#one of the fun parts of trying to be canon compliant is getting to pick apart the implications that canon leave behind but never explores

[some-pers0n]

Demoman is one of the characters in the fandom I feel most people straight up ignore or don't know how to write. Blunt, sure, but I do stand by it. Demoman is such a fascinating, intriguing character with the most fleshed-out backstories, yet is oftentimes relegated to being Soldier 2.0, only now with poorly written phonetics.

In other words, hey! I'm a fanfic writer who has a ton of opinions as well as a neurotic need to analyze every character they come into contact with. Pleased to see you're reading this. I've already done a little doohickey essay like this with Medic a while back. The purpose of these long rambles is half of me combing through every instance of the character and pulling them apart to see how their character works...and also me not-so-subtly venting and complaining about mischaracterization. Shocking how a fandom where the main characters are all very clear-cut stereotypes with some slight subversions here and there can't seem to get them.

This essay will go through Demo's beginning and all the way to his latest appearance in the 6th comic. I'll touch on how his character shifts and is expanded upon. I doubt he changes as much as Medic has over the years, but I think it will be interesting to see. I'll just go over bits of characterization, try to rationalize it, and then try my best to sum up all of the traits by the end and try to describe his character in the most canon-compliant way.

With that preamble out of the way, let's begin. This is also 7k words btw just...be aware of that, okay?

Before we actually get into proper character stuff, I wanna lay the groundwork first by exploring the types of characterization I see from Demo. Pick them apart. See what they're really like.

So, of course, there's the popular Redditor opinion of Demo that's mainly shaped by the way people play him in the game. There, people will describe Demo as being generally a bumbling drunkard. It's not too uncommon to see people say that he's an angry drunk. A man who is more concerned with alcohol and drinking himself into a stupor than anything else. I've also seen people say that Demo straight up can't read, which...euhhhhggg. He feels more like an alternative version of Soldier at times, which, again, isn't accurate to his character.

I don't care at all for this characterization. I do think a good chunk is rooted in racism and it's generally very uncomfortable for me to look at for too long. This characterization is pretty shallow and empty, which makes for a boring and offensive caricature. Reddit moment.

The second one is more interesting and the version you'll see more on Tumblr. It's this...odd version of him. I can't exactly put my tongue on what is off about it. It seems more accurate to his character. He's a foil for Soldier a lot of the time (Boots n' Bombs is his most popular ship let's be real) and generally isn't exactly seen on his own. Sure yeah there's the oddball art of him and him only, but let's be real most of his tag is mainly just him being in the background or saying a jokey-joke.

I actually fell back into Ao3 for a bit to skim over some fics to see what kind of characterization there was of Demo there to refresh my memory, and some of the common throughlines was shockingly that he doesn't drink a lot. "He rarely drinks!" I remember reading once. That's not right, no. He's an alcoholic. Like that's a core part of his character. Another fic had him being called "Cyclops" as a pet name. Ew. Anywho, other than that it's Demo being pretty into cryptids, having the Eyelander as a buddy guy, etc and etc. It's fun, but also it's missing...something.

Then, it hit me: Demo rarely is seen as an individual. He reminds me of Heavy in that regard, where most of his appearances have him be the straight-man to another character. Most of the time he's secondary and just a folly for the other characters. It's disappointing in that regard. Like you see a lot more stuff for characters like Scout, Medic, etc and etc with their own unique characterization stuff and getting their own attention.

So...then what is Demoman's character, exactly? Well, that's what we're here to see. It'll be pretty interesting, no?

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So, funny thing is that Demo didn't change nearly as much as Medic has over the years. Sure yeah, the concept art of Demo was more of the generic stereotypical Scotsman. White, ginger, sideburns, that whole thing. Cartoony and fun design, but eventually they went with the Demo we all know and love today.

Looking at the concept art, it all seems pretty standard for the tone that Invasion was going for at the time. Nothing really to note there other than Demo's face being a stock angry grr grr expression. It is interesting to see how the idea of him wearing an eye was a constant even from the beginning though.

This then brings us to the voicelines. Ahh, good ol' characterization. Demo here is characterized as being jovial and having fun. He's throwing out insults left and right, damning them to hell and laughing at them as they die. Usual typical mercenary stuff. This is just personal headcanon material, but I always rationalize the way the mercs act on the battlefield as being a result from adrenaline and generally being drunk on blood. They aren't as mean when off the clock, but it's worth noting that these are how these characters act when a gun's in their hands and they're exploding people left and right.

TF2 really likes basing the characters off of the class they play as and how they act. Scout is fast moving and his gameplay is oftentimes getting right in someone's face and bolting, which is reflective in his hotshot personality. It's only reasonable that Demo is an explosive, fun, and generally cocky guy when out and battling. He's lobbing grenades and sticky bombs left and right. He isn't afraid to yell to the Medic he just blew up that he's been shagging his wife and calling the Scout he just chopped the head off "twinkle-toes". He teases and such when it comes to the other team.

However, the voicelines also very curiously give us a really fascinating look into his character. He's an alcoholic. He loves his scrumpy, which is not whiskey, shockingly. I thought it was whiskey for the longest time, but no! It's a cider! His stock melee is the bottle he uses to drink, now turning it into a quick weapon. His model in the main menu is him holding up the bottle itself. His default melee taunt is him taking a swig from the scrumpy bottle. It's a core part of his identity, let's be real. It's a part of the whole Scottish stereotype he has going on.

The game of course follows this. There's a lot of lines where he's slurring and babbling in a cartoony drunken way. A good portion of it is just him making vague threats...but a lot of it is also sad. He calls himself a one-eyed bloody monster. He weeps and cries. When jeering, he says he's hit rock bottom here. Interesting new development.

Apologizes for pausing to ramble, but I don't get why people try and sand down the edges to Demoman's character by making him out as though he isn't an addict. He is. That's something that is made abundantly clear. The iconography of alcohol follows him like his own damn shadow. I dunno. It bothers me.

I digress. There's some other bonus stuff I think is quite interesting. Most of his battle charges involve the other team. "Let's gettem lads!" and all. I think it's neat how he views his teammates as just that. Teammates. Those he fights alongside with. Another thing of note is how he occasionally has lines that are...odd in a way. Poetic and dramatic. Something that subverts the typical characterization. When he loses at rock paper scissors, there's a chance he'll say "Oh, 'tis a dark day", which. well then okay buddy.

So to recap: for characterization in-game, Demo is an alcoholic Scotsman who is generally pretty witty and functioning despite the incredible amounts of booze he drinks. He is energetic, bombastic, and generally hearty and having fun. He's not taking things terribly seriously and is generally just going about and blowing stuff up. However, there is a very noticeable streak of sadness to his character. When drinking, he reveals undertones of self-deprecation and hatred. Why? How?

...well, you just need to take a gander at his character card.

Erm excuse me what the fuck.

I honestly do not understand the logic behind this backstory. Like in a practical sense. Like, yeah!! obviously this backstory is sad and such! I really actually like this backstory and honestly I love writing him in the context that this happened to him. It's just that...I can't wrap my head around the idea of this being Demo's backstory given that everyone else has pretty silly little blurbs here. I think the darkest it gets is Soldier going to Germany years after WWII ended to kill people.

This??? Sure yeah TF2 gets a lot sillier and more cartoony comedic as time goes on, but even with the current tone where is the funny? I ain't complaining, I love me my angst, but this is so jarring to see. I suppose that explains why they retcon it later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hey, at least it gives us an explanation to why Demo is sad. We can pretty easily gleam a reason for his current behaviour in the game from this: his messed up childhood. To begin, Tavish Finnegan DeGroot was abandoned by his parents and left to live in an orphanage. Eventually, he was adopted and brought up by some foster parents, who he then murdered in an attempt to blow up the Loch Ness monster. This was when he was six years old. Actual child. 

He then went back into the orphanage, where he would tinker with bombs. Why? Insert whatever headcanon here, but for me I think it's a feeling of fascination, yet also heavy guilt. Perhaps revenge. Either way, he loses his eye from these experiments. Eventually however, he's brought back into the family when word spreads of his excellence when it comes to manufacturing bombs. The use of the word "lovingly" feels exceptionally sarcastic, but that could be in part to how his parents are later characterized. Either way, this is a result of the DeGroot tradition, which, and I quote, is wholly unnecessary and cruel. It even cites it as him being reintroduced into his family as the "end of his unhappy childhood".

...so yeah. Pretty safe to say the reason for his alcoholism is to cope with that. He feels the guilt over that and will breakdown into sobs over it even. Yikeesss... It can also mean that he feels as though he's held up to incredibly high expectations, having the entire DeGroot family lineage to live up to. Again, later on he's being nagged at for not being as hard-working as his father, who, in good ol' TF2 fashion, blew up the Queen for a nickel. It does certainly feel that way, no?

So this introduces a new wrinkle to Demoman's current characterization: he's an alcoholic who is happy and has an upbeat and fun personality (at least on the battlefield), but underneath it he's hurting and feels ashamed of who he is. He drinks to cope and manage it, yet it only seems to exasperate problems at times.

Can I safely say that Demo is the merc with the most fascinating and intriguing backstory and personality thus far? Sure yeah I love Engie a lot as well, but Demo's character actually feels like it is a result of the backstory written for him. Like all of the other mercs sure you can go on and on about stuff with them, like Scout and Spy and their whole deal, Sniper and his parents, everything with Heavy, etc. Demo?? Right off the bat there's something to chew on in terms of actual character writing.

What an interesting character! I sure hope later installations of the story will follow through on this and give him ample screentime!

Anywho, time for the Meet the Demo video. Again, a departure from the Meet the Medic video and how I rambled on and on about that one, but it was mainly due to MtM being something to mark a drastic shift in Medic's character from serious and angry to more silly and mad scientist-esque. Meet the Demo, due to it being one of the Meet the Team videos made so early on, doesn't really get the benefit of a short with a story, but I digress.

This one is stylized more like an interview, which, in canon, means he's telling this all to The Director and all. It opens with the title screen before the horns section seep in, cutting to a clip of Demo running while explosions go off behind him. A freeze frame cut before a voice-over of Demo comes on with the iconic line "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be here discussing it with you, now would I!?"

Okay so just more confirmation and all of Demo's personality in-game. According to his bio, he has a short temper and all, which could explain him getting louder when asked that question. I don't think it's a joke or him exaggerating, since he seems genuinely pretty upset by the suggestion. He would have to be good at his job in order to be telling you this, yeah? Why even bother asking? It's an interesting bit of characterization that somewhat expands on that short temper.

More generic footage of him running about while explosions go off before coming back to the interview of him explaining a bomb in its simplest form. "One crossed wire, a wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch... and kablewie!!" Seems like filler dialogue, but I always like taking note of the fact he uses the chemical compound term as opposed to something more colloquial. It's just headcanons, but I really enjoy thinking that Demo is pretty damn smart and really gifted when it comes to making bombs and general chemistry. It's a clear passion and love of his and I like touching on it when I can.

The next couple seconds are shots between him taking a good swig of his scrumpy and then blowing up a level three sentry. It's just showing off his capabilities as a class. Nothing special (other than being cool and showing he's competent at his job). The real interesting part is his breakdown where he's on the verge of tears, exasperatingly telling the camera that he's...off. He knows it. There's not too many black Scotsmen, especially ones with a busted eye. "They've got more fucking sea monsters in the great Loch Ness than they got the likes of me" he says.

But, he perks up! He talks over a clip of him baiting a group of BLU mercs into a sticky trap. The voiceover is also really fascinating here. The way Demo talks reminds me something out of an Aesop fable. It's a very curious and fascinating way of talking. I wish this bit of characterization stuck around since it's pretty fun. "Come and get me I say! I'll be waiting on ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable...with an unhappy bloody end!" is really cool.

The video ends with him taunting the mangled corpses followed by a rendition of the main theme with bagpipes. I should probably also mention Drunken Pipe Bomb, his theme song. It's an upbeat and fun piece with a mixture of the typical TF2 sounds (funky jazzy drums and bass guitar) as well as a Celtic flair, what with bagpipes, whistles, etc and etc. There's also a kickass surf rock section. It's quite the battle theme and definitely reflects a lot of Demo's character as being an energetic, explosive type of character who is proud of his Scottish roots.

So that's pretty much it for SFM bits for now. How about we take a step back and look at the first-ever actual TF2 comic: WAR!, where Demo really gets a big break for his characterization. We don't care about the Saxton Hale or Jarate ones. WAR! my beloved...

But first, the actual WAR! update. It was the sixth major content update released back in 2009. Remember when this game got actual content updates? Me neither. The update was based around the rivalry between the RED Demo and the BLU Soldier to excuse why they were adding new items for the both of them, with Soldier in the end winning the little contest and getting the Gunboats.

For canon lore, the update serves to introduce the idea that the RED Demo and BLU Soldier had a comradery at first. Friends! Interesting piece of characterization to have Demo explicitly go against RED and become friends with Soldier. The two of them do bounce off of each other quite well when they're paired up, I will say. They're both heavy-hitters in terms of gameplay and their personalities are quite loud at times.

For added voicelines, there's a bunch of the Administrator denouncing their friendship as well as domination lines for both Solly and Demo whenever they kill each other. Demo pretends he hates Soldier, but asks if he's okay, tells him that he loves him, and generally is like "but we're still friends though, aye? :]" He does care a lot about their friendship, which is pretty sweet and cute. Sure hope that lasts.

In the WAR! comic, we see Demo in a mansion. He's loaded! It's also confirmation that the mercs are given quite a lot of money, but apparently not enough for Demo's mother. She's nagging him about not working and saying that he should be ashamed for being so lazy, to which he rebuttals, saying he has three jobs and has made millions annually. Apparently not enough for his mother, since Demo's father worked twenty-six jobs.

She also brings up an interesting piece of information. "No demoman worth his sulfur ever had an eye in his head past thirty!" which implies that missing an eye is a family tradition to lose your eyes when working this job. Would this also imply that Demo is not thirty by this point, since he still has the one eye? Eh, whatever. 

Demo taking care of his mom in this old, nagging state is pretty neat characterization, as well as him holding down two other jobs besides mercenary work for RED. He's very capable and talented! He's also extremely caring and sweet. Even when his mum is complaining and griping about him not living up to his father, he gets her tea and takes care of her. He does respond with a lot of "I know mum" when it comes to that. He's heard it all before. She keeps saying the same stuff. I like thinking he knows fully well he can't live up to the extreme work ethic his father had or truly impress his parents and is pretty bummed out about it, but that's just headcanons.

Anywho, Pauling's there. She's there because the Administrator wants to break up the friendship between Demo and the BLU Soldier and instead have them be pitted against each other. While Soldier needs to be tricked and insulted by Demo and told that he's a civilian (something that he hates apparently), Demo is more coerced and convinced.

He's still loyal to their friendship, but, aye, there's something different about that sword there. Here's an interesting bit of characterization: Demo being a sword guy. There's a lot of medieval stuff relating to Demo, what with DeGroot's Keep, the Eyelander, his general way of speaking at times, etc and etc. It's fun and I think he takes great interest in medieval-period stuff, but, again, headcanons.

Demo feels conflicted. How could she make him choose between his best friend and this cool ass sword?? He doesn't give an answer, but Miss Pauling further pushes him to choose violence when leaving even more stuff for him as well as telling him that Soldier said that he'll join the fight. It's then assumed that Demo agrees by that point.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Demo and Soldier. Soldier, despite hearing all of these mean things, still wants to be friends with Demo. It's until "Demo" calls him a civilian, something personal and sensitive to him, is when he decides to betray him. Demo meanwhile is more swayed by things that he loves, but the final push is that betrayal. He only acts when he's finally told that their friendship has been severed. Curious how their loyalty is strong in those ways.

...I should probably sometime mention the actual retconning of his backstory however. Hoouhhh boy let's go. So, for the 2011 Halloween update, there was a comic alongside it. This comic had some cute gags, like Heavy giving a little boy he scared seven grand. However, the main attraction is the rewritten backstory for Demo.

I mentioned earlier, but I honestly can't blame them for maybe trying another crack at a Demo backstory that isn't as bleak and miserable. I do really like the original one because I'm a sucker for angst, but this backstory does work a lot better tonally when you're just trying to write some goofy stuff, especially if it involves Merasmus at some point.

The story retcons the whole thing and seemingly makes it so that Demo has always been with his parents and the reason he lost his eye was not because of some brutal accident but rather a currrseeee ooohhhh spookyyy. He's hired by Merasmus to sweep up the place a bit, with him being exceptionally clear to young Tav to not touch any of the accursed tomes. He does, of course. Nothing too much in terms of characterization. It's more just saying "Hey Demo's eye is cursed and that's why he lost it but! hey! it comes back once every Halloween!!"

Again, I can't really knock this version of events. They're simple, but goofy and fun. It's all up to whatever you're trying to accomplish with Demo methinks. If you want silly and whimsical stories, you can have that backstory. If you want gut-wrenching angst, probably should take the initial one.

Aanndd that's virtually it for Demo being important. Demo doesn't get too much plot relevance later on. He's just kinda done with. He shows up in Expiration Date for a quick gag where he returns with a bunch of beer, shouting and cheering while being unaware of how they all just learned they're going to die in three days. He then shows up again during the bucket scene and doesn't do much other than mouthing somethin' (I can't tell you want tbh). A new thing is that he plays piano! That's fun! He then kinda watches Scout try and ask out Pauling and he yells for him to describe what she looks like, which is just what Demo currently sees her as (drunk, blurry, etc). He then fights in the big battle yada yada and shows up at the end with the beer again.

The MVM trailer I suppose is a thing to be noted. Here, he's a BLU Soldier and is playing cards with the Soldier of the same team. Seems like regardless of teams, there's some sort of bond between the two of them. All that happens is that Demo is down to bust up robots with the rest of the RED mercs. Pretty much it.

It is quite unfortunate to see Demo relegated to a role so passive in the story and comics. I've mentioned it before, but I do have an ever so slight grudge against Soldier for taking up the majority of the screentime when it comes to the comics. Yeah, he's really fun to write about, I can't blame the writers for doing so, but also like...c'mon... In the end, we're left with a good chunk of the mercs being underdeveloped in exchange for a ton of Soldier trivia. Props if you like Solly though; your fave got the best treatment.

Ah, but still! Demo has some moments in the comics! Let's go through them! 

Uh. Upon checking most of the comics before the mainline ones, it appears he does not say even a single word. Or even show up in a good portion. Well that's disappointing. I thought he at least said like...one thing. The most he does in terms of characterization is put on a crown in A Fate Worse Than Chess, and even then that's just a silly cosmetic. Damn.

It's fine though! Because now we have the mainline comics! Hot damn finally some actual casual Demoman TF2 writing! Let's get a look and see what his normal usual personality is like! I wonder what fun shenanigans he's been up to.

The first time we see Demo he's babbling about his job being replaced by robots and looking utterly dishevelled and depressed.

Okay. That's...yeah pretty in line for his character thus far. An alcoholic who is struggling with some stuff and oftentimes will have a very vocal breakdown in front of others.

The way that he's characterized here is rather fascinating though, I'll say. He's depressed. From what we can glean, this is what his life has been like since the layoffs. He's gained weight (what with Soldier's very blunt "Hello fat Demoman!"), hasn't shaved, his clothes are dirty, and beer bottles are scattered in the living room. Even the Eyelander is like "dude you need to let it go" when Demo mumbles about robots replacing jobs. He's presumably lost his two other jobs and has just been laying on this couch, drinking booze and watching TV and nothing more, despite his mum's nagging.

This is a side of Demo we don't really see. Sure, yeah, we see the hot and tempered side (ex: Meet the Demoman and the general game) as well as the sad and weepy side, but it's never to this degree. Like full on depressive episode. Yikes. Sure yeah he gets dragged back into the plot and instantly gets back to himself (albeit more orange than actually black)(I keep forgetting how whitewashed Demo was in these first few comics), but it's played for laughs and gags.

What an interesting piece of characterization, no? I've seen a fair amount of major depressive disorder, BPD, PTSD, and or bipolar headcanons slapped onto Demo and tbh I can't blame them. I'd be really interested to see some fic explore that in greater detail. I'm too busy writing Engiemedic yaoi to do anything for now though. Womp womp.

The ending bit of the comic has Demo and Pauling mainly chat with each other. Oh yeah!! Demo and Pauling! They've got a couple pretty neat lines. For the usual contract it's just jokes about his alcoholism, his eye, and a couple about his mom and just general gags. In the Tough Break update, she's out drinking with Demo and nearly spills the beans about her job. Fun. I really like the Miss Pauling characterization where she regularly hangs out with the mercs. It's cute.

In the comics, she talks to Demo more like an actual equal than, say, Pyro or Soldier. She talks to them like they're children roughhousing in the backseat. Demo sits up front and the two go back and forth. Demo is the more mature and reasonable one here. Another thing that's a common bit of characterization in the comics is that Demo isn't...drunk. He's not slurring nor acting in a way that makes it immediately clear he's inebriated. He's pretty lucid. This can be from the fact that he's a very high-functioning alcoholic, but it also makes him out to be actually pretty all-there for most of the time. I've seen far too many fics where Demo is in a perpetual state of shitface drunk so that was a nice refresher.

Demo reappears in the second comic, where we get some pretty neat characterization. He's out on the town in disguise. I keep forgetting about that "What do you see?" "Not a damn thing. Let's switch places" gag that's so funny. Whatever. He is the voice of reason when it comes to Soldier. The straight-man character. He's not really...drunk here. He's not slurring his words nor is he exactly doing anything. He steps in front when Soldier starts yelling at an elderly woman, instead approaching her with a calm and kind demeanour. He holds Soldier back when he goes to strangle Scout for. I guess just being there.

So there's Demo when he's just doing stuff normally, I suppose. He's generally pretty level-headed, albeit because he's up there with Soldier. He's the Normal One when posed next to a guy like Solly. A little disappointing, but there's probably more in comic 4.

Ah the Swordvan comic. Demo and Pauling head over to Sniper's house to retrieve him. An odd bit of characterization is that Demo just takes one look at Snipes' house and goes "Welp, nobody's here. Let's get out". He doesn't seem terribly thrilled to be here, further backed up by him saying that there's just gonna be fingernails and jars of piss and he straight up says "good riddance" like what is his issue with the bushman??

Now that's kinda interesting. Demo sees Snipes as being kinda just gross and a raving lunatic. He could easily be in-place for the audience and just saying what we're thinking, but I think it's interesting to see that Demo, the guy often portrayed as being the weirdo party guy, being very straight-forward. He think Sniper is some sadistic madman and just wants out. Unfortunately, he's given a neckfull of Sniper's homemade family moonshine, so he can't get out quite yet.

A very common thing in these comics it seems is Demo being the voice of reason, which is pretty interesting. The straight man to everyone. When he wakes up to Pauling spitting on him to wake him up, he goes "eughhh gross, but, hey, it worked!!" before then is knocked out. He then stays quiet for the rest of the scene, unless of course you're counting the deleted pages. There's no dialogue, but Demo breaks free from the ropes binding him, yells at Sniper, then pushes past before then inserting three syringes-worth of the moonshine into himself and passing out. Alcoholism joke as per usual. Shockingly the first one we've gotten so far.

In the submarine ride down, Demo's passed out with his scrumpy in hand. Again just a gag about him drinking a lot. He then kinda stays in the background for the rest of the comic, only appearing really once to hold a vat of liquor, before then coming to in the final shot where he holds Sniper's dead body. Heyyyy Demo I thought you thought Sniper was a weirdo freak.

Nothing too much to say from this comic then. It's just establishing more and more that Demo plays a very...straight-man character role when it comes to the comics at least. He's reasonable, level-headed, and often just says whatever comes to mind. He's kind and will instantly rush to someone's aid when they're hurt as well as just generally being pretty good-hearted. Nice!

Comic 5 mainly just features a gag with Demo's liver being so overworked that he starts turning his other organs into alcohol distilleries. The whimsy. The line that I find most fascinating from this comic is from Spy.

Like oh okay so he straight up doesn't eat anything other than alcohol and aspirin. Water literally poisons him. Probably just a throwaway gag, but geez. It does say that he is kinda in pain all the time, at least to the point where aspirin is one of the few things his body can handle. Someone out there can probably work with that and make it angsty. Other than that, not much else for Demo.

Comic 6! The final one! Home stretch here folks before I can wrap this up and give a thesis on whatever the heck Demo's character is. Demo, again, is mainly just here for gags. It's the one thing I do really wish that the comics did more: explore Demo's backstory. Like you don't even need to keep the original one, but it's still fascinating to bring up the fact he has a family lineage at all. Instead, he's mainly just a straight-man character. But, hey, whatever. I'm just the one analyzing these silly comics and jokey joke characters for gay melodramatic yaoi fanfiction.

There's a gag about Demo's liver coming back to him after leaving. These soap opera drama scene could parallel the type of shows that he was watching when having that depressive episode, but that's maybe a bit of a stretch. He then gets included in that fun group shot, where his pose mimics that from the Meet the Demo, before then gets a one-on-one scene with Medic. 

These two are such a fun duo I wish Jaggerbombs was a more common pairing. Ah well. Medic catches Demo up on everything whilst he's stitching up wounds. The medi-gun is broken so they're doing this the old-fashioned way. Demo has a gag where he's still drinking, only that it's hydrogen peroxide instead. This then leads to a scene where Demo asks why Medic never gave him an eye. Reasonable methinks. Medic responds saying he did.

Demo gets upset. He raises his voice for the first (official) time in the comics. Again, his temperament. I think it's a reasonable thing to be upset about tbh. Like imagine being told after all this time you could've had your eye back. He then learns that, no, the procedure has been done before, but rather that it never sticks because of how his eye socket is cursed. Demo asks how he can't remember this, to which Medic goes "Hooh :] It's because I scooped out a part of your brain" because of course he did. He then forgets the entire conversation + probably Medic entirely.

Aaannnddd that's pretty much it for Demo. That's his last speaking role. Just a quick, simple gag about his eye being cursed, his alcoholism, and generally being the straight-man for others, even if he does have a couple silly gags too. Seems like a culmination of everything he is in the comics.

To conclude: Demo is a character I feel can take on two main roles depending on what kind of tone you're going for. If you want angst, you've got a character who carries the guilt of murdering his foster parents as well as the burden of being a DeGroot, turning to alcohol to cope with his sadness and general inability to deal with it all. If you want silly goofy stuff, you have Demo being a straight-man or a neat party guy if you like the bit from Expiration Date where he brings back beer and such. Of course there's nuance. I find it best to try and find a balance between these two opposing sides. It just takes time and practice to really get a hold of his personality methinks.

I do wish he was more in the comics though as his own person, y'know? He's very reliant on others in order for his character to function, whilst most others have scenes where it's just them doing something. I wish he was used more than being the guy who drags the others back to reality. Damn it sucks to see that the fics where he's mainly just the straight-man are kinda right in that regard.

But for character traits? Hm, let's see. I find it's just trying to make sense of what's given to you and seeing what best fits for the tone of story you're trying to go for. However, for me trying to write him? Well...

His alcoholism is a central character trait. He is definitely 100% an alcoholic, regardless of however people try and sand him down. I personally really like sticking to the idea that he straight up can't eat anything but booze and aspirin because I think it's funny but also sad, but that's me. I think him having a flask of scrumpy on his person at all times is a neat headcanon as well.

Another big trait with Demo is his frequently shifting mood when drunk. He can swing from loud to weeping in a couple moments. I wouldn't say he's particularly angry nor aggressive, no more than any other character at least. He's most volatile on the battlefield, but otherwise at the base I feel it wouldn't be an uncommon sight to see Demo partying until dawn or holed up in the living room and sobbing. Poor guy.

In spite of what many think, Demo is certainly not lazy. He's a workaholic is anything. He holds down three jobs and rakes in a lot of money in order to live up to his name as a DeGroot. It could be because he likes working that much or that his mother just nags him to push himself that far. That also ties into his self-deprecation, another core trait of his, but that's pretty obvious to see.

His heart is another big trait. The guy loves. He cares for his mother even when she nags at him. He sticks by Soldier's side until he feels as though he's been betrayed. He takes care of the Eyelander and treats it like a pal. He generally cares a whole heck of a lot about people and other things. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he means. He doesn't feel a need to really hide who he is as a person. He's loud, fun, and just naturally pretty sweet and kind. I don't think he's ever really "mean" outside of the game stuff. There's also the whole "being hired to explode people" part but ehhh that's just the silliness in him :]

Demo also being generally pretty...normalish. He's a guy who's really just going through it when you take the angst option. He oftentimes will try and hold back others from doing something stupid when sober. I feel like when he's drunk he's more willing to get in on dumb shit, but still. However, this doesn't mean he's wholly a normal person. I think you can do a lot of headcanons here where you bring out some traits that are otherwise not talked about too much.

There are a lot of liberties to be taken with Demo's character as per usual. A ton of writing a character to be, well, in-character is just getting down their voice and mannerisms. Understanding their personality and motives is just half the battle. Demo sometimes speaks like an old-timey medieval knight or poet or whatever. He's generally pretty well-spoken and whatever. For the love of god if you want to write him, you don't need to include phonetics constantly. Please. It's so much better that tu'try toh spell everay whurd like tis. Oftentimes people will just know what the character sounds like regardless. Just try and mimic his way of speaking more and you'll do wonders for actually making that character sound like, well, that character.

I've neglected to mention Demo being a black man a lot because, well, it never really pops up a lot in canon. I think the most recognition we get for Demo being black is him just saying that he's black. He's a black Scotsman and that's about it. It's curious since I've seen a number of fics where it's all period-typical racism angst and whatever, with Demo being used as a way for the author to get up and proudly say that they think that racism is bad by having Demo being called a slur and getting upset. How progressive. 

I dunno. I never really personally touch on period-typical bigotry stuff myself due to the fact that this is Team Fortress 2. Rocket jumping was invented before stairs. Besides, this is the late 60s/early 70s. The civil rights movement happened by this point. Not everyone walking the streets is gonna be some abrasive bigot. I don't know why people want to try and make it "historically accurate" to begin with since this series has never been period-accurate to begin with. I don't particularly think TF2 is a great series to go on about tackling period-typical bigotry either. Literally if you want Demo angst you've got the actual mountain load of angst with his backstory right there. Obviously of course people are allowed to write what they want and I do fully believe that sharing stories and portraying bigotry is important, but why with TF2??? Do people just really look at a POC and think their existence is inherently political and they need to make it clear they think Racism Bad, even though the tone of canon really doesn't match that?? Ah well. I'm just rambling.

Regardless, Demo is just a character where you can take a lot of different avenues with. Maybe you can explore his trauma and try and write about how he feels trying to live up to his family name. What about his issues with his now-deceased father? Maybe you can forgo that and have him be a partner in crime to Solly or whomever else, with the occasional glimpse into his more sensitive self. Really, it all just depends on the story you're trying to tell. Ultimately, writing Demo with a healthy mix of comedy and angst is probably what is best done if you just want a pretty in-character version. He can be out on some grand adventure to take down Nessie with a merc or two AND have it be a story about him coming to terms with his past. That's just a me thing though lol.

Demo, like the rest of the cast, is an easily moldable piece of clay. All of the mercs at their very core are just funny character archetypes. They can be whatever you want them to be. It's just best to work with their original characterization and personality in mind, y'know? Fanfic writing is mainly about having fun anyway.

Speaking of which, enough procrastinating for me. I need to get back to writing my yaoi...

[thoughtfullyrainynightmare]

Hiii I LOVE YOUR WRITING💓💓

I'm a huge Yami simp and id like to request a fic where Yami is struggling to but trying his best to quit smoking cuz his s/o is pregnant? (Bonus: all the black bulls pitch in to help him quit)

Could you please make it Cute but funny too ?

Hiya! Thank you!!! ^^

Oh this was so fun to write, and I hope that you find it cute and funny!

Pairing: Yami Sukehiro x gn!reader (reader is afab) Ft. The Black Bulls Genre: fluff, comdey, slice of life Fanfic type: Oneshot Warnings: references to reader being pregnant, Yami says the "I'll kill you", canon compliant Length: ~0.8k

It had been a couple of weeks since you had told him that you were pregnant. And he had been absolutely over the moon.

At least after he had come down from the happy shock that he had been in, because he could barely have believed it. He could barely have comprehended all the emotions swirling in him, ranging from bliss, through happiness, to fear of being good enough of a father, since there was a small part of him that was terrified of him not being even a decent father since he had had no good role model of his own while growing up. Though someone could have argued that he had gotten a kind of practice with watching after the Bulls.

But that was different. It had been more like… being an uncle. Or just a father figure. But being a father figure wasn’t the same as being a father. So, he was worried.

He was worried about being good enough. For you and your child. Because he did want to be. He wanted to be a good father, and he’d be damned if he didn’t try to surpass his own limits in this too. Though there wasn’t really a limit there to begin with, rather than simply trying to be the very best version of himself that he could be.

Which didn’t stop his nerves from being stretched during those first few weeks, because of which he took a cigarette break whenever he could; consuming even more packs a day than before.

But the thing was: he didn’t want to make you inhale the smoke. Or the baby. Which is why he always needed to go outside, far enough from you, so that there’d be no damage.

And he hated having to step away from next to you. Granted that you were still as capable as you were before the pregnancy, since you were so early into it that even the baby bump wasn’t visible. There wasn’t pregnancy cravings or morning sickness just yet, let alone trouble walking or picking up things… Not that he wanted you to be doing any heavy lifting in the first place.

Still. He hated being away from you. And so frequently.

So. Something needed to be done. And that something was to quit smoking.

Going cold turkey would be difficult. But doable. And he figured that it’d be best to get out of the way quickly, so going cold turkey would be what he’d do.

However, to do that he’d need help. Which is why he called a meeting with the Bulls one morning.

“Listen up you buggers,” he said while standing there with his arms crossed. “Your next mission is to help me quit smoking. So, if any of you catch me with a cigarette, or a pack of them, your job is to take it from me.”

Magna raised up his hand. “Can we use anything to do it?”

“Yeah. And if you don’t, I’ll kill ya.”

“You’ll threaten to kill us if we don’t give them to you just as you’ll threaten to kill us if we fail to keep them from you,” Nero pointed out with a monotone voice from the corner.

“I’ll kill you harder if you give them to me.”

“So we get to fight you?” Luck’s eyes sparkled.

“Let’s help Captain Yami!” Asta cheered, being the one to, perhaps, be mots eager to do this, while the hesitance of others was mostly caused by fear of how …ferocious their Captain could be.

But. They would help of course. And they would have done so even if it hadn’t been assigned as a mission.

During the next few weeks, the only one who dared to approach Yami was you, because though his nerves were thin as a hair, you were the only one to whom he not as much as scoffed. Not as much as squinted his eyes.

While for the rest…

“HAND THEM OVER OR I SWEAR I’LL KILL YOU!!” Was heard from the distance.

The sound of an explosion.

“Luck! Catch!”

“HAHAHHAHAAA!”

“Rouge!”

“Captain Yami! Think about your health!”

“Seadragon’s Roar!”

“The basement will flood again…”

And meanwhile, you listened to the commotion, giggling to yourself. Because though it was difficult now, Yami would grow out of his smoking habit. You were certain of it. After all, you, and him, had the help of everyone. And after some time, the challenges would change to other kinds.

But you’d still do your best to enjoy the journey, which was quite easy in the grand scheme of things. Quite simply because you were happy, right there and then, with the life you lived.

[sl-vega]

·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Pairing: Karasu Tabito x [FEM!] Reader

Genre: fluff, classmates to lovers, puppy love, canon compliant, pre-bluelock, drabble/oneshot

Synopsis: Karasu likes you, like really, really likes you. Yet he can never muster the courage to actually ask you out. So when he accidentally convinces you that he's struggling in Chemistry, he takes advantage of the situation and has you tutor him.

CW: ooc karasu (?)

Karasu stared at the clock from his desk.

2 more minutes

2 more minutes until class was over, 2 more minutes until he got to see you.

Karasu had liked you for a while. You'd caught his eye during orientation and he had a habit of always bumping into you, despite being in different classes.

He would've asked you out by now. But for some reason, he couldn't. He'd made many attempts, but he'd always chicken out last minute.

So what made this time different?

Well you see, he didn't actually ask you out. He made an off handed joke about sucking at chemistry (completely false), but you didn't pick up on the joke so you offered to tutor him.

And who was he to say no to you? He'd finally get some alone time with you. Sure, it wasn't a date-date but there was some progress being made.

Even though it was built on a lie.

Karasu heard the bell ring. The second the teacher finished with the lesson he sprinted out the door. He checked his phone.

♡ {L/N} ♡ (sent 2:55 pm)

I'm at the library rn, right by the fantasy section

He smiled, and placed the device back into his pocket. He made his way to the library, the second he entered the room, his eyes scanned the room for you.

Across the room, his eyes met yours and you waved at him, beaming.

How were you so good making his heart flutter?

He made his way over to you. Placing his bag on the floor. He pulled out his seat and sat down. You pulled some books out of your bag and set them out for him.

"So what part troubles you the most?" You asked, tapping your pen on the desk. It was pink, with a fluffy pom-pom attached to the cap.

"Karasu?" you asked again, making eye contact with him. He stopped day dreaming and flipped to a random page in one of the textbooks you handed to him.

"Uh, this." He said, playing dumb, he pointed to some random question.

You moved your seat closer to him. Your shoulders brushed against his. Karasu's heart skipped a beat.

As cliche as it sounded, you always gave him butterflies. Your laugh, your smile, everything about you drove him absolutely crazy.

You were pointing out to some things in the book in front of you, and you made some notes while explaining something to him. He didn't pay it any mind, he focused more on your voice than what you were actually saying.

Cute

"Does that make sense?" You asked, looking up at him. He nodded. You handed him your pen. "Give it a try." You slid over a worksheet to him.

He answered all the questions effortlessly, and you looked at him, mouth agape. "You're such a fast learner!" You exclaimed.

Adorable

"Is that all you needed help with? 'Cuz it seems like you have the hang of this-"

Karasu quickly flipped the text book to another page. "I actually need some help with this." He said, quickly.

Don't leave just yet

He silently pleaded in his mind. You smiled and moved closer to him again, explaining some things and showing him your notes.

This process repeated for hours on end. You'd be surprised that he learned so quickly, and Karasu would find another thing that he "struggled" with.

Soon, the two of you found yourselves talking about things unrelated to school work, and Karasu finally got to know you.

Minutes turned into hours, and you glanced at your phone for the first time that evening and gasped at the time.

"It's getting late we should probably get going."

Karasu siged. All good things have to come to an end.

"I had fun though. We should do this again." You told him, beaming.

You packed your stuff into your backpack and made your way to the library exit.

"Karasu?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to play dumb if you wanna ask me out. I'd be glad to go on an actual date with you."

You smiled at him before leaving the room, a few minutes later, he heard his phone buzz.

♡ {L/N} ♡ (sent 6:51 pm)

And if you're gonna pretend to need my help, choose something that you aren't super great in <3

[dayseternal-blog]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. spread the self-love ❤

Bunny-senpai!!! 💕

I answered an ask similar to this one last year in March and I don't think my answers have changed...

I rewrote each blurb haha, so it's not an exact copy-paste from before.

1 “It’s No Secret” - Rated M, High School AU, Multi-chapter, Incomplete. Hinata returns to Konoha after 5 years studying abroad in the Moon Kingdom. She just wants to enjoy her last year of high school as a normal girl, but blossoming love forces her to confront her future. - My top fave. Back then, I wrote this like I was possessed. This story consumed my mind, and I was posting chapters every 1 or 2 weeks. I'm amazed at myself from back then. No, it's not my technically best writing, but I was having so much fun thinking up all kinds of scenes!!! Oh, to be a fanfic writing newbie all over again. Major love to everyone who's read this flirty teenage shenanigans mess and enjoyed it!!! One day I will write part two 🥺

2 “Nightdreams” - Rated E, Canon-Divergent AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. Naruto and Hinata find comfort in each other after the war. - This fic idea came to me sometime after I read agitosgirl's "A Special Friend," and I wanted Moooooore!!! I wanted more of this hurt/comfort dynamic between NaruHina!!!! So bam, the fic almost wrote itself, it flowed so easily (except for when it didn't). I'm so happy that people reread this fic, and then tell me that they're rereading it :D. Once in awhile I reread it, too, and think, oh, I should fix that sentence, or whatever loll, but I don't. I kind of think it's nice to leave it as it is, imperfect in little ways to bother me. Please read this fic and recognize that I was copying Katarinahime's writing techniques throughout.

3 “Awkward Jocks” - Rated G, 1990s High School AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. She knows that if he were to ever ask her out, she would accept in a heartbeat. After all, he’s the star quarterback and basketball player. Plus, she’s liked him since…forever. But when her home phone rings, and he’s on the other line, she hangs up. - It's interesting to me that even after all the fics I've written over the years, it's a few of my oldest fics that take the top 3. I guess I really have been trying to write for myself since the start. This one is based off of my ex-coworker's love story. Even though I don't work with her anymore, I still think of her as my role model for good leadership. When you read this, I hope you can feel how much I love her!

4 “About You” - Rated G, 1970s High School AU, One-shot. A summer job at the Dole pineapple cannery, graveyard shift 10 PM to 6 AM. A long bus ride into and out of town. Two teens, shy beside each other. - This is my most personal fanfic. Based on stories my parents told me and stories I found online from people of their generation, I tried to dive into their time using NaruHina. Ever since I was inspired to write after reading emmykay's "Torch Song," I had wanted to write a fic with Japanese-Hawaiian pidgin dialogue. This fic is close to my heart, but it's not higher on the list because there are inaccurate details that bother me 😅. I'm thinking of writing a fic about my great grandparents' generation one day, I've done a ton of research for it! Anyway, I'm so happy that others love this fanfic, too.

5 “Matcha” from “Shared Vows” - Rated T, Canon-Compliant, One-shot. Naruto calls Hiashi “father” for the first time. - According to my previous blurb, I picked this one because I loved how I structured it, I thought I wrote it really well. I also loved the notion of Naruto finding his own family. On deeper reflection, I think I also picked this one over "Finally Home" because I have a not-so-secret agenda for reconciliation between Hinata and Hiashi, fed by my own family's dynamic with my dad.

If I were to recommend any one of these for someone to read, I'd say they should start with Nightdreams or Matcha as an intro to some of my work since canon universe fanfic is always easier to digest.

[gingerdunbroch]

a list of vague descriptions of doctor x rose fics i’ve read and can’t remember the names of

one where Rose gives Tentoo the cold shoulder post Journey’s End to try and spare him but he gets curious, and finds out Rose and the rest of Torchwood are being forced to work for the daleks—the story’s climax involves daleks asking either Rose or Tentoo to pick a planet to destroy, they put in “coordinates” that initiate a self-destruct sequence, but i’m pretty sure they both survive, if rather injured

one where Rose predicts her own future via drawings; pretty sure it was canon compliant thru Journey’s End and i think it was on teaspoon (whofic)

a WIP that was like 6 chapters long on fanfiction.net where Rose had just taken over her father’s company after he died and she’s so stressed that Donna (her secretary? i think?) recommends she go to this wellness center to see AU!Ten (i think his name is Smith?). oh and Martha works at the center too. but yeah John is like an energy healer or smthn like that?

i think this one was called like Rose on the Vine or smthn and it was on ao3 and had a sequel, but it was an all human AU where Rose was a stripper and keeping it a secret from her friends

a Ten/Rose reunion fic where Rose mentions having run into Eight in Paris while Dimension Hopping and spending the night with him

a Nine/Rose fic where nine has to go to a planet that isn’t human-safe so he makes rose a sonic pen-type thing that can um, simulate different…parts for…fun times

a Ten/Rose reunion!fic where Ten makes it back to Pete’s World, and disguises himself to suss out if Rose is happy/would want to come back. i think it was on teaspoon

a Tentoo/Rose fic where Tentoo has nightmares and Rose gives him this special stone that helps, and eventually he finds out that he’s the one who gave it to Rose in the first place (i think the implication was she was going to kill herself pre-dimension cannon), meaning he has to complete a circular paradox. i remember Tentoo wouldn’t let past Rose touch him bc then she���d know he was human. i think it was on teaspoon. it’s possible this could have been 2 separately posted connected fics and i’m just smushing them into one

a fic where the Doctor and Rose have a daughter before he regenerates into Ten and then he has to get his daughter used to his new face, I think it mostly took place as a telepathic conversation between them? also i think it was on teaspoon

a fic where Ten keeps licking Rose and can taste her emotions, no idea where i read it tho

a fic (2 parts, on i think both teaspoon and ao3) where right after Bad Wolf Bay pt 2 Rose and Tentoo get teleported to an elf-like world where “queen” Rose has to settle a debate about ginger between three farmers and Tentoo is given a red velvet suit and then gets drunk from consuming too much ginger

a 2 chapter fic (on tsp?) where Ten and Rose observe their future selves getting it on in like a meadow on an alien planet and then Ten gets squirrely about fulfilling the circular paradox, saying “time is in flux”. there’s a scene where they’re talking to each other on either side of Rose’s bathroom door. chapter 2 is them going back to complete the paradox

i’ll add more to this post as i randomly remember more fics i neglected to bookmark anywhere

fingers crossed someone sees this post and remembers the name of at least one of these fics!

[yearningaxe]

Meg Thomas Headcanons

She has BPD & autism (semi canon compliant as her lore mentions she has a hard time regulating her emotions; she also most likely has abandonment issues due to her father leaving her & her mother after she was born)

Lesbian (canon compliant - her mom specifically quotes Billie Jean King to motivate & cheer her up - BJK is a known out lesbian athlete)

Her scents go between citrus & vanilla, coconut, honeysuckle &/or blood orange

She has a morning skincare routine that's very quick, but invigorating to her. It's not extensive or fancy

She loves pizza, peanut butter and sweets

For smoothies, she loves anything made with strawberries

She has lots of freckles & moles (ie. Think Kennedy Walsh)

One of her hyperfixations is sharks & aquatic/ ocean life

She dated Claudette & Nea (at different times) before settling down with Anna

Anna understands & comforts her during her mood swings/when she's upset the best & that's part of why Meg loves her so much; with Anna, she isn't "too much," like she was with previous girlfriends

She barely drinks, she's 21+ but a single sip gets her flushed & giddy

She's a cat person (canon compliant)

Anna made her Miss Kitty mask to cheer Meg up after a spiral/episode & Meg loves when Anna wears it into ritual trials

She can't handle spicy food but will try

She snores (lightly) & drools in her sleep

Meg used to have nightmares/night terrors after being taken into the Fog & still does even after being with Anna. These are mostly from missing her mom & worrying about her

She's 500% a Paramore girly (she told me herself !! )

She's very much a tease

Meg does thoughtful things for those she cares about; she knows Anna loves shiny objects, so she wears lots of shiny accessories to make her happy

Some of the rings she wears are lil gifts from Anna !!

Meg has a very well hidden sensitive side

Meg prefers older women bc most older women in her life were very kind, loving & nurturing towards her (Claudette is +4 years older, Nea +2 years older; unsure of Anna's age, but she's def older). Most women her age made fun of her for "being different," which also is why she prefers older women

Meg has fun working out with Yui & David

Meg is an Aries woman (04/16) **I picked the 16th bc 6+1 is 7 & that's half of her lucky number (14)

Her "Big 4" placements are Aries Sun, Capricorn Rising, Cancer Moon & Scorpio Venus

Anna may be very territorial & protective of Meg, but Meg's territorialness & protectiveness towards Anna are even more.

Do NOT let her into a kitchen, this woman can barely make food without burning it 😭

Very competitive & stubborn

She can be very argumentative (which is why she & Nea didn't work out, they fought a LOT) literally "I can be yuor angle or yuor devil"

I'll add more to this later, but 🦊💞

[secretlywritingstories]

Nah, you wouldn't have spared me | EPIC: The Musical one shot

Summary: Sirens are apex predators that easily bring down whole ships. As soon as their song reaches a human’s ear, a spell takes hold that no mortal could break. It is easy to lure men to their demise. Until the sirens meet Odysseus, who is turned into a different beast altogether.

Tags: Canon compliant, set during Suffering & Different Beast, impersonation, predator/prey but uno reverse style, POV siren trying to eat the crew

Warnings: blood and gore, tail dismemberment but not graphic, and death of the narrator

Word count: 3.3k

Read on AO3 or below

It is one of their scouts that spots the ship slowly gliding into their territory. The weather is mild and the sky clear. Bright open hunting ground and a sizable meal about to slide into their claws.

Sirens work in a natural hierarchy, based more on cunning than strength. All of them are strong, all of them have spells that no mortal can hope to resist. It’s amusing, how their prey is turned putty in their hands, throwing themselves overboard with abandon, thinking they are falling into the arms of a beautiful woman or a long lost family member.

So primitive.

It’s almost too easy. It’s why they have turned it into more of a game. Pick them off one by one. Stun them and then play with their food a little. Just to spice things up for themselves.

“I’ll start us off with the captain,” the head siren says, starting her hum in the back of her throat.

Singing is the time when they feel most powerful. This is what they were evolved to do. Sing, spell, lure, kill. An endless cycle. To eat and to protect their territory. To play with, if they get bored.

It’s limited how much play they can get out of a spell-drunk human but usually, the splash of connecting with the water jolts them somewhat awake again. Then they're really fun, desperate and begging for mercy but their fate has already been sealed. 

The captain stands at the helm, looking out over the water and he has got no clue what he is about to encounter.

She always did like this part, getting a glimpse into someone’s head to see what really moved them. It was often primitive. Predictable.

Riches. Power. Love. A trifecta for most humans.

This one is no different, she notes, as the spell starts to take hold of the captain.  A long-lost prince far from home. A wife and daughter are waiting for him. A kingdom that has been left alone for too long.

The wife is his focus. It shines out of his very being. He has to get home to her.

It’s easy to slip into the effects of the spell, knowing that her sharp claws will look like soft, loving hands in the eye of the captain. Wicked smile will turn into pouting lips that he longs to kiss. And from her mouth, he will not hear the siren song but the voice he hasn’t heard in so long.

She swims out to meet the ship and breaches the surface right in front of the captain glancing out on the horizon. Eyes are searching. Their eyes are always searching once the spell has got them. Prime for the picking.

“Don’t you miss me?” she sings, flicking her long, tangled hair over her shoulder.

His eyes find hers and the longing is so deep that it almost catches her off guard. She is used to longing, it is a plaything of a siren but this man is beyond desperate. Oh, he’ll be fun to play with. He is watching her face like he cannot believe what he is seeing.

But he is. She knows that she appears just like that wife of his. A siren spell is a perfect trick mirror. 

“More than you know,” he says, voice breaking and eyes never leaving her face.

“Then jump in the water and kiss me,” she continues to sing.

To place a death’s kiss on sailors is always her favourite things. Stealing the life right out of their lungs before dragging them down to the depths.

She expects him to throw himself right over the railing.

“Penelope, I've told you this before,” he says and his voice trembles. “You know I’m afraid of the water.”

Oh.

That is new. She’s heard about it before. Some fears are so primal that they don’t leave the prey, even when they are spell-bound. She has never met one personally before.

She can feel the eyes of her sisters, deep beneath the water, awaiting her signal to appear and start singing the rest of the crew off.

It’ll be a bloody feast, but first she must coax down the water-fearing captain. A challenge. She perks up a little. A prey earned for once. She signals to one of the younger sirens to come up next to her. If the wife isn’t enough, the rest of the family might be.

“I’ll make sure that you are safe and sound,” she promises, putting her arm around her niece, who takes the shape of the long-lost child. “Come play with me and our daughter and let’s watch our love leave the ground.”

“Oh, I would, but I’d be suffering trying to float the whole time,” he resists, gripping onto the side of the ship with a white-knuckled grip. He’s resisting but the hold of that fear will not be enough for him to resist her.

She waves off her niece, who disappear under the sea. The man might love his child but he's not looked away from his wife's image, not even once. 

“I would take the suffering from you,” she promises, and with how intensely he’s watching her, she feels like he will throw himself over any moment.

“Oh, as good as it sounds, right here, I'm just finе,” he says and chuckles a little, almost sounding abashed.

She will try again. Surely, he’ll understand.

“I can take the suffering from you,” she says, letting her hands spread along the surface of the water, almost like she’s petting it. Making her home inviting for him. Even if he’ll be on the dinner table rather than a guest.

“You know that I prefer my feet on the ground.”

His fear of the water really must run deep. She can’t imagine what it would be like. But he is going to fall for her call. He will, whether he wants to or not.

“I will take the suffering from you!”

She’ll feast on his suffering, a worthy prey brought down, struggling to keep his life his own.

He sighs, closing his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again, she thinks that she has got him, only…

“Fine, but only if you answer a question or two.”

That has most certainly never happened before. No one has any questions. Ever. Against her better judgement, she’s curious. He might need a bit more of a reassurance to jump in.

Sugarsweet, smiling with sharp teeth that he cannot see, she says: “Of course.”

“Okay, so let's say, I was on the run or hiding,” he starts, voice growing more frantic, like he’s trying to force the words out fast. “From I don’t know, Poseidon! And let’s say he blocked the way home with giant waves and giant storms.”

That most certainly would not be good. Who would be stupid enough to piss off Poseidon? Their days would be numbered, if they needed to cross the ocean. Unless you know how to evade him, of course.

“Oh, no,” she says, tilting her head and trying to take in what kind of man this captain is. There is something about him that she cannot quite put her claw on.

“How am I to evade him? How am I to get home? Which route should I take? Where am I supposed to go?”

He’s frantic. Begging. For help instead of mercy, like she's used to. He saw his wife and his first thought was an escape from the Gods? Something is off about it, but children of the sea have secrets that they don’t get to share often. Maybe she could share this one. After all, the captain will be dinner soon after he’s heard the answer.

And it’s a chance to show off a little. He is watching her like he’s never going to look away from her face. It’s a little flattering, even if she is wearing his wife’s face in his eyes.

“He will chase you, high and low. So, find a place he’d never go. The one way you’ll get home is sailing where he’s scared to roam,” she says, drawing in a breath to dramatically tell him the safest way to avoid godly wrath, even if it puts him in front of a monster. “It’s through the lair of Scylla.”

“No.”

The despair in his tone is palpable. Does he know?

“This is your only way home,” she tells him. “The lair of Scylla.”

But there is a reason Poseidon won’t go near. Scylla is not to be underestimated.

“But Scylla has a cost.”

She blinks, surprised. She did not expect a mortal man to know about the cost. That you can sail through the lair and with luck, your ship will sail straight through. If you are unlucky, however, the whole ship will be sunken, crew and all.

If you’re not willing to take that gamble, you can make a sacrifice. One for each of her heads.

It is not her problem to make such a choice, and it is not the captain’s either. He’ll never get to sail there.

“Well, you asked and now you know. Now jump in the water!” she says, smiling and playfully slapping the water.

Her patience is rapidly running out, even if he is quite entertaining. 

“Penelope, why you know, I’m too shy and terrified,” he says, and tucks his hair behind his ear. It should not be charming, but it is. Strange.

“I would take the suffering from you,” she promises again, certain that it’ll take hold now.

“Oh, for you, I would die, but can’t you let me stay dry?” he responds.

Oh, he’ll die for her alright. But not while staying dry. He’ll be dragged down until there’s nothing but water.

“I can take the suffering from you,” she sings, and he leans out over the railing for a moment before managing to retreat.

It almost worked.

“You should come onto the ship. We’ll jump at the same time,” he offers and it’s sweet. Really, it is. But she’s not going to get up on that ship with him.

“I will take the suffering from you,” she sings instead and she sees the way his shoulders slump.

Defeat. Surrender.

She smiles.

“Ah, the things I do for you,” he says, stepping back a bit. She’s sure he is about to do a running jump right into her waiting arms.

She’s wrong.

The arrow pierces her shoulder and she shrieks. Deep and guttural and entirely surprised. It hurts. It stings like nothing she’s ever experienced. Their prey doesn’t shoot back. What in the world?

“Let’s cut the charade, you are no wife of mine,” he says and everything about him is different. His tone, his posture, the look in his eyes. He stares down at her in the water with a grin that’s a touch too manic. “You’ve been trying to take my life this whole time.”

He shouldn’t be able to figure that out. He shouldn’t be able to tell. The spell should have had him in a thrall. A chill shoots up her fin.

“I know underwater there are packs of you hiding. Yeah, I know exactly what you are. A siren.”

She snarls at him. He pays it no mind. Like he is not even scared, even though he should be terrified of them. 

“My real wife knows I’m not scared of the water, and my real wife knows I don’t have a daughter,” he reveals.

It makes no sense. She saw the daughter in his mind. She believed the fear of the water.

“But while you were so focused on turning my men into snacks... you didn’t notice that your friends got snatched.”

“What?!” she exclaims, ducking down into the water and they’re gone. She breaks through to the surface and spots one of the nets. How did they even get close enough to get snatched?

They’ve all become too complacent. Drawing in close because they were sure their meal would soon leap into the water but they were wrong. Now they are the prey. A siren out of the ocean, a siren without her voice is powerless.

“We are a different beast now. We are the ones who feast now. No more of us deceased, ‘cause we won’t take more suffering from you,” he says and looks down at her like she has personally slaughtered his men.

And she tried, but it didn’t work. Something already hurt him. Deeply. 

“We are the man-made monsters. We are the ones who conquer. You are a threat no longer. We won’t take more suffering from you.”

She bristles because it’s true. He has managed to incapacitate their song somehow. He was asking about a God before. Divine intervention? She should have sensed something was off about him. 

“We’ve been away from home for about twelve years or so. First, we slayed in our own war, and now, we’re here with more foes. While on the run from Poseidon, we found a ship with no crew. I realised nearby, there were sirens singing sailors to their dooms.”

Clever. The sirens let the ships sail on or push them out of their territory as best they can. Most men seein such a thing would assume, they got shipwrecked. No one thinks of sirens because there are no stories of them here.

No survivors to tell the tales.

“We filled our ears with beeswax. That’s how we resist your song. You pretended to be my wife, so I just played along. I read your lips and phrases, scanning for information.”

She takes it back. That is the truly clever part, even if this man is a trickster. He bends the rules to his own favour. No wonder the Gods have taken an interest in him, even if it is to chase him down. He thinks too highly of himself. 

Her sisters are up in the ship’s nets, twisting and shrieking, trying to break free but the nets are holding. They are looking at her for salvation.

Maybe, they can bargain. Adventurers love a bargain.

“Sirens know about every route and horizon. Now, I know how to get back to my island," the captain says.

This man is too well-read about the worlds. He knew about Scylla. He knows about sirens. They underestimated him. She underestimated him and now they might have to pay for it.

She sees the net thrown, but she is too slow to avoid it. It shoots out fast and her shoulder bleeds and hurts, the arrow still stuck in it. The net twists into the arrow, pain shooting up her entire body as she tries to fight it to no avail.

As she is raised up, she sees the whole crew out on deck. Some of her sisters are trying to sing still, but nothing is taking hold. The captain is not the only one with beeswax in his ears. They’ve all done it. They are parroting the captain.

“You are a threat no longer,” he says, as her net is thrown onto the deck. The impact stuns her tail. “We won’t take more suffering from you.”

She never thought she would get to feel how it feels like to be trapped and hunted. It is an unfamiliar feeling and she cannot see how they are going to get out of this one. The men have the upper hand. Escape is not possible.

They have to resort to something else.

They have to beg for mercy. And hope to be granted it.

She has to be the first one to say it. The others follow her. It has to be her who makes the decision.

“Spare us,” she says, words tasting like acid on her tongue, but she has to protect her family. 

“Oh, spare us, please,” they join in, voices calling out with a melancholy that not even their song possess.

She looks at the captain, into those hard eyes, and hopes for him to give in. She has never met a man who didn’t give into her eventually.

“Why?” he asks, staring down at her in a warrior’s stance. “So, you can kill the next group of sailors in this part of the sea?”

Yes. Because that is what they do. They are the predators of the sea. It is their job to hunt and kill. He is the one not playing by the rules. Outsmarting them in a way that should not be allowed. He should be dead already, but there he stands with all of the cards in his hands.

“Nah, you wouldn’t have spared me,” he says, looking right into her eyes.

And he’s right.

They wouldn’t.

“I made a mistake like this, it almost cost my life. I can’t take more risks of not seeing my wife,” he says, and at that, his tone turns a little softer. A little sadder. He looks at her with that deep longing.

The spell might not have worked properly but he is still seeing her reflected back. The way his eyes roam over her body to take in the creation of his wife looks like it physically pains him.

And then he turns away, face downcast but voice clear.

“Cut off their tails! We’re ending this now. Throw their bodies back in the water. Let them drown.”

“No!” she screams. All of them scream and thrash but it is no use. The nets holding up the other sirens are lowered onto the deck. They are on land here. They cannot move fast enough.

She feels like she must have misheard him. The brutality of it is too raw. Too cruel, even for a siren. But the captain is walking away after giving his order, distinctly not looking in her direction.

She screams at his retreating back, trying to crawl after him but the tail, the net and the arrow all keep her right where she is. Screaming and calling out for mercy of a man who cannot and will not hear her.

“Kill them all.”

She sealed their fate and he’s walking away. The crew are drawing their swords, and there is cruelty in their eyes. The same cruelty portrayed by their captain.

“Kill them all.”

He repeats his words before he stops near the railing and looks out at the sea. Like he cannot bear to witness what he has just ordered? Or like he could not care less? She is not sure, but a man approaches with a sword and swipes for her. Death cries from her fellow sirens fill the air.

“Kill them all.”

The first hit is only enough to cut through the net and slash open part of her scales. It burns and hurts like nothing she’s ever experienced before. It feels like being torn apart. Like being dismantled. The next swipe is enough cut halfway through her tail and everything gets fussy.

Cut in half. A siren is nothing without her tail. They’ll be fish food in the ocean that they once ruled.

“Kill them all,” the captain says one final time before disappearing below deck.

Not a single glance back at the massacre that he has left behind him. Another swipe of the sword and she doesn’t really feel the separation as much as she sees it. It doesn’t feel like it’s her tail lifeless on the deck. Limp and bloody.

She won’t survive this. None of them will.

And as she loses the fight against life, she hears the crew call out the name of the captain that took their lives without an ounce of mercy.

“Odysseus.”

It echoes across the corpses like a warning.

[cookii-moon]

Day 4 / July 19th: Fluff and/or Cole

ITS HERE ITS HERE COLE DAY COLE DAY. FM VNFV NJVFN TVJN CJRN JDCN DCJBVTN

time to spotlight some of my favorite Cole fics and also go see if anyone else has some hidden gems that I somehow missed heck yeah

A one shot where Kai and Jay have been using the video of Cole singing at Laughy’s to mess with him. Unfortunately, he’s not taking it nearly as well as they think he is. Canon compliant and complete. A short but very fun fic that I enjoyed very much <3

Ghost Cole beloved.. a DotD rewrite where the ninja are taking it easy Cole is gradually being forgotten, much to his dismay and panic. Incomplete and Canon divergent. Definitely recommend for the angst :)

At this point this is going to become a fic that every single person in the fandom has got to read at least once. A season 5 ghost Cole centric rewrite (though everyone gets their moments) I have no words for how good it is. Genuinely one of the best ghost Cole fics out there. Canon divergent and incomplete. Sincerely recommend it to anyone who wants a good long hurt/comfort fic.

CRIMINALLY underrated fic about Cole heading out into the city to take his mind off of his nightmares, only to stumble upon a dance studio that is exclusively open at ungodly hours in the morning. And maybe picks up an old dancing hobby in the process. Complete and mostly canon compliant. Mostly just fluff with some light angst. Very good.

^^ Double possession! It requires you to be logged in in order to read it, but big recommend. A bruise AU where when Cole becomes a ghost, he gets stuck in Jays body and they now have to share it between them while trying to fight a certain genie and sorting out their own personal infighting. It’s so good. Canon divergent and, unfortunately, unfinished.

A series of short oneshots where the others learn through various ways that Cole can draw. Canon compliant and incomplete. Very cute slice of life-y premise :)

Very short oneshot about Cole losing his voice after becoming a ghost, in honor of his late voice actor Kirby. Short but bitter(sweet) :) slightly canon divergent and complete.

Hdjsjhfusjwj ghost Cole aftermath my beloved… Cole has some struggles with water. Jay knows something’s up. Basically good old Cole and Jay besties with some hurt/comfort. Amazing fic. One of the first I read and I remember loving their characterizations so much. Do give it a read. Canon compliant and complete.

Jejeucudjnshchvh Oni… Cole… a beautifully written one shot that’s part of a series. Probably the best Oni Cole thing out there honestly. Cmdmsmfndjd I love it so much. After march of the Oni, Lloyd brings up a possible.. explanation to Cole, which the spirals into him discovering a new side to himself. Canon divergent, the original fic is complete but the series isn’t. Very good. Do read.

and now… the last one

^^ All the ways I say “I love you”. Yet another fic that requires you to be logged in. Aroace Cole :) a 5 + 1 + some bonuses about the times Cole never spoke the words, and the one time he did. Very good fic. Recommend. Complete, hurt/comfort, and very fluff.

That’s all for my recs today (this is nowhere near all the Cole fics I have read but like some were already mentioned by others and stuff so I tried to limit it a bittt) I am off to gobble up everybody else’s recs.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

how about some general sherlock taking care of john fics? (am scrolling through your list of ready to post lists for stuff that catches my eye)

Hi Lovely!

AHHHH I'm so glad you picked something from my list because it makes my weekends so much easier, hahah. I absolutely am happy to share this next part with you!! Enjoy!!

JOHN WHUMP / SHERLOCK TAKES CARE OF JOHN Pt 4

See also:

John Whump / Sherlock Takes Care of John

John Whump / Sherlock Takes Care of John Pt. 2

John Whump / Sherlock Takes Care of John Pt. 3

John Whump with Guilty Sherlock

Three Garridebs Moment

John Has Cancer

Colds, Fevers, and Flus

The Four Incidents by TheGirlWithRedHair22 (K+, 1,064 w., 1 Ch. || S1 Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, John Whump, Accident, John POV, Hand Holding, Worried Sherlock, Sherlock’s Self Esteem) – The first time John was present when someone insulted Sherlock, he brushed it off as a strange coincidence.

And, Usually, He's the One Who GIVES Me a Headache by  Cumberbatch Critter (T, 1,315 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, POV John, Cranky John, Headaches, Head Massage) – A migraine is never fun.

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

The 3x John Carried Sherlock, and Once ViceVersa by  ShinkonoKokoro (K+, 1,673 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Friendship, Three and One, BAMF John, Sherlock Whump, Worried Sherlock, John Gets Shot) – It happens more than he suspects.

Study in John by chappysmom (K+, 2,158 w., 1 Ch. || Post-ASiP, POV John, Introspection, Friendship, Nightmares, Caring Sherlock, John’s Limp) – After the events of "A Study in Pink," John lies on the couch in Baker Street and thinks about the whirlwind events of the day. What is he getting himself into?

A Room of One's Own by whitchry9 (K+, 2,174 w., 5 Ch. || S2 Timeline, Hurt/Comfort, Supernatural, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Coma, John Whump, Worried Sherlock, POV John, Angst, Friendship/Bromance, Hospital) – When a severe head injury lands John in a coma, somehow he ends up in Sherlock's mind palace. It's actually pretty nice there, and John is entertaining the notion of staying there, rather than returning to his broken body. But Sherlock isn't taking it as well, and John can feel him breaking around him.

Spilt Milk by Erin Giles(K+, 2,222 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort) – John comes back from a trip to the supermarket only to take a trip up the stairs. Both shopping and blood are spilled leaving Sherlock to play the role of Doctor.

Unquantifiable by 221b_hound (M, 2,799 w. 1 Ch. || Established Relationship, Sherlock/Sally Friendship, Grumpy John, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Pet Names, Texting, Sweet Sherlock, Princess Bride References) – John remains a terrible and foul-tempered patient, but he does try to make up for it with pet names and text message silliness. In the meantime, Sally Donovan visits Baker Street for a hint about the Milverton case, and has to deal with a Sherlock Holmes who can't find words big enough to thank her for saving John's life at the warehouse. For afters, there's a viewing of The Princess Bride. Part 33 of the Unkissed series

Study in Sherlock by chappysmom (K+, 3,790 w., 1 Ch. || ASiP, Friendship, Introspection, Anxious Sherlock, POV Sherlock, Caring Sherlock, Stroppy Sherlock) – Sherlock's thoughts and feelings during A Study in Pink. What DID he think of John, and why was he being so NICE?

When Your Belly's in the Trench by Morgan_Stuart (T, 4,743 w., 1 Ch. || PTSD, Character Study, Rescue, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Torture, Trauma, Danger, Drama, Kidnapping/Captivity) – The next time that door opens, John Watson will kill the person on the other side.

A Study in Linguistics by rizandace (T, 12,425 w., 1 Ch. || S1 Canon Compliant/S2 Divergence, Friendship, Slices of Life, Communication, Cranky Sherlock, Hospitals, Sherlock Whump, Pet Cat, Jealous John, Sherlock’s Violin, Anxious Sherlock, John Whump) – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had their own language. It was a language of few words and minute facial expressions, and John had learned that it was nearly the only way to have an honest conversation with his eccentric flat mate.

Rupert Street by WritingOutLoud (M, 27,262 w., 9 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting || Case Fic, Sexuality, Demisexual Sherlock, Drugging, Smart John, Sherlock Has Internalized Biphobia, Fluff, Angst with Happy Ending, Gay Bar, Flirting, John Manipulates Sherlock to Eat, John Deduces, Arguments, Kidnapping/Torture, Hospitalization, John Whump) – Discharged from the war with nothing but the clothes on his back and a realisation of his bisexuality, John Watson has to learn who he’s become. He can’t afford London on an army pension, but the city is the only friend he has. In an effort to understand his newfound queer identity, he heads to a bar one night, where he stumbles across a mysterious stranger who turns his life upside down. ‘I dug around inside myself, and I'm not quite sure what I found, but it was beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.’

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Kintsukuroi by sussexbound (E, 91,823 w., 20 Ch. || S4 Compliant / Post-TLD, Grief / Mourning, PTSD, Internalized Homophobia, Therapy, Past Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Suicidal Ideation, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexting, Frottage, Inexperienced Sherlock, Rimming / Anal / BJ’s, Emotional Turmoil, Finding Each Other) – “I love you.” Sherlock sees the words hit John with almost physical force. He reels back a little, jaw twitching and eyes filling. “I love you,” he repeats, a little softer, a little more gentle, as earnest as he possibly can. Because they’ve been teetering on the brink of this thing for years, and it had become painfully obvious over the last few months that they were at a tipping point. This had to happen. Now it has. Now they can see where they end up. The tears in John’s eyes spill over, and he wipes at them angrily. “Do you even know what that means?”  

Breakable by MissDavis (E, 117,627 w., 34 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE, WiP || Established Relationship, Major Character Injury, Fluff/Angst, Depression, Paralysis/Disabilities, Hurt/Comfort, POV Sherlock, Mental Health Issues, Drug Use, Happy-ish Ending) – After John is seriously injured, Sherlock struggles to figure out how to help him, keep himself sane, and maybe, just maybe, get their life back to the way it's supposed to be. Part 1 of Breakable Not Broken

[sakurarisen]

⚡ : What typically leads to inspiration for you when it comes to writing? 💔 : What kinds of characters do you have the most trouble writing for? 💕 : When it comes to shipping do you prefer to draw things out and let them develop slowly, or do you prefer to jump right into them and skip the developmental stage?

Monday Malarkey!

⚡ : What typically leads to inspiration for you when it comes to writing?

Just about anything, honestly? But for the vast majority of it, it's music and whatever game or book I'm into at the moment, three times as much if it's the source material for the verse I'm writing. It's rare that I can pick up Genshin or the Remake games and not walk away with some kind of inspiration or plot related thought by the end of my play session, and the light novels I'm reading now have sparked up a ton of it in regards to things like Sera's health and worldbuilding. Music often makes me sit and daydream out plots, too, so it brings its own form of inspiration - Heck, the Halcyon Era storyline/Sera's full backstory was inspired by a gorgeous mecha figure promoted in an email from one of the shops I buy Gundam model kits from, though I wasn't expecting the colorscheme and words 'Snow Phoenix' that inspired me to create to turn into the massive story it has!

Tl;dr? Never let me read or play games, I make things happen after. XD

💔 : What kinds of characters do you have the most trouble writing for?

The asshole, in your face, stuck up, only here to be a jerk types. The ones whose personality is "I'm here to be a problem and have nothing else going for me". I love a good antagonist and I have a few more blunt, serious, will fight you for fun muses (Leandros, Kalistratos, and Kagota over on @thundertide being primary examples of this XD), but I really struggle when their entire personality is abrasive jerk and they don't ever act like anything but, or they're just the scheming type constantly trying to cause issues - Even just a straight antagonist who would cause problems and smirk and leave is difficult for me to grasp, regardless of if they have more to their character or not? Like I could never write Rufus Shinra even though he's a pretty well rounded character 'cause I just can't get my head around that character, and it'll never not impress me others can and write him and characters like him so well. <3

I'm also not very good with writing canon characters. I have a handful, both on @shinrarisen and Thundertide, but unless they're characters like Kunsel or Cissnei, who have more open to interpretation storylines and big gaps to fill in, I end up feeling suffocated and struggling to match what canon gives. Basically, I didn't create them, so trying to match what the creator made gets hard because I can't just step into their mind and know everything about the character, if that makes sense? It's why the canons I do have end up being at least somewhat divergent in their portrayals - Because I love them and click with them enough to write them, but I don't feel like I do a straight, fully canon compliant take any kind of justice. ...Or I just don't agree with part of their story, looking at you old Yu-Gi-Oh multimuse of mine-

💕 : When it comes to shipping do you prefer to draw things out and let them develop slowly, or do you prefer to jump right into them and skip the developmental stage?

Both, but I will say the later requires heavy trust in my partner, and isn't really exactly a 'we ship now' and go. I have maybe three incredibly close friends I trust to skip the developmental phases in a ship and the ship still work out, but we have years of friendship and rp'ing partnership behind us for that to happen; this is seen best in my Genshin multimuse, where new characters get added and already have a ship tag - But to be fair, too, it's not exactly an insta-ship, either. While Kasa ( @honorisen ) and I jump into them pretty quick, what people don't see is the behind the scenes discussion on it, deciding if the muses even get along, letting them meet in short, one off things off-dash, let the muses flirt, really talking out how things worked out... We're jumping right into it and avoiding writing out the buildup (which gets usually drabbled or even a flashback thread much later on - It's avoided at the start but ends up happening eventually anyway to flesh out the characters and their relationship(s)), but we're still in heavy talks beforehand to make sure what we're really eager to do for a ship will even work, first - And if we actually like it when it's more than just a thought, even though our muses generally always just... Click.

For the most part, thought, I LOVE developing a ship! I love the buildup, I love the working things out and getting on the same page, the seeing if the muses get along, the figuring out of "how do we navigate this" - It's a big part of why even with close friends I can just skip into the ship with, we eventually come back and develop an entire story with them and even rp or drabble out those developmental stages. Sera and Zack had years of buildup even though their blogs were launched with their ship already in place, both on dash and off, but over on Thundertide and @yoroiis, Childe and Kagota swandived into a ship, yet we've gone back and worked out not only the developmental stages, but have a couple of ideas from those stages waiting in the wings to rp out and are constantly learning more about their backstory together, both as a ship and as old, childhood best friends.

I can't just 'okay, we ship now' with most partners - I can't even do it with you, Knight, OR with Kasa, even though you're both two of the three previously mentioned friends. I can launch blogs with ships in place, I can skip the developmental stages and go right into a ship when the muses click as well as we have - But I can't just cast it aside completely. Even when a ship is decided, we're still discussing how they met, how the ship happened, how they got where they are. We still go back and rp that out, or write it up. The development may be skipped in one verse, but it's very much present in another, and mimics the first regardless. In my personal opinion, ships that don't have any development, even discussed, feel shallow to me? And I mean that as in my muses and my ships and my experiences - Everyone else's varies and it may not feel that way to someone else, and that's totally awesome! <3 I'm glad other people can pick up two characters, tell them to kiss, and it works! But me personally... I can't. I have to have something, somewhere, and I have the best partners in the world who do the same. <3

[mewtwowarrior]

I want to talk a little about my current favorite Fortnite combination: the Jones Unchained skin and the Xenomorph tail back bling.

It's under a Keep Reading so I can potentially edit and adjust it as I go and add stuff.

I bought the skin because I thought it was neat, and that it looks so much like Chell's outfit from Portal 2.

I love messing around with the Xenomorph tail and putting it on various skins and coming up with AU ideas based on it, so I couldn't resist trying it out with Jones Unchained. And, from there, my imagination took off.

-

I've had several AUs swishing around in my brain, here's the minor ones before I get into the main one:

-Escaped monsterboy experiment/prisoner, may or may not be part Xenomorph and possibly just generic creature

-Variations on things with a female version of Jonesy (her full name is Joan Jones) as a Xenomorph monstergirl

-Female version of Jonesy is part Xenomorph Queen and has the fancy head crest and commands the regular Xenomorphs

-

SO, the current main AU is a little more complicated, because with a little tweaking of vaguely canon things, he could potentially be nearly canon compliant, which is super fun.

First, Agent Jones has visited the world of Alien, possibly on two different occasions. (Likely not and it was just for promo things, but still.)

Twitter version

So, the first promo is audio-only and has Jonesy presumably on the Nostromo. He's having some kind of heartburn issue, which could totally be taken as him having been implanted with a chestburster.

He probably should remember if he was facehugged, but maybe all the reality hopping temporarily scrambled him?

Twitter version

The second promo is a very cool video, presumably from Aliens, where Jonesy rescues Ripley from a group of Xenomorphs.

So, it's possible that this one takes place quite some time after the first promo. He seems to think he's got the wrong place in the first one, so maybe he jumped ahead and picked up Ripley (and apparently a Xenomorph, too, what were you thinking, Jonesy) there.

ANYWAY, there's at least two contact points with the Alien world that he's had, if you take both of these as canon.

My AU mostly uses the first promo, running with the theory that Jonesy got chestbursted.

How did he survive?

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but supposedly it's revealed in the Marvel/Fortnite crossover comics that he's immortal and possibly hundreds of years old.

I'm not sure of the extent of his immortality, but if we go with nothing can kill him, then he could survive being chestbursted.

If I borrow the plot point of Ripley 8 from Alien Resurrection, who was a clone with Xenomorph DNA, but no monstery features, then there's canon support in Alien for human/Xenomorph hybrids.

SO, he got chestbursted, his immortality protected him from dying, and then when he healed, the residual Xenomorph DNA got mixed in with his own and he became a human/Xenomorph hybrid.

From there, maybe he was captured and locked up, because having a Xenomorph monsterboy agent running around is probably not a super great idea.

Fortnite also revels in AUs of characters, especially Jonesy. In some seasons of Fortnite, there've been multiple completely different Jonesys hanging around. The particular timeline of him going to the Alien world might not quite work with how I think his other AUs came to be BUT it's an AU, so there's loads of wiggle room. And, it doesn't necessarily have to be canon compliant, I just like the challenge of seeing how far I can take it and it still work.

-

I commissioned @quesadillawizard to draw Xenomorph monsterboy Jonesy and he posted him here.

-

Thank you so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it!

[abysskeeper]

WHABAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️

Yay, thank you! Ok, I'm back from a weekend trip now and can pick 5 I think. I'll mix it up for fandom and go in order of publication.

A Thousand Ways to (Never) Say "I Love You" - Baldur's Gate 3, Gale/Tav (Named F!Tav), act 2, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff with a sad ending Gale hasn't been the same since Elminster delivered the charge from Mystra. Nox has finally figured out how to offer a distraction, at least for a few hours. It does not go quite according to plan. Please read this. I understand it's a 13.5k one-shot but I poured a lot of heart and time into it. It's spawned a 6 part series dealing with act 2 and I'm simultaneously working on parts 2 and 4 because I'm so incredibly normal about wizards.

Just You, Just Me - Baldur's Gate 3, Wyll/Tav (Named F!Tav), act 3, childhood friends to lovers, fluff Late one evening on the road to Baldur's Gate, Wyll is pulled away from camp by the sweet sounds of a violin. The woman he finds playing is familiar; unfortunately, he had hoped to never see her again. Result of my first Tav. Unlike the 30-something wizards above, Fi and Wyll really are just two kids trying their best, and I should write more for them.

Exit, Stage Right - The Great Ace Attorney, Herlock Sholmes/Mikotoba Yujin, Herlock Sholmes & Iris Watson, canon compliant, fluff and hurt/comfort A proper homecoming, a precious hour and a half before they needed to step on stage for the final act, and more than enough of a fool's notion of sentimentality. Herlock Sholmes was set to enjoy what little time he had with his partner before the grand finale of their ten year dance. It was a shame, then, that he had to ruin it. 3 months and nearly 20k words for a hyperspecific headcanon that maybe one other person has and appreciates. Also one of my most favorite things I've ever written.

Rebirth (oh cursed cycle that you are) - RWBY, Oscar Pine & Ozpin, volume 8 canon divergence, character study There's a fullness in his mind that's ready to burst at the seams. There's a clawing in his heart searching for the presence now missing. When Oscar said he didn't want the merge to happen, he didn't realize how close he really was to having everything he never wanted. Tied for first as my favorite thing I've ever written for RWBY*, and easily one of the top five things I've ever written at all. Weird and speculative are what Oscar deserves for his situation.

Under Guise - SWTOR, Jedi Consular/Cipher Nine, OCxOC, fluff, Tumblr prompt fill A night at an Alderaanian ball is not exactly how Trick wants to be spending her time. Pestered by a man she has a distaste for even less so. Until suddenly, it was exactly what she wanted. Beloveds having fun. For as much as I dislike looking back and editing some stuff, this has really withstood the test of time, and I had an absolute blast writing it.

*(Bonus shout out to Chapter 4: Interlude: Children of Fate of my fic A Funny Little Thing Called Trust. I can't recommend the whole fic because I do someday want to go back and edit it up to my current standards, but the chapter itself is the other thing tied for first as the best thing I've ever written for RWBY)

[shadowxamyweek]

I know this is a Shadamy blog but what is your opinion on Sonamy? Like, do you think the two ships are capable of coexistence? Maybe a live triangle kind of thing? Do you just tolerate Sonamy or like it just as much as Shadamy? Or do you just not enjoy the ship at all? I guess the same question could be applied to other Amy or Shadow ships that aren’t Shadamy.

Ah ha ha oh boy. (ಡ▽ಡ*)ゞ

So, fun fact (and part of the reason why I took so long to get back to you- I had to find this) @madeofchocolate asked me about SonAmy a while ago. I answered here, but I want to expand upon it for your question since you go beyond just 'what do you think of SonAmy). I will also note that my observations and headcanons are based on games alone. While I like enjoying other aspects of the franchise, I don't consider things like Sonic the Comic, SatAM, or IDW canon to the core lore, if that makes sense (And if it doesn't, that's okay. It's just the way my brain works, so understand that's how I'm coming into this.) 1- From a fandom perspective: Yeah absolutely all ships can and should coexist. The fact that ship battles were even a THING blows my mind. I don't understand why such vitriol could come out of something like, you know, fake hedgehogs, but whatever.

There are very few ships that I actively dislike. SonAmy isn't one of them.

I also don't dislike most other Shadow or Amy ships. Been seeing a lot of SurgeAmy and BlazeAmy which are super cute, and SonAdow has gotten much gentler and sweeter over the years, which is nice to see.

It's not like I don't read other ships either, or look at art for them. When someone is able to take the character and, in what I perceive to be a good application of canon, make a ship concept work? Oh I'm always thrilled. Plus, it's nice to look at something from a new angle, you know? I think the thing that would make me turn away would be, 'Are they still in character.' If they're not what I would perceive to be, 'in character,' then I'm no longer interested. It just loses the fun for me, you know?

Basically, I like watching people take the puzzle pieces of different people and make cohesive sculptures out of them, if that makes sense. If what they come up with isn't cohesive to me, then it's just... not for me 〜〜(／￣▽)／ That includes SonShadAmy. I've seen a lot more art and writing about them in recent years. In fact, past two years I think there's been a ship week for them, which is awesome! Again though, not really my cup of tea. I just don't gravitate towards that.

2- From a canon-compliant point of view. I just- I think Sonic is Aro/Ace, and in such a way that they experience no sexual or romantic attraction.

That's really the core of it. That's why I don't intrinsically ship Sonic with anyone.

Furthermore, I really don't believe that Sonic is the partner that would benefit Amy best (as stated in the linked post above) or, for that matter, Shadow.

Specifically about SonAdow, like, Shadow and Sonic to me have a really cool relationship built off of parallels and perpendicular, working as foils for one another beautifully in that way, but I don't necessarily see the romance of it (unless, again, someone does a fantastic job of showcasing that, and even then, I will like that artist/writer and be indifferent about the ship.) _(:3 」∠)_ You might laugh, but of all the people I would personally ship Sonic with, like if I HAD to pick someone, it would be Knuckles. Like- you go and listen to their Frontiers dialog for a second and you too will be going (O.O) I... (wow I typed a lot) I hope this answered your question XD If not, feel free to send another message, and I'll try to parse down and focus on what you were asking. I hope I didn't overwhelm you with this wall of text XD

[merryfortune]

Life After High School

Written for Femslash February 2024 and the Sweetheart Bingo from @sweetspicybingo

Day 10. Ever After

Title: Life After High School

Ship: Damselshipping | Anzu/Asuka

Word Count: 

Universe: GX - Canon Compliant

Rating: T

Tags: Meet Cute, Post-Canon, Flirting, Affection, Developing Relationship, Pre-Relationship

   America really was everything that it was cracked up to be, Asuka discovered. It was a place of duality, of extremes in city life. It was completely different to her home country and for all its beauty and all its faults, she was glad that she had migrated there for university.

   New York City, in particular, embodied this as it was the locale in which she studied and ergo knew best but just from this taste of the Big Apple, Asuka felt she knew all the country, all the states now.

   The iconic spots of NYC - the Rockefeller Centre, the statue of Lady Liberty, Times Square, and Central Park - really were iconic! They were befuddling and dazzling, they took Asuka’s breath away as she revelled in what monuments to the modern American ideal they were.

   Then there were the cons. There was to any place, any situation. The streets sometimes reeked and the subway was terrifying with how crowded it was and how the speakers never enunciated properly. The rats were big, too. 

   But even so, Asuka enjoyed her time in America tremendously. Though here she was the outsider. Not the inside of the upper echelon like she had become the focal point of during high school.

   Life truly did exist after high school, amazingly enough. The ever after of it had Asuka enraptured. For the most part.

   Her only complaint though was… Asuka would have liked more freedoms to enjoy given that the United States of America were meant to be the land of the free. But she had the complete opposite problem of anyone else in their coming of age movie era.

   She wasn’t getting into trouble. She was staying far, far away from it and having no fun. By other people’s standards. Not so much her own as she very much considered her psychology textbook to be a hot Friday night date.

   America was, allegedly, a place where anything was possible, any transformation of the self and attainment of glory. To feel like she was really pulling herself up by the bootstraps like Americans dreamed. It was kind of hard to feel that way when she had a rich family back home who wanted to nanny her still even from across oceans.

   Asuka wanted to take up a pure and unadulterated mantle of responsibility. She was cooking her own meals and making her own choices, albeit really boring ones like studying until ten o’clock and being in bed by ten-thirty but still. Her parents were blowing up her phone asking how she was going, if she was settling in, and all that.

   With their constant supervision, Asuka couldn’t even laugh at jokes about NYC rent being stupid high because hers was handled by her parents still. It wasn’t even a bad apartment, either. Close to school and close to the night life, too. Not that Asuka took much advantage of the latter. She was a studious young woman after all.

   Something her brother would lament in particular. He knew, for sure, that if he were in her shoes, he would be tearing up the town and painting it red. So that’s why he took it upon himself to help her out.

   “I got you a ticket to a Broadway show,” Fubuki said over the phone, “go out and enjoy it. I picked the one about a girl who studies hard to get into Harvard, even,. Just for you, sissy-pooh.”

   “Sounds like a distraction to me.” Asuka said. “I’m kinda done with the tourist stuff. I want to try and be more… local.”

   “Too bad, check your emails. You will find one ticket to Legally Blonde. Think of it as an early birthday present.”

   “My birthday’s already come and gone.” Asuka grouched. “And you sent me a care package for it already.” She huffed in addition.

   “It came from the bottom of my heart regardless. Please. Take one night off.” Fubuki begged her.

   “Fine. Only because I don’t want you wasting your money on me.” Asuka said and that was that.

   She was going. She had never even heard of the play Legally Blonde before nor the movie. She was kind of behind on any and all pop culture, at home and abroad but sure. Looking over the synopsis, Asuka kind of dug it since she was also a smart blonde. Fubuki knew her well, bless. 

   Asuka checked her emails and the seat he had booked for her was decent, too. Not too close but not in the boonies either. A nice respectable seat in the middle. The only thing that really sent her for a surprise was that the showing was in three days’ time. Yup, trust Fubuki to let her know at the last minute. She didn’t even have anything to wear so she had better find something nice and quick-smart.

   Though a trip to the mall the next day did fix that. Maybe getting her into the mall crawl was also part of Fubuki’s dastardly plan to get Asuka somewhere other than her house or her university’s lecture hall.

   Night of the show, she put on a nice pair of slacks and matched it with a varsity, vest-cut sweater. Perfect for a brisk New York night on Broadway and made her way there via public transport, setting off so she could sit in her seat for at least twenty minutes in advance.

   That extra twenty minutes she had allocated for herself came in clutch, too, because it was incredibly busy being debut night. Asuka bought herself some snacks and also bought some merchandise, too. Something practical - a tote bag which she could use as a book bag - and reasoned it was good to show support for local acts.

   She read in the small print of the program that the majority of the performers were all New Yorkers in one form or another. Some had moved here specifically for the job, others moved with it, the professionals playing the big name characters.

   With a couple minutes to spare before curtains open, Asuka sat in her seat and waited. She was more excited than she thought she would be but the atmosphere was infectious. The passion the performers had, their nerves, emanated from the wings and mixed with the joy of her fellow performance goers. Asuka found herself getting swept up in the zeitgeist of it and soon enough was rewarded for it.

   She had a fabulous time to say the least.

   Asuka didn’t know much about theatre or performance but she felt that everyone pulled their weight. There wasn’t a dull moment, she split her sides laughing at the comedy and found her toe-tapping to gaudy musical numbers. She found herself getting genuinely invested in seeing the protagonist succeed and one-up her ex-boyfriend and find herself in this strange new world of law without compromising herself.

   It was excellent and that was just the main cast members!

   The back-up dancers and chorus were great, too, and curiously enough, there was one Asuka kept her eye on. It was for no particular reason but she was fantastic. There was this one brunette dancer with striking blue eyes, they loved to put her in different scenes. She seemed like a hard worker and she was working hard, the one everyone else seemed to rely on to be in time with the music. 

   Asuka made a game of trying to spot her through the costume changes…

   It was embarrassing but by the end of it, Asuka couldn’t help herself. She didn’t just applaud the performers and crew for their effort, she gave them a standing ovation. She was the only one in her row who did and she did cop some side-eye for it but that just made her clap harder, until her hands turned red and raw. They deserved it! 

   Though contrary to how enthusiastically she clapped, Asuka was somewhat eager to leave. She had a bedtime after all. Even if she was an adult.

   After the show, as Asuka was leaving the venue and made it onto the glitzy street, she saw one of the dancers out of the corner of her eye. Asuka didn’t want to dilly-dally, she wanted to get straight home because she was boring like that but when saw that young woman, she knew she had to say hello. To be polite, compliment her on the hard work she had put into her performance. It was only right.

   She just hoped that she wasn’t interrupting anything important. Asuka glanced her over - her long, lithe legs and her hand by them which was… holding a pack of gum. Huh. Not a cigarette like she expected. She thought New Yorkers were the hard boiled type but looking closer again, Asuka could see her chew.

   So, holding onto the tote bag that she bought at the merch stand, to help support the theatre, Asuka walked up to her, “Hello.”

   “Hi.” she said, trying to figure out if she was talking to an obsessive fan or not.

   Asuka’s awkwardness as she muddled through the etiquette of the post-show daze made it more difficult than it had to be. And Asuka was aware. She could see the dancer balance friendly and guarded in the blue of her eyes.

   “I, um, just wanted to say. You were excellent tonight.” Asuka said. “I’ve never said this about any dancer but I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

   “Aw, thanks.” she said then got up from where she sat. “It's my first time getting told that.”

   “Really? But you're so talented, you must have practised so hard.” Asuka gawked.

   “This was, um, my first production where I wasn’t an understudy.” she said. “I’ll remember this, thank you.”

   “Me too.” Asuka said and bowed.

   The dancer had a flash of recognition in her eyes at Asuka’s courtesy.

   “Um, excuse me, can I ask a personal question?” she asked.

   “Sure?” Asuka said as she pulled back.

   “Are you Japanese?” she asked.

   “I am. My name is Tenjoin Asuka, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Asuka said and bowed again for good measure but this time…

   The dancer did the same. “I thought so, I’m Japanese, too.” she said then introduced herself also, “The pleasure’s all mine, my name is Mazaki Anzu, I’m from Domino City.”

   “Ah,” Asuka gasped, “I've visited before. It’s a lovely and exciting place,” she laughed, “would visit again. You are very fortunate to be able to call it your hometown.”

   Anzu giggled and Asuka smiled. They paused, studied each other, their looks, their demeanour and that moment of guardedness from before, and awkwardness, too, melted away. They felt a comfortable silence in the beat before Anzu spoke again.

   “My co-workers typically go drinking after a show but it’s not really my scene. I get the vibe that the hard-rock party isn’t your scene either.” Anzu said and Asuka felt her ears burn.

   “I-I am.” Asuka replied.

   She had to be mistaken. She simply had to be. She was infamously dense but she could swear that she was being flirted with right now.

   “Well…” Anzu said, dragging out the syllables in that one word. “Do you want to hang out some more? Go somewhere? Your choice, of course.”

   Asuka felt her heart leap out of her chest. Nope. Not mistaken. Though she couldn’t believe her ears. Her mouth dried as her throat clogged with words. Miraculously, despite all that, she did muster a reply.

   “Sounds like fun.” she said. “Want to, uh, go to mine? I’ve got light refreshments. Tea, coffee…”

   “I’d love a coffee right about now.” Anzu said and that settled it.

   So, together, they set off. Asuka took Anzu back to hers via the same route she had come. She had never brought a stranger back to her apartment before and so, her heart pounded. Not that she thought Anzu was a bad person, or anything, quite the opposite.

   Anzu was lovely. She had a warm glow about her and was oh so charming. 

   It was… It felt risky. Very much out of Asuka’s comfort zone but right about now, as she unlocked the front door to her apartment, that was where she wanted to be. She heard a click and then turned the handle.

   “Nice place you got.” Anzu said as she peered into the darkness.

   “Thanks.” Asuka said and she flipped a switch.

   “Even nicer with the lights on.” Anzu joked.

   Asuka agreed mutably as Anzu stepped inside first.

   In doing so, it made Asuka’s own apartment feel oddly surreal and unknown to her as she allowed Anzu inside. They had a quick tour but it was mostly unimportant as they just made a beeline for her living room.

   Together, they saddled up on the lounge in front of a turned off TV and Asuka’s collection of coffee table books and had a chat whilst her kettle warmed. It was well past midnight by now but both were craving a coffee to go with those hardcover books and, of course, the conversation, too.

   They went back and forth getting to know one another. Two Japanese nationals in New York City, more or less fresh out of high school, they had plenty to talk about and talking came easily to them. The light conversation slipping into deep and meaningful territory in a matter of minutes (which were actually hours by the time they caffeinated themselves).

   “That’s crazy, I can’t believe it.” Anzu said.

   “Six degrees of separation is what they call it.” Asuka chuckled.

   “When I’m in town next, I’ll have to tell Grandpa that I met his friends from Duel Academy then.” Anzu joyfully agreed.

   “So, um, what brings you so far away from Domino City?” Asuka asked.

   Anzu stared at her, a brow quirked.

   “You know what I mean!” Asuka squealed. “Like has dancing on Broadway always been your dream or would you have been happy on an idol’s stage or… community theatre.”

   “Broadway has always been my dream.” Anzu replied. “Ever since I was a little girl, it was Broadway or bust.”

   Asuka exclaimed, murmuring Japanese under her breath. She was impressed. For so long, she didn’t have that drive. That direction. It made her a little bit jealous.

   When she recovered from the absolute awe she had for Anzu’s motivation, she had another question, “You said tonight was your first time as first string, does it stop there or will the next time Legally Blonde plays, will you be Elle Woods?”

   “I can’t sing or act to save my life.” Anzu said. “But that’s fine. Dancing is my passion, it's all I want to do.”

   “Wow.” Asuka said. 

   “Besides,” Anzu harrumphed, “they prefer Elle to be a natural blonde so I think I wouldn’t be considered anyway. But you…” She lifted her hand off her coffee cup and reached towards Asuka. She ran her hand through Asuka’s hair and she could feel her soul ascend as attraction ignited from just the sensation of her fingertips. “You could get that part on looks alone.”

   “I-I haven’t got a musical bone in my body.” Asuka stammered, flustered.

   “We can’t all be the triple threat,” Anzu agreed, “but beauty and brains, that’s more than enough for most.”

   “Y-You are also very beautiful, Anzu.” Asuka complimented her.

   “Thanks.” Anzu replied.

   She gave Asuka a wink as she drew her hair closer to her face. Anzu kissed her knuckles through the strands of Asuka’s hair and relished Asuka’s crimson hued expression. She knew all too well that this was Asuka’s first time being treated like this.

   Her heart raced within her chest, her mind too. Anzu was all too flirty with her and for the first time, Asuka had someone she wanted to be flirty with. All in all culminating in what was truly a night of nights for Asuka…

[panic-at-the-hydra-base]

So I saw fnaf… (no spoilers above the cut)

(First of all I’m not a movie reviewer or anyone special I just like to talk abt movies)

Okay I have like a lot to say and some worries about this movie. Let’s start with the good, as a fan the movie was so fun! It’s been in production hell for so long and I’m so glad it even got to see the light of day and that Scott got to be involved that all makes me thrilled. The Henson creature shop did a spectacular job and I hope people realize the balls it took to even go that route versus just cgi-ing all of it. Massive props to them and just ugh all of it was fantastic looking I could go on all day about the animatronics alone. Now I say “as a fan” because if I wasn’t a fnaf fan the movie wouldn’t be good. It just isn’t and I now totally understand and agree with the first critic reviews that came from people who have (assumingly) no knowledge of the game before hand and I agree with their low ratings. It just isn’t really a good movie🤷🏽‍♀️and that’s fine! Seriously if all it is is a kitty fan service movie where everyone had fun making it and watching it then who cares! Blumhouse made their money before it even premiered and honestly I’m not even worried about not getting another one because they know enough of us will be paying to see whatever else they do next- better or worse. I wouldn’t call it a good movie at all but was it fun? Hell yeah it was fun!

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

This is just me rambling because why not

I saw it Thursday opening night and my theatre was relatively quiet with some loud “harharharharhar”s before it started versus some theaters I’ve seen who are filled with ppl laughing aloud and doing other fun stuff (like fist fighting) so I wasn’t sure what to expect if it was gonna be the same vibe as like seeing a marvel movie opening night where people are verbally responsive. Idk just curious how other peoples theatre crowd experience was. The movie was really just okay as I said the part of me that’s a fan had fun but the part of me that loves movies was bored. The building a fort was kinda stupid but I understand why it was done for the plot entirely to show that Abby thinks they’re all friends okay but god it was just kinda dumb. The connecting via dreams was odd? I’m not sure how I feel about it because I’m trying to separate this movie from fnaf lore and treat it as a movie by its self but that’s really hard to do. Obviously I’m not saying everything has to/will be canon compliant but it’s still hard to have that knowledge and not compare it to the movie. I’ll have to give it another watch but it’s hard to hodge the movie alone by itself. Anyway- FOXY!!! God his feet were so silly looking I love him so much and they kept the humming/singing that he does? Loved that. Also was the animatronic they were trying to put Abby in at the end supposed to look like baby specifically? It was enough that I caught it but also not exact enough where I thought maybe they just picked a random doll like character idk I can’t remember who’s soul is in baby at the moment but whatever. That fuckass balloon boy made me unreasonably happy idk why like I saw spoilers and knew he was there but still laughed so hard when I actually saw him myself. Also loved the matpat cameo it was just enough and rolled very smoothly, good for him. I again do wanna give them credit for showing the bloody stuff considering the rating like the shadow of someone getting bit in half was good. I understand from a company standpoint of keeping it pg-13 so “kids” can go see it and give them more money but they did what they could and I thought it looked good! Vanessa was cool, kinda weird mike didn’t ask any questions earlier and also why did that bitch chuck mike’s pills into the water bitch that man has no money and you just wasted prescription sleeping pills? Gurl you you but okay whatever anyway- mike was cool nothing like crazy special to say about any of them honestly. I hope they use Matthew lillard more in the future, that’s purely me being a fan of his and nothing more honestly. He wasn’t in the movie much at all. Back to the dreams and stuff- having mike get injured in his dreams was also a bit idk…. Stupid? Like it just seemed idk pretty dumb I can’t fully explain what bothered me about it but it just didn’t seem to go with it all. I just gotta watch it again at some point because I’m very torn abt actually liking it or not. I do have a worry that people will not realize that the animatronics are actually puppets and complain about them being funny looking and moving slow. Puppets aren’t used as much anymore everything’s cgi and animated so I can totally see someone thinking it’s just badly created when it’s actual real people moving them and they’ll think poorly of it when they simply don’t know that it’s real! Again so happy that they chose that route to create them and not cgi it soooo greatful for that and I’m glad to see that’s still being used for movies. Overall very torn about this movie. Again I’m just rambling here and I’d love to think what others think abt it weather you saw it with prior knowledge or not.

[robertdowneyjjr]

Tell me about a part of a WIP where a character eats or sleeps (if you wanna) ❤️

hi!! i haven’t received asks in a while so this was a lovely surprise, thank you!

i don’t have a lot of WIPs and most of them are literally, like, a paragraph. BUT here is one that i started over a year ago called all the time in his world, which was the original basis for what i’d ended up writing for stony loves steve 2022. essentially, i realized that a lot of people tend to write tony as someone whose love language is physical touch or gift giving, but i wanted to explore the idea of quality time being his love language because, well. lots of reasons, really. so this was written in steve’s POV as he gets to know tony throughout the mcu, canon compliant, except for the bit where i made it stevetony and decided to conveniently ignore the deaths in endgame 😌

here’s a lil snippet from the shawarma scene, where steve begins to really see tony:

They should be helping with cleanup. Perhaps lending a hand with search and rescue. Or maybe they should have each gone directly back to bed to sleep off the post-battle exhaustion. They’d earned it, after all. But Stark had insisted on trying out the shawarma place he’d happened to come across in the middle of fighting the Chitauri, so here they are.

Now, Steve has always been one for post-battle downtime, but sitting in a half-destroyed restaurant that serves only shawarma—something he’d only just heard of thirty minutes ago—is not his typical idea of R&R.

To be fair, the food is delicious. Sadly, Steve finds it difficult to fully appreciate the burst of flavors across his tongue when he’s too drained to even lift his head up from where it rests against his fist. Not to mention the air conditioning in the place is busted from the battle; Steve, still in his uniform, feels increasingly uncomfortable the longer he stays in the enclosed space of the restaurant, with only the open door and broken windows letting in the slightest breeze that barely soothes him from the stifling summer heat of New York.

He picks up a soggy french fry and swipes it across the puddle of ketchup in front of him. As he lazily munches away, he takes stock of the ragtag team of Avengers gathered around him. Everyone looks just as tired as he feels. On his right, Romanoff and Barton are huddled close together with one of his legs claiming half her chair, each pushing bits of food back and forth to encourage one another to eat. Thor sits on Steve’s other side, sluggish in his movements but steadily packing away the super-sized pita Stark had ordered for him, humming with delight every few bites he takes. Across from Steve, Banner is halfway through his meal, quietly satiating his hunger after all the smashing he had done as the Other Guy.

Stark, despite being the one to suggest the post-battle meal, has hardly touched the food set down in front of him. Steve watches as the man looks around the restaurant, slowly chewing away as if eating is just an afterthought. Their gazes catch, and although Stark looks like he’s ready to fall asleep at any moment, there’s a bright glimmer behind his eyes as he offers Steve a small grin. Before he can reciprocate, Stark has already turned away, nudging Banner and offering the rest of his chicken wrap to his fellow scientist.

An hour later, the table has been cleared and Steve is more than ready to go back to his apartment, wash the soot and grime off his body. The six of them are standing in a circle outside the restaurant, about to say their goodbyes, when Stark speaks up.

“That was fun. We should definitely come back sometime.”

The team had barely talked during the meal. After a short discussion of what was worth trying on the menu, they had quickly descended into an admittedly comfortable silence once the food had arrived. Nonetheless, it hardly ranks in the top ten of Steve’s most enjoyable social gatherings, and that includes all those times when he was still a shrimpy kid tagging along on Bucky’s dates.

Between his description of the early dinner they just shared and his calling the battle a party, Stark sure has some strange standards when it comes to what counts for entertainment these days. Steve really doesn’t have the energy to unpack all of the billionaire’s eccentricities though, so all he can do is reply in kind to what he’s certain is an empty promise on Stark’s part: “Absolutely. Maybe on a day when we’re not all dead on our feet?”

The smile that Stark responds with catches Steve by surprise. It’s blinding, full of hope, and wider than the one that was bestowed upon him while they were eating. Steve thinks, for the first time since they met, he’s finally said the right thing to Tony.