#this got long. who's surprised? not me!

[booksandabeer]

Hi J! I hope you’re having a lovely Sunday! ☺️

I’ve come across quite a few of your comments on AO3 and have see a few of your fic recs. You always put so much thought into your reviews and comments. It’s very inspiring. Your response to your most recent ask about the “legendary stories” was so well written. I hope it doesn’t seem weird, but I’m always excited to come across a comment of yours as a reader, so I can only imagine how your words make the writers feel.

So, with all that said, I’d like to pick your brain a bit and ask a couple of random questions (if feel like answering): Do you have a favorite and least favorite trope? Have you ever read a fic featuring your least favorite trope and it turned out better than expected?

Hello Jae!

First of all, thank you very much for your absolutely lovely message and your kind words. 😘 I did indeed have a lovely Sunday, thank you very much! I hope Monday is treating you well?

I'm a bit of a serial commenter... it's true! See, the thing is, I get to read all these wonderful, lovingly crafted stories by people who put so much time, care, and passion into creating them--and I get to read them for free! So I figure the least I can do is try and put a miniscule fraction of the time and thought it took to write them, and for me to read them, into composing a somewhat meaningful & appreciative comment. I don' t know if I always succeed at the former, but as long as the latter sentiment comes through, I consider it a success!

Also, I don't think it's weird at all to read or get excited about other people's comments. In fact, I think it's a GREAT way to find new fics and authors. I found some of my favorite stories by clicking on the ao3 profiles of people I repeatedly noticed commenting on the same fics or otherwise leaving thoughtful feedback, and they were either writers themselves or had great bookmark collections ("Bookmark Creeping" is one of my favorite pastimes).

Now for the questions you asked:

Do you have a favorite and least favorite trope?

That is a very broad question! Where to even begin?😳 Also with fanfic, I'm always a bit unsure what exactly is considered a trope/a genre/kink because sometimes the lines tend to get a little blurry. Well, let's look at it through a Stucky-lense, shall we? Obviously, I'm a sucker for Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, and Slow Burns; I feel like those are baked into the ship, right? I'm also a bit of an Angst Queen, and I love nothing more than to get absolutely destroyed by a fic as long as there is the promise for at least a bittersweet ending that will gently put me back together. Also, I go WILD for wound care (bonus points if it comes with kissing) and I love a well-deployed(!) pet name.

Now when it comes to things I don't personally enjoy all that much? Hm. I don't read crack fic because it's just not for me and because I feel like it often clashes with the more serious aspects of Steve and Bucky's backstories. I also tend to avoid either super-fluffy (curtain fic, Kidfic, Highschool AUs) or super dark/kinky stuff (heavy BDSM, HTP, Non-Con as a kink). Ymmv, of course and I absolutely do not think it's a "bad" thing to enjoy reading these things!

Have you ever read a fic featuring your least favorite trope and it turned out better than expected?

For the longest time, I only ever read canon verse stories or at least somewhat canon-adjacent, like Shrinkyclinks/Shrunkyclunks, but almost no Modern/No Power AUs. At some point last year I think I got a bit canon-tired (because when you read almost exclusively Steve/Bucky, let's face it, a lot if it is by its very nature just really sad shit). So over the past year I got a bit more adventurous in my reading and I've dicovered so many wonderful stories! Like I said above, I usually tend to avoid Kidfics at all costs (I don't hate children or anything; I just don't want to read about them all that much... Oh God, I sound like a horrible person, don't I? 😬🙈)... Anyway, over the past few months, I've found immense joy in reading @zenaidamacrouras1's stories--and almost all of them feature child characters of various ages. And I didn't just like the stories despite the kids but because of them! Wild! Who would've thought? But I am now a person who enjoys Kidfic, and in fact I have one lined up for tonight!

Also, and I don't know if this is of any interest to you--I would very much understand if it isn't--but there is a series called Called to Heel by Bagheera, which basically pushes all of my NOPE buttons, starting with the fact that it's Bucky/Zemo (!) with some past unrequited Steve/Bucky, and here's only a small selection of the tags: Past HTP implied; Pet Play; Past Rape/Non-con; Rough Sex; Dom/Sub. So, according to everything I just wrote above, I should hate this; it should not work for me at all. And to be fair, it's definitely not what I would call a *fun read*. It's also one of the best fics I have EVER read, part 2 in particular is a goddamn masterpiece, and it's one of the smartest and most complex character studies of both Zemo and Bucky I've come across. So. You really never know what might end up working for you, I guess.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hope this is ok and answers your questions a little bit?

[ryllen]

hanging around sebastian is automatic code to become a mom friend

[aroaceleovaldez]

HoO is so funny to me when you actually think about the ages of all the characters. Octavian is 18. Percy and Annabeth are 16, almost 17. Reyna is presumably 16. Frank just turned 16, Jason’s about to turn 16. Leo and Piper are like 15. Hazel’s like 14 and a half, and Nico is 13.

The Death Sibs are both the youngest and oldest on the Argo II. Octavian is a college freshman getting into petty drama with a bunch of high schoolers. He gets told to shut up at one point by a random 8th grader. Everyone is scared of the 8th grader. We Sent A 13 Year Old To Superhell and he came back weirder, Just Like Middle School. TLH was just three high school sophomores being sent to do a task and it going Exactly Like You’d Expect. Percy’s the only demigod on the ship who can legally drive (though Reyna gets her drivers license at some point before TOA). What Is Happening.

[maraschinotopped]

undertale yellow. clutches head in anguish.

[pansyfemme]

im. 💖

[sysig]

Just a few favourites, only a couple, I swear (Patreon)

[beatriceportinari]

(Open the photos for details)

(2024)

Happy birthday Izuna! And happy one year anniversary to me @everyizuna :D

Most of all a huge thank you to wasabiskull for lending me your lines! It was a pleasure and an honor to play with them <3

[kathybluecaller]

Flipping flapjacks I’m a year old tup tup!!! (+1 day)

Yesterday, November 19th, marks the day I ran into this wonderful band through the Starlight Brigade music video. Can’t put into words how many good memories I’ve been making since! Ranging from it being another thing to bond over with friends and family, seeing them perform live, to even meeting new people. Their music and the community people have built is just so welcoming, funky, and positive! Couldn’t have asked for a better band to call my favorite

[keeps-ache]

i don't wanna take over the world, it sounds like a lot. but you know, laying siege to a golf course sounds really nice sometimes

[powdermelonkeg]

The Pokémon world is falling apart.

It started small (though no one called it such at the time). A collection of fanatics with the goal to remake the world in their image, at the cost of ours. Time and space were held captive, a parallel dimension torn asunder, distortion creeping through,

Spears once pointed skyward, instead warped in towards the hole in reality, rending itself to pieces.

But it was stopped.

The champion and her unlikely friend, a small child from a small town, put an end to it.

It was stopped.

Wasn't it?

The next crack appears. Slow, almost unnoticeable. A hero against a hero, a child facing the

bwlhaictke

of

itdreuatlhs.

A different history. A history that always was.

It doesn’t matter.

Does it?

A meteor hits the ground, giving Pokémon strange new forms. It was never supposed to exist.

Another crack.

A man obsessed with power, who wants

dleiafteh.

He's defeated.

Another crack.

Delta.

Change.

Wormholes appear in the sky. Beasts with no home here, no adaptations, wreak havoc.

The crack splits twain. Worlds can be traveled between.

Sun and moon. Night and day. Altar and lake.

It ends with the first portal. It doesn't. There's more.

Looker. Anabel.

Rainbow Rocket

History starts to change. It shifts, impossibly.

The Kimono Girls are tasked with guarding

LHuog-iOah

The world feared

MAaqgumaa

But was saved by

MAaqgumaa

An energy crisis. A terrifying monstrosity.

A pair of twins separated by time, forms of Pokémon lost to Sinnoh history now present once again.

And now?

Billions of years in the

Past

Future

We witness paradoxes humanity can't. What they shouldn't.

The world is falling apart.

Can't you see it?

[ifyougoillfollow]

as we sink into the open sea

M/F, Gen | QPR MicNight | 1720 words | Selkie AU CW: Depiction of Suicide Attempt (non-graphic)

-

On the eve of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into the ocean and comes back with a wife.

Please understand, that wasn't his intention. Yamada Hizashi is not the kind of man to believe in tales of sirens and sea wives, and he is especially not the kind of man with dreams of snaring one for himself. He is, in point of fact, not a man of any dreams at all. Not anymore.

So he walks into the ocean, figuring that if he can't find the will to keep dreaming, then he can at least find some peace at last. He finds a wife, instead.

Or rather, she finds him.

She finds him as his body hits the sea floor, at the very moment the first wave of doubt rolls over him in one fell, unrelenting swoop, much too late for him to do anything about it. He's so overcome with it he doesn't think much of the figure that glides out of the ocean murk and sidles right up to him. Wide, shark-bright eyes peer at him, so close they fill up his entire swimming, pin-pricking vision, and all Hizashi can think about is how soon he's going to die, and how he’s not so sure he wants to die after all, and how little what he wants matters in this final moment, as in all the rest before it, and then the figure places one cold hand on his colder cheek and kisses him. She's all Hizashi can think of, then.

She's dark-haired and beautiful. And strong. And a good swimmer, too, but that's to be expected. She drags him back to shore, lips locked tight over his the whole way, and she doesn't let go until his lungs are clear of ocean brine.

Hizashi lies there, alive and silent on the cold, wet sand for a good while after. Long enough for the first hint of morning blue to blush over the horizon. The sea maiden lies with him, just as alive, just as silent, and infinitely more at ease. Cozied right up to his side, as if she belongs there, seemingly content to remain there for however long Hizashi has left on this Earth now that she's saved him. Try as he might, he can't figure out whether he's grateful or not. He does, however, remember his manners, on occasion, so when he finally finds his voice again, he uses it to thank her.

"You're welcome," the sea maiden replies. There's laughter in her voice. Hizashi doesn't know what there is to laugh about, though he finds himself wishing she'd actually done so, just so he could hear it. He used to love laughter. Impossibly, he still does.

Yamada Hizashi had a knack for making people laugh, once. It was all he knew how to do, really. He doesn't know much of anything now, least of all how to make the sea maiden in his arms laugh, so he says nothing.

The sea maiden in his arms says nothing either, at first, for just long enough Hizashi startles when she does speak: "Is that it?"

"Pardon?"

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"... Is there more I should be saying?"

"There must be." There it is again – the laugh in her voice. "You don't strike me as the quiet type in the least."

That's what it is – she's teasing him. It's much too familiar to do anything but rankle. "Listen, Miss –”

She snorts. "Nemuri."

"Listen –” his face burns as he realizes that's her given name, and he refuses to say it "– listen, I'm grateful to you for saving me and all, but you don't know anything about me."

She peels away from his side. "Liar."

"Pardon?"

"You're not grateful at all," she grunts through an impressive stretch, current-strong arms flung upward and out towards the heavens. She's wearing a sealskin cape and nothing else, and is so unembarrassed by it Hizashi can't muster up any on her behalf. She winks at him. "But you will be," she adds. Then: "Take off your clothes."

"Pardon?"

This time she does laugh – seagull-like – loud and sharp and to the point. "Well, I don't know much about land folk, but it's my understanding you don't handle being wet all that well."

Hizashi wraps his arms around himself, scowling. "I'll be fine."

"Suit yourself."

The sea maiden stands – or at least tries to. She heaves herself upward in a motion that would probably be fluid underwater, then loses her balance, toppling backwards onto the sand, rump first. The sight of her glaring down at her legs is almost enough to pull a laugh out of Hizashi.

"Stupid things," she grumbles, kicking up sand.

Hizashi does laugh, then, which is a mistake. The sea maiden stands, suddenly sure-footed in her indignation, and uses her newfound mastery over her lower appendages to kick sand in his direction.

Hizashi cannot stop laughing. He laughs until his new companion loses interest in burying him under sand. He laughs until the sun finally frees itself from under the weight of the horizon. He laughs until he almost forgets he just tried to kill himself.

When he's all laughed out, the sea maiden is still there. Sitting across from him, hands and feet planted firmly in the sand, peering at him with a smile so dry it's a wonder she doesn't hail from land herself.

Without a word, she stands again, solid and steady, all remaining traces of sea legs gone, and hauls Hizashi to his own significantly less steady feet. While he's still reeling from... all of it – the strength of her hands around his, the seafoam-salt smell of her filling his impossibly pumping lungs, the laughter still clanging through every hollow part of him – the sea maiden takes her sealskin cape and drapes it over Hizashi's shoulders.

It's soft and musky and so warm it feels more alive than he does, but, most of all, it's heavy.

Hizashi tries to shrug it off. "Thanks," he says stiffly, "but I said I'm fine."

"I heard you," says the sea maiden, rearranging the cape around him.

"I don't need it."

"I know."

She fastens the cape closed around his neck, patting his chest firmly. It's so long it covers Hizashi all the way down to his shins. On her, it must have just brushed over the sand at her feet. The uncanny warmth of it doesn't seep even as the seafront breeze hits it, makes it flap and flutter around him in a heavy, even bump-bump, bump-bump beat. Nothing could ever hope to reach him past that beat and that warmth.

"I don't want it, either," he lies, because he has to, because he's never known what to do in the face of so much want, because he's always wanted too many things, and he's wanted them too much.

"Neither do I," says the sea maiden, breezy as the morning. "Maybe we should leave it here, lying around. I'm sure no one else would find it, if we hid it well enough."

Hizashi blanches at the thought. He may not be the kind of man to believe in tales of sea wives, but he has heard enough of them to be wary of the kind of man who does. He fumbles for the clasp at the base of his throat. "Just take it back. Go home."

"Hm, I don't think so." She sidesteps his attempts to foist the cape back onto her, walking away backwards, hands clasped behind her head. "I think I'll stick around here for awhile. Explore the land realm. It seems exciting."

Hizashi chases after her, cape held out like a net. "It isn't."

She twirls away again. "Liar."

"It's too exciting, then. Dangerous."

"So is the ocean – didn't stop you from walking into it."

"That was –" Hizashi falters, loses his footing "– different," he finishes lamely, hands fisted in the sand-soiled cape caught under his knees.

The sea maiden stands over him. "You're right," she says, "that was different – I'm not going into this trying to die. I'd say that alone makes my odds of survival look pretty swell, don't you think?"

Hizashi stares up at her, looming tall against the dawn sky, so tall she dwarves the rising sun itself, and has no doubt she'd survive even the drying of all seven seas if it meant she got to live.

"You're naked," he says, because he's running out of arguments, and the will to keep making them.

"I wouldn't be if you gave me your clothes,” she shoots back, “I gave you mine, didn't I? It would only be fair."

The cape is velvet-smooth as Hizashi slides it out from under himself, warmer still from the heat of his body and the sun-washed sand, which slides off of it like ocean spray from mossy seaside cliffs. His sea maiden – Nemuri – takes it from him and helps him back to his feet. She folds it over her arm, as if merely holding on to it for the moment, and arches an expectant eyebrow at him.

Sighing, Hizashi shrugs off his coat. "Yes,” he relents, “I suppose it would only be fair."

On the dawn of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into town with nothing but a sealskin cape on his back and a wife.

Or so the townsfolk like to tell it, because the townsfolk love a good fairy tale romance almost as much as they love to pity him. In time, they will come to pity him even this moment and his sea-wild wife, as outrageous as she is beautiful, as the very ocean itself, and Yamada Hizashi will do what he has always done in the face of undue pity, which is to laugh in it and continue loving whoever and whatever he loves, in whichever way he sees fit.

But that will come later. For now, in the rosy light of a dawn he never planned to see, Hizashi walks into town beside Nemuri, the sea maiden who saved his life – the woman who will be called his wife and be so much more – and is content enough to have finally figured out he’s grateful, even if he has yet to figure out much else. The rest will follow, he’s sure, in good time and – even better – good company.

[grapecaseschoices]

there is always some clown that shows their ass about wyll on youtube. like no one wants your bad opinion on a positive video about wyll. no one wants your regurgitated bile that you yucked down from some other clown who has also never played his route or had him in their party or really spoken to him in camp, but wants to say The Reasoning Why Has Nothing To Do With His Blackness, I Just Don't Like Goody-Too-Shoes CharactersTM.

get out of here and misinterpret YOUR faves, not mine.

[cometrose]

i’ve been obsessed with zhongli genshin impact for nearly 3 years now when am i gonna be free

[rainyrindou]

event ppl i’m not ignoring u ppl in my inbox i’m not ignoring u i love all but life got really busy this week and possibly this upcoming one too…love u all

[anarcho-smarmyism]

husband just said "my street name is EZ Cracker" 🤣☠️

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

skipping class for the first time in my life bc my professor has covid and he sent out an email saying we’re having class and he’s asymptomatic and will wear a mask per cdc guidelines even tho he’s past the 5 day required isolation period. like. great whatevs but have you actually tested negative

update: the answer was no he had not