#oc: river maxine

[genuinerio]

YOUNG, WILD AND FREE ↠ 「 Outer Banks 」

Prologue and first chapter will be coming soon!

NOTE: I named my OC in honor of my favorite actor, River Phoenix, he will be dearly missed and beloved. May he rest peacefully. Also, decided to make her John B’s love interest.

Profile of River Maxine Maybank.

ABOUT ↴

FULL NAME: RIVER MAXINE MAYBANK ROUTLEDGE.

NICKNAMES: RIO, STARSHINE. (first jj, now kie, john b, pope and sarah), RIVER MAXINE. (everyone), RIO, RIV, KID, KIDDO, SUNFLOWER, MINI ME. (jj), SOUL SISTER. (kiara), SUNSHINE, ANGEL. (john b), POGUE PRINCESS. (rafe and topper).

PLACE OF BIRTH: THE CUT, OUTER BANKS.

DATE OF BIRTH: UNKNOWN.

AGE: SIXTEEN.

GENDER: FEMALE.

EYE COLOR: BLUE.

HAIR COLOR: BLONDE.

HEIGHT: 5’8.

STATUS: ALIVE.

EDUCATION: KILDARE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL. (currently).

ORGIN: OUTER BANKS.

RESIDENCE: THE CUT, OUTER BANKS.

SKILLS: ART, CREATIVITY, WRITING.

STRENGTHS: SURVIVING ABUSE, BEING ARTISTIC, HIGH PAIN TOLERANCE, CONFIDENT AND BRAVE.

WEAKNESSES: LETTING HERSELF BE ABUSED, PROMISCUITY WITH FEARING COMMITMENT AMONG BEING REBELLIOUS, FEARING TO LET ANYONE BE TRULY CLOSE BESIDES HER BROTHER AND BEING SELF DESTRUCTIVE.

HOBBIES: HANGING OUT WITH HER FRIENDS AND BROTHER, DRINKING ALCOHOL, PLAYING GUITAR, PAINTING, SKETCHING, SMOKING WEED AND CIGARETTES AMONG PARTYING, SURFING.

GOALS: GETTING HER AND JJ TO LEAVE THEIR ABUSIVE HOUSEHOLD AND TAKE VENGEANCE AMONG THEIR FATHER, NOT BEING AFRAID OF COMMITMENT AS WELL AS BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST.

PERSONALITY TYPE: ENTJ.

FAMILY: LUKE MAYBANK. (father), UNKNOWN MOTHER. (estranged), JJ MAYBANK. (twin brother), RICKY. (cousin).

FRIENDS: JJ MAYBANK. (brother, best friend), KIARA CARRERA. (best friend, like a sister), JOHN B ROUTLEDGE, best friend, eventual love interest), POPE HEYWARD. (best friend, like a brother), SARAH CAMERON. (best friend, like a sister), CLEO. (good friend).

ENEMIES: LUKE MAYBANK. (currently), RAFE CAMERON. (currently), TOPPER THORNTON. (formerly), WARD CAMERON. (currently).

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: PANSEXUAL.

LOVE INTERESTS: JOHN B ROUTLEDGE. (eventual husband, not legally), VARIOUS MEN AND WOMEN. (hookups, flings).

AFFILIATION: POGUES. (currently).

FIRST APPEARANCE: PILOT.

LATEST APPEARANCE: SECRET TO THE GNOMON.

FACE CLAIM: KATHRYN NEWTON.

FACTS ABOUT RIVER:

1. River is named after famous actor and namesake, River Phoenix who is also the older brother of Joaquin Phoenix. The name has various meanings, in a general aspect it means a flowing body of water and in a symbolic meaning, it means flowing freely, being connected to nature and having depth.

2. JJ frequently refers to her as his “mini me,” despite the fact that they’re twins and she is only younger than him by ten minutes for the reason given above. Another thing is that if he had to choose, he’d pick River as he sees his sister as the female version of himself like others see him as hers which annoys her constantly.

3. Like my other Outer Banks OC and Kiara, she is known to have a hippie soul, vibe and personality to her as she loves nature and is spiritual. She also really passionate and is adamant about her hippie type of lifestyle as people say around Outer Banks.

4. Because of the clear similarity and resemblance especially in looks to her mother, this causes River problems with Luke.

5. River is considered and viewed to be the female version of twin brother, JJ with the two sharing blue eyes and blonde hair along with other characteristics. One in particular is the protectiveness and defending for one another and their friends. However, unlike JJ, she is not as quick tempered as him but rather, likes to keep her anger and sorrows to herself.

6. Despite their extremely close bond and protectiveness of each other, River is oftentimes annoyed by JJ’s overprotective behaviour towards her with her feeling that he views her as a baby and acts like her father rather than her actual brother who’s the same age as her. At first, she understood it as a young child but she no longer is a child nor the little girl she once was.

7. Growing up, River was very shy and only really would talk and open up to JJ in spite of having other friends, it would just take her time to get comfortable with interacting with others and in gaining the confidence to trust them.

8. Because of the abusive and toxic environment, her and JJ were raised in, she feels that it had caused her major issues when it comes to relationships among other issues. People consider River to have major daddy and trust issues.

9. Regardless of them both being best friends with the pogues, River considers JJ to be her bestest friend of them all with Kiara, John B and Pope following suit and vice versa.

10. It’s pointed out that JJ clearly cares more about River’s wellbeing than his own and loves her a lot, JJ would do whatever for her. He also sees her as having great potential in anything that she’d like to pursue as he views her as very intelligent and is willing to support her through it all. In favour of this, River appreciates this but feels awful that JJ doesn’t see himself as having much potential or others not seeing him as so either when she believes he could have potential if he worked hard for it.

11. Despite how close they are as a whole, River and Pope are always considered to be each other’s “partner in crime” when it comes to important matters as they are both very smart for being pogues and are typically the ones to be the most reasonable in difficult situations.

12. It’s clear that River tries her best in trying to see other people’s perspectives especially JJ with his crazy antics. She doesn’t want it to make it seem like her brother is alone in his ideas even if they’re not the best ones or that she agrees with them.

13. River always saw JJ as the closest thing she had to a father since despite the two being the same age given that they’re twins, he always cared for her in a way that she once hoped that Luke would have and in a way that a loving father would care for their daughter.

14. The female Maybank is an old soul as she is very empathetic and compassionate to those that she cares deeply for. She has been noticed to be very wise beyond her years as well as caring more about her inner self than her outer self.

15. When they were children, JJ had taught River to surf once he learned himself and ever since then, it was a hobby that the two shared. JJ has said a few times that he believes River is a better surfer than he is, however; River disagrees and explains that she is good but JJ is in fact better.

16. Besides his other two nicknames for her, JJ calls her “sunflower,” as he says that River is someone who can brighten up their day, everyone adores her and is her favorite type of flower.

17. Before she and JJ became friends and grew to know John B and Pope, she’d cling to JJ as a child. Thus possibly hinting to a case of abandonment issues.

18. JJ has mentioned that he has found River to be very special and that she has the ability to make every relationship with someone feel that they have the closest relationship with her.

[chocorry-ding]

𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗿𝗮𝘄 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘮

—

I don't know how many other characters there are... ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )

I thought I had finished painting the Eclipsa family, but I forgot about Maxine XDDD

I don't know how to draw old people...╯︿╰

[basilone]

Sometimes, war is the province of women. An alternate take on the battle for air dominance over the skies of Europe during World War Two, as told through the stories of an American all-female bomber crew and the people around them.

This is a collection of standalone works that all interlock to form one big patchwork quilt of stories. It will see new additions every so often, especially because a lot of it is written to prompts. The collection on AO3 is my best attempt at organizing it in chronological order.

[click here for the WIP story collection!]

Want to know a little more about the OCs featured in this collection? Please click the readmore below!

Charlotte “Lottie” Rivers-Mayhew Fighter pilot turned bomber pilot Can fly anything, will try anything. Big mouth, little heart. Lives in the land of innuendo and crude jokes. Loud about her whole existence. Very smart, but downplays that like whoa. Julie “Jules” Langdon Bomber pilot Runs this gig and everyone else just needs to get with her program. Great at reading people the riot act. Comically unimpressed by everything that lands in her path. Nosewrinkles at any and all delays. Known for slipping people an extra bite to eat. Christina “Tiny” Heartfield Bomber co-pilot Needs five hours to get ready for any kind of social event. Silver spoon baby. Knows all the gossip and all the good songs. Gets a little bit stressed about flying in warzones. Loves a good ghost story. Eleanor “Nora” Graham Navigator The Mom Friend. Prone to giving hugs and peptalks. Bossy and quite rude when things don’t go her way. Cannot flirt her way out of anything. If you see her running, that’s just standard procedure. Valerie “Val” Hodges Radio operator Absolute poker-faced ballsy liar. Most innocent face in the whole crew. Smokes more than her job should allow. Will try to wiggle out of any lectures by offering the most inane excuses. There’s not a puzzle she can’t solve. Genevieve “Two” Hodgson Tail gunner Shows up late to everything except the war. Always chewing gum. Queen of half-hearted salutes and vague politeness. Keeps saying she’s too poor for this level of bullshit. Has a mean right hook. Madeleine “Push” Perrault Flight engineer Making lists calms her down. Can and will call you stupid in four different languages. Thinks planes are better than people. Voice like a foghorn with the attitude to match. Believes she can fix anything. Evelyn “One-Eye” Carter Ball turret gunner Happy-go-lucky baby of the group, rolling with life’s punches. Will talk your ear off. Could probably get away with murder. Best gunner in the crew. Can be painfully naïve. Dorothy “Dee” Llewellyn Waist gunner Born a pessimist. Genuinely thinks no man should ever sport a mustache. Has a limitless supply of stories about her family. Very protective. Would inspire a riot if anyone ever let her talk long enough without interruptions. Maxine “Max” Morrison Waist gunner Bold and brash and crackling with energy. Cracks more bad jokes than anyone alive. Has developed some rather complicated handshakes. Will interrupt any event or conversation. If you see her running, something’s probably chasing her. Stella “Frosty” Lombardi Bombardier Icy calm in any crisis. Can calculate any bomb drop. Complains about the food. Is a true girl’s girl and refuses to so much as speak to most men. Never wants to miss out on the fun.

Lucille Dorrance-Jones, goes by Lucy Jones Nurse The singlemost stubborn person on the planet. Thinks some injuries are fascinating. Harbors a healthy distrust of bureaucracy and paperwork. Can probably drink you under the table. Encourages anyone to sing. Cressida Dorrance-Jones Interrogator Sharp as a tack. Does not forgive, does not forget. Secretly more big-hearted than people would give her credit for. Really wants to fly a plane. Has an ongoing one-sided vendetta with Meatball. Darlene Mayfair Mechanic Cheerful and spirited. Very gifted storyteller. Turns shy when complimented. Ride or die for people and sticks with them longer than they might deserve. Marches to the beat of her own drum. Georgina “George” Campbell Mechanic Has a soft spot for strays. Suffers no fools. Is here to win a war, not ogle cute men. Perpetually fighting a losing battle against the grease stains on her uniform. The best co-conspirator you could ask for. Imogene “Genie” Chapman Clubmobile girl Very outgoing people-person. Better at giving advice than at taking it. Designated hair-cutter. Loves movies and dancing. Knows just about anybody by name. Jack Ellis OSS Doesn’t miss a beat. No-nonsense natural leader. Very determined to do what he believes is the right thing. Talks about the war in terms of “the game”. Warm and caring once he lets his guard down.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, May 25th

BUFFY: I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we'll give 'em one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now. 'Cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?

~~Bring on the Night~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Not Breathing by MadeInGold (Buffy, Angel, Xander, T)

Soul Void by skargasm (Connor, Teen Wolf crossover, M)

Kitten by RavenclawSlayer (Buffy/Kennedy, E)

relearning people skills by Anonymous (Willow/Oz, M)

Child's Play? by NotASlayer (Spike/Drusilla, T)

Pretty Please by Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Giles Investigates, part one by ILLYRIAN (Giles, not rated)

In Case You Haven't Noticed... Chapter 13 by Sdhuskerfan (Buffy/Giles, E)

Sisters, the adventures of Sam and Buffy Carter - Year 1, Chapter 18 by FPBarbieri (Buffy, Stargate crossover, G)

In the Company of Witches and Slayers: Chapter 46 by VladimirHarkonnen (TheLightdancer) (Willow/Tara, E)

Greatest Love Story - Prelude, Chapter 4 by FalseGinger (Angel/Spike, M)

Broken Curses, Chapter 10 by Ihatechoosinganame (Xander, E)

And None Contented, Chapter 4 by ConstantCommentTea (Angel/OC, M)

Amber the Vampire Slayer, Chapter 2 by Redtheseer (Ensemble, T)

A Different Path, Chapter 16 by Anaxilea (Buffy/Faith, M)

No Matter What, Chapter 2 (complete!) by Xyex (Buffy/Willow, M)

Untapped Potential, Chapter 4 (complete!) by TiffyB (Xander/Dawn, E)

lost in this, but it feels like home, Chapter 2 by evesock (Buffy/Angel, E)

Rewind (Pt 5) by Enigmatist (Wesley, not rated)

Entropy (Pt 3) by Enigmatist (Ensemble, not rated)

A Second Chance- Their Story, Chapter 11 by Loup Noir (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Ready for it? Chapter 8 by Lilacsandorangeblossoms (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Early One Morning, Chapter 47 by all choseny (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Love Lives Here, Chapter 67 by Passion4Spike (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

On Our Wedding Day, Chapter 2 by Spikelover4ever (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Watcher, Chapter 9 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Afterburn: In The Dark, Chapter 14 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Ripple In Time, Chapter 38 by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Fixer Uppers, Chapter 3 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Deliverance From Destiny, Chapter 10 by Ragini (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Just a little bit of elbow grease and uh-oh.... Chapters 1 & 2 (complete) by samsas (Xander, multiple crossovers, FR21)

Some You Lose, Chapter 14 by lyapunov (Buffy, Stargate crossover, FR13)

Glimpses of the Cellar Dwellers, Chapter 36 (complete!) by Maldorana (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

The Watcher, Chapter 9 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: Betty & Veronica imagined as Buffy vs. Vampirella (Vampironica!) by barnabarella (worksafe)

Fanvid: Buffy | Cassandra by Eden

Fanvid: Buffy & Spike - Cola by devoteeverain

Fanvid: This Hell || A BtVS Fancam by Featureless Expanse (Sweet)

Fanvid: Willow ~ Tara's Gone {BTVS Video} by Siren Song

Fanvid: BTVS || Color Edition by ZNellyZ

Fanvid: Death Battle Fan Made Trailer: Buffy VS Juliet (Buffy the Vampire Slayer VS Lollipop Chainsaw) by JackOfAllTrades

Fanvid: In Another Life | Faith + Buffy by IncognitoDuck

Fanvid: Buffy the vampire slayer - Kids by juliaroxs241

Fanvid: Buffy and Angel - But Daddy I Love Him by juliaroxs241 (vidder also posted multiple other vids)

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike to the song The River Is Wide by MCW Movies

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike Alone in the apartment by MCW Movies

Fanvid: Spike and Buffy About Her by MCW Movies

Fanvid: BUFFY - "CHOSEN" (Robert Miles - Children) by prior emme

Video: Come To The Magic Box! | Taskmaster: Buffy Reactor Edition by Liam Duke

Song: The Moloch Song | Taskmaster: Buffy Reactor Edition by Liam Duke

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dramatic) Monologue by Catherine Lilly (Buffy's speech at the end of Bring On The Night)

Artwork process video: Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Satisfying Reverse Digital Painting Time Lapse by TIM NARDELLI (worksafe)

Comic: Willow vs Ulquiorra Page 6 by MattanzaMFedora (worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

Any chance you might be in need of some rescuing? [Angel Season 1 reviews] by speashasha

Video: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992) | Cult Movie Podcast by Compelled by Schlock

Video: Buffy's Teacher is a MONSTER?! | Teacher's Pet | s1ep4 by Nerdy Investigations

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Four, Episode Seventeen: Superstar by Slayed! The Buffyverse Revisited Podcast

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Series Review! by The Dyl Pickle Movie Network

Video: Buffy Season 7 Review! Spoilers! by SundayScariesReview

Video: Normal Again-Slayer Sunday by Jane Talks Buffy

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home We Like Comics Because They Have no Bones

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer After Show by We Like Comics Because They Have no Bones

Video: The Re-Watcher's Council | "Ted" Buffy the Vampire Slayer S02E11 Spoiler Review by LGRN - Entertainment

Video: Those Were The Days - Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Beer Bad by 2Dorks

Video: Once More...Rewatch: Buffy 2.2 Some Assembly Required by Jen Katz and Ryan Something

Video: Buffy Review - 5x15 I Was Made to Love You by Reverse Angle

[Recs]

Seasonal Spuffy Recco/Reposts - Double_dutchess [fanvids] by teragramm

[Fandom Discussions]

glory saying "i was fighting a vampire slayer? how unbelievably common!" by judge-tenderly

So there’s this bit of vampire lore in Buffy that the older a vampire is, the stronger they get by nicnacsnonsense

Why didn’t Willow just take the curse off Angel? by theredpharaoah

Angel didn’t have to die to open the portal so why did he need to die to close it? by theredpharaoah

people are always like “okay but dawn was so annoying and whiny” by buffyspeak

The Cookie Dough Speech by cookiedoughmeagain

Season 7, Ep 19 I forgot how much I hate all the Potentials by deus--auri

Another thought about "Damage" I had by finalgirl1984

Can we just appreciate that realistically if there was a couple that Dawn should just be sent to live with for a while it should be Xander and Anya by thedeathscar

Spike or Faith? continued by multiple posters

Is Buffy As Bad As The Watchers Council? by Priceless

Who do you like better, Connor or Dawn? by luxaII

What ending for Cordelia would you have preferred? continued by Stoney and JoeZen

Unpopular Opinions [Kennedy] continued by multiple posters

Rewatch thoughts and questions continued by multiple posters

IOHEFY - what does it even mean? continued by multiple posters

Joyce's ups and downs continued by luxall

Imagining [Angel] Season 1 with Doyle in it by OnyxGameFanatic

What's the consensus on Faith and Robin? by IntelligentPumpkin74

Who Is The Most Relatable Character From The BuffyVerse For You by Past-Throat-6788

buffy warren and willow by brian5mbv

Favorite moment, line, and/or scene from your favorite character? by sophie_4187

If Hush were set now… by trufflesniffinpig

Something in the Buffyverse that isn't intended to be funny, but it still makes you laugh anyways? by PristineSituation498

To the Gilmore Girls fans here... [BtVS / Gilmore Girls comparisons] by Almighty_Push91

Starting with Angel by Luppercus

"Forever" is harder to watch for me than "The Body" by Whedonite144

Favourite Spike line? by sKullsHavezzz

Angel and Joyce by sadhungryandvirgin

Video: The REAL reason you HATE Xander Harris!!! by Ryan B Talks TV

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[bigbadripley]

Chapter 18 - Come Here

Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Jake Lockley x Female!OC

Summary: Marc never expected to see his childhood friend Simone ever again. To Simone, Marc may as well have been dead. However, when Simone met Steven 15 years after Marc disappeared, she couldn’t help but notice how familiar he was.

⚠️ 18+!! | 3.8k Words | Third-person omniscient | Dark?fic/Angst/Smut | AU/AT |

Warnings: Heavy language, OC with religious trauma, childhood trauma, sexual trauma, mention of alcohol, smoking, death mention, unhealthy coping mechanisms, SOMEHOW there's fluff at the end. **I won’t be exhaustive with the smut warnings. Unprotected p in v in a car (we classy) Safe travels!***

A/N: I update warnings with each chapter. Only proceed if you can handle the themes included in the warnings.

Minors DNI, DL;DR, if I miss a warning, please let me know.

Chapter list

"Why can't you tell that I'm desperate? Doesn't it show in my smile? Why can't you tell that I'm bad for ya? It doesn't show in your eyes" -"Come Here" by Dominic Fike

  This day is wrong. Simone thought to herself. Everything felt off about what started as a seemingly ordinary Wednesday. It began with her coffee being weaker than usual even though she used the same three scoops of Café Bustelo as always, then her patient Corey didn't show or call, which was unlike him. 

Another unrelated but monumental occurrence that fucked up her day was the dream she had the night before. Of course, it had to be about Marc, and of course, she woke up a blubbering wreck. It was a perfect projection of what she imagined would happen if that stupid moon god kept him on his leash: 

They'd fish him out of the Illinois River.

The final wrench in her day was when she called to check in on Laura, and Maxine told her that she was pronounced brain dead. After that, it was hard to get through her already shortened workday. 

Simone stood outside of her office building with a lit cigarette in hand, reflecting on and regretting the outfit she chose to wear that morning. It was as business casual as usual: a brown leather high-waisted skirt that came right above her knees, a pumpkin orange ribbed sweater, and a long brown blazer to match the skirt. It was cute and functional, but the chilly breeze cut through her bare legs. 

She took a deep drag from the smoke and let the warmth fill her before another gust hit and reminded her to go to her car. She was done for the day and didn't need to stand outside. Before she took off to the parking lot, her phone buzzed and took her attention away. 

Unknown number: Need a ride?

She stared confused at the text for a moment, having a "the call is coming from inside the house" moment when it buzzed again, and another bubble appeared under it. 

Unknown number: On your right, Chi-town.

She turned her attention to the described direction and saw the taxi, and, as expected by the nickname used in the message, Jake was sitting in front of the wheel. 

For a moment, the unknown number perplexed her, but with the kind of connections Spector has, and the fact that he used to use the name Jake Lockley, it would be no surprise that the man has his own phone along with a job and identity. 

She didn't need a ride but didn't mind the company he offered. She flicked her cigarette away and started in that direction.

As Simone approached his taxi, Jake eyed her up and down, thinking of how breathtaking the gal looked in a skirt. 

Calves like that? She'd be a damn Amazonian if she was taller. He thought to himself. 

She got into his back seat customarily and wasted no time asking about his presence. 

"You stalkin' me now?" She asked, not holding back her accent in the slightest. Jake turned his body around to face her, 

"What gave ya that idea?" 

"You're outside my work." 

"Doll, I got eyes and ears everywhere. Ya weren't that hard to find." He explained. Simone let out a soft snort at the idea, unsure of what he meant by that. "So, where ya wanna go?" 

"Who said I even needed a ride?"

"You're in my back seat, ain't ya?" 

After the day Simone had, she felt like the taximan showing up unexpectedly was the universe trying to make up for it, offering her the option to go get some grog. 

"Take me to The Waltz, then." She requested with a shrug. 

"Ah, where we first met, how cute." Jake laughed as he started driving in that direction. The Waltz was the bar where he picked her up from the night she showed up and turned his whole world upside down. Thinking about how so much had changed since then made him crave a shot. "Can I buy you a drink when we get there?" 

"Aren't you working?"

"Hardly. Rideshare caused a slow business." 

The thought lingered on her mind, knowing it wouldn't be good for her to spend her night drinking alone. She also wasn't sure if she wanted this to go much further. Not yet, anyway. She chose to propose a test.

"Only if you can guess what I drink. Top three." Simone told him, crossing her arms.

No way he'll get all three. 

Jake didn't shy from the challenge and thought of everything he knew about the woman so far:

She's hot, educated, complex, and got bags under her eyes. He thought before providing his answer. "Straight whiskey, chilled tequila, and a good glass of wine. None of that fruity shit. I'm a rum guy, myself." 

The accuracy shook Simone's core, not catching how attentive he was before. Either that, or he used his eyes and ears as he said. "How did you get it spot-fuckin'-on?" 

"Ain't a schmuck alive who can hide a thing from me. You strike me as a sophisticated yet well-oiled machine." He explained. "Classy, but look like you ain't had a decent night's sleep in a few months. You also smoke, drink, and deal with headcases daily." 

Also look like you could do better things with that mouth, but I'll keep that to myself. 

Again, everything Jake said was true.

His next trick will probably be knowing exactly where to kiss on my neck or some shit. Simone thought to herself before brushing the idea away, feeling the image creep up on her. "Do you observe all the ladies you drive around this closely?" 

"Only when they've tied me to a chair. Believe it or not, 'doesn't happen very often." He joked. "Also, no signs of your boys spying on me through mirrors." 

The confirmation alone that Marc wouldn't lurk on them caused Simone to bite her lip involuntarily. "Lucky for me, then." She said, unprompted. Jake caught that gesture and how her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. 

I wonder if that's an invitation. He thought.

Simone couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that was pushing her over the edge. Every time Jake's grip would adjust on the wheel, it got harder to breathe. The air in the cab grew thicker with each glance he stole from the rearview mirror. 

It became increasingly difficult to swallow as her thoughts drifted from the whiskey she wanted to the weakness in her legs. How Jake sat leaned slightly back as he drove, relaxed but in complete control, radiating big dick energy, and rightfully so in her experience. 

Is this lust or anxiety? Probably both. She thought to herself as she felt a bit of moisture gather in her underarms.

Jake caught her gaze in the mirror and stayed there,

Shit, those eyes could kill me right here. He thought. The Waltz was coming up on their right, and a stronger man than him would have just made the turn, but Jake kept driving straight. 

"Whoops," He said with a hit of sarcasm. "Missed your turn." 

Simone knew he did it on purpose. She knew his game and judging by his willingness to play, he knew hers. Self-control was gone at that moment, and she could have asked him to just take her back to her place instead and left it be, but-

His hands, mouth, face, and body. Just not the man I'm pissed off at right now. 

"That's fine," She started, unbuckling her seatbelt and scooting to the middle of the spacious back seat. She brought up her left foot first and propped it on the back of the passenger seat. "You're welcome to keep driving." She finished, following it up with her other foot resting on the back of the driver's seat. A fire was ignited in her belly, and all she could think of at that moment was-

Let's see how different he really is. 

Jake tilted the rearview mirror down slightly, giving him a direct line of sight to the inside of her leather skirt and the perfect view of her painfully sheer black underwear. He brought his left finger up to the meter and turned it off without a second thought,

"I know a spot." He informed before thoughtfully reaching the same hand back and caressing her thigh the best he could. The pads of his fingers danced along the soft, delicate skin, admiring every mark and groove that had the privilege of residing on such a magnetic surface. Jake considered himself a man of culture and deeply appreciated thighs. 

Simone rolled her head on her shoulders, alleviating the stiffness in her neck that came with the situation's intensity. The cold, calloused hands she knew so well ran up and down her inner leg and teased goosebumps across her hot skin as she watched the other command the car's wheel. 

"Hope I don't make a mess of your seats." She expressed, ticking the corner of her mouth upward. There was something devious and filthy but intoxicating about this feeling she had. It was deliciously rebellious and self-destructive. 

Her mind flashed back to how upset Marc was with the idea of Jake being into her, and a part of her brain tried to make her care. The only problem was: she didn't care as much as she thought she needed to. That body in the driver's seat was irresistible to her every time. 

Jake eyed her in the mirror again, admiring the display that he feared would be a mirage if he looked away for too long. "For you, Hermosa, I'll clean this taxi myself, top to bottom." He told her. 

They continued to eye-fuck each other until the car came to a stop behind an old brick building that seemingly served no purpose anymore. It occurred to them both that they could have taken this to either of their apartments, but it seemed needless to say aloud. When the cab was parked, Jake flicked his hat off into the passenger seat, wasting no time getting out of the car and reentering to join Simone in the back. 

They kissed each other hastily and without yield like they were on a mission to close as much space between them as possible, clawing at the fabric on each other's bodies and searching for something to hold onto in the back of this taxi, stealing each other's breath. 

Simone lapped up his essence like the sweetest candy, trailing her tongue through every corner of his mouth, just as she had done many times before. They were sitting facing each other in this seat, almost awkwardly, seeming to coax each other into making a move. 

Instinctually, Simone took hold of his bottom lip between her teeth and pulled away, only letting it spring back once she could see his eyes. There was a small dribble of blood left where her teeth bit, but he didn't feel any pain in the gesture. It only drove him crazier.

Jake shifted and nearly yanked Simone into his lap, strategically riding up her skirt as her legs split wide over his thighs. The heavy making out and panting continued as she vigorously rutted her pulsating core against his hardening bulge, spilling soft moans onto his tongue. 

He gripped her ass and pushed her down more forcefully onto him as he buried his face into her neck, kissing and biting between growling filthy words in Spanish. Simone ground her clit roughly into him, feeling herself crumble with every comment. 

"That's it, doll. Tell me what you want." He whispered, bringing the language back to English. She got her hands to the sides of his face and stopped her hip movement, directing all his concentration to her eyes as she spoke.

"Dentro de mí." Simone told him, followed by her flicking the tip of her tongue on his lips, which only furthered Jake's need for her. If his dick wasn't so agonizingly hard, he could have sat and stared at her, smiling at him for as long as she allowed. He nearly did just that until she pushed her pelvis closer, reminding him why she was in his lap. 

When Simone felt Jake's hands move between their bodies, she pushed herself back slightly to give him space. She wasn't thinking about any of this or considering the repercussions or fathoming her own movements. She was on autopilot. 

The sound of a zipper and a slight shuffle of denim later, Jake nestled his palm to the small of Simone's back and used his other hand to maneuver her damp panties aside. Nobody removed their clothes. There was no time or space to think about those things. 

Jake pulled Simone back into his body as she positioned her entrance at his head, and without a hint of hesitation, he pushed his hips upward with enough force to cause a sharp sting in her abdomen. He hissed air through his teeth as he entered her cunt. He needed to feel her, and she felt fucking spectacular. 

The impact of his pelvis becoming flush with her made a loud smack and caused Simone to bellow out a harsh groan and throw her head forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaving balmy breaths over his skin.

"You good?" He asked, brushing her hair away from the side of her face to gauge her expression. "Don't wanna break ya." She was flushed and slack-jawed, clearly stunned from the blow. She answered with a nod and jerk of her hips, 

"I'm not porcelain." She choked out. Jake loved that answer.

Simone set the pace by rolling her hips, and though Jake was more than happy to let her do her thing, he wanted to go deeper than she could achieve on her own. He pushed upward each time she rocked downward, causing more needy, desperate, guttural moans. To keep herself centered, she pressed her chest close to his, gripping the back of his leather bomber tighter with each pound.

She didn't seem out of place in the position, knowing her way around his body, having been here dozens of times and still feeling fucking fantastic every time. It made sense to her. It was familiar to her but different enough to feel new as she stared through half-closed eyes out of the rear window of the taxi, inebriated by how her pussy throbbed around him, and he whispers-

"You take it so fuckin' well, doll."

Jake could tell she was close to unraveling on top of him, but he knew he was much closer, and the feeling of her tightening and the whines from her lips weren't helping. He brought his hand back between them and pressed his thumb to her swollen clit, rolling it in circles and using his other hand to keep control of her hips, slamming her down on him. 

Simone felt like she was on fire, the burning ache in her gut growing more intense the more Jake crashed into her. Her throat fell dry, and she could only manage wheezing grunts. Her brain felt like it was about to shut down, focusing solely on her climax as it shot through her bloodstream like venom and made her toes curl in her Oxfords. 

The second her walls gripped him, he felt her body give in and her legs shake. All it took was one last deep thrust upward before he matched her one-for-one. 

"S-shit, hermosa." He muttered, followed by a grunt nearly cutting off his sentence as he burst inside her. Simone was breathing heavily into his ear as their chests swelled and collapsed against each other. Their heartbeats were sporadic and thumped into the others' ribcage like two drums trying to outplay each other. 

It was bliss, but only momentarily, as they came down. Once Simone had the strength to move, she shifted off Jake and sank into the seat next to him, pulling her skirt back down her legs with a huff of satisfaction and exhaustion. 

"How much do I owe you? You turned the meter off." She asked with a breathless laugh. Jake ticked an eyebrow up,

"This one's on me, don't worry about it." He answered in a tone that sounded drained. He could get used to the feeling. She smirked and bent down, digging through her bag. She found her pack of smokes and pulled the lone cigarette out with her lighter. Jake knew little about this strange woman, but he could tell she had some shit on her mind. "Seems like ya needed it." He spoke up again, referring to the impromptu car sex.

Simone shrugged, not intending to tell him her life story or why she needed the distraction, as she opened the door to step out and smoke. "You got another one of those?" Jake asked, pointing to the dart between her fingers. 

"My last one. I never smoke the whole thing, though, so we can share." She offered. He gave her a what the hell? look and got out of the car with her after zipping his pants back up. 

Simone lit up, and they passed it back and forth. She was entranced by the visual of the face she knew as Marc smoking a cigarette like it was nothing. 

Marc doesn't smoke, and neither does Steven. She thought, overanalyzing it. Her studying didn't go unnoticed by Jake. "Take a picture, Chi-town." He teased. 

She took the smoke back from him, nestled it between her lips, and took a long drag that filled her lungs and burned her throat before passing it right back and letting the cloud escape. "It's just strange to see. Your host doesn't smoke." She explained. 

"Neither do I, and by the way you seem to only take a few puffs before throwin' the thing away, neither do you," Jake said before taking his own drag. Simone still watched him thoughtfully as a plume of fog left his mouth. Their postures mirrored each other, leaning against the cab. 

He really is observant. She thought to herself before speaking up again. "I quit for the longest. Only seem to pick it back up when shit hits the fan." She said. 

A moment of silence passes between them. Not uncomfortably or awkwardly, but contently until Jake felt like he wanted to pick the attractive woman's brain. "The frantic fuck in the back seat and the smokin' lead me to believe you're tryna forget about somethin'." He spoke up. 

Simone had reached the end of the cigarette, the final puff causing her fingers to burn when holding the butt before she tossed it away with a shrug. 

"I got you pegged, hermosa," Jake said again, egging her to explain. She looked away, trying not to let her face tell him anything, but he still pushed. "C'mon, doll, you just came all over my seats, and now you wanna play coy? What's goin' on?"

A heavy exhale escaped her as it became clear that he wouldn't give up. "It's a couple of things."

"One of those things include Marc and the other guy?" 

"Steven. His name is Steven, and yeah." She started, correcting him with a bit of bite in her tone for forgetting Steven's name. Jake liked the snap, though. "They want my help with something, and I don't know if I'm qualified enough." 

"Is that somethin' me?"

"Bingo, Bronx. They don't wanna black out anymore, and I guess I'm the only person who can do something about that, but you won't level with 'em."

"Well, shit, it's not like I want that fuckin' pigeon following me around all the time, but I wanna keep the suit, and I can't have it without the bird," Jake explained as he stuck his hands in his pockets to fight the blade-like breeze. "I dunno why they'd give that up."

"Because Khonshu's a bad actor, and I think you know that too."

"I ain't no saint either."

"Well, neither's Marc, or me for that matter. Steven's probably the closest thing to one, but he's also in our boat by association." 

Another silent moment passed between them like the wind. Instinctively, Simone stepped to the side and leaned her shoulder on Jake's to find some warmth. It was a comfortable and trusting gesture that made him feel good inside. 

"What about the other thing on your mind?" He asked, cutting through the hush again. He could tell she was still holding something back, and without warning, he brought the arm she leaned on up and over her shoulders, pulling her into his side. 

The moment surprised Simone, but she loosened up the second she was close enough to breathe in the scent that had felt like home to her. The side of her face touched the old leather of his coat, and she thoughtfully brought her hands under it, wrapping her arms around his midsection and introducing her rosy fingertips to his body heat.

Jake felt her take that long deep breath of comfort against him, and his thoughts went haywire. 

Goddamn, Lockley. Catch feelin's much?

"One of my patients was pronounced brain dead today. I can't help but feel like it's my fault." She admitted, bringing the man back to Earth. He appreciated that she trusted him with that and wanted to extend the best advice he would think.

"You really a doctor if you don't blame yourself for at least one patient's death?" Jake asked rhetorically. He knew Simone wasn't that kind of doctor but imagined it applied the same. Before she responded with words, he felt her arms tighten a bit around him. She needed this. Probably needed it more than the drink or the sex.

"That's awfully wise of you." 

Jake wanted to take credit and feel like he did something there but found himself in an honest mood. "Heard it on a TV show." He told. The air immediately brightened as Simone laughed, the sound and feeling reverberating through Jake's body and making him chuckle like a contagion and swell his heart. 

It was official: he liked her. A lot. But with the complicatedness of everything, he knew it wouldn't just be a matter of them hanging out, getting to know each other, falling in love, normal couple shit. He wasn't just the fist of Khonshu. He was apparently an extension of another person now. Another person that Simone truly loved. 

"Before you get any ideas, I'm not lookin' for anythin' serious." He spoke up again with a voice that sounded doubtful. He didn't loosen his hold on her, either, not trying to make it seem like a full-on rejection. 

"Don't worry about it; I know the deal. Wondering if I should have had your wrap-up first, though." She replied with a snicker as she remembered the gathering fluid in her undergarments. 

"The other guy wear a rubber?" He asked, looking down at her to catch her expression. All she did was shake her head, telling him she trusted his body. Rightfully so, as Jake didn't sleep around, and he doubted the other two did either. "Okay then, nothin' to worry about."

[sappho-ism]

Tell me abt,,,,,, ur lesbian ocs,,,,,, 💖💖💖

Oh.

My.

God.

It is three am where I am currently and I am literally bouncing off the walls right now. I’m actually buzzing at this question I love talking about them so much. 😭😭

Okok, there’s quite a few of them, at least in my current WIP. But the main characters are my absolute favourites. :)

I guess I’ll start with Esme, she’s genuinely like a ray of sunshine. She’s also unapologetically lesbian and is literally if lesbian yearning was a person. she has an adopted cat named Nala which she saved and she’s like in the middle between an extrovert and and introvert? She plays guitar and she’s also in a band with three of her other friends because they’re cool like that. :))) In the universe I’ve written for my ocs she’s like the main main character. She’s investigating into the disappearance of multiple people, one of them being a best friend of hers since nobody else seems like they’re actually willing to do their job right and it’s basically the main plot of the story and stuff gets pretty twisted. 😟 Our sunshine character does get a bit unhinged and ends up doing some pretty crazy (but justified) shit to save people and her girlfriend but honestly the chaos is apart of her and I’ve decided to accept her as she is.

The other lesbian oc is her girlfriend, Maxine. She’s a femme lesbian and she’s genuinely just so awesome and she’s kinda like the direct opposite of Esme. (Mean lesbian x nice lesbian real) She’s quite protective over people she keeps close to her and honestly I don’t think she would mind putting some people in a blender. 😭 She’s really into fashion and she can SURF and im pretty sure there aren’t many things cooler than a surfing lesbian. She used to pretend like she wasn’t really into girls (denial is a river in Egypt, you are a lesbian) but that was primarily to do with social situations she was in. Esme and Maxine have known each other since they were ten but they were split up when they were around sixteen/fifteen and don’t meet again years later until they’re in college, which is then where all the shit with the plot is going off. They actually had an enemies/rivals to friends to lovers thing going on because I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. 🥲 And she’s also helping Esme investigate into the missing persons case because initially they started working together only because they had a common cause but they grow closer over the course of time and they reconnect it’s just…. 😔💖

They’re so lesbian <3 I love them and I’m so sorry for rambling 😭😭

[haderology-oc]

OC MASTERLIST.

below will be my original characters separated by fandom. i will update as i go!

BRIDGERTON.

Calliope Yi

SOCIAL MEDIA.

Hong Aera

Charlotte Morris

Park Chinsun

Kang Jongun

COMMUNITY.

Dana Fenton

Elina Perry

Romane Blanchet

Verita Romero

DERRY GIRLS.

Ridley Boyle

River Boyle

Ronan Boyle

DRAMAS.

Kohsoom Thongkham

Lee Seonghwa

Ju Sumin

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.

Grace Mendoza

Marisol Rojas

GLEE.

Andrea Yamaguchi

GREY’S ANATOMY.

Areum Jang

Briar Kepner

Harper Erçel

Isaiah Dalton

Joon Park

Mason Becker

Reese Edwards

IT (2017).

Kade Russo

Kailyn Chandran

Robin Marx

MCU.

Echo Satur

Fern Chwe

Gray Davis

Salem Pruitt

NCIS.

Lyric Walker

NICKELODEON.

Beatrice Kawatkul

PEAKY BLINDERS.

Kit Edwards

SANTA CLARITA DIET.

Maxine Hardesty

SHADOWHUNTER CHRONICLES.

Roslyn Hathwaye

Safiya Ashborn

SHAMELESS.

Deckard Nadir

Frankie Nadir

Honey Kilgore

Phoebe Lim

STRANGER THINGS.

Dexter Holmes

Wren Horowitz

SUPERNATURAL.

Danielle Singer

TEEN WOLF.

Katarina Bang

Taryn Blake

THE BEAR.

Delaney Young

THE OFFICE.

Evelyn Takahashi

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY.

Daizie Thomas

TWILIGHT.

Arwyn Levinson

Cristina Aoki

Florence Ju

Kittisk Phunsawat

Ripley Nash

Theodora Lopez

WEBTOON.

Namseon Ko

[bubblesbenson]

Last but not least, this commission is entitled Lunch Meeting. Here, my characters Andrew Mitchell (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Lacey Appleby are having a quiet lunch in Guadalupe River Park while getting to know each other since Lacey and her best friend Sayuri Mori were new to Andrew and Oliver Marshall’s (Bill Hader) workplace a couple of months ago. Their job, the KNTV studios, has a lunchroom, but Andrew and Lacey prefer a slightly secluded area to eat and unwind.

Yes, this art piece does look awfully similar to this:

Fun fact: Lacey’s middle name is Maeve.

Another fact: I had this idea of Andrew and Lacey having lunch in the park BEFORE the Criminal Minds episode introducing Max aired. This was just poor luck on my part.

Art by @izesketch

@aspectacularblog @writingatdusk @soulwitches @weltfenos @redinstead-ocs @semi-automaticalien @drusilla-as-in-blackthorn

[leirsulien-archive]

—MY OCS—

‣ oc page (tba) • oc inspo blog • pinterest • spotify

⫸ CHOICE OF GAMES ⫷

ALEXIS 'ALEX' KINGSTON

➯ human with special abilities. she/her. bisexual. detective.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: adam du mortain + nate sewell [love triangle], maxine

ALTHEA 'THEA' SHEPARD

➯ human with special abilities. she/her. bisexual. detective.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: nate sewell

DEVIN 'DEV' ZHOU

➯ human with special abilities. they/he/she. demisexual lesbian. detective.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: farah hauville

EMERY COLE

➯ human with special abilities. she/her. questioning. detective.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: morgan

GWEN CARTER

➯ regene. she/her. bisexual. sidestep mastermind.

story: fallen hero

romance: julia ortega

MAXINE 'MAX'

➯ human. she/her. lesbian. firefighter.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: alexis kingston

OLIVIA 'LIV' GREENE

➯ human with special abilities. she/her. lesbian. detective.

story: the wayhaven chronicles

romance: ava du mortain

PHILEA KARRAS

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. gladiator.

story: heart of battle

romance: remi casales

WREN SEO

➯ werewolf. she/they. queer. alpha.

story: blood moon

romance: victoria jacons-smith

⫸ TEXT-BASED ⫷

ABIGAIL 'ABBY' CLARKSON

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. healer.

story: scout: an apocalypse story

romance: oliver shen

ALIYA TAYRAN

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. the crown.

story: a tale of crowns

romance: ashti mirza + xelara

BELLAMY VERNON

➯ human. she/they. bisexual. physics student.

story: body count

romance: charlie ngata, griffin wood

JOSEPHINE 'JO' ROYCE

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. hunter.

story: the midnight hours

romance: adair devereux + rylan villanueva

KOREY ESPEN

➯ human. he/they. lesbian. hunter.

story: the northern passage

romance: lea chen

RIVER 'RIV' LOWELL

➯ human. she/they. bisexual. hunter.

story: greenwarden

romance: marianna bautista

SLOAN VERES

➯ human. she/they/any. queer. speaker.

story: speaker

romance: liam cowles + sebastian wynric

VICTORIA 'TORY' SCOTT

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. linguistics student.

story: body count

romance: arthur campbell, nyra mistry

⫸ VISUAL NOVELS ⫷

ARIELLE 'ARI' GRAYSON

➯ human. she/her. bisexual demiromantic.

story: our life: beginnings & always

romance: cove holden

CLEMENTINE RIVIÈRE

➯ human. she/her. bisexual.

story: blooming panic

romance: quest

PANDORA PEG'ASI

➯ kitalphan. she/her. bisexual. princess.

story: andromeda six

romance: calderon lynch, juniper nyux, vexx serif

⫸ ORIGINAL ⫷

ATLAS SALVAGGI

➯ human. they/he/she. queer. bassist.

story: hollywoodverse

romance: juniper monroe

CASSIDY 'CASS' MARTIN

➯ human. she/her. lesbian. virologist.

story: apocverse

romance: francine guerrero

EDRIS NADERI

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. talent agent.

story: hollywoodverse

romance: tbd

FELICIA 'FELI' GUERRERO

➯ human. she/her. queer. history student.

story: apocverse

romance: tbd

FRANCINE 'FRANKIE' GUERRERO

➯ human. she/her. bisexual.

story: apocverse

romance: cassidy martin

JUNIPER 'JUNE' MONROE

➯ human. she/her. bisexual. singer.

story: hollywoodverse

romance: atlas salvaggi

ORIANA

➯ human. she/her. queer. dethroned princess.

story: ???

romance: sayida

SAYIDA

➯ ???. she/her. lesbian. failed chosen one, mercenary, royal bodyguard.

story: ???

romance: oriana

[fineillsignup]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think��“God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just... just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection...

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work... and its prequels... and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

ZHUGE Liang is written 諸葛亮 in traditional Chinese characters and 诸葛亮 in simplified Chinese characters. It is a two-character surname. Two character surnames used to be more common than they are now. When I read Chinese history, I notice that two character surname clans seem to have a bad habit of flying real high and then getting the Icarus treatment if Icarus when his wings melted also got beheaded and had the Nine Familial Exterminations performed on his clan. Yikes. Sooner or later that'll cost ya.

But anyway. Zhuge means “lots of kudzu”, which if you have been to the American south you know is that only way that kudzu comes. Liang means “light, shining” in the sense of daylight, moonlight, etc; and from this literal meaning also such figurative meanings as reveal or clear. (I’m going to talk about words have a primary and secondary meaning in this way because I think it’s important for understanding. It’s just like how in English, ‘run’ has many meanings, but almost of all them are derived from a primary meaning of ‘to move fast via one’s human legs’, if I can be weird for a moment. “Run” as in “home run” comes from that, “run” as in “run in your stocking” comes from that, “run” as in “that’ll run you at least $200″ comes from that. You have to get it straight which is the primary meaning, which is the one that people think of first and they way they get to the secondary meaning.)

“Light” has a similar “enlightenment” concept in Chinese as in English, so the person who chose Zhuge Liang’s name—most likely his father or grandfather—clearly valued learning.

I named my fictional son for Zhuge Liang Zhuge Jing 京. The value or direction I was coming from is that Zhuge Liang has come to the decision that he has to nurture the next generation for the benefit of the land, that he has to remain in the world in a way that he very much did not want to do when he himself was a young man. In this alternate universe, Liu Bei has formed a new Han dynasty and recaptured Luoyang, so when Zhuge Liang’s son is then born he chooses this name Jing which means literally “capital”. This concrete name is meant as an allusion to a devotion to public service and to remaining “central”. After I chose this name, I discovered that Zhuge Liang actually has a recorded grandson named Zhuge Jing with this same character.

above, me, realizing I picked a good name

ZHOU Yu is written 周瑜 in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters.

The surname Zhou was and remains a very common Chinese surname whose original meaning was like... a really nice field. Like just the greatest f/ucking field you’ve ever seen. “Dang, that is a sweet field” said an ancient Chinese farmer, “I’m gonna make a new Chinese character to record just how great it is.” And then it came to mean things along the line of complete and thorough.

Yu means the excellence of a gemstone--its brilliance, lustre, etc, as opposed to its flaws. It is not a common word but does appear in some expressions such as 瑕不掩瑜 "a flaw does not conceal the rest of the gemstone's beauty; a defect does not mean the whole thing is bad".

Zhou Yu has gone down in history for being not only smart but also artistic and handsome. A real triple threat. And this name speaks to a family that valued art and beauty. It really does suit him.

Zhou Yu had two recorded sons but in my alternate history I gave him four. I borrowed the first one’s name from history: Xun 循, follow. Based on this name, I chose other names that I thought gave a similar sense of his values: Shou 守, guard; Wen 聞, listen. The youngest one I had born when he already knew he was dying, and things had not been going well generally; therefore I had him give him the name Shen 慎, which means “careful, cautious”.

SUN Shangxiang 孫尚香 is one of several names that history and legend give for a sister of w//arlord-king Sun Quan who was married to a rival w//arlord named Liu Bei in a marriage which, historically, uh, didn’t... didn’t go all that well. In my alternate history it goes well! You can’t stop me, I’ve already done it!

The surname Sun means “grandson” and the given name components are Shang mean “values, esteems” and Xiang “scent” which we can combine into meaning something like “precious perfume”. A lot of the recorded names for women in this era (a huge number didn’t have any names recorded, a problem in itself) seem to me to be more concrete, to contain more objects, to be more focused on affection, less focused on hopes and dreams. This makes sense for the era: you love your daughters (I HOPE) but then they get married and leave you. You don’t have long term plans for them because their long term belongs to another clan.

I gave her daughter by Liu Bei the name Liu Yitao 劉義桃. Yi 義 meaning righteousness, rectitude and 桃 meaning... peach. Okay, okay, I know "righteous peach" sounds damn funny in English, but the legendary oath in the peach garden, the "oath of brotherhood" is called in Chinese 結義 "tying righteousness" and the peach garden is, uh, a peach garden. I also give her the cutesy nickname Taotao 桃桃 which you could compare to “Peaches” or “Peachy”. Reduplication of a character in a two-character name is a classic nickname strategy in Chinese.

GUAN Yinping 關銀屏/关银屏 is a “made up” (scare quotes because old legends have their own kind of validity, fight me) name for a historical daughter of Guan Yu. Guan means “to close (a door)”. Yin means “silver” and ping means “a screen, to hide” and according to the legend, her father’s oath brother Zhang Fei named her after a silver treasure. So here again we see a name for a woman that completely lacks the kind of aspirations we see in male names. Who would have an aspiration for a daughter?

My fictional characters, that’s who. I named her daughter Lu Ruofeng 陸若鳳/陆若凤, Ruo (like the) Feng (phoenix), based on a quote from a Confucian text about what one should try to be during both times of chaos and times of good government. I portray her father as a devoted Confucian scholar, so that was another factor for why I looked to Confucian texts for a source of a name.

Modern parents also now have big dreams for their daughters :’) and so modern girls receive names that are far more similar to how boys are named. 

GAN Ning 甘寧/甘宁 is a great example of a person whose name does not suit him. Gan 甘 depicts a tongue and means “sweet”, and Ning 寧 which shows a bowl and table and heart beneath a roof means “peaceful”. Which, it would be hard to come up with a name for this guy, a ruthless pirate turned extremely effective general:

that is less suitable than essentially being named “Sweet Peace”.

And when he was an adult, his style name—a name that Chinese men used to be given when they turned 20 (ie became adults) by East Asian reckoning—indeed reflects that. Choosing your own style name was widely considered to be crass. I absolutely think that Gan Ning chose his own style name; he was that kind of a guy. And the name he chose! Xingba 興霸/兴霸! I’ve never seen another style name like it. It means, basically, “thriving dominator”! Brand new official adult Gan Ning treats his style name like he’s picking his Xbox gamer tag and he picks BadassBoss69_420, that’s what this style name is like to me. Except, you know, he had almost certainly killed many hundreds of people by the time he was nineteen, so, uh, it wouldn’t be a wise idea to make fun of his name to his face.

In my fictional version of his life, he married a woman whose father was the exception to the “parents love their children” rule and who named his daughter Pandi 盼第 “expecting a younger brother”, which is a classic “daughters ain’t shit, I want a son” name. Real and actual Chinese women have been given this shitty name and ones like it.

Because Gan Ning had an ironically placid name, I also gave his daughter the placid single character name Wan 婉, which means “gentle, restrained”, as a foil to her wild personality.

So there are a bunch of examples of some historical characters and some OCs and how I chose their names. “But wait, all that was really cool, but how can I do that? You can read Chinese, I can’t!”

I originally had a bunch of links here to dictionaries and resources but Tumblr :) wouldn’t let the post show up in tag search with all the links :) :) :) so you need to check the reblogs of this post to see my own reblog; that reblog has all the links. I’M SORRY ABOUT THIS. Here are a list of the sites without the links if you want to Google them yourself.

MDBG  - an open source dictionary - start here

Wiktionary -  don’t knock it til you try it

iCIBA (they recently changed their user interface and it’s much less English-speaker friendly now but it’s still a great dictionary)

Pleco (an iOS app, maybe also Android???) contains same open source dictionary as MDBG and also its own proprietary dictionary

Chinese Etymology at hanziyuan dot net

You search some English keywords from the value you want, and then you see what kind of characters you get. You should take the character and then reverse search, making sure that it doesn’t have negative words/meanings, and similar. Look into the etymology and see if it has any thematic elements that appeal to what you’re doing with the character--eg a fire radical for a character with fire powers.

And then, like I mention before, when you have got a couple characters and you think “I think this could be a good name”, you go to Google, you take a very common surname, you append your chosen name—don’t forget to use quotation marks—and you see what happens. Did you get some results? Even better, did you get lots of results? Then you’re probably safe! No results does not necessarily mean your name won’t work, but you should probably run it by an Actual Chinese Native Speaker at that point to check. Also, remember, as I said at the beginning, sometimes people have weird names. If you consciously decide “you know what, I think this character’s parents would choose a weird name”, then own that.

THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY IGNORE!

Starting in relatively recent history (not really a big thing until Song dynasty) and continuing, moreso outside of mainland China, to the modern day, there is something called a generation name component to a name. This means that of a name’s two characters, one of the characters is shared with every other paternal line relative of that person’s generation; historically, usually only boys get a generation name and girls don’t. (Chinese history, banging on pots and pans: DAUGHTERS AIN’T SHIT AND DON’T FORGET IT!) “Generation” here means everyone who is equidistant descendant from some past ancestor, not necessarily that they are exactly the same age. For example, all of ancestor’s X’s sons share the character 一 in their names, his grandsons all have the character 二，great-grandsons 三, great-great-grandsons 四 (I just used numbers because I’m lazy). By the time you get to great-great-grandson, you might have some that are forty years old and some that are babies (because of how old their fathers were when they were conceived), but they are still the same generation.

In some clans, this tradition goes so far as to have something called a name poem, where the generations cycle, character by character, through a poem that was specifically written for this purpose and which is generally about how their clan is super rad.

If you want to riff off of this idea and have siblings or paternal cousins share a character in their names, ok, but it genuinely isn’t necessary. Anyone with a single character name obviously doesn’t have one of these generation names, and by no means does every person with a two character name (especially female) have a generation name. If you’re doing an OC for an ancient Chinese setting (certainly anything before the year about 500), you shouldn’t use these generation names because it wasn’t a thing. Also, in a modern setting, even if such a generation name or name poem exists, it’s not like there is any legal requirement to use it (though there may be family pressure to do so).

As a further complication, some parents do the shared character thing among their children without it actually being a generation name per se because it isn’t shared by any cousins. Or, they have all their children (or all their children of the same gender) share a radical, which is a meaning component in a Chinese character.

If someone does have one of these shared character names, then their nickname will never come from that shared character; either they will be called by the full name or by some name riffing off of the character that is not shared. For example, I knew a pair of sisters called Yuru and Yufei with the same first character; the first sister went by her English name in daily life (even when speaking Chinese) while the second sister was called Feifei.

tl;dr If you don’t already know Chinese, consider generation names an extra complication for masochists only. Definitely not required for modern characters.

Fortune telling is another thing that I think you should either ignore or wildly make up. Do you know what ordinary Chinese people who want to choose a lucky name for their child do? They hire someone to work it out. This is not some DIY shit even if you are deeply immured in the culture. There are considerations of the number of strokes, the radicals, the birth date, the birth hour. You’re the god of your fictional universe, so go ahead and unilaterally declare that your desired names are lucky or unlucky as suits the story if you want to.

MILK NAMES

In modern times, babies get named right away, if for no other reason that the government requires it everywhere in the world for record keeping purposes.

However, in traditional times, Chinese people did not give babies a permanent name right away, instead waiting until a certain period of time had passed (3 months/100 days is a classic).

What do you call the baby in the meantime? A milk name 乳名, which your (close, older than you) family may or may not keep on using for you until such time as you die, just so that you remember that you used to be a funny looking little raisin that peed on people.

This kind of name is almost always very humble, sometimes to the point of being outright insulting. This is because to use any name on your baby that implies you might actually like the little thing is tempting Bad News. Possible exception: sometimes a baby would receive a milk name that dedicated it to some deity. In this case, I guess you’re hoping that deity will be flattered enough to take on the job of shooing away all the other spirits and things that might be otherwise attracted to this Delicious Fresh Baby.

Because milk names were only used by one’s (older) family and very close family friends of one’s parents/grandparents, most people’s milk names are not recorded or known, with some notable exceptions. Liu Shan, the son of Liu Bei, who as a baby was rescued by Zhao Yun during the Shu forces retreat from Changban. Perhaps because his big debut in history/legend was as a baby, he is well-known for his milk name A-Dou 阿斗, which means, essentially, Dipper.

If you’re writing a story, you really only need to worry about a milk name for your character if it’s a historical (or pseudohistorical) setting, and even then only if the character either makes an appearance as a small infant or you consciously decide to have them interact with characters who knew them well as a small child and choose to continue using the milk name. Not all parents, etc who could use the milk name with a youth or an adult actually did so.

Here are some milk names I’ve come up with in my fiction: Little Mouse/Xiaoshu 小鼠 for a girl, Tadpole/Kedou 蝌蚪 for a boy, and Shouty/A-Yao 阿吆 for a boy. In the first two cases the babies were both smol and quiet (as babies go). The last one neither small nor quiet, ahahaha. 蔷蔷 Qiangqiang, which is a pretty enough name meaning “wild rose” (duplication to make it lighter), except the baby is a boy, so this is the typical idea that making a boy feminine makes him worth less, which, yikes, but also, historically accurate. Also Xiaohei 小黑 “Blackie” for a work that I will probably never publish because I don’t ever see myself finishing it. I might recycle it to use on another story.

 Here are some more milk names I came up with off the cuff for a friend that wanted an insulting milk name. They ended up not using any of these, so feel free to use, no credit necessary. Rongzi 冗子 “Unwanted Child”; Xiaochou 小丑 “Little Ugly”; A-Xu 阿虛 “Empty”; Pangzhu 胖豬 “Fat Pig”;  Shasha 傻傻 “Dummy”.

PITFALLS!

Chinese has a lot of homophones. Like, so many, you cannot even believe. That means the potential for puns, double meanings, etc, is off the charts. And this can be bad, real real bad, when it comes to names. It is way too easy to pick a name and think to yourself “wow, this name is great” and then realize later that the name sounds exactly the same as “cat shit” or something even worse.

Some Chinese families live the name choosing life on hard mode because their surname is itself a homonym that can make almost any name sound bad. I’m speaking of course of the poor Wus and Bus of the world. You see Wu may have innocuous and pleasant surnames associated with it, but it also means “without, un-”. (Bu is similar, sounds like “no, not”.) Suddenly, any pleasant name you give your kid, your kid is NOT that thing.

This means picking a name that is pleasant in itself yet also somehow also pleasant when combined with Wu. So you might pick a character with a sound like Ting, Xian, Hui, or Liang - unstopping, unlimited, no regrets, immeasurable. A positive negative name, a kind of paradox. Like I said, this is naming on hard mode.

If you are naming an ancient character, I am going to say in my opinion you should ignore all considerations of sound, because reconstruction of ancient Chinese pronunciations is on some other, other level of pedantic and you just don’t need to do that to yourself.

For modern characters, however, an attractive name, in general, should be a mix of tones and a mix of sounds. As a non-Chinese speaker, basically this means especially if you go for a two character given name, having all three characters start with the same sound, or end with the same sound, can sound kind of tongue twistery and thus silly/stupid. That doesn’t mean that such names never exist, and can in some cases even sound good (or at least memorable), but how likely is it that you’ve found the exception? Not very. (Two out of three having repetition isn’t bad. It’s three out of three you have to be careful of. Something like Wang Fang or Zhou Pengpeng is probably fine; it’s something over the top like Guan Guangguo or Li Lili you want to avoid.)

Just like the West (sigh), in the modern Sinosphere it is widely acceptable for girls to have masculine names but totally unacceptable for boys to have feminine names. If you see the radical 女 which means woman, don’t choose that character for a boy, at least if you’re trying to be realistic. Now Chinese ideas of masculinity doesn’t have the same boundaries as Western ideas, but if you want to play around in those boundaries, you gotta do that research on your own; you’ve left what I can teach you in this already entirely too long tutorial.

Don’t name a character after someone else in story, or after a famous person. In some/many Western cultures, and actually in some Eastern cultures too (Japan is basically fine with this, for example), naming a baby the same name as someone else (a relative, a saint, a famous person, etc), is a respected and popular way to honour that person.

But not in Chinese culture, not now, not a thousand years ago, not two thousand years ago. (Disclaimer: I bet there is some weird rare exception that, eventually, somebody will “gotcha” me with. I am prepared to be amazed and delighted when this occurs.)

Part of this is because of a fundamentally different idea in Chinese culture vs many other cultures about what is valuing vs disrespecting with regard to personal names. The highest respect paid in Chinese history to a category of personal names is to the emperor, and what would happen there is that it would be under name taboo, a very serious and onerous custom where you not only have to not say the emperor’s name, but you can’t say anything that sounds the same as the emperor’s name.

Did I mention that this is in the language of CRAZY GO NUTS numbers of homonyms? The day-to-day troubles caused by observing name taboo were so potentially intense that there are even instances where, before ascending to the imperial throne, the emperor-to-be would change his name to something that was easier to observe taboo about!

So you see this is an attitude that says: if you want to honour and show respect to somebody, you don’t speak their name.

As the highest person in the land, only the emperor gets this extreme level of avoidance, but it trickles down all through society. You can’t use the personal names of people superior to you. Naming a baby after someone inherently throws the hierarchy out of whack. Now you have a young baby with the same name as a grown adult, or even a dead person, who is due honour from their rank in life. People who would not be permitted to use the inspiration’s name may now use that name because they are superior to the baby who received the name! This would mean that hierarchy was not being preserved, and oh my heaven, is there anything worse than hierarchy not being preserved? All of Chinese History: Noooooo!

Now. As an author—and I hope to God no one is using my Chinese name guide as a resource to name an actual human baby because I can’t take that kind of pressure—you can use the names of characters to inspire the names of other characters, in the following way.

Remember that I said that the key, the starting point, to naming someone in Chinese is to start from a value. Okay. So what you do, if as the author you want to draw a thematic connection between two fictional characters, is take the Inspiration character’s name, think about what the value is that caused that name to be chosen, and then go from that value to choose the New Character’s name.

If you’ll recall what I said about Gan Ning and his baby Wan, this is exactly the approach I took. Gan Ning had a placid single character name that belied his violent and outrageous personality; I chose a placid single character name for his similarly wild daughter to make them thematically similar. As an author, I named his baby after him. But within the context of the story, she was not named after him. Does the distinction make sense?

Values also run in families for obvious reasons. It’s very common to look at a family tree and see lots of names that follow a kind of theme and give you a sense that, eg, this family is rather low class and uneducated; this family is very erudite but a bit too fussy about it; this family is really big on Confucianism. So yes, as an author, looking to other characters for inspiration is not a bad idea.

Remember, a lot of times, as an author, you can and even should kick realism to the curb sometimes. If you want to make some Ominous Foreshadowing that Character A’s name is something to do with fire but! They name their child something to do with water and therefore they are destined to clash with their own offspring, gasp, you can do that kind of thing because you are the god of your universe. Relish your power.

Do you have any more questions? Feel free to send a PM or an ask. I hope this was helpful! Go forth and name your Chinese OCs with slightly more confidence!

Edit 22 April 2019: I added some more sections (fortune telling, Milk Names, and taboo on naming after people). I also need to overhaul the entirety of the previous to emphasize that even thought I thoughtlessly used “Chinese” as if it was synonymous with “Han”, there are non-Han Chinese and they can have very different naming customs. Mea culpa.

[echo-three-one]

A Forgotten Memory

An Alex x OC fic

Chapter 7 babyyyy!

Link to chapter 1 along with the summary here

Reviews appreciated as I'm only human and I would like to improve as a writer

I'm running out of gifs (check out the gifmakers tho they're credited down there)

VII - Alex

"Echo Three-One to Actual. We've infilnitrated the location. But it looked like what we've speculated. It's just a cargo warehouse." Alex lowered his gun and hid it on his holster. They were disguised as local policemen as they're breaching a very public area. Echo Three-One frowned at the sight, he had high hopes that Samantha would be here, and he could rescue her and see her again.

He started to regret that he tolerated her actions last night. In his defense, she was scared and needed his presence. He even loathed himself for sleeping that night. How could he let her escape?!

Hey Alex. Just letting you know that I'm home safe. Maxine's here but she forgot about a whole day worth of memories. Maybe she just went out on a bar with her other friends. Can't say I'm not suspicious about it, but I'll be careful. You can swing by and help me discover what's going on with her if you want.

He remembered every word of her text. What's worse is that it actually didn't send, he found it on her apartment floor when he woke up and came looking for her. He misjudged her by thinking she wouldn't come back to her apartment, because her abductors might still be around. But then again, how would he know what's going on in her mind? She won't even share her life details at him. She just filled her with lies on top of more lies, but it was all okay for him, he respected her that she's good secrets she had to keep. He swore he shouldn't get attached to her but looking at himself now, It looked like he also failed that too.

He silently paced around and examined the whole warehouse. He trusted that the intel is correct and they're not barking at the wrong tree.

"This is Echo Three-One advising all units to locate the premises for other possible entry points." he radioed over the comms sending his team to scatter across the vicinity.

It was not long until one of the agents discovered a secret stairway disguised as a refrigerator door.

"Good job! What made you think about opening the damn fridge?" his friend congratulated with a tap on his shoulder.

"I dunno man, I felt hungry. But maybe it's my spy instinct telling me to open it." He humbly replied, Alex chuckled at the conversation before they began heading down the secret tunnel.

"Clear!" Each unit cleared the hallway full of different rooms on each side. It felt like they quickly abandoned the station, leaving unimportant heavy items that were left on the room. They cleared each door until all that's left is one double door at the far end of the hall.

Alex raised his heartbeat sensor as one pulasting dot bleeped from behind. His heartbeat sped as he believed it to be Samantha on the other side of the door. They carefully breached the room revealing a heavily sedated Samantha, bound on a dentist chair. She was unconscious but tears were falling from her eyes. Alex ordered the others to continue to the hallway while the other team escorts the HVI to extraction.

His hands trembled as he slowly lifter her up and carried her. He couldn't hide his concern toward her as his voice sounded afraid.

"GET A MEDIC. ASAP!" he roared as they make their way back to the entrance, glancing at her the moment her tears touched his arms.

"You're going to be okay..." he whispered.

***

"Yep this definitely reeks CIA." an old man with greying hair walked in front of Alex, dropping Samantha's lab results on the table as it makes it's way to Alex. His expression was worried as he looks intently at Alex.

"So, you think we're against each other now?" Alex raised his eyebrow at his supervisor. Supressing a smirk as he noticed that he cut his hair almost bald.

"Not necessarily... But this kind of drug is one of the abandoned projects from decades ago. The only existing sample of this is locked behind secure bunkers deep within the CIA." he crossed his arms and scratched his beard.

"Whoever we're dealing with here, has strong ties within CIA." He warned as Alex nodded in agreement.

"So, what's our plan?" Alex stood up, looking interested to hunt for the mole. His supervisor smirked and shook his head.

"This isn't your fight, kid. Your job is to ensure our HVI is safe. We still don't know who she is, even our facial scans and fingerprint recognition can't seem to pinpoint her. She's foreign but she doesn't look like one. If she cooperates with you, then we'll get a better lead at the case at hand." he pats Alex's shoulder.

"I trust you kept your professionalism when it comes to her, right?" Alex nodded as his eyes locked against his, he's testing if he's lying. Luckily Alex knows what cues he must avoid.

"Yes, Sir." he nodded, the look in his eyes told him that he passed. If he could conceal such lie, what else can the other people within the CIA conceal?

He'll leave the mole to them while he focused on his HVI, both professional and personal.

"Supply drop every Sunday right here." The older man targeted the area with a laser pen. Alex mentally studied the map. He had no idea what country it will be but a wide aerial viee is all he had to know. A dense forest with rivers stretching from each side. The house itself is like an abandoned log cabin on the outside but it's reinforced with bulletproof walls and other notable security features.

"Guess we're both going hunting in our own way as well." Alex remarked as his Commanding Officer chuckled.

"Hunting for information, that is.." Of course he wouldn't get his joke.

"We'll extract you 0300 hours tomorrow, whether she's unconscious or not. Good luck, Alex."

"Thanks, Jack." they both shook their hands as the meeting dismissed. While waiting for extraction, Alex decided it'd be best to stay by her side. In case her dream state would reveal vital information.

***

Alex stood beside her bed as the extraction team set up her dextrose. It kept her from starving all while she's unconscious to ingest something. The doctors instructed Alex how to refill her bags as she'd been asleep for almost a day.

"What if she wants to pee?" Alex asked the doctor, clearly embarrassed about his query.

"The drug effects that's making her unconscious is almost over. She'll be getting up in about three hours or so... So you don't have to worry about that, Alex."

"Uh.. thanks Doc. Have a safe trip home."

"Contact us if she feels uneasy or weird."

"Will do."

And with that, the medical team made their way out of the safehouse, leaving Alex and Samantha all alone in the middle of nowhere.

[genuinerio]

YOUNG, WILD AND FREE ↠ 「 Outer Banks 」

PAIRINGS: John B Routledge (possibly eventual love interest, best friend), Pope Heyward (platonic, best friend), Kiara Carrera (platonic, best friend, a potential love interest), JJ Maybank (platonic, siblings)

WORDS: 1312.

NOTES: So, I don’t have an exact definite love interest for my OC, River yet since she’s going to have a few possible love interests and will try her best to allow others to get close and be in a committed relationship, I apologize. Also, River and JJ’s close sibling relationship was inspired a lot by Jesus and Mariana’s close relationship from “The Fosters.”

SUMMARY: River Maybank was a girl who always tried her hardest to fight and get back up when she was down, oftentimes at the hands of Luke, her abusive father. Like her brother, JJ, she was known to be a rebellious person, the girl had always enjoyed taking risks and partying, most times to rid herself of the trauma they had both faced in being raised in such a tragic environment. She loved to have a good time in parties, smoking weed, promiscuity, art and surfing with art being her way of expressing herself through such traumatic moments. River didn’t believe in committing to a relationship, frankly, she was scared to death of commitment and could never see herself staying with just one person for too long or else she’d lose interest. Frankly, she didn’t see herself as valuable enough for anyone else regarding a relationship with River seeing herself as broken and “damaged goods,” and as she continually told others, she was working on herself first before anything else but hopefully, there truly is someone eventually out there for River Maybank.

RIVER MAYBANK, like her brother is known for being the life of the party on the cut side of Outer Banks. Despite her tragic and abusive home life, she tries her hardest not to let that affect her but coping with it by unraveling in very heartbreaking coping mechanisms like drinking, weed and promiscuity along with a healthy one in art and surfing.

In doing so, River tries her hardest to not get too attached to those who she feels that she could lose in a blink of an eye with the exception of her brother who she knows would never betray her just as she would never to him along with their shared friends who they both know is more like family than they’ve ever had back home besides one another.

Because of how loving JJ is towards his dear twin sister, he can be quite overprotective which could really drive River insane even though he has the best intentions at heart. Within this, River feels that he often acts like her father rather than her brother and takes this into extreme lengths and circumstances with him believing he has the right especially with him being her brother despite her mentioning that they’re twins and she’s only younger than him by a simple ten minutes.

There were numerous times that in not wanting his sister to deal with the same abuse that he had and in protection, JJ would take the fall for River with them both knowing that if Luke was to ever find out, they’d suffer ten times of the abuse that they had dealt with prior. And in times like that, River was always very grateful for him to do that even though, she was okay and accepting of taking the heat for her own troubled actions.

With their extremely close bond especially as they only truly had one another to depend and rely on as children growing up, to their mutual disgust and disappointment, oftentimes, River and JJ are mistaken as a couple with the two sharing a grossed out facial expression. And throughout every fight and argument they’ve had where they were beyond infuriated with each other, they would never let become too much where they hated each other or even if they claimed to do so, the hatred and anger would never last long as it would never break their special bond.

One explosive fight was over a guy that River was trying her hardest to commit to but struggled with nonetheless. Upon meeting him and in any possible romantic suitor needing JJ’s approval to date River, he had deemed the guy to be a total fuckboy to which a chuckling River felt JJ to be a total hypocrite since he was exactly of the same sorts.

A particular guy who no doubt had JJ’s approval was John B Routledge, JJ’s best friend since the third grade and someone who he along with their shared friends had believed the two to harbour crushes over one another despite potentially breaking the “No pogue on pogue macking” rule. River and John B were believed to have a flirtatious relationship with their joking around and bonding moments but truthfully neither saw it as romantic but rather pure friendship and a sibling type bond.

Something that neither her brother nor her friends knew with the exception of Kiara was that River was very much into women just as she was of men but also loved anyone of any gender for that matter with identifying herself as pansexual. Kiara had once saw her friend making out with a woman slightly older than her and in accidentally overcoming this, she could surely tell River was the one withholding the upper hand and in proving her belief that she was a dominant woman.

Her promiscuity was something that she felt saved her in a lot ways but also hurt her in causing her to be fearful of commitment and in relationships that were not strictly sexual and nothing more. She could never truly see a committed River in any romantic relationship that wasn’t sexual, it just wasn’t something that was in her nature nor even had wanted for herself whatsoever.

Throughout their years of shared childhood abuse, JJ and River have promised to never keep a secret from one another which of course River tried to keep except with one major secret that she vowed to take to her grave with how explicit and traumatic it could be as she knew it would JJ to quite fury and create even more painful moments than they already endured. Because if she did, JJ would blame this upon himself and see himself at fault when it never truly was nor had he known about it.

And as much as she didn’t want to believe it, she oftentimes at her lowest felt like she deserved the pain and abuse that Luke put her through regarding all the rebellious and troubled acts that she had committed in a way to remove how terribly the abuse affected her from childhood to current teens.

As a way to remove herself from such a toxic situation and mindset, she would abuse substances, sleep around and oftentimes would paint since art was a great passion of hers. River felt that art was the perfect example in removing such pain and trauma with also being an excellent way in expressing herself.

She wanted to believe that the abuse her and JJ suffered from their dick of a father didn’t affect her as much as she’d like to believe with drinking and smoking her sorrows away. It felt like the better option than any of the others that she had thought of at least.

Another way that had helped her cope with surfing which JJ had taught her in once he had learned himself. It was a hobby that they bonded over amongst all the other shared hobbies that they endured together.

Regardless of all the struggles and trauma that sixteen year old, River Maybank had gone through, she wasn’t going to let this get to her nor let Luke bring her down without a fight because she deserved vengeance both for her and for her brother as well considering how much pain, suffering and emotional distress they’d gone through. Because as River famously quoted herself saying, if someone kicked her while she was down, they better hope and pray that she doesn’t get back up with her love of vengeance.

She didn’t want to make herself get used to such a toxic environment and just accept it for herself like her friends believed she would nor let herself feel like she does not deserve a loving relationship with whoever she felt a strong connection with. They wanted happiness for her and wanted to get her to believe that she deserved it as well. This girl who viewed herself as not worthy of anything good, seeing upon herself such a broken soul and as someone who was simply just “damaged goods” was much more than that.

KATHRYN NEWTON as RIVER MAYBANK.

OUTER BANKS CAST as THEIR RESPECTIVE CHARACTERS.

[betweenthesinnersandthesaints]

Shipping info

Regarding that last ask, here is who I have shipped my muses with in the past. This will be broken down by character, and then divided into romantic/platonic, okay? Characters who are in the romantic category can also be put in the platonic category depending on timeline/other mun’s wishes. As of right now, this only has canon characters. I’m also open to shipping with OC’s if there is chemistry. 

Putting this under a read-more since it’s pretty long.

Temperance Brennan

Romantic: Seeley Booth

Platonic: Angela Montenegro, Cam Saroyan, Jack Hodgins, Lance Sweets, Max Keenan, Christine

Lance Sweets

Romantic: Daisy Wick

Platonic: Temperance Brennan, Seeley Booth, Angela Montenegro, Jack Hodgins, Cam Saroyan, Caroline Julian

Brienne of Tarth

Romantic: Jaime Lannister

Platonic: Renly Baratheon, Loras Tyrell, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Catelyn Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Selwyn of Tarth

Gendry 

Romantic: Arya Stark (although my muse for this was kind of killed off by season 8), Sansa Stark

Platonic: Jon Snow, Ser Davos, Tormund, Sandor Clegane

Hermione Granger

Romantic: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, George Weasley, Viktor Krum

Platonic: Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom

Kaylee Frye

Romantic: Simon Tam

Platonic: Malcolm Reynolds, Inara Sera, Shepherd Book, Jeyne Cobb, Hoban Washburn, Zoe Washburn, River Tam

Sam Winchester

Romantic: Gabriel, Jessica Moore

Platonic: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Bobby Singer, Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Kevin Tran

Spencer Reid

Romantic: Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Maeve, Maxine

Platonic: JJ Jareau, Penelope Garcia, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi, Jason Gideon, Diana Reid

Rey of Jakku

Romantic: Finn, Poe Dameron, Ben Solo

Platonic: Rose, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker

Thea Queen

Romantic: Roy Harper, Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Sin

Platonic: Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, Laurel Lance, Sara Lance

[ive-got-99-problems]

In The Woods (Rocket x OC)

Max, the hunters, and the characters in the town, the rest belong to Marvel! <3

The art is also done by me.

------

Chapter 17, Coming Home

------

Rocket sat against the wall of the Benatar's main room, watching as Peter glared at Thor from across the room as Thor laughed with Drax. An amused smile spreading across Rocket's face, Groot sat next to him, busy playing on his gamepad. It had been a hell of a week, but they did it, they managed to bring everyone back and kill Thanos. While Rocket still grieved from losing Gamora, his Gamora, he was thankful that he still had the rest of his family. 

"Quill," Rocket spoke up, causing Peter to look over at him, "We need to stop someplace, I gotta pick somethin' up."

Rocket got off his chair and headed to the control panel, Peter hot on his trail.

"Sure thing bud, where we going?"

"Back to New York," he responded as he typed in the coordinates.

Peter cocked his brow, "And you couldn't have picked it up earlier because...?"

"Because we were busy," he snapped, "What with Starks funeral and picking up fat boy over there," he said as he gestured to Thor.

"Right, right," Peter nodded, "So uh, you think I could take Thor?"

"No way in hell."

"What, why?!"

Rocket scoffed, "Why do you think, stupid, he's a God."

"I'm a celestial," Peter quickly replied.

"Were a celestial, now with Ego dead you're just a regular humie," with that Rocket returned to Groot's side.

Groot looked up from his gamepad to smile at him.

"I am Groot?"

"We're just going to pick up a friend, buddy, nothin' to worry about."

----

"We couldn't have parked closer?" Peter sighed as they walked the trail.

"No, I ain't ruining the ship just because you're too lazy to walk," Rocket replied as he led the way.

"Why would you want to land closer, Quall, do you not love the smell of nature and the chirping of birds?" Thor questioned before taking a deep breath.

"It's Quill," he grumbled, "And yes I do, I just would rather not walk several miles."

"I am Groot?"

"We're almost there bud, just around this bend," Rocket replied.

"What are you picking up anyways, you couldn't have gotten it before retrieving the stones?" Peter asked.

"No I couldn't," he snapped, "In fact, I had to leave her in order to save your sorry ass."

"Her?" Peter questioned, "What do you mean by her?"

"You'll see," Rocket responded. 

Suddenly, his ears perked up as he heard barking in the distance. Rocket ran around the bend, Peter and the others following, stopping dead in their tracks when they came across the cabin. Rocket's heart skipped a beat and he smiled as he saw Max in the front yard, playing with a yellow lab. He couldn't help but stare at her, it felt like years since he had last seen her. Her curls were pulled into a loose ponytail, her arms covered by a cream knitted jacket, and her black jeans had dirt on them from playing with the dog in front of her, she looked as beautiful as the day he left.

When Max finally felt their gazes on her she turned to look, her eyes widened and a large smile forming on her face as she saw Rocket.

"Rocket!" She cried as she ran over to him.

She knelt onto the ground and pulled him into a tight hug, squeezing him tightly as if he'd vanish. Rocket hugged her back, enjoying the feeling of her warmth surrounding him. She pulled away and held him by his cheeks, staring into his red eyes before kissing him. He held onto her hands and kissed back, feeling so happy to be home.

"I am Groot?"

They broke the kiss and stared at the two men and tree behind them. Groot and Thor mainly look surprised as Peter had a vague look of disgust on his face. 

Rocket cleared his throat, "Oh right, uh, Quill, Thor, Groot, this is my wife, Max."

"Your wife!" Peter cried.

"Ah, well, it's certainly nice to meet a woman the dear rabbit has deemed worthy enough to be his bride, I am Thor, the god of thunder," Thor smiled as he offered Max his hand.

She smiled as she shook his hand, "Thank you, Thor, I've heard a lot about you, you uh, look a lot different in your pictures."

Thor laughed, "Well, five years of drinking mead and playing Fortnite will do that to you."

"I am Groot," Groot stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Groot, it's an honor to meet you, Rocket you never stop talking about you."

"I am Groot?" he grinned at Rocket.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't let it go to your head," Rocket rolled his eyes before looking over at Peter, he still wore his shocked expression, "Quill, stop standin' around like an idiot and say hello."

Peter snapped out of his haze, "Oh, right, right, sorry," he moved over to her and whispered, "Hey, I'm sorry about this, I just never expected to see a human get together with someone like, you know, Rocket."

Rocket growled as Max just smiled, "Oh no, I understand, it's definitely an odd pairing," she laughed, "Can't wait to hear what my dad will say."

As if on cue, the door to the cabin opened with a creak and out came an older man with a graying beard.

"Maxine, dinners ready," the older man said as he came out onto the porch, his face contorted in confusion as he looked at the visitors, "Who are you're friends?"

When Max introduced all of them to her father he was very surprised to see Thor and two aliens at his door, he was even more surprised when he found out one of those aliens married his daughter. His reaction was the same as Quills, but he quickly recovered and invited them in to eat. They sat together around the table, Max holding onto Rocket's hand tightly under the table, fearing that the action might make Peter and her father uncomfortable. 

"Rocket, would you mind sharing a beer with me outside, maybe have Max get more acquainted with your friends?" Her father said after he cleaned his mouth with his napkin.

"Oh, uh, yeah, of course," Rocket said as he jumped off the chair.

Max's father grabbed two beers from the fridge and went outside with Rocket, their yellow lab following close behind. Max watched as they left, worried about what her father would say to Rocket.

"So," he said as he sat on one of the porch chairs, "Max told me how the two of you met."

"Oh?" Rocket questioned.

"Yeah, can't say I'm too shocked, of course, someone like you would attract a lot of attention. Especially after what happened."

Rocket nodded slowly, unsure of what to say.

He turned to Rocket, studying him for a moment, "Do you love my daughter, Rocket?"

Rocket gave him an odd look, "Well, yeah, of course I do, why would I marry her if I didn't?"

He shrugged before taking a sip of his beer, "You never know. Are you still in love with her?"

"Um, yeah, I'm sorry but why are you asking me this?"

"Because I don't want Max to go through the same shit her mother and I went through," he snapped, "But from Max has told me you seem like you have your head screwed on right, for now at least."

They both sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the river as it slowly went by. Rocket had missed the river, there so many days he and Max would go fishing in it. Rocket always trying out new ways to catch fish, most of the time he did it with explosives much to Max's dismay. At the beginning of their relationship, the action even led to a few arguments. It would always end either in two ways, after a few hours of cooling off Rocket would either go and apologize to Max or she would go and apologize to Rocket. Some of their arguments would lead to makeup sex, most of the time it would be gentle and loving, but other times it'd be rough and almost animalistic. As much as Rocket loved to make love to Max, he did really enjoy it when he got to fully dominate her. 

"So, what're your plans now?" 

Rocket looked up at the older man, "I don't know, I was thinking that Max and I would go with the Guardians. She always wanted to explore the galaxy, I'd love to show it to her. But we also want to start a family so I don't know if exploring the galaxy would be the best idea for that."

He nodded, "Personally, I say you should go explore. It'll make the two of you closer and that's always been her dream, kids will only slow you down when it comes to that. Besides, your both still young, well, she is at least."

Rocket laughed, "I'm definitely older then I used to be."

His father-in-law chuckled, "Yeah I know how that is," he paused for a moment, his expression becoming serious, "I want to thank you for taking care of my daughter, I know she probably could've survived on her own but because of you she was able to live comfortably."

Rocket nodded, the guns that he had made to earn some money sold ended up selling at a high price. Max would take the guns to town and sell them to the hunters that came through, soon the entire town had guns made by Rocket. 

"Yeah, of course," he replied.

"You know," the older man started, "When I first saw you I thought my daughter was absolutely insane for marrying you, I'm sorry I thought that way. You seem like you really care about her."

Rocket nodded, "I do sir."

The man laughed, "Please, call me Jack."

----

Jack grabbed two beers from the fridge and went outside with Rocket, their yellow lab following close behind. Max watched as they left, worried about what her father would say to Rocket.

"So... Rocket, huh?"

Max was snapped from her thoughts as Peter spoke to her, she turned to him and smiled, "Yup, Rocket."

"How did you come across our sweet rabbit?" Thor questioned before taking a bite of his pulled pork.

"We met about a year after the snap, while I was fishing I saw him washed up on the river bank, he was unconscious and had a bullet wound. He had made some enemies with some of the local hunters and they had been chasing him which led him to me."

Peter sighed, "Yup, that sounds like Rocket."

"I am Groot?"

Max looked at Groot and then to the others with a confused look.

"The tree is asking where the hunters are now," Thor answered.

She shrugged, "I don't know, Rocket shot one of them and ever since they've left us alone."

"So uh, question," Peter said before clearing his throat, "The whole raccoon thing doesn't bother you, like, at all?"

Max shook her head, "No, I understand why people would see me as crazy or a freak, but they have to understand that Rocket is more than a raccoon. If they knew all the shit he had to go through and how much he truly cares about people, they'd be more open about it, hopefully," she responded before taking a sip of her drink, "I mean, you know how sensitive Rocket can be."

Groot nodded as Peter shrugged, "I don't know, I haven't really seen too much of his sensitive side."

"I am Groot?"

"The tree is asking what you are planning to do now," Thor translated with a mouthful of meat.

Max shrugged, "I don't know, I was hoping to explore the galaxy with Rocket, but we've been talking about starting a family so I don't know if that would be the best idea."

"Well, if you chose to, you can always tag along with us, I'm sure the others won't mind having another member of the family," Peter said with a smile.

She smiled back at him, "Thank you, Peter."

Peter gave her a nod as the door opened to reveal Rocket and Jack, Rocket went over to Max and held her hand, "Maxie, we have to talk."

"Oh boy," she joked.

He laughed, "Don't worry, it ain't bad."

The group watched silently as Rocket and Max made their way to Max's old room. Once inside, Rocket closed the door shut before sitting on the bed next to Max.

"Maxie, now that everything is fixed, what do you want to do?" He questioned as he laid his hand on hers.

She shrugged, "Whatever you want, Rocket."

He laughed, "Maxie please, I know you want to go up and explore space."

Max grinned, "Then why ask?"

"Because I wanted to make sure that's what you want."

She pulled him close so he was flushed against her chest, "No matter where we go, as long as I'm with you I'm happy."

Rocket blushed, "Oh Jesus, Max, do you gotta be so damn cheesy?"

She merely laughed, "Only when it comes to you, Rocket."

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Wednesday, December 6

(Puppet Angel walks dejectedly back to his office) PUPPET ANGEL: Harmony, get my call list. HARMONY: (watches Puppet Angel, confused) Um... (Spike walks toward Harmony's desk.) PUPPET ANGEL: And Spike needs a car. SPIKE: (to Harmony) You heard the puppet.

~~Smile Time~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Good And Evil by badly_knitted (Kendra, Buffy, Angel, PG)

Seeking Ghosts by madimpossibledreamer (Assasin's Creed xover, Xander, T)

Hall Pass by NAOA (Cordelia, Harmony, T)

Fire by TheOriginalLovelace (Buffy/Faith, M)

Moon River by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

age differences by Amina (Buffy/Oz, PG-13, NOTE OZ)

Moon River by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Christmas that Spuffy… by Tessa (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Sweet But Twisted. Does that Make Me a Candy Cane? by honeygirl51885 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Merry Month of Magnus Presents... Bare Minimum by gwennie (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Chaptered Fiction]

“You Came.” “You Called.” - Ch. 1-2 by FivexFiveB (Blazinwolve) (Faith/OC, not rated)

Beginning's End - Ch. 1 by arcanedreamer (Assassin's Creed xover, Xander, T)

Advent Calendiles - Ch. 4-6 by HAL1500 (drabble collection, Giles/Jenny, G and M)

I'm Only Your Darkness - Ch. 13 by Karnstein99 (Buffy/Faith, E)

High Tide - Ch. 4 by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Slay Bells Ringing - Ch. 6 by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, PG)

A Darkened Night of the Soul - Ch. 22 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

In The Dark With You - Ch. 25 by Geliot99 (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Courage Of Another - Ch. 6 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Buffy, Legend of Zelda xover, FR15)

High Tide - Ch. 4 by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Slay Bells Ringing - Ch. 6 by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Spuffy's Little Helper - Ch. 6 by Alyot (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

A Very Summers Winter - Ch. 6 by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Cherry On Top - Ch. 10 by Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Gifset: "A Buffy Christmas" by The WB (1998) [TV commercial] by whatisyourchildhoodtrauma (Buffy/Angel, worksafe)

Gifset: I'll show you what a Slayer really is. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) by spuffygifs (Buffy, worksafe)

Gifset: Angel the Series | 5x14 "Smile Time" by mycatismyfriend (Puppet Angel, Harmony, Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: BABY I’M YOURS — BARBARA LEWIS by detectivedawnsummers (Willow/Tara, worksafe)

Gifset: buffy, cordelia, & homoerotic confrontations behind the bronze by coffygifs (Buffy/Cordelia, worksafe)

Gifset: And while most of Southern California is enjoying a balmy Christmas... by charmedslayer (Joyce, Faith, worksafe)

Gifset: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | 3.09 // 6.07 by andremichaux (Cordelia, Buffy, worksafe)

Manip: I Saw Buffy Kissing Santa Claus by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, shirtless Spike)

Cross Stitch: Does anyone else cross stitch? I'm working on a Buffy stitchalong! by amethyn (worksafe)

Artwork: Unwrap Your Present by JSBirsa (Spike, NSFW)

[Reviews & Recaps]

btvs rewatch - season 2 episode 9: what's my line, part 1 by slut-jpeg

Spike's wardrobe change... [in S5 E14 - Crush] by jenny-from-the-box

PODCAST: HELLMOUTH HOMOS: Helpless by Fear Queers

PODCAST: ANGEL gives Cordelia an alternate life [Birthday] by Gimmicks

[Fandom Discussions]

Ask Answered: Thoughts on Riley?? And thoughts on season 4 in general?? by xandersrailcrash

... on the horror of not recognizing your own body... [and Angel asks Harmony] if she remembers being human by dear-massacre and lucky-bishop

buffy and cordelia are like. cordelia invites buffy out to the bronze the very first night they meet... by chasingfictions

POLL: Which Buffy character is most likely to fall for a cyber scam? by aphony-cree

The horse Giles rides in season 7.... by anthonyheadwithanimals

Who was your favorite one-off vampire or demon? by HisMrs and others

In HIM, why is it BUFFY'S responsibility to find SPIKE housing? updated by NoShip and thrasherpix

Do you think Buffy would move back into College Room had Joyce lived? updated by NoShip and others

Did you like Giles? updated by NoShip

If you could change anything about a season, what would you change? by george123890yang

Do you think Willow, Xander and Giles felt guilty after Empty Places? by sadhungryandvirgin

How were the witches at Springfield College so bad at magic? by farfetchedfrank

[Alphabet game]... what Giles quotes you guys come up with. Starting with “A” by TransmanDan20

Buffy S6 & S7 [resurrection and Willow accountability] by johnnyorac

Would it have been worth trying to "curse" other Vampires similar to Angel? by Inspirational_Owl

Ancient Art History themes in Buffy TVS by cryptidr_iley24

Spoiler - Buffy and the monks [how was Dawn created] by mandalinajones

ELIMINATION GAME! Day 2. We lose S4! Vote out your LEAST favourite season. [ATS] by WildBarb80s

Wesley suddenly using guns a lot? by trex397

Did Cordelia, Wesley and Fred have siblings? by JellyfishDry9464

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

James Marsters to Attend Austria Comic Con 25-26 May 2024 | @austriacomiccon via dontkillspike

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[a-templars-vice]

A Templar’s Vice - Act II

Part 5 - “All My Loving”

A Cullen Rutherford x F!OC Apostate Witch Dragon Age: Inquisition - fanfiction

Rating: 18+

Warnings: contains subject matter that maybe triggering for the vulnerable or victims of abuse and trauma.

Also contains alcohol, drugs (alludes to substance abuse), detailed lewd and violent scenes.

Reader's discretion is advised

Link to Master List

Link to Act I - Part I

Also avalible to read on Archive of Our Own (AO3)

Cullen was working diligently to find Samson while Danga and the inquisitor were working on finding more information on the Red Lyrium armor. 

They struck a blow to the Red Templars and they were getting more recruits by the hour. There were even a few ex-Templars against them. Cullen was very happy about that…

And…

As Cullen and the Witches' relationship developed further she started to do... 

Little things for him. 

Cullen was brought tea by Maxine to help with his headaches and anxiety. At her master's request and behest... 

Cullen was also given a lovely large sky blue thick-silken handkerchief-- with a golden lion embroidered on one of the sides with his initials in refined cursive letters: C S R, besides it... 

No matter how much sweat or dirt he got on it. It was always clean and clear. Also, whenever he pressed it to his hot head it was soothingly cool, and whenever he was cold it was comfortingly warm... She obviously enchanted the cloth... 

Cullen loved all these little things and gifts... he wondered what he could do for her in return... Was all he was doing enough? 

He does keep her sated with his desires, but he felt she was doing so much more for him... he felt loved and cared for by her... 

But he did ask her to... 

Worship and love him-- and only him... 

In their contract... 

... 

Cullen had another really long day ... 

The search for Samson and many other disasters happening all over Thedas, due to Corypheus and his forces, was really pushing him and the inquisition to their limits... Maker have mercy-- he was so tired... 

He used whatever will and strength he had left to climb the ladder up to his bedroom loft. 

He opened the trap door and saw-- 

An ornate folding wall, similar to what the Witch had in her work space, he could not see what was beyond it... but he saw steam rising from behind the wall and out of the giant hole he had in his bedroom room that one could see the night sky, and have fresh air come through. 

He also smelled a variety of subtle and pleasant scents. 

He saw the Witch peaked out from behind the ornate wall as she heard him climbing up and closing the trap door... and locking it... 

"Hi Commander~ Sorry, I know you don't like surprises, but I thought you might like a bit of a relaxing bath before bed..." 

She was still hiding most of her body behind the large ornate folding wall. 

"A bath-- wait how--" 

Right... Magic, but Maker's breath, he has never heard of magic doing this... but he remembered how she could manipulate reality when she conjured that small campfire site beside the river... It was incredible what she could do... What else could she do… what more was she capable of…

"Mmm come here..." 

She waved her hand to signal him to come over. 

Cullen was pretty tired, but a nice warm bath with his beautiful demonic witch sounded like a gift from the maker…

Cullen walked over. 

"Why are you hiding...?" he asked playfully as he got closer. 

"Mmmm..." 

She stepped out from behind the wall when he was right there. 

She was wearing a black silk short robe. Cullen could see her slender legs and the robe was tied but it showed off a lot of her chest. She was wearing a very short lingerie black dress that she usually wears to bed... 

Mmm... very sexy... and... 

Cullen saw there was a large bath with warm steaming water in it. A chair that he could put his stuff on, and another high chair at the head of the bath with a shelf that had various things on it. And a standing rack with towels. Also the floor had been changed as well to tile. 

Marker, she really went all out on this... 

"Soooo..." she leaned into Cullen and touched his armored chest. 

"Are you gonna bathe with this on?" 

She picked playfully at his chest plate. 

Cullen chuckled. 

"Only when it rains..."

...

Continue to Act II - Part 6