#plus (3) a potentially canon future chapter

[echo-goes-mmm]

Ambrose and Elliot #27

Masterpost

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Warnings: oral dub-con, implied non-con, starvation, violence

Master and his friends had passed out, finally. After hours and hours of drinking and sex and entertainment, they had fallen asleep. 

It was late, but he couldn’t bring himself to rest. He lay on the floor, naked and cold, dried cum sticky on his sore thighs.

He stared up at the ceiling. His throat hurt, angry bruises blossoming over his skin. One of Master’s friends, Mr. Horneswood, had slammed his head against the floor, and it was only now that his vision had quit fading in and out and his nosebleed had stopped.

Master had never let them be so violent with him before. Beatings and getting choked was nothing new, and Master had chastised them for going too far several times. But not today.

He really thought they were going to kill him this time. He’d never passed out from being strangled before, and they had never hit his head until now, much less slamming it into the hard marble floor. Twice.

Hunger rumbled in his stomach.

He turned his head to see the table. It was half covered in near empty bottles and glasses, but there was food at the end.

He licked his lips. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and if everyone was asleep…

He slowly got up, wincing as he went. Master wouldn’t notice if a few rolls went missing. 

Master had put out so much food, and his friends were more interested in getting drunk, so nearly all of of it was untouched.

He ate cheeses and fruit, pastries and rolls, and even dared to sneak some of the delicious roasted duck.

It wasn’t until he was full, sitting next to the table, that he realized.

Master had forgotten his chains.

Usually Master made sure he was in shackles when his friends came to visit, just to be certain he couldn’t get away from their lust.

Not tonight. Tonight he was unrestrained. He hadn’t even noticed until now.

He looked back at Master and his friends. They were still completely passed out, sprawled out on couches and slumped in armchairs.

He could run. There was nothing stopping him.

Nothing, except… what if Master caught him? He would be so angry. Master would beat him to death if he left.

They’ll kill you if you stay, said a tiny part of him. You know they will. You can’t keep doing this.

He bit his lip. Master was all he knew, his everything. It was the only thing he was good at; serving as his slave was his entire purpose. It was what he was made for.

What else could there possibly be?

You are going to die here.

The tiny part was right.

He grabbed his discarded clothes, tugging on the threadbare shirt, boxers, and pants Master had allowed him. 

He stole a cloak off the coat rack and ran out the front door, pulling the hood over his hair.

He ran, and ran, and ran, and his legs hurt and his head pounded but it was better than death and blood and Master.

___________________

He should have stolen some shoes. He limped along, blood from the pads of his feet staining his trail. 

Dawn had come and gone, but he didn’t stop moving. Couldn’t stop moving.

He avoided the roads, instead sticking to the woods. He couldn’t risk being seen yet. Master had horses, and money, and might pay someone to look for him.

It was a hot day. Sweat dripped down his face and soaked his clothes, the salt stinging the cuts on his legs courtesy of the wilderness.

He tripped over a stone early in the night, and torn a toenail clean off, which hurt like hell.

His legs were sore too, knees on fire and thighs chafing from the dried cum and fabric rubbing the skin. 

Maybe it would be worth it to find some water and rest.

___________________

After hours of trekking through the woods, he heard running water. He picked up the pace, jogging towards the sound.

It was a small creek, secluded and quiet. Good.

He stripped off his clothes and waded in. It was freezing cold, goosebumps forming on his skin. He crouched down and drank some of the water, soothing his dusty throat.

He splashed some of the water on his face, wiping away the sweat. He washed off the best he could, and crawled out of the creek. There was a flat rock nearby, and he laid the cloak down on top of it. 

A few hours of rest couldn’t hurt.

___________________

He followed the creek after his nap. It would get to a river eventually, and maybe lead to a town where he could beg for some scraps.

He should have stolen the rest of the food at Master’s house. Idiot.

The creek did get bigger, but instead of bringing him to a river, it ran by a traveler’s campsite. The road must be close.

The campsite had just been used, fresh but cold ashes in the firepit, and fresh horse manure still buzzing with flies.

There were berry bushes nearby (unfortunately inedible ones), and he was struck with a thought.

His white hair was identifiable. No one had white hair, Master said so. Master said he was so pretty with white hair. It was why he was allowed to exist; it made him good enough to live despite being a stupid slave who couldn’t do things right.

Master could find him if his hair was still white.

He pulled off the berries, crushing them in his hands. He slathered his hair with them, staining the white to brown. Much better. He pulled his hood back up and followed the horse tracks to the road.

___________________

The road led to a city, and he kept his head down passing through the gates. The guards didn’t even look at him.

There was a tavern just next to the gates, and the smell of food made him hesitate. It was a busy place, even had some stables attached.

He bit his lip.

He didn’t have any money. He went around the stables, and there was a dumpster out back. He peered into the trash, but he couldn’t see anything he could eat. Damn.

The back door to the tavern opened, and he backed away. Not fast enough, because the tavern owner spotted him immediately.

He scrambled away, but she grabbed him by the arm.

“What’re you doing?” She growled. “You a nasty little thief?” She shook his arm, and he whimpered, shaking his head.

“I- I was just hungry-”

She let go of him and he stumbled backwards into the ground. “‘M sorry! I just wanted to look in your trash!” He started to cry.

“Hmph.” She crossed her arms, staring him down.

“Please don’t call the guard,” he begged, sobbing. “I’ll go away, I swear.”

“I don’t like beggars,” she said. “So come here.”

She was going to hit him, and he deserved it for bothering her. He shakily got to his feet, and limped forward.

“There’s a pile of dishes in the sink. Scrub ‘em.”

“W-what?”

“You scrub the plates,” she pointed at him, “and you get food. That way you ain’t beggin’.”

“Thank you! Tha-”

“Shut up.” She turned and walked inside, and he followed.

There was in fact a sink piled full of dishes, and he got to work scrubbing them clean. The kitchen was hot, but he didn’t dare take off his cloak. He was so hungry he was lightheaded, and the smell of food was torture to the gnawing ache in his belly.

The dishes kept coming, and he ignored the strange looks from the wait staff.

After a few hours, the tavern owner handed him a package wrapped with paper.

“Get out.”

He left without argument, opening the package and eating as he walked.

The sandwich was the best thing he ever tasted.

___________________

The second town he came across, the innkeeper let him sleep in the stables in exchange for scrubbing stains out of sheets. 

The third city tossed him out before he could offer anything, and he stole some apples from an orchard by the road before getting scared off by barking dogs.

He had a bad feeling about this next town. 

The innkeeper was at the counter, and it was not busy at all. It creeped him out. “How many nights?” asked the keeper, a flat tone to his voice as he scribbled in his ledger.

“I, um. I don’t have any money,” he admitted, “but um, is there anything I can do for you?”

The innkeeper slammed the book shut, and he jumped. The innkeeper looked him up and down, leaning back in his chair.

“I’m just hungry,” he said weakly, “do you have any scraps?”

“Nope. Get out.” 

“Please,” he tried again. “I’ll do anything.”

The innkeeper stood up. “I said leave.” He began to shove him outside, and he stumbled, bare heels digging into the wood.

“I’ll blow you,” he blurted, and the innkeeper paused. He held his breath. Why did he offer that?

The innkeeper grabbed him by the arm, dragging him into the back.

The innkeeper tossed him across the room. He swallowed, his mouth going dry. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The innkeeper stalked forward, and he dropped to his knees, tongue lolling out. The innkeeper unbuckled his belt and he knew what to do.

The innkeeper was rough and impatient, and he let the innkeeper fuck into his throat. He just wanted it over. The man grunted, finishing into his mouth, and he was hungry enough to swallow the cum without hesitation.

“Good enough,” said the man, tucking himself back into his pants, and relief flooded him. “Wait here.”

He got a hunk of cheese and a loaf of bread for the trouble.

“Next time offer your ass,” said the innkeeper with a nasty grin, “and maybe I’ll let you sleep the night.”

He scrambled for the door, laughter trailing behind him. There wasn’t going to be a next time.

___________________

There was a next time.

There were several next times, all of which he tried to avoid but couldn’t if he wanted to eat.

He didn’t sleep in the cities anymore, too scared after someone forced themselves on him while he slept exposed in the stables.

That time, the innkeeper was even angry to find him still in the hay the next morning, and had used a horsewhip to punish and chase him out.

He trudged along the road.

Gods, he was so hungry. He felt faint, a chill to his bones despite the sun beating down on him.

He’d been heading north the whole time, and now the cities and towns were few and far between.

The last stop was pleasant, the woman who owned the lodge only asking him to sweep the floor in exchange for a bowl of chicken and rice.

That was a week ago.

The berry bushes along the road were bare now, the birds plucking them empty. He chewed on tree leaves and ate dandelions when he could, but it did little for his stomach.

Please, he prayed to the gods, I know none of you care, but please.

Maybe he should have stayed with Master.

He shook the thought from his head. Anything was better than Master.

Even if it was starving to death in the wilderness.

___________________

The road became thin and rough. It narrowed down to a single cart wide and he wondered if he had walked to the end. But over the horizon was a blurry shape beneath the setting sun, and he dared to hope it was either a village or that he was finally dying and was hallucinating.

He kept walking.

It was a village, with an inn.

He stumbled through the door as nightfall fell.

The tavernkeeper was at the counter, and there was a small crowd in the dining room.

“Please,” he slurred, ready to offer whatever was left of him.

But the tavernkeeper held up a hand to stop him.

“I’ve heard of you,” he said, and his heart sank. Did Master know too? “You’ll do anything for a meal and a bed for the night, right?”

Not necessarily a bed, but he nodded, the effort making his head pound. 

“I want a private conversation with you in the morning,” said the keeper, his expression hard to read. “That’s all. I'll even throw in breakfast afterwards.”

He stared at the tavern keeper.

“Yes, sir,” he rasped. No one had ever offered him breakfast. Was it a trick? Too keep him here longer, so that Master would come and drag him away?

The keeper gestured for him to sit at the bar, and disappeared into the kitchen.

He returned quickly with a bowl of stew and a crust of bread, and, of all things, a mug of warm cider. 

He never had cider before. Master never allowed him to drink.

The tavern keeper told him where his room (a whole room? with a bed? and a lock?) was, and left him alone to eat.

The food was amazing, and he had to stop himself from scarfing it down and making himself sick. He’d made that mistake before, and completely lost his meal. He remembered crying over the vomit.

The bed was just as good as the food, but he couldn’t close his eyes.

What if the innkeeper told Master where he was? How long would it take Master to come for him?

He rolled over in the bed.

Surely the tavernkeeper wanted more than just talking.

If he were smart, he’d sneak out before dawn. But the keeper promised breakfast, and he wasn’t smart.

He couldn’t pass up two meals in a row. It was too tempting.

He thought about the mysterious generosity of the cider, and the sweet taste of the apples used to make it.

This could be his last night alive before he died by his Master’s hands.

He cried himself into a fitful sleep.

taglist: @cupcakes-and-pain @secretwhumplair @paintedpigeon1 @whump-blog @whump-em @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @starfields08000 @littlespacecastle @mylovelyme @whump-cravings @zeewbee @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @keepingwhumpwiththekardashians @fanastyfinder @roblingoblin285 @whumpzone @snakebites-and-ink @astrokea @magdalena-writes @latenightcupsofcoffee @tobiaslut @whumpsoda @loserwithsyle

[astaroth1357]

We Gotta Talk About Barbatos (And Kinda Solomon But This Ain't About Him)

SPOILERS for up to Chapter 16 of NB

These recent chapters have been giving us breadcrumbs about the pasts of both Barbatos and Solomon, the two of which seem to be deeply entwined. I have yet to make a post about Solomon's past (which gets twistier and twistier by the minute btw), but right now I just want to touch on my questions about Barbatos and... well. The hell is he up to?? I have one question that has been eating away at me the longer NB goes on and I think its answer could solve everything:

Is there only one Barbatos?

What I mean by this question is something along the lines of my Timeless!Barbatos idea from a while ago. Is there only Barbatos, i.e. is Barbatos a being that exists outside of the constraints of time? Is he like the controller/arbiter of time, but not subject to things like continuity himself? When he exists in a certain timeline, is that mirrored through every other timeline (i.e. multiple Barbatos that are spread throughout multiple branches) or is there ever only ONE. Just him. And he selects which timeline to inhabit?

I have this question because there are things about the Barbatos we interact with and hints dropped by others that Barbatos is, potentially, far, far older and far more powerful than I think we can actually grasp.

Thirteen's last point is the one that really makes me wonder, because if Barbatos really has such a broad ability to transcend time and space, then it would be a bit of a nightmare if there were a billion of him running around. Any random change makes a new timeline that makes a new Barbatos with those same godlike abilities until you're completely swamped in the man. Plus, Barbatos never gives us any indication that he speaks to or witnesses his past or future selves, even when he's manipulating things from sidelines...

If there is only one Barbatos, then 1. Little Dia managed to convince, like, the singularly most powerful being in the universe to play House with him, which is such a power move. And 2. That also means any interactions we have with Barbatos in this (or any) timeline cannot be replicated elsewhere. No matter how funky our time adventures get, that Barbatos remains a constant. Thus, NB Barbatos IS OM Barbatos. Probably just hijacked by Solomon to go to past. A past he was no longer present in, because he exists in a continuous state of "present" (his presence is instantly erased from past and he doesn't appear in the future).

And for a being THAT powerful, you really have to wonder...

How much has he changed...?

In Chapter 16, we learn why Beel went berserk and destroyed the Castle. He was triggered by Lucifer explaining a banshee's scream. In OM canon, two kinds of people can hear these screams: those who will die or have a loved one who will die soon and those who have heard it before.

Beel heard a banshee scream in the human world before the War and internalized it as the warning that Lilith was going to die. Naturally, he thinks that if he had told Lucifer then he may have changed his mind but Satan drops this bombshell on us.

A baneshee's warning is supposed to predetermine time. According to Satan, Lilith was alway going to die. But we have a problem here...

Lilith just. Is not dead. Like. Canonically in both the OG title and in NB, Lilith survives the War. So... what gives??

Beel can hear a banshee scream and nobody else can. There's no question that someone was supposed to die. Which only leaves three options:

1. Lilith is dead. Even as a human, she perished.

2. Lilith was never made human... Someone lied to Lucifer and she's actually dead.

3. Barbatos fucked with time to save Lilith.

Option 1 would be pretty lackluster, all things considered. Though it would be a little darkly humorous if Lilith fought and survived in a Celestial War, then got hit by a car one year later or something.

Option 2 would be... so fucked up. But could also shed some light onto Diavolo's guilt about taking in the brothers. Like, imagine if he knew that nothing could be done for Lilith and still tricked Lucifer into eternal service anyway knowing that he could never check his bluff. That would be downright diabolical... and out of character, so I don't think that's the case. (Though, I could see Barbatos lying about it if it gave Diavolo Lucifer's loyalty in the end.)

But Option 3... I think that's actually spine-chilling. Imagine if Diavolo ordered Barbatos to find some way to twist time to save Lilith. And not just spare her life, but to somehow turn her human. That means that we're already playing the events of an altered timeline.

Now combine this idea with our Singular Barbatos theory. If there is one Barbatos, then this is the only timeline where he currently resides. If Barbatos wasn't in THIS timeline, Lilith would be dead. In every other timeline, Lilith is dead. And if OM keeps the detail about MC's lineage, then MC NEVER GETS TO EXIST. They can only be alive in THIS BRANCH OF TIME. There are no other MCs. Just the one (and the corpse that got phased out of being, but we don't talk about them). And this could explain why MC's very existence would be so important to a time-travel being like Nightbringer. There's only one MC to use.

Now, since MC is so powerful (possibly as being that is an aberration in time) it makes me wonder a whole lot more about where someone as powerful Solomon actually came from... How much meddling as Barbatos really done here? If... it was even Barbatos at all. 👀 (Speculation for another day)

[winterrrnight]

rant + potential renewal of new beginnings

hello <3 so, something has been bothering me a bit for the past few days now, and I need to let it out. (more below the cut!)

I have seen people express their concern here regarding Rafe being written “wrong”, that is when he’s way too much of a softie, a romantic, etc etc. That really struck a chord in me because if you’ve read any of my content, you’d know I write a lot of soft!rafe/fanon!rafe. And even though no one has ever said to me directly that I’m writing Rafe “wrong”; when I read the post, it really hit me for some reason.

I totally understand if that isn’t your cup of tea. That’s okay. I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that I do write Rafe very differently from how he is shown canonically. But, I unfortunately don’t have an explanation as to why I do it (and now that I think about it, I don’t essentially owe one either). To add, there are so many authors for Rafe on here, so you can engage with all sorts of Rafe content; fluff, smut, dark!rafe, etc etc. I don’t read or write dark, nsfw content because it’s just not me.

I’ve been writing for months now, and never did I ever stop and question my writing the way I’m doing right now. Which leads me to really doubt everything I’ve ever written – even though the said post was never ever directed to me, it was a public announcement, it still felt like such a personal jab. (I am not even mutuals with the one who made this post, so honestly I don’t even know why it is affecting me so much).

I guess this is why my requests plus really old 300 followers celly requests are piling up, and I’m really really sorry for that. It’s a weird slump I’ve hit, and honestly I am not able to make my way out of it.

I was attempting to work on future chapters for New Beginnings, but failed miserably because I realized how fanon that Rafe is. And even though I have had so much love on New Beginnings so far (which I so so highly appreciate), it just isn’t sitting right with me right now, and I can’t find myself with any motivation to work on it. I also fear that the more the story ascends, I will lose engagement.

So, at the moment, I am not taking the story down or anything!! It is right there, but here is what can potentially happen:

-> I may never resume it, and have its three chapters up on my blog just like that.

-> I may take it down, renew it, and post a better version of it, one that suffices me.

-> I take it down (which, let me add, has minimal to no chance of happening because I don’t want to make any spur of the moment decisions).

The trope of the story has my whole heart, I just think I can take a better approach. So the chances of the second one happening are really high at the moment.

Thank you so much for reading, thank you so much for understanding <3 writing means the whole world to me so I wish for nothing but to escape this horrible slump :(

I hope you all are doing okay, please keep on taking care of yourself, drink water, eat some food, and just enjoy living 🤍🎀

Signal boost to spread within my moots (who are the literal reason I live and breathe 🥹 + people who have been so supportive of new beginnings it is crazyyyy): @runningfrom2am @maybankslover @totalswag @chenslucy @wallsdreams @sadfury @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @rafeinterlude @congratsloserr @bejeweledreverie @tortured-poets-depxrtment

(no pressure to interact!)

[dragonagitator]

Like House MD, time travel, radical canon divergence, and author-self-insert isekai fanfics? Beta readers wanted!

Welp it seems the brainrot I contracted from @acrownforaking is compelling me to write my own House MD isekai fanfic featuring an author-self-insert who unexpectedly reality shifts / time travels from January 2024 in our universe to January 2004 in the Houseverse, then immediately decides to seize this opportunity to unfuck the shitshow that is Greg House's life while simultaneously rewriting 20 years of history with nothing but her shitty memory and her hubris to guide her.

Unfortunately, while I've spent the past 30+ years reading 100+ million words of fanfic in various fandoms, my only previous experience in writing fanfic has consisted of starting and then abandoning a few Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate 3 fics. I wrote thousands of words, but I wrote the scenes out of order as the ideas came to me. I never published even a single chapter of those fics on AO3 because my writing process failed to produce a coherent Chapter 1 before getting hopelessly bogged down in obsessively researching the lore of the games' settings.

I've learned from my mistakes and this time I'm going to force myself to write my story in chronological order so I can begin publishing chapters while it's still a WIP. I've heard that those sweet sweet dopamine hits from AO3's email notifications can be a great incentive to keep writing. Plus the Houseverse being nearly identical to our own universe means there's very little setting-specific lore for me to research.

I'm seeking beta readers both for the usual reasons (motivation, accountability, and general writing feedback) and to help me untangle the messes I'll be making every time my OC uses her foreknowledge to force a radical deviation from show canon and/or IRL recent history. So, if you're the sort of person who enjoys pointing out a plan's fatal flaws or rooting out logical inconsistencies, then oh boy would I love for you to rip my drafts apart. Make both my OC and me cry. Please.

Warning: This fic will be dark. The source material is already pretty fucking dark -- House MD canon includes all four of the major archive warnings -- and my story will likely include even more potential triggers than in canon because one of the major themes will be how quickly things can spiral horribly out of control when you think you can predict the future.

So, if you have any triggers that you avoid reading about for the sake of your mental health, you probably shouldn't volunteer to beta read my fic because I won't be working on the trigger warnings until the final polishing for publication. It would be safer to wait until I've posted on AO3 to read it because I plan to break the chapters up so that triggering content is quarantined in its own separate chapters that can be briefly summarized and skipped.

Please let me know if you're interested in beta reading chapters before they're published on AO3. Any level of involvement welcome -- I am fully aware that most people don't have the time or interest to volunteer as a copyeditor or developmental editor! Quick feedback like "he would not fucking say that" or "yo there's a giant plot hole over here" would be super helpful to me too. Thanks in advance!

[20dimensionsoftangerine]

20 D20 Fanfics

My friend @remidyal ranked their fics once they had written 20 of them. I have just finished my 20th story so I’d figure I would do that too! Dice rules so 1 is the worst and 20 is the best

1. Drowning in the Ink

I had the thought ‘what if Rosamund and Gerard got caught when they went to find Elody’. I still think this is a good thought and want to re-explore it but my execution in this story wasn’t the best. Writing it before the finale was out meant I was working with half knowledge on a lot of characters that I think shows. Plus, I saw a lot of people on Tumblr saying the Princesses’ plan was actually good and I got annoyed at that and it definitely bled through in the story too much. I’ll probably redo and expand this one sometime in the future!

2. Old Habits

I often dislike my most recent creations. It’s got too much me on it still. I haven’t distanced myself from the art yet. So this one was me trying a few things outside of my comfort zone and I really don’t feel like any of them turned out as well as they could have. I can barely even speak of it at this point the emotions are too fresh!

3. Safety

Not much to say about this. Shortest thing I’ve ever written and I do like how it turned out but it’s definitely… short. I enjoy Gorgug and Adaine interacting, I enjoy Adaine scared, but nothing makes this little guy stand out.

4. Half Siblings are a Whole Deal

This one honestly isn’t even supposed to be good. It’s a direct retelling of canon featuring my OC, that premise isn’t going to win any Hugo awards! But it’s fun and I want to explore how Fig’s character would change if she wasn’t going through her family drama alone. If she had to be, heaven forbid, responsible. I do plan on continuing it! I’ve got some good ideas for the end that I’ve already set up.

5. Additions to the Beehive

I think this one is so low just because I didn’t really like the latest chapter I put out. Plus, I don’t really have a solid plan for this story. I have a few scenes I want to do, character beats and themes I want to flesh out, but exactly what’s going to happen is a mystery. The title’s really solid though.

6. Blight

Pains me to put this so low because Remidyal’s Poison series is so solid and Penelope Everpetal is so fun but I kinda stumbled through it. There’s a couple sections I straight up should have deleted and a couple more I should have added. I do think I got the right vibe down, though, and I really want to do more with Penelope in the future.

7. Sneaking In Sneaking Out

I’m going to be honest, I just wanted to write some scenes about sneaking into buildings. It was really fun and I felt clever writing it. I also liked making Aelwyn really really mean especially because Remidyal had posted Camp right before where she was pretty darn nice. Not much happening in this story but it was fun!

8. No Blood Relations

I dunno this one is fine. As stated before, exploring Fig having to go through her parents divorce with someone is very compelling. I also liked pitting Adaine and Fig against each other a little bit, it felt very real to how siblings of divorce act. Too real. I’m kind of blocking it out.

9. Tender Love and Care

I liked this one a lot. It’s supposed to be romance but I don’t think I really it comes through (because I’m bad with romance) but I really liked getting into a desperate Fabian’s head. I think I did well with the physical environment in this one too, something I usually struggle with. And the line at the end of Fabian’s section? Where it says ‘he prayed to the only god he ever believed in. “Kristen please.”’. I know I’m the one who wrote it but I think about it daily.

10. Ring a Bell

Right in the middle! I really like the chapters I have out for this one so far and I’m excited for the plan of where I’m taking it. Only time will tell if I can pull it off into being a good cohesive story but for now this bad boy has potential!

11. Please Wake Up, Please Don’t Sleep

My other Neverafter Fic! This one I am much more proud of. I think I really got the voices of all the characters down and managed to make an interesting little scene out of a relatively simple concept. Rosumand is just a teenager! Someone give her a hug I am begging.

12. For Want of Citizenship

I think this story is severely underrated honestly. I got Goldenhoard’s voice down pat and the pacing of the story flowed really well with nice details that I often forget to include to center the reader. Plus, it’s a ‘what if’ scenario that gnawed at me from the moment the pieces were in place and I was sad nothing ever came of it in canon. Patched a hole in my mind this story did.

13. Horrified Looks from Everyone in the Room

Ah, the story to start us off. My second highest kudos still. Which is wild. It’s a good fic for sure! I think Fabian’s and Riz’s sections both shone and it really started off my addiction of giving Adaine a Bad Time. Definitely things I would change about it if I had to do it again but overall I can see why it’s still so popular and I’m very proud of it!

14. Rule Number One

The other story to kick things off! Can’t believe the prompt ‘Riz lets Biz think they’re friends just a little longer’ started a whole expanded AU. I still think this one’s great! Sticking in Riz’s point of view so the reader couldn’t even tell Adaine was having a whole episode until she started sobbing mid sentence was wonderful. Riz’s guilt and justifications were so juicy. And! Everyone liked my weird Rule quirk I gave to Adaine which I had fun playing with. This one isn’t higher because I think some of the information about the changes in this AU could have been given out in a smoother way but overall one of my best.

15. Fabian’s Sister and Other Perks of Punching an Ambassador

Firstly, name’s bad. My worst titled fic. But it’d okay we love it anyway. I very much like what I’ve got going on with this story. Exploring Fabian and Adaine’s relationship in a unique light, fleshing out Bill and especially Hallariel, even fleshing out some of Fabian and Adaine’s insecurities! I’m nearing sort of the end of the fic (I’m at least half way through) and I’m excited where it’s going too! There are some things I wish I had spent more time on (the other bad kids, Cathilda, ect) but what I do have is solid and streamlined enough for me not to be too sad about that!

16. The Good Wizard Gorgug

My. Most. Underrated. Fic! This is such a solid story I adore it. Gorgug is my baby boy and it was so much fun exploring Adaine’s character through him. The steady climb of them becoming better and better friends, growing more confident and relaxed around each other, only for it to all come crashing down to be slowly built up once again. I love it! I love Wizard Gorgug! What a good good boy.

17. Babysitting a (High) Elf

This one was also fairly recent but I really liked how it turned out! There were things I wanted to explore with this, Gorthalax’s guilt about not being there for Fig all these years, Adaine’s complicated emotions about being abandoned, and I felt I pulled it off well. I also think I did a good job making it funny and writing high Adaine as silly while still noticeably herself. Until I sucker punched her at the end. I couldn’t resist though.

18. Mastermind Introductions

Everything I set out to do in this fic I did flawlessly. I wanted to rewrite Adaine’s introduction scene and hit a lot of the same ‘beats’ but with the special AU twist. Aelwyn and her fight in the beginning (where Adaine kind of started it and then very much failed to end it), stealing the book and then being embarrassed by Fig and Kristen’s help, stuff like that! I really felt like I pulled it off and introduced the other Bad Kids just as well as I did Adaine. If I would change anything it would just to tweak a few details to fit better in my new vision for the overall AU. But besides that it’s a flawless work!

19. The Young Oracle

Yes! I was really worried about this one because of all of the weird time jumps. But I couldn’t not have weird time jumps. It was a story about a very powerful diviner! It couldn’t have time be linear! And I think it wouldn’t have made sense if everything had been in order, funnily enough. But besides all that I really like the tone I set for the story, the details I put into the world, (how I managed it without ever watching SY), and I have been thinking about the expanded version of this AU excessively. Is it a perfect story? Nah, but I adore it perhaps the most of all my fics.

20. Property Of

In a move that caught even me by surprise, Property Of wins! It’s my first muti-chapter I’ve finished, it’s got a really solid character arc, and I feel like I let the tone slip from silly to wild and unnerving in a very smooth slide. Plus I just… had a lot of fun writing it. I couldn’t seem to put it down for a second and when I blinked I was over 10k words! It was supposed to be a one shot! How naive I was! So yeah, I’m proud of it, it was fun to write, and it’s fun to reread and think about the implications. Nat 20!

[sowthetide]

I devoured this story and almost immediately started rereading it, so I thought that I should thank you for my favorite parts.

1) Fleshing out the Iron Islands! It is so, so boring when Theon has to choose between his noble foster home and his horrible natural family. Getting to see the Ironborn not so much for their good points as their reality has been a delight.

2) Quen! I love her. She is very much Theon, just with different opportunities. I find that the fandom tends to underrate Theon's strengths, which is understandable given his crash-and-burn storyline and because the show really makes him the butt of the joke, but I find it easy to understand why Robb is in love with her in your story.

3) On that note, their relationship is really wonderful. They are very convincing best friend; they know each other probably best in the world and they just enjoy each other so much. But the love story isn't too saccharine, as both of them (yes, including Robb) hurt each other sometimes, on purpose and by accident.

I also enjoy how the way they treat each other romantically is so different from their rapport with everyone else. Quen will check out anyone hot and fun, but her love for Robb only turns romantic over the course of the main storyline (for the best, given the age difference; no need to take after Unvle Euron). Robb is saving himself for marriage, but he has probably been marinating in hormones and yearning since he was twelve. And the poor boy has no one to talk to about it, while the love of his life is merrily taking randoms to bed (unless...Jon? We haven't seen much of him in this story, because Quen doesn't care, but did tweenage Jon notice Robb looking at Quen's legs?).

4) The potential in-law dynamics! You develop Quen's relationships with her family so much that it actually startled me to realize that Robb hasn't met any of them. Frankly, it is his turn to suffer. Quen has been living with Catelyn for a long time already. I am extremely eager to see him Asha, but Dagmar even more so. That's basically his wife's dad, but does Robb know that? And once they are all living together, he is short of a father now. Dagmar is so different from Ned, who is really *the* model of a man and a father for Robb, that their interactions have to be interesting. Plus, your story has really made Alannys a real woman, that I really look forward to having her bounce off new people. Like I said, it's Robb's turn to be uncomfortable with his mother-in-law!

In short: fantastic, I love it, thank you for continuing!

You're so incredibly kind ❤️ I'm glad you've enjoyed this story!!

#1: I LOVED getting to flesh out the Iron Islands. I have a similar dislike of "Starks = good, Greyjoys = bad" Theon stories, where Theon would never have been accepted on the Iron Islands or had a good life, which is just ridiculous. I think it's a lot more interesting if Quen had the option for a happy on the isles, either with Alannys at Ten Towers, or as Lady of Hammerhorn with Greydon Goodbrother. That way, it's a hard decision that she has to make, and it ends up being a bizarre combination of "selfish/selfless" ("selfish" for the impact her northern ambitions/loyalties will have on her mother, "selfless" for the personal sacrifice she's making to secure a better future for the ironborn).

I've really tried to be fair to the ironborn, as GRRM's writing of them left a lot to be desired IMO (basically vikings, except with all of their interesting, non-violent cultural aspects stripped away). We get to see some of the northern lords' individual personalities, but the ironborn lords in canon just seem to go along with whatever Balon/Euron decides, which is, quite honestly, lame. So it was a ton of fun to explore a bunch of different ironborn characters and locations.

To me, the ironborn are not uniquely evil/brutal, but chapter 38 will make it clear that they're definitely not nice, either. In the same way, I'm trying to avoid portraying the north as straightforwardly "The Good Guys". I think the Starks as individuals are well-meaning, but war always means devastation and I don't think the smallfolk who have been brutalized give two shits about getting justice for some random northern guy that got beheaded (sorry Ned).

#2: I love her too ❤️ I really tried to keep as many elements of Theon's core personality as possible, whilst also balancing the inherently transformative nature of genderbending. Being born a different sex in a world like Westeros changes so much about that character's experiences that I really had to reflect on who Theon would be within the experience/expectations of manhood.

Fandom also really does underrate Theon's strengths (which is, as you say, veryyy understandable given his complete flop of a storyline in ACOK). But he does have strengths! Like Theon, Quen is (somewhat) clever, ingratiating, funny, bold, inventive, ambitious, etc. I can't remember who described Theon as "hungry to live", but I think that's the perfect description of him/Quen as we see them starting in AGOT.

#3: Anything with Robb & Quen were always some of my favorite scenes to write. It was important to me that they be friends first, and that Robb really had his own arc where he came to understand the power imbalances at play in their relationship. There's such an ease and a comfortability to their relationship that they both desperately need(ed), and that will return in the late-game of this fic.

I also thought it was important to portray Robb as someone who has significant and noticeable flaws. Quen's flaws are pretty apparent (to say the least), but Robb also has a tendency to lash out, to take loyalties/forgiveness for granted, to bottle up his feelings, to disappear into his responsibilities to avoid difficult emotions/circumstances (as we'll see in chapter 39).

For Quen, sexual feelings are easy and of no consequence. Romantic feelings (specifically for Robb) on the other hand... well... Let's just say that Robb has had some ten years to come to terms with his feelings, but it's still very new to Quen. She went down the Romantic -> Sexual -> Oh Fuck I'm In Love With Him pipeline at break-neck speeds.

Unfortunately, I'll have to keep my silence on Jon (as he will have a Part To Play), just know that we'll see more of him later on ;-)

#4: TeaInABowl has me FERAL about the potential of a Greyjoy-Harlaw-Stark family sit-down. I don't wanna spoil things, but there will be some intersection of Quen's northern and ironborn relationships in chapter 40, just not in a particularly fun context (but it's not as ominous as I'm making it sound). There will probably also be a real ironborn-northman sitdown later on, and I'm sooo excited about it.

Alannys hates Robb's ass for real (and I imagine her and Catelyn get along like oil and water too), but I think Asha and Robb would at least be united in Wanting Quen To Be Happy. Asha's not necessarily happy about it herself, but she'll have to make her peace with it. Again, I don't wanna spoil, but I imagine Dagmer as joining Quen's household at Winterfell in the eventual happy ending. That's her dad!!! And, like Asha, I think he would have a lot of guilt/anger for leaving Quen alone at Winterfell in the first place.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a wonderful ask!!! Chapters 38 and 39 are done (pending beta-ing, yippee!), and I'll be cranking out the rough drafts for chapters 40 and 41 over the next two weeks. All goes well, I should be back March 10th with at least 4 weeks of chapters for y'all!

[blue-is-a-sapphic-color]

For the ask game, maybe 14, 17, 25?

Hi!! Thanks for the ask, and thank you for creating such an awesome ask game <3

14. What’s your favourite c!Dream line of dialogue?

Suddenly I don't remember a single c!Dream line of dialogue- uHH probably when he's taunting c!Tommy right after the prison escape. ICONIC. people who hadn't stream hopped were completely caught off guard by a fully decked out c!Dream popping up out of nowhere. Also props to cc!Dream for his insane positioning and timing like DAMN.

Also whenever he's begging, whining, or pleading...! especially when it involves c!Sam. The scene after he hides beneath the prison floor and c!Sam loses his mind and he manages to convince c!Sam to not tell c!Quackity is Insane.

17. What are some of your favourite c!Dream fics?

The fics on this list aren't going to be... recent/current? I haven't read dream smp stuff (that isn't @sunshine-in-a-bottle's writing) in a Good While. So for example @simplepotatofarmer's rabbit run isn't on it because I just haven't read it yet! (Even though I've only heard good things and it's been on my to read list for forever...)

Now for the fics:

for queen and country by @cgogs

It's technically not canon!Dream, it's an AU, but it is based on dream smp lore so it counts for me.

OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY I SPENT LIKE THREE PLUS MONTHS THINKING ABOUT THIS FIC AFTER I READ IT AND I STILL THINK ABOUT IT SOMETIMES. the fic was discontinued, but I genuinely think chapter six works perfectly well as an open ending!

Medieval fantasy Royalty AU, angsty c!DNF with hopeful and/or bittersweet vibes, amazing and creative writing, and the literal first time Briar appeared in a fic? SURELY A MUST READ.

Oxeye Daisy by @cgogs

It needs no introduction, it's a c!DNF classic. But if you haven't heard about this fic...! Well now you have! Go read it!

We have since lost Angela to c!awesamdream-isms (<< literally has c!awesamdream demons myself) but I still remember the c!DNF era <3

martyr wrapped in butcher paper by @aetherknit

god!Dream/king!George spanning the dethronement era. And it has fanart..... (if you've never checked this one out you really should, it's a short one-shot!)

encore by Anonymous (the author has since either changed their name, privated or deleted their account)

A near-future c!Drunz one-shot with worldbuilding with some great vibes. Featuring accidental alien!kid!Purpled acquisition, hurt but healing c!Dream, and not perfect but still caring and domestic c!Drunz.

a second change from beyond the grave by Lieyantosh

The egg kills the server and everyone in it, but everyone gets reincarnated into the modern world with their memories. Except Dream doesn't remember.

Does this fic suffer greatly from being written before the staged finale was revealed? Yes. Is c!Tommy the main pov? Yes. But is chapter five a masterpiece, written from c!Dream's pov, and made me stay up until 3am? Also yes !!!

25. If c!Dream had to join an existing/former DSMP country or faction, which one would you choose for him?

Either the Syndicate or the Eggpire. Opposite vibes, I know, but both have tons of potential for him individually, and for great interactions with the members.

Syndicate AUs are pretty popular and always a banger, but c!Drunz together during the height of the Eggpire? They would've been unstoppable (and full of trauma <333).

[lilflowerpot]

Meant to be only four chapters long?? What the hell was the original plan and what happened to it?

H E A R  M E  O U T

I was,,,,,, admittedly procrastinating my uni deadlines, and s4 had just aired, and I was like "hey, you know what would be infinitely more fun than this academic bs that highkey impacts my future?? Writing a "what if" for s5 because half-galra prince Lotor has just saved half-galra paladin Keith's life!! So I've got to get in there quickly and imagine my own first meeting before they inevitably meet in canon!" and like,,, my naïve belief in the voltron writers deliberate paralleling of these two perfect narrative foils aside,,, I thought it would be a simple matter of:

Ch.1 - Lotor arrives on the Castle of Lions; Keith realises Zarkon's son is a hybrid like him, and Lotor mistakes the littlest blade for a galra child.

Ch.2 - Keith is Suspicious™ and guards Lotor like his life depends on it while also adamantly repressing Naxzela, meanwhile Lotor attempts to befriend the baby blade and entice him over to his side, (including the knife-theft and fallout thereof).

Ch.3 - Keith & Lotor grow closer, bonding through their galra heritage, only for Keith to accidentally-on-purpose reveal that he is //not// a galra child *gasp* but in fact both the former red paladin AND *double gasp* a galra hybrid like Lotor!!

Ch.4 - Keith & Lotor are still dancing around each other when the truth of Naxzela comes to light. There are many complicated reactions from the paladins as a group, but Lotor is the one to truly understand the //why// of Keith's actions and not condemn him for them (even if said condemnation by team voltron is coming from a place of love and concern) because "victory or death" is ofc the galra way, and the nobility of Keith's near-sacrifice plus Lotor's admission that he is glad to have arrived in time to stop such a thing brings them together in a moment of desperation, loneliness, and raw attraction.

So as you can see, it was never meant to be anything //close// to the slowburn monstrosity it has surely become, and the conclusion was intended more as one of open-ended ~potential~ than a conclusive “relationship”.

[spacefrogfrog]

I wonder if in future chapters we're gonna see Jockington and Catti in the dark world with us? Like as with Berdly and Noelle they have face sprites when talking so they've definitely got potential as being important to future chapters. Plus, while I know it wasn't canon, there was a ton of sports being mentioned in the Spamton sweepstakes.

Honestly, if I had a single idea on HOW he'd be there to begin with, I'd almost theorize Jockington (and therefore Catti bc they're like a unit) would be in chapter 3 as with some thought, it feels like he fits? While not much is known about him, the fact that there's memorabilia of him kinda suggests he's some sort of local celebrity and combined with how the upcoming chapter is based off of the TV.... well, where else would a celebrity be but on the big screen?

[lady-eny]

Title: On the Nature of Duty (5/?)

Cross-posting on: AO3

Some tags: AU - Spies & Secret Agents, Enemies to Lovers, Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Mikenana, Minor Zekehan, Minor Character Death, Reincarnation

Summary:

When Levi, Eldia’s best agent, is sent to kill the marleyan star analyst Hange Zoe, he doesn’t expect what awaits him.

Forced to team up with his enemies to save the world, he soon starts losing sight of his duty. Despite reminding himself how much he hates her, being around Hange makes him question everything he thought was true.

Levi can’t prevent his brain from scrambling at her mere presence, ever closer…

Perhaps it’s that he knows her from a long time ago…

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 6 7  8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Notes: Thank you so much for reading! Let me know your thoughts✨

Chapter 5

“I don’t want it,” he said, an uncomfortable heat creeping up his neck.

“Should I throw it away, then?”

Coolly, he unwrapped her gift. Upon identifying the content of the box, he couldn’t contain a smile from growing in his face. Now he had enough top-tier tea for a couple of months...

“Do you like it that much?” Her round eyes met his, eager for a response.

“Yeah,” he astonished himself by saying… something in her gaze drew the answer from him.

She barked a laugh. “Maybe on your next birthday you’ll get more...”

“NO. Don’t even think about it—nor about another party…”

D-9

Hange gets into the hotel room and her mouth falls open. His reaction, though more discrete, doesn’t land far from hers.

Before them, twin beds rest against a gray concrete wall, separated by a black bedside table. After recovering from the impression, and as with the last room, Hange takes the place farthest from the door, some intriguing choice that Levi doesn’t grasp—he invariably chooses whichever is closer to an escape route. Albeit unlike him, she’s supposedly a genius. Should he begin picking up the other one?

Levi places his bag on the vacant bed, stepping over the fluffy gray rug under it. Off the small rug, the floor alternates between black and white tiles. He catches sight of a lounge chair with a floor lamp towering it in a corner, which provides a much-needed light to the whole room, taking into account the dim ceiling one. Nothing out of the ordinary to justify Hange’s initial reaction so far—but for the walls.

Or lack thereof.

Aside from the wall behind the beds, the one they entered through, and a compact space with the bathroom in front of Levi, the others are made of glass, including the ceiling. The night darkness filters in from them, yet doesn’t overwhelm, since the skyscrapers’ gleam projects inward, the blue and purple and pink of the advertisements painting the furniture.

“They’re trying to compensate us for the explosion,” he guesses out loud. He unzips his bag and grabs his phone. To make us forget about our almost past death and potential future one.

Hange takes off her shoes and tosses them, each one far from the other. “They don’t want us to quit,” she agrees. Studies the sky past the glass ceiling, nibbling her lip. “Do you think it’s going to… rain?”

If it rains, it’s prone to be an experience. Distracted by his phone, he shrugs without looking up and sits down on his bed—on the closest edge to the exit as it’s his costume, which this time around carries the plus of being the farthest one from her. He can sense her eyes on him, awareness in the form of flames blazing his side. Uncomfortableness.

His time off in missions tends to consist of him falling death of tiredness on his selected rest space, which somethings is a bed but most likely not. He’d be beyond pleased with this soft and padded bed, being in whatever other mission—alone.  

He strives to absorb himself into his bright phone screen and exclude his surroundings. Yet, soon the engulfing emptiness becomes hollow, a painful beating bothering his temples. He repositions himself. No posture manages to relieve the stiffness of his back or cover him from the frigid environment.

“Any news on The Ripper?” Hange questions, shredding the consuming silence that compressed him.

Levi’s thoughts stagger to business. He inwardly growls and looks up, if only to express his disgust at being reminded of the aforementioned person. The Ripper, the absurd name tastes sour in his mouth. Such a monster deserves them to kill him, not to be sought for a conversation. He repels meeting that man once more, and even less if Hange tags along. Just the memory of the dozens of times in which The Ripper has slipped through his fingers grinds his teeth.

“No. But I will,” Levi replies. His informants shouldn’t take longer to find out a way to contact him. And when they do…

“Great.” Hange disappears in the bathroom.

He’s tempted to keep checking social media, but the more he does, the more his unceasing headache intensifies. Everyone is demanding answers, ones he should have but doesn’t. He can’t do much until they meet The Ripper or someone figures out something else. Unable to ideate what else to do, he types, crafting a report for Erwin. He already notified him of Moblit’s and Arlert’s death, but the paperwork is, tediously, always a request.

Hange exits the bathroom, jumps to her bed, and lands on her belly. “Let’s rest for a few hours and get back to work…”

Her tucking herself in bed provokes a scowl on his face. His glare bounces from her to her shoes scattered on the floor, and then to her bag in the middle of the rug.

“Hey, four eyes, won’t you take a shower? Change your clothes, at the very least?”

Her answer is a barely-contained yawn before wrapping herself in a blanket. Soon enough she lies motionless, asleep with her glasses all twisted over her face. Levi snorts, bewildered. How is she able to rest peacefully when he’s in the room? Isn’t she scared that he’ll attack her? Does he look harmless, or something?

“Tch.” Levi grasps her glasses and places them on the bedside table. Glances at his phone screen. He should complete and send it to Erwin… which he can do in a few minutes. He lays down on his bed merely to stretch out his limbs and ease their aching tension, but the second his head meets the pillow, a dark weight falls over him…

Levi paced around the room, the antiseptic smell of the Medical Wing carrying only anguish-loaded flashbacks to his heart. Why did they have to come back here so constantly?

And why was he always the one left behind, waiting for a diagnosis?

The doctor came out shaking his head. “It can’t be healed. The eye is too damaged for any recovery.”

Acting nonchalant, he nodded, but when the man left, his body fell limp in a chair. After everything they’d just lost, this should have been unimportant, but… He recalled those precious hazel eyes, their profundity, their openness. Suddenly, half of them were unceremoniously gone.

He could never stay still when she was about to get hurt, yet somehow, he was also never around or in time when it mattered the most.

“You can come in,” a nurse informed him.

Inside, Hange was sitting on a tall bed, legs swinging. Something in the sight of his friend, of knowing how she’d survived relatively unharmed, kept warming his chest with relief.

She hopped off the bed and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in its crook. Her hot breathing tickled his skin, her ambrosial scent enveloping him.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Hange muttered, as she’d been repeatedly doing at the most unexpected times. She was being honest. He could feel it in the way she clung to him, as if not yet believing he was here, corporeal and breathing. A massive part of him wanted to wrap his arms around her, too—but it would’ve been awkward to no end. His arms hung still at his sides until she backed off and huffed, “I told you it doesn’t have a remedy.”

Of course she had been right, she rarely wasn’t. Still, even when they hadn’t talked much ever since the Survey Corps returned as nine instead of hundreds, the short seconds he’d been in her presence had been spent insisting that she visit a doctor to get a second opinion.

He’d been an idiot for holding the littlest speck of hope.

“How are you?” Levi stirred. He rarely asked that sort of question.

She jerked a shoulder and blinked many times, like overwhelmed by something. The bandages over her eye made it easier to forget that, below them, there was a fraction of her that would never heal.

“Fine. It doesn’t matter. An eye is a low price to pay for being alive.” She squared her shoulders. “I… should be going. Have a meeting with Zackly.”

Pride overtook him, tinted with an ever-present admiration. Hange was truly amazing—always looking forward, no matter the waves of pain that kept crashing at her. Whenever she put her head on something, she achieved everything and anything she wanted.

Her determination was at a whole new level, reason why he was convinced she’d be an excellent Commander, even when he wouldn’t have wanted to put that role on her shoulders. Sometimes, he wondered if she resented him for—

A roar deafens his ears and cracks his eye open. Startled, Levi jolts up and looks around, mind struggling through the maze in his head.

What was that? Where am I? What did just happen? Hange… He thumbs his eyelids and the maze gradually dissipates.

Did he dream… something? What, exactly? It was so clear and now he can barely recall it. Something lingers in his chest: a sensation of relief, and above everything, confusion. Like trying to tie two threads of different material and failing.

“You’re awake?” A frightened thick voice disturbs him from the other side of the room. “There’s a storm.”

A storm? Circled by the darkness around, he detects the battering noise of the rain against hardness. A flash illuminates the room, closely followed by an explosive rumble that vibrates the walls. He unlocks his phone and squints at the sudden light—it’s two in the morning. He slept uninterrupted far more than on most days, even those in which he believes himself safe in his apartment.

Hange’s shape moves from her bed to the glass wall in front. The water running down the glass reflects the light from outside, making bright abstract lines dance over her face. She smiles, a view that agitates Levi’s stomach with uneasiness. There’s something strikingly wrong with it.

“The power went out and the only way to darken the glass is with it, can you believe it?” She sounds bitter. “It seems that we no longer function properly without some electrical device.” Another thunder resonates, swallowing every other sound for a second. Hange pales and snaps her eyes closed. She stumbles away from the wall. “Our flight got canceled for the storm. We’re trapped here until it ends…. I should research more.”

She sits crossed-legged on her bed and opens her laptop. Levi tracks her movements and then looks at his phone. He still doesn’t know how to contact The Ripper, and there’s no signal, so no idle time surfing the internet for him. His muscles weaken in, feeling overworked even after resting. He lays his back on the solid wall behind him and prepares for a very long night. The worst part of missions like these is the waiting, yet always a constant.

“We could be struck by lightning,” he scolds her, observing her features highlighted by the computer. There’s something distinct and equally disarming in looking at someone in the gloom of the night, in a place as personal as our bed tends to be. A drowsy quality permeates her, while pillow lines run across her cheeks and some hairs stand out of her ponytail. It’s… strange.

“These tall buildings are prepared for them… I won’t stay doing nothing in the meantime.” She elevates her voice to utter, “Lives are in danger for every second wasted.”

Levi exhales. She’s right. Not that he likes it. He scrutinizes her dark silhouette, lit by her laptop’s screen. Her right-hand slides over the keyboard at breakneck speed, while her left one… Is it inside her bag?

What is she holding there?

A… weapon?

Faking casualness, he sits up straighter, alert to any abrupt motion. He opens his mouth, doubting before speaking. For him, conversations are hard to hold, and seeking one with her doesn’t seem advisable. There’s a long night coming, though… “What are you working on?”

“Basically, I’m tracing the bombs’ origin. Who fabricated them and what kind of technology they use. It’s so odd that no one can tell where they came from, not to mention, Marley and Eldia are high-security territories. We know everything that enters and leaves. It should have been nearly impossible for the bombs to get in without us knowing. And yet, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Our security has a hole we don’t know about,” he summarizes.

She nods and smiles wickedly. “I wonder if I could find yours before your people do.”

Levi takes his bag and places it on his lap. “I’m sure my analysts will in no time.” He would inform Erwin if he thought the man didn’t already know.

“Not before me, if I were working on it,” she declares. Levi dislikes that she’s probably right. There’s a reason his superiors desperately wanted her dead as soon as she was out of her homeland.

“What have you got?” He continues eyeing her left hand with suspicion.

“I…” She rubs her chin. “I just discovered where they all came from.”

He stares at her, unexpectedly breathless. “Wh—How much did it take you?”

“Since I sat here,” she says as if it was nothing—as if it was too slow, even. Levi lifts his brows, quite impressed. Hundreds of people had been working on that for days, and she solved it in a few minutes? “I just took what the other analysts had gathered and found the correct direction among many incorrect ones,” she explains, waving her hand in an attempt to downplay her work.

He can’t avoid his internal praise. She’s a genius, indeed. All in all, with the glasses and the hair Hange does look like one, but her physical fitness is no joke, either. She put on a good fight against him, even if for a minute, which not many can achieve. She’s also overly… positive, despite the danger on her heels.

She types at light speed, her exhilarated eyes gone on the screen.

“Good job,” he drops. Hange flings her gaze from the computer and meets his.

“Ah… thanks?” She looks downright surprised. Scoots to the edge of her bed without taking her hand out of her bag. Now closer to him, she tilts her head to a side, her barely visible eyes examining him. And keeps doing so, time stretching out in silence until he breaks eye contact and busies himself with the seams of his bag.

Sure, she might be remarkable. That doesn’t neutralize being a vicious marleyan.

The enemy, he reminds himself. You should be scared that they have her, rather than admire her.

He refocuses on the matter at hand. “Where do they come from, then?”

Hange hesitates. She returns her attention to the computer and answers without diverting it. “Liberio.”

Levi’s head jerks at her, but she doesn’t react. In fact, her expression is blank, overmuch controlled to be genuine. So… Marley is indeed implicated. Why did she tell him something that compromising about her nation?

She sighs, shoulders going up and down exaggeratedly. “And before you say something about it: no, I don’t think Marley did it. We really, really, didn’t.”

His pupils move all over her face; from her jutting jaw to her full lips flattened in a line. A side of him wants to believe she isn’t lying, but why should he trust her? He can name the people he does trust in five seconds, a list she’d never be part of. Moreover, he’d never set wishes above facts. And the facts are that Marley is behind this. Evidence suggests so.

He folds his arms over his chest. “If you say so.”

An exasperated look blossoms on Hange’s face. Her fingers turn white by the force with which she’s gripping her laptop. “Maybe you did it to blame us.”

Levi rolls his eyes. Marleyans love to turn tables for their convenience, even when the correct answer is in plain sight. He shouldn’t engage in such a nonsensical conversation, but his people are the ones being framed. “Why would Eldia do it in the first place?

“Why would Marley do it in the first place?” She mimics his eye roll.

They sink into a strained silence. Levi reclines, mentally cursing the person next to him. Minutes trickle by, and the pitter-patter of the rain against the glass calms his breathing. It lulls him, makes him nod off…

“Look at this!!”

He jumps to his feet, throwing his bag to the floor in the process. His heartbeats are frantic against his chest. “What? What happened?!”

“Oh, sorry. Did I wake you up?” An innocent smile surfaces in her mouth.

Levi surveys around, tensed, but nothing is amiss; the rain continues as well as the darkness, and nobody is charging at him from a hideout. His muscles relax and he retakes his spot on the bed, placing his bag on his lap again. This time, he promises himself to remain awake. What was he thinking before, sleeping when she was up? He provided her the perfect opportunity to kill him; practically put his head on a silver plate and handed it to her. He must be more careful.

And he’s pretty certain she woke him up like that just because. He grimaces. “What did I have to look at?”

“Ehh… I forgot.”

There’s a sheet of paper in her hand. “Is that the Arlert’s list?”

“Mm-hmm. Just checking if all of them are truly dead. If not, they need protection.”

“And so far?”

“So far, they’re different kinds of scientists, but one thing is the same: they’re all dead, and everyone in different locations.” She points at a name; he narrows his eyes at it. Tom Ksaver. “He, for example, was a rewarded biologist. This other man”—she points at another name he doesn’t bother to read—“is a history teacher, this an astrophysicist. And this—”

“I get it. Smart people.”

“The best academics in the world! I don’t know how no one noticed this before. Armin is… going to be missed.”

Levi leans back. “No one pays real attention to the victims as individuals. The numbers are bad enough.”

“I guess so.” She pinches her nose. “Who would want to erase them from the map? And why? Is it really to avoid being discovered?” She asks, mostly to herself.

“Maybe they didn’t like their shitty lectures.”

She lets out a laugh, then covers her mouth to stifle it. Clears her throat. A hint of a smile plays at the corners of Levi’s lips—it’s fairly rare when someone gets his humor, let alone laughs at it.

A deafening thunderclap booms. Hange leaps and her hand flies to her chest.

Interesting.

“Are you afraid of storms?”

“What? No.” Another thunder rumbles, and she winces. “Even if I was, I’d have good reasons: they’re horrible!” She shivers to emphasize her words, and then bounds, startled by yet another crash. The storm’s intensity seems to be increasing. For him, storms are neither pleasant nor bad. They just are, like most of the things he encounters daily.

Hange closes her laptop and sets it away. In the sudden blackness, she draws up her knees and hugs them, shrinking into herself. Covers her back with a blanket, all the while flinching at every thunder.

As much as he hates her, it’s strenuous to hold onto the bad feelings when she becomes a trembling jello at every noise.

“Errr…” he starts, searching for words to distract her. It’s awkward to do nothing while she’s so visibly frightened. A strategy settles in his mind. “What will you do after this mission?”

He doesn’t think anything war-related could escape her mouth, but when people are distracted or vulnerable, they reveal information more easily. Right now, that four eyes is prone to say unwanted stuff—at least, the most she’ll ever be with him.

Who knows? She could slip.

She pulls up the blanket around her head. “I… I…” She bites her lower lip. He stays quiet, enabling her to forget who is the one she’s talking with. “I’ll finish some codes for this flawless and great weapon I designed. Then, I’ll send it to demolish Eldia with all of its destructive power. And you?”

Argh.

“I was talking seriously,” he blurts with a clipped tone.

“Sure you were. I’m not that easy to break, Levi,” she says, but her words get suffocated by a loud clap. She grips the hem of the blanket around her head, shielding her neck. “Does it bother you that I call you Levi?”

It’s actually nice to hear it out loud for a change.

“I don’t care what you call me.”

Other than violence, could there be a way to get past her defenses and make her talk about Marley? Nothing in her expression gives her away now, doesn’t even display fear anymore. She’s focused on scrutinizing him, as well as he is. What could she be seeing, concluding? Levi can’t decipher her, as much as he tries to. It’s like a puzzle whose template he thought he had, but in which her pieces don’t fit. At first glance, she doesn’t appear like a terrible person. Her energy says that much, but that’s just not possible.

People look at her with affection and trust. She’s working hard on this mission to save lives. She helped those hurt in the late museum. Nothing of that adjusts with marleyans’ famous viciousness, selfishness, and blood-thirstiness. What’s the truth hiding between her contradictions?

Maybe she’s a good actress.

Or perhaps he should change the template and consider her from a blank canvas. Build an opinion from nothing, without already opaque lenses. But that’d be like admitting that not all marleyans might be that bad, something he can’t say in truthfulness, not without thinking back of the number he’s confronted and that no longer walk this earth. Giving the benefit of the doubt might be doable, but he doesn’t feel comfortable doing it. She is a marleyan.

Why should he agitate himself with this mismatch?

He only needs her to succeed in this mission and, ideally, obtain information from Marley. Understanding her is no requirement. He’ll merely have to stop analyzing her and problem solved.

Levi rubs his eyes and pulls his black laptop out of his bag. He might not find out anything useful from her anytime soon, but he can finish his report.

The screen lights up. Fortunately, the fall didn’t damage it. He opens a new document.

“So,”—she shuffles on her bed until she’s facing him—“what will you do after this, Ackerman?”

Honestly? I might be sent to eliminate you. Although he doesn’t know how he’d do it. A prickling makes him scratch his scalp. Working with her wasn’t his smartest idea; he never had any prolonged interactions with his targets before. And, remembering how the first time ended, a second doesn’t look like a piece of cake.

He settles for a harmless truth. “I’ll return to Eldia, turn on the TV, and catch up with Joan the slayer.”

All of his focus is on the blank page in front of him. He’d transcribe what he wrote on his phone, but it was so little that it’s pointless. He taps his finger on the laptop’s surface. Apart from the bombs coming from Liberio, what else is important enough to share with Erwin? They haven’t progressed much.

“Ohhh, the TV show. I love it so, so much!” A pause. “Also, thanks for giving me such a powerful weapon against you.” Over a smirk, she drums her fingers on her mouth, one after the other in quick succession.

Levi fixes her with a hard glare. What the hell is she talking about?

“You’ll defeat me using my favorite TV Show against me? What can you do, cancel it?”

“I’m sure I could somehow do it, but I wouldn’t—it happens to be my favorite, too. There’s no need, though. As far as I know, it’s only broadcasted on the south coast of Eldia. Now I have a delimited area for your hometown.”

His body vaporizes with heat, his rigid arms reddening. This. This is the reason he dislikes talking with people. He has to remain alert every fucking minute!

Hange is studying him for a reaction, but he ignores her.

He must’ve forgotten who she was for a breath.

Never again.

“So? I’m right, ain’t I?” She smiles, satisfied. “I’ve spent too much time in fanpages where eldians complain about being unable to watch the series on TV because their area lacks the right channel.”

“That’s cheating,” he accuses, stronger than intended.

Her face closes at his harshness, losing her smile. She lies down and turns away. “You know I can’t do much with that, don’t you? It’s not like being aware of where you live could allow me inside your frontiers. And you’re the one who tried it against me first. You even tried to kill me,” she grunts, her back to him. “I deserve something to protect me, even if it’s some inconsequential facts. I didn’t even get an apology.”

Levi is familiar to guilt. It’s a long-time companion that’s been pelting him almost daily, without fail. He refuses to feel it right now, to show recoil for doing his damn job and defending his land against her country of murderers. He smashes the keys of his laptop, writing a rather incoherent report.

Hours go on like that until he stops, anger drained and fingers sore.

“Why didn’t you kill me, by the way?” Her voice comes out faint and somnolent. The dark shape of her back is the only thing he makes out of her.

“How can you be sure that killing you was my mission?”

Hange scoffs. “Right, whatever… You think it’ll end soon? The storm?”

The room flickers with light, but the rain drums lower. The smell of damp earth floats to his nostrils as he glances at the glass wall. His laptop touches cold and smooth against his fingers.

“It has to.”

“No answers from your people yet?”

“I don’t know. I have no signal.”

“I’ve been trying to contact him, too, but nothing. It’s almost as if he didn’t exist. And here I used to think it was impossible for something to be a secret in this connected world.”

“Not because everyone owns a phone, you can see them shitting as you please.”

Her muffled laugh reaches his ears. “Right. My… Zeke thinks that whoever is behind this must be someone with a bigger vision, who knows a lot of important people, and could inspire some sort of worship.”

My… Zeke? My superior, my ally, my friend? Levi makes a mental note to remember her phrasing. As far as they know, Zeke Yeager is also a genius, but of another kind. He’s an innate leader, her co-worker, and also her handler—the one she reports to, as he does with Erwin. Could they have a more personal relationship? This could be helpful information or nothing at all.

“My superior believes that, too. Someone very smart, obsessed with a goal, and willing to go to extremes for it,” Levi chimes in.

“We aren’t making the search smaller...” She’s quiet for so long that he believes her sleeping. “Why did you accept this mission?”

The sudden question throws him off the rails. “What?”

“I mean, you don’t seem like you wanted to. Most of the time you’re… sulking.”

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His neck flushes with heat, and he feels… exposed. A feeling that transforms into irritation. He grips his bed, arms stiff.

Who is she to make observations on him? Wrong ones.  He’s never sulking. He’s awfully cheerful, all the fucking time.  

“There are people who dislike laughing or yelling all the fucking day, and not for that we’re sulking,” he jeers.

She switches until she’s facing him. “I know. But it isn’t that—there’s something in your eyes… they lack something.” Well, thank you. “You look different when you’re truly happy.” Her eyes widen and she hurries to add, “I mean, you must.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Why should he deign that with an answer?

Usually, opening himself to others is challenging, even with the most trivial topics—which this isn’t. Amidst the darkness, her scarcely visible eyes on him radiate something, like a whole energy that loosens his defenses and makes him want to speak.

That penetrating gaze, as if she was trying to read into his very soul, is the one that tears the answer from him. He surprises himself by saying, “How can I be happy with what’s happening, with the way the world rots and destroys more and more innocents?”

Maybe her genius status doesn’t come from her sharp mind, but from some sort of ability to compel people to open to her, as if her voice and her laugh and her intense gaze were a flute to which others respond without thinking. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned that? Is he the only one who notices it? Who is affected?

“Oh. Well, you’re right in that.” She snuggles up, hugging the blanket against herself. One of her hands remains buried in her bag. It’s never gotten out. “Tomorrow, we should visit one of the places where the bomb didn’t explode… like Eldia. I have a theory that the next attack could be in one of those. The locations are ideal, at least.”

No way he’d ever take her to Eldia. “Maybe we should send a team, instead.”

“Uh… yeah. I shouldn’t be seen a lot outside. I forgot about the people-trying-to-kill-me bit, since I’m sleeping in the same room with one of them.”

How can she compare me with those… those…? “I’m not actively trying to do it, or am I?”

She hums in agreement. Yawns. “We have to order some of that delicious-looking food from the hotel’s menu in the morning. I’m starving…”

He listens to her breathing until it goes even. Stands up and scrutinizes her; she’s calm and peaceful while sleeping, her arms joined against her chest. She forgot to put off her glasses, again—no wonder she has so many spare pairs for someone who doesn’t work out in the field. He picks them up and puts them on the bedside table.

How fortunate that she’s able to sleep as deeply as now.

In the most silent way he can, he snatches her phone from her bed, heart pounding in his ears. It isn’t locked, but has no saved numbers; neither messages nor photos, just a bunch of games—as expected. He tiptoes behind her and searches through her bag, careful not to touch her hand. It contains clothes, a variety of weapons, and something stuffed: nothing of relevance.

He takes her laptop and turns it on. The screen demands an eye scan to reveal its secrets, something he lacks the time to break. Either way, he doubts she’d let something at hand for him to steal.

His shoulders hunch at the futility of his act. He only wants to come back to bed and rest his tired muscles.

Levi lifts his bag for a change of clothes, and… his blood stops its course. He goes completely still.

His clothes… they look the same, just as he accommodated them.

But they aren’t.

There are small changes here and there. Ones only Levi would note, but present, nevertheless. Someone else went through his stuff. He should have expected this when he fell asleep in her company. Did she also sneak to check his phone first? Got into his computer? Did she look at him while he was sleeping?

He almost smiles.

Smart move. She even did it before him.

  ***

  D-8

“These are so delicious!” Hange exclaims with a chocolate-chip muffin in her hand. She takes another bite, sprinkling the area around her mouth with more bread crumbs, along with her bed. Whoever invented room service didn’t know that people like Hange would spray her entre food all over the sheets. “Nana told me that while we’re gone, she’ll delve into bomb producers. They haven’t been lucky with the locations yet.”

“If they come from Liberio, maybe they were produced there. Is it possible for something of that scale to be made without anyone knowing?” Levi asks from his place on the lounge chair. Erwin is also leading an independent investigation about the origins of the bomb received by Eldia, and so far, he knows nothing but the way it entered the country. It’s kind of alarming.

She chews and swallows. “It shouldn’t be, and yet… here we are.” She waves her bread with her words, and more bread crumbs fall on her bed.

Levi restrains himself from throwing a napkin at her face and massages his temples instead. He feels as if his skull was being hammered. He promises to get a medical checkup when this mission ends—never in his life had he suffered from so many headaches as in these past days.

“Are you done with it?” Hange’s head gestures at his almost intact plate. He barely ate something, his head so jumbled that it makes him nauseous.

“Yes.”

Hange nods. “Then we should prepare.”

He almost groans in pain. Ever since a loud ring woke him up, he’s been in such a bad mood. At least, his people finally found out how to contact The Ripper, and Hange already talked with him. They agreed on a time and place to meet, which turns out to be in this city center and in a few hours. Time is undeniably running out for them, yet Levi would prefer to be in a better condition on the day he’s supposed to meet that man again.

His phone rings loudly, and Levi can’t help but groan at the noise. He goes for his phone on the bedside table and, recognizing the number, answers without thinking. Behind him, Hange prepares for the meeting with The Ripper as a blue projection comes out of the device, forming Erwin’s face.

“Ackerman. Did you decide where the meeting will—?”

Erwin stops, as does Hange at his back. Levi makes a face. He forgot to find a place to talk privately…

“Mr. Smith.” Hange greets, a tight smile on her mouth. Levi’s aching mind paralyzes. Does she... know him?

“Miss Zoe.” Erwin nods, coolness spilling from his tone. Neither says anything else. Levi takes his phone and locks himself in the bathroom.

“What was that? Where do you know her from?”

Erwin strokes his bushy eyebrow. “It isn’t important. What happened with The Ripper?”

When Levi comes out of the bathroom, he sneaks glances at Hange. How does she know Erwin? Pain blinds him. He makes his way to his bed and lies down. He’ll rest only for a second before entering work mode.

“This is a bad idea,” he mutters after a few minutes of Hange skipping from one side of the room to the other.

“Don’t be silly. It’s going to work just fine.” She combs her fake blond hair with her fingers in front of the bathroom mirror. As the door is open, he gets to glimpse at her. For a second, he can convince himself that she’s someone else, but her vitality, or rather something in the way she moves, is recognizable enough. For him, at least. Hopefully, not for anyone else.

Levi shakes his head and presses his forearm over his eyes. “You don’t know him.”

“For someone called the best agent in the world, you surely are afraid of him. Maybe I really should start worrying,” she says. He pulls his arm off of his eyes to send her a glare. She turns and laughs at him. “Kidding. But honestly, what can happen? He’ll say: ‘Oh no! If this is Zoe and Ackerman, trying to get information from me and paying me to do so, I’m so scared!’” She moves her fingers as if she was a ghost trying to scare. “He’ll think of me as a harmless person.” She signals at her clothes, consisting of a pair of jeans and a green sweater. Then at her fake nose, contact lenses, and wig. “Also, our people will be all around, so cool down. There won’t be anything out of the line… There won’t, right?”

Hange leans her shoulder on the door frame and folds her arms over her chest, gaze piercing him.

Logically, he knows she’s right. They don’t even have to worry about the people trying to kill her; this is a secret mission, and she looks virtually unrecognizable even from this closely. Still, his stomach quivers with apprehension. That man is vile and dangerous, and so, so clever.

“Right,” he says. In spite of The Ripper promising to be on his best behavior and stick to their deal, Levi doesn’t trust anything that comes out of his nasty mouth.

“You know what?” Hange taps a finger over her lips. “It’d be a better idea if he meets just me, and not you, someone he already knows. We’re predisposing him not to trust us.”

No shit. There’s no way she’ll go alone. “Why wouldn’t he? We’ll pay him for the information.”

She cocks her head to a side. “You know, I don’t think you’re aware of how trust works. It’s not that easy to relax in the face of someone who has tried to kill you, and as far as I know, you almost killed him a bunch of times.”

His aching mind lags on the implication in her words. Is she aware of how they apply not only to The Ripper, but to herself? For what he’s learned about her these last hours, she must do. Does it mean she feels that way, then? Struggling to trust him because of that night?

Well, she shouldn’t trust him. Why would she even try?

Perfect, his headache is worsening. Now his eyeballs are being violently hammered, too.

Levi squeezes his head. “He doesn’t have to trust us. And you won’t go alone.”

Hange’s eyes narrow at him. “Why? Because I won’t be able to handle myself out there?”

What is she talking about? Argh, this pulsating pain won’t let him think. The worst part is that if The Ripper believes he’s being trickled for even a second, he’ll blast against her, not him. And she might not stand a chance. He can’t let her go alone knowing that, even when in his current condition, he might be unhelpful.

He doesn’t ponder twice before speaking, “You’d do it great, but The Ripper is treacherous, and his people more so. As dangerous as you are, you’d be outnumbered and they don’t play fair.”

Her hands fall loosely at her sides just as her voice goes up in naked surprise. “You…. You think I’m dangerous?”

“Uh?” He runs a hand through his hair—how is that important? Is she fishing for compliments? “Yeah, because you are. You’re one of the biggest threats against Eldia and can’t be taken lightly.” Isn’t that common knowledge?

Hange’s face breaks into a smile. Meanwhile, his brow furrows in confusion. How is that a good thing?

Weren’t they discussing The Ripper?

“Thanks,” she says, softer. “It’s just that, back at home they always look down on me for being the brainy, dreamy person no one wants to hear. They don’t even let me go out much, as they say I’m more valuable inside, but I think they doubt my abilities to defend myself… Anyway, it’s good to hear an adverse opinion, even when it comes from an enemy.”

Why would they think she can’t defend herself? That’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. She lasted more than most of his targets against him, and that trap in the elevator was well-thought-out. Hadn’t it been him, she probably would have succeeded.

Something seems to flash across her face, and she hurries to her bag. She pulls out a pill bottle and offers it to him.

“What’s this?” Suspicion laces his voice.

“For your headache. It’s not poison.”

“Oh… Thanks.” He doesn’t tuck his wariness away, but seizes the bottle. Unfamiliar warmth whips through him, making him feel weird. It’s just unusual to receive something like this. He scratches his neck. “Are you carrying a weapon?”

“Only these.” She takes two knives out from her waistline. “I can’t bring a gun. I told him this would be a peaceful negotiation.”

Peaceful my ass. After scrutinizing the bottle, Levi concludes it’s not poison. He doesn’t take it, though—you never know. He’ll just have to endure the pain. He stands up and scans out of the glass wall. Outside the clouds are gray, but at least it’s not raining again.

“I still believe attacking him by surprise is for the best.”

She joins him, looking at the skyscrapers out of the glass. “We could lose him. You said so yourself, he’s escaped you for years. We can’t risk that.”

“I don’t care how much you’ll give him.” He smacks his palm against the wall. Fuck this. “I know his shitty mind, that bastard won’t tell us the truth.”

Hange places her hands on her hips. “He does anything for money, doesn’t he?”

“Not if betraying his last client could kill him.”

“He didn’t sound cowed by that.”

He blows a breath. His guts tell him that something about this stinks. “If he dares to betray us, he won’t get off from me again.”

“If that happens, I’ll personally help you.” She shifts her weight from a foot to the other. “By the way… how do you know him? I thought you and Eldia only cared about defeating Marley.”

“Sorry to burst your pink-colored marleyan bubble, but Eldia has many other things in mind besides you. Internal conflicts, international problems…”

“Marley also has those,” she exhales. “Years ago, we even got an extremist organization trying to take down the queen.” Levi didn’t know that. Guess their lands aren’t as contrary as they like to think. “It’s so difficult to give everything in an attempt to defend your people and still encounter opposition from them. The ones you’re working so hard to save…”

“How do you know Erwin?”

“Mr. Smith?” Her facial muscles harden. “From the conversations.”

“Which conversations?”

“You don’t know? I’m not surprised.” She heaves a breath, looking out at the grayness outside. “The ones we’ve undertaken to end the war.”

To end… the war? His neurons short circuit. Why didn’t Erwin tell him? And why would Marley want that?

They must know that they are set to lose and want to minimize their defeat.

“Conversation isn’t enough to achieve peace. Our shared history has proven it over and over again.” How many times have they tried it? It’s always the same.

Hange shakes her head. “Communication is our best resource.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

She turns to him. Her voice grows defensive. “It’s my time to waste. And it’s all for change to follow.”

Why is she so vehement on this? Can’t she see reality, logic? “Change doesn’t start like that.”

Her hand closes into a frustrated fist. “I know that talking is small scale, but for now that’s what we’re able to do. Change always propagates from the little.” Her next words are a whisper, “It’s the only thing I can do, in my way.”

He opens his mouth to retort but no more words come. What’s the point of fighting her on this, something she seems to fiercely believe?

‘It’s the only thing I can do, in my way…’ Her words repeat in his head, resonating in his core.

Their gazes link. Her eyes are warm, but there’s no hazel in sight. Only the blue of her lenses, which makes them look… wrong.

‘It’s the only thing I can do, in my way…’

A sudden notion pops into his still hurting head: we’re the same. He may aid his people as an agent instead of attempting to elicit fruitless talks that help no one, but he’s trying to help however he can, as much as his skills let him. Like she does, if her words are to be believed.

They look at the same sky and feel the same pain. From abysmally different worlds, yet deep down the very same.

The realization and the mirror he finds in her eyes render him speechless. Realizing he’s been staring at her, Levi hastens his focus onto the black and white tiles of the floor. What an interesting decoration, isn’t it?

The temperature seems to have increased out of the blue.

“Turning it on now,” Hange says. He looks up to see her touching her ear, not quite missing the flush in her cheeks. “Check your earphone…. You hear me clearly?”

Static mixes with her voice in his head. “Loud and clear.”

“Ready?” A confident expression settles on her face.

He straightens without much will. “Let’s go.”

It’s not like we have another damn option.

They have to get something from The Ripper, no matter what. As Levi exits the room, he ignores the unpleasant sensation adhered to his guts, shouting to him that he’s leading them to impending danger. It feels too familiar to be born from common anxiety—as if it was an old fear long-buried in the depths of his heart… His headache has him thinking absurd things.

That must be it.

Surely, nothing wrong will happen today.

  ***

  The sun is setting, its dim glow from behind heavy clouds, dipping below the horizon. Gusts of frigid wind hit them, ruffling their clothes. Hange drifts through it, striding along the street with her green sweater rising in the air—he blinks and for a second, instead of a sweater, it looks like a cloak…

Levi shakes his head at the mirage. A cloak? Who wears one of those these days?

He lowers his cap and follows her. He remains in disagreement with the accorded (accorded, as if The Ripper could be capable of any decency) meeting place—mainly because that criminal chose it himself, but also because of the many civilians around. Hange comprehended his worries, yet did nothing. She said it was to show trust.

What’s with her obsession with trust?

Even though their people are all around—he glimpses at some of their men hidden on the roofs—last time they weren’t that helpful. Furthermore, the meeting place, a restaurant with outdoor seating at the skirts of a suspension bridge, is out of most of their people’s reach should something happen.

On the bright side, his headache is slowly dissipating.

The people winding around them are all the same. Heads down and bright screens shining on their faces. The panic generated by the explosions has subsided to be replaced by indifference. At this point, most people think it was an isolated happening that won’t be repeated; thus they’ve resumed their normal life. Consequently, recreational areas like these are packed with tourists.

Overpacked.

Levi feels the oxygen decreasing, the air running out by so many people passing around him. The odor of sweat and lotions blended choke him. There are just so many, more than he’s able to count, one face after another without any distinction. His chest squeezes as he blindly tries to move faster through the throng. Get rid of it.

A hand closes around his wrist and drags him toward the open restaurant they were heading to in the first place. Free from the overwhelming multitude, he puts his hands on his knees and sucks in a deep breath, chest expanding and easing the pressure.

“You don’t like crowds, do you?” Hange asks beside him.

“I don’t mind them as long as they aren’t all around me,” he spits, strangled. He straightens and composes a nonchalant expression to sweep his moment of honesty under the proverbial rug.

Above them, the metallic arched entrance to the restaurant glows neon green. Hange moves into the restaurant area and past the numerous full tables, the smell of food and coffee wafting between them. She halts at the loneliest corner, which makes him a little grateful. Just a little. Here he can be at ease, if only for a second.

“Now we wait.” Settled, Hange takes a napkin and cuts a piece of it to roll and unroll between her fingers. It seems to be more of a mannerism than a way to calm her nerves, as he initially thought.

Sitting at one of the metallic tables facing the busy street, Levi feels a prick on the side of his neck. Promptly, he turns in that direction. There’s nothing out of the ordinary there. Among so many people transiting, he doubts he’d be able to grasp something, even if it was out of place.

No, he doesn’t like this place even one bit. He taps a finger on his thigh, waiting. Suddenly, someone grabs the back of one of the chairs, scraps it against the floor with a squeak, and sits down.

As always, The Ripper wears a cowboy hat and nibbles a toothpick between his teeth. Behind him, the weak sun finally disappears, and the reddish lights on the bridge cables come to life, falling onto them.

“You must be Miss Bean,” The Ripper says with a grating voice, tipping his hat. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Hange nods, smiling. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Ripper.”

“Please, call me Kenny.”

Levi’s eyes bulge at him. Acting well-mannered? What game is he playing? He remembers that time when he, for once, believed The Ripper’s indications. He found himself in a trap from which he spent hours trying to escape.

“Cut the crap,” Levi snaps, “and tell us what we want.”

Hange elbows him and shoots him a censuring look. It sends uneasiness to his stomach, like when he was scolded in his childhood. He presses his mouth into an annoyed line.

“Ah, Ackerman. So great to see you again, you finally got a girlfriend?” Kenny leans back, laughing at his own words. “What nonsense am I saying? Of course not, Miss Bean would never stoop that low, would she? Literally speaking.” More laughs.

Hange hastens to change the subject. “On the phone, I told you t—”

“You can do it better, Miss Bean. What kind of lover do you pre—?”

“Oi, shut your dirty mouth!” Levi’s neck is so stiff that he feels with insane clarity the faintest gust of wind. His headache, which was getting better, worsens.

The Ripper waves a hand. “I have to be fair, though; overall, this shorty has some good qualities. You won’t ever meet a more loyal person in this world. So sad that he’s so devoted to those self-righteous from Eldia, always with a stick up their asses.”

Amusement tugs at Hange’s lips. Levi shoots a glare at her, which makes her sit straighter. “Ahem, on the matter at hand, you told me that…”

Again, that prick on Levi’s skin. His gaze explores their surroundings and halts on a face. It shoves him into a freezing pool. Dressed in a brown t-shirt and khaki pants, there’s this man. Although sunglasses conceal his eyes, he’s studying Hange without qualms. Levi can’t place him, and yet… he looks certainly familiar. Upon noticing Levi’s attention on him, the man slips through the crowd.

He could be a bodyguard for The Ripper, verifying the safety of his boss, but Levi distinguishes his style all too well. He’s subtle and smart; wouldn’t allow Levi to spot his people out in the open.

No, that man is another thing.

His fingers twitch in coldness. Could he be… one of the people trying to kill Hange?

What a fucking great timing.

Next to him, Hange tilts her head to a side—just a little bit, but enough to give him a sidelong glance, letting him know she saw the man, too.

“I’ll come back in a second,” Levi says, raising. But he doesn’t go. The claws of a foreboding squeeze his stomach. Don’t leave her, it mutters.

He lingers, not sitting back down but not running away, either. He tells himself, You’re exaggerating. He’ll merely be gone for a few minutes, and nothing bad will occur.

Regardless of everything in his body trying to pull him down again, he doesn’t. His mission doesn’t include worrying about Hange, and that man could be key to fulfilling his duty. With that in mind, Levi swallows the acid rising in his throat.

It will only be a few minutes. When he gets back, Hange will still be talking with the Ripper as if he hadn’t left.

Surely.

Only, the shots that ring through the whole place not long after his departure soon prove him wrong.

[elonaackerman]

In a few hour's the spoiler leaks are going to be released for the final chapter of Attack on titan manga and the official translation on April 9th so before all that happens what are you're thoughts and predictions between the character's and the end of the storyline?

https://ww7.readsnk.com/chapter/shingeki-no-kyojin-spoilers-raw-chapter-139/.

Hello Kian ! I see several of your questions about the ending and I must say I was lost myself with everything happening. However, I think I elaborated a good theory now !

Theory number 1: Eren is alive

This is the theory I acknowledge the most. Many people say that Eren not dying would be too strange after he already survived so much times to his expected deaths, but I don’t think so. Isayama loves to take some clichés and to twist them:

Here is a brief list:

- The MC not dying in the first episodes

- The power of will and friendship (which is shown to be useless in the Trost arc)

- The guy protecting the girl (Mikasa is Eren’s bodyguard, not the contrary)

- The main trio sticking together until the end

- The MC being « special »/being the « chosen one » (Eren is an usurpator)

Something very used in films/books is to use the absence of body as a way to cancel the absolute truth of a death. By showing us a body, Isayama can fool us by transgressing this common rule of « body=dead ».

Also Eren’s death in chapter 138 was just serving Mikasa’s development arc climax. It didn’t solve any matter of their world.

You know I feel like Eren was very relaxed when he saw Mikasa approaching to kill him. He probably already knew what she was going to do and even closed his eyes when she did it (you can see it since on the last panel, Eren has his eyes closed). I feel like if Eren acted this way, it’s because he transferred his consciousness to his body (all this time his head was controlling the titan so he may have regenerated a head on his body). It would explain why this concept was introduced to us with Reiner in season 3 and then never used again.

Plus, Grisha said everything would go along to Eren’s plan, but if Eren didn’t succeed, the Rumbling is stopped and hell awaits eldians: they will be killed after what happened, considered too dangerous, more than they already were. And even if the titan power is removed, there will still be a large part of hate and of revenge in the Rumbling survivors’ hearts. I don’t believe the « Code Geass theory » which says that Eren did the rumbling so the world could see Eldians defending it, and stand united with Mahrs against him (in the role of the bad guy), especially since some Eldians sided with Eren and that he exposed them in Revelio or even in Paradise with his devoted Yeagerists. It’s not realistic at all and it doesn’t fit nor Eren’s character, nor SNK spirit.

Eren had defined goals: « exterminate them all », and that’s what he did, he doesn’t seem to want to stop the rumbling on this panel:

Isayama said he didn’t like characters who weren’t true to their goals, that let the story change their plans and motivations too easily. He wouldn’t give to his MC the traits of a writing he despise.

Another reason why I believe the guy is alive is because his POV was hidden all this time. What’s the point of not giving to us Eren’s perspective while his final battle, when it would have been more powerful, if you did not have a big secret/plot twist generator to hide ? I think Eren and Ymir, who smiles like a creep in 138, manipulated everyone: the way Armin came with all the titan shifters in 137 with the help of Ymir was already really suspicious. Kruger, for example, had no reason to stand against Eren.

Chapter 137 was Armin, 138 was Mikasa so we will surely get Eren perspective for 139. And it will be weird if we have it while the guy is dead. Of course we’ll see what happened in chapter 130 between Eren and Historia (I can’t wait for their POVs) and Historia’s baby. The final panel makes me even more sure that Eren is still alive otherwise who on earth would say « You are free » to a new born child ? Eren x Freedom is canon.

• The Attack Titan

We know the path is a place out of time. It’s in this place that titans are sculpted by Ymir, and that’s why I think it makes sense for Eren to be the first owner of that titan: the attack titan is the only one who ascends in the past instead of descending in the future. If physically it seems to be passed down following the classical timeline, all of it is actually playing in the paths. The Attack Titan was only possessed by rebels, directly influenced by Eren’s mindset. It disappeared at a time, and it was also a part of Ymir’s titan: it’s her rebellious part designed to « attack » the world 2000 years later. I think Isayama might add depth again to the title of the story in 139.

• Major deaths

I can’t help but think: why did Eren let Mikasa cut his head and even indicated his location with titan marks ? I think that it’s possible he wants his last friends to fly away from the battle, thinking they have won when they didn’t, so that he can restart the Rumbling without killing them. The survivors would be Levi, Mikasa, Armin and probably Annie. I think Reiner will die to let Gaby eat him, so that Falco and Gaby, representing the future, can be saved.

It makes sense for Reiner to sacrifice himself for his little cousin: he lived for the ones he loved even if he didn’t wish to live himself, and since Gaby represents the new generation, hope, and that she was the potential inheritor of the Armored Titan, I am convinced she is the one who will eat him.

After that the most probable thing is that Levi and Mikasa, who grew incredibly closer, will live together, same for Annie and Armin. Eren will achieve the Rumbling then go back to Historia and we will have that Akatsuki no Requiem ending.

However, a darker possibility is that everyone except Falco and Gaby might die. I am in denial 😄✌🏻

But, I ask myself how Eren will make titans disappear. I think he might have plotted something with Ymir, after all isn’t she free from King Fritz now ? Or maybe Falco will eradicate the worm (bird vs worm is kinda obvious). However I do not think the people transformed into titans will turn back to normal, it’s not Isayama’s style to « bring back » dead characters, it would make Jean’s and Connie’s deaths less tragic. I think that only shifters will loose their ability and the 13 years thing.

Theory 2: if Eren is dead

• Ymir’s manipulation

I don’t wanna believe it but what if all of this was Ymir’s plan ? If he IS dead, it’s Ymir who is the mastermind and manipulated him so that the parasite would die and that she could get out off the paths. « I took the world’s freedom to gain mine » what if it’s YMIR TALKING in 133 ? She could even had sent the dream to Mikasa in 138 so that she would know WHERE Eren was and kill him, all of this after Ymir took revenge on the world. Remember, the titan who protected Zeke came from earth, and Ymir entered in contact with « the source of all organic life », which means she could be the one behind the birds we keep seeing, including the one on Mikasa dream. She could be smiling because her plan WORKED.

Also remember in the paths where Eren was talking to the Alliance ? He was in his kid Eren form, like Ymir, we didn’t see his eyes, showing his slavery and a strange alike-look. Ymir was standing right next to him, in the exact same position, mirroring him as if he was a sort of reflection/puppet of hers. Everybody thought the contrary until now, that Ymir followed Eren. While she was here, Eren was saying that the only way to end all of this was to take his life: what if Ymir made him say that ?

It makes even more sense when Ymir helped Armin with summoning shifters and that they also had their mouths don’t moving.

• Eldian Society ?

The only way to resolve  everything if Eren is dead is to create an Eldian empire domination with the rest of the world being weak and wiped out. Everybody would live on Paradise and would be teached about the cycle of hate and the heroes who stopped the Rumbling as new Helos, giving us an explanation of that picture in the opening (it could also be Eren’s society as well meant to not repeat the same mistakes as well)

I hope you liked it ! Let’s not suffer too much during the waiting and organize cottagecore RM and EH weddings with the beach Aruannie one instead of crying 💁🏻‍♀️

[class1akids]

Finally, I thought I was the only that noticed how Ch. 324 was somewhat a set-up by Hori if ever he decides to canonize Izuocha. This is the main reason why I disliked the chapter,(at first). Another is how an Uraraka-centric chapter got shoved at the end of a supposed "Deku-focus" arc. All of Class-A except her didn't get a dialogue that is focused on them (even Bakugou). Don't get me wrong, I would love for her to have her own screentime and development, but I think that all her flashbacks pertaining to her heroic purpose (wanting to see people smile) shouldn't have been in this chapter.

Her speech, including that Toga tease, would have still made the same impact without all that flashback. I would've appreciate her "character development" more if it was done in a different chapter, because imo, with Deku ALWAYS BEING THERE, all that wanting to see people smile just comes back to him, so instead of seeing it as HER OWN GROWTH, people can interpret it as setting up some form of foundation for their future "ship".

And that's how I saw it.

I mean to be frank, her speech isn't that special, to the point where Iida can also be a potential candidate in convincing all those angry mob, for me atleast.

And I agree that the "we became the greatest heroes" things felt lacking and short because instead of Class A as a whole, this chapter (in a way) highlighted both of them with panel focuses that can be interpreted as the start of a potential last minute romance. Honestly, I don't like it, but considering the other shounen romances, I'm not surprised.

I don't mind Uraraka being the one giving the speech - what bothers me is how dissonant it feels with whatever her arc is supposed to be:

1. She liked how heroes made ordinary people smile as a kid.

2. She saw heroes suffer and die so she started wondering who helps them.

3. The heroes in pain are not different than normal people.

4. So if heroes protect people, then the people must help heroes.

- while totally failing to address both the citizens' and Deku's own concerns about the safety of everyone. Not to talk about the fact that up until this chapter, the issue wasn't even that Deku had nowhere to sleep, but that he refused to stop and rest!

But what is weirder that in a supposed Deku solo arc, we got so little of his perspective. The story-progression goes like this:

1. Deku is traumatized by seeing people hurt, plus he's told he's OFA's last shot, so he distances himself from his loved ones. He also wants to reform villains - but then some seem kind of hopeless.

2. He tries to unlock his full power fast and find the villains fast in a time-crunch, so he can make things go back to normal. He opens quirks and finds a shortcut to 100%

3. He learns that the old normal wasn't that great (Nagant)

4. He learns that AFO is specifically targeting him (not really new, but maybe more tangible because of the boooom! where nobody actually got hurt), so he cuts off All Might and the Top 3.

5. Everyone keeps going on how he's the next OFA holder, so he's trying to live up to it and do everything himself, refusing to get any rest, even when the pros are telling him to stop. He can't stop because he feels like he failed everyone then.

6. He's so tired that he can barely move when his friends find him. Deku wants to keep them at distance to protect them (so still where he started), but they won't have any of it, instead shout at him all his old word-view and how much they care about him as a person.

7. Deku realizes that they won't stop because they are like he was in the beginning - having a hero heart.

8. He finally decides to hear them out and Bakugou tells him sorry and that by the way they are here to help him and complement his efforts. Also, Deku needs to rest so they should go to UA.

9. Deku is still not convinced he should be back. He agrees with the citizens that he brings danger to UA and he's ready to leave, despite how everyone hypes the new defence system.

10. Uraraka shouts from the rooftop that he's just a normal human being who needs rest and the support of people and this is his school by the way.

Suddenly Deku breaks down and changes his mind (?) and declares that from now on they are all the greatest heroes.

So what changed? What is the new thing that got through to him?

- sure there is some framing of old gen vs new gen, looking at Deku as mighty OFA successor vs looking at Izuku as their precious friend who is just a dumb kid like them but really needs a shower.

Does he finally feel like people care about him? Did he never feel this way before? - But he does respond to some of the class that he knows they care...

- he believed that he was the only powerful enough to protect everyone - and sure the pros were exceptionally pathetic (lol, @ Endeavor in the rain), and sure Class A pulled some nifty moves, but they are not massively more powerful than they were during the war...

So yeah, Deku acknowledges their hero hearts, but did he not know that before? Did his worries about their safety got solved somehow? Does he realize that they want to be treated like he wanted to be even when he was just a quirkless kid?

- Deku also strongly felt that he brings danger to UA, which is why he wanted to stay away and that he didn't have the luxury to stop in the time-crunch

So which part of Uraraka's speech made these worries go away? Does he feel that everyone working together, it will be ok even though it wasn't last time? Does he understand that he needs to be saved just like everyone else? Or is he just so tired and overwhelmed that for now all the stress and exhaustion just bursts out of him?

I wish that we got a better progression from A to B and more insight into Deku's mind and feelings. Maybe it's not yet over, and maybe we'll get the answers, but for now in a chapter that is a shift in the story, I struggle to see where Deku is at emotionally.

[mattmaesonnatural]

Tribulations by Jackttwist

Status: Completed (with maybe one or two future missing scenes to be added) Chapters: 3/3 Words: 56,065

Summary: With no supernatural threat looming over them, it was only a matter of time before their own issues became their monster of the week.

Or,

The Winchester’s slow down after killing god. A month into their relaxed version of hunting, Cas returns to them with news: “Jack is going to college and I miss being human.”

Tags:  Miscommunication / Getting Together / First Kiss / Repressed Feelings / Written While Quarantined / Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent / Dean Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent / Don't Examine This Too Closely / Movie References / Profound Bond / Hurt/Comfort / Happy Ending / Angst / Romance / Friendship / Family / Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence / Angel vs Humans / Kissing / Pining / Emotional Hurt/ Comfort / Confessions / College / Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings / Human Castiel (Supernatural) / Marriage Proposal / Parenthood / Retired Hunter Winchesters (Supernatural)  / Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism / Soulmates / The Dean Cave

A/N: So I wrote this in 5 months of being in lockdown and rewatching the whole series. It’s currently August and none of the new episodes nor promos have aired. So this is kind of a self indulgent piece where if I could’ve written for the show and made it *destiel* this is what I would’ve wanted. Plus I LOVE Jack, he has so much potential and I love writing him as he becomes his own person. It’s so satisfying. Anyways, if you read this you have my whole heart. and I hope you enjoy this mess.

[myaekingheart]

20 [Fanfic Writer] Questions Game

Thank you so much for tagging me, @lemony-snickers! This is tons of fun, I love answering these kinds of big questionnaires 😂💕 Also putting mine under a cut because there’s a lot of questions and I like to ramble. 

Also gonna go ahead and just tag whoever wants to do this! 😅💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

As of August 27, 2021, I have a total of 77 works on my AO3! 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Funny enough, I was just looking at this, specifically, earlier today and kind of laughing about it. Right now, my total word count across all my works is 1,148,941 😬 

3. How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

Apparently 12, but some of them I don’t really consider “big” in my fandom repertoire. Naruto is my greatest fandom with a total of 60 fics so far, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia and Rise of the Guardians. The rest are ones I either did crossover fics with or just did one-off little pieces with--The Incredibles, Tangled, Brave, How to Train Your Dragon, Arthurian Mythology, Disney Princesses, Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Back to the Future, and Frozen. 

4. What are your Top Five fics by kudos?

The Scarecrow and The Bell (Naruto) - 470 kudos The Day Kakashi’s Mask Slipped (Naruto) - 139 kudos Sunflowers (Naruto) - 92 kudos Sakumo the House Husband (Naruto) - 81 kudos Someone to Lean On (Naruto) - 67 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond to comments, because I like to acknowledge when people respond to my work. I cherish comments like nobody’s business, especially when they’re kind and reactionary. I just really love seeing/hearing what people think of the way a story is progressing, or what they thought of a one-shot. Comments keep me going especially when it comes to longfic so I want to be able to let readers know that I do in fact see their comments, that I’m acknowledging what they’re saying, and that I appreciate them. Plus, it can be kind of fun to tease upcoming events in a fic through responses to people’s comments, too. Because I’m mean. 

6. What fic have you written with the angstiest ending?

Definitely Hothouse (Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles; Jack Frost x Violet Parr; American Horror Story AU). This was the first multi-chaptered fic I ever wrote to completion and I honestly cringe when I remember it exists both because it’s so poorly organized (and full of nasty plot holes) and because I just went ham on the gore factor. It definitely has a really bittersweet and heartbreaking ending to it, too. 

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

I think I’ll definitely have to say Temptation. The story itself was kind of a ride, and it’s only the first installment in a series, but it follows the plot of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe but remixed due to the presence of an original character, but the ending is still roughly the same as the original: they defeat the evil, the Pevensies are all crowned kings and queens, happy days. Reading the last few paragraphs of the last chapter honestly still gets me all up in my feelings. 

8. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I used to be more of a crossover writer due to one of my main ships being a crossover ship. They weren’t super crazy, though, because they were both CGI-animated films. The craziest crossover I’ve ever written is an in-progress/unfinished multichapter piece, Kakashi, Enchanted, that sees our favorite Copy Ninja get kamui’d into the Disney princess dimension and has to help the likes of Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel on his journey to find a way back to his own world. It’s a super weird premise but definitely one of my more lighthearted works and fun to revisit when I need to decompress. 

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think I’ve ever received hate so much as I’ve received criticism. The closest I ever got to hate on a fic, I think, was someone left an overly personal and mentally disturbed comment on a chapter of my main fic that made me convinced they needed to seek therapy and deal with their own personal issues rather than take it out on a fanfic about animated ninjas. 

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

Maybe 👀 I’m super vanilla when it comes to smut, though. I think the wildest thing I’ve ever written in smut is breeding kink. 

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, and I hope I never will. 

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet! I had someone ask to translate a one-shot of mine in Russian but I never got a response back when I laid out my terms and conditions. 

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

I have not! I used to do paragraph-style roleplay which was kind of like cowriting fanfiction but writing is so personal and sacred to me that I don’t know if I could ever actually cowrite a fic with someone. I like brainstorming with other people, but writing for me is more of a deeply personal and independent endeavour. 

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh god, this is a tricky question because it depends on fandom. I absolutely love New Dream (Rapunzel x Eugene, Tangled) and have for the past ten years, and my love for them as only grown since watching Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. I don’t write or even really read a ton of fanfiction for them, though. I’m also still highly dedicated to my favorite crossover crackship, Frostfield (Jack Frost x Violet Parr, Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles) and to this day, if you search for that ship on AO3, I am the sole provider of every single fic about them so far. I’m not as active with them as I used to be, but they got me through some really rough times back in the day and still mean so much to me. A lot of my favorite ships across fandoms, though, are honestly canon x OC ships of mine because I am a self-indulgent bitch who needs to project. So Peter Pevensie x Eilonwy (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Kakashi Hatake x Rei Natsuki (Naruto) are really important to me and I’ve poured so much of myself specifically into their stories. I think it’s safe to say Kakashi and Rei is my all-time favorite ship across all fandoms, though, just because of how much their story means to me. The Scarecrow and The Bell is my magnum opus, my pride and joy, and I’m sure it will be my biggest fandom footprint of my entire life. I’ve dedicated the past three years to this story and these characters and I intend to continue doing it until it no longer brings me joy (which I hope it always will). There’s just so much I could say about this story and Kakashi and Rei’s relationship but I don’t think we have enough time or space in this post for that 😅 Just know that they mean the world to me and I will always hold them in the highest regard as a beautifully messy, flawed, passionate, soulmate-y ship that I love with all of my heart 🥺

EDIT: I also feel obligated to tack on some of my absolute favorite Naruto ships because I may not have written for all of them (yet) but they still make me unbelievably happy or I find them really compelling and enjoy the idea of exploring them: 

Naruhina is precious happy sunshine and The Last honestly felt like a wonderful Disney princess movie to me, it was so cute and the romance was so on-point, Naruhina just makes me so incredibly happy and I love them with all my heart. 

MinaKushi also gets me all up in my feels and I adore them with every fiber of my being. Their romance also gave me Disney princess movie vibes which I love, their story is just so damn sweet as is their character dynamic and I am still so heartbroken that they never got to be a happy family with Naruto because you know what? It’s what they deserved!

SasuSaku is so compelling to me and I really feel like we were cheated out of seeing their relationship develop and evolve postwar in the same way The Last did for Naruhina. They’re my favorite angst ship and while I don’t think they were written that well in canon, I love the possibility and potential of them together and am excited to explore them more in-depth in my own writing. 

NejiTen is just too cute, I really love the way Neji and Tenten’s personalities compliment each other? I don’t have much else to say about them except that I really love them together and think they have so much untapped potential that I also can’t wait to explore in more depth in my own writing. 

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Paper Hearts and Impromptu Bookmarks, probably. I love the premise of this story a lot and I have so many interesting ideas for it but at the same time, it also feels kind of cheap and cringey to me, in a way? It takes all of these ideas I probably would have had if I had been into Naruto when I was a kid and kind of compiles them all into one big story. Kakashi and Aiko’s relationship and story is still really important to me and I want to continue it someday but for right now, I just haven’t had the motivation or desire to write any more of it. I think I’m just so overwhelmingly preoccupied with writing Kakashi and Rei’s story that I can’t imagine writing any other Kakashi x OC fics right now. 

16. What are your writing strengths?

I want to say that I’m really good at capturing complex emotion? I don’t know, I write a lot of angst and mental upheaval in my fics which can be really difficult to try and capture, but I think I do a decent enough job of it? And just writing difficult subjects in general. I think it’s really important to address difficult topics such as mental illness and relationship difficulties and everything but I also want to try and write those topics in a way that is both authentic to the experience while also still tasteful. I don’t want to drive readers away with heavy subject matter but rather present a situation that feels real and authentic while also still being digestible. I may not be doing a very good job of that during the current arc of my fic that I’m working on, but I’m trying haha

EDIT 2: I also want to add onto this to say that I’m really proud of my organizational techniques for writing longfic. It’s not necessarily a strength in terms of the prose itself but it’s something that’s taken me years to really get a grasp on and find a method that works perfectly for me and so far, it’s been extremely helpful and beneficial to me. I don’t know where I would be now as a writer without these essential tools in my pocket. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I feel like I do a really bad job of the “show, don’t tell” thing. It can be really hard to balance descriptive prose with straightforward writing that moves things along. I don’t want to dwell on mental dialogue to the point where you lose track of what’s going on, but I also don’t want my stuff to read like “Character A did xyz. Character B said abc. They went to 123″, whatever. Another thing I struggle with is sentence variation. I always fall into the same patterns when I’m writing prose and I get really self-conscious about it because I don’t want to sound repetitive or disrupt the flow of the writing. One of my favorite things about prose is focusing on the cadence of the words, I think it’s one of the most beautiful things about writing in general, but it can just be really difficult to get a good grip on that. I’ve been told in the past that I apparently have a really good grasp/control of the language or whatever but sometimes I just find that really hard to believe when I look at my work with such scrutiny. I think one of my biggest pet peeves with my own writing, too, is feeling like I start all of my sentences the same five different ways. I’ll read other people’s works and they’ll write sentences like “Glass-blue water lapped against the shores of a deserted beach as a lonely woman gazed off into the distance” and I can just never figure out how to realistically write sentences that start like that in the context of my prose and it drives me fucking crazy, like I’m definitely jealous  😅

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never really thought much about it before, but I think there are pros and cons! For bilingual/multilingual readers, I think it can be a really enriching reading experience because they know what’s being said in both languages. For people who only know one language, however, unless a translation is provided, I feel like it can be really alienating. I think the best use of that for both worlds is using it as a means for miscommunication humor. Other than that, I think it can be a slippery slope that depends on what kind of reader you are and how it’s written. 

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Chronicles of Narnia! My very first fanfiction was a Narnia fanfic that I barely remember except that it laid the basis for Temptation and my Narnia fanfic series as a whole. I never posted this first iteration anyway, but I remember it was 2008/2009 and I wrote a solid 80 pages (which was wild for me at the time) and had gotten halfway through remixing the events of Prince Caspian when my computer crashed and I lost absolutely everything. I’m still heartbroken that it’s gone forever, not because I’d want to go back and read it necessarily (since I’m sure it was actually hot garbage) but at least for nostalgia’s sake. Either way, like I said, this long-lost fic laid the basis for the very first fanfiction I ever posted, the first published (and never finished) iteration of Temptation back in 2011 on deviantART and the since-defunct Figment. I fell out of the fandom around 2012/2013 and left the story alone for a while before ultimately deciding to completely redux and rewrite the story when the fixation swung back around again between 2016 and 2018. 

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Despite the fact that it’s still in-progress, definitely The Scarecrow and The Bell. This fic just genuinely means so damn much to me and I will cherish it for the rest of my life because of how much it’s given me, how much love and passion and time and even parts of myself that I have poured into this, and also just how expansive of a story this is. Not only does it touch on some very dark and heavy topics, but I’ve also created so much of my own characters and meta for this story that it’s almost an entire universe in and of itself. I’ve just contributed so much additional world-building and created so many new OCs to fill important roles in this story and in Rei’s life, and they’ve all become so deeply important to me as they’ve developed further over the years. I’ve come up with so many interesting ideas for everyone and their lives, which are all slowly becoming so rich and varied. Not to mention that it’s my most popular fic to date as well as my longest fic at 632k and counting. I’ve really just genuinely poured so much of my heart and soul into this story, it’s my absolute favorite thing I’ve ever done and I really mean it when I say that I will cherish it for the rest of my life. 

[lizardthelizard]

Hello, I'm new to your blog, what's your fic? 👀

Hi!! Thank you so much for the ask! 💖💖💖

So, I have two fic series' in motion, both OUAT and mostly centered around August's/Pinocchio's character.

fake/real

fake/real is a long series set inside the Wish Realm. Technically speaking, it's a canon divergent AU in which Wish!Robin decides to stay behind in the WR, instead of following Regina through the wardrobe. What it actually is, is an excuse for me to write Pinocchio related angst.

The main cast includes the Wish Realm versions of; Robin, Pinocchio, Henry, Lizard (OUATIW), Lampwick (Pinocchio) and Peter Pan. Plus, a few other secret characters that would spoil future plot lines if I revealed them now.

The fic is written so that each chapter feels like a new episode of the show (although, the writing is still regular prose and not a script format or anything like that) and so various characters receive some exposure throughout. It's an action/adventure with lots of drama and friendship and some romance, and a fic I'm using to explore underdeveloped characters and dynamics.

The fic itself is...kind of niche and it's also a gen fic with next to no main characters (so I totally understand why most people won't bother clicking) but been a very special project for me and I've loved writing it. I'm currently part way through writing the second book, with plans for a third at some point as well. <3

(if you're interested in looking at the general vibe for the fic (and don't mind huge, glaring spoilers) I also have a tag dedicated to it on my blog)

mess is mine

mess is mine is potentially even more obscure than fake/real, depending on how you look at things.

It's a fic set in season 2 of OUAT and is a canon divergent AU wherein the whole August + Tamara situation plays out very differently because Lampwick also exists in this AU and he's in Storybrooke.

It's...kind of a romance, yes, but also a fic focusing on both August and Lampwick separately and includes me trying to rectify some of canon's more irritating/stupid elements and fix things where I can. Lots of angst with a very happy ending. It's a lot shorter than fake/real and I'm currently writing a sort of follow up fic/collection of one shots as a kind of epilogue to the main story.

TL; DR:

If you like August Booth AND you ALSO like Pinocchio (and Lampwick), then, I would highly recommend giving both of these a shot.

If neither of those sound like your cup of tea, but you still wanna hear me talk about everyone's favourite motorcycle riding puppet, feel free to check out my August Meta tag for all of my #hot takes about his character 😌✌

[crowdvscritic]

round up // MARCH + APRIL 21

March and April were a whirlwind of vaccines and awards shows! A full year after we starting staying at home, the end of this weird chapter in recent history seems like it might finally be coming to a close, and this pop culture awards season—typically a time full of fun and glamour—captured our moment weirdly well. (Emphasis on the weird.) This month’s recommendations is filled with more Critic Picks than usual, so without further delay, let’s dive right in...

March + April Crowd-Pleasers

Double Feature — 2018 Action Thrillers: Bad Times at the El Royale + Den of Thieves

In Bad Times at the El Royale (Crowd: 9/10, // Critic: 8/10), Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, and Dakota Johnson are staying at a motel on the California-Nevada state line full of money, murder, and mystery. In Den of Thieves (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Gerard Butler takes on some of the best bank robbers in the world. Whether you like your action with a dose of mystery or the thrills of plot twists, these will fit the bill.

Double Feature — ‘80s Comedies: Caddyshack (1980) + Splash (1984)

In the mood for pure silliness? Take your pick between a mermaid and a gopher! Five years before The Little Mermaid, Tom Hanks fell for Daryl Hannah’s blonde hair and scaly tail, and John Candy was his goofy brother in Splash (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10). And four years before Ghostbusters, Bill Murray was the goof on a golf course full of funny people like Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Ted Knight in Caddyshack (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10).

Double Feature — 1980s Coming-of-Age Films Starring Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland, and Challenging Brother Relationships That Influenced Stranger Things: Stand by Me (1986) + The Lost Boys (1987)

Believe it or not, I had no idea these two ‘80s classics had so much in common when I chose to watch them back-to-back. In Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand by Me (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), four kids (Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, River Phoenix, and Wil Wheaton) are following train tracks to find a missing body. In The Lost Boys (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10), Corey Haim and Jason Patric move to a small California town and discover it’s full of ‘80s movie star cameos and…vampires? One is a thoughtful coming-of-age story and one is just bonkers, but both are a great time.

Spaceman by Nick Jonas (2021)

My love for the Jonas Brothers is well-documented, so instead of going down the rabbit hole I started digging at 15, I’ll talk about how Nick Jonas’s latest solo album will likely appeal to a wider audience than just the fans of the brothers’ bombastic pop records. It’s full of catchy tunes you’ll play on repeat and an R&B-influenced album experience about the loneliness we’ve experienced in the last year and how we try to make long-term relationships work.

Ted Lasso (2020- )

I love stories about nice people crushing cruelty and cynicism with relentless kindness, and Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is the warmest, most dedicated leader this side of Leslie Knope. Be sure to catch up on these witty and sweet 10 episodes before season 2 drops later this summer.

Double Feature — Tony Scott Action Flicks: Enemy of the State (1998) + The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Tony Scott’s movies have got explosions and excitement in spades. I love a good man-on-the-run movie, and in Enemy of the State (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), Will Smith is running through the streets of D.C. after getting evidence of a politician’s (Jon Voight) part in a murder. I also love a tense story set in a confined space, which is what Denzel Washington is dealing with in The Taking of Pelham 123 (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 7/10) after a hammy John Travolta takes a New York subway train hostage.

Double Feature — Baseball Movies: The Natural (1984) + Trouble With the Curve (2012)

Sue me—I love baseball movies. Robert Redford plays a fictional all-time great in the early days of the MLB in The Natural (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10), and Clint Eastwood plays a fictional all-time great scout in his late career in Trouble With the Curve (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10). If you love baseball or actors like Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Justin Timberlake, these movies are just right here waiting for you.

Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American (2021)

Sue me—I enjoy Netflix standup comedy specials that are safe enough to watch with your whole family. That’s exactly the crowd I laughed with over Easter weekend, and while the trailer captures Bargatze’s relaxed vibe, it doesn’t capture how funny he really is.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

I thought somewhere in my childhood I’d seen at least one of The Mighty Ducks movies, but after watching all three, I think my memories must’ve come from previews on the VHS tapes for other Disney movies I watched over and over again. The original still holds up as an grown-ups, which is why even my parents got sucked in to this family movie while just passing through the living room. Bonus for ‘80s movies lovers: Emilio Estevez is basically continuing Andrew Clark’s story from The Breakfast Club as an adult. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

Double Feature — New, Dumb Action on Streaming: Godzilla vs. Kong + Thunder Force (2021)

If you want something intelligent, go ahead and skip to the next recommendation, but if you’re looking for something stupid fun, these are ready for you on HBO Max and Netflix. Thunder Force (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6/10) follows Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer as they train to become superheroes who take on superhuman sociopaths wreaking havoc on Chicago, and alongside Jason Bateman, they do it with a lot of laughs. Godzilla vs. Kong (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 5/10) is, um, exactly what it sounds like, so I’ll skip a plot summary and just say it’s exactly what you want from this kind of movie. #TeamKong

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

All you need to know is Russell Crowe is an outlaw, and Christian Bale is the guy who’s got to get him on the train to prison. I also watched the 1957 version, which is also a solid watch if you love classic Westerns. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)

Marvel’s newest series isn’t nearly as inventive as WandaVision, and it may not land every beat, but it’s worth a watch for the fun new gadgets, Sebastian Stan’s dry joke delivery, and its exploration into themes of what makes a hero and what governments owe their citizens. It’s a pretty satisfying entry in the MCU canon, but I’d also recommend re-watching Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War—the canon is getting expansive, and it’s getting trickier every year to keep up with all the backstory.

March + April Critic Picks

Best of 2020 Picks

As per usual, the months leading up to the Oscars becomes a binge period for potential Oscar nominees. In March and April, I watched many of the films that made my Top 20 of 2020, including Boys State, The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Let Them All Talk, Minari, Nomadland, On the Rocks, One Night in Miami…, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and Sound of Metal. You can read how I ranked them on my list for ZekeFilm, plus reviews of The Father, Minari, Promising Young Woman, and Soul.

Bonus: If you loved On the Rocks, don’t miss this feature and beautiful photography starring Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Rashida Jones for W Magazine. 

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

What would you do if you started hearing a voice who narrated your every thought and move? If you’re Will Ferrell, you’ll seek out a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman), fall in love (with Maggie Gyllenhaal), and track down the voice (Emma Thompson) who’s making ominous predictions about your future. Stranger Than Fiction is funny thought-provoking, and an unusual but welcome role for Ferrell. Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

All the Royal Family News

Speaking of stranger than fiction, it’s been a busy few months for the Royal Family. We’ve celebrated 95th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the 3rd birthday of Prince Louis, and the 10th anniversary of Will and Kate’s marriage. We also lost Prince Philip, and we watched the drama of Harry and Meaghan’s interview with Oprah. No matter what happens to their Crown, I don’t think we’ll ever get over our fascination with the Windsor family. A few pieces worth reading from the last few months:

“In Meghan and Harry’s Interview, Two TV Worlds Collided,” Vulture.com

“The Queen’s Man: Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Dies,” TIME.com

“Obituary: HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” BBC.com

Goodfellas (1990)

One of my film opinions that makes me feel like a phony is that Martin Scorsese just isn’t my cup of tea. He’s brilliant, but his films tend to be long and dark, two qualities that are never my first choice…and somehow Goodfellas still worked for me? Maybe it was the TV edit graciously toning down the violence or maybe it was that Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci were firing on all cylinders, but for some reason this ‘90s classic didn’t suck the joy out of my evening like Scorsese often does. (Bonus: For a Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro I don’t really recommend, head to the last section of this Round Up.)

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

Her voice has only matured, so Taylor Swift revisiting her old albums is like upgrading a blast to the past. Plus, the six new tracks make me feel like 15 crushing on that boy in Spanish class again, and her Grammys performance (just before her third Album of the Year win) was magical and folklore-tastic.

Double Feature — ‘60s Action Classics: The Guns of Navarone (1961) + Planet of the Apes (1968)

The Guns of Navarone (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Gregory Peck and David Niven as they destroy Nazi weapons in the Mediterranean. Planet of the Apes (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Charlton Heston as he attempts to escape from, well, a planet full of apes. The pacing of ‘60s films doesn’t always hold up, but that’s not the case with this pair. Both are still full of suspense, and you can’t go wrong hanging with casts like these.

Let Him Go (2020)

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a farming couple who unexpectedly help raise a boy who lost his biological father—sound familiar? But instead of a superhero origin story, they’re part of a thrilling Western with performances nuanced (Costner and Lane) and showy (Lesley Manville). If I’d watched this before completing my Best of 2020 piece, it likely would’ve been on my list. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Oscars

I’m a ride-or-die fan of the Academy Awards, but I’ll admit even I found this year’s ceremony odd. Instead of focusing on what wasn’t so hot, I’ll recommend a few moments you don’t want to miss:

Emerald Fennell giving a shout-out to Saved by the Bell

Daniel Kaluuya acknowledging his parents’ sex life during his acceptance speech (??)

Yuh-Jung Yoon flirting with Brad Pitt and acknowledging she’s just “luckier” than her fellow nominees

Glenn Close dancing to…”Da Butt”?

You can also read about the historic wins and nominations from this year’s Oscar class and why the Golden Globes were an even stranger production weeks earlier.

Trailer-palooza!

Movies are on their way back, y’all! I’m counting down the days until I can get back to a theatre, and even if some of these movies are duds, I’m planning to see all of them on a big screen if possible:

Those Who Wish Me Dead (May 14)

Cruella (May 28)

In the Heights (June 11)

Space Jam 2 (July 16)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3)

West Side Story (December 10)

Also in March + April…

To add to the Oscars love, you can listen to a conversation about what we learn about family, community, and society in some of the year’s biggest nominees on the Uncommon Voices podcast. I join regular hosts Michael and Kenneth in this episode, and I recommend all of their thoughtful discussions on their “What’s Streaming” episodes.

I’ve previously recommended the Do You Like Apples weekly newsletter, so I’m proud to share I contributed twice in March! I wrote about Love and Basketball, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and one of my all-time favorite Julia Roberts rom-coms, Notting Hill. (I also tied to win their Oscars pool, but I suppose that’s less exciting for you than me.)

It was a busy couple of months on SO IT’S A SHOW! New logo, new email list, new Instagram, and a host of new episodes about a flop of a Madonna flick, a Swedish children’s TV show, an urban legend turned into a horror movie, one of the best films about journalism ever, and a Martin Scorsese movie about a real boxer.

Most of what I wrote for ZekeFilm in March and April was mentioned in Best of 2020 recommendations…except for The Nest, a film that couldn’t figure out what genre it wanted to be.

Photo credits: Nick Jonas, Royal Family. All others IMDb.com.