#taking genderbend names too literal

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

Apr 9th

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1. ITMF fics with (a) good and well-developed original characters! i really enjoyed "I told you when I came I was a stranger" and would really love to read more like these. also looking for (b) fics where wwx is brought back in an OC's body, where their identity matters to the plot (eg politically), like "The Housewife’s Guide to Causing Chaos" (wwx brought back as a yu) & "Everyanything" (wwx brought back as qin su).

would still like wangxian to be tgt, & complete/actively ongoing fics only please. thank you!!!!! @potatokunst

1B)

There's the wwx resurected in other people's bodies comp, but more specifically,

❤️ Beauty and the Boot by PTchan (T, 44k, wangxian, summoned by f!oc, Canon Divergence, Romantic Comedy, Genderbending, Denial, Fem!WWX, WangXian kids, Crack-ish, WIP) would probably fit

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2. Hey there! For the next itmf:

I want fics where wwx is in love with lwj, and he knows it too. So I don’t care if its time travel or anything like that, I just wanna see wwx treating lwj good/like a spouse while being aware that he’s doing it.

And even greater would be, if lwj was very much confused/ in gay panic mode/ horny for it .

Thank you :3 @desperation-is-my-middle-name

two guys r in love thats literally it by victortor (M, 11k, wangxian, Time Travel, the fluffiest thing ive ever written)

When the Words Stop Coming by mrcformoso (T, 7k, WangXian, Canon Compliant, POV WWX, POV LWJ, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Pre-Sunshot Campaign, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Canonical Character Death, Love Confessions, Rejection, LWJ is a Panicked Gay, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Trauma, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending) more of an angst take honestly but it fits the prompt?

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together)

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3. Hi! For ITMF, can you suggest fics where it picks up soon after the novel ends and explores wangxian’s relationship and how it develops?

Or just fics where wwx learns to take up space/ adjust to gusu and in lwj’s heart?

Thank you for your help, always!

And Yet Here You Are by cosmicmilktea (T, 10k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Cloud Recesses, settling down, Separation Anxiety, Teacher WWX, very light angst, Chief Cultivator LWJ)

call me home and I'll build you a throne by anaphoricae (E, 51k, wangxian, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Cloud Recesses, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, Self-Indulgent, Gusu Lan Juniors Dynamics, Touch-Starved, Non-Sexual Intimacy... and then Sexual Intimacy, Lán Juniors Gossiping about Wangxian, as a treat, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, little hurt lots of comfort, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Farmer WWX, Chief Cultivator LWJ, iMutual Pining, Communication, Quietly Falling Into a Married Life, Light Angst, Wholesome, POV LWJ, POV WWX, LWJ in braids agenda, Sharing a Bed, WWX's Birthday, Semi-Public Sex, Cold Springs, Inventor WWX, Jealous WWX, turkish translation)

I hope that you will come and meet me by feyburner (M, 28k, wangxian, Post-Canon, Getting Together, Love Letters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Literal Sleeping Together, Intimacy, CQL Compliant, No Plot Just Feelings, First Time, Two soulmates figuring their shit out, Let Hanguang-jun talk about his feelings agenda, Podfic Available)

my age has never made me wise by idrilka (E, 63k, wangxian, Post-Canon, Part-epistolary, Mutual Pining, Getting Together, Marriage Proposal, Homecoming, One Brain Cell WWX Strikes Again)

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4. hello! for itmf any fics with wei wuxian and mo xuanyu? smth like i'll take a secondhand monster by stratisphyre

tysm<3 @r3n-vy

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5. Hi! Hope u r having a great day!

Do you know any good wangxian fics where LWJ leaving cloud recesses along with A-yuan and raise him on his own? You know, before WWX's return? I remember reading one where LWJ competely fell off the radar once. Sadly, i can't recall the name. Pretty please @grrumpywoof

❤️ And Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Glitterbombshell (T, 23k, WIP, WangXian, Heavy Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, LXC is not really a good brother in this sorry, Canon Divergence, rogue cultivator!lwj) It's a WIP that hasn't updated since 2020, but there's this

Home isn't Where the Heart is. by Hauntcats (Not rated, 7k, wangxian) Jingyi comes along too here

The Best I Can by Zephyr (ZephyrAndTheSilverfish) (T, 26k, LJY & WWX, wangxian, WWX talking to his donkey, Canon Divergence, Light Angst, Drama, Recovery, Coming of Age, Secret Identity Fail, Friendship, Rogue Cultivator LWJ, Road Trips, POV Multiple, Happy Ending)

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6. Hi!!! Thank you, you are all amazing and this place is magnificent!! Well, In the mood for... A) Fics were Wei Wuxian raised or helped raised the Juniors, all of them, modern if possible, I just finished The Edge of Night by Hobbsy3 and the relationship with the kids is so amazing, even if is not the central theme also B) Zombie themes fics, similar to the previous one, modern to if posible with happy ending!! Thank you so much for everything!! Be well :) @monicaop21

6A)

🔒 and having a marvelous time by varnes (E, 108k, WangXian, Yúnmèng Siblings, Sound of Music AU, (i know!!! i know. stay with me on this.), Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Family Feels, spies to lovers???, Protective Siblings, Sometimes You Just Want Your Dads To Admit They're Your Dads, Angst with a Happy Ending, podfic of and having a marvellous time by varnes by Spinifex) not modern but WWX raises all the kids

6B)

Darkness Before the Dawn by Selenay (E, 64k, wangxian, Zombie Apocalypse, Modern With Magic, Necromancer WWX, Reunions, toddler A-Yuan, There Was Only One Bed, There are zombies but not graphically horrific zombies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Find a home in the middle of an apocalpyse)

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7. Academic rivals wangxian? :<

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8. For the next itmf! I wonder if there are any fics where the lan and nie bros are really close and then wwx gets added into the mix, and there are shenanigans! Things like the lan/nie bros having a problem that only wwx can solve, or the bros discover how wwx's been treated by other people and get super protective. I just read With This Shadowed Blade and discovered that I very badly want to read more of this dynamic! Thank you all!

Come Around and Stay by trippednfell (M, 160k, wangxian, modern, slow burn, kid fic, found family, it gets worse before it gets better, PTSD, blood and injury, dissociation, trauma, angst w happy ending, musicals, alternating pov, JC & WWX reconciliation, hurt/comfort, panic attacks) 

Debts of a Child Part 2 by Hauntcats (M, 111k, WangXian, YZY Bashing, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Angst and Feels, lots of anger, JC Bashing, not Jiang friendly, Angst with a Happy Ending, Content warning for icky spiders in later chapters.)

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9. Pls pls next itmf secret relationship wangxian? Bonus points if it’s CRA but modern au or post canon or whatever is great too I just need it (I have read a few where their families don’t believe they’re dating but I want them hiding it)

Silenced With A Kiss by NinjaKK (E, 132k, WIP, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Flirting, Teen Romance, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Soft WangXian, WWX in WWX’s Body, Secret Relationship, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Dates, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Canon Divergence, Protective LWJ, Protective WWX, Ripple Effect, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Optional Smut, Supportive LWJ, BAMF WWX, Inappropriate Use of Gūsū Lán Forehead Ribbon, Has an Angry LWJ Kink, Drunk LWJ, Gusu Lan Alcohol Tolerance, No Golden Core Transfer, WWX Leaves the Yunmeng Jiang Sect)

A Guide on How to (not) Have a Secret Relationship by Grapesey (YumGrapeJuice) (T, 6k, wangxian, Established Relationship, Secret Relationship, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Boys Kissing, they are horribly in love, WWX is a Little Shit, LWJ is So Whipped, WWX is obsessed with LWJ's hair, JC is So Done)

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10. For the next itmf could I see if we could find any fics where mo xuanyu is adopted by wangxian. I’ll take both modern au and canon type fics

a thousand fragile and unprovable things by theLoyalRoyalGuard (G, 5k, WangXian, Modern AU, Trans Male Character, Trans MXY, MXY Deserves Happiness, Best Dads Wangxian, Handwaving The Legal System With The Power of LWJ, A little bit of angst, mostly soft, Happy Ending, Gender Happiness, Let LWJ Wear Skirts Agenda, Additional Warnings In Author’s Note)

silk linked together by theLoyalRoyalGuard (G, 6k, LWJ & MXY, Wangxian, Modern, Autistic LWJ, Cellist LWJ, LWJ, Runs A Rabbit Rescue, MXY Deserves Happiness, Fluff) which ends w/ both wangxian relationship and Mo Xuanyu adoption in process.

🔒 and having a marvelous time by varnes (E, 108k, WangXian, Yúnmèng Siblings, Sound of Music AU, (i know!!! i know. stay with me on this.), Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Family Feels, spies to lovers???, Protective Siblings, Sometimes You Just Want Your Dads To Admit They're Your Dads, Angst with a Happy Ending, podfic of and having a marvellous time by varnes by Spinifex) (link in #6A)

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11. Hello! ITMF current wips? For the last few months Truth Will Out has been super fun to keep up with, but now it is complete I would love to find other wips to follow! Any genre (canon, au, or modern) and any topic/plot! Preferably something that updates with relative frequency, like weekly or every other week. Thank you so much!

No Matter What You Are by LilyFaraday (M, 209k, wangxian, WIP, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Female WWX, MXY is a girl in this one and WWX has to deal with it, Genderbending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, A lot of comedy coming from WWX dealing with being a girl, and also using it to his advantage, Marriage of Convenience, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, no miscarriage)

A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ) My current MDZS WIP is the A Matter of Time Series, it's currently on worlbuilding extras before the actual sequel. It's update about monthly but considering the amount of thought and worldbuilding and the size of this series I think that's pretty fast hahaha make sure to read the warnings first!

once upon a time, 很久很久以前 by gentil-minou (Flyingsuits) (M, 69k, wangxian, LSZ & WWX, LSZ & LWJ, WIP, Modern, Canon Divergence, Transmigration, of the townwide variety, Amnesia, of the nearly everyone variety, Mystery, of the shenanigans variety, Not Everyone Dies AU, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, WWX is sad and down bad, Single Parent LWJ, except a-yuan runs away to find his other dad, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Once Upon a Time Fusion, Curses, part of the fun is figuring out how to make these characters as miserable as possible :) ) may i offer up my wip? Updates arent thay frequent cause each chap is over 15k but im hoping to post the next chap this month!

🔒 The Second Hand Unwinds by trulywicked (E, 51k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, WIP, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Time Travel Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Not Yunmeng Jiang Sect Friendly, Not Jiāng Family Friendly, Not YZY Friendly, Time Travelling LWJ, Protective LWJ, Fluff, Minor Angst, Minor Character Death, JGS is his own warning, Wooing, LWJ is romantic af, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, Supportive LXC, Good Uncle LQR, WWX Protection Squad)

A-Yuan's Big Adventure by KatanaHatake (G, 13k, wangxian, WIP, Time Travel, transmigrator LSZ, Found Family, Canon Divergence, Parents LWJ & WWX, People believing WWX birthed A-Yuan, Eventual Happy Ending, Accidental Baby Acquisition)

We Meet at the Thousandth Step by Admiranda, Rynne (T, 273k, wangxian, CSSR/WCZ, WIP, Canon Divergence, No Sunshot Campaign, CSSR & WCZ Live, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Different First Meeting, Night Hunts, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Romance, Drama, Fluff, Strangers to married, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Everyone Lives AU, Developing Relationship, Minor Violence, Case Fic, Mystery, Flirting, WWX's Canon-Typical Flower Flirting, Arson, There Was Only One Bed, Getting Together, First Kiss, Meeting the Parents, Resolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Romantic Tension, WWX Is a Good Big Brother, New Relationship Bliss, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Blood and Injury, Yiling siblings)

🧡 The Shade of Old Trees by Kryal (T, 266k, WIP, WangXian, Ridiculously Long Notes, History, Canon Divergence, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, Slow Life, Action/Adventure, Magic Returns, BAMF WWX)

At heart by apathyinreverie (M, 28k, wangxian, WIP, Dark LWJ(Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Caring, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation, but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, kind of, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, Possessive WWX, WWX happily atticwifing away, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ)

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12. Itmf for qiongqi path divergence 🖤

The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou (E, 66k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Blood, Respiratory Illness, Major Illness, Fever, Grief/Mourning, Burial Mounds, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hunger and food scarcity, Surgery, Fix-It of Sorts)

when you're doing all the leaving (then it's never your love lost) by tardigradeschool (T, 23k, wangxian, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Sharing a Bed, Sharing Clothes, Fix-It, the inherent eroticism of under robes, Golden Core Transfer, LWJ finds out about wwx's missing core and says i have plenty to go around)

the cycle of regret by KouriArashi (T, 14k, WangXian, Groundhog Day, Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending)

in this place where we don’t have a prayer by Cerusee, Mikkeneko (T, 42k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX dies at Qiongqi path, Demonic Cultivation)

Home and the Heartland by Witch_Nova221 (T, 210k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, Slow Romance, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Self-Discovery, Golden Core Reveal)

isn't there a Qiongqi Path canon divergence comp?

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13. itmf fics with Lan Wangji laughing/smiling/giggling etc. The bts of The Untamed with Wang Yibo laughing his ass off are killing me and i need LWG just being happy and laughing now

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14. An ITMF ask: I am looking for fic where WangXian's marriage is being arranged but one or both of them simply don't know about it until late in the game -not just "everyone knows but them" but literally they are being measured for wedding outfits and are clueless. Pining a plus! HEA pls! <3 @kimboo-york

Searching for a Heart by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, married at first sight au, this is basically modern arranged marriage, Getting Together, Reality TV AU)

Lead Me On Through by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 54k, wangxian, Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Practice Kissing, practice other things, horny boys in love, questionable logic, Questionable Choices, they're dumb but cute, but dumb, but really cute, slight knives, Happy Ending)

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15. itmf modern au inventor wwx, similar to kizukatana's Truth Will Out? thank you for all that u do 💗

💖 One Can Keep A Secret (If He Does Not Know It’s There)by H_Belle (T, 5k, wangxian, NHS & WWX, modern w/ cultivation, inventor WWX, secret identity, identity reveal, YLLZ WWX, rogue cultivator WWX, pining LWJ, WWX pov)

There's An App For Everything by Sweetlittlevampire (G, 4k, wangxian, Modern Cultivation, Rivals to Lovers, Friends To Lovers, Competition, Demon fighting, Getting Together, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Night Hunts, Wangxian x Caves is the real ship here, Happy Ending, Humour)

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16. hi hi! could you recomend any fics where Lan Yuan grows up in Lotus Pier? thank you <3 @nyxiblue

What Remains After the War by Swan_Song (T, 41k, JC & LSZ, JC & JL, JL & LSZ, JL & LJY & OYZZ & LSZ, JC & WWX, WIP, Canon Divergence, LSZ is a Jiang, Good Uncle JC, Cousins JL & LSZ, JC Needs a Hug, JC Needs Therapy, The juniors solve a mystery, Junior Ensemble Shenanigans, Good Uncle LQR, he tries his best, LSZ Needs a Hug)

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17. ITMF any fics where other characters preferably Jin zixuan has an unrequited/one sided crush on Wei Ying. Could be any setting preferably Canon/Canon divergence or with some sort of cultivation and wangxian end game. Gimme all you have please @linossock

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If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[zaptrap]

Seeing that you've been here since 2012 is INSANE like you've witnessed it all huh. You've seen probably SO many weird and crazy things in this fandom like man that's so cool for you I feel...

ive def seen and participated in a lot of dumbass bullshit over the years LMAO. although notsomuch during the skybound-to-seabound era cuz i'd lost interest for a bit

Random shit I remember off the top of my head (plz feel free to fact-check):

deviantart era: (2012-2013)

that bright green ninjago ask meme

like, literally everybody making self-insert purple ninjas (sometimes orange, teal, or rainbow) and shipping them with their fav ninja

everyone making their own genderbends of the ninja. cole was almost always called nicole or colette lmao

people also naming their accounts (name)-the-ninja (or "teh-ninja", since this was 2012)

there's a non-zero probability that if you were in the fandom during the season 1 era, you're a furry now

naruto crossovers

half-snake ninja aus.........wonder who uh......who could've done that.....heheh (me) (that was my whole deal pre-nindroid!jay lmfao)

everyone posting like, doll-maker things they made of ninjago? especially dragon ones

(me) posting leaked screenshots of season 2 eps that i found on the lego wiki or smth lmao. this is also how i found out zane was a robot. i think i kept posting leaks when i moved to tumblr

legends of chima releasing and i thiiink it was supposed to be a ninjago replacement? like, legitimately? though a lot of people weren't happy about it. "furry gang drug wars" was a phrase used a lot lmfao.

tumblr era (2013-2016 for me) (may overlap with dA era)

everyone losing their minds over the shirtless ninja in ns2 lmfao

that one video of kirby marrow (rest in peace) saying cole was 14

that other vid of like, behind the scenes and it was the ninja's actors but like in-universe? it's where "cole bucket" comes from

also some behind the scenes vid with the actual voice actors lol

thinking back on this, im like 100% sure it was bullshit but when the end of rebooted aired, there was a rumor going around about fans being so upset over zane's death that they carved a snowflake on their stomachs. lots of people were freaking out lmfao

the rise and fall of "fucknoshittyninjagoOCs" (ashamed to say i heavily participated in harassing this blog even if i rlly didnt like the premise.........)

maypong

lots of tension with instagram cuz of all the art reposts. like. tons of reposts. i remember someone blocked me when i said to take something down but then unblocked me the same evening and apologized LOL so

roleplay twitter accounts (twitter was kinda not-as-a lot at the time)

nindroid!jay of course. its so old there was an update that was made in flash lmfao...

absolute fucking shitloads of AUs and headcanons. i dont think this has changed much but like. there were so many lmfao. entire threads

actually there's too many fucking AUs. im scrolling through my main blog and i cant fuckin find anything cuz ITS ALL THESE STUPID AU THREADS THEY AREN'T EVEN LIKE DEEP LMAO

ask-all-the-ninjagians

the absurd screenshot redraws i did. like they were super stupid lmfao. icr which blog they're on but they're on my comp still at least

ninjagians just. being a term used at all lmao

the ninjago fan-tournament during ns4. people would draw/write about their ocs doing whatever prompt was posted and then everyone came together to defeat a big bad snake man

tbh i started naturally losing interest during ns5, and then VERY QUICKLY dropped the show (and therefore fandom) when skybound came out lmao............... so i dont really remember a lot from this era and everything after

and now im back :D

i hope this is insightful! xD

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I have 2 separate questions that are unrelated but share a subject matter.

Would a woman omega or trans man omega who was infertile/sterile be allowed at Hillview?

And 2) Have you thought or would you ever write an mm pairing where one of them was a trans man?

I'm trans masc and I find it so hard to find good trans fics that deal with trauma recovery or aren't just pwp. And I love your writing so much that if you ever decided to write a transman fic I'd literally cry from happiness.

So, I was going to write a big long world-building response to this but instead I'm gonna take it back to something personal - you're asking me to consider worldbuilding for and writing for stuff I feel pretty dysphoric over in my personal life. I go out of my way to really, really avoid writing heterosexuality of any kind for a start, so I don't want to think about all the fringe cases where I can make heterosexuality possible at Hillview or the sister site. That's just...icky to me.

As for trans folk, being that I'm also transmasc, I'm mostly team 'if you want to see it happen you can write it happening. I have zero problems with that. But there's stuff I'm not writing about either for reasons relating to dysphoria, or for reasons relating to 'this is not actually why I enjoy writing in the first place.' This is why I don't do self-inserts, for example. I don't like seeing myself in my own stories, I prefer seeing myself represented in other stories.

So -> If other folks want to write it, they can! If they want to solve those worldbuilding issues, they absolutely can! If they want to write fic about it, I'm gonna set off a confetti cannon for them in celebration.

In terms of worldbuilding, the answer would just always be: It depends. If you want to find the fringe cases then sure, there would always be exceptions! But if there was any chance of fertility/pregnancy with their companion, then no. So it would absolutely need to be not just a hormonal transition (a lot of things can impact consistent hormonal uptake and I think omegaverse hormones in the Underline universe would actually impact them a lot too), but one that covered bottom surgery as well.

Is that like, a problem in honouring someone's gender? Absolutely!! The Underline universe isn't perfect. But preventing pregnancy is their biggest concern at Hillview and the sister site. I know in regular/standard ORFs, they only care about the fertility issue, and care about literally nothing else, and yes, that can be a huge issue re: trans folk. This world is a dystopia, it doesn't pretend to be anything else.

The fun thing about fanfiction, is that other people can erase all of that with a sweep, come up with some magical contraception, and just make it happen. :D

As a transmasc person myself, I have stuff I just don't like writing. Just like everyone else does. You are absolutely welcome and completely have my blessing to imagine whatever you like for Underline, to write it in fic, to daydream about it, to bend and change the rules that already exist or to make up new ones that don't exist yet, that work for a world you want to read about.

But for me...it just comes too close to 'if I have to change or figure out these things I also have to think about how to set up 'woman omega and man alpha' heterosexuality and I just don't want to.'

I'm so sorry anon. I'm going to circle this one under competing needs. Sometimes the thing another person needs to find gender affirmation, is the thing that will harm another person's experience of their own gender, even if that gender shares the same general name, even if that changes down the track. (This is how we get some trans people who hate genderbending in fic and say it's dysphoric, and other trans people who love it and say it's affirming. It's true for both, neither should impose their views on the other).

The TL;DR being: I write what I want to be writing. If I'm not writing it, and have never written it, it's because I don't want to write it. In the matter of heterosexuality: zero interest, I'll leave that for other folks. In the matter of being trans, dealing with my own gender stuff irl is already a nightmare that I don't want to have to write out a version of that again in fiction, because I can't live it twice, and I don't like writing fluffy stories.

[tpotr]

I'm actually so sad that tpotr isn't canon. It's canon in my heart <3

I was a bit apprehensive at first, because i'm not too big on genderbending, but I love the way you have made all the characters your own, yet have still kept what made them uniquely them, the characters that we fell in love with. It feels like falling in love with them all over again. They feel so real; sometimes you sympathise with them, cheer them on, other times you just want to take them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them. And even if the names weren't similar to their canon names, you'd be able to tell who's who. I seriously got so lost in this world that you've built that i forgot that it's aegon and not aerea, helaena and not rhaegal, aemond not aemma, daeron the daring not daella the darling. The character arcs and growth also are well fleshed out and make sense. You wouldn't be able to say that a character is behaving ooc because you make it seem so natural. And omg the ocs! If i didn't know better, i would've thought they were grrm's creations. I love rhaegal's friends so much and roslyn reyne has my heart. This story has it's claws in my heart, and i binge read it in one night whilst ignoring my overdue assignments lol. You leave me with so many questions and wanting to know more about this universe that i'll gladly wait any time you want just to get lost in this story again.

this ask is SO. so sweet, I'm in shambles actually. literally tearing up. thank you so much anon, I'm genuinely so thankful. Thank you for reading the story, the thought put in this ask, and the love. I am so so so soft right now 😭😭😭😭😭💗💗💗💗💗 tpotr has always been a love project and readers like you make it worth it to push thru any writer's block. lots of love dear, i appreciate it so much. <33333

[same-name-supremacy]

Things about my TD-sona and how I think they would change over in your auG (just using this as a way to hyperfixate to mutuals)

My sonas name is Olivia btw

Was introduced in world tour after being kicked out of the Gemmys along with her brother,both aspiring musical artist who can't catch a hook into the mainstream media,and when presented the opportunity to be on international television she wants to take it to try and boost their popularity - Olivia changes to Oliver,and Ethan changes over to Estella, everything about the

same

Huge hate/fear of Alejandro that fades overtime due to the friendship?(I guess) that they developed over gameplay,and the need to be recognized as something great - with Oliver it's just fear ‚not as much as hate,even tho he has his suspicions on her

Is Chris's personal favorite contestant due to her need to be famous and Chris being the only one who knows that for most of world tour- could imagine it to be the same,strong girlboss lady and her wet cat son

Huge little brother vibes on Cody,even carrying (both literal and metaphorical) him in certain challenges when Sierra could get the chance- I still think they could get the siblings vibes but not being able to carry Jody as much because of how psychotic Simon is

Olivia is 5’2 and my own personal headcanon is the Cody is the same height- with Jody being 4’11 and Oliver being 6ft (because of genetics in his family and the shortness then sorta but also not getting passed to his older sister) which makes me think of Jody and him as this meme

Olivia got to sit out of Niagara brawls due to their being an uneven amount of contestants(blainely originally not even being counted in the first place) and because again Chris’s personal favorite-would probs stay the same

(Ps I would imagine after the challenge and when Jody cuts her hair along with Danika he would try to fucking kill Simon,even going so far to trying to shove him out of the plane doors during opals elimination)

Was voted out 5(before Sierra and after Duncan) after forming an alliance with Alejandro that she believed was legit,him convincing her that he could make cody vote with him and get Heather out,because naturally Sierra always votes with Cody,and after her jump out the plane and everything Heather confesses to Alejandro that she put a wrench in his plans and unconvinced Cody to vote with him,which in reality means Alejandro did plan on a final 4 with Cody Sierra and Olivia,but of course the first assumption in Olivia’s mind was “oh.he lied to me.” So before she jumped she gave him a slap,pre to the Knowledge that Heather revealed after her jump-he wouldn’t slap Alejandra in the Genderbend,because hitting a women is wrong in his eyes

Didn’t show up to the after show after her vote off,immediately recognizing the fame her and her brother little band thing got during her time at the season and already planning their first tour- same,except he watched the season finale from home rooting for Jody to pull out a win

Kept in touch with most of the cast during her days after the season,shopping with Lindsay and hanging out with Noah and Cody as they we’re definitely some of her favorite people on the plane- absolutely the same,the friendship with Jody continues even more once she meets his sister,becoming Estelle’s little sister too

I don’t wanna bore you even more that I have to,but by the slim chance I’m not boring you and you wanna hear about her in all stars and how it could change I’m happy to talk!

Reminder abt this cause ppl never make stuff for me and I appreciate it so much.

Wow! That’s alot! So much lore about Olivia/Oliver

Oliver is definitely one of the guys Danika actually respects. Only a few guys get that (that being Seth, Lincoln, Eva, Leshawn, Bryson and Scruffy)

Thank you for sharing so much about your oc!

[koneko-dreams]

The Potion Incident

Need to read (Clickable)-->Character introductions first before proceeding or else you won't know what is happening. And, Read hashtags please.

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Summary: When your brain tricks you of reading a different ingredient be like- There's no harm though- Or is there?

Warning: Cussing(Kinda), two OC'S being dumbfounded, blood(?) Or scar(?), Suggestive(y'know y'know- for only one reaction), May not be canon reactions, Biased, Slight angst at the end, Someone being doomed at the end etc.

Characters: Koneko, Arien(friend's oc), Lilia, Silver, Crewel and rest of Diasomnia crew.

KD: Had motivation so- 👍 that made me have a writer's block at some point while making this- So props for @arimanhwa for helping me by being my co-writer for this (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)💕✨ and being my daily reminder-

How much time it took: January 28-February 14. (I know. It's very long.)

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In Alchemy class:

Arien and Koneko were picked as pairs in Alchemy class. "Let's see... Moon dust, Silver dust, Luna Moth, Perrywinkle..." Koneko reads the ingredients off of the textbook while Arien places the ingredients in the cauldron. "And.. Rose of Jericho." Koneko said, Arien placing the final ingredient in the cauldron and it omitted a strange color. "Uhh- Something's wrong." Arien said silently panicking, as Koneko looks at the textbook again. "Shit- I read it wrong. It was Rose Petals-" But it was too late as the cauldron exploded in smoke. Making Crewel running to check it out, ready to discipline whoever the fu- messed up.

"Cough, cough- What is up with this smoke?- cough-" Said by someone whose voice is turning deep. "And why is my voice so deep?" Now that the smoke is clearing, you could now see who is talking and it looks like- A guy that looks like Koneko(?) "I should've known it was the wrong ingredient..." Said by someone who looks like Arien but genderbent(?) Who was also coughing from the smoke. Nonetheless, after clearing their headache, they looked up to see Crewel looking not very impressed. "...I am disappointed on how it almost destroyed my class, But must say that I am quite proud... Somewhat." Crewel said, making the two confused. "Crewel-sensei, I apologize for the explosion, it was truly my fault as I was in charge of reading the ingredients but- what do you mean by you're proud?-" The guy who looks like Koneko asked. "For one, the potion worked. Two, it's a newly discovered potion seeing as you both are now in a different gender so, Good boys!" As Crewel praised how they found a new recipe, the two of them were left dumbfounded.

Alright let's get this out of the way first. Genderbend Koneko is called "Kinsley" and Genderbend Arien is called "Arthur". Though this will be just on the reader's perspective since they(Koneko and Arien) have never told them their genderbend names before.

"Well- No wonder my voice sounds so deep." Said by which seems like Kinsley now. "Are you alright there, Arien?" She(or is it he now?) Asked, lending her(him?) a hand. "Yep- Just a headache-" Said by Arthur, taking Kinsley's hand but touched the liquid from the potion with his other hand which made it fuckin' have a third-degree(dramatic) burn. "You clumsy a—" Anyway- Arthur yelped when his hand touched the liquid but it may leave a scar so for now it's just a wound- as Kinsley pulls Arthur from the ground, giving him a glare from his clumsiness before asking Crewel for how long the potion would last. Which he responded, Atleast two days. "That's a long time..." Kinsley mumbled. "Anyway, let's get you to the infirmary." "Wai-" Kinsley said as he drags(Literally) Arthur all the way to the infirmary so that he can have his damn wound get healed.

After a few good minutes, Kinsley is sitting down, and is currently accompanying Arthur in the infirmary while Arthur is getting his wound treated when all of a sudden a number of students(who are the Diasomnia group) barges in through the infirmary in which made Arthur flinch and Kinsley expecting this to happen as he sipped on his tea(where in hell did he get that from?-).

Both boys, looking at the door, containing their friends, the other two being more than a friend.. As they look at the door, confused, all boys were flabbergasted.

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Their reaction to Koneko's genderbend:

Lilia Vanrouge (Romantic/Suggestive bcs yes.)

{KD: Cough- Since Lilia is canonically bisexual- wink wink- Hint HINT}

Lilia looked Kinsley up and down and-

Let's say his reaction to Koneko's genderbend was—

"Lilia- Take this seriously, please-" Said by Kinsley, "Kufufu~ Even your voice has changed, my dear~ And I say that it is very attractive. Kufufu~" Lilia said, hovering above the ground(Height difference real lol-) and hugging Kinsley from the back. "Sigh- Whatever-" "Now, don't be like that, dear~ I can get used to this~" He said while chuckling, Kinsley just sighed and sipped on his tea, not bothered by it though his words say differently. "Fufu~ And, since this will last atleast two days, what more than spend our time together, hm?" Lilia said in a whisper through Kinsley's ear with a suggestive tone (I screamed-) in which made Kinsley choke on his tea.(Understandable)

"LILIA!" Said by Kinsley in a not so loud of a voice that it can be heard by the whole crowd but just enough for it to be loud for Lilia as he turned around to look at him with wide eyes and a small blush forming on his cheeks. That damn man just giggled and said- "Whattt?~ Can't I appreciate my darling now that she's in a different gender?~ As you know, I am attracted to both genders, Kufufu~" He said in a playful manner, having both of his arms raised in a surrender motion. "Sigh- Now you're making me lean on what you acted like in the past.." Kinsley said, going back in position and drinking his tea. "My love, you know that's not true~ You love me just the way I am~" Lilia said playfully, hovering and hugging Kinsley from behind again, "Or did you love how I was being rough to you back then, hm? My dear? You know you can just ask~ I'll gladly fulfill your wish~"(Yes, that kind of rough you're thinking if you went to that part of your brain-) Lilia whispered in a tease as Kinsley on the other hand, flustered and pushing Lilia's head away from his ear. Blushing.

KD: I got BRAINROT writing this part SBSJDBKSNAKS- Hope y'all like it fellow Lilia simps ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)👍✨

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Malleus Draconia (Platonic)

He had to blink a few times to process it- His other tutor/teacher has just changed gender. How crazy is that?

"Do I look that bad?" Asked by Kinsley with a sigh and a bit of a blush because of the damn suggestive thing earlier- (Cue Lilia giggling in the background and Malleus definitely did not hear anything earlier-) "It's not because of that. It's because this is quite a new thing that I am having a hard time adjusting."(No shit- She[Koneko] has been with him all his life- including Lilia ofc) Malleus explained himself. "I see. Well, I thank you for checking up on me, Malleus." Kinsley thanks Malleus and Malleus says your welcome. ("In truth, you surprisingly look dashing, Koneko." "Why thank you, Malleus ✨.")

KD: Yes it's short.

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Silver (Platonic)

When I tell you boi is flabbergasted, he was. Boi was looking at Kinsley with wide open eyes. Literally trying to process everything.

"Uh- is something wrong with my look, Silver? Why are you looking at me like that?-" Kinsley asked with one eyebrow raised and with a puzzled expression that made Silver snap back into reality by blinking once and twice and even shaking his head before replying, "No- no. I am.. Only trying to process everything." Silver responded, being calm now as he has already processed everything. "Ah, I see." Kinsley said, being understanding before drinking his tea. After drinking his tea, he placed it down on his saucer before saying, "Oh, right. Since I will be stuck as my genderbend for atleast two days, you may call me father as well." (Eheheh- Silver has two dads now- for two days-) Kinsley said, drinking his tea again(Is that tea unlimited or something?-) while Silver just stood there like a statue- just realizing it.(Cue Lilia chuckling in the background)

KD: Ehehehehehhe- HE HAS TWO DADS- ehem- It's kinda short- apologies.

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Sebek Zigvolt (Platonic)

"KONEKO-SAMA, YOUR ATTRACTIVENESS SURPASSES AMONG THE BEAUTIES FROM THE WORLD ITSELF AND KNOWN THAT YOU ARE TRULY THE FINEST ART EVEN IN YOUR GENDERBEND FORM!"(Of course, wakasama still stands at the peak of all—"

Sebek said, proudly in his usual volume of a voice that made Kinsley cover his ears due to him having sensitive hearing- adding to that, his super hearing- "I appreciate the compliment but please- lower down the volume-" Kinsley said, his ears still ringing- "Ah- yes. Ahem- My apologies for that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Their reaction to Arien's genderbend/wound-:

Lilia Vanrouge (Platonic)

Before he can even react to Arien's genderbend, man rushed to check if he's(Arthur) alright. Like a father would to their child. "Are you alright!? Does the wound hurt? Will it leave a scar?!" Lilia asked worriedly as he frantically checked the bandaged wound. "It's just a little injury- no need to go this far on checking it." Arthur said, trying to ease his worries. "Nonsense, sweetie pie. Even such a small thing can be dange—" Before Lilia could finish what he was saying, he suddenly took notice of his(Arthur) appearance (Cause he was busy worrying about the wound that he didn't notice-). "Oh my. My, my, my~ My dear future daughter-in-law sweetie pie has quite the appearance!" Lilia said, praising Arien for her genderbend appearance. "Kufufu~ now I wonder how Silver would react to this~" Lilia mumbled with his usual smile on his face while Arthur is just left confused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Malleus Draconia (Platonic)

"Child of man, are you alright? Though your wound is already bandaged, does it still hurt?" Malleus asked, checking up on him, trying to help if needed while Arthur responded, "Nope, it doesn't hurt" saying it casually. "That is good to know. I suggest that you better be careful from now on, for your own safety, child of man. Though, on a different topic, you look rather dashing if I say so myself." Malleus commented. (HUMAN! YOU BETTER BE GRATEFUL THAT WAKASAMA HAVE BESTOWED UPON YOU HIS COMPLIMENTS!-) "Mhm, I will Mal and thank you." Arthur said with a smile. Thanking Malleus for the compliment. Definitely not because of someone screaming in the background-.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silver (Romantic)

Silver's immediate reaction was- Running towards Arthur in a hurry (May or may not have tripped on the way- Man's falling asleep as he runs-) and saying in a very worried tone "Are you alright?- Can I help you in any way?- I will do my very best to help." He said in a very determined way as he checks the bandaged wound on Arthur's hand thoroughly. "Ah- I'm fine, Koneko(Kinsley) did bring me to the infirmary to make sure my hand was treated. Thank you for worrying though, Silv." Arthur said, reassuring Silver that he was fine. "Damn right I did- That wound would've been infected for Hell's sake if I were a second late-" Kinsley said, joining in on this conversation.(After recovering from that- suggestive thing earlier-) "I meannn I was taking the the risk,(A glare from Kinsley) kidding, kidding. Thank youuu 'King-san'.(Use of creative nickname confirmed that is absolutely related to her(his?) Title. Just genderbent)" Arthur said in a joking tone while Kinsley is holding his glare towards him "You better be." Kinsley said before sighing. "Well, with that aside.. Ahem- When am I having grandchildren?" Kinsley asked seriously. "Ooooh~ I'm interested in this conversation Kufufu~" Lilia butted in, still hugging Kinsley from behind. "EHHH??! SO SUDDENLY!??" Arthur shouts, but not that loud. "...where did that come from." Silver's face was like a sleepy btch face, yet if you look really closely, there would be a tiny blush. "...Of course, not right now since you'll be in your genderbend form for two days-" Kinsley clarified- "But we still expect grandchildren though." He added with a glare. "...I mean- okay- I guess.. Both of you are ready to be grandparents." Arthur place his gaze somewhere with sweat forming on his forehead(Pressure to the MAX) knowing someone would glare.

Arien/Arthur:

While Lilia on the other hand is playfully teasing poor Silver.

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Sebek Zigvolt (Platonic)

"HUMAN! THOUGH I CAN SEE THAT YOUR HAND IS BANDAGED, I WILL STILL ASK IF YOU'RE ALRIGHT IN ANY WAY" ("As wakasama said so!")

"I'm alright, Sebek-sama, this will heal maybe a month." Arthur said which made Kinsley but in- "A MONTH!?-" which made Arthur flinch and just looked at the other way saying, "Or who knows when it will heal-". That made everyone, especially Kinsley and Silver concerned. Even though they were concerned about the little joking he made, someone sure knows who made him like this, it's definitely not his own grandma who caused this behavior- I mean Arthur was just young back then & that woman traumatized her own nephew, the son of her very own daughter yet as if it was like arthur was hiding a big secret behind that smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright. Enough of that, my child needs rest. Shoo! Everyone shoo!" Said by Kinsley as he forcefully made everyone leave the infirmary so that Arthur could get some rest. After getting everyone out, Kinsley went back to Arthur, standing beside the bed and looking down at him, and said, "Arien De Valentine." That sh- made Arthur FLINCH. "We'll have a talk after this." Said by Kinsley menacingly- That made Arthur have the "I am so doomed" face.

Arien/Arthur again:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

KD: YESSS I'M FINALLY DONE AFTER 16 DAYS- I can rest in peace 😇🕊️✨ Have fun finding your Valentine's dearies!

[licantropa]

👀📚 🧠 🍰

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

I guess the rest of Two of Swords? Which is the pre-fight where Spark and Jordan are getting under each others skin (something about s2 Ianite’s favoritism and both their relationships with her) and it very quickly becomes them agreeing to fight (which is more Spark manipulating that + the rules to his benefit). The post fight is essentially just Spark rubbing salt in Jordan’s wounds that Capsize was fighting him only because he asked her to. The reason it’s not getting posted in its completion is because it’s in Jordan’s perspective and I know I did not do him justice lol. I write him wayyy too cocky.

📚 Do you read your own fic?

Kinda not? Like I read them in the doc over n over but that’s more to look for errors than my own enjoyment. I do it with my writing assignments too, I just don’t like looking at my writing after I’ve posted it. Idk I’m just not used to it I guess? I’ll reread if I need some things for continuity with other fics sometimes though!

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?

The alts do revive s1 Dianite and Spark (willingly or not) joins his team. Dianite thinking he won out because ‘omg he’s a Sparklez clone, he must be really good at the same things Sparklez is good at!’ But Spark is the literal worst follower ever in about every regard; sucks at combat, cannot sow chaos, will not create discord amongst his group, knows fuck all bout redstone/trap making. He’s good at strategy but what good is that if you have ONE TEAM MEMBER?!?

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

(I have more than one but like whatever who cares )

this genderbend souyo fic which i love because it actually takes into account how homophobia and misogyny affect you when you’re a girl being misogynistic and homophobic.

this one by you because I think the idea was crazy cool and I go back to it from time to time. your horror is soooo good. I need more 🙏🏼

this freya centric little goody two shoes story is sooo good i love going back to it

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

character settings and dynamics of my s-class heroine genderbend AU

Tesilette dynamics get a little crazy and substantially different from canon here.

Trio & ReedAilette dynamics under cut, Tesilette in reblogs. If you're on mobile, read from here so you can scroll less.

(VERY long post under cut)

Hestio Ligenel

Literally the same characterisation as canon Hestio, idk what to tell you. Looks the same as well.

(Same HC as for canon Hestio) Very careful with her hair. God forbid anyone who messes with her bottles of shampoo and conditioner and hair oil

She’s a bit conflicted about the fact that she’s the only one among her friends without a nickname. Unfortunately, the fact is that her name is literally un-nicknameable

Ephael “Elphie” Chaletino

Decently buff

After the toy mansion, she trained like crazy to become stronger. There's only so much a supporter can do, after all, if the bruiser being buffed is weak to begin with

She would be even buffer if she had the choice, but unfortunately the stigma bearers are still treated like shit. Her diet is nowhere near optimal

Realised her given name was masculine when she was around 5. When she asked the orphanage’s caregiver why she was given this name, she was told that the old man priest who named her had passed a couple years ago so no one knows. They're all just using the name she was given

Ephael doesn’t really care about her name, though. She thinks it's funny when people see “Ephael” on the name list and waste their time looking for a man.

Tesilina gave her the nickname Elphie (Did you really think Hestio would’ve given her such a cute name?)

Hesphael dynamics

Ephael likes to flop over hestio and put her arms around hestio and lace her fingers together and to press kisses against her hair and ear and neck and to crow about how hestio can’t get rid of her. Hestio thinks they're just bantering.

Tesilina has to watch them be idiots for several years before Hestio finally figures it out.

Luckily for Tesilina, this happens before her regression starts so she doesn't have to sit through this a bajillion times

Tesilina “Tes” Argente

Hestio gave her her nickname because her name was too long.

Constantly harassed by men. Hestio & Ephael have taken to being her guard dogs and chasing off men on her behalf

Her being a stigma bearer ends up being good sometimes. When people try to retaliate against the three of them, Tesilina just says, “They were defending my honour… I have long since decided to devote myself to the Strict Order alone, after all” and then people can't really fault her for being so pious

(It doesn’t really work on all ppl when it’s a man whom people see as a respectable bachelor, especially if they're someone high-ranking within the vatican.)

When the subjugation is easy, incompetent men sometimes try to take her tank role in order to “protect the lady” in the name of “chivalry”. But when it’s hard, Tesilina becomes just a dispensable stigma bearer who is of course expected to tank at the risk of her life. It’s a headache for her because she’s deprived of opportunities to farm EXP and divine power, on top of being extremely condescending. She can’t even tell the men off for trying to do her job.

She’s still in the Knights of Worship division without Hestio & Ephael

Hestio & Ephael tried to transfer in but were thwarted by the division, who said that subjugations were "serious business, not outings for girlies to giggle"

Tesilina decided not to transfer out because dealing with their shit farms the Virtue of patience quite well. And because she’s never learned self-preservation in her life. Hestio had to stop herself from strangling Tesilina for this.

Reed

(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR NOVEL CH 130+ / WEBTOON S3 OR 4)

Present Round!Tesilina is more cutthroat than in canon, because the two friends who have accompanied her throughout her regressions have become a source of obsession for her.

She's seen them die too many times and in too many horrible ways

And they've always been protective of her as well, so it's impossible for her not to care about them. They - and not Ailett - are her crutch and her source of strength and what makes her feel like herself and a human, in a world that is determined to make her feel otherwise.

Like straight up she doesn't even gaf about Ailett anymore. She was interested for a short while but Ailett isn't the object of her obsession like in canon.

I hit tumblr's image limit so the full scene is here: link

The hair clip Reed is using is the one Hestio & Ephael bought her for her 15th birthday.

As Tesilina, she only ever wore it for formal occasions because she didn't want to risk breaking it in combat. As Reed, she’s now confident that she won’t get into fights that seriously endanger her, or the clip. And this counts as a formal occasion – she’s arranging their collective funerals.

The one Reed is using is stolen from the current round. She forgot to take it from the 100th because she was too preoccupied being empty and depressed and headed straight for the abyss. And when she had time to think in the 17th, she started to wish she had it. Well, it’s not like 17th really needs it anyway. 17th wasn't even supposed to be alive to use it.

Reed visits Hestio & Ephael right after watching her own funeral from the shadows. This scene is meant to be the chapter right after the scene above about Reed and Ailett's falling out.

This scene is a major spoiler for the fic, but this story is too ambitious and requires too much setup for me to realistically finish, so whatever. I hit tumblr's image limit, so here

Continued in reblogs:

Tesilette dynamics

Ailett's character settings

Bianca

[smileymoth]

This is Daniel!! He is my pride and joy, and drawing him truly makes me feel really happy ^_^

Under cut is a whole lot of information about him!!!

I originally created him in April 2013, but he was a girl named Kristina back then. I feel like I have to acknowledge the mess that was Kris the Cat before I get onto more relevant information: She was THE scene kid, THE evil girlie who wanted to poison everyone. THE one with dark blue wings and awful lot of make-up even though IRL I couldn't dream of putting make-up on ever (Repressed emo kid with "grr tomboy" mentality). She stayed with me for a whole year until 2014 June when I decided... hmm what if I Genderbend Her since I had seen some artists who I liked genderbend their own ocs. So I did. (That artwork I made is lost in the sauce forever, i think i deleted it off the web and then my dads computer got fucked so its gone permanently.) And that design of him kind of stuck with me more for unknown reasons so I made him my main sona.

Here's the timeline of his designs that I made back in 2020:

The reason why his name is Daniel is mostly due to Danny Murillo and Danny Worsnop, the lead singers of the 2 bands I was extremely in love with at the time. Hence my own name too. At the time I was 12, and because me and my bestie (hi Evan!!!!) were playing toys with our ocs on DeviantArt and wanted to make a band, we came up with 3 extra characters (he made Ethan and Aiden, I made Jack) and Danny became the lead singer of Fallen Soldier (epic cringey band name from cringey teens!!! I even made a failgirl logo for them!!) (The name originates from them probably listening to too much Rise Against and 5FDP)

I haven't changed his backstory too much from since we made it up the first time, since there's really no need to. When I say that my best friend is very intertwined in this world, I mean it. We built the world for these furries together and I will cherish it forever :3

ANYWAY let's get to the character info

***

Name: Daniel Varing, stagename Danny Smileymoth. (when I gave him that last name I was 12 so do not bully me for it literally meaning 'avalanche'. it would be an excellent scene kid name on myspace. danny avalanche. lol)

His friends call him Danny or Dan Dan sometimes.

Birthday: 1. February, (aquarius sun, libra moon, cancer rising) <- this part matches w me too

Gender: non-binary, he/she pronouns. (he doesn't care about gender since he doesn't understand it's importance)

Personality: He's very sweet and kind, and enthusiastic about the things he enjoys. He gets attached to people quickly, that also means he can be quite possessive over them, sometimes feeling unnecessarily jealous when his friends don't pay as much attention to him as he'd like. He understands that this is a personal flaw and doesn't act upon it. His social battery drains real fast when he's out in crowded places, and mostly just enjoys spending time alone or in a small circle of friends. He enjoys art and music greatly. He needs a little bit help sometimes understanding social cues and such. She hates the Sun and tries to stay in the shade as much as possible, it makes her overheat. He likes to purr and knead when he's happy... he sometimes forgets to retract his nails so umm yeah. Meow. He likes people watching. He's normal I promise. (lie). He likes taking care of his friends.. he will make them gifts, buy them clothes or treats. He does have a bit of a short temper but he feels guilty about it, and tries to not lash out over stupid things that have no importance.

I mostly draw Danny wearing feminine clothes that can be related to emo/scene/goth/just alt fashion. Aka a lot of black. He does really like velvet and skirts though!!! Unlike me he does actually wear jeans too. :3 he just doesn't like them to be ripped, is all. He almost always keeps his hair down.

He loves the paisley pattern, velvet, corduroy, leather jackets, lacey skirts and shirts, leather shoes... you get the drill. He also always wears the metal bracelet on his right hand and the 2 necklaces around his neck. (just like meee)

Backstory Factoids:

As of right now he lives in California. He grew up in Estonia. He has been best friends with Jack since early childhood. He met Kratis at a local library where the mans was working. He got introduced to Kratis' friends, Ethan and Aiden. They had been planning on starting a band, and since Danny could sing, they just took him and made him the lead singer. Jack joined the band later on after Danny introduced him to the rest of his new friends.

He found Inbawez (weird freak of a pet) when wandering around a nearby forest, Inba took instant liking to him and never left.

Beside being in a band, he goes babysitting every now and then. He is also a freelance illustrator who does cute art commissions on the web.

The "California" they live in is not a representation of the actual USA Cali since I have never been there and we refuse to change their living location. All we know is that Daniel lives in the middle of the forest in a 2 story house with his boyfriend.

pre-danny lore Kristina lived in a hollow tree with her shadow pet Inbawez. She was obsessed with Kratis and due to forgotten circumstances she and Kratis are blood bound. lol

I think this is about it? I am definitely missing something but I want to post this since IT'S BEEN A MONTH SINCE I FINISHED THIS REF AAHH!!!! my pride and joy. feel free to draw her if you want :3 :3 :3 meow

[matoitech]

Could u go more in depth about what u did/didn't like about the spinoff? Just curious as someone who enjoyed most of it but was a lil disappointed with the last few episodes

sure! i didnt like Hate it or anything there were things i did enjoy, i watched all the episodes, it was more that it just really didnt do it for me in a way thats kind of difficult to like. pin. i should state too that i was not going to watch it already bcuz i wasnt interested in the genderbend fanfiction characters being the like title piece and everything, but i gave the first two eps a shot and thought 'okay, i get it, this show is about simon and his complicated feelings about Everything that happened and who he used to be and who these characters represent to him about who he used to be' and then it just didnt really like, do more with that in a way that i expected or wouldve enjoyed, exactly? i like the idea of multiverse hopping and a bunch of different au versions of characters in a story, that stuff is obviously really popular right now and when its done well its done WELL. i liked how finn was characterized in episode 2. it was like, an entertaining watch, it just didnt really do much for Me, and i knew that going in. its really hard to explain like my negative feelings on something that are negative bcuz it just Wasnt For Me ykwim. and there r plenty of parts of adventure time that didnt really do it for me either bcuz it had so many writers

i read an interview w the director and writers and stuff and they mentioned that they made the series recognizing that the original fans were adult now and it was partly made for us and like having a more mature theme and everything, but i didnt rly feel thatit did that for me personally (which again is Fine), and i dont think it successfully captured like, 'more mature adventure time', i guess maybe in the sense that they can swear now? but adventure time itself is thoughtful and often more mature than it was given credit for at the time. its a kids show but a lot of the later stuff was made to just tell stories and explore ideas, whether kids like 'understood' it or not, they trusted their audience, stuff wasnt really like dumbed down. they mentioned trying not to step on the toes of the original too much too and i like did get the sense that they respected and loved the source material (some of the ppl working on it including the director were from the old team) but while the spinoff was clearly successful and ppl liked it a lot (ive already seen a lot of ppl talking abt how meaningful it was to them, and thats great, im glad it resonated for people) its like, read of the characters and world and the direction they wanted to take just wasnt really the kind of vibe i come to adventure time for, i guess? like i said it just didnt rly do it for Me personally in a way thats hard to articulate

i dont rly want to say anything like too mean abt it but ppl Know about me that i dont like Fandom Aware Jokes in media i dont think theyre charming and the spinoff leaning into that kinda stuff wasnt for me, and i get why bcuz its literally fucking named after the in universe genderbent fanfiction versions of finn and jake, but thats also something i never liked about adventure time and wouldve been happy if it hadnt made a reappearance i just thought it was going to be used to Say Something so i was curious to see where it went. so like from the start it isnt exactly for me ykwim. i dont think sailor moon reference sexyman ice king or jokes about alt universe versions of characters kissing themselves is funny. coffee shop Boy pb & marceline b plot is not interesting to me (i do like marshall's human design). i feel like not a lot of stuff Happened to me

and let me preface this next part by saying that i never got too invested in simon and bettys thing in adventure time so maybe some of this stuff WAS canon and i just completely missed it but i feel like the track they took w them and their relationship was like.. they were trying to say something but it wasnt exactly the direction i wouldve taken, which isnt a 'criticism' as much as its just, a thought , for me. i thought betty losing her shit and sacrificing herself for simon at the end of adv time proper was interesting bcuz to me betty wasnt like a completely selfless character, to me she wasnt MEANT to come off that way, she was interesting in part bcuz she did all that for simon but simon had been gone for a thousand years, she gave herself up to turn him back but didnt think abt whether he wouldve wanted that. she brought him back, but without her. its obviously tragic and i do get that like betty moving on now that simons like Safe at the end of fionna and cake makes sense but i was.. curious to see the whole metaphor w the choose ur own adventure book where the metaphor or whatever was that betty had given everything up for simon and simon had never took her own feelings into consideration or gave things up for HER and stuff, and all that about like, obsession, and uneven ground, and simon shouldve known better... and the show ending with simon saying wow damn yeah betty sacrificed herself for me and i never put her over me so i should live a good life. like okay but i thought betty sacrificing herself for him wasnt meant to come off as completely selfless bcuz it wasnt exactly? i dont think it was framed that way but again i COULD be wrong. im not gonna say that this stuff is not in character cuz again i dont Remember if this was canon to the mainline series. maybe betty was always a fan of his work and their relationship did start out uneven like that and i just forgot, i am not gonna say its Wrong. its not like 'is betty right' its that theres dif ways u can read like main adventure time series decisions and the grayness of it was interesting

and i dont say that to say like oh the focus shouldve been on Simons Feelings and not this woman who became a god for him its just like, i didnt really expect that direction of writing their past relationship, or the direction in general, and idk how to feel about it. maybe ill change my mind. maybe it all makes sense and i just didnt pay enough attention to betty and simons relationships and arcs before. what i did know coming out of the show is that i felt a little let down but i also felt like i shouldnt have expected much from something that just based off the series name was already something i expected to not vibe with THAT much

[strawberry-s-otaku-safe-haven]

CREDITS

Dividers Made By: @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

Sonia Reaction Edit Set Made By: Me! (the images aren't on this post specifically, they're used for when I answer my asks)

Helped Give Me Advice For The Blog: @dangan-chi @dangan-millie-madness (thank you for that guys ^-^)

INTRODUCTION

Do you like Danganronpa? Is you liking Danganronpa an understatement and you actually love Danganronpa? And do you like headcanons and fanfiction? Then this is the blog for you! My name is Strawberry-chan (though you can stick to just Strawberry if you'd like to as well), and I'm hoping to kick my blog off of the ground!

As stated in the previous paragraph, I'll be writing headcanons and fanfiction revolving around our favourite series, Danganronpa! If you're interested in being one of the first people to request a story or list of headcanons from me, then please, continue reading, I would really appreciate it!

♡´･ᴗ･`♡

But before we get into that stuff, let me tell you a bit about me personally! Also, this is NOT A SPOILER FREE BLOG, so if you haven't played the main 3 games, I'd suggest that you click off.

I'm not too big on giving out my name, so I go by Strawberry-chan/Strawberry! I'm 21 years old and am a writer in the works! I'm Nonbinary, so I'd like you to use they/them pronouns for me when needed. With that being said; THIS BLOG IS LGTQBIA+ FRIENDLY! Don't come in here with hate towards the community, I will personally chew you out if you do.

I can be a bit on the shy side sometimes, but I am very friendly! I try my best to be nice to everyone, and I'll only be rude if I absolutely have to.

With all of that being said, let's move on! ~

MY CONTENT

As mentioned before, I write fanfiction and headcanons! This section is going in depth about all that I will specifically write. Let's start off with genres that I will do!

♡︎Romance

♡︎Fluff

♡︎Angst (light and heavy)

♡︎(Light) g0re

♡︎Smut

♡︎Drama

♡︎Fantasy

♡︎Action

♡︎Adventure

♡︎AUs

♡︎Crossovers

♡︎Slow burn

♡︎Fast burn

Now, for pairings that I am willing to write!♡︎

♡︎Canon Character x Canon Character

♡︎Canon Character x Canon Character x Canon Character

♡︎Canon Character x Reader

♡︎Canon Character x Canon Character x Reader

♡︎Any genderpairing

♡︎As long as it's legal, any ship

♡︎Genderbends allowed

I will write fanfiction and headcanons for all of the above things! And you can request more than one genre, pairing, or character, make it challenging!

Some of the genres I'm willing to do are triggering to others, so I will always have content warnings for the following genres:

♡︎Angst

♡︎Smut

♡︎Light g0re

I know that some ships are viewed as toxic in the fandom, such as Junko x Mikan, but I will write any legal pairing! If it is a ship that is commonly viewed as toxic, I will put a content warning for the fanfic/hcs revolving that ship!

I am a VERY detailed writer, so I do take time to write my fanfics! I promise that I can knock out at least 2-3 a day though! As for hcs, I am detailed with them, but I knock them out a lot quicker than my fanfics.

I will also have you know that I played through the Japanese version of the game, so the characters will, depending on the fic/hcs, will potentially use honorifics! And for certain requests, you might have to imagine stuff with their Japanese voices.

Speaking of characters: I can quite literally write every single canon character! I can also write human versions of Monokuma, Usami/Monomi, and the Monokubs!

Request via asks by the way!

Anons

Anons are enabled! If you plan on requesting a lot, I'd suggest that you give me an anon name for you! For example, when I used to send anonymous asks, I would put 'Strawberry-chan🍓 ~ ' at the begining of my ask! This, of course, isn't required, but is definetely an option! Here is the list of Anons so far:

♡︎Anonymous Cat

♡︎Key Anon

♡︎Anonymous Anon

♡︎Locky-Anon

Outro

Thank you so much for reading through! A follow or request would be much appreciated, but please don't feel pressured to do so! If you have any questions, you can absolutely comment your question below, and I'll answer as quickly as I can!

Have an absolutely amazing day/night,

~ Strawberry-chan

[merlinfic]

group ask for lost fics #32

Hi y’all! Below are a few lost fics that us mods just can’t seem to find. That being said, we’re hoping that you lovely followers are able to help! If anyone knows any of the fics below please reply below or send in an ask with which anon/user and group ask that the fic corresponds with!

Note: previous group asks and all lost fics!

Anon 1 asked:

Hello! First of all thanks so much for everything you do for the fandom! Also, I’ve been trying to find a fic for a while where Merlin and Arthur are both super into each other and Arthur keeps trying to seduce Merlin but Merlin thinks he has to remain pure until the dragon tells him that’s not the case w Arthur and I was wondering if you could help! Thanks so much 💖🥰

Thanks to statistical-nightmare for suggesting Touch Me (Not) by veronamay!

@ohmytimeturner14 asked:

Hey! I'm kinda getting back into the merlin fandom and I was looking for a fic I once read and can't find it. It's a sick fic where merlin gets sick with pneumonia I believe. Can't remember how long it is, at least 3k and most likely under 20k? I think part of it had Morgana offer to read to Merlin when he was sick? I think it was Merthur but I couldn't swear to it. Love your blog, Keep up the good work!!!

Hey! I love your blog. You always do such an awesome job.

I lost a fic, its at least 5K probably leaning twords 20 though. It involves Merlin getting sick, I think pneumonia. I remember that at one point Morgana reads him a book when he's sick, and Arthur almost leaves to get Hunith because he thought Merlin wouldn't make it. May have something to do with a formalwear tunic that made him cold and got sick, but that might be a different one. I also think he was going to go to a party of Gwen's before he got sick?? sorry if this is kinda vague

Thanks to fractalinferno for sending in Midwinter Festival by Miss_Em!

Anon 2 asked:

hello!! yay the ask box is open again!! 🥺 I’ve been going through the asks for a quartermaster/007 thing but I can’t find this particular fic where Merlin was Q, and closer to the end of the fic he gets kidnapped on a train (to be specific.) It’s slash, but not pre-established, happens during the fic. Arthur bursts into Merlin’s apartment and manages to have flashback about the laptop’s password or smth too! Thanks in advance!

Thanks to wiggly-jiggly-higgledy-piggledy and overworked-bookworm for suggesting You Only Live Twice by storyforsomeone (WIP)!

Anon 3 asked:

Hello! I was wondering if you'd be able to help me find a fic. The only thing I remember from it is that both Arthur and Merlin are in the crystal caves and Merlin sees Arthur's death through one of them and completely freaks out and comfort ensues with Arthur. Sorry it's so vague but I'd love to see if you can find it! Thanks again!

@eyra-j-nee asked:

Hi!! I’m looking for a fic that was on ao3, (TW: non con) in it Merlin was assaulted in the stables and he called I think both killgarah and aithusa come and won’t let anyone pass into the stables except gaius and eventually Lancelot. Arthur figures out it’s Merlin and I can’t remember what happens after that. I’ve looked through your hurt and abused Merlin tags and I didn’t see it. I can say it’s not “all of himself” by StormDancer but they are very similar! Any and all help would be appreciated. As always THANK YOU for what you do, this blog and your hard work is a godsend!!

Thanks to fangirl485 for sending in The Fire of a Dragon by ma_r (check warnings!)

Anon 4 asked:

hi I am looking for a fic, it's post canon au and magic is legal, arthur & gwen aren't married though and all the people of Camelot are used to see Arthur and Merlin together or near each other and one time they don't, so they ask merlin who tells them that the king is on holiday today so they come to merlin with their problems and even after the holiday is over they still come to him and start calling him lord and Arthur is very amused and they get together at the end of the fic

honestly I'm a little annoyed that I remember this much but not the name of fic but I can't find it in my bookmarks, so thanks

Thanks to onceandfuturekid for suggesting King of My Heart by illiterateowl!

Anon 5 asked:

hello! i was wondering if you know about this one fic where merlin receives a purple tunic as a reluctant gift from arthur and he worries about it because it's the colour of royalty. i think it was gen? i can't really seem to find it and this is very vague, so im sorry. thank you for all you do!! <3

Anon 6 asked:

Hi I’ve been looking everywhere for one particular fic. It’s pretty dark and modern au. Merlin is immortal, has lost his memories, not thinking clearly, and is suicidal. Arthur is reincarnated and has the urge to kill. They somehow? come to an arrangement, and Arthur “consensually” kills Merlin, and then is filled with regret. But it kind of “resets” Merlin so when he comes back his memories are restored and he’s ok again? Any ideas??

onceandfuturekid asked:

hi I'm looking for a fic where there's a new servant master (?) who is harming servants so arthur disguises himself and pretends to be servant and merlin & gwen take him under his wing,,, also the servant master (?) was a druid I think or atleast banished from them and was looking for power of emrys

Thanks to atlantablack-chaotic and avery28 for sending in The Serving of Servants by CaffeinatedFlumadiddle!

Anon 7 asked:

Hi! I've been looking for this but can't seem to find it and I would greatly appreciate it if you guys could help me. It's a genderbend!Merlin. The story basically follows canon with Merlin becoming Arthur's manservant just that on top of magic she has to hide the fact that she's a woman and when things go "further" Arthur thinks he's forcing himself on Merlin, since he can't "feel his desire". Thank you do much for your help! ❤

Anon 8 asked:

Hi, I've been trying to refind this fic for a while but I'm having trouble finding it. I can't remember much of it which makes it difficult, but I just remember that Merlin gives Arthur a gift, which I think is a ring, and he finds out Merlin had magic and questions whether Merlin enchanted it against him. It's in the canon era where Merlin is his servant.

Thanks to fractalinferno for sending in A Little Roughing Around Never Hurt Anyone by melennui!

@emritz86 asked:

Hi, it's been a while I asked smthng. Caught up with work and stuff. I read a fic where Merlin was a doc and married to Arthur but Arthur didn't like Merlin at first and didn't even let him enter to their bedroom. Later he realised how awesome Merlin was and tried to reconcile but Merlin already thought about filing divorce. Do not remember the name but I'm certain I read it and saved it somewhere. Anything similar would be great too. Thanks.

Anon 9 asked:

Hey! I was wondering if you could find a fic for me where everyone thinks Arthur is dead and then Merlin goes to look for him but the knights are like he’s dead and Merlin says something like “half my soul resides in him. I would feel his death like a wound” ps this blog is literally my life

Anon 10 asked:

I'm looking for 2 kind of similar stories. The first is a canon au where Merlin is actually a dog that Arthur finds in the woods. I remember toward the end they both get injured and Arthur is frantic when he wakes up. Asking Gaius where his dog is.

The second is modern au where Merlin is blind and Arthur is reincarnated as his seeing eye dog. I don't remember much more than that, sorry. Thank you for all the work you out into the fandom. MUCH MUCH appreciated!

Thanks to fractalinferno for suggesting Familiar To You, Strange To Me by TheYaoiChick for the first part!

@gaylord1027 asked:

Hi,

Do you know of a fic where Merlin was raised by Balinor in the cave after Hunith died and Merlin has some for of mental affliction. It starts with Arthur coming to them for help and then he wants to protect Merlin. Nimueh is in it and she befriended Merlin and died when Balinor lived to keep the balance.

Anon 11 asked:

I was wondering if you knew of the fic where Gwaine and Arthur are fighting to see who's merlin's best friend but in the end they realise it's Lancelot

Thanks to fractalinferno for suggesting Merlin's Favourite by OwlsWithFins!

[rcginaxgnis]

Anonymous sent: Wait, uhm, this is no hate just confusion- so.. Its ok when people take canonically straight characters and make them bi in the intent with shipping them with the same gender.. But not when they make lesbian characters bi..? Because I heard this a lot..

// - Hey, thanks for the question. Yes, it is absolutely okay to make canon straight/cis characters LGBT+ because straight/cis people don’t face discrimination like LGBT+ people do. There’s literally no harm in it.

Let me put it for you this way. You probably can’t name a single form of media that doesn’t have a straight/cis character in it (or ‘cishet’ which is the term I’ll use from now on bc it makes it quicker to type). Cishets have ALWAYS been represented in media & never discriminated against (not counting POC but that’s another discussion better suited for someone else bc I am white). Meanwhile, LGBT+ people have had to CONSTANTLY fight for representation in media & even basic human rights.

So to take a canon LGBT+ character & make them straight/cis (don’t get me started on ‘genderbending’) is perpetuating erasure & homophobia/transphobia. There IS harm in this, regardless of the intent.

It’s the exact same thing with taking a canon lesbian & making them attracted to men, or taking a canon bi person & making them lesbian/gay, or taking a canon gay man & making them attracted to women. It’s a matter of respect - as a community, we should support each other, not erase the representation we do get. Allies should understand this too.

I hope this helped explain things. My inbox is open if you have other questions, I’ll answer them to the best of my ability.

[thorne-archive]

fic recs!!

posting this because my percynet friends were practically begging me to post this with the pjo hyperlinks haha also featuring ridiculous fangirling comments by yours truly

features fandoms: HP, ACOTAR, PJO, and FMA

features (mainly) ships: drastoria, scorose, elriel, percabeth, jasper, and royai

— harry potter (I’m currently in love with draco x astoria and scorpius x rose)

warmth by littlemissmadness (drastoria oneshot!!! it’s so cute!!! a lil heartbreaking at first but i just - ugh!!!)

amor quod fecimus by jillian bowes (some consecutive drastoria oneshots, very cute!!)

a long time coming by helloimsabrina (drastoria comfort fic :)

finding hope by insertcleverandwittytitlehere (cute drastoria oneshot)

the way you look tonight by you-make-me-wander

shouldn’t by reppad98

blood, war and a touch of love by controlled climb

the dragon and the star maiden by boogum

the kiss thief by boogum

of sunflowers and rainydays by rosescor90 (scorose oneshot!!!!!)

the feeling of vindication by howlsatthemoon

worst of a bad bunch by graeliars (teddy/victoire oneshot fic hehe)

a kiss with a fist by superspy (jily oneshot :)

the smart one by nikkira (scorose oneshot, in which scorpius and rose are lowkey academic rivals; this is pure fluff)

off limits by livetodream (the! cutest! scorose! oneshot!!!)

when you grow up by drcjsnider (scorpius pining after rose? I think y e s)

the unnecessarily racy by anaela loves who (humorous jily oneshot feat. a jealous lily)

— acotar (mostly elriel fanfics sorry lol)

lover by @julesherondalex on tumblr! (an elriel roommates au!! okay but the angst and pining here made me SOB like three times over, 10/10 recommend!)

all of me by julesherondalex (I just love this writing style and there’s so much fluff and pining I cant-)

home in hogwarts by julesherondalex (elriel at hogwarts!! what more could you want?)

enchanted by julesherondalex (elain’s pining for azriel in this is 100/100 omg)

flight mode love by julesherondalex (elriel!coffee shop au!!!)

love me tonight by julesherondalex (you best believe I cried reading this! another elriel fanfic set in the canonverse)

the scent of you by julesherondalex (elriel au, angst with a happy ending! this one also made me cry really hard)

a little piece of your heart by julesherondalex (elriel confession in azriel’s pov!!)

a secret admirer by @florrama on tumblr! (short au elriel fic, very heartwarming!)

a seasonal love by florrama (more elriel? I think yes!!)

a shadow’s kiss by florrama (a collection of elriel oneshots!! they! are! so! soft!!!)

perfect strangers by @rosehallshadowsinger (short and sweet elriel au)

gifts from the heart by rosehallshadowsinger (the pining!!! so cute :)

stars hold no power over us by stardustsroses (a little explicit but so very cute :’) I love the concept of elain choosing who she loves and not having a bond define it for her)

this collection of short elriel oneshots by @a-novel-blog (so well written and so soft!!! I love gentle!elriel)

‘cause by @noodlecatposts (best friends feysand au that made me smile :’)

gingersnap! by noodlecatposts (this is so cute! and so soft! in which azriel is allergic to cats, and elain has one)

stay by noodlecatposts (I am. such. a sucker for best friends to lovers fics. the pining in this made me wanna cry I love this)

bite me, asshole by accidental_optimism (nessian oneshot! mostly revolves around cassian taking care of a sick nesta)

distractions by @rhysanoodle (a super cute and fluffy elriel coffee shop au!!)

is that my shirt? by rhysanoodle (a cute elriel oneshot that had me screeching!!)

perfectly aligned by rhysanoodle (over 200k word fic about elriel falling in love, includes smut)

dreams answered by @radientwings (a collection of oneshots, the elriel ones made me sob with joy)

songs of shadow by radientwings (a collection of elriel stories...the writing style is so perfect and I love it)

to flower by literarynonsensefics (short and sweet elriel oneshot hehe)

sharing sunsets by librarian of velaris (elriel & sunsets & fluff :)

navy suits & chelsea boots by feathery_malignancy (fair warning, the latter 2 chapters have smut but y’all...the pining in this? unmatched!!!)

call out my name by myownremedy (azriel pining for elain!!! so cute :’) but also pls be aware that the last like 1/3 of this fic is like. smut. but with like fluff mixed in lol)

long shot by myownremedy (listen. I will never tire of elriel coffee aus)

cake & kisses by @mehlisssa (in which elriel is expecting and display pure domestic fluff tHIS IS THE CUTEST ONESHOT EVER)

bloom by swishandflickwit (elriel fluff which is SO CUTE and also followed by smut, but at least it’s not too explicit)

— percy jackson

a storm in my best dress by herecomesthepun (percabeth soulmate au? say less! oh but also it’s lowkey enemies to friends and also a high school au! also jasper is the stable relationship 10/10 love that for them!! very long, very good :)

kiss me once 'cause you know i had a long night by herecomesthepun (GUYS THIS IS SO GOOD I ACTUALLY CACKLED LMAOOO the dialogue is *chefskiss* and jason fawning over piper is also *chefskiss* also this is an office percabeth/jasper oneshot, absolutely amazing)

‘cause you’ve been sinning in this city by @seaweedbraens (percabeth soulmate au in which percy calls everyone by some vaguely related nickname lol)

don’t you let it go by seaweedbraens (percabeth rebirth au with a twist; I SOBBED SO MUCH THIS WAS SO GOOD IM STILL CRYING)

if I were to pluck on your heartstrings by seaweedbraens (percabeth soulmate au with moodstrings!!)

would you strum on mine by seaweedbraens (companion piece to the fic above!!!)

and they were roommates by @bipercabeth (look. I’m a sucker for roommate aus)

I’ll go anywhere with you by bipercabeth (THIS IS SO FREAKING SOFT I COULD CRY OKAY??? ACTUALLY I AM CRYING!!! road trippin percabeth babey!!)

just because i had “spider” sense doesn’t mean i had common sense by bipercabeth (jasper spiderman au, ITS SO SOFT AND I WENT FERAL AT THIS LINE “She inhales, and Jason swears she takes the breath from his lungs. He’d give it to her, if she asked” PLS READ IT ITS SO GOOD IM SOBBING)

I like me better when I’m with you by @cressisaqueen (a tatbilb jasper au!!!!)

my yesterday was blue, today I’m a part of you by pastypirate (a series on how the HOO couples meet as soulmates hehe)

greek dramas and other spectacles by annabetncnase (a percabeth friends to lovers college au!!!)

california howl by suneater (I haven’t read this yet but it features werewolf!jason ans jasper content hehe)

if it’s you and me forever by lesbabeths (piper centric jasper soulmate au set in the canonverse that had me ugly sobbing at 4 am)

dream-like christmas time by @perseannabeth (annabeth gets famous and percy gets left behind, oneshot au)

number one by perseannabeth (percabeth roommate friends to lovers oneshot hehe)

back to the beginning by perseannabeth (percabeth proposal with ties back to the original series!! I loved it 🥺)

everythin' is icy and blue and you are here there too under the mistletoe by perseannabeth (a percabeth fake dating au!! I’ve yet to read it but Marianna is such an amazing writer I have no doubt I’ll love it!!)

sugar, sugar by perseannabeth (another tbr by Marianna on my list haha but the concept of percabeth and jasper meeting over chocolate is just :’)

— fullmetal alchemist (I’ve literally never watched this, but I somehow got obsessed with royai so Uh)

make me better by @lantur (bruh the yearning...I cannot, also beware this contains smut but it’s non graphic, but this fic is centered around roy being blind and riza helping him :)

side to side by lantur (in which royai practices hand to hand combat...the thirst and angst is real damn)

a little bit scandalous by lantur (I cried reading this...yeah)

got your back by lantur (roy’s yearning...I’m gonna cry)

love the way you shine in the night, like the diamond you are by lantur (it starts out funny...and then my heart broke lol)

if you were mine by lantur (so much angst...but take heart! there’s a fluffy ending in sight!)

learning as we go by megthemighty (high school teacher au!! fluffy!!)

are you asleep? by fullmetalscully (fma as a romcom? yes! I cackled while reading this LOL)

royai collections by fullmetalscully (royai oneshots, there’s a mix of angst and fluff. but mostly angst ;-;)

smoke and gunpowder by @eskalations (royai genderbend au!)

some things last a long time by akingdomofunicorns (royai coffee shop au)

against the run of play by bergamots (in which roy is a rugby player and riza is a neurotrauma specialist, I love how this fic includes tweets and articles!!)

you pull me through time by @ohmytheon (100 royai oneshots, so cute!!)

lessons in formality by @royai (royai valentine’s au!! iTS SO SOFT IM SCREAMING)

don’t let your students trick you into an equivalent exchange (a royai teacher au oneshot! say less!!!)

missed opportunities by ohmytheon (royai christmas mistletoe oneshot!!!!)

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

TAB is my favourite episode of Sherlock. It is a masterpiece that investigates queerness, the canon and the psyche all within an hour and a half. Huge amounts of work has been done on this episode, however, so I’m not going to do a line by line breakdown – that could fill a small book. A great starting point for understanding the myriad of references in TAB is Rebekah’s three part video series on the episode, of which the first instalment can be found here X. I broadly agree with this analysis; what I’m going to do here, though, is place that analysis within the framework of EMP theory. As a result, as much as it pains me, this chapter won’t give a breakdown of carnation wallpaper or glass houses or any of those quietly woven references – we’re simply going in to how it plays into EMP theory.

Before digging into the episode, I want to take a brief diversion to talk about one of my favourite films, Mulholland Drive (2001).

If you haven’t seen Mulholland Drive, I really recommend it – it’s often cited as the best film of the last 20 years, and watching it really helps to see where TAB came from and the genre it’s operating in. David Lynch is one of the only directors to do the dream-exploration-of-the-psyche well, and I maintain that a lot of the fuckiness in the fourth series draws on Lynch. However, what I actually want to point out about Mulholland Drive is the structure of it, because I think it will help us understand TAB a little better. [If you don’t want spoilers for Mulholland Drive, skip the next paragraph.]

The similarities between these two are pretty straightforward; the most common reading of Mulholland Drive is that an actress commits suicide by overdose after causing the death of her ex-girlfriend, who has left her for a man, and that the first two-thirds of the film are her dream of an alternate scenario in which her girlfriend is saved. The last third of the film zooms in and out of ‘real life’, but at the end we see a surreal version of the actual overdose which suggests that this ‘real life’, too, has just been in her psyche. Sherlock dying and recognising that this may kill John is an integral part of TAB, and the relationships have clear parallels, but what is most interesting here is the structural similarity; two-thirds of the way through TAB, give or take, we have the jolt into reality, zoom in and out of it for a while and then have a fucky scene to finish with that suggests that everything is, in fact, still in our dying protagonist’s brain. Mulholland Drive’s ending is a lot sadder than TAB’s – the fact that, unlike Sherlock, there is no sequel can lead us to assume that Diane dies – and it’s also a lot more confusing; it’s often cited as one of the most complicated films ever made even just in terms of surface level plot, before getting into anything else, and it certainly took me a huge amount of time on Google before I could approach anything like a resolution on it!

Mulholland Drive is the defining film in terms of the navigating-the-surreal-psyche subgenre, and so the structural parallels between the two are significant – and definitely point to the idea that Sherlock hasn’t woken up at the end of TAB, which is important. But we don’t need to take this parallel as evidence; there’s plenty of that in the episode itself. Let’s jump in.

Emelia as Eurus

When we first meet Eurus in TST, she calls herself E; this initialism is a link to Moriarty, but it’s also a convenient link to other ‘E’ names. Lots of people have already commented on the aural echo of ‘Eros’ in ‘Eurus’, which is undeniable; the idea that there is something sexual hidden inside her name chimes beautifully with her representation of a sexual repression. The other important character to begin with E, however, is Emelia Ricoletti. The name ‘Emelia’ doesn’t come from ACD canon, and it’s an unorthodox spelling (Amelia would be far more common), suggesting that starting with an ‘E’ is a considered choice.

When TAB aired, we were preoccupied with Emelia as a Sherlock mirror, and it’s easy to see why; the visual parallels (curly black hair, pale skin) plus the parallel faked death down to the replacement body, which Mofftiss explicitly acknowledge in the episode. However, I don’t think that this reading is complete; rather, she foreshadows the Eurus that we meet in s4. The theme of ghosts links TAB with s4 very cleanly; TAB is about Emelia, but there is also a suggestion of the ghosts of one’s past with Sir Eustace as well as Sherlock’s own claims (‘the shadows that define our every sunny day’). Compare this to s4 – ‘ghosts from the past’ appears on pretty much every promotional blurb, and the word is used several times in relation to Eurus. If Eurus is the ghost from Sherlock’s past, the repressive part of his psyche that keeps popping back, Emelia is a lovely metaphor for this; she is quite literally the ghost version of Sherlock who won’t die.

What does it mean, then, when Jim and Emelia become one and the same in the scene where Jim wears the bride’s dress? We initially read this as Jim being the foil to Sherlock, his dark side, but I think it’s more complicated than this. Sherlock’s brain is using Emelia as a means of understanding Jim, but when we watch the episode it seems that they’ve actually merged. Jim wearing the veil of the bride is a good example of this, but I also invite you to rewatch the moment when John is spooked by the bride the night that Eustace dies; the do not forget me song has an undeniable South Dublin accent.* This is quite possibly Yasmine Akram [Janine] rather than Andrew Scott, of course, but let’s not forget that these characters are resolutely similar, and hearing Jim’s accent in a genderless whisper is a pretty clear way of inflecting him into the image of the bride. In addition to this, Eustace then has ‘Miss Me?’ written on his corpse, cementing the link to Moriarty.

[*the South Dublin accent is my accent, so although we hear a half-whispered song for all of five seconds, I’m pretty certain about this]

Jim’s merging with Emelia calls to mind for me what I think might be the most important visual of all of series 4 – Eurus and Jim’s Christmas meeting, where they dance in circles with the glass between them and seem to merge into each other. I do talk about this in a later chapter, but TLDR – if Jim represents John being in danger and Eurus represents decades of repressed gay trauma, this merging is what draws the trauma to the surface just as Jim’s help is what suddenly makes Eurus a problem. It is John’s being in danger which makes Sherlock’s trauma suddenly spike and rise – he has to confront this for the first time – just like Emelia Ricoletti’s case from 1895 only needs solving for the first time now that Jim is back.

At some point I want to do a drag in Sherlock meta, because I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, but Jim in a bride’s dress does draw one obvious drag parallel for me.

If you haven’t seen the music video for I Want to Break Free, it’s 3 minutes long and glorious – and also, I think, reaps dividends when seen in terms of Sherlock. You can watch it here: X

Not only is it a great video, but for British people of Mofftiss’s age, it’s culturally iconic and not something that would be forgotten when choosing that song for Jim. Queen were intending to lampoon Coronation Street, a British soap, and already on the wrong side of America for Freddie Mercury’s unapologetic queerness, found themselves under fire from the American censors. Brian May says that no matter how many times he tried to explain Coronation Street to the Americans, they just didn’t get it. This was huge controversy at the time, but the video and the controversy around it also managed to cement I Want to Break Free as Queen’s most iconic queer number – despite not even being one of Mercury’s songs. There is no way that Steven Moffat, and even more so Mark Gatiss would not have an awareness of this in choosing this song for Moriarty. Applying any visual to this song is going to invite comparisons to the video – and inflecting a sense of drag here is far from inappropriate. Moriarty has been subsumed into Eurus in Sherlock’s brain – the male and the female are fused into an androgynous and implicitly therefore all-encompassing being. I’m not necessarily comfortable with the gendered aspect of this – genderbending is something we really only see in our villains here – but given this is about queer trauma, deliberately queering its form in this way is making what we’re seeing much more explicit.

Nothing new under the sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes)

"Read it up -- you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before." (A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes)

“Hasn’t this all happened before? There’s nothing new under the sun.” (The Abominable Bride, Jim Moriarty)

This is arguably the key to spotting that TAB is a dream long before they tell us – when TAB’s case is early revealed to be a mixture between TRF (Emelia’s suicide) and TGG (the five pips), and we see the opening of ASiP repeated, we should be questioning what on earth is going on. This can also help us to recognise s4 as being EMP as well though – old motifs from the previous series keep repeating through the cases, like alarm bells ringing. Moriarty telling Sherlock that there is nothing new under the sun is his key to understanding that the Emelia case is meant to help him understand what happened to Jim, that it’s a mental allegory or mirror to help him parse it. This doesn’t go away when TAB ends! Moving into TST, one of the striking things is that cases are still repeating! The Six Thatchers appeared on John’s blog way back, before the fall – you can read it here: X. It’s about a gay love affair that ends in one participant killing the other. Take from that what you will, when John’s extramarital affection is making him suicidal and Sherlock comatose. Meanwhile, the title of The Final Problem refers to the story that was already covered in TRF and the phone situation with the girl on the plane references both ASiB and TGG, and the ending of TST is close to a rerun of HLV. It’s pretty much impossible to escape echoes of previous series in a way that is almost creepy, but we’ve already had this explained to us in TAB – none of this is real. It’s supposed to be explaining what is happening in the real world – and Mofftiss realised that this was going to be difficult to stomach, and so they included TAB as a kind of key to the rest of the EMP, which becomes much more complex.

However, if we want to go deeper we should look at where that quote comes from. I’ve given a few epigraphs to this section to show where the quote comes from – first the book of Ecclesiastes, then A Study in Scarlet. It’s one of the first things Holmes says and it is during his first deduction in Lauriston Gardens. This is where I’m going to dive pretty deep into the metatextual side of things, so bear with the weirdness.

[we’re going deeper]

Holmes’s first deduction from A Study in Scarlet shows that he’s no great innovator – he simply notices things and spots patterns from things he has seen before. This is highlighted by the fact that he even makes this claim by quoting someone before him. If our Sherlock also makes deductions based on patterns from the past, extensive dream sequences where he works through past cases as mirrors for present ones makes perfect sense and draws very cleverly on canon. However, I think his spotting of patterns goes deeper than that. Sherlock Holmes has been repressed since the publication of A Study in Scarlet, through countless adaptations in literature and film. Plenty of these adaptations as well as the original stories are referenced in the EMP, not least by going back to 1895, the year that symbolises the era in which most of these adaptations are set. (If you don’t already know it, check out the poem 221B by Vincent Starrett, one of the myriad of reasons why the year 1895 is so significant.) My feeling is that these adaptations, which have layered on top of each other in the public consciousness to cement the image of Sherlock Holmes the deductive machine [which he’s not, sorry Conan Doyle estate] come to symbolise the 100+ years of repression that Sherlock himself has to fight through to come out of the EMP as his queer self.

This is one of the reasons that the year 1895 is so important; it was the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment for gross indecency, and this is clearly a preoccupation of Sherlock’s consciousness in TFP with its constant Wilde references, suggesting that his MP’s choice of 1895 wasn’t coincidental. Much was made during TAB setlock of a newspaper that said ‘Heimish The Ideal Husband’, Hamish being John’s middle name and An Ideal Husband being one of Wilde’s plays. But the Vincent Starrett poem, although nostalgic and ostensibly lovely, for tjlcers and it seems for Sherlock himself symbolises something much more troubling. Do search up the full poem, but for now let’s look at the final couplet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive

And it is always 1895

‘Though the world explode’ is a reference to WW1, which is coming in the final Sherlock Holmes story, and which is symbolised by Eurus – in other chapters, I explain why Eurus and WW1 are united under the concept of ‘winds of change’ in this show. Sherlock and John survive the winds of change – except they don’t move with them. Instead, they stay stuck in 1895, the year of ultimate repression. 2014!Sherlock going back in his head to 1895 and repeating how he met John suggests exactly that, that nothing has changed but the superficial, and that emotionally, he is still stuck in 1895.

Others have pulled out similar references to Holmes adaptations he has to push through in TAB – look at the way he talks in sign language to Wilder, which can only be a reference to Billy Wilder, director of TPLoSH, the only queer Holmes film, and a film which was forced to speak through coding because of the Conan Doyle estate. That film is also referenced by Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius, which is a gift given to him in TPLoSH in exchange for feigning heterosexuality. Eurus is coded as Sherlock’s repression, and citing a repressive moment in a queer film as her first action when she meets Sherlock is another engagement by Sherlock’s psyche with his own cinematic history. My favourite metatextual moment of this nature, however, is the final scene of TFP which sees John and Sherlock running out of a building called Rathbone Place.

Basil Rathbone is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes actors on film, and Benedict’s costume in TAB and in particular the big overcoat look are very reminiscent of Rathbone.

Others have discussed (X) how the Victorian costume and the continued use of the deerstalker in the present day are images of Sherlock’s public façade and exclusion of queerness from his identity. It’s true that pretty much every Holmes adaptation has used the deerstalker, but the strong Rathbone vibes that come from Ben’s TAB costume ties the 1895 vibe very strongly into Rathbone. To have the final scene – and hopefully exit from the EMP – tie in with Sherlock and John running out of Rathbone Place tells us that, just as Sherlock cast off the deerstalker at the end of TAB (!), he has also cast off the iconic filmic Holmes persona which has never been true to his actual identity.

Waterfall scene

The symbol of water runs through TAB as well as s4 – others have written fantastic meta on why water represents Sherlock’s subconscious (X), but I want to give a brief outline. It first appears with the word ‘deeper’ which keeps reappearing, which then reaches a climax in the waterfall scene. The idea that Sherlock could drown in the waters of his mind is something that Moriarty explicitly references, suggesting that Sherlock could be ‘buried in his own Mind Palace’. The ‘deep waters’ line keeps repeating through series 4, and I just want to give the notorious promo photo from s4 which confirms the significance of the motif.

This is purely symbolic – it never happens in the show. Water increases in significance throughout – think of Sherlock thinking he’s going mad in his mind as he is suspended over the Thames, or the utterly nonsensical placement of Sherrinford in the middle of the ocean – the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind. Much like the repetition of cases hinting that EMP continues, the use of water is something that appears in the MP, and it sticks around from TAB onwards, a real sign that we’re going deeper and deeper. I talk about this more in the bit on TFP, but the good news is that Sherrinford is the most remote place they could find in the ocean – that’s the deepest we’re going. After that, we’re coming out (of the mind).

Shortly after TAB aired, I wrote a meta about the waterfall scene, some of which I now disagree with, but the core framework still stands – it did not, of course, bank on EMP theory. You can find it here (X), but I want to reiterate the basic framework, because it still makes a lot of sense. Jim represents the fear of John’s suicide, and Jim can only be defeated by Sherlock and John together, not one alone – and crucially, calling each other by first names, which would have been very intimate in the Victorian era. After Jim is “killed”, we have Sherlock’s fall. The concept of a fall (as in IOU a fall) has long been linked with falling in love in tjlc. Sherlock tells John that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, something that Jim has been suggesting to him for a while. What is the landing, then? Well, Sherlock Holmes fell in love back in the Victorian era, symbolised by the ultra repressive 1895, and that’s where he jumps from – but he lands in the 21st century. Falling in love won’t kill him in the modern day. What I missed that time around, of course, was that despite breaking through the initial Victorian layers of repression, he still dives into more water, and when the plane lands, it still lands in his MP, just in a mental state where the punishment his psyche deals him for homosexuality is less severe. This also sets up s4 as specifically dealing with the problem of the fall – Sherlock jumps to the 21st century specifically to deal with the consequences of his romantic and sexual feelings. There’s a parallel here with Mofftiss time jumping; back when they made A Study in Twink in 2009, there was a reason they made the time jump. Having Sherlock’s psyche have that touch of self-awareness helps to illustrate why they made a similar jump, also dealing with the weight of previous adaptations.

Women

I preface this by saying how incredibly uncomfortable I find the positioning of women as the KKK in TAB. It’s a parallel which is unforgivable; frankly, invoking the KKK without interrogating the whiteness of the show or even mentioning race is unacceptable. Steven Moffat’s ability to write women has consistently been proven to be nil, but this is a new low. However, the presence of women in TAB is vital, so on we go.

TAB specifically deals with the question of those excluded from a Victorian narrative. This is specifically tied into to those who are excluded from the stories, such as Jane and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson’s complaint is in the same scene as John telling her and Sherlock to blame the problems on the illustrator. This ties back to the deerstalker metaphor which is so prevalent in this episode; something that’s not in the stories at all, but a façade by which Holmes is universally recognised and which as previously referenced masks his queerness. Women, then, are not the only people being excluded from the narrative. When Mycroft tells us that the women have to win, he’s also talking about queer people. This is a war that we must lose.

I don’t think the importance of Molly in particular here has been mentioned before, but forgive me if I’m retreading old ground. However, Molly always has importance in Sherlock as a John mirror, and just because she is dressed as a man here doesn’t mean we should disregard this. If anything, her ridiculous moustache is as silly as John’s here! Molly, although really a member of the resistance, is able to pass in the world she moves in in 1895, but only by masking her own identity. This is exactly what happens to John in the Victorian era – as a bisexual man married to a woman, he is able to pass, but it is not his true identity. More than that, Molly is a member of the resistance, suggesting not just that John is queer but that he’s aware of it and actively looking for it to change.

I know I was joking about Molly and John’s moustaches, but putting such a silly moustache on Molly links to the silliness of John’s moustaches, which only appear when he’s engaged to a woman and in the Victorian era. He has also grown the moustache just so the illustrator will recognise him, and Molly has grown her moustache so that she will be recognised as a man. In this case, Molly is here to demonstrate the fact that John is passing, but only ever passing. Furthermore, Molly, who is normally the kindest person in the whole show, is bitter and angry throughout TAB – it’s not difficult to see then how hiding one’s identity can affect one’s mental health. I really do think that John is a lot more abrasive in TAB than he is in the rest of the show, but that’s not the whole story. Showing how repression can completely impair one’s personality also points to the suicidal impulses that are lurking just out of sight throughout TAB – this is what Sherlock is terrified of, and again his brain is warning him just what it is that is causing John this much pain and uncharacteristic distress.

This is just about the loosest sketch of TAB that could exist! But TAB meta has been so extensive that going over it seems futile, or else too grand a project within a short chapter. Certain theories are still formulating, and may appear at a later date! But what this chapter (I hope) has achieved has set up the patterns that we’re going to see play out in s4 – between the metatextuality, the waters of the mind and the role of Moriarty in the psyche, we can use TAB as a key with which to read s4. I like to think of it as a gift from Mofftiss, knowing just how cryptic s4 would be – and these are the basic clues with which to solve it.

That’s it for TAB, at least in this series – next up we’re going ever deeper, to find out exactly who is Eurus. See you then?

[aftokrvteira]

break my heart (ch.2)

pairing: fem!eren x levi ackerman warnings: explicit smut, cliché, some other characters are genderbended too. word count: 19.1 k status: on going summary: Levi was sleeping soundly next to me and I couldn't help but smile. I got up carefully to go to the bathroom and almost tripped over Levi's pants that were still lying on the floor. I lifted them out of the way and heard something fall with a soft metallic sound. I put the pants on the bed and reached down, feeling the ground under the bed until I felt it and pulled it out. I couldn't see very well, so I took the small object with me to the bathroom. When I turned on the light, I could see it clearly in the palm of my hand.

It was a wedding ring.

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It was the fifth night that I went to the same bar and I was starting to feel pathetic and sad. There were no traces of her. It was as if she had vanished into thin air after leaving my apartment in the early morning. I would have thought it had been a figment of my imagination, but the message that she had written on my bathroom mirror showed how real it had been and what she thought of me:

FUCK YOU, YOU CHEATING FUCK

I would have called her crazy if she hadn't left my wedding ring in the sink along with the crime weapon: a red, broken lipstick without a lid. It didn't really surprised me that she drew conclusions when she found it, much more after our meeting. I couldn't blame her. I knew that was why she had escaped from my apartment as soon as she had a chance, but I really wanted to see her again so I could explain the situation to her.

I was not a cheater and never would be. That kind of life is pathetic and impractical to me, not to say that screwing someone else's feelings for an affair is something only a shitty person could do. The reason  why she found my ring was because that night at the club, I had officially taken it off to symbolize that I had finally put a closure on my failed marriage. Erwin had taken me to the club precisely to celebrate my divorce - which he himself had carried out as my lawyer - and to help me clear my mind.

Honestly, I felt ridiculous. I no longer felt young enough to go to those places and seeing so many twenty-somethings made me feel outdated. I didn't recognized many songs and had seriously thought about leaving, especially when Erwin had suddenly disappeared. The last time I'd seen him, he was talking animatedly to a little blond woman who, at best, was about 21 years old. I would have liked to interrupt him to tell him I wanted to leave, but from one moment to the next he was gone, leaving me alone in that private room with nothing to do, see or drink. I waited for him for a long time, but when half an hour passed without hearing from him, I resolved that I would have one last drink before leaving.

It was at that moment that I saw her.

She looked uncomfortable, standing by the bar, as if she was hiding from someone and I assumed that was precisely what she was doing. Still, I couldn't help but notice that she was one of the most attractive women I'd ever seen. Her brown hair fell to the middle of her back, soft coppery waves that glinted in the lights of the dance floor. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder blue dress, which allowed me to see her collarbones and golden skin. What had convinced me to approach her were her eyes. Big and the color of the ocean, framed by thick lashes. It was hard to believe that I hadn't seen her before.

I sighed, drinking what was left on my glass and put the money on the counter before leaving.

Since that night I hadn't stopped cursing myself for not asking for her number or even knowing her full name. I hated the idea of her just assuming the worst of me, especially when she couldn't be more wrong. I wanted to wake up and see her, chat with her, and take her somewhere decent. I would have liked to see her, kiss her and feel her so much ... It was like being drugged with a feeling that everything was finally on its place, a feeling that I craved all my married life.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

—What do you want, Erwin?

—Are you free tonight? —. Judging from the background noise, he seemed to be in some bar or restaurant —If so, why don't you drop by with us? It'll do you good, Levi, to take a little break from your endless search.

—Who is "we"? —I wasn't particularly excited about going out with him and who I imagined he was with. The truth is I did not feel with the tolerance necessary to bear Hanji.

—Are you coming or not, midget? —. Speaking of the devil, I heard the brunette's voice, shouting into the phone, over Erwin's voice. I sighed heavily, ready to decline the invitation, but thought better of it. Maybe I should take a break. Erin had left my life for a reason, hadn't she? This fact didn't make me happy, but I had to face it. It was practically impossible for me to see her again.

—I'm on my way.

***

As expected, they were almost all there. Hanji, Moblit, Mike and Nanaba. The only new face was sitting next to Erwin with a sheepish smirk on her freckled face and constantly clutching strands of blonde hair. I sat next to her.

—This is April —Erwin said, introducing her to me —She's my date tonight... maybe you remember her from the club?— Ah, yes. I remembered her, of course. I raised my eyebrows with some amazement and a little envy. April gave me a friendly smile and I just nodded, trying not to think about the fact that maybe at that moment Erin would have sat next to me if it wasn't for the unfortunate misunderstanding between us.

Fortunately, the conversations didn't involve much participation on my part, although I must admit that listening to Hanji's nonsense helped a lot to clear my mind, even for a little while. I constantly looked away from anywhere, until I was struck by the fact that April's cell phone screen began to light up constantly vibrating. She'd ignored the messages at first, but then began to respond quickly, trying not to look rude.

—Is everything okay? —I heard Erwin ask her in a low voice. She barely nodded, putting the phone aside.

—Yes —she answered with a sigh —. It's just the girls...They're asking me if I'm going to movie night with them —she explained and her screen lit up again. I didn't want to be a gossip, but she was literally sitting next to me. It wasn't difficult to hear them —. I thought they weren't going to do it. After all, Erin has been...

And as soon as he mentioned her name, the cell phone vibrated with an incoming call from Erin. Instinctively I became alert. Maybe it was a coincidence, nothing more. How many Erins could there be in the city? There were surely hundreds. After a few seconds, the photo of the aforementioned appeared on the screen and I almost had a heart attack.

There she was, smiling and squeezing April in a tight hug. It was only a fraction of a second until the blonde answered the call and got up to speak privately.

—You've got to be fucking kidding me— I murmured and leaned towards Erwin —. Hey ...—I caught his attention —. I think your girlfriend knows the girl I'm looking for —I whispered, but maybe I didn't do it low enough.

—Which girl?! —Hanji croaked, interrupting herself in mid-sentence. I shot her a venomous look but she was already immune to my temper. All eyes turned to me, interested —. Oh my God, do you mean that girl you told us about, Erwin?

—Congratulations, Levi! —Mike said to me and now my annoyance was focused on Erwin, who shrugged with a smile on his face. God damn it. I promised to myself that I would never tell him anything ever again.

—What kind of lame ass lawyer are you? Spreading confidential information with anyone...— I mumbled —. How much did you tell them?

—Most of it, actually— Hanji admitted —. He told us that it was an intense meeting between the two of you, but at midnight, poof! The spell was broken and your little Cinderella escaped.

—That's gross —I murmured —. I won't tell you anything again, you piece of shit —Erwin laughed and patted me on the arm. I rolled my eyes.

—Come on, Levi, they're our friends. I think they deserve to know the story —he said —. Why don't you ask April about her?

I couldn't just do that. Something that I had left out of the story was the part where Erin had written me a hate message on my bathroom mirror. If April was her friend, she most likely only knew shitty stuff about me and identified me as "the husband who was unfaithful to his wife" that her friend had slept with. I just nodded, and fortunately the conversation turned around, just as April returned to the table.

—I'm sorry, Erwin, but I think I'll have to leave early —she said to him, although she didn't seem very animated —. Mikasa wants us all to meet up at Erin's —he nodded and then looked at me. I didn't say anything, but it wasn't necessary, since the idiot opened his mouth for me.

—I'll take you where you tell me when we finish dinner, okay? —he answered and she took a seat, finally putting the cell phone in her bag —. By the way, April, Levi told me that he seems to recognize your friend Erin from somewhere.

The girl turned to see me, surprised. Her blue eyes scrutinized me completely, as if she was trying to recognize me. I cursed to myself and cleared my throat.

—I saw her picture when she called you. I didn't want to be nosy —I hastened to say—. I saw her face and it seemed somewhat familiar, but surely it's a coincidence.

April didn't say anything immediately, but seemed to be thinking her words.

—Really? —she asked —Hmm ... —she narrowed her eyes but then shrugged, as if drawing her own conclusions —. Oh well ... I can show you the photo more closely, if you want to confirm ...—she took her bag and pulled out her phone. I panicked but couldn't say anything. She tapped the screen a couple of times and she showed me the photo that I had seen and I was able to appreciate it more closely. Of course it was her. I would recognize those eyes anywhere — Is this her?

—Mh? — I blinked, distracted, but then I cleared my throat —Ah, uh ... Yes, I think it's her, but it doesn't matter, I didn't really talked to her that much...— then I remembered her lips, her moans and I felt a chill —. She just seemed familiar to me. Thanks, April —the blonde smiled at me and put her phone back on her bag.

—Have you been to Rose's?— I looked at her, a little confused —It's a big coffee shop on the main avenue — she continued —. Erin works there on weekends. Maybe you've seen her there —she commented and it was the best thing she could have told me. I had never set foot in that cafeteria but now I knew where to look for Erin. I knew my face had suddenly lit up because Hanji made a mocking comment about it, but I didn't care.

I could see Erin again.