#probs gonna end up writing a fic of this at some point

[wickjump]

I’M SO GLAD THAT I’VE FOUND SOMEONE THAT ENJOYS CREPIC. THEREFORE YOU ARE GETTING A HC.

I’ve recently seen a trope somewhere that if partner A has noticeable scars, partner B will kiss them as a small romantic or comforting gesture. Ever since I’ve seen this trope I have not stopped thinking about crepic. IT FITS SO WELL???

Like, obviously Epic has the scar on his eye. His magic eye has caused him years of suffering and awful nightmares. It’s been nothing more to him than a burden. And the scar is just another reminder that he can never let go of everything that’s been done to him. But whatever, he’s gotten over it. But imagine Epic going over to Cross’ house for a sleepover, and late at night the two are just lying in Cross’ bed talking about something stupid, when their conversation suddenly turns more personal. This slowly leads to Epic opening up about how much of a struggle it is to live with his eye. Of course, he doesn’t go too much into detail, since he was never really one to speak about his personal life.

And Cross can’t help but feel so guilty for his poor best friend after listening to him talk about how much pain he had to endure for so long. Epic keeps insisting that he’s fine and that it’s not a big deal, but Cross wants to give the person he cares about so much the desperate comfort he needs. One way leads to another and Cross ends up leaning over and kissing the scar on Epic’s eye while gently cupping his face or something. (bonus points if Cross also kisses the scars on Epic’s hands). AND EPIC WOULD PROB BE HOLDING BACK TEARS THE ENITRE TIME BUT WOUDL EVENTUALLY CRAKC CUZ SOMEONE ACTUALLY FINDS BEAUTY IN HIS INSECURITIES AND UHHUHGH.

I’m so ashamed that this became a huge rant when it didn’t need to be 🙏🙏 (But seriously I’m so starved of crepic that it’s becoming torturous. I need to be fed more fanfics bc there’s only 30 on ao3. Nsfw or not I need to be fed.)

WEEPING CRYING YES!!!!!!!!!! epic is so ignored in crepic fics mostly because people don’t bother to read his au’s comic (it’s… a long one… so i get it lmfao), and i might be one of those people though not because a lack of adoration for his canon but because cross is my favorite idiot and epic is hard to write. BUT!!!!!! I LIKE THIS A LOT.

scar kissing can go one of two ways, very very good, or very very bad. personally if anyone tried to kiss my scars they’d get clocked, but it depends for the character (and person). some people think it’s cringe worthy, other people think it’s sweet. EYE SCARS HOWEVER? OH HO HO. THOSE NEED TO BE KISSED RIGJT FUCKIJG NOW… ABSOLUTELY YES. epic’s whole eye ordeal like ruined his life and made him damn near suicidal. i haven’t read the side comics in a little while for epic but iirc when he’s killed he thinks something along the lines of ‘isnt this what ive been waiting for?’ or something? could be wrong idk i haven’t read it in a few months. but either way that eye, and that scar as a reminder, really fucked him up. and epic’s the kind of guy to gloss over that entirely. but cross is an overthinker at his core so when he catches wind of this it’s going to be on his mind forever probably.

i love. i love the idea that cross just holds epic’s face and kisses his scars. holy shit i love that so much. dear god. he absolutely should get to do that. cross cares sososo much about epic but epic never tells him anything!!! so when cross gets a whiff of his internal turmoil he is gonna DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!! and epic is gonna FEEL EMOTIONS!!!!!!

I LOVE characters cupping someone’s face while kissing them while paying mind to their traumas and letting them know that you treasure them and and and combusts into a superbillion molecules

goddd this idea. /pos. AND YOURE SO REAL ABOUT THE FIC THING THEY SHOULD HAVE MORE FICS LIKE??? WHAT???!!!!! there’s barely any fics out there for them compared to so many other ships. every night i pray that i wake up and someone dropped a 200k+ word slow burn crepic ‘forbidden’ (because cross’ job and epic’s residence) romance best friends to lovers au fic. but those prayers always go unanswered. ive scoured the entire site for them, ive started going to WATTPAD, DAMNIT!!!!!!!!! bleh. i don’t even care about ratings or tags anymore as long as it’s consensual and legal im fine please give me more content with them 🙏

[omgrachwrites]

Carnival - Dalton Lambert

Pairing: Dalton Lambert x Reader

Summary: You and Dalton attend the Halloween carnival together and in turn face both of your fears.

Warnings: fluff, so much fluff, probs ooc Dalton

A/N: I love writing for Dalton so much! This is a chapter from my upcoming Dalton fic 'Lie to Me,' I've turned it into a one shot so the actual chapter is gonna be a little different. Hope you guys enjoy and please let me know what you think! I love you all xxx

The atmosphere on campus was excitable, everyone was getting ready for the Halloween carnival, and you were no different. Your roommate, Chris leaned against the doorframe as you finished getting ready for the carnival.

You met her gaze in the mirror and grinned, “can I help you with something?”

“Why are you doing this, Y/N?”

You frowned at her as you applied a layer of your favourite lipstick, “what do you mean?”

“You’re going to the carnival with Dalton? When you could go with anybody else, Y/N you can get anyone you want at this school.”

You bit your lip and turned to face your roommate, “I like Dalton,” and it was true, you did like him. He was so different from anyone else.

“He’s my best friend, Y/N. When you break his heart it’s me that’s going to have to pick up the pieces.”

“When?” you glared at her, “Chris, I’m not some heartless bitch, I’m not going to hurt him.”

Before Chris could reply, the boy in question knocked on the doorframe and you smiled at him as he came into view. He looked so handsome in a button down shirt and his long hair was loose and wavy.

“Hey, you look great,” he grinned, a flush spreading out onto his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

You smiled as you grabbed your jacket, “thanks! So do you.”

Chris looked between you and Dalton and rolled her eyes, “ugh, I’ll meet you guys there.”

For the end of October, the weather was pretty good, it was breezy but not cold. It was a bit of a walk from the university to the ground where the carnival was being held so you contented yourselves by making light conversation. You spoke about your classes, his Art classes and your Criminal Justice classes. In the light of day, he looked so tired and you hoped that his classes weren’t wearing him out.

Finally, the smell of funnel cakes and popcorn, coupled with laughter and screams of delight were carried on the brisk October wind. You and Dalton smiled at each other as you walked into the carnival.

“I love funnel cake,” Dalton grinned.

“Me too,” you looked wistfully over at the stall before turning to the handsome boy at your side, “but rides first?”

He laughed and pushed his long hair back with his hand, “that’s a good idea, what do you want to go on first?”

You looked around, trying to decide before you gasped and clutched at his sleeve, “please, can we go on the ghost train?” you pointed over to it.

Dalton bit his lip as his gaze followed where you were pointing. It looked as though he was going to refuse – he had a strange look on his face – but he nodded with a sweet smile, “sure, let’s go.”

You grabbed his hand, smiling up at him when he linked your fingers together as you walked over to the ghost train. He refused to look at you, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the grass but you didn’t miss the way a flush spread across his cheeks. As soon as you walked into the pitch black to wait for the ride Dalton’s grip on your hand tightened and he pulled you closer to him but you didn’t think anything of it.

The ghost train was pretty good, it had the cheesy cheap thrills that you loved but there were moments that actually made you jump. Dalton seemed to be on edge the whole way round, he bounced his leg and his hand was still clutching yours, gripping tighter when there was a jump scare.

“Hey,” you whispered, “are you okay?”

He nodded, “yeah,” he whispered back, “I’m just a little jumpy,” you nodded and didn’t push it but you noticed how relieved he was when you left the darkness of the ghost train and suggested a roller coaster.

After a few exhilarating roller coasters you both walked towards the food stalls still hand in hand, “so, what’s your favourite ride?” you asked.

“Um, it’s kind of lame,” he laughed, “but when my mom and dad were still together we’d all go on the Ferris Wheel together, and it was perfect. So, I guess it’s the Ferris Wheel,” he flushed, you’d very rarely heard him speak about his parents, it did seem like he didn’t like talking about them much. He looked back at you with a grin, “you want to come on it with me?”

You bit your lip and looked away from him, feeling silly, “I’m terrified of heights,” you looked back at Dalton who gave you a confused look, “I’m alright on roller coasters because they’re over so quick but I can’t think of anything worse than being suspended in the air in a metal wheel,” you shuddered, “I’m sorry Dalton.”

Dalton shook his head and gave you a kind smile, “you don’t have to apologise for anything, Y/N. Come on, let’s get some food.”

On the way to the stalls, you ran into Chris and stopped to speak with her while Dalton walked ahead to get the food, “did I see you guys coming out of the ghost train earlier?”

“Yeah, so what?” you asked.

Chris laughed, “how did you persuade him? Did you have to kiss him?” when Chris saw that you had no idea what she was going on about, she carried on, “he’s terrified of the dark, when we were roommates briefly he had to plug a nightlight in. He must really like you, Y/N.”

“Really?” you asked, not sure if you should believe her. Chris nodded with a smirk on her face, you glanced up to see Dalton walking towards you with the food and a warm smile on his face. You instantly felt bad, if Dalton could get over his fear for you then surely you could do the same for him. You smiled at him as he greeted Chris and you thanked him for the food, “okay, I’ll come on the Ferris Wheel with you.”

Dalton raised an eyebrow and he frowned, “we don’t have to, Y/N.”

“No, no. I want to, Dalton,” you smiled at him before you could second guess yourself. You hardly tasted the food as you and Dalton walked through the carnival, you couldn’t keep your eyes off the huge metal wheel, it seemed crazy that you would soon be up there.

As you queued up for the wheel, Dalton’s hold on your hand tightened and he pulled you closer again but it was wildly different to how he had held you in the queue of the ghost train. It was his turn to comfort you. When you got to the front you thought your legs would stop working but miraculously you managed to follow him and sit down in one of the seats. You jolted as the wheel began to move slowly.

“You’re okay, Y/N. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

You nodded and gave him a shaky smile, “thank you.”

Your heart thumped wildly in your chest as the Ferris Wheel creaked and you slowly moved towards the apex. Dalton grinned as he looked over at the view and you felt brave enough to lean over him and take in the scene below, the people down below looked like ants and the clouds seemed so close. Dalton’s presence was so comforting that you even managed to relax as the wheel stopped at the top.

“Are you okay?”

You nodded, “yeah, I think I am, thank you for being so great about this,” you laughed nervously.

Dalton shook his head and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, “you don’t have to thank me, Y/N,” he grinned and you noticed just how pretty his eyes were and you noticed the different tones of blue.

With a flush you leaned up and kissed his cheek, Dalton didn’t have the chance to react to your kiss because the wheel began moving again and you squeaked as you jolted. Dalton laughed, giving you an apologetic look as the ride moved back to solid ground, to which you were thankful for.

As you both met up with Chris at the end of the ride she smirked and held up her phone, “oh you guys are just adorable,” she laughed as she showed you both the pictures she took.

You both laughed at the picture of you looking scared, your eyes wide, nearly bulging out of your head. Dalton stopped laughing abruptly and looked at you with a flush as Chris flicked to the picture of you kissing his cheek.

Chris smirked, “come on, I’m still hungry. Let’s go to the diner down the road.”

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Hero

found u on AO3 and loved u immediately, your writing style is incredible and i’ve binged all your stories :) crack request popped into my mind the other day and i thought i’d share—> the pinocchio phenomenon about “my nose will grow” (i’m sure you’re familiar) except for its the sides (prob logan bc experiment) trying it on janus- “janus will be summoned” or something to that effect idk ily please never stop writing <3 – bumblebea2712

Okay, so I've been thinking about something for a while. In your fic, Silver Box, where Roman has that box labeled 'Ego' with all the positive reinforcement in it? What if one of the things that gets whispered from it is when c!Thomas told Roman "you're my hero"? Like, especially with the angst from POF/SvS Redux. Thinking about how Roman misinterpret Janus' nod as 'Thomas is lying' when he actually meant that Thomas was still the truth when calling Roman his hero again. I wanna see Janus trying to correct him and be like "that nod meant he was telling the truth, he still thinks of you as his hero, he still cares about you", etc. Just some Roman, Janus, and c!Thomas angst all bundled up with hurt/comfort. I have THOUGHTS, and so I wanted to share :3 – oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat

If you're up to requests rn, could we have a Sanders Sides fic where Thomas himself is actually present maybe? – anon

Hey, would you be interested in perhaps writing a story where Logan assumes Roman is stupid because he isn’t articulate, and one day Roman has enough and is trying so hard to explain to Logan why he’s wrong but he doesn’t know the right way to phrase things so he just ends up getting more and more upset while Logan isn’t listening? – anon

Hey! I love your work (I’m definitely a Roman angst enjoyer 😅, but all of it’s good!!). If you’re open to requests, I was thinking about the control that Patton has over Roman because like,, a prince fights for honor. For good. And who decides what those concepts mean? Patton does. In some way, he controls Roman’s narrative. Anyways, h/c with Roman and potentially protective Remus. Thank you for considering!! – anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: self esteem issues, self doubt, slightly unsympathetic logan and patton

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 5984

"What honor is there that I can find now? What—how do I know what is right anymore? I've been behind a sword for so long, I fear…I fear I'm forgetting who I am without it." His breath comes out shakier. "And I fear…if I were to ever try to explain this to someone who wasn't you, my words would come out so clumsy they would impale me on their rusted edges." "There is nothing wrong with the way you speak, Roman. Nothing at all." "If only it were something that would be listened to."

Thomas sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Okay, I think—is that all we're gonna be able to get done today?"

"I have no qualms about continuing, but I do not think it would be productive."

"I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you go around in circles again and again," Virgil groans, long ago giving up the pretense of standing and paying attention, his forehead pressed against the stairs railing, "just call it here and let us go."

"Now, kiddo, that's not a very sporting attitude!" Patton puts his hands on his hips. "If Thomas thinks we're all involved in this discussion, then there's no point if trying to discount your own importance."

"I'm not discounting my own importance, I'm questioning my relevance." He glares through a gap in the bars at Logan. "This whole thing isn't gonna make me think it's not worth being cautious about, no matter how much L tries to talk me out of it. I'm Anxiety. Literally it's my job to be irrational sometimes. By definition—"

"But we've previously established that you do have some semblance of logical reasoning at points, and this could very well be one of those points—"

"Okay." Thomas cuts Logan off with a wave of his hand. "I think—yeah, I think we're done. I'm sorry, Logan, but I don't—we're kind of at an impasse."

"Here's an idea." Virgil's hand flops lazily up in a parody of raising his hand. "Why don't we ask someone whose literal job it is to come up with ideas?"

Logan's nose wrinkles momentarily and he sighs. "I do not see the value in asking either Roman or Remus to weigh in on this discussion when it has nothing to do with them."

"Uh-huh, so you wanna try to do the create-an-idea thing without the Sides whose job it is to do that?"

"We are all capable of coming up with ideas, Virgil, Roman and Remus simply represent Thomas's Creativity."

"Oh, yeah?" Virgil heaves himself up onto an elbow. "When's the last time you came up with an idea for an experiment on your own?"

"Preposterous. I'm perfectly capable of coming up with my own experiments."

"Do it. Right now."

"We are in the middle of discussing—"

"No, no," Thomas says, "please, I could use a break from thinking about this."

Logan's mouth works for a second. "Very well. Let's see…ah. A spin on the Pinocchio paradox."

"The what?"

"The Pinocchio paradox. A simple thought experiment on what would happen if the character, Pinocchio, uttered the words: 'My nose will grow now.' An interesting thought, given that—"

"That his nose grows when he lies and if it does grow then he told the truth which means it wouldn't grow which means he lies, sure, sure, sure, what does that have to do with anything?"

Logan adjusts his ties and raises a finger. "Janus will now appear."

Everyone in the room pauses, listening for the telltale whoosh of a Side appearing. Which it does, a few seconds later, and Logan gets cuffed on the shoulder.

"What was that for?"

"I'm not an experiment," Janus says, a bit too amused to be an indictment, "and am perfectly capable of showing up to slap you for being an idiot."

"See? Experiment successful."

"That's not—okay." Thomas pinches the bridge of his nose. "Janus, while you're here, you might as well weigh in on this."

'"Being arbitrarily asked to choose a side with little to no context as to what the options are? My favorite." He claps his hands a few times. "What am I choosing between?"

"Would it be better if I responded to this email now, saying that I'm not available for a call for the rest of the day, or should I wait and just call back tomorrow when I am free?"

"Ooh, what an interesting dilemma. How badly will your life be impacted by a negative outcome to this call?"

"Don't fucking start with me, J," Virgil warns, studiously ignoring Patton's language, "I know you've been listening this whole time."

"Oh, you're no fun." Virgil tips him a lazy two-fingered salute and he sighs. "Very well. Thomas, do you want to respond to this now?"

Thomas frowns. "What? Isn't that what you all are here for?"

"We can manifest different parts of you trying to figure something out, but that doesn't mean you don't have your own thoughts about it that aren't us. What do you want to do?"

"This line of questioning is pointless. Thomas has established that he doesn't know what he wants and he's asked us—well, I suppose that now includes you—what to do."

Janus slides his gaze to Logan, eyes narrowing slightly. "That's awfully presumptuous of you, Logan."

"Thomas? Is that an inaccurate conclusion?"

"…I mean, not really."

Logan gestures at him. "See? There you are. Now, either we are agreeing to call the meeting here and simply wait until tomorrow, or we are going to rehash the same arguments from the past hour and quite frankly, I think there is a better use of our time."

"Why are the twins not here?"

"Excuse me?"

"The twins. The ones who are good at coming up with solutions to problems." Janus glances around. "They seem conspicuously absent from this meeting where we are trying to come up with a solution to something."

"That's what I was saying."

Logan sighs, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Alright, if you insist. I do not see what sort of valuable insight they will be able to give us, but if you all want to hear what they have to say, then I suppose I cannot object."

Thomas smiles and reaches out to summon Creativity. A moment later, Roman appears in front of the TV, wincing.

"Thomas?"

"Hey, Roman, we, uh, we were hoping you could help us out."

Roman rubs the back of his neck, glancing around the room. "Uh, sure. What, uh, what with?"

"Thomas is struggling to choose between responding to a missed phone call and voicemail with either an email today apologizing and explaining his availability tomorrow, or simply calling back tomorrow when he is immediately available," Logan says smoothly. "Which option do you think is preferable?"

Roman just blinks at him for a long second. When Logan raises his eyebrows expectantly, his shoulders hunch a little and he curls in on himself. "I, um, I don't know."

"Just as I suspected. Very well, thank you Roman, you may go."

"Wait, what?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Virgil says, sitting up, "that's not fair, he's been here, what, all of two seconds?"

"Yes, and has just admitted that he doesn't have an answer to us, which is not a productive way to continue this conversation, therefore he can go."

"Wait, Logan—" Thomas holds his hand out, silently asking Roman to stay, "can't we just—how's he gonna be able to actually give his opinion if he doesn't have time to make one?"

"Roman, are the facts I've given to you unclear?"

"Huh? N-no—"

"Do you believe you have a firm enough grasp of the situation to form a conclusion?"

"I mean, yeah, I get it, but—"

"And you still don't know what option you prefer?"

Roman's quiet for a moment, his outstretched hand slowly returning to his side. "…no."

Logan nods. "Settled, then."

"Come on, Logan," Janus says, frowning a little now, "just because you didn't want him here doesn't mean you can throw him away as soon as he's said one thing that vaguely aligns with what you wanted."

"First off, that's an incredible level of irony coming from you—" both Janus and Roman flinch— "and secondly, Roman, would you like to be part of this meeting?"

They all turn to look at Roman, who shuffles under their gazes. He keeps flicking his eyes up to Thomas, then to Patton, then to Janus, before staring back down at his hands. The buzzing of the fridge becomes oppressive. He winces and rubs the back of his neck again.

"Roman?"

"…not really."

"Then it's settled, then. Thank you for your input."

Roman glances once more at Thomas with something almost like longing before he sinks out again. Virgil, who'd been watching him closely, turns to frown at Logan. Logan adjusts his tie.

"If that's all, then, Thomas, would you still like to end the meeting here?"

"Yeah, let's…let's call it."

"Very well. I shall be available if you need me further." He sinks out.

Patton sinks out next, giving Thomas a quick thumbs-up before disappearing. Janus exchanges a brief look with Virgil before he's vanishing too, leaving just the two of them alone in the living room. Thomas puts his hands on his hips, staring at the spot where Roman was.

"So that was weird, right?"

"Yeah." Virgil grunts as he sits up, hands balled up in the pocket of his hoodie. "That…I've never seen them…do that before."

"Did Roman and Logan have a fight or something?"

"I don't think so? I mean, I've seen them argue about stuff, but they always do that and it didn't seem like it was any more, like, intense than usual, so I don't…I don't know why that happened." He shuffles. "I've also never seen Logan be that…short with Roman before."

"Yeah, like, he was here for literally, like—"

"Like two seconds—"

"And then Logan was telling him to go again. And did you notice how he kept looking—"

"At you?"

"At me, yeah, did—did I do something?"

"What? Shit, no, Thomas, I don't think that's it. I think—" he sighs— "look, he's not gonna be happy I'm telling you this, but Princey's been going through some stuff lately and I'm not sure exactly what it is but I know it's been weighing on him a lot."

Thomas frowns. "How so?"

"Well, let me put it this way: have you been daydreaming a lot more lately?"

He thinks. "Uh, yeah, I mean, I guess so, but I haven't been doing that much recently, which kind of makes sense, I guess?"

"Yeah, well, that's Princey in the Imagination." Thomas nods and Virgil gives him a pointed look. "I'm telling you that Princey's been going into the Imagination more."

"Yeah, that's—isn't that what he does?"

Virgil scrubs a hand over his face. "Yeah, it is, but not like this. Normally when he goes in, he's doing it to come up with ideas or work something out, or…something. But recently…"

"But recently that doesn't feel like what he's doing," Thomas finishes, chewing on his lip, "yeah, actually, now that you mention it, it does kind of feel…different. Like—like they're…"

"Comfort," Virgil finishes quietly when he can't quite put his finger on it, "it feels like a comfort."

"Roman's going into the Imagination to comfort himself?" Virgil shrugs. "Why?"

"Like I said, he's going through some stuff. It's not—I'm not all up on how the Imagination translates to whatever your daydreams end up being, but I don't think—Princey's not even telling us what he gets up to in there."

Thomas sucks in a breath. If there's one thing he's learned after listening to them talk about whatever goes on in the Mindscape when they're not with him, it's that Roman loves to regale them with tales of his adventures in the Imagination, even if it comes at the expense of whatever else they're doing. To hear that Roman's been going off more than usual and he isn't telling them about it? Worrying, to say the least.

"When did this start?"

Virgil blows out a breath. "After the wedding."

"Shit, that's…probably not good."

"Yeah."

They both stare at the black TV. A bit of dust gets caught in a gust from the vent and sticks to the corner.

"…he's my hero," Thomas says quietly.

"Huh?"

"He's my hero. Maybe he's…maybe he's going to the Imagination to do the things heroes don't get to do."

"Okay, you gotta break that down for me a little more."

"The heroes don't get to be vulnerable. They don't get to…to actually stop and rest, not really. They have to keep going, they have to…" Thomas swallows. When did this lump in his throat get here? "They're not—oh, god, am I gonna cry?"

"Shit, shit, shit, uh—do you want me to get Patton back?"

"N-no, no, don't—" for some reason the thought of Patton reappearing sends a bolt of fear straight through his chest and he knows Virgil feels it too, shooting to his feet and watching as Thomas stumbles back to the couch— "I—oh, god."

"Hey, hey, hey, buddy," Virgil says, voice soft and low as Thomas buries his face in his hands, "take it easy, okay? You're okay, you're safe in the house, everything's okay. I need you to take a deep breath for me, okay? Just a nice, deep breath, you're okay, that's it, good, now let it out…nice, do it again…"

Virgil helps talk him slowly through the well of emotion suddenly bubbling just at the base of his throat, the breaths coming out shaky but steady. Absentmindedly, he puts a hand to his chest and starts rubbing in slow, firm circles. The pressure does something to the frantic and flighty part of him, helping to soothe him back from whatever brink he hadn't realized he'd walked to.

"Hey," Virgil calls a few minutes later, "you with me again?"

"Yeah, I think so." He takes a couple more seconds just to breathe it out. "Roman's—Roman's my hero, and I don't know if he knows that I…that I still want to listen to him."

"What do you mean?"

"Afterwards. When I—when we were all—when the stuff happened. He said that he thought he was my hero and I told him he was and then he…"

"Freaked," Virgil finishes when he can't, "yeah, I remember."

"I don't…I don't know why that made him so upset."

"Well, hey," he says when that lump starts to come back to his throat, "let's not have you worry about that right now, okay? You—let's go do something else that'll get your mind off of it. Go rewatch the Office bloopers again, that always works."

"Will you—can you keep an eye on him for me?"

"Yeah, Thomas, I can do that. Now c'mon, those bloopers aren't going to rewatch themselves."

***

Roman walks slowly through the woods as the fireflies twinkle around him. He lifts a hand to push aside a branch, stepping through the shadows to emerge onto the thin dirt path that winds through the base of the trees. As the darkness falls, the thin blue lines grow deeper, darker, blending together to weave across the grass as little critters scurry back and forth. The whistle of the wind accompanies the crunch of his footsteps as he makes his way toward the cabin.

Movement from around the side and the man emerges, wiping dirt from his hands with a rag. He looks up and smiles as Roman approaches.

"Roman," he greets, with his voice warm, "how good it is to see you."

"I see I'm a bit too late to help with the chores." He nods to the rag. "I don't mean to impose on you."

"Nonsense, old friend, nothing you do could possibly be an imposition. As it happens, I have a stew on that I won't be able to finish by myself and it would be a great favor to me if you were to help me."

Roman chuckles. "How could I refuse?"

The man holds a hand out to him as he nears, settling it on the curve of Roman's neck and pulling him close for a brief hug of sorts. Roman turns his cheek to rest against the curve of his jaw, breathing out shakily. The man lets out a comforting noise and his fingers card through the delicate hairs at the base of his head.

"Come inside, dear friend, let the fire warm you."

"The night is warm already."

"It is young still, and will grow cold," he says as he begins to lead them up the stairs, "and you look to be the type of cold that does not thaw even in the hottest sun."

"I worry for the state of the realm sometimes, if I am truly so transparent."

"Only to me, dear friend, and only because you have seen fit to allow yourself to be so with me." He's coaxed inside a modest cabin, sat at a simple hewn table as a rich smell fills the room. He closes his eyes to breathe it in, opening them again when the low thud of a bowl and tankard draws his attention. "Eat, please. You know I can't bear a less-than-full stomach under my roof."

"You're too kind to me."

"Nonsense." The hand fits itself around his head once more. "You are worth being kind to, and even more worth allowing me to care for you. Now, come on."

The stew is simple, hearty, and as filling as he could ever want. Under the table, their legs press together, boots against boots, knee against knee. The fire crackles in the hearth as the last of the light fades from outside. He can feel his shoulders beginning to relax, the line of his body growing looser, more languid.

When they've both eaten their fill and the dishes have been set away to deal with later, he sits on the floor near the hearth and stares into the flames. A warm hand lands on his shoulder and brings his head to rest against another, light touch trailing over the bare skin under his sleeve.

"What troubles you tonight, dear friend?"

"I don't want to impose—"

"Shh, none of that now. It's an honor to be troubled by your worries."

He turns his head into the crook of his neck, breathing in the smell of clean sweat, of spiced apple, of wood smoke. "I struggle to remember what it is I fight for."

Gentle nails along his scalp. "How so?"

"What honor is there that I can find now? What—how do I know what is right anymore? I've been behind a sword for so long, I fear…I fear I'm forgetting who I am without it." His breath comes out shakier. "And I fear…if I were to ever try to explain this to someone who wasn't you, my words would come out so clumsy they would impale me on their rusted edges."

"There is nothing wrong with the way you speak, Roman. Nothing at all."

"If only it were something that would be listened to."

"Hey." He's nudged until he can look up at the man's face. "You once told me that all you wanted to fight for was this. For the chance for one to sit, in the peace and safety, with those they care for, and have that be alright. Is this still true?"

"Yes. But I don't—I no longer know how to do that."

The man goes quiet, contemplative, running his fingers gently over the edge of Roman's face. The touch coaxes a lump to his throat, a tear to his eye, and the man lets out another comforting noise, pulling him closer.

"Rest for the night, please, dear friend. My bed is warm, my touch willing. You fear losing who you are without your sword? Put it down for the night, stay. Remind yourself of how to enjoy the thing you fight for."

"If only I could be as persuasive as you," he mumbles, allowing himself to sink into the warmth of the touch, "then I might never need a sword again."

He chuckles. "Well, I don't know if I can do all that much, but I have learned how to persuade you, my dear, and that will serve me well enough."

***

"Roman?"

Roman turns, spotting Janus as he trudges back from the Imagination. "What're you doing awake?"

"I was waiting for you."

He winces. "Sorry, I, um, did we have something planned?"

"What? No, no, sweetie, nothing like that, I only—I wanted to talk to you for a moment."

A chill works its way up Roman's spine and he suppresses a shudder, walking slowly to his room and opening the door. Janus follows him in, carefully closing it behind them and waiting while Roman tucks something into a drawer on his desk and sitting down.

"What's up?"

"Are you…are you okay?"

He flinches slightly. "Why, um, why?"

Janus looks pained. He glances around and seemingly comes to a decision before sinking down to the floor, crossing his legs and sighing. "You…seemed very upset after earlier, and I wanted to come and ask you about it."

"Oh, no, I'm fine, I wasn't—Logan was right, I wasn't going to be useful in that conversation."

"The one you were in for all of three seconds before you were being shunted out of it again?"

Roman narrows his eyes. "You know, it is kind of ironic that you of all people are worrying about that right now."

Janus barely has time to process how he feels about that sentence before Roman's eyes are widening and he's leaning back.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, that came out really rude, I didn't mean that."

"You did, and that's okay. No, no—really, it is okay, Roman, you don't have to pretend like I didn't hurt you—that I'm not hurting you when I do things like that. No, no—" he stands as Roman covers his face with his hands— "please, sweetie, just—just listen to me for a second, okay?"

Roman nods, his face still hidden. Janus hesitates for a moment before gloved hands come down to rest on his shoulders. He leans down and carefully, carefully presses his chin to the top of Roman's head. Roman shudders a little under the contact but stays still.

"You've been distant lately," Janus whispers, as though afraid of breaking the silence, "and that's not a bad thing, sweetie, but it's…it seems like it's hurting you. And I'm worried because Thomas isn't—I don't know what Thomas would do without you."

Roman stiffens and immediately he knows it was the wrong thing to say. "I won't let Thomas down again, I know what I'm doing. I'm just—I'm sorry I haven't been very present lately, but I'm—"

"No, no, that's not what I meant—wait, what do you mean, 'again?'"

Roman hunches his shoulders. "I know I'm not Thomas's hero anymore, okay? You don't need to keep acting like I'm—"

"Wait, wait, sweetie." Janus crouches down, cupping Roman's face in his hands. "What do you mean, you're not Thomas's hero anymore?"

"That's what you said! After the wedding, when he said—when I said—and you nodded! Like it was a lie!" He jerks away. "We don't need to pretend that didn't happen, okay? I remember, it's not like I could forget something like that."

"No, no, Roman—no, that's not what I meant, I didn't—it wasn't a lie."

Roman goes still. He stares at Janus for a long moment, long enough for a bit of a smile to come to his face, like Roman's actually listening to him. Then Roman's expression darkens and the voice that comes out of him is darker and more venomous than anything Janus has ever heard.

"Do not lie to me."

"R-Roman—"

"No." Roman pulls away, standing up, towering over him. "You will not lie to me. Not about that, not about anything like that. Use me as your puppet all you want, everyone knows I can't stop you, but I won't let you lie to me about this. Ever."

He's already fumbling to get his gloves off, surging up and grabbing Roman in a tight hug, so close he couldn't hope to get an inch of distance between them. "I'm not lying," he hisses, almost into Roman's nose, "I'm not lying about this, Roman, I'm not. Thomas wasn't lying. You're his hero. You still are."

"Stop it—"

"My gloves are off! I can't lie with my gloves off, Thomas loves you—you're his hero—"

"Stop it!" The words leave Roman in a breathless cry and Janus is left struggling to heft his weight as his knees buckle. "Stop it, stop it—stop it, it's not true, it can't be true, it's a lie—it—it has to be—"

"Why does it have to be, sweetie?" They're back on the floor, Janus smoothing hair back from Roman's flushed face, awkwardly holding him in his lap. "Why did it have to be a lie?"

"Because—because—" he sniffles— "nothing makes sense anymore. I don't—I can't—I can't do anything."

He frowns. "What do you mean you can't do anything?"

Hands come up to circle his wrists, not to push him away, just to have somewhere else to hold onto. "Princes fight for honor, for what's good. I can't—I can't fight anymore."

Not much can break Janus's heart like hearing Roman admit something like that, fewer things still can threaten tears at the corners of his eyes like the ones badly concealed in Roman's voice. "What do you mean, sweetie? Why can't you fight anymore?"

"I don't know anything! I don't know what's good, what's honorable, what's—what's right, I can't…I'm wrong, Janus, I'm just wrong and I don't—I don't know how to be right again."

"Shh, shh, shh, easy, now, sweetie, shh…" Janus hauls him closer, pressing his mouth to his flushed cheek, still murmuring comfort. "Shh…that's it, just stay here with me a moment, okay?"

"J-Janus—"

"I'm here, sweetie, I'm right here."

Roman's stifled sobs land like mines in the room, creating a mess around them as he curls up tighter, tighter still. The door to the Imagination glistens softly and he can almost hear the distant crackle of a fireplace and that alone sends him further into the fit. Janus's hands remain gentle, holding him close, but everything keeps spinning and nothing, nothing makes sense except the hurt in his chest.

He's going to cry himself to sleep again, he realizes faintly as exhaustion starts to seep through him, but then Janus is kissing his forehead again and gently shaking him awake.

"Sweetie, listen to me: no one knows what you fight for better than you, okay? You're Thomas's Hopes and Dreams, his hero—" Roman whimpers— "you do know what's right."

"N-no, I don't."

"Then who does know?"

"Patton."

Janus's blood runs cold. "Patton? Why Patton?"

"Patton's the Heart, he's M—he's Morality. He knows—he decides. I'm—I just follow." He sniffles. "And Logan—Logan, he's right, I don't—I'm so stupid—"

"That's enough, now." He runs a hand through his hair again. "That's enough, sweetie. You're not stupid. No—shh, shh, you're not. You know you're not."

"I am. I can't—I can't talk right and I don't know what I'm doing and—an' I'm just gonna mess everything up again."

Janus closes his eyes, bowing his head and taking a deep breath of his own. Cradling Roman's head to his chest, he leans down and kisses both his forehead and his cheeks, just staying there for a long, long moment. Roman's soft sobs echo gently in his ear and he tucks a stray piece of hair back from his face.

"You're not stupid," he murmurs, "you're not going to mess everything up again. You're okay. You're okay, sweetie."

Roman sniffles and shakes his head. "No, it's not. It's not okay."

"…no," Janus concedes, pulling Roman close, "I suppose it's not."

***

Not many things can happen in the Mindscape without Remus noticing, and almost nothing can happen to his brother without him showing up to knock some heads.

Case in point: when there's a tug in his gut telling him that Roman is upset, he grabs his Morningstar and sinks out without hesitating.

When he rises up in the living room, it takes less than two seconds for him to determine one: that Logan is picking on his brother, two: Patton isn't doing anything to stop him, and three: Roman is crying.

"Remus, not now," Logan sighs, "we're in the middle of something."

"You're in the middle of hurting my brother."

"R-Re?" He's got his arm around Roman's shoulders in the next moment. "W-wait, I need to—I have to—I gotta explain."

"Explain what, Roro?"

Logan sighs. "Roman has been trying, unsuccessfully, to explain that we are at fault for—"

"Ah, no." Remus throws a knife at Logan. "I didn't ask you. Shush."

"Remus! Throwing knives at people isn't nice!"

"Neither is making them cry! We're all in agreement." He tucks his head against Roman's, gentling his voice. "What're you trying to explain, Roro?"

"The—" he sniffles— "Janus said I should try—try talking to them and I said it wouldn't work but he—he insisted an' I—"

"Shh, shh, take your time, Ro, you're doing great."

"Heart. Morality. Prince. Logic."

Remus's little black heart breaks in two and he wraps his arms tightly around his brother. "Oh, Ro, it's okay. It's gonna be okay, lemme get you somewhere safe and I'll do it for you, okay?"

"You don't have to—"

"Trust me, Ro-bro, I got this."

Roman sags in his arms. "O-okay."

Remus quickly bids the Imagination to open its doors and sinks Roman out, giving him a gentle push into the forest before reappearing in the living room. He cracks his knuckles and grins.

"Alright, where were we?"

Logan sighs. "Remus, I don't—"

"Ah, that's right!" Remus throws another knife at him. "You, not listening to people who can't articulate things as well as you can! Rude and ableist, Loganberry, not a good look on you."

"I am not—"

"Roman can't articulate his thoughts as well as you can and so you think you're better than him, smarter than him, and that he's not worth listening to, is that explicit enough?" Logan opens and closes his mouth a few times but doesn't say anything. "Mm. And you!"

Patton yelps as Remus throws something at him too.

"You have a nasty habit of making Roman feel like a helpless little kid! You have a lot of sway over things like Thomas's sense of right and wrong and when you don't talk to Roman like he's your equal, you really fuck him up!"

"Language—"

"Don't fucking talk to me about my language," Remus says with artificial cheeriness, "talk to yourself about how not to give my brother an identity crisis!"

He stops throwing things, mainly because the rest of them are exploding or things he knows Roman would rather he didn't throw at them, no matter how tempting it is. The two of them slowly get their shit together, each with a different amount of regret. He doesn't really care about that, though, so long as they're not going to hurt Roman like that again.

"Good chat!"

And he sinks out to tackle Roman into Ollie's pond so they can have fun playing and not crying.

God, he loves his brother.

***

"Hey, Thomas?"

Thomas looks up and sees Virgil on the stairs. "Oh, hey, Virge, what's up?"

"You, uh, you asked me to keep an eye on Princey."

He sits up straight. "Yeah, what's—what's going on?"

Virgil sighs, rubbing his hands together. "There was a…not a fight, but some stuff happened. Turns out that Roman, uh, didn't believe you when you said you still thought of him as your hero and it…got bad."

"Do I want to know how bad?"

"Like, bad enough that Roman wasn't—shit, Thomas, no, I don't think you wanna know. Let's just say it was bad enough that he wasn't just going to the Imagination for comfort, he was going there because it was the only place he felt safe."

"Oh, Roman…"

"The fight—the thing was about Roman trying to explain to Patton and Logan how it fucked him up really badly, and he wasn't—you know how Roman's not always the best at explaining himself?"

"Yeah?"

"It—it wasn't really going well. Remus had to step in and do it for him."

"Wait, Remus?"

"Yeah, they're brothers. Remus—shit, Remus is really protective of Roman sometimes and this time wasn't an exception. Everyone's fine now, but it's…" Virgil sighs. "Logan and Patton have apologized and everybody's working on it, but I thought you'd want to know."

"How much stuff happens with you guys that I don't know about?"

"Honestly? I don't think you want the answer to that either."

"Jesus." Thomas scrubs a hand over his face. "Alright, well, thanks for telling me, Virgil. If…if there's anything I can do, let me know?"

Virgil nods and sinks out. Thomas puts a hand to his chest, rubbing in slow circles. There's a part of him that feels cold, still. Maybe…maybe he can figure out some way to help warm it up.

***

Roman wakes up to the sound of a crackling fire. He hums, rolling over, reaching for the edge of the bed, only to stop when his hands meet the thick red comforter. He frowns. This…this is his bed. He didn't fall asleep in the Imagination. So then why…?

He looks over and his eyes widen.

Across the room, tucked into a neat little alcove that definitely wasn't there when he went to sleep, is a merrily crackling fireplace. Above it, mounted on a gold plaque, is a cardboard sword with the words you're my hero written on it in red ink.

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[mothwingwritings]

Dreaming Of World's End

Reader X Zenos Yae Galvus

Waaah it has been so long!!! I apologize for the absence! I have been working on and doing all kinds of stuff (fics included) as of late so I did one of my classic dip outs there for a moment, but I’m here! Just plunking away as usual. :)

With Dawntrail coming up I have been focusing a big chunk of my free time on trying to beat Endwalker (I am slow in all things, video games included lul) because I wanna be there with the herd with Dawntrail comes out!!! I have no idea if I am gonna make it, but I am doing the best I can to catch up!!!

That being said: Zenos brainrot propelled this fic from my brain, to my computer, to you. Was I and am I also writing a bunch of other things? Yes. Is this the only thing I could momentarily focus on writing-wise because I have been compromised by my love for this fucked up man? Also yes. I’m sorry. It’s bad. I was already obsessed with him in Stormblood and now that I am deep within the clutches of the Endwalker msq… It’s over for me guys. It was a good run, but rip to me. My WOL may be playing hard to get, but I’m sure not. Zenos if you are reading this, you can just have me.

So without further ado, here is a Zenos fic I have been working on! My love for him aside, I think Zenos is a super fun character to write for, so I really hope I did him some justice! This is a reader insert fic, but you are the Warrior of Light in it so feel free to insert your OC’s and WOL if you like! I tried to keep the reader neutral, but I will say it’s def aimed more at a female reader/character and if you are a shorter race like a Lala it will probs be a little wonky, so my apologies. Also, I am about half way? A little over half way? through the Endwalker main story, so potential spoilers up to that point. This fic takes place sometime between post Shadowbringers and the first part of Endwalker.

Nothing overly explicit, but due to the nature of this fic it is 18+ please!

Thank you so much for reading!!! <3 I truly hope you enjoyed!

WARNINGS: Unhealthy relationship (if you can even call it a relationship), intense infatuation, implied noncon, noncon mentions,  a lot of fighting and mentions of fighting, mentions of death and the end of the world, unwanted touching, Endwalker spoilers.

It was always the same dream.

Amaurot. The end times. Death, destruction, chaos. Streets tainted by endless misery, stifling woe permeating the air as people ran about frantically, picked off left and right by horrendous, nightmarish monsters. Screams pierced the air as the remaining survivors struggled in vain, desperate to escape a fate that they could not avoid.

Just as any other night, he would watch it all unfold with cold indifference. Walking through the crumbling, fire charred lanes of this shell of a once bustling city, he would take it all in at a leisurely pace, maintaining a stride no more rushed than if he were taking a pleasant stroll. His features would be void of distress or malaise, his face a blank slate as he paraded down roads lined with bodies and devastation.

Zenos could say it was because he had grown accustomed to it, have the same dream each night and the grisly scenario that laid in wait past your closed eyes was bound to no longer shock you. But that would be a lie, as this ghastly nightmare had never truthfully bothered him to begin with. He simply didn’t care, not about the dying planet, nor its inhabitants that suffered the same fate. This scene from another time, this moment from a faraway place that no longer existed, he couldn’t bring himself to feel any form of remorse for the phantoms left to wallow helplessly in this endless, hellish loop, even if his own star was on track to share the same fate.

An echo of the past was just that, to dwell on it was a fool’s errand.

But tonight, it was not the end of times that greeted him when he closed his eyes. In its place stood an immaculate hall appearing to belong to some manner of grandiose castle. Pristine and orderly, he sat upon a large throne questionably positioned in the middle of the walkway, facing so that a vast expanse of the hall was clearly within his view.

Had he been here before? It was hard to say, having been trapped by palace walls most of his life they all blurred together after a certain point. Perhaps this wasn’t even a castle, but some manner of fortress. The varying weapons displayed neatly along the surrounding walls certainly made it feel as if this was more than just a mere abode for royalty to live out their boringly opulent lives, perhaps it doubled as an armory of sorts? Every sword, spear, and battle axe looked immaculately cared for; their blades so sharp simply looking at them made you feel as if you had been sliced.

His time to dwell upon the mystery of his surroundings was quick to dissipate however, as he felt a familiar presence approach him from behind. He remained still when a delicate hand was placed upon him, crawling from his arm to slide unhurriedly across his broad shoulders. The caress occupied the entirety of his thoughts, manicured nails scratching lightly against his flesh as they raked across his back, pressing just hard enough that they left a pleasant burn in their wake.

“There you are,” a deceptively alluring voice purred in his ear. Phantom arms draped themselves loosely over his shoulders, their fingers moving to trace a swirling pattern upon his chest. Goosebumps littered his arms at the brief contact. “Were you hiding from me?”

A small smile spread across his lips. What elation merely hearing your voice caused.

Were he not already aware of it, he would recognize he was in a dream from this interaction alone. You, only you, would be welcomed to touch him this way. But even were he to offer invitation, you would never do so of your own free will. There was a mixture of pride and revulsion that kept your interactions with him void of skinship, save for the fleeting contact that occurred when you were locked in combat.

His motivations, the way he chose to experience the world, your differing values and opinions. Like night and day, they barred you from reciprocating his feelings towards you. Because of this, he was left to revel in your touch exclusively in the realm of dreams.

“On the contrary,” he hummed, “you have been the one to keep me waiting.”

A low chuckle reverberated from your chest, sending a shiver down his spine. You rose to your full height, pulling away slowly until you disconnected from him completely. Even if the contact was nothing more than an attempt at provocation, he missed your touch the moment you detached yourself.

“Well then I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, my lord,” you enunciated his title tauntingly, the playful lilt in your voice exciting him further. He heard you take several languid steps away from him before you spoke once more. “That is, if you even have a heart that can offer forgiveness.”

Zenos rose to his feet, turning to finally face you. Your back greeted him as you stared up at the myriad of weaponry covering the back wall, the hand that was moments ago atop his chest now gracefully running across the hilt of a long sword. Your fingers lingered on the handle, moving as if you were going to grip it, but never completing the task.

Zenos smiled. You were toying with him.

“You jest,” he spoke, taking a measured step your way, “if anyone has intimate knowledge of the existence of my heart and whom it beats for, it is you.”

Your posture stiffened in acknowledgment of the insinuation, yet you refused to turn his way.

“Is that so,” your voice seemed distant, as if you were unwilling to accept the burden of the intense desire he held for you, “Forgive me, I must have misread the situation. Due to the nature of how our meetings always end, I figured you only ever wanted one thing from me, and that is my blood.”

A low chuckle rumbled from within him, his eyes crinkling in amusement. For all that you were, all the skills and knowledge that you held, you could certainly be dense.

“I desire all you have to offer,” he answered plainly, “Your fury and malice, your rage and rancor, your disdain and desire,” he continued to approach you, each step slow and deliberate as he closed in on your staunch form. “Your love and affection are no different. I want to consume your every thought, just as you consume mine. I want you to taste me in the air you breathe and feel me crawling under your skin, even when I am far removed from your presence.”

He stopped several steps away from you, keeping his distance but lingering close enough that it bordered on intrusive. He raised his hand calmly, reaching out to grab a stray lock of your hair between his fingers. He gingerly caressed the silky strands, smirking when he noted that even such slight contact caused a shudder to lurch your otherwise statuesque form.

“You can play the fool all you want, but you cannot hide the fact that the same beast that dwells in me is also within you. They call out, craving each other to the point of madness.  We need each other. This dance we share must continue in perpetuity, lest our fierce yearning for each other’s presence turn us to savages incapable of rational thought, driven to the point of committing mass, undiscriminating destruction as a means to appease ourselves.”

He smirked, placing a gentle kiss atop the tendrils in his hand, before letting it slip from his grasp completely. “And you would do anything to divert that misfortune, would you not hero?”

Your shoulders began to quiver, shaken by the threat of violence he could and would commit simply to be by your side.  An impatient sigh escaped his lips, “So come, what better way is there to quench each other’s thirst and prevent calamity than through a mutually beneficial rendezvous? Surely even someone as set in their way as you are is in agreeance.”

“I was under the assumption that you planned on battling me until the world was torn asunder, regardless of if I entertain your perversions or not,” Your voice dripped with disdain as you spat your response at him, “If that is the case, pray tell why I should not cut you down where you stand? Why must the dance continue if the outcome is all the same?”

Your words made the smile on his face grow, stretching his lips to an unnatural degree. Taking another step forward, he leaned in until his mouth grazing the shell of your ear. Placing his hands firmly atop your shoulders, he gave a tight squeeze as he responded.

“Because we share one destiny,” he pressed his cheek flush against your head, inhaling deeply before releasing it in a slow, shaky sigh, “even now as you try so hard to deny me, our fate is intertwined, my warrior. You cannot escape me, and I have no desire to escape you. The dismantling of this world as a result of our conquest is all but inevitable and I welcome it with open arms.”

“I won’t let the world crumble to ash.” Your bold declaration was spoken as if it were fact, the conviction in your voice sending a surge of wanton excitement coursing through his veins. “Say and do as you like, the future you seek will never come to pass.”

Oh, how he adored you.

“Hmm,” he hummed, “You can try and stop me, but you cannot escape what has been predestined.”

During the course of the conversation, your hand had had traveled to the base of an axe, your fingers wrapping around it to grasp the handle in a constricting hold. All of the anger that had been bubbling up reflected in the whites of your knuckles, the tremor of your hand becoming more apparent as your composure slipped further and further. The cool demeanor you initially donned had completely shifted, overridden by the immense agitation his presence was inviting.

The axe was ripped swiftly from the wall, lacking fluidity. There was no care for keeping the wall in tact or making sure all the other weapons that surrounded it stayed in their spot. You ripped it down with one great tug, bits of stone and surrounding armaments clattering noisily into a massive steel heap on the ground as you finally spun around to face him. Zenos had seconds to react as you swung down in a wide arc, the finely sharpened blade slicing easily through the decorative tiling that coated the floor, decimating the ground where he once stood.

“There we are,” Zenos growled in anticipation, sizing you up with a bloodthirsty grin, “you are a vision to behold when you let your ferocity consume you.”

You deigned to answer him, your icy countenance his only response as you straightened your posture, considering your next move.  Your distaste for him was clear as you hefted your axe from the ground, dust settling around you as it was freed with a mighty yank. Weapon in hand, you came for him in a relentless torrent, striking at him in a flurry of breakneck swings. In the ensuing madness, he grabbed the nearest weapon he could reach-a sword that was more ornate that functional, but it would serve its purpose for the time being.

The enmity increased as he reciprocated your attacks. Parrying each blow with a steady hand, he responded to your blows with calculated strikes of his own, expertly countering your aggression. The air around the two of you had become electric, charged with hostility and fervor as you hacked away at each other time and time again.

Though frantic, the assault was far from inelegant. Each swing of your axe and swipe of his blade was an orchestrated maneuver befitting the couple who performed them. It was as beautiful as it was fierce, a true force of nature. To an untrained eye the activity would appear as nothing more than a blur of chaos, annihilating all that was in its wake. But to Zenos, a man who had dedicated himself to your study, it was a sight that made his heart ache.

He was witnessing a glorious preamble, a promise forged in battle between himself and his righteous and powerful hero, the only person with whom he ever felt a true connection. This battle, amongst all of its other perks, gave him purpose.

Fighting you, he felt alive. To be the sole receiver of all your ire, your discontent, your undivided attention… it was like a dream. He realized this encounter was most likely just that, a conjuring of your presence from his sleep addled mind, a side effect of his constant ruminations of you. You already occupied each of his waking thoughts, it only made sense that having you visit in his dreams would soon follow.

Be that as it may, the knowledge that this moment lived solely in his mind did little to dissuade his desire to get lost in it, to get lost in you.  If he couldn’t have you in the waking world, his dreams would have to suffice, at least for the time being. Besides, there were things he could accomplish in his dreams that would never be plausible elsewhere, moments of intimacy he could forge that would never present a chance of happening in reality.

A particularly rough blow sent Zenos reeling. The sword knocked from his hand scattered just out of reach, his body lurching to an abrupt stop as he collided with rubble that had piled up behind him. A quick glance your way revealed a small smirk ghosting your lips, a hint of satisfaction shining through your hostility. He could see the assurance reflected in your eyes, a swell of pride over the victory you would soon be relishing.

Zenos mirrored your glee, pleased you were having as much fun as he was.

As you hoisted your axe high, thoroughly preoccupied with your pending achievement, Zenos took the moment to strike. Launching himself from the ground, he rammed his body against yours, hitting you hard and fast. The speed at which he closed the gap astounded you as much as the collision had, causing the axe to topple from your hands, skittering out of your reach. A pained grunt escaped your lips as you collided with the ground, Zenos following suit atop you. His hand cradled the back of your head as you fell, catching hold before it could crack against the stony floor. It would do no good to have you suffer injury and pass out now, not as things were about to get truly interesting.

Positioning himself atop your fallen form, his body caged you in as you lay beneath him, panting and exhausted. Splayed amongst the rubble, your confusion morphed into a look of annoyance as you realized your situation had drastically changed. Your success had been stolen from you and now the thief had you cornered, trapped right where he wanted.

“I wish you could see yourself as I see you in this moment,” Zenos spoke between his own labored breaths, pressing into you ever further as his face hovered inches from your own, “Disheveled and feral, transformed by your bloodlust, you have never been more breathtaking.”

“I’m not like you,” you retorted sharply, “I don’t revel in such acts of savagery.”

Zenos chuckled, “And yet you seemed quite delighted moments ago when you were convinced victory was within your grasp.” You frowned as his hand found purchase on your chin, gripping it in a tight pinch to keep your focus fixed his way, “But here you are now, bested and at my mercy.”

You grimaced, “I have yet to lose to you. I refuse to concede defeat.”

In response to your bold declaration, he gave a throaty, booming laugh. How was it that you always knew just what to say to drive him absolutely mad with desire?

Unable to contain himself any longer, Zenos smashed his lips to yours, capturing you in a heated and hungry kiss. Your brain took a moment to comprehend the abrupt action, but as it did you began to struggle against it, thrashing and clawing at him in an effort to create distance.  Zenos remained firm, making it clear that you had expended far more energy than he had, leaving your assault lacking the power needed to stop him. Whines of displeasure snaked from your mouth as his grip tightened on your chin, squeezing so roughly you couldn’t help but gasp in pain. Eagerly seizing the opportunity, he muscled his tongue inside of you, lapping at the inside of your mouth aggressively. He groaned as he savored the taste of you.

When a need for air arose, he pulled back slightly, staring down at you with lidded eyes. Your saliva coated his lips, giving a glossy sheen as they curled into an offputtingly tranquil smile. His hand moved from your chin to drag languidly across your cheek, the brief touch of his rough finger tips sending a shiver down your spine. Your gaze wavered the longer you stayed trapped in this awkward position, your eyes brimming with uncertainty. You seemed unsure of where to look, what to do, how to escape. In his wishful thinking, Zenos wondered if perhaps you were even unsure if you truly wanted to escape.

Amongst your numerous charms, Zenos found your enigmatic personality to be one of your most appealing. Being such a virtuous being, your motivations, ambition, and drive were all easy enough to sort out. You are Hydaelyn’s chosen, the Warrior of Light, the people’s champion, and you live up to those titles and more. You are a hero through and through, a source of salvation for those you protect and a complete nightmare for those that offer opposition. There is no doubt that you are a force to be reckoned with, no matter what the encounter or situation may be.

And what good hero is without a nemesis? It’s a role the disgraced Prince and betrayer of his kin plays well. In his illustrious life he had gone through the motions, donned many hats, played countless roles, many of which were not of his choosing. But of all his grand titles, your adversary is most certainly his favorite, the only one that gives him any sense of pride. Your existence gave him purpose, and for you alone he kept up the hunt.

But he knew it was different for you. Though cut of the same cloth and driven by destiny to engage him, your feelings did not completely align with his own. You were driven by more than barbarity, more than a duty to save your people and your planet. There was something inside of you, something that made you YOU, that he could never truly know, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

You were his greatest conundrum, a true mystery, and when you look at him as you were now with those eyes that swirled with anger, uncertainty, grief, and something yet unspoken… What was he to do but become a slave to this maddening, consuming attraction?

He gloated about being the victor, but it was clear you would always have the upper hand.

“Get off of me.”

The demand brought him back to the present, sheer determination replacing the conflicting emotions that fought for dominance within you. He could tell by the bite in your voice that your vigor was returning, and given a bit more time and provocation, the battle would gloriously resume.

“Eagar to carry on with our dance, are you?” He responded, an almost teasing lilt to his voice, “Or is it that you just can’t stand the thought of defeat at my hands?

“I already told you, you didn’t defeat me,” you glowered, your rage becoming palpable the longer his unwanted presence loomed, “I came here to end this farce and I plan to do just that.”

A beat of silence passed, followed by a sigh. Parting your lips to speak, your voice came out quieter, more desperate than it had previously.

“I wanted to keep this is civil as possible and respect your wishes as best I could, no matter how twisted they may be. But even for your own benefit, you refuse to entertain the notion of making this situation even the slightest bit amicable. You speak of such lofty things as fate and destiny, but all I am witnessing is you causing unnecessary suffering, hiding behind my name to do so.”

For a split second, another flash of uncertainty danced across your features. You bit your bottom lip in vexation, a glimmer lighting your eyes as they swept across his handsome face, “There is more to this world, more to this life, than waiting for its untimely end. To live out your days perpetuating death and blind havoc is no way to exist, it’s a tragedy. Why can’t you see that? Zenos, I-“

As if taken by surprise, you cut your own words short, silencing the previous thought that had been brewing. Zenos felt as if you looked pained, staring at him with pleading eyes, face scrunched up in frustration. Even with all the hate you carried for him, you were still trying to understand him, still clinging to the hope that maybe you could save him too.

Here, on the cusp of annihilation, you were doing all you could to fulfill the role of hero and protect the people that you loved. In order to fulfill that duty, it meant he must be defeated. There could be no other ending, the inexorable conclusion to all of this was always cold and endless death. Whether it would be all of humanities or just his own was still to be determined, but it did little to change the fact that there was no future to plan for, only a violently rapturous and melancholic end.

To be cherished by you, to feel your love as if he were one of your dearest companions… It was a thought not meant to be dwelled on, but one he found hard to completely shake from his head. How would it feel to be earnestly and unequivocally loved by you? Perhaps in another world, another time, your souls would be reborn and given another chance. A fresh beginning to grow together, an opportunity to nurture something more than the misfortune this world had thrust upon you. Maybe in some alternate telling of this tale the two of you were together and happy, with nothing but a bright future awaiting you on the horizon.

But that was simply a foolish daydream. All that he had, all he could hope for, was the here and now.

You sighed again, steeling your resolve with a shake of your head, “Never mind. You have already proven to me mere words cannot move you, so I will save my breath.”

Raising your torso as much as his hold on you would allow, your eyes bore into his, fully accepting the challenge that lay ahead. Though still restrained, there was an aura of dominance that surrounded you. It was a warning to Zenos that your binds were temporary, whether he released you willingly or otherwise was his decision, but regardless the outcome would be the same.

“If it’s the end you want, it’s the end I will bring you,” your soft words clashed with the look of malice reflected in your eyes, your breath fanning his face as your noses nearly touched. For an instant your eyes darted to his lips, and Zenos wondered if it would be you to instigate the kiss this time.

“I will fulfill my role. I will be your end and your salvation.”

Your words pierced him, the proclamation sending sparks of excitement to course through him, igniting his soul. His whole body burned for you, intense and consuming, his need for you was beginning to show itself in ways beyond his control. Pressing his hips flush between your spread legs, he made his intentions known to you, a shiver wracking his body when you released a small gasp of surprise.

Clutching the remaining shreds of his sanity, he grunted as you writhed against his growing arousal, pulling your body up towards him until he had engulfed you in a tight embrace.

“Enough time has been wasted,” he snarled into your neck, his chest rumbling as his grip on you tightened, “let us deliver a ruin unto ourselves so extraordinary, so beautiful, that naught will remain but the scattered fragments of this forsaken world.”

Loosening his grip, he pressed his lips to your forehead in a chaste, yet gentle, kiss. Your brow furrowed at his touch, shoulders tensing as you drew yourself back from him, recoiling at the small display of adoration. He found the reaction endearing, even with his intentions laid bare and and his hardened cock pressed firmly against your core, it was the smallest token of his affection that caused you to squirm.

Repugnance, hatred, scorn- whatever you felt for him in this moment, none of it mattered, none of it deterred him. He loved you, and he would make that love known in the only way he knew how, while he still had time to do so.

“This shall be my final gift to you,” he purred into your ear, his grip latching securely to your tunic. With nimble hands he started to pull, exposing yourself to him bit by bit as the fabric turned to tatters in his hands.  “Let us relish it my friend, my warrior, my beloved. Destroy me, and I shall be your devastation in kind. ”

[wrongcaitlyn]

i wanted to know if you have any plans for the og campers???? like luke, clarisse, silena, beckendorf, etc etc

this is SO funny bc i was literally JUST talking to @wronghuntress about them like a few hours ago😭😭 BUT to answer your question,,, it's sort of complicated. bc i didn't realize that i was doing it until like a good way into the series, but i've been unintentionally picturing pretty much all of the og campers/people from the main pjo series as part of the acting side of hollywood, whereas i've been leaning more toward, like, toa/side/minor characters for the rest of the main cast! this makes sense to me because like, nico and will get their big moment in toa, and apollo's a huge character too. percy and annabeth are actors obviously, but i did give them some connections to nico - but either way, i guess i just saw all of those characters as not really having any sort of connection to nico & will (even though i'm the hugest fan of will being close with clarisse and silena and beckendorf- he was totally will's bi awakening it's canon u heard it from me)

but anyway im getting off track, i've sort of had like a completely separate plotline for them going on in my head (not really detailed at all, i'd have to think about it more), dealing with more of those og characters, including percy annabeth and grover! i'm not entirely sure if that'll ever be included in the main fic seeing as they don't have much connection to nico's storyline specifically, but who knows... maybe a spinoff fic one day? i definitely won't be able to write some long 100k fic for them but i'd love to dive into that!

the only thing that i DO see happening is - if you remember this, a while ago, i mentioned the possibility of a third fic or some future plans for nico to write a musical to get that egot, namely hadestown. while the idea was being organized in my head, i've been thinking of silena as helping nico write the musical and playing eurydice, and then ofc i'd love having beckendorf play orpheus - i think he gives the vibes?? or is that just me???

and then jenna (wronghuntress) gave me the BEAUTIFUL idea earlier today of this... silena and charlie as actors, specifically broadway/musical theater actors (though im sure they have also been in some other projects), clarisse as silena's bodyguard,,, and im usually so against love triangles but like. there's so much potential there - again, nothing's finalized, i dont even know if i'm gonna write it, i don't really have ANY plans other than potentially making nico contact silena when he wants to work on his musical and having them + beckendorf work together for the demo recording - it's all VERY vague and blurry so we'll see if i come up with anything more to fall down that rabbit hole!

and as for luke, i pretty much have this: he's an actor, at some point he was prob friends with annabeth after working on a show together or smth, and ends up getting cancelled. for what? i'm not entirely sure yet, but it's probably very shitty for the internet to turn against a hot white guy. actually that fact might make him getting cancelled very unrealistic. but like it's my fic so that's what i'm saying happens! unfortunately he prob still gets roles and he's prob still like a millionaire and stuff but in general: bad person. though he probably (and thalia, because she used to be an actress too before running away) were in a movie/show/something with annabeth when she was young and they kinda mentored her/helped her learn the ropes before her big break. they started a club of neglected child actors which eventually turned into just annabeth, but at least she has percy and reyna and jason and piper and magnus on her side now :)

so long story short: i don't have specific plans, but they're all actors and definitely have a lot of lore that one day i would like to try to figure out!! for now i'm still very focused on tgol/the side stories that take place in THAT main timeline (so right now it'd be 2020-2024), whereas all of the main drama/plot in the actors' timeline would be happening BEFORE talk your talk (percy + annabeth + thalia + luke + silena) (around 2008-2015) or AFTER the greatest of luxuries (silena + clarisse + beckendorf + chris(??? i have no idea what's going on with him?? he's prob famous somehow but idk??? or maybe like childhood friend tis the damn season vibe. god there are so many fame tropes i have yet to unlock and so many characters i have yet to mess with) (around 2024-2026)

thank you for the ask!! i hope that one day when i have some more time to make some playlists, properly listen to hadestown, and learn more about musical theater/broadway/acting in general, i'll be able to answer the question more thoroughly!!

[thehistoriangirl]

I have another Viktor's fic idea!!!

That I'm not gonna write rn because my 9474948484 unfinished wips are going to murder me 🤡 buuuuuut

Here are some bullet-points list of the plot and stuff because it's giving me kind of brainrot:

Kinda Blind Date!AU

It is silly? Mayhaps. Am I going to write it anyway? Oh yes :D

Tags: Idiots in Love | Mutual Pining | Strangers to Friends to Lovers | Maaaaybe some Fake Dating | Prob Multichapter but not too long |

So Jayce invites Viktor to a party, like usual, though Viktor gets surprised that the party seems to be very secluded and with a very strict dress code.

Viktor asks, because it's weird, and Jayce tells him not to worry about it, that is a tradition to do a party celebrating Valentine's Day.

Anyway, the party happens and Viktor forgets about it. A couple of weeks pass and then someone (Reader) visits him in the lab.

Viktor is puzzled, because he had never talked with them before (Reader works in the Academy too, but in a non-scientific area across campus), although Viktor had seen them sometimes in Progress Day and during the Academy's Anniversary.

Anyway, when he asks you what do you need, and you say that you're here regarding that Valentine's Day party—because the party was, in fact, a matchmaking event. And you got paired with Viktor,

Obviously, and fairly so, Viktor is like ?!??!??!?! Jayce is soooo dead once Viktor sees him again, how didn't he tell him anything about it? But now the priority is to deal with you.

He doesn't know what to do—he's busy working with Hextech as usual, and he has never really thought about the possibility of romance in this period of his life. He's so busy. And it's so pointless, too.

You notice his grimace, and tell him that your parents arranged you to assist to that party, so you could get a suited match bc you're in age of marriage and blablabla. So you ask him if he could go with you on a date, only so your parents could let you alone after 'trying' what the matchmaker prepared for both of you.

Very begrudgingly, Viktor says, "Why not? It would be quickly." BUT THEN—

Shockingly(?!?!), *you* end up liking his nerdy self talking about his work, and he finds you interesting, smart, and kind.

✨️Sparks are flyyyyinggggg✨️ but do you notice? 👀

The date ends, ofc, and you decide to get to know each other's, like friends, because well you two got along well, but Viktor is still confused with his feelings, this is rushed, and strange. He fears going too quickly and ending up hurt.

But then you get to spend more time together and suddenly it's soooo hard to keep the feelings tucked away 👉👈

[azamonvoid]

Back here to talk abt my hsr coffee shop au cuz Im a bit of a perfectionist and want everything to make sense/be logical (?).

So I haven't worked much on this au, mainly cuz I kept forgetting every couple of days that the idea ever crossed my mind and also cuz this month I've been having more exams than usual and a lot of assigments crampled all in 1 month. What Im gonna do in this post its just briefly talk about some of the ideas I have so far :]

-- Caelus and Stelle are twins. Caelus is the older but shorter and Stelle the younger but shorter (directly picked from our dynamic @a-sociopath-do-your-research xd (also sorry for @ when its not like our silly post xdnt))

-- This one its still in thought process, but I want to make the whole stellaron thing an actual health issue that both twins (will be referring to both Caelus & Stelle as twins througthout this post/AU) have and prob also characters like Cocolia. In-game its known as the Cancer of All Words, but Im prob dumb for not knowing if its actually based on cancer or if its meant to be like a made up illness. (Pointing this out cuz I literally went out my way to research illnesses with specific symptoms for a Genshin oc..)

-- Pom-Pom is the owner of the coffee shop, both Himeko and Welt would prob be the managers. Danheng March and the twins are kinda scattered between senior & junior employees.

-- Something thats giving me major trouble to plan (right under the health topic) is how to add the Stellaron hunters into this au. The original idea, that was one of the veru first ones, was that the shop was actually theirs, but since I want to add in the same mistery between the group's connection with the twins, I ended up discarding the idea. I currently have 2 vague ideas: either they're like some mafia/shady group or they also have a business close by (the latter came while writing abt the og idea). Also conflicted on the whole idea of Kafka being like a mother figure to the twins (hc Ive had ever since I started playing).

-- The coffee shop is called Stellaron, just cuz I like the idea of it, cuz either way, the concept Im getting from the ingame stellari¡ons are just the effect they can have in people. (As in, the sickness would have a different name-)

-- Lastly, not really an idea for the au but Im kinda thinking of eventually writing a fic out of this au, that is if I dont give up on it xdnt)

[imaginespazzi]

Bestie hi! Its been far too long. I'll blame it on life being occupied with work and summer travel. In fact, just had flights for my trip connecting through DFW, and ofc thought of you now ha. How are you, all well?!

Shall I start w some rambling re the amazing new fic?: Just incredible writing/work overall, no surprise and Ive so enjoyed reading.

Really looking fwd to the reunion of P's mini and his Pookie! Perhaps he can let something slip a bit about their past to Stephie? She cant be the only one wreaking havoc with her mouth for once ha. The one year contract- how dare you 😅 I ached at all the parts referencing A's wishes for a partner. And P flinching at just the word family! Im still here trying to wrap my head around A ever not wanting to marry P, but I know youll end up connecting the dots beautifully (and remedying this outrage lol). Currently torn on whether youre evil enough to have P upset Stephie at any point in this 😐 the way it would kill everyone The flashbacks are always impeccable (painful)!

Other news/notes: P looked and did great at her appearances. That stylist really gets her and is phenomenal! Those idiots in love (affectionate) together in MT 😊. Azzi dear, the nails again, please.. the shorter hair is cute. Whew, that Hannah Hidalgo mess. Yikes yikes yikes. No girl. Though I did at least appreciate the numerous funny tweets that whole thing managed to create (and good clap backs). The recommendation is prob late now, I meant to mention a while back - saw 'Power of the Dream' and thought it was a good watch. So much respect for the players it covered. Boy, are we gonna need the WBB girlie pops to step up in a big way again this fall. Ugh

Thats all from me. Have the very best Wednesday! -☕️

Ah bestieeee hi I missed you! It has been a while and I'm glad to see that you're back <3 I'm doing pretty good babes, how's everything with you? I'm assuming there was no wife-sighting while flying through Dallas but just know I'm still rooting for the two of you!

YAY! I'm so glad you're liking it so far! Drew and Stephie's are gonna be like that one tiktok sounds where it's like "who are you?" "bitch i'm the owner of this house" but yeah it's gonna fun.

Liiiisteeeen Stephie can't be happy and joyful the whole time and Paige can be a bit of an idiot so like...it just writes itself you know? (The answer is yes btw I am absolutely evil enough if I choose to be)

ALL HAIL BRITTANY fr like thank god for that woman because she's really saving Paige from herself let's be honest. Also her makeup team is flawless.

THE NAILS lmao listen once was coincidence, twice? Oh Pazzi....

Ugh yeah that's so unfortunately like I really was and wanted to continue rooting for her but that shit's just gross and honestly lowkey made me kinda sad cause how are you like that in the year 2024 but I guess that's just life.

Ooooh I've been meaning to watch power of the dream and now that you're recommending it, I definitely will!

[lincolndjarin]

ro's very reasonable 2023 wrap up schedule.

hi lovelies!! (figured out how to do a color gradient, took me weeks, i'm fucking thrilled, expect more of that nonsense in this post lol)

it's mid november and as the year comes to a close i'd like to wrap up a lot of stuff so here's the plan :

NOV 12 : BKS 26 : crucifixion (currently being edited will be out by tonight.)

NOV 12-19 : BKS 27 : the apostate (will be released at some point here, it's gonna be on the shorter side so it shouldn't take too long

NOV 25 : Oh Honey, Chapter Four : painting the roses red (another long chap, gonna need some time to get this one out so at the latest it will be out on the 25th!!)

The First Week of December will be my 1,000 follower celebration, I'm going to be doing a week of Best Kept Secret content leading up to the final BKS chapter !! (this will include the release of my 500 follower celebration whoops)

Best Kept Secret Week :

DEC 1 : BKS 28 : a place for us (the technical final chapter of BKS)

DEC 2 : BKS Q&A (gonna ask for questions at some point here i'll make a post and answer any final questions about bks!!)

DEC 3 : Bound in Beskar - 500 follower celebration (a one off based on the book princess reads in bks)

DEC 4 : BKS what ifs (it's 8 days of stuff they can't all be hits. tbh i needed a day filler and i've got a lot of alternative story lines in bks so fuck it, i'll talk about those here)

DEC 5 : Best Kept Secret Art!! (i commissioned three artists to illustrate some of my favorite scenes bc i'm a sap so i will be posting all of that on this day and i'm so excited for y'all to see it!! they're wonderful artists and they've done wonderful work so far <3)

DEC 6 : Secrets Best Kept - 1,000 follower celebration (a one off where Din Djarin is the new reluctant ruler of Mandalore, a tutor is hired to help him during his early days as a ruler to learn proper etiquette for royalty)

DEC 7 : A love letter to Best Kept Secret. (pretty much just gonna be one last corny post to thank everyone for reading)

DEC 8 : BKS 29 : the best kept secret (epilogue) (corny ass name ik, anyhow, this will be it!! this will be the last main update of best kept secret!!)

DEC 16 : Oh Honey, Chapter Five : a very merry unbirthday (this will be the last chapter of oh honey!! i've always intended for this to be a short form story so it will be wrapped up at the latest by the 16th!!)

DEC 24 : Best Kept Christmas (gonna sneak one last good bye to bks in at the end of the month with a christmas special lol)

and then i will be taking the last week of december to write my next fics! rest!

so yeah lol, my goal is to wrap up all ongoing fics this year but but but if you made it this far (i love you *mwah*) here's some of the fics coming in 2024!! i won't be starting anything new this year but next year i've got big plans >:)

Then & Now (probs gonna change that title) - this will be my main fic for a bit, i've been itching to start this for so so long, f!reader x joel. definitely gonna be more on the angsty side

i'm participating in pmamc 2024 so there will be an Oberyn one off in January!!

Andromeda - this is gonna be my next din x reader !! i don't have much other than the base idea but im gonna keep that a surprise haha

And plenty of other stuff i'll figure out lol

[codgod]

OKAY. slightly more comprehensive and hopefully more useful tips for writing qmariana because the other post i made was kinda a mess. this one also is but hopefully less so. this is basically me expounding upon everything i already said + adding info from a lot of the tags i got on the original post pointing out stuff i didn’t mention

also going to mention again that a lot of this IS related to slimeriana because that’s the main flavour of qsmp fics i read BUT they should all work as general pointers. slimeriana are just gonna end up as my go-to examples for what i’m talking about. and second disclaimer that i barely speak even basic spanish so there are probs gonna be even more things i may have missed or messed up, i’m forging through with the power of youtube auto translate

all that said, here:

he’s not great at speaking english —

it is okay to write a character not being good at speaking a language! i don’t know why everyone seems to be fine with writing charlie speaking broken spanish but not the other way around. so many times i’ve seen him written as speaking perfect english and then just sometimes swearing or having a few lines of dialogue in spanish, if even that. that is simply just not how he talks

common things i personally have noticed mariana does: repeats words, says words that sound similar to the one he wants but not Quite [think words that rhyme or have a similar sound to them, like nipples and pimples lol], he’ll often get frustrated and switch back to spanish and just rely on the translator, especially for longer or more complex sentences/statements, there’ll sometimes be pauses between words or he talks slowly. he tries his best to speak english around the english speaking server members but again, will also just speak spanish and use the translator if he’s gonna be talking a lot

other small things: he swears quite a bit, and has a few favourites [namely mamahuevo (eng equivalent is cocksucker) is the one that comes to mind. and i don’t feel like i’m writing this out correctly but also chinga tu madre (fuck you/fuck your mother? i think?). in english the first one that comes to mind is motherfucker]. also calls kids mami/papi a lot, not even just juanaflippa

he’s almost always written as either too nice OR too mean —

he’s not a one-dimensional piece of paper just there to either dote on slime or make his life hell. he jokes and teases and he has a bit of a harsh sense of humour sometimes, but he’s very rarely malicious in his actions. if he’s really in the wrong about something he’ll get defensive, but will eventually end up apologising

that said, again, he’s not always nice! he gives as good as he gets when slime picks fights with him, he and bobby had a very playfully antagonistic relationship as far as i could tell. it’s like picking playful fights is part of his love language

he was always very sweet to juanaflippa though :D except a few teasing jokes here and there. he was a good dad, besides the murder JHVSJD

speaking of his sense of humour —

it can be very… blunt? for lack of a better word? he says some bizarre shit with a completely straight face. best example i can think of is him suggesting he and charlie could play a porn game together because they wouldn’t have to talk. obviously that’s cc not character, but it carries over. or, alternatively, the circumcision bit on day 1. basically if u watch charlie more, look at his sense of humour and translate it into spanish — there’s a reason they get along so well :D zero normal people in this relationship. the most you’ll get is them occasionally passing the “straight man” role back and forth, getting bewildered at each other but ultimately going along with whatever the bit is

he’s not a cheater! —

i know. i know ppl like the angst. but he never actually cheated on slime, not beyond being kinda flirty with other men but then pulling back and saying he was married whenever they returned that energy. he’s a bitch, but a loyal one /silly

but seriously, qmariana loves his family so much. he always wanted things to work out between him and slime. the only mc skin of his that actually shows his hands has him wearing his wedding ring, for christs sake. he’s not an absentee father, and he’s not a cheater, he just likes to joke flirt with his friends

he’s very open about his emotions! —

i have never once known this man to hide his feelings or be stoic in any situation. if he’s sad he cries, if he’s angry or frustrated he yells and swears, if he’s happy he laughs. if you are writing mariana as a person to keep his feelings hidden you are Doing It Wrong. the most he might do is hide one emotion behind another, but he’s almost always showing something

he LOVES music —

this man will sing at any given opportunity. he quotes song lyrics out of nowhere constantly. english, spanish, doesn’t matter, he loves music. it is literally always worth it to have him singing a lullaby to juanaflippa in a fic because it is both very in character and very cute

[oldsargasso]

You have had your hands full! Don’t worry I have ENDLESS fanon thoughts so I will do my best to keep your ask box company 😌

Yes the advantage of feeding ourselves is we get to pick the menu!! I am CERTAIN at this point that Garfield and Benz simply pulled this ship out of thin air and made up their own headcanons to fill in for their lack of screentime LMAO. And NO YOU HAVE NOT TOLD ME ABOUT THIS WIP!! HOOKUPS FOLLOWED BY BETRAYAL?? BY TONY’S TOTALLY NORMAL PA?? YES PLEASE. I am basically eagerly awaiting everything you write at this point. AND YES KENTA IS INVESTED! How can his new boyfriend keep his visa if the team’s funding gets cut? Tragic.

This is why Kim is the realest to me. He asked for none of this and just rolled with the punches when most ppl would have either kept their heads down or fucked off. Objectively The Best. (SHFKFKFJJD Try telling Kim that Tony is his new owner—see how that goes down 😆)

(You are so right as always. Kim deserves ppl kneeling at his feet.)

Double offenses against us specifically, I’ll never recover. I’LL NEVER FORGIVE THEM IF WE DON’T EVENTUALLY GET SOME SORT OF FOLLOW-THROUGH! But yes supportive bf Kenta, it’s absolutely canon, he was definitely lurking in the stands somewhere.

Winner is so iconic and I love him… (multiple timelines running in our heads to carry all of the five hundred ships this show has provided)

Please give me ALL of your thoughts about collars, I beg of you, I live for this. Kenta would ABSOLUTELY be wearing his on the regular—he needs that reassuring weight under his shirt (totally normal about it saying “Kim’s” or smth similar on the tag). Like he’s fine with being a dog as long as it means he’s a beloved pet who doesn’t get cast aside! And Winner is ABSOLUTELY the type to bitch about a collar. He prob tried to make fun of Kenta for being collared (gets almost stabbed for it), but also passive aggressively moans about “Where’s MY present?” and then bitches about the collar when he DOES get it. And I’m SCREAMING HE DESERVES TO BE MUZZLED he’d be so cute… And Dean would look SO pretty in his collar (when is he NOT pretty tho lbr). PLEASE feel free to go on about what they look like! Kim can carry the keys to the collars around his neck 😌

I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FICS! The KentaDean one is basically written just for the two of us. “The system works” LMFAO RESTORATIVE JUSTICE IN ACTION? Dean thinks he’s being SUBTLE but he has the BIGGEST puppydog expression when he wants something, like he emotes SO much in comparison to Kenta and Kim.

“He’s not a narcissist he’s just oblivious” ahdjfjf OUR BELOVED DUMBASS LOSER… I love the way he was as Tony’s henchman, like “I’m gonna be SUCH a good evil henchman my parents told me I was basically overqualified for this job—you want bodyguards? I’ll GET you bodyguards. I let those guys escape but I TOTALLY foiled their little scooby-doo plot because I am the BEST henchman. I’m SOOO much better than Kenta you know like fuck that guy and his stupid handsome eyes-“ Again it’s like… he gives himself so much affirmation he doesn’t need it from others; it’s just attention he wants. He’s SO interesting! And I love the contrast of Kim’s response to Tony being “Absolutely NOT” while Winner’s is “Absolutely YES” they should fuck about it, for our enjoyment.

I’M PLACING MY BETS ON THE MV COMING OUT THIS FRIDAY (prob late evening for you?). I think they’ll save the more emotional ones for after the fanmeet next week (unless they’re only doing one MV drop a month in which case haha catch me lying deceased on the floor!) 

HOW COULD YOU BREAK MY POOR LITTLE HEART LIKE THIS?? DEAN HAVING SOMETHING WITH KIM (A FRESH START) ONLY TO END UP FEELING LIKE HE’S BEEN REPLACED… AGAIN… WHY DO WE KEEP PUTTING HIM IN SITUATIONSHIPS AND THEN MAKING HIM FEEL REJECTED. I’M HURTING 😭😭😭 I feel like having Kim’s attention would be so fulfilling? Rewarding? That the slight absence of it is like the sun going out. DEVASTATING (and DELICIOUS for me). But Pete just dropping Kenta off like Kim is running a doggy daycare is hilarious dkfjehshf I have this mental image of Pete carrying Kenta by the scruff of his neck?? And Dean is self-destructing while Kim is just. Unfazed about all of it! Dean wants him to be jealous, meanwhile Kim is like. “It’s physically impossible to be jealous of Winner. But if he hurt you, if he forced you, if you hated it, that’s a different conversation.” I just really need someone going to bat for Dean. There’s something to explore about the difference between possessiveness (what Dean wants or thinks he wants) and protectiveness (what Kim will actually provide).

I will send you five million more words about my ideas once you’ve had a chance to read the fic, since it expounds a lot on what I mentioned before and also just my feelings about our doggies. Also I’ve got like, various heat scenarios to talk about as well! 

honestly Garfield and Benz are throwing themselves into this ship with no reservations. I hope they get cast in another show together clearly they deserve to make out on camera like they want 😌

I'm honestly like. mad about that fic lmao I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a whole bunch of it in my notes app and then when I woke up the next day I CLOSED THE NOTES WITHOUT SAVING. devastated. have to start from scratch. BUT now I'm like. it would probably work better from Kim's POV? but then I'd have to rewrite this which I really like lol :(

When Mr Tony had told Kenta to organise for Kim to be picked up from the airport and taken to the hotel, he definitely hadn't meant for Kenta to do the chauffeuring himself. But finding the loopholes in Tony's orders was how Kenta managed his life these days, so he was waiting in Arrivals in his usual black suit with a printed sign at 6pm the following Tuesday, surrounded by a group of men attired and be-signed much the same. Which was probably why Kim didn't give Kenta a second glance as he walked up. No big deal; Kenta’s used to being overlooked. “K’Kim?” he asks in polite confirmation, although he recognises Kim very well from the photographs he’s studied. Kim gives him a nod. This time he takes a good look at Kenta, sharp eyes sweeping from his carefully styled hair down to his perfectly shined shoes.

anyway then they go to Kim's hotel room and hook up and it starts from there.

Kim in the last few episodes is the BEST. he's just like "time fro breakfast! sure I'll chase down a teenager for a phone. sure I'll come along and beat up Winner in a funky jacket. sure I'll join your racing team and adopt north and sonic as my babies."

I NEED A FOLLOW UP I NEED A SPECIAL EPISODE OR A SEASON TWO. I hope we get something, even tiny crumbs, from the fanmeeting coming up. until it happens I can live in hope lmao.

!!! NOT THE KEYS THAT'S PERFECT!!! oh for sureee Kenta wears his basically all the time. its definitely black leather, right? he has a day collar something like this. or it says return to owner with Kim's details!! and then he has a more substantial collar for when they're at home, with rings for attaching a leash or ties to. yessss Winner. he doesn't care about it but also he should be given presents especially if other people are getting presents! I feel like his collar is red. probably leather as well. spiked!! or maybe something like a martingale collar so it's fine until someone pulls on it. imagine how pretty something like this would be for Dean though! or was thinking like an actual chain necklace/choker so he can wear it all the time and it's all delicate. I'm just imagining them all at the club or whatever, I think Kim deserves to hook his fingers in Kenta's collar while they're sitting drinking and pull him in until he's practically in Kim's lap. or maybe dancing and Kim tugs Dean's shirt down to show off his neck and Kim's claim.

IT WAS SO GOOD as you could probably tell by the insane comment I left. Dean has NO POKER FACE WHATSOEVER he's so easy to read!! how did he get away with any crimes!

the bad guy mv….DELIGHTFUL. even if it was just singing and dancing I love it with every part of my heart.

we keep putting Dean in this situations because he's….so pretty when he cries and is all emotional. BUT LIKE. Kim's not even stopping anything with Dean! in my head he's not even really starting anything with kenta, he's just being supportive and helping the guy integrate into society like a functioning human being. but of course nobody can use their words. Dean alwasy goes from 0-100 INSTANTLY. "It’s physically impossible to be jealous of Winner" LMAOOO. so true. askjfh PAINNNN. Dean definitely thinks he wants possessiveness - I think that's why the polycule works because Kim does offer protectiveness but I think both Winner and Kenat go for possessiveness. Winner because they're HIS things. and Kenta because he's had so little and can't lose any more. Kim is like. "unhealthy! but also…kinda hot." sometimes you just want a dude to go a little bit feral over you. okay.

!!! SEND HEAT RELATED THOUGHTS IMMEDIATELY. we should also talk about designations. I think in the show they're all just. not alphas. but personally I cannot write Winner as anything but an alpha. I tend to go for the other three as betas except for the fics I started early in the show with Kenta as an alpha lol. and I just started messing about with a sci fi au where perhaps Kim's suppressant chip malfunctions and it turns out he's not a beta and now he's about to go into heat in a very cramped ship... but I'm pretty sure I can be convinced any way for these four lol.

[love-as-simple-as-shaving-soap]

5x20 predictions

okay y’all—

i am finally jumping on the predictions-about-isabel’s-return bandwagon! if anyone cares to read, buckle in and please proceed

i went back to watch the last ep isabel was in onscreen in (i.e. 1x16)

and i am inclined to think (like many of you have already mentioned) that she is coming back to tell tim she is getting remarried. i’m not sure if she’s inviting him or not, but at the very least telling him so he doesn’t hear about it elsewhere and thank him for helping get her clean.

basically, the last convo tim and isabel had (onscreen) was at the rehab center when they decided that it was “the end” between them. tim tells her that everyone told him to let her go since she was already gone, but he held on because he couldn’t abandon her when she was so lost. but, because she wasn’t lost anymore, he had to let her go… he had to let her go to give her a fresh start away from all of the memories of the destruction her addiction caused. and of course, it was heartbreaking (hence the ep title) as they said their goodbyes and he walked away leaving her standing there.

and here’s the thing… even here with the actual act of breaking up with isabel, tim does what he has always done in his relationships on the show… he thinks more about his partner than himself. he mentions letting isabel go and doing it for her. he doesn’t mention himself and honestly, i think it’s because he isn’t really thinking about himself there… he isn’t even seeing it as them letting each other go because they both need a fresh start separately— he focuses only on what isabel needs as opposed to the both of them.

anyway, i recapped this whole bit because i think it would make sense for isabel to return and tell him she’s made the fresh start and to thank him. not just for sticking with her while she was lost, but also letting her go when she wasn’t anymore…. because he said the words that needed to be said aloud, he made that tough call that needed to be made, and because of this she is now living an amazing life that her fresh start afforded her.

also— it would be sweet for them to acknowledge that tim also needed that fresh start and that it also brought him to a “beautiful place” in the end (bonus points if there is also some light teasing about lucy being his rookie that called about his study habits way back when)

this convo would lead so well into a chenford i love you… like isabel moved on, tim moved on and they are both happy. they let each other go and were able to move forward and find the real thing again and each have a bright future ahead— full of love and promise. and i'm sure lucy will be a bit nervous about isabel showing up again... i mean, 1) she saw the way tim longed to protect isabel, to get her back and 2) she hasn't been in love the way she is with tim... he is her first serious relationship where she actually sees their future as set, while tim had that with isabel first. it would make total sense to let yourself feel insecure about that... so i think it would be really beautiful for tim to acknowledge that he made that choice to end the marriage, not just for isabel's sake, but for his own and how it brought him to a place to fall in love with lucy and to build a new future together

i’m gonna stop here for now cos i actually need to get some coursework done and i could honestly go on all day about this. i’ll probs pop back on to write another block of text about chenford or a spec fic before the next ep is out (like seriously i will spiral out about chenford and 5x20 again in the next 3 weeks several time over)

anyway… if y’all stuck through this to the end, what are your thoughts about it? would love to hear more from all of you fellow chenfordians!

[memberment]

Genesis

12:06 oh my god I have once again woken up too early and this time it was not on purpose.

TRYING to speed run some of this pre-work. Updates later but GOOD MORNING

9:12 I am back and working on two chapters at the same time. BECAUSE I NEED TO CONCEPT A DAMN ANGEL FOR HEIDI AND KENNY TO FIGHT. I CONCEPTED ONE AT WORK BUT THEY CAN'T FIGHT THIS ONE LMFAO

Also I need a flashback for Kyle so I'm literally just playing procrastinator olympics as I pingpong between two chapters. I might work on Bound for a bit tonight though, ngl. Because I am 21 chapters completed deep and 71.9k words in on this and Bound has THREE CHAPTERS READY AND BOUND HAS INTERMISSION CHAPTERS SO TECHNICALLY TWO LIKE. I WANT THE OPTION TO NOT WRITE WHEN MY SEMESTER STARTS!!!! (It's not like I'd even follow that but STILL.)

Also next line up is prob not gonna have a fic for every day, much to my own disappointment. Because school literally starts in FOURTEEN DAYS. and I only have four things ready to go. And I am determined to finish Genesis before my semester starts. Like I'm definitely gonna take a solid break from this series before I start Revelation, because that is going to be A LOT. (I do not think I will be taking much of a break between Revelation and Karma though, ngl. Bc each part starts, like, immediately after the previous one, but I KNOW how Revelation ends and Karma starts already and it has me LOSING MY SHIT. LIKE THE ENDING OF FUCKING REVELATION IS INSANEEEEEEE. And I hope not a soul sees it coming despite it being RIGHT THERE.)

I am sad though because I did want to start on Princess of Fire and get to a point where regular posts can pull up on that because I genuinely really like the concept and like, fine, I'm getting better at writing (and it is SOT and I do not wanna post a shit SOT fic on Wintergrew's internet) as I go so maybe holding off isn't a huge deal BUT I WANT Y'ALL TO FUCKING SEE THE VISION‼️‼️‼️

I honestly wish I could livestream my brain does that make sense LMFAO

2:24: Tears just rolled down my cheeks at the realization that we have not had one goddamn (exclusively) Bebe centric chapter and I am trying to write chapter 24. OH MY GOD. I can't even give her a full filler chapter because I wan't my filler to be like LIGHT HEARTED AND FUN. I CAN'T JUST STRETCH OUT LIKE 3K WORDS OF HER JUST EXISTING IN THE MIDDLE OF ANY OF THIS. LIKE WE ARE TEN CHAPTERS DEEP INTO THE WORSE SHIT. OH MY GOD I HATE IT HERE. Like I actually was just scrolling through the chapter titles and was like 'oh we have Stan! We have Craig! We have duhduhduhduhduh.' AND I GOT TO THE BEGINNING AND THERE IS NO FUCKING BEBE CHAPTER?????? WHAT THE FUCK! (I literally did this with Butters in Dandelion and had the same reaction why is it that all of my favorite fucking characters I do this to???? HOW. Like, we get more of her in Revelations but WHAT! THE! FUCK!)

So yeah, 24 is gonna be Bebe, despite me kinda wanting it to be Tam or Wendy.

Also I'm reading 'You're Not Mine Anymore' AGAIN (because even though I said I hated it, that chapter has literally embedded itself in my brain. Like, it's so fucking disturbing and so sad and I actually wanna throw myself out my window every time I think about it LMFAO)

2:55 I changed one sentence in this chapter and now I'm actually gonna sob. I hate it here.

4:30 I got distracted and watched tik toks since my last update, specifically spending like an entire ten minutes absolutely geeking over the 1970's gymnastics olympics and I am now back at my keyboard. I got a very specific bit of inspiration and it is fucking TERRIFYING.

Anyways. RIP Craig. Like seriously, dude is going THROUGH IT. This is what I get for ignoring him for like a week and a half (two weeks? ish. I'm settling on ish, here. A VAGUE, BUT NOT VERY LONG AMOUNT OF TIME) of their time when he is actively losing his shit.

I think killing him and Tweek off at this point is more of a mercy killing than anything on my part why did I do this to them I am so sad. AND THE FACT THAT THEIR DEATHS IS WHAT THIS WHOLE FIC GOT CONCEPTED AROUND IS FUCKING INSANE. LIKE I WROTE THEIR DEATH SCENE AND WAS LIKE WELP GOTTA WRITE A MAGICAL GIRL FIC.

And now I'm slowly but surely on my way to that chapter and annotating and writing in bits and pieces of THAT chapter and I'm like wow. Wow oh wow. Might need a hallucinations tag. Hypothetically, of course. But also hypothetically, would the hallucinations tag apply to this if said hallucinations are questionably real? Hypothetically. Anyways, when Fall From Grace gets posted, y'all are gonna need like sixteen and a half TWs.

And now I'm off to go write this fucking MESS of a chapter that is the Bebe chapter because I STILL DIDN'T WRITE IT. AND I AM OFFICIALLY DOWN TO THIRTEEN DAYS.

Another hypothetical, while I'm still here before I leave again and don't update until god knows when. Do you guys think I can finish 20 chapters in 13 days? Like, that would be approximately 60-80k words. Do y'all think I got this? And I'm typing that and realizing I thought the wc for this was gonna be like 100k and am now realizing I'm at 74k and just wow. ANYWAYS. LATER. Hope y'all are enjoying my extra long screams into the void tonight.

4:55 Black Swan cries out violently in the background as I realize I have just made five out of six, the quintet is now a trio, and Red is just there not giving a fuck. My head is in my hands. My jaw is dropped. I fear I may be evil for writing this.

May the gods I don't believe in help us all.

(I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN THIS MANY MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS. MY MAX HAS BEEN TWO SO FAR. THIS IS WHY DESOLATION ENDED THE WAY IT DID BECAUSE I FEARED THIS.)

Eh, fun fact while I'm here again. The original ending of Desolation, everyone was gonna die except for Kyle.

But wow OH WOW. Yeah, this is why I don't write major character death.

It is 6:26 am and I just posted An Answer chapter in attempts to procrastinate this horrible ending further and the realization has dawned on me that I am now involved in the mystery because I'm rereading and I have no idea WHAT THE FUCK is going on. I'm laughing so hard over this. God, how two months can really slip away is insane.

6:49: guys I'm rereading this and I am actually thrown off by my own writing like I fully forgot how off-putting this fic is supposed to be BECAUSE of what happened and why things are like this and I actually fell into my own fucking trap. I'm crying this is so funny HELP

7:02: not me happily reading and giggling over platonic twendy fluff and just getting smacked in the face by shit getting very real very fast. this is wild.

[sorryimananti-romantic]

angel!yeosang singing to reader "oh my body, i don't wanna stop until the break of dawn" before he.. well.. went into retirement.

but yes!! i could definitely tell how much you keep improving after reading dazzling light (from 2022 btw.). and this is NAWT saying you were bad at it before 🙅🙅🙅 however you have changed positively so, yep yep yep!!

you remind me i forgot to mention some in my rblg, ofc. the way in which you build up to plottwists NOW is much more difficult (/pos) to foresee as a reader. sometimes it's nice to have a straight-forward plot and be able to tell how it's gonna end and other times i love to be pulled in by secrecy and be whiplashed by endings i did not see coming (*kisses out to An Empire of Dreams and Illusions*)

also, i love to see how over the amount of works you've written, it's really noticeable that you push to create and write worlds, lores, characters the yumi way™. everyone gets inspired and motivated by others and arts of many ways, being able to use that energy and make something out of it that is so Y O U is 👏👏👏 never an easy feat. 🩷

embrace the cringe. be the cringe. [insert burning elmo gif here]

every creation is a contextual piece of their time and place. not every rework is necessary but no harm recycling ideas or getting inspired by previous works. i heard it's good for the planet.

i don't remember WHEN our wedding took place but i am also not opposed to a runaway marriage, endless honeymoons, no consequences. that.. always ends well in fanfictions, right?..

what'd ya think about a honeymoon in south korea and japan? we could take the ferry from busan to fukuoka and really channel that deluyuyu travel boyfriendism

○ chron 🃏

WENT INTO RETIREMENT- (but yeah that's pretty much what happened lmao)

ahaha thanks yeah, i understand! like the writing style obviously improves the more you write but i think i'm more creative with my plots now? sometimes i do like writing predictable stuff like if there's a friends to lovers fic, there's only so much you can do lmao. but yeah i'm glad that it's getting harder for you all to foresee the direction of my fics AHAHA i like that-- i always leave hints tho ;)

AHAHA the yumi way™ i'm gonna remember this :') i've actually heard that a lot about my fics and honestly that's prob my fav part about writing like i can create my own universe and do whatever i want with it. but yes, even when i'm inspired by sth else, i just like to make it as unique as possible! that's very true, thank you for noticing and pointing it out!

oh i am the cringe ahaha it's a part of me i can't deny that but yes. thank you for that :')

oh so you wanted a step by step huh? i see i see (i just presumed the wedding happened already oops KJHFDJKGH) but omg. your honeymoon plan is perfect it's actually my irl dream to do that so you've read my mind :') we shall channel exactly that :') oh to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom with you :'))

[meduseld]

Twenty Questions For Fic Writers!

Tagged by the lovely @samuelroukin. Answers under the cut,

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

241! Which is wild.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

629,313. So more than half a mill

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A bunch? Rn working on a The Terror fic, and probably more WOT stuff but DC is always in my head and the one I've written the most for.

4. Top five fics by kudos:

I’d Learn To Float 

You're Looking At Me (Like You Don't Know Who I Am) 

Water Is Sweet, Blood Is Thicker 

Tough To Talk To 

Down On Both Knees 

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to! In fact I've ended up expanding on works in the comments because we get into wonderful conversations. The connection is a blast. I even love getting comments that say "extra kudos" and I send them little hearts.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Like The Stars Miss The Sun In The Morning Skies since the only others that sort of end on an angsty note, Concentration Slip Away  and A Beautiful Lie (both of which are BatLantern with implications Hal is dealing with the aftermath of HalSin like in the actual angsty one) have room for there being a way to work it out. Something about Hal, I guess.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, def I’d Learn To Float which probably adds to how popular it is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yeah, and never on the ones I would have expected. The ones that stick out are when I got a weirdo on my early NickXZiggy stuff and a really crappy comment on a fic recently that just revealed the person did not read a single tag or warning so I was more annoyed than anything because that was 100% on them. Those are the minority though, people tend to be really great! It's just funny that when I write ships I know are ~problematic I'm semi-braced for it and nothing happens but then they show up in the ones I would have thought no one would find objectionable.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes, but somehow that's when most of the character work seems to happen! I am that person that goes I'm just gonna write them going at it, no plot just sex, and end up with 5K of them being in their feelings before anybody gets naked.

10. Craziest crossover:

This is gonna be especially funny with the fact that Ben tagged me, hey @samuelroukin you want some Star Wars x Turn? It's here: What Binds The Galaxy

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge but there was that one guy that stole a ton of DC big bang works to put on Kindle Unlimited so there's a non-zero chance one of mine got got before they had him taken down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, because I am a control freak so I have said no <3 (it's a character failing, I know)

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

Yes and I had a blast but it never moved past the Discord collab phase for a few reasons. Maybe one day though!

14. All time favorite ship?

Hard call but honestly. HalSin is that bitch for me, the all -timer, has it all: enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies, mentor-mentee, brothers in arms, the-only-one-that-gets-me, opposites attract, xenophilia.... Also probs relevant that it was among the first to give me the tingles as a tween reading comics so.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ugh there are some bangers in my icebox, there's a reason I don't post WIPs. But recently I was reminded of an excellent BirdFlash one I have that's just. Stuck. And an epic Superbat at a Boarding School of Horrors that I can't get my ass into gear about without the Big Bang to push me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character work I think, getting why they tick and getting it across. I'm a decent had at plot too! Did some casefic/mysteries and watched people get got in real time in the comments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting to the damn point instead of wandering off into the weeds with 86 commas. It has had its moments but sometimes I need to get back to the action and maintain momentum. I wish I was better at smut too, I think I'm okay but then I read something someone else wrote and go HOW.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

This is a context needed answer. I think it really depends on what you're trying to do/the source. If your character does in fact routinely swear in another language in canon just pop it in there, or if they do that or if it's a setting where there are a lot of languages in play. Then there's the whole whether it is clear from context to readers who signed up to read 1 language or if you need to clarify. And finally: are you trying to conceal information? Because if you are you can pop it in as a bonus for readers who do speak it, or just have your bad guy be like "he turned and said a few words in Russian to his assistant, who snapped to attention" or conversely, if you aren't, you can say "He turned and switched to Russian, which their hosts did not speak. 'When it's morning, we will...'" It really depends what you're trying to accomplish with the other language and what you want your reader to know (or not know!)

19. First fandom you wrote in?

...............Fullmetal Alchemist anime and I buried the bodies, you'll never find them. Never.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oof that's a hard call, they're all so different. But for today I'm gonna go with You're The Only Girl (I've Got On My List) because of the sheer size and juggling elements going on and how well it turned out in re: my plans for it at the start.

Tagging, if you dig it, @warrenkoles @hearthouses @poeedamerons and @starkfish

[basilhopewhumps]

hi i exist and have just made this lovely whump blog!!!!

what's up friends???? i have just decided to make a whump blog because i have been so into whump in the past few years while i've been on tumblr on another account and today i decided, fuck it, i wanna be part of the whump community on tumblr! it looks lovely! so here i thought i'd make an intro/master post with everything y'all need to know about me so i can find some friends!!! and i will add to this as needed so yall have information about me that is real and true lol

and i'm new here so please if you're an established member of the whump community and could point me to blogs you like to follow, thatd be swell!

basics:

my name is Basil! it is not my real name lol!

I use he/they pronouns though sometimes i think xe/xem/xyr would be cool so i wouldnt mind that either :]

i'm 18 years old!

i have a main blog so i'm familiar with tumblr but i'm not going to share that because i don't want this to have anything to do with that life! i will say though that i write fanfiction for a small fandom and that's how i got into whump because i write a lot of hurt/comfort :D know that the characters from that fandom are always a little bit in my head when i'm reading or writing whump <3333

whump likes/dislikes:

i like:

soft caretaking! soft! caretaking! so many like, hardcore whump things are fun for me as long as there's soft caretaking at the end. that's my endgame really. it's all about that hurt/comfort!! woo!!!!!!

sickfic!

touch starved whumpees. i live and die for that shit

panic attacks/anxiety attacks/general anxiety! as someone who suffers from anxiety myself i really enjoy reading about characters having anxiety and getting taken care of and soothed

sleep deprivation/insomnia/sleepy whumpees getting taken care of. i am known in my fandom life for writing sleepy fics all the time haha

nightmares

crying at all, really. i just. i like it when characters cry man

did i mention soft caretakers? thats important

i tend to pretty much write whumpee x caretaker romantically (in my fandom hurt/comfort fics it is usually one character in a ship hurt and the other comforting them) but i am also cool with platonic whumpee + caretaker relationships!

i could have a good time with pet whump i think???? i just, again, i want them to escape at the end and be taken care of by a caretaker who helps them ease into being their own person again

i don't like:

whump with no comfort/no caretaker/no happy ending/etc. all respect to it but it just makes me feel bad so- yeah i prob won't interact much with blogs who only post stuff like that!

any kinky whump. it just makes me feel super icky, please dont send me anything related to that. i don't mean i won't read/write/talk about anything nsfw in whump- i think the general rule is if whump is supposed to turn you, the reader, on then please count me out!! this is generally a sfw blog!

marvel whump or superheroes in general or hero/villain. anything of that sort

what i'm gonna do here:

if people send me requests for prompts/scenarios that i like i will happily oblige them!!!!!

may also just generally write some whumpy things

and mostly just reblogging whump posts that i like and seeing what's going on in this community! it's gonna be great guys i'm excited to be here :D

please send me any asks about anything at all times, or message me, whatever, always down to chat and befriend people <3333