson x oc #Eddie Munson fic #stranger things fic

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painted-devils-if · 2 years

Text

Welcome to Painted Devils IF

Who We Are

We three Fates are a trio of writers. Though we've written as a team before, Painted Devils is our first foray into interactive fiction. We welcome you to climb aboard our dark academia adventure. Well, are you taking my hand?

What is Painted Devils?

Welcome to Blackthorn Academy, where blood runs thick, but betrayal runs thicker. Someone has been stealing the hearts of students... and the bodies are starting to pile up. Who—or what—is killing the students, and what do they want with you? Customize your character, study a major of your choice, romance one of four fellow students, and one by one discover the skeletons in their closets…

Features

• A fully customizable MC, including appearance, gender, sexuality, personality, and the coping mechanism you use to drown out memories you desperately wish you could forget…

• Character and romance driven story where you can build friendships, form relationships, and then use them how you so choose

• Choose from one of five unique magical specialities to study while at Blackthorn

• Romance one of four ROs available to all players

DEMO: Coming Soon

Meet the Love Interests and Find Useful Posts:

Theo Fairchild: Popular and always seen wearing half a dozen bruises, Theo’s infamous for his participation in the academy fight club, but black eyes and broken bones are far from the worst thing he’s hiding….

Oliver Ying: The stoner son of a business tycoon, Oliver is content to coast on his father's wealth. But beneath the smoke are the eyes of a phoenix and a sword on his tongue...

Juliette Lancaster: Highly intelligent and always at the top of the class, Juliette projects an image of arrogance and class to everyone she meets. What could she be hiding behind her perfectly pressed blazer and immaculate grades?

Valeria Cortés: The resident queen bee, Val has all of Blackthorn's social royalty in the palm of her hand. Mysterious, brutal, and ambitious, she says she’s only working for herself, but who is she really dancing for?

Useful Posts:

Blackthorn Academy Majors Breakdown

Coping Mechanisms Breakdown

RO Posts:

Heights

#interactive fiction #painted devils #theo fairchild #oliver ying #juliette lancaster #valeria cortés #if wip #interactive novel #choicescript #hosted games #if game #masterpost #choice of games

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oncewhenalongtimeago · 14 days

Note

i like the side characters the reader is around that you implement in ur stories . im assuming they’re just ocs but it makes y/n feel more real rather than an insert to be purely attached to hiccup .

this isnt necessarily an actual request , but id like to see reader interact more with other characters , like how they did w snotlout in the jealous one ! if ur fine w small suggestions ?

Wildflower pt 2

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Fem!Fiance!Reader

Words: 4,301

The cast assembles itself.

Tags: Mild age difference, unrequited, requited, fem!reader, heavy exposition, non-canon politics, original characters

There was a mood to your prowl, one that could only be held by someone who was certain that they were alone as you crept into the darkness. It covered you like a thin film.

What was once blazingly bright was now tame, the fires from outside now resting and nearly dead. It was quiet sans the occasional crackling and the sound of sizzling and sputtering, fires being tended to by not just your peers, but the rest of the Berks Vikings, primarily the proletariat, as often the more noble found themselves too above those sorts of ordeals.

The sooted inside of the smithy was not at all different to the outside- it was just as sweltering though perhaps filled with less of the festering smell of blood and carnage, though the air remained uncirculated- it felt just as musty as it was thick.

This last raid had been a difficult one, the work you’d need to spend rebuilding spanning many days. The idea exhausted you. You and your fellows would have your hands full. Bjorner, the bastard, would make himself scarce.

You’d seen him doing it a number of times, skulking through alleyways, walking with a mix of confidence and twitchy, hunched shoulders, striding and grunting and checking past shoulders when forced instead of talking to the others. He always made his way to the arena after a raid.

He lurked there just as Jorvik Jorgenson often spent his time training on the rare occasion he was let off on his lonesome, though Bjorner preferred to make himself most scarce if he and Jorvik were ever forced into the same space.

With a scoff that came from low in your throat, you ran the side of your hand down the side of your face, your other arm taut, carrying by the blade one tarnished shortsword.

You let it fall to the ground with a deep clatter.

It was not your own- it was a one that had been embedded in the side of the building which you’d dismounted with a vicious shout. You could tell quite obviously why it’d been there, blade cracked and nearly shattered against the thick neck-skin of a Nadder as you’d beaten it back with one blunt metal end.

Skulking, you eyed the dying light of rounded, chipped coals, slightly orange around the edges. The furnace had been left unattended- that would not bode well, now or ever.

You could do the same- sneak off, go for some more training… Battle-practice was preferable to building, though most of you all had gone through the likes of dragon-training quite early on- it was all very much a casual affair now, yet it was also no less vicious for it.

You felt the taut press of wood against the small of your back, what was once a sharp edge nearly dull as you rested against it, ready for some deep thinking. You always were.

The world of Berk was one in which children were used like cows when it came to physical labor, so there was likely no escape.

Childbearing had been rare in those few years where the raids had been hardest. Yours was almost the last class to be of use with the buckets. Your class had already been saddled with them much longer than any of you would have liked, from your twelve winters until fourteen, when most gave up the job in pursuit of other things.

You suspected that your fiance’s lot would have to spend much longer in the brigade than yours had, which, in most eyes, must have been a good thing. Hiccup was still small and scrawny and not so capable of taking care of things on his own- reckless.

He was willful, though that wasn’t so much of a fault as it was something to hone, same as any of the blades that had passed or would ever pass through the forge, pressed against the smithy’s sander’s belt. That was fine- he’d just need the extra room to grow. In retrospect, it was probably his father’s goal to temper him and to provide him something which might actually become of use before he reached an adult age and you were to be married, because he was certainly -in the eyes of his brethren, surely- not fit to be Chief.

You had to admit to yourself that he was much too flighty to do well there; too thoughtless, though that was just fine for your purposes.

You rested your hand against the table as you shifted, leaning your weight and adjusting.

Your palm could have met the sharp end of some hot tool and you would not have been bothered by it much. You hadn’t been since you were five, now fifteen. Instead, it met the fluttering edge of a paper, something you just barely felt past the aches, pain rendering your fingers all numb.

Instead of plain wood, you felt the thin, nearly unregistrable flutter of parchment against your palms, covering most of the wood behind you in layers and folds.

You grasped backwards, grabbing the corner slip of one small piece, drawing it forth to eye, its face covered in an even array of smudged charcoal etchings. They were organized in a way that wasn’t, semi-smooth lines offset by uneven scribbles and messy chicken-scratching rune-work. It was ungainly, yet there was a purpose to it.

You admired it, though it was not without its flaws.

Projected clearly across the paper in the way the spear was drawn loaded into the barrel, spring and launcher lined and detailed meticulously- it was a spear-launcher, not yet named, though you were sure when it would be, it would be just as asinine as any of his other ridiculous, boy-minded names- bonecrusher, jaw-wrender, the bloody fandangler.

A thick metal coil installed into the barrel behind a plate with rotating gears along the inside, connected to a hefty lever- compared to his usual models, all shelf-mounted model figures, it was an ambitious project. You were sure he’d never attempted something nearly as complex, either.

Your fiance was quite unusual by most standards. What he’d drawn up today was unlike anything anyone else could have come up with, you thought, which wasn’t so bad. There was something here for you to find pride in, at least- to be able to grow older and to marry a man with some skill, if a boy like him could ever become a man.

You couldn’t see what was so appealing about him now, not that many could in the first place. He was much too baby-faced and you were much too prudent to conceive of him in any other way. You knew Stoick and his wife held many years of distance between them, and yet still, you couldn’t picture it.

You sighed, though not at all exasperated. It was barely an expulsion of breath, more just the parting of lips.

Hiccup’s work had always been made to be quick and done hastily, boxy fingers addled by what was probably the natural, budding recklessness of a teenage boy. However, the world would rue the day he learned to use an even unit of measure- his preferred unit was the length of his arm, though that never bode well.

He was smart, a kindred spirit in that he did what you occasionally thought but never entertained- he had an innovative mind, a creative one, if one not so dictated by fancy and color, more guided by logic and print, yet he was more prone to flaw, practice poor when it came to exercising the objective.

The design of the shell was simple and yet the measured lengths were different. Three lengths of an arm for the base and three and a half for the shell would make it much longer and wider than anything else, which meant that the frame would have been made looser, offset by his poor math.

If this was to be his passion, he could do better.

The measure of the barrel's coil, marked by the hasty sketch of a circle, was most definitely too thin. You were sure it’d snap under most pressures even if it hadn’t already been wound so tight. The placement of a chain-and-clip along the bottom was quite inappropriate though not so dangerous. Its awkward angle and occupation of space meant that everything else had to have been moved to compensate for it in a way that would hinder the rest of the gears and wedges, though you weren't quite sure if he’d caught on to that yet.

You were sure you’d hear of it later when you bothered to listen, which, if measured by instances, were also few and far between. It always happened over the dinner table- an unfortunate rule of the Haddocks it was, to feast at home. At least when the Chief was home and not off raiding.

In the time he’d graduated from the mindless babble of someone who’d been only about five winters and one moon cycle, Hiccup had grown a mind.

It had come with heavy, jaded awareness and a hefty load of malcontent, and yet his father, as long as you’d known him, had never had an ear for nonsense, something which his son had also been prone to- more a quite deep seated crankiness and gruff exhaustion, though you weren't quite sure whether one was a symptom of the other

Hiccup was always mumbling and grumbling under his breath, hiding language about loose frames and bodies and mismatched pieces to stuff and buff and sway as if he knew your father-in-law didn’t care so much for it anyways. It had been a long while since any of his words had ever stemmed from any genuine desire to share.

You always thought it might be purposeful, a reaction to knowing his father wanted some other thing like a comment on either the pleasantness or roughness of the day, yet also finding no alternative to the realities of his own life, stubbornly, with hunched shoulders, spouting words as if conversation was a game he hated and had been forced into. It was as if he thought his words might be able to tear down the foundations of their hut and wear away each and every stone brick off the shores of Berk- and rescue him from whatever torrid circumstance he’d put the lot of you in that day.

You only wished that were the case.

There was a flaw in that small hope- of course, Stoick had long lost all hope for that picturesque dinner table, the one to come home to with the well-built boy and an easy meal. The time for compensation- to somehow make up for his long, deep-set desires; for his son to be easy in the most traditional sense, to feel wholly fulfilled as a family man in a way that didn’t interfere with his duty as Chief- had been long since gone. Now was more a time for exhaustion. Grumpiness.

Still, he always expected, and was always left displeased. The Chief wasn’t deaf and he was loath to hear even a peep about anything odd. It was times like these that you were buckled down for a nasty night full of stiff air and nearly derogatory comments.

Even if it exhausted you, you personally hadn’t much to worry about, though. It was a bother, of course, and a stress, but, as you’d decided, you’d no time for their squabbles.

You deigned most questions with a grunt, which left you both difficult to address and quite the unargumentative non-player, though your aloofness didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things- most particularly because, to a degree that left no room for distraction, the two males irritated each other most of all. They ground each other down like grain.

It would do them all something better if Hiccup could just be silenced… or if the Chief could merely bear it for but a moment- at least, if they could keep it all bottled up, you might just have some peace. You didn’t care which way it had to happen, as long as it did.

You rolled your eyes back slightly, tilting your head to the side as you did, brows furrowing.

It had the added consequence of bringing your attention away to other things- the mess of tools laying in a pile across the way left to molder, the crumbling, half-shattered stones by the base of one wall, the thin, discarded shell of some machine just by your foot.

There was mismatching lever-base jammed quite recklessly into the hole of the side of it, nearly brushing the floor -it didn’t even stand up to your knee- wood split slightly along the side of the hole.

Detachedly, you nudged it aside with your foot, raising a brow.

Scuffing against stone, shedding distance, not excessively heavy, not too light, wholly measured- A hearty grunt, somewhat familiar, yet not worthy enough to draw your attention.

The shift of furs against skin, a stilling.

Another grunt. Soon, there would be more, arriving hastily after gathering their assets and their wits.

You kept your eyes trained on your hands, the parchment between, at what you hoped had just been a smudge, “Speak your name.”

“You jest.”

You raised a tired eyebrow with no small amount of amusement, eyes still trained on the paper in front of you, “If I do, I’ve also forgotten your name.”

You feigned ignorance still- you knew him well, if only vaguely, not all of your disinterest had been feigned- he was Hrolfer. One of the Hoffersons, also some winters older as well, though the last in your group to be such an age, in your class with a head of dashing blonde hair, a band and a tie keeping it tidied up at all times, and a lean set of evenly muscled shoulders, exposed as his sleeves were burnt and torn from battle.

“You’re the only one in all of Midgard who’d ever do so.” He spoke, voice smooth, not too hindered by the thick air, though almost not recognizable.

You raised a brow to yourself. The Hoffersons weren’t so egotistical a clan- not in ways that were outright, more obsessed with winning and betterness than bloodshed and bragging.

In terms of politic, though they were a major house, the Hoffersons were a quite neutral clan, not because they were particularly benevolent, but because the idea that they were above most conflicts gave them the opportunity to look down upon the rest. You had a hard time finding strife with his clan most particularly because you did not care for eyes just as they caused the least trouble. They were the most noble and honor-obsessed, though sometimes, for them, honor existed only when it was convenient in only the ways they wanted it to.

They were the truest ‘warriors,’ though their lack of dalliance in any other field left them quite poor.

In terms of your own relations, you were always on the opposite sides of the arena- you’d never spoken, the both of you more the silent type than anything else, though you’d had a few chance dalliances.

The only time you found yourself shackled to the Haddock house was in the rare instance you’d been left needing for something to buff your metal, or you’d been snowed in with the lot of them, or you’d lingered perhaps a bit too long or some other plight. Often, you took care of your needs on your lonesome, filling your belly in the hall, most often skipping meals when you had to, practicing out with an axe in the arena, throwing and beating metal through hay dummy.

You could recall maybe a nod in the midst of battle or a shared sideways glance- the few times you’d both been late enough to feed together in the Great hall, still keeping largely to yourselves. It happened more often than not. Perhaps that was what he meant to play on.

Either way, he didn’t seem to care much, so you offered no sympathy in return.

“Woe.” You spoke again, droll, half-lidded, lazy eyes languishing their way over to him and back. Pithy words for pithy questions. A coin for the poor, not that you had coin with you.

As always, over his shoulder was an axe with a head nearly larger than his own, though now it was covered in soot and scratches and fractured by the blade where a chunk of metal had been taken from one mighty side. It would have to be replaced. The handle was just as scratched, dark wood with leather wrappings, though you could tell that before the battle, it had been well-polished and carefully taken care of. A damaged heirloom, most probably- a great disappointment to have it so broken yet also a point of pleasure to know it’d been of use to such an effectual warrior.

He hummed deeply before going silent, stoic, waiting, shoulders tall and face stiff with an expression just as blank to match, brows slightly furrowing as if he too understood- to mingle was to indulge in bother, time wasted that could have been better spent doing what was better, what was needed. In that way, you were two of the same. Which begged the question- where was your wayward fiance?

He wasn’t allowed away from the forge, not during a raid- yet he was absent. Just as absent as he was very much needed. He must have snuck out, though, to do what you weren’t sure, leaving you on your lonesome, breathing in the dust and lying in wait in the dark, nursing your own cuts and bruises.

You hoped you’d not have to deal with another instance with an axe or a spear. You thought he might have had enough with the humiliation, the manhandling, the failure. However, he was a determined thing, and determination was just as odd a drive as he, fueled by the most backwards circumstances.

You’d turned as Hrofer settled against the closed forge window, eyes overshadowed, the side of him half-lit by the open smithy shutter door.

The table was completely crowded, full of odd bars, nails and other tool-like ends.

You settled one hand aimlessly, grasping ahold of one end of another parchment, slightly dusty across the surface and uneven as if the wood hadn’t been pulped properly before it’s been set. You paid it no mind.

You were wholly aware of a hefty set of eyes on your back as you did, something in the air urging haste. You ignored it, scouring deeper into the darkness of the forge, though you didn't have to look so hard.

The long end of one charcoal stick rolled against your fingers as you picked it up, shedding dust against the wooden desktop between the wooden handle of a quaint-looking hammer and the hand-end of a prong.

Its dust-like feel was in great contrast to the ribs in the wood scratching against your other, paper lumpy yet smooth where there should be divots. It was a nice feeling, only mildly despaired by the shuffling of dirt outside, the slightly muffled sound of conflict, deeper baritones clashing against a squeaky voice, high in the nasal that hadn’t quite begun to drop.

Facing the darkness, you smudged at the charcoal with one thumb, drawing a larger three over the spot where it had lain plus half, frowning slightly as you rested your hips forwards against the table, thick wooden face pressing into the soft meat of your upper leg. Remove chain.

By the corner, where there lay one half of a blotted circumference, with your pinky finger resting against the table, the rest clutched around the stick, you drew the tiniest of words onto the paper with smooth, looped lettering; make it thicker.

You could already hear his protests already through the walls. Some, “-ome on, Dad,” and some stuttered, “I can- I can-”

You sighed again, sharper and more exasperated this time, just as hissed as the now near-dead fires outside.

They’d go at it for a while longer, Hiccup with balled fists and folded elbows and a determined, aggressive lean as he attempted to make his case. His father, in contrast, with a towering, exasperated, gruff expression- he wouldn’t be so pleased, even less so to see you’d caught the tail-end of it all. In a situation so violate, it really would not do to add any unneeded stress to the mix.

In that moment, your irritation got the better of you, your fingers crumpling discarded paper. You glared at the ball of it in your hand for a moment before, in a moment of indecision, shoving it deep into a back pocket, sewn hastily into the back of your skirt, pulling it out, then tossing it to the side.

You shook your head, eyes half-rolling as you blinked, soles of your leather boots padding soundlessly over stone, moving with an ease of practice, leaving the stick of charcoal to roll back onto a table full of various knacks, clattering hollowly, lightly against wood and tapping against metal.

There was a way out back, where the sky peeked in from many bottled windows and doors, easy enough to move through before Hiccup was left to stumble-storm in, before you’d be brought to awkward confrontation with his father, who had always had a hard time figuring what to do with himself when dealing with his own spawn.

The feel of thin stems against your fingertips, slightly wet and dull-wilted, the slick of the fog tingling against baby hairs, the hound of the forest, so quiet and uninhabited- you’d do nearly anything to be back there. Not in the village, tiny and full of those left aging, with not nearly enough women to make more than a single family, but in the forest, where things were quiet, and where, though few, if you knew where to look, there were plenties of small, wild, budding flowers.

If there was a word you could ever think to use to describe him, it would have been ‘child,’ for even if you were young in both name and stature, he was much more of both. You were worlds apart, though you could not find it within yourself to hate. You couldn’t find much in yourself at that moment.

His height was not comparable to yours at all. His head ended where the top of your chest began, and even to you, who was the smallest and youngest on your tiny isle, he looked so young, cheeks cherub and shy-quiet.

To love and to be loved in turn was a privilege, one you were now sure you’d never be afforded, for how could you partner with someone so unlike you, so small and hapless?

You were enough to be almost cherished but not enough to be wanted. It hadn’t been enough to sustain you, to keep you, to promise life and marriage- It was a lonely life, on that island. It was okay.

The worn bottoms of the small child’s leather boots scuffed against the wooden floor as he wrung his fingers together past large sleeves, stained and speckled with snot, both belonging to a shirt that was much too baggy and bright to be anything but frivolous and ill-fitting, yet was much newer than your own worn, dirty, fisher’s kin’s clothes. A small bit of snot peaked down from the bottom of his nose like a fouler version of the morning’s freshest, coldest dew. It was a muddled, sour color. His head was tilted downwards though his shoulders were at a normal angle if not slightly hunched.

He brought one sleeve up to his nose, smearing it against fabric, something in you recoiling as he did, causing your nose to wrinkle.

“Hi,” The boy said in a voice that was both small and moppish. It was just as wavering as it was sound.

You were hesitant to respond.

There was a man standing a ways away and yet somehow still towering over the both of you. Though you didn’t care much to pay him any attention, it was a fact of the matter that his presence was overwhelming, nearly stifling. He was a monolith, heavy in the most muggy way plausible.

A sharp whisper of breeze sputtered in from the outside, brushing up against your back, slicing through your close, moving, chilling and yet not fast enough to push the hefty front door open any further.

You past the feel of fog, of weathering time, you felt the shifting of heavy brown furs, cloth layered over and over, covering the frame of a wooden bed, thin enough to shake over the chilling floor as you crawled into it, to squeak and squeal, to wobble precariously, but still somehow enough to carry both you and your mother.

You were very aware of a lack- the lack. The one that spoke of crumbling foundations, of old pillars, temples made of blood and forged through bone, the bond of family, the realization that you might not have ever had any at all, just open, grassy clearings and biting, cold air where there should have been cities. The feeling was… isolating.

It wasn’t well lit at all inside of this hut, a world of growing darkness in a place that felt wholly empty. Still, like a rash, from the open door, a sash of light glanced over the boy’s face, starting where your shadow ended. You weren’t standing nearly close enough for it to cover you whole, small dust pieces and speckles dancing in the cool luster.

You waited, though for what, you weren’t sure. Not words, not change, but with the time, you realized quite simply that you had nothing to say.

You nodded.

#httyd #how to train your dragon #x reader #hiccup x reader #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #fem reader #httyd imagine #female reader #toothless #you're going to enjoy the coming chapters #this story relies heavily on the reader being her own person

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she-wolf09231982 · 8 months

Text

Chapter 4- The Catch

Summary: Carentan was a harsh bloody battle. As you and Doc are tending to multiple wounded men, you eventually run into Liebgott while he’s comforting a severely wounded fellow soldier he was partnered with. After the Americans claimed the town, eventually the boys of Easy were pleasantly surprised when they had an evening at a pub when you arrived polished up like a lady with a song in your heart.

A/N: Mature audience, Joe LiebgottxFem!Medic, post D-Day, She/Her Pronouns, Y/F/N, Y/L/N, Cursing/Swearing, Derogatory Slurs, Womanizing Comments, Confrontation, Military Terminology, 1940’s slang, Inappropriate Nicknames, Band of Brothers References, Mentions of Weaponry, Descriptive Wounds/Injuries, Death, Blood/Gore, Smoking, Banter, Pining, Consensual Physical Contact/PDA, FOREVER FLUFF 💚

Chapter takes place Episode 1x4 Replacements

Song selection for this piece:

Good Night, My Love by Ella Fitzgerald

{Provided below at the end of the chapter}

*These stories may not fall entirely in accordance with the TV series timeline. I do not know the real soldiers the actors portray in this series, so please understand I show no disrespect. Some or most of historical events and character interactions in my fanfics are fabricated purely for the sake of the enjoyment of fiction*

~~~~~~~

As you come up on Carentan, you’re met with heavy fire from German snipers hiding inside some of the buildings. Most of you take cover in the ditches on either side of the road but are just made easy targets for the Germans since everyone was still out in the open.

Winters shouted at the troops to move forward to get cover and started to physically lift each soldier he passed to get them moving.

“Get yourselves out of those trenches!”

After finally making entry into the town, American soldiers scatter to wherever they can to get cover from all of the gunfire coming from every direction.

You and Doc on separate ends of the streets trying to keep low to tend to the wounded.

“MEDIC!!”

You race to two soldiers landing on your knees next to them, one on the ground with a trail of blood coming from his helmet, the other crouching over him.

“He’s still breathing, help me carry him!” You call out. You each grab an arm of the injured soldier and drag him behind a building.

While you’re working on the nameless soldier’s head wound, a drug store gets blasted by German artillery not far from where you were, the force from the explosion sending you sideways into the brick wall next to you.

Your ears intensely ringing, it’s all you can hear for a moment until you hear Liebgott’s voice.

“TIPPER! TIP! Answer me, Tip!” Joe calls out to his partner, Ed Tipper who sadly had been in the building when the blast occurred.

You shake your head vigorously in an attempt open your ears and regain your composure. When you finally snap out of it, you look up to see Tipper stumbling out of the destroyed storefront of the pharmacy, the left side of his face completely torn up from shrapnel, and his right thigh blown wide open, the artery clearly lacerated and bleeding out.

Liebgott running, stops dead in his tracks when he sees Tipper.

“Joe?? Is that you??” Tipper calls out trembling.

Liebgott stunned by Tipper’s bloody appearance, slowly approached him carefully setting down is rifle.

“Lookin’ good, Tip.” Joe says reassuringly placing his rifle on the ground, “-lookin’ real good.”

Liebgott gently took Tipper by the arm, leading him out of the building.

“Come here, buddy, you gotta sit down. Come here...Come on...” He slowly helped Tipper to the ground, “Easy, easy...There you go...there you go.”

Liebgott crouched next to Tipper and gently guided his head to rest in the crook of his neck.

Tipper’s breath became ragged and labored. As he started coughing up blood, Joe surveyed the rest of the damage on him. He discovers the right thigh wound, bleeding out and pulsating where the artery was hit, then the right foot exposed through the boot also drenched in red.

“Ah Jesus...” Liebgott whispered to himself stroking Tipper’s hair. “You hang in there, buddy. Okay, we're gonna get you fixed up. All right...okay. Guys, you wanna give me a hand here? Come on.”

He started to lift Tipper as you approached. Before the other two soldiers could help Liebgott pick him up, you push through them grabbing Tipper’s right arm to bring it across the back of your shoulders and assist carrying him to safety.

“Over here, Lieb.” You direct.

You both rest Tipper against the wall as you grab a large dressing from your med bag, putting it directly over his thigh to apply pressure. You knew it would be to no avail since the artery needed to be held closed to keep the blood in and he’s lost so much blood already. Without plasma, you couldn’t do much.

“Tip, I’m right here.” You comfort him, putting your face in his line of sight so he can see you.

Liebgott staring stood up slowly, waiting for you to work your healing magic, but you already knew Tipper’s fate was sealed. You look up apologetically at Joe and shake your head.

~~~~~~~

After the dust finally settled, the town was now under American control. The time in Carentan was short lived, as orders came through for Easy to attack East towards the low ground. Easy went from the Western part of Carentan towards the South, near the village of Douville. You all are confronted with a major German resistance upon your arrival. The Germans launched a strong counter- attack with tanks and armored vehicles. Fortunately, Sherman tank reinforcements arrived, breaking the German lines of contact and shortly abandoned the hill.

A few days later, after a failed reconnaissance mission, Easy was removed from the front lines and sent back to Sainte-Mère-du-Monte to recover from the combat you all had endured. To Easy’s misfortune, Lipton announces you all are to return to combat in September. New orders state Easy is to drop into Holland to liberate the people from German tyranny.

But when Easy approaches Eindhoven, the locals commemorate your arrival with celebration in the streets with banners waving and cheers of appreciation. Women of the village kiss each soldier on the cheeks and mouths as they pass, while the men hug or shake their hands showing their gratitude.

It was chaotic. Everywhere you looked, people were dancing and shouting in the streets while music blared from a band off to the side. You were once again separated from Joe.

You hear Lipton yelling, “Keep moving!!” He repeated over and over amongst the crowd as he ushered the guys up the street.

This was an unusual change of pace for Easy Company. Instead of being met with gunshots and explosions, you’re welcomed with warm smiles and affection from the locals. Some of the guys took advantage of the situation getting in some extra kisses from the local women.

You wondered if Liebgott was kissing any of these women. Afterall, they seemed to be wearing some of their best dresses with make-up and here you were, having looked like a hag for nearly four months since you dropped on D-Day. Why wouldn’t he get his kisses in while he had the chance to get one from a lady looking like she had at least been bathing consistently?

This thought discouraged you. You hadn’t done yourself up since Toccoa. You release a sigh of frustration and continue pushing through the crowd.

~~~~~~~

That evening, Easy got together with some of the new Easy replacements in attendance at what seemed to be a barn made into an improvised pub. There was a dartboard on the wall, and multiple tables and chairs set up. A simple radio playing some popular tunes sat on the bar.

“Hey, Lieb, where’s Y/L/N?” Perconte asked.

Liebgott shrugged. “Last I heard she went to one of the local women’s houses to get cleaned up.”

“Betchya we won’t even recognize her.” Guarnere joked.

The guys all laughed collectively. Malarkey pushed through the crowd trying to get everyone’s attention.

“Hey, guys! Get a look at the bird that just came in!” Malarkey pointed towards the entrance with a wide eager smile.

Everyone redirected their attention to the front of the room. Most of the men of Easy caught sight of an almost familiar woman wearing the standard female Army dress uniform complete with skirt, simple heels, and clean white medic brassard displaying the Red Cross around the left bicep. Hair clean and perfumed pulled back into a neat fashionable bun and a face with fresh make-up and painted lips. You almost had the entire room at a complete standstill when you walked in.

Liebgott’s jaw dropped, (as did everyone’s).

“Who the hell is that?” Talbert asked.

“Floyd, you’re an idiot.” Guarnere asserted.

“It’s our little lady medic, boys.” Randleman pointed out affectionately.

Excited murmurs and whispers filtered across the room.

You start to make your way to Easy in the back. Of course, you’re approached by several other members from other companies there, but you kindly decline their advances so you can get to your own.

“Hey, fellas.” You greet as you near the group of Easy soldiers.

They all inaudibly respond with their own forms of welcome, then all fall silent leaving a heavy blanket of tension in the air between you and them. You look around suspiciously wondering why none of them were making eye contact with you or speaking. Some looked like they were even holding their breath.

“What’s wrong with you guys? It just Y/L/N! Quit acting like you never seen a woman before.” Nixon said addressing the men.

“Yeah, but that’s just it, sir, it’s Y/L/N...dolled up. She don’t normally look like this.” Guarnere explained.

Nixon laughed. “Then it would be gentlemanly of one of you to offer her a seat while I get her a drink. What will you have Y/L/N?” He called out to you.

“Thank you, sir, any beer will be just fine.” You replied with a relieved smile.

“You clean up nice, L/N!” Malarkey commended as he pulled you in for a one-armed hug.

“Thanks, Don.” You respond as your cheeks heat up.

The rest of the guys agree simultaneously, each voicing over the other how great you looked.

You laugh nervously, “Gee, guys, thanks.” Was all you could say.

You weren’t used to this kind of attention from the boys. As the awkwardness lifted and everyone started to resume socializing, your eyes eventually met Liebgott’s.

You each smile at eachother.

“Here you go, L/N.” Nixon handed you a bottle with a wink.

“Thanks, sir. Cheers!” You raise your beer clinking it against his highball glass of Vat 69 whiskey on the rocks.

You finally go to stand with Liebgott.

When you reached him, he gently pulled you in by your waist and leaned in to whisper in your ear.

“You’re a knockout, sweetheart.” He professed with that Joe Liebgott smirk.

You felt his warm breath dance along your neck, making your spine shiver and the butterflies rise in your stomach.

Your breath caught in your chest, and you smiled shyly at him.

“Lookin’ dapper yourself, Joe.” You reply as you readjust his tie.

Your little moment was interrupted abruptly by Guarnere.

“Hey Joe, if you ain’t gonna have a dance with her, how ‘bout letting one of us take her once around the room?” He teased.

An upoar of laughter erupted from the group.

Joe looked at you and raised his eyebrows, “How about it, doll?” He asked.

“Oh, I don’t think I can dance in these shoes, Joe. I tripped twice outside on the way over here.” You admitted.

Joe chuckled then Luz came up to you.

“Hey Y/F/N! Bull here says you got some pipes on ya? Can you sing us a little something?” He bid.

You direct a look of betrayal towards Randleman.

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone, Bull.” You reminded him sharply.

“It would be a crime and shame to keep that voice a secret, lady.” Randleman declared.

Laughter fills the air.

“So, whaddya say? One song? For us?” Luz begged again.

You look around at all the eager faces of the men in Easy Company, and you smile.

“How about some Ella Fitzgerald?” You suggest.

The men cheered and ushered you over to the upright piano against the wall by the bar.

“Hey, we can’t see her!” One soldier shouted from the back.

“Give her something to stand on!” Another one called out.

Toye placed a chair next to the piano as Liebgott offered his hand to help you up.

When you came into view of the audience, all the men applauded, directing whistles and howls of admiration.

You grimace playfully shaking your head mouthing, “Knock it off!” as you wave them down.

A soldier from the crowd sat at the piano.

“You know, Goodnight, My Love?” You ask him.

The soldier nodded and began playing the selection from memory.

You serenade with all your heart and soul, immediately capturing the room. As you sing, you look from one awestruck face to another, making sure to smile as any good entertainer would do in the movies. You felt like a starlet.

The whole room leaning in listening intensively, some ogling at you from the tables, your eyes connect with Joe’s who’s standing along the front. He grins as he watches you admirably and you can’t help but return a smile.

At that moment on the last line of the song, you lost your balance.

🎶Sleep tight, my love, goodnight, my love

Remember that you’re my sweetheart--🎶

“GASP!”

All the air suddenly left your lungs as you feel your feet leaving the surface of the chair. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as Joe swiftly swooped in catching you bridal style before you can hit the floor. The room in unison choked with concern.

The world went still while Joe was holding you. Your faces so close, your cheeks reddened and once again your breath stuck in your throat somewhere.

“Nice grab, Liebgott!” You hear Guarnere shout. The room laughed and applauded as Joe turned still carrying you, smiling mischievously from ear to ear.

“What a finale!” Compton called out.

“No more booze for her!” Luz teased. More laughter.

Liebgott set you on your feet.

“You good?” He asked. You nod.

“Thanks to you.” You beamed. You leaned in and kissed his cheek to show your gratitude for the rescue.

You heard some of the guys mockingly whistle at you and Liebgott for this little show of affection.

His astonishment had left his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide making you giggle. He leered playfully at you.

“You missed, sweetheart.” He eluded as he tapped his lips with his finger winking at you.

You raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. With your fore and middle fingers together, you press them to your red lips, kiss the pads, then place them onto Joe’s waiting lips which he gladly kissed. A devilish grin stretched across his face.

“Maybe next time we can have that dance?” He suggested.

“Sure, Joe. At least I know I can depend on you to catch me if I fall again.” You proclaim with a wink and a coy smile.

“I’ll always be there to save you, sweetheart.”

~~~~~~~

For your hearing pleasure,

Good Night, My Love by Ella Fitzgerald

youtube

{Provided by YouTube}

Chapter 5 👇🏼

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blood-orange-juice · 9 months

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ok so ive never properly played genshin and don’t plan to but i know a bit about it’s lore and characters and i think it’s really neat. however i have thousands of hours on ffxiv. on that note please explain why graha and childe are similar. i only have very basic knowledge on childe and i gotta know

Fellow ffxiv enjoyer. <3

(anyone asking me about G'raha has a 100% chance of getting a wall of text and I'm not apologising for that. enjoy your wall of text)

I'm not entirely sure I'm not a case of a person with a hammer to whom everything resembles a nail, but I do think they are the same archetype.

Sweet characters who could have been perfect sidekicks (who still are perfect sidekicks) but listened to too many epic tales as kids and found themselves in a wrong place at a wrong time and now have to play a key role in some universe-changing story.

Both are defined mostly by their stubborness, they are not very suitable for the roles they've chosen and fail over and over again until they do it somewhat right (barely).

No matter how badass they look, their power is not their own, G'raha is a glorified technician of someone else's miracle and little else than a living key, Childe wields an art of old Khaenri'ah without fully understanding it. It's all borrowed from someone else who needed them to achieve a goal.

They do look badass, but mostly because they larp. I'm honestly not sure which one enjoys theatrics more.

Civilisations that created the magic they use specialised in perversion of the natural order of things. They try to use it in relatively noble ways and mostly hurt themselves but the flavour is there.

Both are unbelievably tragic and both somehow make their stories seem almost lighthearted. Complete absense of self-pity. I think that's what makes them both so charming, it's a rare trait.

Both have an incredible capacity for loyalty and love and an incredibly twisted view of what relationships look like. "I'll cross time and space for you, I'll die for you, I'll build a city for you, I'll live for you but please don't ask me to share my plans." "I'll sacrfice my own health and respect of my subordinates to keep my brother's happyness, probably my humanity too, but don't expect me to actually interact with him."

Both have something that looks like self-sacrificial tendencies bordering on suicidality while being, if we are honest, a self-serving trait (partially born out of low self-esteem but still self-serving). They want to live in an old myth and sacrificing oneself is a perfectly reasonable price for that.

Huge egos. And I mean Huge Egos. It's a bit less obvious in Graha's case but I know the type, you see guys like that in PhD programs a lot.

Huge dorks. Both of them.

Both are stuck somewhere between human and non-human and, hmm... their ability to remain human is the most astonishing quality of both. By all accounts, neither should have. They somehow did.

Both are incapable of lying to the point where a third of each fandom headcanons them as autistic. Both are somewhat all right with tricking people without technically lying (although Childe had more practice).

Both are secretive because no one would understand anyway.

FF XIV is a kinder story, so it's easy to overlook, but technically G'raha is a case of body horror, accepts the role of a villain for a while and hides from the player way too much. Hmmm... Where else have I seen it. Hmm. Oh right. That ginger guy from Genshin.

Minor things:

Both are little shits and enjoy annoying the hell out of people they dislike.

Abysmally bad fashion sense. There should be a name for this particular type and level of bad. I don't think I've seen this anywhere else.

And then there's the colour scheme. Red+black+white+blue and red+black+light grey+blue (it's an "anime magician" color profile, I think. black-red-white as alchemy colours + blue as pure magic/something elemental). Childe doesn't quite fit but still the combination is rare.

They way they talk. Dear gods. Who the hell talks like that.

Here's where the similarities end.

One is morally grey but ultimately a good guy (technically. I think the point of ShB was that Emet and G'raha are almost the same), another is a morally grey but still (kind of) a bad buy.

At every step of his story Graha is surrounded by people who love or at least appreciate him, Childe is pretty much on his own and surrounded by people who are either shitty or clueless.

G'raha is kind. Truly and astonishingly kind, in a doomed world he chooses to love everything he touches. Silly little priest of hope. Of all the things he has done this is the most wondrous, I think. Not the time travel, not the city he founded, just being able to remain kind after everything that happened to him.

Childe is... well, Childe. I think he is a deeply decent person (to the point of having a visceral distaste for any kind of unfairness) and he's idealistic but he's indifferent more than he is kind. Empathy usually develops only when someone has shown the person empathy first and, as far as we know, he didn't have much of that in his life.

Also G'raha builds things. Childe breaks things. Childe breaks pretty much everything he touches.

One is an archeologist and a mage and another is a warrior.

I think these differences are caused mostly by the settings they were put into. Childe raised in Sharlayan would have been a very different person. G'raha trained by a voidsent and shipped off to Garlean military would look very much like Childe.

G'raha also has a beautiful character development arc. I love his ShB role. He has this huge ego in the raids and is insufferable and then we see an older and wiser him with a bunch of actual achievements and a bad case of impostor syndrome (trying to do anything real always humbles a person, we all know that real world is held together by sticks and scotch tape. honestly, this change alone is beautiful). And he gets to be an actual hero when he abandons all hope to be Important and resigns to die as a nameless villain if it saves everyone and spares his loved ones from heartbreak.

Childe's character development is yet to happen and I'm not hoping for much but we'll see.

The only difference that definitely isn't created by setting is that G'raha is naturally manipulative. In a kind-hearted way and mostly for the sake of better larp but he isn't that straightforward. Childe is spectacularly blunt for all his mysteriousness.

As a bonus, they both compare main characters to stars, but in completely different ways.

"No doubt your heroism will be the star by which I chart my course," says G'raha to the WoL.

Childe mentions the morning star, which is, of course, pretty and a good companion to a lonely traveler, but also it's not a celestial body you can chart your course by.

It's a guy whose signature weapon is called "Polar Star" and his first artifact set was full of nautical themes, so I think he fully understands what he's saying. "You are my friend but I won't change anything in my life for you."

So I don't think his story will be anything like G'raha's, his life took a different turn very long ago. I do think they used to be similar as kids, bookish boys who dreamed of adventure and being special. So it's fun to compare.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. <3

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linkspooky · 1 year

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it's been rotting in my brain sm on there's so much similarities actually between geto and utahime. I know it seems hard to claim that but from their character designs, birthdays, and some of their values(they value teamwork and deeply care about others)..Also there's their butting heads dynamic with gojo who he has different ideas with like for geto, what being sorcerers is and for utahime, what being a teacher is. Idk why but regarding with gojo's history with geto who provoked change to gojo, it makes me think that maybe there's more in stall for utahime's role esp now she's in the biggest fight of the series and her "parallels" with geto ig (if im using the the right word for it??)

Don't ever feel bad about ranting in my inbox, because I do think you're onto something there's a connection between Geto and Utahime there despite the fact we never see them interacting onscreen. The biggest way they foil each other is essentially how they interact with Gojo. I said this before in a different post, but I do think the story is building up a relationship between Gojo and Utahime even if it's not necessarily a romantic one.

The biggest contrast between Gojo and Utahime is how they connect with other people around them, especially in regards to how they connect to children. Utahime is basically the only adult besides Nanami to ever show concern that one of her kids may have gotten hurt.

Utahime immediately takes action when there's a threat to one of her kids, whereas Gojo is famous for sending his class to get beat up by Geto in Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, in order to provoke Yuta. Their differences in how they treat people is also shown in how their students interact, the Tokyo Kids are all individualists, the Kyoto kids fight together as a group and have excellent team coordination.

Utahime is someone who treats the people in her life like, well people really, and makes an effort to connect with them. This is what parallels with Geto too, because the entire point of Geto's character is that he not only cares enough about his fellow sorcerers that he was the only one to forge a connection with Gojo, but he also was driven to his breaking point because he witnessed the pointless death of his companions.

Geto however, even past his breaking point continues to connect with the people around him. Gojo has coworkers, whereas Geto refers to his terrorist group as his family. Gojo doesn't treat Megumi as a child and acts like Megumi owes him for paying for his rent and making sure he doesn't end up homeless or with the Zen'in. Geto goes out of his way to adopt two traumatized children and act like a father to them. He's papa Geto.

Gojo avoids connection to the people around him, while Geto makes the effort to connect Gojo even says that he knew Geto would not unnecessarily hurt young sorcerers if he didn't need to which is why he had the confidence to send Inumaki and Panda his way.

Getos' response to this is to say "unlike you, I'm a kind person" and that's not entirely a joke, Geto does make an effort to be kind to the people in his life and be considerate to them whereas Gojo is defined by his distance to other people.

So Utahime acts like an actual teacher to her students, and her students get along as friends. Geto acts like a father to Nanako and Mimiko, and his allies consider each other a family. They're both sincere in their feelings in regards to others whereas Gojo is avoidant and usually hiding behind a mask.

The biggest difference between them however, is how they connect to Gojo. As I said, Utahime has the strong potential for connection to Gojo because she's the kind of teacher he should be. Utahime is even a much more positive influence on Shoko, who unlike GOjo and Geto they were able to manitain their friendship well past high school. They don't connect because Gojo doesn't respect her.

Utahime even says so "respect your elders." Gojo says his reason for bullying her is because she's weak, he doesn't do the same to Mei Mei because who the heck would pick on someone strong. In fact, he respects Mei Mei a lot more who blatantly abuses her brother and treats children poorly, than someone like Utahime who treats children well b/c Gojo only respects strong people. As if being strong is a virtue in and of itself.

Gojo and Utahime could have some sort of friendship or relatioship, but Gojo doesn't allow that to happen because he thinks the only person he could have connected with was someone as equally strong as him like Geto.

It's not just Utahime though, he also ignored Shoko despite the fact she's stuck by his side for more than ten years, even if they don't enjoy the kind of close friendship that he and Geto did.

In regards to their foiling, Utahime is like Geto someone who values not only her connections to other people, but also the children around her. However, because Gojo believes only someone as equally strong as him could understand him, they'll never be as close and Geto and Gojo were. Which is why Utahime's technique is kind of genius, she's not strong on her own but she enhances the strength of others. Just like her personality as someone who is naturally good at supporting others.

Gojo is someone desperately in need of that support, but he won't really allow anyone to help him or form a close friendship with him because of his insistence of always doing everything alone. Which is also something that happened in his friendship with Geto. Their friendship started to fall apart due to lack of communication when Gojo became the strongest and therefore started always taking missions on his own because he didn't need Geto's support anymore.

The biggest way they foil is that they both have the potential to connect with Gojo and naturally work well with him, because they cover his weak points (he's bad at cooperating with people, and does everything alone to a fault) but Gojo doesn't let them.

#jjk meta #metasks #utahime iori #satoru gojou #satoru gojo #suguru geto

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coffee-colored-hopeless-romantic · 1 year

Text

Temporary Partners

Vax’ildan x Fem!Reader

MDNI (it’s not smut but it strongly hints)

It started out as any other job, the main difference was this was probably the wealthiest individual you’ve had as a target, now it wasn’t anyone of high importance just another prick with much gold stroking his ego on the daily. You were more than willing to go to an event such as a ball or gala to intermingle yourself into the crowd and snatch the precious item you were sent to retrieve, to you that was childs play.

It wasn’t difficult for you to snake your way inside the home of this man with the crowd of high class people piling in with there multiple “plus-ones” you found it a little too easy if you’re being honest.

“Nothing a little ‘makeup’ can do” the so called makeup being a disguise spell, the dress was real be it with a few added glam elements, a gem accent here a sparkle there and they were hooked. Not standing out but also not out of place. Perfect.

As one does you scan the room for a few reasons; 1. To get a layout of the building, how it flows, escape routes and such, where precious items may be held. 2. The people, who was here, who to interact with and who to stir clear from.

As you were doing such your eyes fell upon a rather unique group and after a moment you pieces together that it was the infamous Vox Machina lads, mainly the loud and socially awkward Goliath and overly flirtatious Gnome being the main giveaways, but one character stood out from this ragtag team. A half elf man who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here, the dark locks of hair slicked back and his sharp features were enough to even make you gawk if even just for a moment, but unfortunately you do have a job to do and now wasn’t the time to get caught by anyone, let alone these guys.

While stirring clear from them as much as you could you intermingled with the guests, making stories about this and that and how you were invited among other small talk that you could frankly live without. You excuse yourself from one of the groups you were talking to, making your way to the stair case to search for this heirloom. As comes wealth comes locked doors and that was your first guess on where to look, picking locks was typically nothing that you’d sweat about but it was going to be a little difficult to do it smoothly with the amount of traffic these halls had. Maybe you’d have to stay a bit later when people had more alcohol in their system. You sighed annoyed by the fact you couldn’t just be in and out like you wanted to. Oh well, might as well eat while you’re here, who turns down free food?

You waltz back down the stairs and over to the buffet table, your hunger driving you on autopilot as you fill your plate. As you were loading a slice of meat onto your plate you bumped into someone “oh! Terribly sorry-“ you look over and see a while haired fellow with glasses. “Oh no no madam, that was my fault. I should’ve been more observant, please allow me.” This gentleman finished plating the meats and surrounded side dishes onto your plate with your instructions on portions. “Quite the gentleman, and you are?” You held out your hand for him to take, without missing a beat he took your hand in his and bowed slightly. “Percival. Or Percy,” he introduced himself. You gave him some alias you had in your back pocket as he went about his way. As you watched him leave you saw him regroup with that Vox Machina, well he seems to be the most sane one of the group so you figured it would be fine. (far from it but ok pop off)

As the party continued through the night the crowd wasn’t quite as full but it was extremely lively. This was your chance to sneak away, the host being occupied with ladies fawning over him for one reason or another. You slip back upstairs and start making your way into some of the locked away doors. It didn’t take long to find the room you were looking for. You lock the door behind you and began your search, this damn pocket watch better be worth the hassle. You found it in an extravagant jewelry box, in the middle on full display. It was as if he was asking to get robbed. You replace the spot with a much lesser ordinary pocket watch to fuck with him a bit. You were grinning to yourself, knowing your job was nearly done.

“Aren’t you a sneaky little thing.” An unknown voice chirped quietly, causing you to dart your gaze over. Hand prepped to grab your dagger strapped under your hip. It was that half elf man you saw earlier. What was his name? “I- I didn’t hear you.” You put on a smile as if you weren’t doing anything wrong. “You gave me quite the fright! I don’t believe we’ve met.” The man walked towards you with a saunter, flirtatious even. “The name is Vax, and who are you beautiful?” My Gods he was attractive, you didn’t mind this private meeting, well you kind of did considering he fucking saw you steal the pocket watch. You gave the same Alias as before and he chuckled “Okay, what’s your real name?” He asked, your eyebrow raised. He was good, considering you didn’t hear him enter the quiet room in the first place. He was extremely good. “Y/n. How did-“

“A thief knows a thief.” He winks. “Unfortunately for you, I also need that pocket watch.” He held out his hand, asking for you to give it to him. What did he take you for? “Excuse me??” You ask, brows furrowed. “Like I’m just gonna hand this over to you. Dream on, pretty boy.” Vax kissed his teeth with a smirk. “You think I’m pretty do you?” He leans closer, putting each hand on either side of you onto the dresser behind you. Trapping you between his arms. “The feelings mutual. So how are we gonna sort this out hm?” He asks.

You lick your lips and grin. “If you’re as good as you think you are how about this. I give this to the man who hired me, get paid. I help you steal it back you can give it to whoever hired you. We both get paid and nobody is the wiser. Deal?” You ask, his smirk only grew. “Keep talking to me like that and you might get in trouble.” He purred. His attraction towards you wasn’t even attempted to be hidden. “Well we should probably get out of-“ you were cut off by the sound of the door opening, shit. Before you could react you felt a pair of warm lips on yours, the faint taste of wine and fruit on your tongue. Hands onto your hips and one behind your neck.

The host gasped and angrily shouted “What do you think you’re doing in here!! Get out! This is my private courtiers!” Vax acted surprised and you followed in suit. “O-oh! Mr. Vanderse! My apologies!! The lady got a wee bit impatient and the door was open, we meant no disrespect. We’ll be on our way.” He took your hand and led you out while you acted bashful and dodged his gaze. The host merely hugged as you two left and shut the door.

You touched your lips softly as you two walked out, that was a hell of a cover and it made sense for the environment. “Smart thinking back there.” You complimented and Vax laughed slightly. “Oh please, who wouldn’t want to do that with such a pretty face.” He looked back at you and winked. “Although I hate to admit it, he’s probably gonna notice it being missing so you must make haste.” He smiled. “Come with me, wouldn’t it be easier so you know where to go?” He shook his head. “When he comes to the realization he’s going to come looking for us, he can search me and find nothing, just hurry back and when you return he can search you as well. Don’t worry I’ll occupy him.” You were taking a big risk trusting someone you just met. But you figured you could wiggle your way out of it if need be.

You do just that, sneak out and hurry back to your employer, delivering it and getting your payment and making your return. As you sneak your way in, you see Vax and Mr. Vanderse in a conversation, the hose seeming anxious and frustrated. You and Vax make eye contact and you make your way over to him confidently. “Sorry Love, I just needed some fresh air. Oh!” You fake a bashful avoidance to the host and shyly greet him. “A-ah Mr. Vanderse. Hello again, I must apologize for earlier, seeing me in such a state- it’s very embarrassing.” You ‘apologize’ for the scene he walked in on from earlier. He cleared his throat. “All is forgiven but I’ve seemed to have lost something and I must search you, it was ok that room you were in.” You agree and you were searched by one of the servants, obviously finding nothing on your person. Vax casually wrapping his arm around your waist. “Can’t wait til I can touch you like that later my love.” He ‘whispered’ loud enough for anyone in close earshot to hear, you actually blush and playfully hit him in the chest “Darling!” You couldn’t help but like this ‘partner in crime’ scenario. The night went about as normally as it could now, you being close to Vax for the rest of the evening until it was about time to leave, he had went to his group and basically said he was going to finish the job and they could have fun and he’d meet them later at the inn.

You and him exited the party and you immediately start taking off the dress, his eyebrow raising. “Isn’t it a little early for this? It’s such a public place too.” He teased as you rolled your eyes and showed that you had clothes underneath the gown. It was shorts and a simple top but it did the job. You dispose of the now plain dress into a bin, it wasn’t yours and you didn’t care. “Think I’m that easy huh?” You ask the tall half elven man. “Well you did let me makeout with you” he chuckled. “I dare say you liked it.” You laugh a bit and shake your head “Oh please, if that’s the best you could do then I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to keep up love.” You were confident in your love making skills and honestly you rarely found someone to be a good lay. You typically finished yourself off afterwards. But this man grabbed your hips and pulled you close. “You haven’t even seen the beginning of what I can do. Don’t get too cocky now.” He winked at you yet again and boy did it get you going. What was it about this individual having such a hold on you already.

“Let’s hurry up and finish this and maybe you can prove it to me?” You pulled away and swayed your hips as you walked ahead of him, knowing his eyes were undressing you. You didn’t mind one bit, you wanted him to fantasize about it. He made quick work about going in and out, you distracting the employer, asking about possible other jobs, making conversation. As you said your good nights to one another you exited the building and saw Vax hold the restolen pocket watch. “Easy.” He stated as you began to walk with him to his employers place, the whole ordeal didn’t take long and it went smoothly, even with the hiccups of the evening. Once all was said and done he looked at you and grabbed your chin, lifting your gaze up to him. “So, were you serious about me proving it or were you just telling me what I wanted to hear?” You smirked up at the man and closed the distance between you, kissing him deeply. “You talk too much.” You whispered and led him to your place to have a rather fun night. It was hot it was heavy and you finally felt satisfied with someone you fucked. This definitely wouldn’t be a one time thing.

#fanfic #vax’ildan x reader #vax'ildan #vox machina #vox machina fic #critical role vox machina #my writing #x reader #x fem!reader #x y/n #mdni

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tossawary · 1 year

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Hi! Just wondering, for you what is the difference between transmigrating in as an infant and regaining memories of your past life later, and transmigrating in as a character who a bit older but remembering the past of the character you’re in? I guess it’s kind of moot considering he still feels the weight of both those lives either way, but I was curious about your thoughts on it.

Hey! I think this is a pretty complicated and broad question. Overall, as with any story, there are different ways to write both of those things, different directions to explore, which could make them feel very different or functionally identical. My personal feelings on this can change wildly from story to story, and character to character. SPOILERS for SVSSS.

Let's say that Airplane Bro is the first case (reincarnated as an infant and gained his memories of his past life on the way) and Shen Yuan is the second case (transmigrated into an older character's life and later unlocked some of Shen Jiu's memories). Just to use their particular situations to look at some of the practical realities. I know that it doesn't fit precisely, but it's useful to have examples.

I think that a big element here is personal life choices and personal relationships. Airplane never has to feel like he replaced someone else. He's Shang Qinghua now, sure, but there was never an Original Shang Qinghua in this world. Being there from the beginning, he's been able to control his actions and responses, and build his own personal relationships. His relationship with Mobei-Jun, for example, is entirely his own.

(We don't actually know how much the System interfered in his life, but he does seem to have a degree of freedom that's much more significant compared to his fellow transmigrator. The vibe I got by the end of the Airplane Extras was that the System probably would have let him do whatever he'd wanted if he'd really gone for it, honestly.)

Shen Yuan, on the other hand, knows that he replaced someone else, and Shen Jiu had a miserable life and then made some cruel choices. Shen Yuan has to bear the burden of things he didn't do, even if other characters are willing to sweep it under the rug of amnesia, which has permanently colored his relationships with Luo Binghe, Yue Qingyuan, and Liu Qingge. (The System then forced him to do something terrible to Luo Binghe, whom he loved very much. At the very beginning, it temporarily controlled his every single interaction with any other human being during the OOC restriction period. That's just fucked up.) By the end of SVSSS, Shen Yuan fully inhabits the new Shen Qingqiu he's created and has made peace out of the story he's been given and the relationships he's inherited and made his own, even though he owns a life that partially belonged to someone else (Shen Jiu and the System). He has to live with that history.

Rambling on about Airplane Bro for a little bit to take a look at these two different approaches from another angle...

I typically imagine Airplane Bro slowly regaining his memories over the course of his childhood, because I personally can't fully suspend my disbelief over a fully conscious adult in the body of an infant. I mean, I've read that kind of thing before, and some of the stories have been good. But brains just don't work like that. Newborn babies are such little fragile aliens, barely able to see the faces less than a foot from their face. It's important to me to physically ground fantasy (and sci-fi) somewhat to make magic (and tech) feel both believable and compelling. This is a personal nitpick.

(You could have the reincarnated/transmigrated mind/soul being held mostly separate, slowly integrating, and essentially controlling the body remotely, I guess? But yeah, the "adult stuck in a child body" thing inherently has powerful horror elements (and political elements in regards to children's rights) that a lot of reincarnated stories seem to take on unintentionally and don't always handle well. When I'm writing reincarnation stuff, I usually skip over that backstory stuff in part because it's just so complicated, and also because there are other plots I'd rather explore that I find more interesting. Getting bogged down in early childhood stuff generally isn't really my thing, reading or writing it.)

If Airplane is essentially haunted by the memories of his past life for his entire childhood, I think it would make him strange, unnerving, and generally unpalatable to other people. I think it would be confusing and scary to know things without being sure how you know them. To remember things that seem to belong not only to another life, but another world. It would contribute to his isolation, his emotional detachment, and his choice to identify strongly with his previous life in terms of personality.

And if it's a more gradual process, then he doesn't have to feel like he replaced someone else. He knows (as much as anyone can know anything) that this body has always belonged to him.

If he suddenly remembered a past life, then that would also lead to his detached Airplane Bro personality. But if he suddenly remembered a past life, depending on how you write it, it might feel functionally identical to transmigrating in in that moment but still retaining the body's memories.

Of course, even if it was a gradual process, depending on how you write it, it could seem to him that it was a gradual transmigration and that he replaced someone else. Both approaches are cool.

Transmigration and reincarnation must be such a disorienting experience, liable to make a character doubt reality or their "sanity". When a character transmigrates in but has access to the body's memories, there's often some plot device dream sequence (the transmigrator briefly gets to meet the ghost of the person they're replacement) or System interference to let both the character and the readers know that there's been a switch. What if there's no System popping up to explain exactly what happened? What if the character just has to guess based on these vague memories that they may or may not be able to tell came from another person?

Either way, transmigrators are usually dealing with feeling like an imposter. But I think the transmigrator generally might feel guiltier over taking up or ruining any pre-existing relationships if they know for a fact that they replaced a separate person.

Back to some physical practicalities between our two transmigrators in SVSSS... Airplane Bro has just had... more time to get used to his life here. Coming in as an infant, presuming a gradual adjustment of awareness, he's used to his own body. He's at home in it.

SVSSS isn't fully interested in exploring this topic, so we don't really see Shen Yuan dealing with it, but... suddenly being in a different body would be a WEIRD experience. I can handwave away a lot of brain stuff on "magical System weirdness", so sure, Shen Yuan's mind is somehow his own while retaining some Shen Jiu memories, and he has special muscle memory and spiritual memory that allows him to continue being a powerful cultivation with only minor adjustment.

But... what about things like taste buds? The physical human experience is so wildly varied. Humans are incredibly adaptable, but surely it would be weird at first to potentially have different favorite foods. To like different drinks. To maybe enjoy different smells. To dislike things you used to love. To be a different height. A different weight. To be far more physically fit. To have different teeth. Personally, I move slightly differently and have slightly different mannerisms depending on the length of my hair, having to keep longer hair out of the way. Shen Yuan would adjust in time, sure, but that dysphoria must've been something else at first.

As someone interested in these physical realities of magic, I was a little disappointed when none of these came up more extensively when Shen Yuan switched into a body made out of a plant. I think that even little things like breathing and sunlight would feel intensely different. I'm now tempted to write something exploring Shen Yuan enjoying the sensations of his super magical plant body now.

Okay, I don't know where I'm going with my rambling now, so I'm signing off. I think the weight of different transmigration experiences can feel very, VERY different depending on what you're personally interested in exploring when you write.

#goldroitelet #ask tossawary #tossawary svsss #shang qinghua #shen yuan #airplane bro #fic ideas

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