#it's so self-indulgent! and so absurdly niche!

[becausegoodbye]

A home to treasure, a home to flee

(**This post contains big-time spoilers for Citizen Sleeper and Life is Strange: True Colors. No way around it! **)

In the last year, I've had two experiences with video games that unearthed some interestingly divergent intuitions in me.

In one, the game let me make a precarious little home for myself, and even though it kept giving me opportunities to leave – it really seemed like it hoped I'd leave, to strike out somewhere in pursuit of a better life – I clung to the fragile little home I'd created, savouring its small earned pleasures.

In the other, the game gave me a home, aesthetically dazzling and too good to be true, with a hideous past which the game desperately wanted me to forgive and to stay – laying it on thick about how beautiful it would be if I stayed – and I found I couldn't flee fast enough.

It makes me wonder a bit about my relationship to home.

*

Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games I've played in a long time. It's quietly etched its place on the list I keep in my mind of "proper Hall of Fame indie games", along with Celeste and Immortality and at most a dozen others. It's a game whose ambitions are restrained, but the light touches of its writing are pretty much all paintbrush-perfect.

In it, you play a Sleeper, a degraded kind of worker-clone, carrying the emulated consciousness of a real person inside a crummy bio-android body that'll fall apart if it doesn't get regular injections of corporate-controlled medicine. Your entire existence is a method of skirting labour laws. You managed to escape your corporate labour-camp, but now you're on this random space station with no money or friends, and your biological meltdown-clock is ticking. Just gotta keep moving, keep working, keep trying to figure something out.

I won't give a full review of the mechanics and story; what I really want to talk about right now is the apartment. In Citizen Sleeper, you're always choosing how to allocate your limited time and energy, and if you want, you can choose to spend an irresponsible amount of both fixing up an abandoned apartment unit, using scrap metal to try to plug up the holes and make it livable. This is, frankly, the best thing. With how nightmarishly precarious every aspect of your existence as a runaway Sleeper is, just to be able to lay your head somewhere that's yours is blissful.

And then – most special of all – once you've fixed up the apartment, a stray cat will sometimes stop by, and you can spend some money to feed it some crushed-up crackers. The cat never becomes yours (it always maintains its independence, coming and going as it pleases), but you can know each other. You can become part of the weave of each other's lives. Even in this hostile capitalist hell-hole, even with a body constantly on the verge of betraying you: you can eat some delicious spiced fungus and have a cat stroke itself against your thighs. Things can be worth it.

As I got on top of my finances and found a steady source of medicine, I only found myself more and more attached to my apartment. Some missions take you right over the other side of the space station, and (because it can take ages to get back) the game frequently offers you places to crash that are much closer to where you need to be. I didn't use them once. Once I'd fixed up the unit, I slept every single subsequent night of the game there, even if it meant traveling a silly distance to get there and back. I wanted to get back because, first, it was my home, and second, I had to feed the stray cat. It might miss me if I were gone.

As you get further into Citizen Sleeper, the game offers you all sorts of ways to get off the station. You can work/cheat your way onto a huge colony ship that's set to begin populating a new and uninhabited planet. You can hitch a ride with a mercenary and start a more knowingly dangerous kind of life. You can fuse your consciousness with a cyber-organic plant-consciousness, 'Grow Vast and Strange', and lose your sense of a distinct self entirely.

I didn't go for any of them. I got my friends on board the colony ship and waved goodbye to them. I gave the mercenary the cold shoulder. I thanked the plant-consciousness profusely for the opportunity, but wistfully turned away from what it was offering. I kept choosing to return to my own small world on the station: to the apartment, to the stray, to Emphis' spiced fungus stand, to Lem & Mina & Tala & Riko, and to all the tiny meaningful markers of the life I'd built for myself here.

This was my life. I'd made it, and that meant everything.

*

Life is Strange: True Colors is a much weirder game, and one I'd recommend to far fewer people. I've written before about my complicated feelings about the Life is Strange series, which have a tendency to take huge emotional swings with subjects that they're not really mature enough to handle responsibly. That's part of their appeal, admittedly: these games absolutely go for it, and even when they stumble, it's usually pretty compelling.

In True Colors, you play as Alex Chen, a shy 21-year-old orphan with a kind of superpowered empathy. She can read people's thoughts a bit, sometimes even accessing their memories, and when somebody near her is experiencing a big emotion, she gets overwhelmed with a mirrored version of it. This got her branded as 'emotionally unstable' in the Oregon foster care system, so she struggled to be adopted. She lost touch with her older brother Gabe after he was placed with a different foster family, but eight years later, with his own life straightened out, Gabe was able to track her down, and invite her to come live with him in the idyllic little mountain town called Haven Springs.

I won't go beat-by-beat through the whole plot, because it's bonkers and byzantine, but the key points are these. (Again, full spoilers.) After Alex and Gabe's dad abandoned them when Alex was 11, he ended up working for a locally hegemonic mining company called Typhon in Haven Springs. Later, Gabe tried to track him down, and Haven Springs was where the trail went cold. This turns out to be because their dad died in a hideous mine collapse, along with several other miners. A local foreman named Jed Lucan got credited as a 'hero' for saving the miners who survived, but in reality he was the one who chose to abandon the others to their deaths, and Typhon conspired with him to cover it all up.

When Gabe came to Haven Springs looking for their dad, that same foreman, Jed, now the owner of a local bar, felt guilty about having left this kid fatherless, and treated Gabe with a lot of generosity. He set Gabe up with a job in his bar, let him rent the great loft apartment upstairs, and really just ensconced Gabe in Haven Springs life (obviously without telling him the murdery truth). Then, when Gabe is finally able to track down his little sister Alex, he wants to pass on the generosity, and offers you the loft. He’s moving in with his girlfriend, you and your brother are finally back in each other’s lives, and it all seems too good to be true.

It is. Almost immediately after arriving in town, Gabe is killed – by the very same mining corporation – while up in the mountains trying to rescue his girlfriend's kid. Typhon were told that there were people in the area and they needed to delay their blast, but they knowingly went ahead with it anyway, because (it turns out) they needed the noise to cover up a second, more illegal scheduled blast nearby. That second blast was to fully cave in the old mine and bury the evidence of the incident that killed Alex and Gabe's father, in preparation for a coming inspection that could have uncovered the deaths.

So essentially: your brother was murdered casually, incidentally, as part of covering up your dad's murder from years ago.

I'm delivering this information in a totally different order than the game does (there, the relevation that Jed let miners die and your dad was among them comes very late), but I'm laying it all out so you understand the chronology of events. Just lay it all out flat in your mind. You're Alex, and you find yourself living in this town that seems pretty wonderful – picturesque and warm, with an economy of little other than bars and flower shops and record stores – but you eventually discover that both your father and your brother have been murdered here. You also discover that the person who's been kindest to you, the surrogate father-figure who let you work in the bar and live in the loft virtually rent-free, is the evil fuck who killed your dad.

You do eventually empathy-detective your way to exposing all this, of course. By the end of the game, Jed is going to prison, and Typhon is facing the absurdly (but not unrealistically) softer consequences of 'their CEO resigning' and 'their stock price taking a hit'. But then – and this is the part I've needed to go over all this melodramatic plot in order to talk about – the game wants you to stay in Haven Springs.

Alex's final choice is whether to stay or leave. Somehow, you're still living in the loft of the murderer you put in jail, and it's implied that you can just keep doing that. The game gives you an option to leave – to go off on a scrappy music tour with your indie girlfriend Steph – but the game gilds the lily heavily in favour of staying. You have an entire conversation with an imaginary ghost-projection of Gabe, and he spins this whole fantasia about how wonderful your life could be if you simply stayed, let "time do its thing", and commit to transforming this place.

But like ... fuck that, right? Fuck that!!!

As far as I'm concerned, this is a "noping out of a horror movie" situation. By the end of True Colors, Haven Springs feels cursed. This tiny pretty town is where every existing member of your family was murdered. What, you're literally just gonna stick around limply hoping they won't murder you too? While the hegemonic mining corporation is still stalking around, knowing you did this to them?

Like, Alex. Dude. These white people are not safe. The Chens are seemingly the only Asian-American family in a hundred miles, and the track record of Chens not getting murdered by the biggest and most powerful local employer is bad. Sure, that one guy is in prison now, but the problem was never that one guy. Underneath this town is a seam of raw murder and lies and evil, and everyone being so saccharine-sweet to you all game long only makes that fact worse. You can’t escape your trauma, you can’t escape your brother and father having been killed, and you can’t escape the horrorshow of capitalism – but you surely don’t have to stay here.

It's hard to overstate how repulsed I felt by the prospect of staying in Haven Springs. While Citizen Sleeper had me taking pride in the modest, scrappy life I'd clawed out for myself in the margins, True Colors felt like the complete opposite. It felt like a series of overbearingly loaded gifts, all lush and pretty and tailor-made, but with a violent catch spring-loaded inside every pocket. It felt like the bashful smile of a poisoner offering you a drink. All of my instincts were to run.

*

Some day soon, I'm sure I'll be able to write a thing about videogames without tying it back to transness, but look – I'm two months on HRT. Right now everything feels connected with transitioning, and I'd be lying if I said the trans-relevance of this little parable didn't occur to me immediately.

My body is the home I was given, and I’ve always lived here uneasily. I’ve never known what to do with the ‘gifts’ that came with being read as a guy (most of them are still half-unwrapped in the back of my closet). Everyone wanted me to like it here, expected me to like it here – why wouldn’t you like it here? – but I just didn’t. A seam under the surface was wrong, and kept itching. I don’t want this to come across as a matter of pure contrarianism, but being real: the amount of contrarianism at work here probably isn’t zero. The world tried to give me a gender I’d like – a whole sweet-ass loft if you just ignore the murders – and I’m leaving. I’m off to make my own thing. And even if it’s objectively shittier in tons of ways, I’m confident I’ll like it more.

Between Citizen Sleeper and True Colors, my inescapable conclusion is: I would rather sit alone in this cold empty abandoned apartment than live in Haven Spring's paradise. I would rather chew fungus and scrape for corpo-medicine as a girl than be the beloved centre of a twinkling idyll as a guy. Haven Springs is so pristine and gorgeous, so flush with friends and flowers and foosball, but at a certain point you just can't unsee the seam of wrongness under everything. Whereas the kind of life you can build in Citizen Sleeper – the crummy apartment, the stray cat, all the friends you make and all the people who pass you by – feels infinitely stronger to me. Infinitely more earned. Infinitely more durable and darnable and real.

[klausbens]

Class Acts | 1.02 · No City of Angels 9-1-1 | 7.02 · Rock the Boat

[pigeonfancier]

Art from the last month or so, focusing on getting all of this event art out of the way by the 20th. Trying to make myself work on improving backgrounds - I like them well enough in black and white, but as always, still fucking hate colouring.

I'll try to remember to do a roundup of gifts I've made for the month around January, I think! I've been doing a lot of cards, which I refuse to post online and potentially spoil before they hit the mail, haha. And there's a couple of handmade gifts that I'm just irritably waffling over if they're of a standard to give - probably, but also, perfectionism.

EQ Let's Read, I think, I will start posting come the start of January! I'm 6 or 7 posts in, and it is probably the most absurdly self-indulgent thing that I've done, which is saying something, because.. everything I do craft wise is ultimately very self-indulgent, haha. But 20 or so years of incredibly niche media analysis and griping, finally unleashed, is so much fucking fun.

[pointlesslypoetic]

I was tagged by @deheerkonijn and, much like my main greased up hobo Aragorn, I answered The Call. To Deheer, thank you for being one my strongest sources inspiration, both on purpose and inadvertently. You are an amazing artist and writer and a Very Cool Friend.

The largely unanticipated 2021 Year End Fic Review

How many stories did you complete?

Stories? 0

Self contained one shots that I’m counting bc they’re technically their own stories? 13 and a half.

I’m like Professor Calamity from Jimmy Neutron when it comes to fics, and I’m vowing to end that when it comes to the fic I’m currently working on. Although, in all honesty, I do intend to go back and continue both Landslide and Forged in Fame. Just waiting for the brain cells to rub together.

What is your total word count for the year?

211,600. Which is, uh, absolutely unfathomable and I’m honestly kind of in shock?? Not bad for a chronically distracted, fic hiatusing Bitch amirightladies?

What fandoms did I write in this year?

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Ducktales 2017, and Lord of The Rings/The Hobbit. To say I have eclectic taste would be fair. If only I had managed to throw Star Trek TOS on there. Would have really rounded out my personality profile I think.

Did you write more, less, or roughly about what you expected?

MORE. WAY WAY MORE. My god more, by about 100k words. I’m still reeling. Jeez. I love writing, I consider myself an author on somedays, a freelance bullshitter on most; but I’ve wanted to BE an author since I was, oh, five? So this is really a confidence boost. Feels good, feels organic.

What’s your own favorite story of the year?

Of my own making, either my ongoing SPOP fic (https://archiveofourown.org/works/34172422/chapters/85027798) or Save the Last Dance for Me (chapter five of Landslide). All of my fics have been absurdly fun to write, as I am a woefully self indulgent person. The Dionysus of AO3, really. But those two are very, very dear to my heart.

Most under appreciated story of the year?

NONE! All of my fics have been well received, kudo’d and commented on and bookmarked. Landslide and Forged in Fame have received more attention than WYAIAA, but I’m writing for a more niche audience and primarily myself with that fic so I don’t think one can really compare the feedback. It’s like comparing the views of an NFL game to the latest episode of GBBO; they have their audiences, and are beloved for different reasons. I’m eternally, immensely grateful for every kind word anyone has ever left on any of my fics, I really do read each and every one. It’s not the quantity that matters, but the quality.

Biggest fanfic-related disappointment of 2021?

That I am biologically incapable of juggling more than one interest/fandom at a time. To my duck audience, I am so sorry lmfao. You haven’t been abandoned I swear.

Biggest fanfic-related surprise of 2021?

That Landslide was such a well received hit! I literally never saw myself writing Ducktales fanfic, but after the finale of the show left me gently disappointed and very confused, I really felt the need to get it all out and work through my feelings the best way I knew how. And so I just started smashing away at the keys, and the first chap was born. And then, I woke up the next day, and there was ART. And so then I wrote more, and then there was more art, and on and on until uhhh 11k views later that artist and I are really good irl friends! And along the way, I had fallen back in love with writing after almost a year of struggling with it. So, Landslide is love letter to a wonderful cartoon, one of two that got me through the Cobra Panasonic, and love letter to myself. So, yes, complete shock that it found such a wide audience, but I’m so grateful it did.

Something you’re looking forward to working on in 2022?

My own personal work! I’d like to actually churn a manuscript out this year, or, at the very least, a first draft. And so much more fanfic! I’ve got so many ideas, and I’m sure this year will bring new interests and new friends!

I’m tagging @lettheladylead and @alysurr to drop their Year End Fic Review!!

[lettersfromn0where]

ZFAW: Self-Love Saturday

For the last day of @zkfanworkweek!

It’s no secret that I love writing more than almost anything in existence, or that I’m somewhat absurdly passionate about my work. I’m well aware that a handful of people probably think this is annoying (how many people who have had the misfortune to be in any kind of chat with me never want to hear the name “Hina Oyama” again? Probably most of them), and I was hesitant to do this at all because I know I can be self-centered and I’m trying to work on that. But I realized that I’m not doing this for feedback or because I want people to read my work - if I were to talk about my fic like this, it would be coming from a place of excitement about sharing something I love with others, not about finding new readers. (Have I done a little too much networking of that kind? Yes. Am I proud of it? Not at all. That’s why I had to make sure that that wasn’t why I was doing this.) 

So I’m going to go for it, and give you guys the background behind a few of my favorite things I’ve written. Stories below the cut. 

Story #1: The One That Taught Me That It’s Okay to Fail As a Writer

and I'll write you a tragedy (June 2020)

I wrote this back in June, when I was first getting into AtLA - I think it was my third or fourth published Zutara fanfic. I didn’t have many friends yet; most of the ones I talked to at the time, I've since lost touch with. So my participation in the fandom was largely isolated. I’d just write things and yeet them into the void without a care in the world - that’s what I did with “And I’ll Write You a Tragedy.” I had this grand idea that it would be ~the angstiest thing ever written~ and I was SO excited to get home (I was at the beach when I got the idea) so I could work on it...

Only to find that I simply wasn’t ready for the story I was trying to tell.

Oh, I wrote it, and it was...decently well-reviewed for something that caused me so much existential angst. But it fell so short of the concept that I had for it that, the moment I hit “post,” I was so frustrated that burst into tears. (Like a kindergartner. One can never say I deserve to be called an adult.) I wanted to establish myself in this new fandom so badly that anything I perceived as substandard was a crushing failure. And it was the process of talking myself through that frustration that taught me something I’ve tried to hold close ever since: every writer writes a dud every once in a while. No one is at the top of their game 100% of the time; those who appear to be probably don’t post the duds. Should I have posted this, then? Well, the jury is out on that. I still hate it. But it deserves a spot here just for the lesson it taught me. 

Story #2: the One That Broke the Angst Ceiling 

who lives, who dies, who tells your story (July 2020)

I have no idea how this took my angst from the coltish awkwardness of “sort of sad, but not very well-done” to genuinely depressing, but it did. Maybe I should blame quarantine and all of the difficulties that brought with it, or just the additional writing experience I had gained by that time. Whatever the reason, I remember this - even though it never got very popular - as an absolute triumph for me as a writer, because this is when I FINALLY learned how to write effective angst. For *years* I had thought I was simply incapable of writing anything sad, but this showed me that I wasn’t. I’ll never understood what flipped the switch (maybe it was @hiniwalay, whose help in forming this idea was invaluable...I love and miss you so much <3), but it’s a very important part of my writing journey even so. 

Story #3: The One That Got Inexplicably Popular

Tethered (Zutara Week - written in June 2020, posted in late July 2020)

Zutara Week 2020 was sort of the point at which I established myself in this fandom and I have super fond memories of the warm reception I received at the time. It was such a positive, encouraging experience - and perhaps the one and only time that people have actually wanted to indulge my somewhat ridiculous obsession with fluff. And this was sort of the peak of my entrance into the ZK fandom. 

And I am...not sure how I feel about that. 

Soulmate AUs are obviously super popular, so I knew that “Tethered” was going to be one of my better-recieved ZKW fics if I did it even marginally well. What I did NOT expect was that, by the time of this post, it would be exactly tied with The Waiting Game for my most kudos’d work. It’s almost insane to me that that is a thing, because, while I don’t hate how “Tethered” came out, I definitely don’t feel like it deserved the hype it got. It’s...just another soulmate AU, but seeing that I was capable of writing something that people would gobble up did wonders for my confidence - and, I think, for my reputation in the fandom as well. It was definitely a mile-marker on my journey, even if I would rather it have been a different ZKW oneshot (this one was my favorite).

Story #4: The Twitter Favorite

Four Days and Three Nights (written August 2020)

I will never, ever forget the day I posted this. 

I joined a Zutara group chat on Twitter just before Zutara Week 2020 began, and I quickly became...a little bit desperate for their attention. “The Waiting Game” (much more on that later) sprung from that desperation, but this was the one that actually did something about it. Which is funny, because it was actually a complete accident! 4D3N, as it is affectionately called on Twitter, was the result of my dumb butt reading “Five,” thinking “I want to write something that depressing!”, and just...going for it. I told myself not to overthink things as I desperately banged out the 3166 words of this story in two hours (because I needed to go for a run before it got dark and didn’t start writing until 3), and that is probably the one and only time in my entire life that telling myself something like that actually worked. Writing 4D3N was just sort of this rush that I barely even had time to recognize while I was caught up in it and the result was something I genuinely felt that I could be proud of - that’s pretty rare. My Twitter friends went slightly insane, half of them wanted to stab me (in a good way), and I finally felt like I actually belonged in this fandom - like I had done something to earn a place there. [Caveat: fandom is for everyone and you never need to “earn the right” to be in one, but my brain latched onto the idea that I didn’t deserve to be creating things for a fandom that didn’t want me and would not let it go. Figures.] Lately, I’ve been struggling with this one a little bit because it’s getting a lot of comparisons to “Five” in which it never fares favorably, for obvious reasons, and it was never actually my favorite fic to begin with, but it still means a lot to me. This is the one I recommend to people who are curious about my work and probably always will be. 

Story #5: The Sleeper Favorite

Lean On (written August 2020)

I have no earthly idea why I like this one so much, but it has to be my favorite oneshot I have up. It’s hurt-comfort and dives into the implications of the Agni Kai for Zuko’s health, both physical and mental - maybe it’s the uniqueness of that premise that endeared it to me, or maybe the personal-ness...is that a word?...of the narrative. The bare-bones summary: Zuko’s health is declining a year after the Agni Kai, Katara shows up to do something about that, and what follows is a year of Pain and Heartache for both of them as they try to navigate their conflicting feelings for each other. But really, it’s a story about healing: physically, yes, but also mentally and emotionally. I certainly relate a lot to Katara in “Lean On,” as I’ve been the friend caught in the crossfire of others’ battles with their mental health many times and I wanted to try to write from both sides of that conflict. But I think I probably wrote more of myself into Zuko than I originally anticipated, as well. Quarantine has not been good for my mental health...at all...and I’ve found myself lashing out at my family far more than I should without even knowing why, isolating myself and growing thorns so that no one would come near me. I hate seeing myself like that, and I hate that I can't seem to make myself do anything about it. So really, I was hashing out my own feelings both past and present, and what I ended up with, whatever you might think of its quality, came from the heart. I also, for whatever reason, really liked my writing here, so I have a special place in my heart for “Lean On.” 

Story #6: The Fluff I Didn’t Hate

Waffleosophy (written September 2020)

Look, there's not a lot to say about this, but it’s definitely my favorite fluff that I’ve ever written. I felt like I finally managed to hit the right note with this so that it came off as sweet without being saccharine, and it feels...I don’t know, wittier than what I usually write? I write a lot of fluff but something about “Waffleosophy” made it feel more polished and coherent than most of my other fluff. This was one that, as ridiculous as its premise was, I felt like I could truly be proud of; since I’m often a bit ashamed of how much of my work is fluff (it feels like “cheating” sometimes, as if I write this way because I lack the skill for real emotional beats), that’s saying a lot. 

Story #7: the Insanely Niche AU

Once In a Lifetime (ongoing)

This one gets updated at the speed of snail, but. ZK ice dance AU. It just makes me so HAPPY. 

Story #8: The One That Actually Did What It Was Meant To Do

Hanabi (written October/November 2020)

This heading is ironic because this was originally supposed to be an angsty slow-burn about surviving on an uninhabited island. Instead, it became as unerringly Sarah S---- as any fic ever has. Oops. 

Hanabi sprung from a desire to write something incredibly soft and wholesome. Seriously. That’s it. I had just finished writing a story that got a lot more violent and dark than I had expected it to, and I wasn’t comfortable with that; I wanted to return to my roots, if you will, and write something ~soft~. I wanted to write about good people, doing good things, being good to each other, with as much tender pining as I could cram in on the side. I wanted unique worldbuilding and a relationship that had to be built rather than handed over under the guise of Soulmateism (because this was the period in which I hated The Waiting Game and everything it stood for, aka...that. It was a weird time). And I actually? Did all of that? There’s this F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about how writers have to “sell their hearts” that I think about often, and I did that here. This has as much of my heart in it as anything ever will, I think, and if I had to pick a favorite thing that I have ever written, it would be “Hanabi.” I love it a lot. 

Story #9: The One You Knew Was Coming

The Waiting Game series (written July-October 2020)

I have so many feelings about this that I can’t even really articulate them all. Where would I even start? 

There was the fact that the first installment was written in two weeks (thirteen days, 94,832 words) to try to get the attention of a Twitter chat. There was the matter of Hina Oyama, my blog’s namesake, an OC who took on an absolutely massive life of her own to the point where she was quite literally my coping mechanism over the summer and I annoy everyone I know by constantly banging on pots and pans and screaming about her. There was the way this universe spiraled outwards from its original installment and now has three generations, two sequels, and a prequel in progress (Hina’s origin story, which I am writing for a friend but will most likely never post). There were the friends I made because of this series and all of the inside jokes and headcanons we’ve developed while discussing it. There were all of the existential crises I had (over negative comments, over whether or not this career-defining series is even decent, over the moral implications of writing about people getting stabbed in the sequel...please don’t ask). There is the fact that everyone I come into contact with now knows what Haang is, and that by a close-reading of any passage about Hina or Kya, you could probably learn a lot about me. 

But all I can say, in the end, is that I don’t know if I’ve ever written something that I fell in love with so quickly as I did “The Waiting Game,” or that had as much lasting impact upon me. (It has been five months, and I’m STILL writing in this universe, still talking about it constantly.) I know my TWG obsession is a little annoying, and I know that this universe isn’t really anything special - but it’s special to me, and it always will be. Will I shut up? Abso-freaking-lutely not. Do I care if no one knows what my username means because it refers to an OC in a fic not a lot of people actually like? Not in the slightest! I won’t pretend that TWG is a perfect story, or even that it deserves to be thought of as particularly good, but I will absolutely defy anyone who tells me that I need to “get over it.” (No one has, but my brain likes to tell me that everyone is thinking it.) 

I will never be over stories that move me, especially not ones I created.

And especially not Yangchen Oyama. 

~finis~ 

[fangirlovestuff]

Holding Out for a Hero- Steve Rogers x Reader Pt.9

a\n-Hey lovely people! This one is very much self-indulgent fluff & smut. (If you don't like smut just consider the part where you reach your room the end of the chapter) Enjoy <3

summary: date night ;)

part 8

Steve caught up with you when you all left the meeting room. "Hey," he said softly, "You okay?"

You put your head on his chest and he wrapped your arms around you. "I just don't get how I let that happen. Why did I not ask about him more?" Steve rubbed his hands on your back soothingly. "How could I have been so blind? This man was double-crossing the team and I was playing scrabble with him, not knowing a thing. I just-" you sighed, "I just wish I would've done better."

Steve lifted your head from his chest and looked at you, his brows furrowed gently. "You couldn't have possibly known if he passed the security check. These things are super thorough. You did the best you could," his gaze softened, "and that's enough."

You smiled at him and pecked his lips, not needing words to express your gratitude. "So, now that this whole thing is over, how about that date you promised me?" you said teasingly. "I seem to recall something about a real date that included 'leaving the house', which seems very exciting." Steve smiled. "How about tomorrow night?"

"Why not tonight?" you pouted, mirth shining in your eyes. "Because I need time to plan." You rolled your eyes. "You had two whole weeks to plan. But whatever," you said mock-annoyedly, "I guess tomorrow night must do." Steve laughed at your antics and gave you a sweet kiss.

You practically ran to Julie's room. You thankfully heard her and Bucky talking, which meant they weren't busy doing… other activities. You knocked on her door. "Come in!" you heard Jules call. You barged in, not even caring Bucky was there, "Steve and I are finally going on a date tomorrow!" you exclaimed with a huge smile on your face. "Oh my god! That's great!" Jules smiled as well. "Bucky, I'll talk to you later." Bucky tried to protest but Jules glared at him and he meekly left the room.

"Where is he taking you?" Jules asked once Bucky left the room. "I don't know yet, he'll probably keep it a surprise," you replied. "Well," Jules said, "it doesn't really matter as long as you get laid later," she smirked. "God Jules," you laughed, "sometimes I think you want me to have sex more than I do. Just in case, would you do me a favor and take Lola to your room tomorrow?"

"I just want what's best for you," she winked. "And of course I will. But seriously, I know how much you were looking forward to this date. You must be bursting with excitement!"

"I nearly am," you admitted, unable of keeping your smile off your face. You stayed in Julie's room for a while after that, having your girl talk and laughing until you cried at Jules' ridiculous jokes.

Tomorrow night couldn't come soon enough. You were antsy the entire day, your mission report taking a lot more time than it should.

Finally, tomorrow night came. Steve told you to be ready at 7, so you showered and got dressed. Steve refused to tell you where you were going, so you didn't really know what to wear. You ended up going with a simple, comfortable dress. Nothing too elaborate, but it showed off your curves very nicely.

At exactly 7 pm, you heard a knock at your door. You opened it and Steve was in front of you, looking extremely handsome in a navy polo shirt and black jeans. He looked at you in awe. "You look beautiful as always," he complimented and pulled his arm from behind his back revealing a small bouquet of red roses. It was so cheesy, and you couldn't help but beam at him. "You look great too." You took the bouquet from his hand and kissed his cheek. "I'll just put these in a vase and then we can go."  

After you put the flowers away, Steve took your hand and led you towards the elevators. "So, are you finally gonna tell me where we're going?"

"No. Be patient," he smiled at you.

You got to the Avengers garage, if you could call it that. It was a big underground parking lot, filled with cars that belonged to the residents of the compound. Some, like Tony, probably had more than one. Steve led the way to a black Audi. He opened the passenger door for you and got into the driver's seat. "Where are we going Steve?" you asked again, unable to contain yourself. "You'll see," he said with a mysterious air. "Come on!" you pouted, "Can you at least tell me what we're going to be doing? Cause I'm actually pretty hungry."

"Well, you're in luck," he smiled, "We're going to eat." You whooped, making him laugh heartily.

After a pretty short ride, you stopped at a little Italian restaurant on the side of the road. Steve quickly got out of the car to open your door for you, his hand extended for you to take. "Always the gentleman," you smiled and rolled your eyes at him as you took his hand. You liked being "treated like a lady", or "courted", or whatever old-fashioned thing it is Steve was doing. You had to admit, you felt properly wooed.

You entered the restaurant hand in hand. "Mr. Rogers, we were waiting for you," said the hostess at the entrance, and let you to a small, secluded niche at the back of the restaurant. There was a candle-lit table for two waiting for you. Steve thanked the hostess and she left you to your own devices, saying someone will take our orders in a few minutes.

"What do you think?" Steve asked, looking you softly. "I really like it," you said honestly, eyeing the restaurant. It was a pretty fancy spot, but because of its small size and dim lighting, it still achieved a cozy atmosphere. "I probably couldn't have picked a better restaurant myself," you voiced your thoughts to Steve. He beamed at you, clearly pleased with his choice. "Well, you haven't had the food here yet. It's delicious."

You looked at the menu, noticing the variety of delicious kinds of pasta, having a hard time deciding which one you wanted. A waitress went by your table, carrying a big dish of excellent-smelling pasta. "Steve, are all the dishes in here this big?" you showed the size of the plate you just saw. "Yeah," Steve said casually and your brows shot up. "Didn't you say you were hungry?" he smiled, amused at your reaction. "I am, just not That hungry. Do you mind if we share?"

"Not at all. What do you want?"

"Well, I don’t know. There are so many fancy things here, some of them I don't understand. You've eaten here before, what do you want?"

"Not to insult the fancy dishes, but the best thing in here is probably their spaghetti and meatballs."

"I know what it is, so that's good enough for me. Could you order? I'm just gonna go to the bathroom for a minute," you told Steve, who nodded at you.

You made your way across the restaurant to try and find the bathroom. One of the waitresses directed you there. You did your business and was halfway back at your table when you heard a familiar voice calling your name. "Hey! Is that you?"

You turned around and saw the medic who took care of you your first mission. "Hey!" you smiled and went to his table, where he was sitting with a girl that seemed a little older than you, but still beautiful. "How's your job going? Better than it was the night we met, I hope," he said cheekily. "Yeah, it's going very well. Actually, I didn't catch your name back then." You smiled. "It's Eric," he smiled back, "And this is my fiancée Ellie." She smiled at you in greeting. "I almost thought you were going to say Ariel," you chuckled. "I get that a lot," Eric said and you all laughed. "She's my Disney princess nonetheless." He took Ellie's hand. "It was nice seeing you again," you smiled at them. "Have a great evening!"

"You too," Eric said, "and try not to get into trouble again."

"Will do," you waved at them and went back to your table.

"There you are," Steve smiled, "I was starting to worry you ditched me," he said jokingly, but you caught the glimpse of relief in his eyes. "Never," you smiled reassuringly and took your seat. "Oh, you'd never guess who I just met here! Eric! He's the medic you took me away from on that first mission," you explained. "Nice guy," you continued, "was sitting here with his fiancée. I never did hear the explanation as to why you basically dragged me away from him that night," you said teasingly. To be honest, you didn't really know why Steve pulled you away, but you were willing to bet it was a tease-worthy reason. "What a nice coincidence," Steve ignored the last part of what you said, feigning indifference. "Come on Steve, aren’t you gonna tell me? Please?" you smiled. "You're nosy, you know that?" he said teasingly. "Fine, I surrender. I did it because I was jealous."

"Jealous?" you giggled, "of me and him? Steve, he's a medic who was bandaging my blood-filled leg. That's hardly an attractive scenario."

"I know," Steve sighed, defeated. "But you were laughing with him about something. Besides, you already know I was angry that night so I hardly could rationalize it like you just did," he said sheepishly. You blushed, remembering his romantic speech from that night in the training room. You're wonderful, and my worries shouldn't stop you from kicking ass, he told you. You smiled at him. "Yeah, guess you're right."

Your food arrived, a big hot bowl of pasta and meatballs. Steve and you dug in happily.

"Mmm, That's so good!" you exclaimed. "Told you so," Steve smiled. He had a little sauce in the corner of his mouth and his tongue slipped out to clean it. You swallowed your spaghetti. This man is unbelievable. Who gave him the right to be so goofy and hot at the same time? And he's mine, your brain supplied.

You went on eating in relative silence, except for the occasional sound of slurping. At one point you got the end of a really long spaghetti in your mouth. You continued eating it as you looked up at Steve to show him how absurdly long the pasta was. He looked up at the same time, realizing the other end of the spaghetti was in his mouth. You laughed with your mouth still around the pasta. Eventually, your heads came closer together, and your lips touched as you finished the pasta. You laughed wholeheartedly now, holding Steve's hand from across the table. "I can't believe we just had a Disney moment in real life." Steve looked at you quizzically. "Don't tell me you don't know what Disney is!"

"I know what it is!" Steve laughed, "I just don’t understand what movie that's from."

"I'm totally making you watch that soon. It's Lady and the Tramp, it’s one of my favorites. It has dogs, you'll love it," you gave Steve no room to argue and he laughed.

Your dinner went by like that, talking about Disney movies and other things. When you were waiting for your bill Steve had a far-off look on his face all of a sudden. "You okay there?" you asked, a concerned look on your face. "Yeah, I'm fine." Steve shook from his reverie. "It's just… my mom used to make 'spaghetti and meatballs' on special occasions. Obviously, it wasn't as good as this one, because she didn’t have the ingredients to make it. The spaghetti was pieces of bread she cut in stripes." He reminisced with a smile, "but she put her love into it, so it was the best thing ever."

"She sounds great," you smiled at him. "She was. The greatest." He smiled sadly. You squeezed his hand in yours, trying to comfort him. You knew he lost his mom before he even went in the ice, but these things never really heal.

You got your bill and left the restaurant, waving at Eric as you left. If he was surprised to see you with Captain America, he showed no sign of it, and waved back at you.

You got back into the car. "Ready for the next thing?" Steve asked. "Sure," you said. You didn't realize there was going to be a next thing, but you weren't complaining.

Steve drove you both to a mall close by. You sent him a questioning look but he just smiled at you and led the way into an arcade that was located inside the mall. It seemed closed, but a staff member was inside and opened the door for you.

"Didn't want anyone interrupting us," Steve said, making your way to the token machine and getting some tokens. "What do you wanna do first?" he smiled at you.

You spent the next couple of hours playing most of the machines, and unsurprisingly Steve won almost every time. Damn his reflexes, you thought as he won yet another match of table hockey. But you destroyed him in the Dance Dance Revolution machine.

"Not fair!" he said as you executed the moves perfectly, "You know this game!"

"I knew all of the others as well," you laughed, your answer satisfying him.

You won a small teddy bear as a prize and beamed at Steve. You named him Pooh. "I understood that reference!" he exclaimed and you both laughed.

At last, you thanked the employee that stayed to close after you and made your way to the car, Pooh in one of your hands, the other holding Steve's.

The drive back to the compound was filled with comfortable silence, as you both reflected about the wonderful evening. You reached the compound and Steve escorted you to your room like the perfect gentleman he's been the entire time. "Thank you," you told Steve when you reached your door. "I had a lot of fun tonight."

"Me too," he said, kissing you softly, "Goodnight."

"Oh no, you're not goodnight-ing me!" you pulled him back by his shirt. "You can't keep a girl waiting that long Steve-" you came closer to him and circled your arms around his broad shoulders, whispering in his ear, "-that wouldn't be very gentlemanly of you. And we both know how much you like being a gentleman." You smirked at him, pulling him in for a sensual kiss.

After a few seconds Steve caught on, grabbing your hips. The kiss turned hungry and almost desperate and you moaned into Steve's mouth. You pulled apart from him to unlock your door, you and Steve stumbling in, taking your shoes off and locking the door hastily. Steve caught your lips again in a heated kiss as you guided both of you to the bed. Your hands tangled in Steve's hair as you landed on the bed, Steve in top of you, placing open-mouthed kisses on your jaw and neck. Your hands reached the small of his back, bringing his shirt up to his head and tugging it off his body. Your mouth went dry at the sight of his chiseled chest. You placed wet kisses along his collarbone as he tugged at your dress, helping him get it off of your body.

"God, you're beautiful," he said in a hoarse voice that made you wet instantly. He kissed your collarbones, making his way to suck the tops of your breasts, probably leaving a mark, as he unhooked your bra and threw it away. He took one of your nipples in his mouth, teasing it with his tongue as he did the same with his hand on the other. "Steve," you moaned at the sensation and ran your hands on his chest, reaching to undo his belt and push his pants off his legs. When his pants were off you felt his erection against your leg as he ground against you involuntarily.

You slipped your hand past the elastic of his boxers, gripping him and moving your hand along his length. He breathed heavily. "tease," he murmured in your ear, kissing your neck as he took off the rest of your underwear, and his own, leaving you both naked. His mouth found yours once more in a heated kiss as his hand traveled down and teased your clit. You moaned into his mouth. "I need you," you whispered in his ear as you kissed down his neck.

"Wait-" he started, but you reached over to your bedside drawer and pulled out a condom before he finished the sentence. He raised his brow at you, and you rolled your eyes at him. "Shut up and fuck me," you kissed his collarbone. "I never said anything," Steve chuckled, lining himself up with your entrance, "but as you wish," he whispered as he pushed his length into you.

You gasped at the sensation, nails digging into his toned back. He filled you up completely, groaning. "You feel so good around me baby," he whispered huskily and bit down in your collarbone. You took a couple of seconds adjusting to him stretching your walls and then rolled your hips against his.

You moved in sync, grinding against each other. You wrapped your legs around him, allowing him to go deeper, hitting your g-spot again and again. You were so close when Steve's thrusts started faltering, and he brought his hand to your clit one more, bringing you over the edge with him. Your walls contracted around him as you felt waves of pleasure coursing through your body. As you both got down from your high, he pulled out of you and you almost whined at the loss. You knew you'd have a hard time walking tomorrow, but right now you couldn’t help but wanting him inside you. He came back to bed after he disposed the condom and wrapped his arm behind you, moving your hair from your neck and kissing your shoulder sweetly.

"That was…" he trailed off. "Amazing," you finished his sentence and he chuckled. "Exactly." "If we're in agreement, then there's something I wouldn't mind," you said seductively and ground your butt into him. He groaned behind you and bit your neck. The night was still young, and you were so ready for round two.

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 48.1 - Warwick vs Exeter

Kylian Mbappe receives the ball from Lucas Hernandez, and with a nonchalance that can only come from being so young, strikes it beyond a floundering Danijel Subašić. France lead Croatia 4-1. Their opponents will score a consolation in a few minutes, but to all intents and purposes the biggest match in the biggest sporting event in the world has just been ended by a nineteen year old. He had also high-fived a pitch-invading member of Pussy Riot.

I don’t know whether professional footballers would make worse University Challenge contestants than University Challenge contestants would make footballers, but both require skill, timing, and an ability to perform under the mightiest of pressure. 

But for tonight’s contestants, victory comes with it not the eternal promise of national adulation, but the passing acknowledgement of intellectual achievement. Still, its something, even if they won’t get the chance to shake hands with any Russian feminist protest punk groups.

Warwick are one time UC Champions, having won the 2007 final against Manchester, but have only made the quarter finals twice since, coming within 30 points of knocking out Eric Monkman’s Wolfson at that stage in 2017. Exeter return to the Challenge following a three year absence, though their glory days were around a decade ago too, with consecutive quarter final appearances in 2008 and 2009.

Emily Wolfenden is the first contestant to introduce herself, and does so in a Warwick Uni Quiz Soc hoodie which identifies her as the incumbent President at the time of filming. It seems strange to me that the almighty leader of WUQS should be sitting out wide, but who am I to question the formation when it was probably her who chose it? 

They are mascotted by a pair of ducks, because why have one duck when you can have two ducks, am I right? Captain Beardsley has a very prominent zip on his hoodie and to his left Gower has a very prominent set of sideburns. I’m not sure where the line is drawn between general purpose sideburns and fully-blown mutton chops (presumably its a hairy one somewhere around the upper lip) but Gower is definitely playing fast and loose with it.

Careful research has indicated that what I, and Bobby Seagull, the old narcissist, thought to be a seagull performing mascot duties for Exeter, is in fact an albatross. Albus the Albatross, to give him his full name, as confirmed by Will Klintworth, who could easily be confused for Taron Egerton if he was playing the lead in Starter for 10.

Paxman gives the rules in full. They haven’t changed. They probably never will. And on we go.

Sartori commits the cardinal sin of forgetting the earlier clues and negs, but perhaps unluckily makes the wrong choice between ‘Night’ and ‘Fever’ based on the final hint, and hands the opening question to Exeter. Captain Lay nominates Klintworth to say ‘hooligan’ for one of the bonuses, which is probably for the best, given the difficulties involved in its pronunciation. Klintworth confidently takes the next starter and Exeter grab a hat-trick on the bonuses.

Gower negs the third to leave Warwick dangling ten points below zero, but Lay can’t capitalise on the error, and then Wolfenden starts proving my thesis that she should be closer to the action by dragging her team back to the surface with a classic UC question on consonants.

I don’t know if there’s much point in memorising the periodic table given that every self-respecting person who needs to use one will have a giant copy on their office wall, but it wins Exeter a few points and they extend their lead to a handsome fifty five points.

It must have been cold in the studio on the day of filming, because all eight contestants are wearing at least two layers, but I reckon Warwick must have put the extra layers on pretty late, because they were only just starting to warm up. A first starter for Beardsley is quickly cancelled out by Exeter, but an early buzz of ‘Angels in America’ signalled that the Coventry-based side were finally ready to get going.

Steadily they hacked away at the deficit, like George Osbourne if he’d been competent, and despite an absurdly quick buzz from Lay on the games company Valve, they’d taken the lead by the time the second picture round came around. Exeter didn’t give up though, and the lead pinballed between the two sides until about two minutes to go.

Asked for an Italian mathematician, Klintworth negged with the decidedly not Italian Euclid, and Gower found use for his sideburns in sweeping up the mess. A fifteen point swing, notwithstanding the bonuses, which put the match out of Exeter’s reach.

Final Score: Warwick 165 - 150 Exeter

With such a high losing score it seems likely that Exeter will return for the play-off round, and congratulations to Warwick on reaching the second round for the third year running. And welcome to a new series of the University Challenge Review those of you who’ve been here before and those who’ve not. I’m gonna write a bit below thats not really about the show so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to satiate my self-indulgence...

When I finished the last series (which I did, even if it was two months late), I didn’t know if I’d want to do another one. Its hard to find new things to say about something thats ostensibly the same every week, and I worried that what had once (hopefully) been esoteric and exciting because of its nicheness was becoming mundane, repetitive and even pathetic because of it. And maybe it is, but thats not the point of this bit.

For the first half of last year I wrote the reviews after work on a Tuesday evening in Malaysia, and it gave me a nice anchor to home, then in the second half I could barely make time to write anything with the mad rush to hand in assignments and study for exams. It seemed more like an annoying burden than anything else, though I would still enjoy the act of writing itself.

But having just finished uni, I don’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing throughout this series. Okay, I know where I am (currently, at least), but I don’t know what I’ll be doing, so for the moment it seems like as good an idea as any to keep at it until I can’t keep keeping at it. So that’s what I’ll do. And thats the end of the bleeding hearts portion of this column. Thanks for sticking with me. 

[phoenixyfriend]

kurumu

  Since alternate realities are canon, this...

I really enjoy all the enthusiasm for your ideas! It’s interesting to read. :o

I’m glad you think so, because most of my fics are honestly fueled by either spite/the desire to see a certain kind of fic in the world that for some reason doesn’t exist (JaLD, the mermaid fic) or, more often, just the most absurdly self-indulgent nonsense I can think of (the Voltron-Hamilton thing, the mermaid fic, my Young Avengers crossover idea, Frozen!Lance, Sixteen Walls, and yes, most of my spite fics).

And absurdly self-indulgent nonsense tends to run the risk of being so niche that nobody’s very interested in reading it.

(Allow me to mention ‘To Build a Queendom,’ which is a Naruto/Young Avengers crossover featuring the “hallucination-given-physical-form-by-magic of Loki’s” that existed for maybe five issues before she was erased from existence by him, which I’ve been writing for over a year and a half now; it gets about two reviews per chapter, on average, because it’s so self-indulgent that it’s too niche for 90% of my readers to even understand.)