#this one is actually worthy of those tags i have put WORK into this ship

[specterthief]

gimme the joe/tadashi fluff

send me the rarest pair you can think of and I'll tell you if I ship it and how I think it can work

oh hey it's a ship i have actually written before! needless to say i ship this very much and it's probably my favorite ship for both of them

i pretty much reverse engineered this one from all the yume interviews about their dating preferences, particularly starting from "shopping for ingredients and cooking a meal together" being cited as a date that tadashi would enjoy:

and leading to studying all the other answers and how they compare, like both of them liking simple/casual dates, tadashi paying for his date + joe having to save money, tadashi wearing simple fast fashion in his private life and having to dress up for work (because adam would harshly criticize his casual clothes) while the thing joe finds most attractive on someone is casual clothes they don't usually wear because he likes to see people let their guard down, (animedia september 2021) + the summer date Q&A mentioning that a chance to relax and let his guard down where he might "show a different side" is what tadashi would want from a date (animedia august 2021)... the things they'd both like in relationships seem to be surprisingly compatible and like they'd have a nice time together. they also have some really interesting parallels even in the show - they both have very similar conversations with langa and reki respectively about the risks and "stupidity" of skating, but coming from completely opposite places (joe coming from already totally accepting himself and what he loves, tadashi from terrible self-hatred and guilt)

and they're the two people who've stuck by cherry and adam's sides for the last seven years, also in very contrasting way... they both influence reki and langa to resolve things and are the two people who are most integral to langa reaching adam. despite not interacting directly they play really interesting parallel roles in the overarching narrative that make me really like the idea of seeing how they would actually interact, and it's so easy to imagine how they could post-canon if adam starts to rekindle his friendship with joe and cherry. i think pairing a character who's as openly and confidently sexual as joe with someone as repressed as tadashi is also really fun to think about, and that with all tadashi's Issues having someone so attractive and confident be interested in him could be a really good experience for him

i just think they're neat!! i think about them a lot!! it's very much a crack ship but i think they would genuinely work together and you can see that i've thought about this one a lot because i have citations prepared for it

[theomenroom]

Tangent and Instance thoughts/my Tangent theory. Spoilers for my two friends I just got into exocolonist; wait 'til you've seen the whole women's wrongs plot and then come back. @dillypillars I'm tagging you since you asked to hear my Instance thoughts.

Tangent is an abused child. Before anything else, before she's an amoral scientist or a workaholic genius, she's an abused child.

She's also brilliant. She is capable, at nine years old, of sometimes, if she overstretches herself, gives up even the little sleep she still needs with her augment, producing results on the level of an adult scientist, a habit which becomes lifelong and eventually kills her.

The only praise she cares about is Instance's, and overstretching herself like that is the only way to get that. She's taken on responsibilities most adults spend years of dedicated training to get ready for, as a preteen.

She's isolated from her peer group. In the bar arc, Dys outright tells you that since she started her gene therapies with Instance, she's thought herself smarter and better than her peers to the point that the only ones who try to keep in touch with her are Marz (who's immune to anything Tangent might say to push her away) and maybe Sol (who, if they tried to keep up with Tangent aboard the ship, is also a nerdy science kid, although not (yet) on the same level).

That her isolation is because she thinks she's smart and mature for her age (because she's being held to adult expectations and sometimes succeeding) doesn't make it any less isolation.

Instance encourages this isolation. Instance sometimes even orders it (there's a line when you approach Tangent in late-game where she's like "Instance says I'm not to be distracted by visitors").

Instance also tramples her sense of scientific ethics. Tangent comes to Sol about the engineered plague with ethical concerns about deploying it, but she's not going into that conversation with an open mind at all. She wants her friend and peer to tell her everything is alright; if Sol instead echoes her ethical concerns back to her (or comes at her with new ones), she throws up the same defenses and excuses about how she would do anything for Instance (🚩🚩🚩) that she's doubtless used to suppress those concerns for herself before.

As an aside, I also don't buy that Instance didn't start research on the Engineered Plague until ordered to do so by Lum. Tangent has mad scientist "this could change everything" moments years before in the Strato colony, when you're researching the Shimmer. It might not have been a research priority before Lum, but I don't think the evidence supports Instance not having considered inventing bioweapons to exterminate inconvenient Vertumnan species.

Then there's the epilogue; I've never seen Tangent keep the chief engineer job for more than a year despite everything Instance has done to groom her for the position (wording intentional). She's put aside a lot of her own wants and ambitions to fulfill Instance's goal of having a worthy successor, and then without Instance she realizes she doesn't even want it. If she almost built the plague, that experience is a life-defining trauma for her. She wasn't even 18 yet when she worked on that, but she trusted Instance to know what's best, did as she asked, and suffered a life-defining trauma from the moral dissonance.

One of the most glaring "something is wrong here" moments for me was one of Tangent's colony dialogue blurbs when she was like "only Instance truly respects me," she says to Sol, who she is dating at the time.

I think on some level she really believes that. There's probably some cognitive dissonance between recognizing what she has with a Sol who's approaching her on her level, for the most part, and what she has to believe for Instance (which is what she says out loud), but she navigates that anyway.

At the risk of running off even further into unpopular opinion territory, I think Tangent and Instance's dynamic is actually the better depiction of abuse in Exocolonist (which is surprising, because it's not mentioned in the game's content warnings at all). Anemone and Vace's relationship is a power fantasy of being a bystander to an abusive relationship; you catch Anemone when her heavily-armed, hyper-possessive boyfriend with anger issues is giving her the silent treatment once, tell her she deserves better than that, and she's like "you know what, you're right, I do!" and leaves him and everything is good. Tangent's is more realistic. You might not even see it unless you really focus and look. Sol doesn't see it, across multiple timelines, even if they're dating Tangent in some of them. There's nothing you can do about it; intervening even to echo thoughts she's brought to you just pushes her away. Tangent is getting an emotional need met there that she doesn't think she could get anywhere else. That's more often what it's like.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

this was quite a while ago so my memory is hazy but it still sort of bothers me, so

AITA for making a quick comment about a ship dynamic(???) i didn't like in the ship tag?

before you jump on my ass, this isn't pro/anti stuff. literally just a matter of preference.

not going to mention the specific characters or media in question for pure anonymity's sake. i'm just going to assign arbitrary names to the characters in question for readability. let's say Albert and Bartholomew, or something. and the ship name can be Fucking BartBert I Guess.

"Bartholomew" had a traumatic experience in his childhood that had a very large impact on his mental state, let's say. as a fan of. um. "bartbert". i had noticed a trend in fan works of this ship depicting an AU version of Bartholomew that had never had this traumatic event happen to him. not that there's anything wrong with that, really. i just found it sort of strange and i was more interested in the canon character, additionally i found it sort of comforting to think that Bartholomew was worthy of love scars and all, so to speak. so i made a short post in the tag expressing pretty much that. along the lines of "why is there so much fanart like this? can't he be loved the way he is?" or something like that, and tagged it as bartbert because i wanted to see other people's thoughts on it. in retrospect it could've been read as dismissive or inflammatory i suppose but i really didn't mean it like that. i was just a little bit annoyed and confused by it.

fast forward a little while and this person comes into my notes saying something along the lines of "for some reason i can't reblog this on my main, but it's because people have been nice enough to make fanart of the AU that i made." i didn't think i knew this person at all, so i essentially just responded trying to assure them that i don't know them and wasn't trying to attack their art or them personally or anything.

i'm not sure exactly what happened after that because it's been like 2 years but in essence, i had actually blocked their main a few months before, because they had been posting about that AU and i didn't like it, so i just blocked and moved on like i usually do with stuff like that because i didn't want to see it in the tags. i probably didn't even realize at the time that they were the creator of the AU. but this person pointed out that i had their main blocked as like, evidence that that post i had made was a personal attack against them, or something like that?? of course i didn't mean it in that way, i had just blocked their main months ago and forgotten about it, and i wasn't even really trying to be rude but they blocked me before i could try to explain myself.

i remember this whole thing pretty vividly because i was at the zoo with my family that day and feeling like i was being accused of something i didn't do, or being called mean or being picked on by someone with a much larger following than me presumably, just for making a single post the night before was really stressing me out on what was supposed to be a fun day. in addition i ended up leaving the fanbase for the work in question entirely pretty soon after because i didn't want people to think i was weird or mean. it's sort of colored my recollection of the work in general, which sucks because i do still really like it.

in retrospect i'm honestly not sure if what i did was wrong or not. i suppose i shouldn't have put negativity in the tag but also i feel like you should be allowed to express negative opinions the same as positive ones, right? as long as you aren't being a jackass about it. although at the same time i can sort of see their perspective because i think if i saw a post like that about something i had made i might've jumped straight to being defensive about it, too...

but anyways it's one of those memories that creeps up on me while i'm trying to go to sleep, so,

was i the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[coquelicoq]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

i was tagged by @littleragondin! mci mon ami.e !

3 Ships You Like: in a kim dojka & yoo sangah platonic life partners phase rn. god. they would get married but not because they particularly care about marriage, just to bypass the hoops the government makes single people jump through in order to adopt kids, but kim dokja would seriously hesitate for the sole reason that him marrying yoo sangah would make all three of his parents very happy in a way that he would find incredibly annoying.

ok i'm doing another platonic one: moon & ember! i have read the few existing moon & ember fics so many times i can no longer separate them from canon. their dynamic is everything 2 me. bodyguard & anger translator. damaged hottie with trust issues & naive little pretty boy who just wants to go home. moon sees ember as not just a romantic rival but also a threat to his place in the colony, and of course being moon, his reaction to that is not to challenge ember but just to assume that he's been replaced and that he has to start over again alone. ember is everything that moon is not, everything he's convinced he's supposed to be, but ACTUALLY they're both perfect the way they are and there's room enough in this court for the both of them. they are so powerful when they combine their complementary skillsets for the good of the colony. plus i love that every time he interacts with anyone moon is probably thinking, "ugh, i bet EMBER wouldn't be fucking this up"…but also he's defending ember when stone makes fun of him and offering to challenge the reigning queen on ember's behalf! he's protective of ember even as ember embodies everything that makes him insecure. meanwhile ember thinks moon is the coolest person to ever exist and also. extremely cringe. probably 25% of his pillow talk is him subtly trying to convince pearl that moon is just a little birthday boy who should be allowed to be a hugely oversensitive weirdo, as a treat.

people have been rbing some of my cherry magic posts recently so i've been thinking about kurodachi again. i miss them! they're so well matched, so complementary in the ways that they need to grow, and it's lovely to watch them help each other do that. the way that adachi is inspired to make an effort by kurosawa's continuous striving for things he thinks he'll never get, and the way that adachi's apathy for perfection frees kurosawa from his need to be worthy…like ok fine whatever i am listening!!!

First Ship Ever: i have been sitting here trying to think of an earlier ship so i can avoid embarrassing myself, but if i'm honest it's probably ron/hermione. moving right along.

Last Song You Heard: one week by barenaked ladies! what a banger.

Favorite Childhood Book: when i was a kid i had meticulously curated my top ten favorite books, but now i can only remember half of them: island of the blue dolphins, the witch of blackbird pond, ella enchanted, walk two moons, and mrs. frisby and the rats of nimh. can you tell i had one of those bookmarks that listed all the newberry award winners and was working my way through it? lol.

Currently Reading: i just finished my reread of maskerade, the discworld book about the opera, which i had put on hold after reading le fantôme de l'opéra. it wasn't one of my fave discworlds as a teen but i think i'm now in the right headspace for it. enjoyed it quite a bit!

i'm near the end of both the traitor baru cormorant by seth dickinson and par amour by valérie tong cuong. the latter is about a family in le havre during wwii and is very hard to put down. i have honestly no idea what will happen in the remaining two chapters except the nazis are going to lose the war. the traitor baru cormorant is well done, but i don't think i like it enough to read the sequel. (i still am pathologically unable to stop a book that i've started, but i've just discovered that i am capable of stopping after book 1 of a series. life hack!!)

Currently watching: natsume season 4 dub! i just watched the moon-splitting festival arc and the baby nanase episode yesterday. next up is the one about natsume's picture of his parents which. like. let's just say i am marshaling my emotional forces for that one.

also it is about to be march madness! selection sunday tomorrow babey!!!

Currently consuming: the great thing (sarcastic) about living alone is that you spend four hours making this quinoa black bean dish and then have to somehow eat all of it before it goes bad. luckily my neighbor and i have been doing this cute thing for the last ~6 months where we share whatever food we make with each other. this has been working out extremely well for me, because when he cooks i get to eat without having to do anything whatsoever, and when i cook i don't have to worry as much about quantity. i feel like i tricked him into it somehow even though he is getting exactly the same thing out of it as i am.

Currently craving: a baked good i made for the first time recently and then made again two times in rapid succession because i (and my neighbor lol) liked it so much: gingies! okay technically the recipe calls them gingerbread cookie bars, and i just looked up "gingies" (to make sure it's not an offensive term for redheads that i don't know about) and apparently it's frequently used for gingersnaps, but MY use of "gingies" is right and correct and all these other people are idiots. the reason is that they're basically brownies (texture/structure/technique-wise) but with the gingerbread flavor profile instead of chocolate. and "gingeries" sounds stupid, so gingies it is!

tagging @treecakes, @joelletwo, @qserasera, @defeateddetectives, @ctl-yuejie, @deimos-the-wolf, @stupid-lemon-eater, @loreofcardigan, and @dangerliesbeforeyou if you feel like it! no pressure obvi!!

[olympiansally]

EXCUSE ME??? YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THAT IN THE TAGS??? Im gonna need some Mikami/Beyond food-for-thought ramblings ASAP. Indoctrinate me into this cult, please and thank you <3

I laughed so much when I saw these, I show one inch of unraveling and yall pounce lmao You guys really want me to be the messiah huh? Just want me to let out the crazy! I guess everyone can blame you two for what is about to be unleashed then!! LMAO

Also, @seventhfracture my beloved it is hilarious that you chose to word this like that because one of the main things that plague my brain for Beyond and Mikami is an actual Cult leaders AU so like yes lets start the indoctrination, sure :’)

But alright alright here goes the rambling, because I make no promises of this being super coherent, but!

Beyond and Mikami have the most unhinged ship potential because they are exactly what the other wants, but in the worst way possible. I’m talking toxic levels of encouraging each other’s worst impulses, I’m talking “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”, but the thing the souls are made of is arsenic.

To me they are a twisted funhouse lawlight, but worse. Except, being worse is what lets them actually make it work because their thing isn’t competing, it’s encouraging.

Lawlight is all about I’m the only one who can stop them, I’m the only one who can keep up while Beyond and Mikami would be something more yes, yes kill them all, burn everything to the ground baby.

I will admit that I first started thinking about them in the silliest way. My brain just connected the dots between Beyond Birthday “I have never even been submissive to a traffic signal” and Teru Mikami “Kira’s most obediently submissive little worshiper” Mikami and I was was like oh, oh they would fuck so nasty!

And tbh I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them ever since lmao

And then, the more I though about it, the more I realized the dynamic between them would also be all kinds of interesting in ways other than just the kinky sex - which tbh, already makes the ship quite compelling in my book lmao. But the contrast in their personalities! The way they can give each other exactly what they want, but fully ruin one another in the process!!

To put it simply, Beyond has always wanted to be special and Mikami wants someone to worship. Now put them together? Nasty horrible codependence :’)

Growing up the way he did - Wammy’s, L, being the backup - Beyond has always been second best, has always craved being seen and valued. He has an arrogant sort of confidence that is a clear front for his feelings of not being good enough, not being worthy. And yet, he is the most unhinged, the most fearless, the most willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants - even in the midst of so many ruthless death note characters.

Similarly, Mikami doesn’t fear societal judgement. He thinks everyone else is wrong and he is the only wholesome righteous person alive, he thrives in not quite belonging because it allows him to twist himself into a “good man” martyr in his own mind - so much so that seeing someone acting in accordance to his own beliefs made him immediately assume that must be a God, because if he is heaven’s most perfect little angel, then whoever agrees with him while having more power to act on it must be a God. And yet! Mikami is just desperate to belong to someone, to make someone happy and in doing so, become someone valuable.

In a way, it’s all about their individual abandonment issues and lack of belonging and the way those experiences shaped them into people who find a wicked sort of comfort in their otherness.

In a way, that’s just like lawlight - except L and Light try to be justice, they try to do some good. But Beyond and Mikami don’t really care about what anyone’s perception of “good” is. Beyond doesn’t much care for good, unless it’s defined by someone he’s trying to impress and Mikami doesn’t think anyone but him truly understands what’s good (until of course he meets Light, but that’s not where we’re going with this). And that? The matching disregard for societal morality combined with the potential for codependency? It makes them a perfect template for absolutely deranged villains if ever put together!

And yes, Mikami’s whole strict orderly and organized way to go about things would probably clash with Beyond’s messier impulses at first. But that’s where their contrast becomes most interesting, because who better than crazy crazy Beyond Birthday to unravel Mikami’s uptightness? Who better to guide him into letting go? And Beyond’s single minded type of fearless focus given direction? Put under the guidance of Mikami’s certainty of a higher purpose? Beyond could take the shape of a chaotic vengeful God in Mikami’s eyes - as cruel and punishing as Mikami always dreamed consequences should be.

Meanwhile, Beyond - always second best to L, never good enough growing up, Backup - would revel in the worship, in being valued and it would likely push him to lean further into the whole thing - kill more, punish more, make it crueler. Not because that was his initial intention, but because he was raised to follow the instructions of someone he was meant to please and well, if falling in love means that person becomes Mikami rather than Watari, then too bad for the “criminals” of the world.

I think the fact that they feed each other’s desperation could be so… feral? I mean, Mikami is shown to thrive on scraps of affection - again, see Light - and Beyond has the potential for the type of cruelty - a byproduct of growing up at Wammy’s that L also displays, see Misa being tortured for example - that would make Mikami elevate him into the highest of pedestals, make him into that fearless God delivering divine punishment. He doesn’t share any of Light’s restraints due to trying to follow his dad’s moral code. Mikami is shown in canon to be even less forgiven than Light towards criminals, Beyond is supposed to be even less concerned about the greater good than L. Together? An absolute reign of terror! And the worship? The devotion?? That would probably be addictive to Beyond’s attention starved crazy, which means he’d lean into it and probably start performing right into Mikami’s belief system in order to reaffirm his godhood.

In a way, it’d be a vicious cycle of starved for affection, their very own lovesick ouroboros: Beyond delivers the punishing wrath Mikami has always hoped for and the fact that it’s being delivered by his own personal God reaffirms to Mikami that he is righteous, that he is special. The more Beyond confirms Mikami’s beliefs, the more Mikami is willing to worship, which in turn confirms to Beyond that he is doing the right thing and therefore should keep doing it, which makes Mikami love him more and so on and so forth.

If Mikami wants him to kill then it’s the right thing to do, if Beyond kills then it’s the right thing for Mikami to want - a never ending cycle. It’s the opposing force to lawlight’s combative friction, a downwards spiral in which the more they do, the more they are encouraged to do.

Anyway! I’m gonna cut myself off here before I get too carried away because once I get really started about them there’s so much lmao

But I will say that my favorite way to ponder their dynamic is as a twisted reflection of lawlight. I fully believe Beyond-wannabe-L-Birthday and Teru-wannabe-Light-Mikami would have thrown out the yearning immediately upon meeting and jumped straight into horribly entertaining codependency. My absolute favorite though? Lawlight investigating the shinigami eyed boyfriends. I mean the fun mirror versions interacting with each other while the twisted relationships unfold? Idk man drives me insane tbh

So yeah! This feels like more than enough for now, even though yes I could probably talk about them forever lmao

Thank you for indulging me my beloveds, it was fun :)

[atmilliways]

Part One: Sweet Little Lies

(part two) (part three) (part four) (part five) - complete as of 4/4/23

Rating: Mature Word Count: 2190 Ships: Steddie Major Tags: Jealousy, Casual sex Additional Tags: Pining, Slutty Steve Harrington, Drinking, Vomiting, Pre-relationship

Author’s Note: Written for the Stranger Music Anthology prompt, Rainbow In The Dark by Dio; banner by @xirayn​. Story kinda got away from me... I wrote a lot more than 2k, so there will be more.

Ao3 Collection: Rainbow in the Dark Anthology

Read it on Ao3

-

Eddie doesn’t have a thing for Steve or anything. 

(Lie. He’s carried a torch for the guy on and off since 1981; it is now 1988.)

And it’s not like he thought that, after all the life or death stuff, after ‘Steeeve Harrington is actually . . . a good dude,’ after ‘Don’tcha, big boy?’ and the adorably questioning looks Steve had shot him in response, after Steve holding his guts in all the way to the hospital and throwing an absolute ‘Is this how you’re going to talk to a goddamn Harrington after all the money my parents have donated’ shit-fit while drenched in blood until Hawkins Memorial agreed to treat him. . . . It’s not like, after all that, he thought moving to Indianapolis with the guy would mean something.

(Lie. He’d thought about how often Robin would inevitably visit them in their shitty two-bedroom apartment and daydreamed pointlessly about that second room being unofficially hers.)

And, and, it’s not like Steve coming out to him as bisexual within a few months of moving in, then turning those great big doe eyes on Eddie while he asked if he’d take him to his first gay bar sometime had made him do anything as ill-advised as yearn.

(Lie. In defiance of all sense of self-preservation, Eddie’s first thought had been that maybe he meant it like a date. He’d had to quash that immediately, before the ember that had fallen from his torch caught on anything and burned him from the inside out.)

Really, none of it’s a big deal. They’re at the bar dancing in the swirling light of vivid colors cast all around the otherwise grungy space, and Steve moves in unexpectedly close. Close enough for Eddie to feel the press of him all along his front. It’s crowded, but not that crowded; he’s not expecting it, and, well. 

Eddie is a coward. He moves back. 

Just for a second. But while his mind is still reeling, some guy cuts in to dance with Steve—because Steve is fucking gorgeous and Eddie absolutely hadn’t nearly had a heart attack while putting eyeliner on him, or again when he’d seen his fucking outfit, with the sinfully tight jeans and the t-shirt short enough to show off abs worthy of licking, scars only enhancing the effect in his personal opinion—and Eddie backs off. 

Let Steve have some fun exploring his newly expanded horizons, you know? It totally isn’t killing him or anything.

(Lies. It’s a very big deal. His heart is in bad shape and he feels well on his way back to nearly dead.)

-

It’s not like he doesn’t have his distractions, either. 

He’d found a fellow metalhead amongst his coworkers and followed that thread of knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy to a band that needed a guitarist and dug the scraps of original songs he’d turned up with. They’ll probably never make it big, but Hawkins had held Eddie in such notoriety (the ugly flip-side of fame) that he’d had to leave, and the rock star life would have that same unappealing kind of omnipresent scrutiny. These days he plays just to work off the tension, get some of the shit out of his system; he still has nightmares, occasionally, but his demons always seem to let him go while he’s making music. 

(No one needs to know that half his songs are secretly about Steve.)

And Eddie needs all the breaks he can get now that every time he comes home from a shift at the coffee shop, it seems like Steve has acquired a new set of hickies. Every. Single. Time. It’s fine. 

(Lie. And one count of possible over-exaggeration on the hickey front, but he can’t. Stop. Thinking about it.)

The thing is, Steve doesn’t date around. He never calls whatever he’s doing dating, just says he’s going to “hang out” with some guy whose name Eddie isn’t familiar with, never quite sure if it was someone that he knows or not because half of his job involves writing names on paper cups; they all blur together after a while. Occasionally there’s a girl thrown in there for variety, but Steve is more straightforward about calling those hookups. 

None of these hangouts or hookups ever seem to happen at the apartment—which is good, it isn’t like Eddie needs to know what that sounds like. Or looks like. Or anything. 

(Lie. He wants very much to know, just without anyone else in the way. Just Steve. The muffled noises he sometimes catches late into the shadows of the night through the very thin shared wall that separates their bedrooms are a tantalizing sample. He’s grown well versed in staying silent while touching himself to that elusive soundtrack, not wanting to miss a single scrap of what little he can get.)

-

Okay. So maybe Eddie is a little pathetic. 

He certainly feels pathetic, standing (moping) against the bar and staring blankly into the crowd for glimpses of anyone he knows (Steve), already in his third beer. Or . . . fourth? He frowns, idly trying to remember, before his gaze finally lands on Steve, body loose as he moves to the throb of the music. That pretty face smoothed over, relaxed and grinning languidly under a rainbow of light, his hair perfectly styled—more professionally done every day now that he’s scored a job at a hair salon. He’s just a shampoo boy, for now, but he’s learning. 

That head of perfect hair tipping to say something to the guy dancing up close to him. 

It’s like an arrow straight through Eddie’s heart. Like a bat ripping his goddamn nipple off all over again. 

And it’s all Eddie’s fault, isn’t it? If he hadn’t choked and backed off that first time, maybe he would still be dancing with Steve—something he hasn’t done since, but it’s not like he thinks about it obsessively. 

(Lie. Absolute crock of horse shit. He’s doing it literally right now, because he wants Steve reaching back to put both hands on his hips, grip tight to hold him close like Steve wants him there. It’s so, so stupid to want what he so clearly can’t have, but Eddie can’t help himself.)

This is the moment the bartender slides a shot his way, and when Eddie glances around he spots a guy further down the bar giving a little wave. 

Well, Eddie thinks, appraising and pathetic and edging on tipsy with intent to keep going. The guy is good-looking, all broad shoulders and a nice smile and a promising hint of chest hair just visible in the V of his partly unbuttoned shirt. Why not? He’ll do.

(Lie.)

So he does shots with a pretty stranger at the bar, loses count of how many until not Steve becomes close enough. And if he feels eyes boring into him sometimes from the dance floor, it’s probably just his imagination.

-

Steve is oddly reserved on the walk home, even as Eddie keeps stumbling into him because the damn sidewalk won’t stay still. He feels relaxed in a way he hasn’t in, like, forever, all loose-limbed and warm and totally over Steve Harrington. 

(Lie. Even with some other dude’s spit drying in his cock, and his hand thoroughly washed but still feeling of the hard weight he’d cradled in his palm, all his senses still lit up like a fucking Christmas tree around Steve.)

“‘Samatter, Stevie?” he slurs, whining, because everything he says only seems to earn him a shrug or a grunt from the other man. It totally doesn’t make him want to latch onto Steve’s arm and cling to him like a koala until he gets the guy’s full attention. “Didn’t you have a good night? Looked like you were having fun out there.”

Steve shoots him a look that he’s not sure he’d even be able to read sober. It’s like somebody took grumpy, pouty, and a secret third ingredient and threw them in a blender. “Not as much as you.”

“We should get milkshakes,” Eddie declares, thoroughly detailed by that blender thought. He leans in, and bumps his head against Steve’s a little too hard in his enthusiasm. “Stevie, y’know anywhere we can get milkshakes this late?”

“No, dude. Stop it.”

It hurts that Steve both figuratively and literally shrugs him off. Eddie sways in place for a moment, but when Steve keeps moving towards home he shakes himself from head to toe like a dog climbing out of a lake and lopes forward to catch up. 

“Dude, what the hell?” he complains, poking at Steve’s side with a finger because god forbid he keeps his hands to himself. “Always brings me down when you’re like this.”

“Like what?” Steve scoffs. “When am I ‘like this,’ what does that even mean?”

He doesn’t know how to answer Steve’s question. 

(Lie. ‘Like this’ is whenever Steve isn’t looking at him, smiling at him, touching him. Steve is always ‘like this.’ God, Eddie thinks, but knowing his own mind is a fucking curse.)

He settles for grumbling, “I just don’t know why we can’t get fuckin’ milkshakes, man,” and swaying ahead at a faster clip because their building is in sight now. Steve catches up while he’s stalled at the front door, patting his pockets trying to find his keys. “Man, what the fuck—”

“Bartender took your keys.” 

Eddie frowns, blinking. “My house keys?”

“You kept waving them around and talking about driving home, so yeah,” Steve huffs, leaning around him to unlock the front door. 

“Buzzkill,” Eddie mutters, not sure if he means the bartender or Steve, and takes the stairs up to their floor a haphazard two at a time. 

He has to wait in front of their locked apartment, and that’s when it occurs to him. 

“Shit,” he blurts out while Steve unlocks this door too, “that ring has my work keys. I’m supposed to open tomorrow!”

“Are you—” Steve pushes the door open and Eddie trips inside with a groan, because everything is spinning so fast now “—fucking kidding me?”

“Bar’s gonna be closed in the morning, fuuuuuck,” Eddie moans, slumping face first over the first piece of furniture he encounters, which luckily is the couch. “M’fucked,” he tells the couch cushions. 

“With that attitude, yeah.”

Eddie sits up, which is totally a good decision. 

(Lie. He eyes the nearest trash can, which he’s seeing in kaleidoscope triplicate, and thinks he’ll have enough warning to make it in time if he needs to.)

“How’s this,” he says with forced brightness, definitely slurring worse now but whatever. “How’bout you—” pointing at Steve for emphasis, and he thinks he’s pointing at the right one “—go back to the bar. Get my keys. Find a quick fuckbuddy to take care of that big ol’ twist in your panties. . . . An’then come home. With keys.”

“What?” Steve says incredulously as Eddie tries to drag his legs up onto the couch and . . . misses, somehow. “You want me to go back for your—Okay. Sure. That’s—Just fucking great.” He drops one hand to his hip (clad in those tight jeans again, the ones that really show off his ass) and the other pinches at the bridge of his nose like Eddie is giving him a headache. “Go back to the bar that I just goddamn left.”

“You only left because I got cut off,” Eddie reminds him. He flourishes a hand vaguely in Steve’s direction. “So go. Fly free, big boy, I release you—”

“I left,” Steve interrupts, both hands on his hips now, and oh, he’s pissed now, isn’t he, “because I wanted to make sure you got home safe, you jackass. Since that friend you made didn’t bother to do it.”

“Oooh, I see how it is!” Eyes flashing, Eddie hauls himself right back upright, as if now it might be a better idea. (It’s literally the same idea, but he’s too distracted to make a grab for the trash can now.) “You can make as many friends as you want, but as soon as I make even one, well. That’s just not allowed, is it? Got it. Good to know, and fuck you very much. Keys, please.”

“That’s not—” Steve’s mouth snaps into a thin line. He shakes his head, turning for the door. “Fine, whatever, I’ll get your fucking keys, Munson. If you throw up, try not to choke on it until I get back.”

He slams the front door behind him, and Eddie tells himself that being downgraded from Eddie or the occasional Eds to just Munson is fine, if that’s how King Steve wants to be.

(Lie. None of it’s fine. His head is spinning, he might be dying, and he can’t imagine that Steve is even going to want to come back home tonight.)

Silence sets in like an awful kind of gravity, tugging the spinning world just a bit further off its axis, and Eddie’s heart lurches with it. Except that’s not (just) his heart—his stomach gives a warning gurgle, and fuck the trash can. He can make it to the bathroom. 

(. . . Lie.)

[thequeenofthewinter]

Fic Friday

Hello fine gentlepeople of TESblr! 'tis I, Winter, peddling off my fic again as it is Friday, and I have updated.

In a review by the lovely @oblivions-dawn it is: "Excellent . . . Emotional . . . Effervescent . . . . . . Yes"

The author herself describes it as, "Politics, some boats, emotions, and metaphors. Please someone take this chapter away from me so I don't add any more to it."

A random person I found on the street has said, "Eh? Who are you, and why are you bothering me while I am eating my lunch?"

So, there you have it! Reviews are generally positive! Go read it now!

Rating: E (canon-typical violence, explicit content, check the tags)

Genre: Romance, action, adventure, drama

Pairing: Dahlia Wintersnow (OC Dragonborn)/Ulfric Stormcloak

Link to AO3: An Invincible Summer

Snippet:

While the news is no surprise to Lydia, this is the first time Dahlia has opened up to her personally. It is only logical for gossip like this to spread quickly, especially with Dahlia and Ulfric’s frequent visits to a small grave which bears no name—only a sad inscription. Loose tongues and morbid curiosity did the rest of the work to assure that it has been publicized across the population. How else would Elisif been able to hit Dahlia where it hurts the most?

Both Dahlia and Ulfric had expected it to catch up to them at some point in time; however, at least on her part, Dahlia did not expect the cruelty which came with it—the speculations, the rumors, and the pointed digging. For the most part, she has tried to ignore it as best she can while finding solace in Ulfric’s arms. But, no matter how much she runs and tries and ignore it, it always come back to her, haunting her like the hazy nightmares which leave mentally and physically tired, even if she refuses to show it. 

Slowly, Dahlia is learning better than to expect kindness from any but those who are closest to her. She’ll shut herself away and patch up all the exposed holes on her leaking ship if she must to preserve herself.

Lydia smiles at her sadly as Dahlia looks at her with uncertainty in her gaze. She isn’t sure what hurts her more: the fact that her friends has been suffering with this information and the weight of it for weeks or that she thinks that she would judge her for it. 

“It’s okay, Dahlia.” Her housecarl sighs, “I mean—no, it isn’t okay. That isn’t what I meant. What I mean is that you’re safe here, and I know you wouldn’t ever intentionally do anything to hurt anyone, and it’s not your fault and—“

Tears make their way down Dahlia’s face. How long had it been since she had spoken to Lydia? And how long has she been holding this in and putting on a brave face for the rest of the world?

“I—if we are talking about technical blame, it is my fault. I was the one who—”

Lydia stops her yet again. She has heard so many versions of what had happened: Dahlia sacrificed their child to Sithis to bring Ulfric back, she dabbles in necromancy, she speaks to Talos directly—that she can make a pretty good guess at what actually happened, but with better results. “You didn’t know, and you had a choice. One that is unspeakable, impossible, and one that no one should ever have to make. They don’t understand you, and they are not you. Only Akatosh can judge you, and it seems to me he has deemed you worthy, so you should forgive yourself.”

For a moment, all she does is blink. Dahlia isn’t sure what she expected, but it should not have been anything less than this. Lydia’s own thoughts echo Ulfric’s.

I cannot pretend to know what you felt, and I was not the one in your shoes. I cannot tell you what was right and wrong, and while it hurts me just as much as it hurts you, I would have made the exact same choice if I had been in your situation. We can try again when you’re ready.

And isn’t that what life is all about? There is pain, but there is joy. Darkness and light. Winter and Summer. You cannot have balance without both. Fus ro dah. You will push the world harder than it pushes back. Now is when she should push because after the rain is when the plants start their new growth.

[skyyknights]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @zeldaelmo @nocturne-side-blog @aegon-targaryen !! Thank you all!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

59 in total, but only 46 are available to the public 😅 I think I ended up putting some of the ones I wasn't as fond of, or ones that I just didn't feel like updating ever again, to a private collection lol

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

212,020!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

hooboy.

Legend of Zelda, mainly, but also: How to Train Your Dragon, Miraculous, LOTR, 1917, MCU, Narnia, Endeavour, and a few other extremely obscure fandoms hardly anyone else is in XD

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the faces left behind (LU which I know many people hate but I like it so don't judge lol)

Marinette Has Cookies (Of Course Chat Showed Up) (what an annoying title actually??) (Miraculous)

Just Allergies? (How to Train Your Dragon)

Juli's Tree (Flipped)

The Power of a Hot Drink (Skyward Sword)

wow I am... not good at coming up with fic titles 😂 nowadays I just pick a song lyric from a song that applies and slap it on the title but other than that they're pretty horrible 💀

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

Yes! Although sometimes if there's really no way to respond to it I just mark it as read.

...also usually it takes me a while to get the motivation to reply. I've been known to take months before answering a comment 😬

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oo hm... I can't decide so instead I shall dump a handful of them

One Last Look - Skyward Sword Zelink, after that scene

Age - Sksw Zelink through the years, with a bittersweet ending

Golden Sands - this is one of the first fics I ever posted (originally posted on Wattpad... oof). but basically it's about the robot Skipper from Skyward Sword, thinking about his past life while broken and unable to move in the present.

Incomprehensible - POV of other hobbits in the Shire, unable to understand why the four Travelers act the way they do, or why eventually their number drops to three.

Regrets - Joandeavour talking about... tough things :(

Please, Ada - Babey™ Legolas wanting to hang with his father and his father does NOT want to hang with him is the happiest way I can describe it

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

Take three because I'm indecisive.

Worthy - Edmund Pevensie coming to terms with the fact that he is loved

Spidey - Spideychelle being oblivious. that is all

Rainy Days - TP Zelinkkkkkk

there's definitely more but I think those are probably some of the happiest

8. Do you get hate on fics?

My fics usually have a pretty small reception so I don't think so? The most would be someone saying the plotholes of the fic were killing them which then sent me, a major overthinker, into overdrive, even though it's not that bad XD so no, thankfully, I don't think I've ever gotten any (although anon hate is another thing entirely. LOL)

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

nope! don't ever plan to either

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

erm. I don't think I ever have?? I've read one or two before, but I don't believe I have ever actually written one

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so XD

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

again, idt so!!

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

nope! It's a dream of mine though, Noct and I have several things planned >>>>>>:)

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

oh boy.

so

this is a tricky question

and

the answer is.

all of them

ok jokes aside I genuinely cannot narrow it down, so I'll list... my top five, I guess.

Zelink, Joandeavour, Spideychelle, Rudy/Liesel, and Hiccstrid

(Hm. Thinking about it Joandeavour is probably my favorite just because it's so heartbreakingly tragic, but Zelink is a very very very close second)

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

hah.

Probably this, a fix-it Spideychelle fic that I have a lot written for but idk if I'll ever have the guts to do much else with it

16. What are your writing strengths?

d. description I guess?? I've never been a good judge at what I'm good at XD

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to be a bit Victor Hugo-esque with my sentences, aka I have to control myself so the sentence doesn't stretch on for five paragraphs

and we don't talk about my old fics <3

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I mean? For LOTR I would definitely sprinkle in elvish just for the vibe of it, also because he did so, but I would also provide translations. For real-world...hmm. I think I did throw in three or four German words in The Book Thief fic I posted recently, but again, the author himself did so, and I think so long as you're not adding a full, necessary sentence that the reader is then required to look up in order to understand what's going on, and if you instead just use a curse word or a muttered phrase of annoyance or something in the other language, I think that's fine.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

LOTR, I believe. Hand-written in seventh or eighth grade XD

(And then I wrote dozens of unfinished Loz fics in the notes app on my mom's ancient phone she didn't use anymore, fics that completely misunderstood any of the games because I hadn't played them yet. It pains me to think about those fics).

(also this is not counting those "add on to the end of the story!" assignments teachers used to give out in middle school)

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

oh hot dang lemme see

againnnn we are doing several (look my decision making has been ATROCIOUS lately, I cannot be faulted <3)

you feel like home - SkSw Zelink, a teeny tiny bit of angst but mostly fluff (also Link nearly throws hands with Scrapper which is a bonus. When I tell you I cranked that fic out in a day after getting so salty with Scrapper I nearly snapped my wiimote in half)

would I run off the world someday - a very recent TP Zinc fic!! It has traces of Midlink; essentially, it's about Link refusing to stop grieving Midna, and thus hurting himself and Zelda, who is in love with him due to having shared a soul with Midna. It's basically a 4+1 fic and does end happy with the promise of future Zelink, very different from my normal Zelink stuff though

annnd...

Forbidden - Zinc week fic that didn't get as much attention as my other two ZW fics, but I actually really really love it so. <3 I just. idk I love the prose of that fic, I suppose :) and the ending hehe

I do have a few other favorites but I think it's unfair to include them because they're unfinished lol

tagging: @aheavenscorner @minstrelsmusings @onewingedsparrow (sorry if you've already been tagged oops)

[captain-astors]

If you're still doing the game can I get a 003 with Juuzou?? :D (*Suzuya voice* "Suzuya Juuzou desu")

If there is a single edit of him that does not contain that line I would be terrified of it, the originality would be too profound! Anyways, WELCOME TO THE SHOW. All aboard everyone, it’s Shinigami time. Slowly but surely I will offer my terribly skewed, probably misinterpreted opinions on every single character. Eat up.

How I feel about this character: 

I love the two reapers. We do not speak of the third. In my heart there is no third. Just two. We do not speak of tres. He’s so pale he probably gets sunburnt on the chin after trying to tell ghost stories to his squad and shining the flashlight from bellow in the dark to make it “spooky” for too long, and then it takes the combined forces of Shinohara and Hanbee to hold him still to splatter some aloe vera on it. Those two are so thankful for each other’s help in containing this gremlin I can guarantee it. He’s toned it down slowly over the recent years of being treated like an Actual Human Being and Not a Fighting Machine by the aforementioned duo as well as the rest of his squad at times, but he’s also gotten stronger and if he wants to be free he will be free. You cannot contain him. It’s like trying to put an eel in a box. RUN MY BOY! SPRINT YOU BEAUTIFUL CREATURE! He’s such a vibe and I honestly wish I could maintain the same level of shamelessness at all times but alas, the horrors contain me and the day I am free shall be one to fear for all. He’s so messed up but congratulations to him for trying. Listen to Shinohara when he tells you to go to bed and don’t listen to Hanbee when he says he’s fine after being accidentally stabbed, he’s really not but he doesn’t want to inconvenience you.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:

Tricky question, He definitely does not seem like the kind of person to love romantically often, quickly, or perhaps even at all. I probably headcanon him as arospec BUT if I had to pick one, Suzuhan is near and dear to my heart. I’d say I ship it confidently but the thing is, the nature of their relationship is kind of irrelevant to me as long as they care about each other. They’re such a special duo to me, I wouldn’t say I think about it the most but it is definitely a comfort thing for me and I thrive off of the work of that one Suzuhan artist. (can’t remember their name but if you’ve so much as glanced through the tag I’m sure you’ve seen them.) To reiterate, I wouldn’t say I specifically ship them romantically nor that I specifically ship them platonically. I simply ship them regardless and without preference. They should be together. They should matter to each other. They should live in harmony and watch scary movies so Suzuya can give ridiculous explanations to how he thinks the visual effects works until Hanbee’s laughing too hard to worry about having nightmares. I want them to learn from each other and grow in tandem. Thank you, and goodnight.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: 

I’m a basic soul, of course I'm going to say Shinohara. That’s his dad. There's no question about it. Literally just father and son. They bring me a great deal of happiness, not my all-time favorite duo but they’re definitely one of them and they’re definitely up there

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

He’s not actually that deep. Love him, but he’s not incredibly complicated or nuanced, nor does he need to be! He’s actually one of few characters in Tokyo Ghoul I consider to be at a perfect level of development, not too much attention nor too little, good arc, good development, satisfying conclusion, good dynamics, interesting to watch on his own. 

Also I don’t like that people willingly embrace that just because terrible things happened to this character in his youth that loosened at least a few screws in his brain doesn’t mean that he’s just not worthy of respect but the same cannot be said for Shikorae. Who is also still a person, even if he’s lost more function. They’re both adults who’ve been deeply affected and while obviously the severity of this differs, and if you knew them personally they should be treated differently, neither of them are animals. But people seem a lot more willing to accept that as fact for one over the other. Funny how that’s the pretty one who retains full verbal function. Given, this isn’t helped by the fact that one is given a very normal resolution while the other becomes the “post credits villain” who loses all human characteristics and really is just reduced to a beast by the narrative itself, but that just makes me disappointed in the author as well. This is becoming more “unpopular shikorae opinions” So I suppose to wrap it all up, actually Suzuya centric, 13’s Jason is actually rather clunky and awkward in appearance and function alike. But this could be the artist and weapon designer in me talking about what a nightmare it is to draw and how terrible it would be for even cutting, let alone fighting on a practical level. Even just as a fantasy weapon I don’t like it very much outside of a few choice panels… Hottest take on this blog in my opinion, I am a lukewarm person on public platforms, I’m just theatrical about it at times. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

As I’ve mentioned I have very few qualms with the handling of his character, and I think he’s excellently written! So I don’t have many wishes, perhaps maybe a bit more time with Hanbee but that’s more me wanting more time for the irrelevant side character who frankly, considering he helped take down Kaneki and was, as said by the guy himself, Suzuya’s key to that fight, looked way too cool and was way too strong to be so minor. That Arata armor with the skull mask? Killed. (RIP to Arata himself though, hope he enjoyed being peeled. ) 

Favorite friendship for this character: 

This question feels redundant to me curiously if I already answered what my favorite non-romantic relationship is, why friendship as well? Anyways to digress, Mutsuki, Hanbee or Haise. I feel like they could get sweets together, or go trick-or-treating. I’ve had a sketch of Hanbee and Juuzou dressed up as an astronaut and a pink alien with four arms respectively rotating in my mind for the past day. It might never exist but remind me if you care.

My crossover ship: 

Do I even need to mention these are never romantic anymore. Zazie the beast. They’ve got very similar vibes, or Milly my beloved. They could get along splendidly for very similar reasons to Hanbee, but in more of an older sister role, and she’s more self-assured.

[johannstutt413]

Mmm... what do you think of Swire ship dynamics outside the obvious LGD pairs?

I know you said outside the obvious LGD pairings...but I'm going to need to include them for scale :P. (Also, DYK there are 31 Swire-tagged fics and 23 BP fics? Compared to 48 Gummy, 43 Zima, 36 Rosa, and 31 Istina? Some of those would be doubled up, and some of them aren't about ships at all, but...again, for scale.)

Swire has a lot more story-time than BP; as a crucial background NPC for The Ch'en Arc, she played a role in the main story chapters of Arknights - the story we've basically been telling since the release of the game, in fact, since we spent a solid 4ish chapters in Lungmen doing Lungment shit.

And ya wanna guess how much of that characterization lands in my primary sources, aka the characters' bios provided by the game itself? NOT ENOUGH, DAMNIT.

There are definitely characters who are worse victims of this - Amiya, Ch'en, Kal'tsit - and there are some characters who have basically no characterization (...yet?) outside of their bios, but I can't have the entire story of this game open when I write these, damnit! If I could, and meaningfully process that information, either a) fics would come out even slower than they do now, or b) I'd turn into a creature completely incomprehensible to my current state of being: someone who fully knows the lore of something. (I'm riding on, like, educated headcanons to do this shit, because this shares my space with seven bajillion other interests :/ .) So, what we get is a mix of "what the in-game bios say, as recorded by sites that compile those," "hey this one site summarizes the plots of the individual chapters and events and shit! I can use this as reference material!" and "...alright so what's cute/cool/funny/hot||what is actually reaching my mind right now?"

Which, to bring it back to Swire, is a girl who is very fluffy, very huggable, very omigod-lemme-snuggle-this-Feline-already-why-are-you-bringing-out-the-cuffs-hang-on-let's-talk-about-this. Someone who can be pretty haughty and snobbish but also super caring, that princess who could very easily be a tsundere-type, a deredere-type, a himedere-type, or just someone who does a lot of work and needs someone to make her life easier at home. Versatile, again, but with some pretty clear directions to it.

Speaking of directions:

Talulah: Real talk - I would put Talulah higher if I only had to get Swire onto the Rhodes Island craft; unfortunately, there's also the problem of Chapter 9, which tells me that a) Talulah isn't even on the boat anymore, and b) even if she was, she's not there to get a girl. Redeemed!Talulah, one who's both remorseful and rehabilitate(d/able), is a better ship than Canon!Ch'en, but as things stand...this isn't going to happen either. Does it make a fantastic story, though? Sure does!

Miss Ch'en: Oh, Ch'en, heeeey. Real talk - by the end of Chapter 8, this is not a ship I really see sailing anytime soon, mostly because the Dossoles event showed us where these two are at. Ch'en is officially a full-time Rhodes Island agent now, completely an Operator operating under our auspicious main-character-collecting auspices, and Swire is still a heavily-worked LGD employee alongside Hoshiguma (we'll get back to her). They're just not on the same wavelength and never really have been, but now there's plenty of distance to keep it from happening...

If we ignore these facts, though? It's a rivals-to-lovers ship that's totally sensible and a source of amusement for various RI/LGPD folks. Without those tidbits of information? Sail-worthy. With it though? Sunk.

Non-Lungmenite RI Employees (Doctor included): There's a pretty clear break in canon to get this done (the whole "have to have Swire on the ship" thing), but once you get her on-board, the right situations could put her in contact with all kinds of people who meet the shipper-mandated need for companionship I as the writer feel and impose on the shipped (not apologetic about that, either, just maybe a little guilty). This is a catch-all for, at minimum, all the really cute fics I've written with characters that, without RI, would never interact with her - the Doctor, bears, Ptilopsis, Gavial, Jackie, the list goes on, and will no doubt continue to expand.

Non-Hoshi Lungmenites: Three people, specifically - Shaw, ShiraYuki, and Bison (hey, look, male characters! They're real!) - who come to mind as ships I've written and been quite happy with the thought of. Shaw, ShiraYuki, and Swire could all reasonably know each other as agents of the government (police, fire dept., agent of the mayor's wife - not too distant circles in a game like this), and combined with the looser environment of the Rhodes Island craft where they're spending time together (because for anything that isn't Swire/Hoshi this lil' suspension of disbelief will have to carry us some distance), love could totally blossom. Bison's on this list because he's lived in Lungmen and is also a fairly-wealthy-young-person, but he might be a bit too young? I'm kind of iffy on his actual age - how old do you have to be to intern in Terran Lungmen? No idea, but if he's old enough to be the voice of reason in the situation he's in, he's old enough to be shipped.

Hoshiguma. Look, as far as I'm concerned? This is canon. I shit you not, the way she and Bea interact in the Dossoles event? That's the good shit right there. If it's not canon, after Ch'en sliced a corner out of Hanya and left her at-the-time most promising ship in Hoshi behind with the swag-cat (to differentiate her from the other money-cats in Arknights), it's by far the easiest to connect the dots for...as much as it pains me because that means I have to admit neither of them would match with the Doctor as easily, and I am a major Hoshiguma simp...c'est la vie.

Man I hope these posts aren't "too long" for Tumblr when that update comes around, cuz I don't have these backed up :D. (unlike the fics, which are safe and sound in cloud storage...yeah...totally safe...) So, tl;dr, outside of the LGD ships, you can make quite a bit work just by getting her out to Rhodes Island and setting up circumstances right, but Shaw, ShiraYuki, and Bison have a little home-field advantage, and Hoshi's basically fucking canonical which I love but wish Hoshi was real whenever I think about her so YMMV.

[kbstories]

pink lavender blue

"Kirishima’s heart had pounded once, a solid beat, one he felt to the tips of his fingers. His stomach swooped like he missed a step or five, that flutter of adrenaline following afterwards even though they were just chilling on Kirishima’s bed like they did every Tuesday, sharing space, surrounded by their current homework in the form of worksheets and books.

Oh, Kirishima had thought, it really does feel like falling, because the day he realized he was bisexual was the day he fell in love with Bakugou Katsuki."

(Or: In which realization strikes, Kirishima has some stuff to process and Bakugou loves him a lot.)

Rating: Gen

Ship(s): Kirishima/Bakugou

Tags: Bisexual Kirishima, Asexual Bakugou, Fluff & Hurt/Comfort, Kiri Needs A Hug (and he gets one!), Coming Out, Bakugou Is MVP

One shot / 4880 words

>>Read on: AO3 / Twitter

*

Kirishima Eijirou remembers the exact moment he realized he was bisexual.

He remembers, because it was the same moment he looked over, the last syllable of a throwaway joke on his lips, and saw a genuine laugh dawn on Bakugou’s face like a shot-by-shot montage in a movie. The pinch to Bakugou’s eyebrows, disbelieving, pretending to be annoyed; the corners of his mouth trembling, twitching upwards, then—

A snort. "The fuck, Shitty Hair", Bakugou had said and laughed. "That’s stupid."

It really is, Kirishima should’ve replied. When Bakugou had leaned over to shove at him, rough and affectionate, he should’ve shoved him back, demanded from him to admit it was at least a little funny, laughing too.

Yet Kirishima’s heart had pounded once, a solid beat, one he felt to the tips of his fingers. His stomach swooped like he missed a step or five, that flutter of adrenaline following afterwards even though they were just chilling on Kirishima’s bed like they did every Tuesday, sharing space, surrounded by their current homework in the form of worksheets and books.

Oh, Kirishima had thought, it really does feel like falling, because the day he realized he was bisexual was the day he fell in love with Bakugou Katsuki.

(Kirishima doesn’t remember what he ended up doing that day. It must have been a smooth save on his part; Bakugou didn’t mention anything amiss, and he’s not one to mince his words with stuff like that.)

Suddenly, Kirishima is incredibly aware of everything Bakugou does. Every smirk-heavy one-liner, every rude gesture, every scoff and cackle makes his chest feel warm and tight, makes his pulse race in his veins. Crushes had been a thing for Kirishima in the past but never with guys, and never like this, intense and in-his-face. Kind of like Bakugou himself, actually.

And Kirishima loves his bro — has loved him before he knew he love-loved him, too — but this is a lot. A lot to process, a lot to think and redefine about himself, about instances in his past that make sense now.

So much sense.

Kirishima doesn’t dislike being bi. His moms raised him to accept and love people no matter who they like or how they relate to themselves and their bodies. They taught him to love himself in the same way. It’s not their fault his anxiety tends to get in the way of that — that the confidence he desperately wants to make his own once and for all is like a sandcastle built too close to the shoreline, washed away when the tides are at their highest point.

Like the times his quirk has crumbled in his hands.

Like the night Bakugou sits Kirishima down and tells him, "I think I like you", words steady even if his hands aren't, fidgeting in his lap as his knee bounces with excess energy. "Dunno. I don’t do this kinda shit. I barely do friends, really, but I want this. I wanna be more than that, if it’s you. If… if you want that, too."

That night Kirishima can't say: I think I like you, too.

The words get stuck in his throat, between one nervous heartbeat and the next. Kirishima reaches for Bakugou, grabs one of those fidgeting hands in a clumsy one of his own and squeezes their palms together until he can feel Bakugou’s pulse race just like his.

"Okay", Kirishima says instead, lips pulling into a smile far more bold than he feels on the inside. "Okay, let’s try."

Bakugou blinks, frowns, looks away, flustered. Glances back and smiles, "Yeah, let’s", and that is that.

They don't talk about their relationship that night. Those first few days, 'more than friends' is enough for them. Taking it slow doesn't come naturally to either of them in any other aspect of their life; Kirishima knows he loves Bakugou, knows he likes boys now too, but only one of those things fell into place immediately, and the other needs time to settle, not-quite right on his skin yet.

When he asks Bakugou if they can get used to it in private first, Bakugou shrugs. "Sure. Ain't one for mushy shit in public, anyway."

They don’t talk about it with their friends or their class, either, although it’s safe to say the entire squad is some form of queer, and most of 1-A is, too.

It never comes up much, for one. (Inside jokes about not being able to drive and Move, bitch, I’m gay don’t count, Kirishima rationalizes. It would be weird to add to it himself when only Bakugou is aware he’s not straight.)

Kirishima collects a variety of buttons with pride flags on them on his backpack, one for each of his friends: The lesbian one for Ashido, the pansexual colors for Kaminari and Jirou, rainbow and ace buttons for Bakugou, the agender and trans flags for Sero…

...and the pink-lavender-blue that’s him, now.

If asked, Kirishima would say it’s for Midoriya and his moms. It wouldn't even be a lie — the button was there before Kirishima’s burst of Bakugou-induced self-realization. But no one in 1-A asks. The rainbow of colors brings a wordless smile to his classmates’ faces most days, sometimes an excited comment of "Hey, that’s me!" with a finger tapping the respective button.

It’s fine. Kirishima isn’t sure he could’ve handled the question without just blurting out the full story, and then it would exist outside of his head and that’s—

It’s a lot. To imagine that happening. So it’s good it doesn’t.

Like, how can he just put that out there without knowing anything about his own sexuality? What if the questions do come, and Kirishima can’t provide an immediate answer, or find the right words to describe what he feels? Then it’ll look like he’s pretending to be something he isn’t, and seeing that suspicion bloom in the eyes of his friends and classmates... It has the potential to break him.

In that case, it's far better to say nothing at all until he can do right by himself, by people like him — loud and strong and proud about their identities like his moms are, like his classmates are, like his friends are.

Maybe this being-bi thing is something Kirishima has to grow into, then. To be worthy of flying those colors for his own sake, to openly claim them as his. It’s like his quirk, in that way. Something that’s a part of him, but not fully there yet until he’s gone through the motions a thousand times, put the work in, made it instinctual, second nature.

It’s a challenge — and lacking confidence or not, Kirishima never backs down from a challenge.

Yeah. That must be how it is.

>>Read the rest on: AO3 / Twitter

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episode 13 (Worthy)

Well, wow. That sure was an episode that happened.

Thoughts under the cut.

Anyone who leaves spoilers for episode 14 on this will get blocked.

- First of all, I want to now talk about the spoiler I saw for this episode last week, to put the anger from my last post into context: After I had just finished watching episodes 8-12 and started writing my post about them, I went into one of the RWBY tags bc I’m dumb and saw a post that said (I don’t remember the exact words, but more or less): “I’m so glad Yang is finally dead, so now her fans can shut up about her and everyone can ship Blacksun instead.”

… Yeah. Imagine seeing that when you haven’t seen the actual episode and have no idea what really happened. I honestly completely panicked for a few minutes, before remembering I don’t actually know anything and this might just be a “Weiss gets impaled in Volume 5, but one episode later it turns out she’ll be fine” situation. So then I had to look up what actually happened to Yang, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. So, to the person who made that post: Fuck you. Not only did you freak people out for no reason (because come on, there’s no way falling into the void actually kills you – and even if it does, we at least definitely don’t know that for sure after episode 13), but even if Yang had actually died, it’s super shitty that your first reaction to a beloved queer character’s death would be “yay, now people can ship my m/f ship instead”. Like, I don’t care if you personally dislike Yang/ dislike Bumbleby/ prefer Blacksun – show a little bit of decency.

Phew. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest because it really made me angry. Now let’s get into the actual episode:

- “Worthy” as a title pretty much already made me predict that Cinder would succeed in her plan, since “you have to be worthy” was what Watts told her in his speech. She’s gotten the message and is now back to efficient plans – and while I love to see it, it also very much scares me when it comes to our heroes’ survival chances. The last time Cinder was doing well, we lost Pyrrha, so… help.

- And gosh, this whole episode was so intense! I feel like it mostly set up a bunch of very intense situations that are going to escalate in the last episode that I’m very much not ready for.

- I still think the whole central location between the worlds is really beautiful, if dangerous. (They should have specified to Ambrosius that they want handrails or something.)

- Nora using her hammer like a witch’s broom was amazing.

- I also loved the scene with Jaune and the people at the train station; that was really funny.

- The middle of the desert might not have been the best place for the exit. Didn’t the group consider that there might be a sandstorm or something else unpredictable out there? Couldn’t they have picked a better exit point?

- Cinder causing an explosion in the middle of the evacuation that throws multiple people into the void was bad and all – but it was still one hell of an entrance!

- I love that now that Cinder realized that she has to rely on teamwork, she’s suddenly being so nice to everyone. Apologizing to Neo, complimenting Watts on “tearing the kingdom apart with nothing but his intellect”, that soft “You deserve this, Arthur”, complimenting Team RWBY on their plan, thanking them for teaching her “one last lesson”. Yeah, maybe she’s just talking to Neo and Watts like this because she needs their help, and to Team RWBY because she’s confident she’ll win – but it’s still amazing to see the shift in her attitude and how she’s clearly changed her tactic.

- It’s insane to me that some people correctly predicted that Cinder would ask Jinn the last question based JUST on the fact that there’s a part in the opening where everyone else freezes in time while she walks past them. Holy hell! I love trying to guess stuff based on the intro, but I would have never thought that far.

- Cinder’s question to Jinn seems like a waste considering it was Jinn’s last question, but maybe it just seems that way to us as viewers because Jinn didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know. Was it the right thing for Cinder to do? I don’t know, to be honest. Yes, it did give her the chance to ruin the heroes’ plans, but I have a feeling Salem won’t be happy about the question being gone. Pretty sure Salem was going to ask Jinn how to get the Beacon relic, and now she can’t do that. (Cinder ruining Salem’s plans for the beacon relic? Let that be foreshadowing, please.) I mean, maybe it’s worth it from Salem’s POV if it gets them the staff and then she’ll have 2 of the 4 relics – but they could have still gotten the staff later, while I don’t know if Salem has any plan B for the beacon relic. And I’m a little worried about Cinder now. I always thought that Salem wouldn’t kill Cinder no matter what, because she still needs the Fall Maiden for the beacon relic – but if she now has to wait another 100 years for the beacon relic anyway, I’m not sure if she’ll have a reason to keep Cinder alive. (And I’m still worried about that “Some lives will end much too soon” line playing over that scene of Cinder clutching her Grimm arm in the opening.) I also wonder if Cinder even knew that this was Jinn’s last question. Did Jinn even tell her that? Also, when will the 100 years even be up? Do the questions just reset every 100 years regardless of when they were used? So maybe we’re already at year 80 or something and will only have to wait 20 years?

- The cut from everyone at the central command place screaming to them being dead was kinda funny in a “very dark humour” way.

- When Harriet first jumped onto that ship with the bomb, I, like an idiot, thought that she was finally being sensible and trying to get the bomb as far away from Atlas and Mantle as possible, not that she was trying to still drop it on Mantle. She and Ironwood might as well be working for Salem’s team at this point, because they’re doing everything to help the villains’ plan. And the villains are even counting on it! Watts freed Ironwood from his cell and is piloting Harriet’s ship. Those two are just straight up helping Salem’s team in their attempts to… what was it? Save Atlas?

- Ironwood killing Jacques was awful and proves once again that Ironwood has zero morals left. And I didn’t like Jacques, but that was the kind of death that absolutely no one deserves. He had no way to escape or fight back, he was defenseless, locked up in a prison cell with nowhere to run – that’s not just a murder, that’s an execution without a trial. And Jacques wasn’t even a threat, he wasn’t in the way of any of Ironwood’s plans. Ironwood killed him literally just because he could. And no one who thinks they’re the good guy (and Ironwood still thinks he’s the good guy) should go around just killing people who aren’t even a threat.

- And then we have Yang falling into the void. Honestly, as heartbreaking as Blake’s sobs and anger are, I kind of love this from a “supreme angst, let’s see my faves suffer” perspective. That said, Yang better actually be fine or else.

- Actually, my prediction is that the rest of team RWBY will jump into the void to save Yang in the last episode. Because they’re all falling in the opening, and because “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall and fight for every life”. That’s pretty much the only prediction I feel somewhat confident about, for the rest I have no idea.

- I wonder if it would have been better if Penny had just gone through the doorway and gotten the staff to Vacuo. I get why she didn’t, because Yang just fell and her other friends were in danger… but at the same time, she was supposed to protect the population and the staff (and she has the maiden powers that I’m sure Cinder still wants). If she had just gotten out of there, at least the group in Vacuo would have had some help against the sandstorm and the Grimm. But then again, it would have also severely weakened Term RWBY’s chances against Cinder and Neo… it’s a tough call, really.

- “Why didn’t you just learn your lesson?” “Oh, Penny… I did.” Okay, but that’s the thing: She really did! Just not the lesson Penny wanted her to learn. And notice how Cinder called Penny by her first name again? She didn’t use to do that. I still think somewhere down the line Penny has earned her respect.

- I wonder if Penny’s technically weaker now because she’s human (?? is she??). She’s definitely not used to fighting without her robotic parts (as you can see when she tries to reach for her swords and realizes they’re not there anymore). I summoning those swords like she then did her semblance or another maiden power?

- Blake now has to choose between helping Ruby and helping Penny and Weiss – gosh, the suspense…

- I’m glad Vine at least finally tried to stop Harriet now! (Better late than never.) But I really wouldn’t blame Qrow and Robyn for crashing into their ship. It’s not like they had any way of knowing that Vine was trying to talk sense into Harriet. Also, Qrow crashing through Harriet’s windscreen was amazing.

- Winter and Ironwood are going to fight to the death and I’m so scared of it. (I just need Winter to survive, please…)

- When Weiss described the doorway as a “one-way ticket to Vacuo” last episode, I briefly wondered if that meant they wouldn’t be let back through, but then I brushed it aside and didn’t think about it too much anymore. Oh, damn. You really do have to be very specific with Ambrosius.

- I’m not even sure which location is the best to be in right now because they all seem very unsafe: Atlas and Mantle are unsafe because Atlas is falling, because Mantle might still get blown up by Harriet, and because Salem might still come back any time. The place between worlds is unsafe because of the void and because there’s a big fight happening right there. And Vacuo is unsafe because of the Grimm and the sandstorm. So really, they’re all awful for the civilians right now.

- And now I’m thinking the volume might actually end with the protagonists split into three groups as well: Team RWBY in the void (that they’ll spend Volume 9 finding their way back from), one half of the other characters in Vacuo (Oscar, Ren, Emerald, maybe more?), and the other half still in Atlas/Mantle (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter, maybe more).

- I’m super nervous about the last episode. I haven’t seen any spoilers at all so far, and I plan to keep it that way. I’ll probably completely ignore anything RWBY-related until next week because the anxiety would kill me otherwise. I’m really worried we’ll get a character death or even several. And ironically, my first prediction on who might die this Volume (Penny, Nora, Winter, Cinder) hasn’t changed all that much. I’m worried about Penny because she has the Maiden Powers and the staff, so Cinder will come after her (but I really think it would be an awful writing choice to kill her off after we just went through so much to save her). I’m very worried about Winter because she’s engaged in a duel to the death with a man who has a big canon that he just blew someone up with. I’m worried for Cinder because of the opening and because Salem might be pissed at her for using the last question. I’m worried for everyone who’s still on Atlas and might get blown up by the bomb (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter again). And I’m very worried for the characters who are in the in-between realm. Not so much Team RWBY, but I’m worried about Nora, Jaune, and Penny. So yeah, I’m pretty much worried about everyone and very much not ready. Now let me ignore RWBY’s existence for a week – or only reblog posts I already have saved as drafts – because it’s the only way I’ll know peace.

[mcfiddlestan]

Fic Writer Questions

I'm bored and this was in a note on my phone from forever ago, so I must have been tagged at some point. Apologies to whoever tagged me. 🥴

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

52. Though, I used to have a few more. I deleted a few fics some years ago bc I hated that they were just sitting there unfinished. I was going through a particularly brutal bout of writer's block that affected both my fic writing and my RP writing.

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

720,782. And I was stressing about a 30-page thesis. 😂 (which ended up being over 15,000 words)

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

I started writing fic in 2000 with *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, and Backstreet Boys fics. I stopped writing a bit around 2004-2007 (because of a stupid boy) and picked it up again in 2012 after reading some awesome Cherik fics and wanting to write my own FrostIron College AU when I read one that was good, but kind of disturbing. I think I write for one fandom -- Marvel -- but, like different factions of it. FrostIron and WinterFrost mostly, with a dash of Stucky, ThunderFrost, DashingFrost, and WinterIron.

4) What are your Top 5 fics by kudos?

Black Light Special (WinterFrost) - 628 kudos

Can I Bum A Ride? (WinterFrost) - 425 kudos

Empire State of Mind (FrostIrom) - 420 kudos

Dark Side (FrostIron) - 398 kudos

A Worthy Collection (FrostIron) - 309 kudos

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really do make an effort to respond to every single comment, even the not-so-nice ones. I want people to know I've seen and read the comment they took the time to post, so even if I just thank them for reading and commenting, I respond.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Considering it features two -- count 'em, two! -- major character deaths, it's definitely Empire State of Mind. Though, I'd argue Dark Side is a pretty close second.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Probably Ghosts That We Knew. It was the final fic in the trilogy that is the Picture Perfect Series. It follows Loki and Tony from when they meet in college and ends 30+ years later.

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

No, not really. And I rarely, if ever, read them. There's no real reason behind it other than I've just never come upon one and thought "ooh I need to read that."

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. I got a lot of hateful messages after I completed Empire State of Mind. People were really angry at me for killing off two major characters. I mean, a lot of the messages were "omg I hate you but I loved this!" kind of vibe. But there were a few that cussed me out and called me names for writing it.

I had some chapters of a Fools Rush In FrostIron AU posted a while ago, in which Loki was a female, the only daughter in both the Odinson and Laufeyson families. Following the storyline of the Matthew Perry/Salma Hayek movie, Loki meets Tony Stark in a bar and gets pregnant from a one night stand. Anyway, I got a lot of messages telling me that Odin's misogyny and mistreatment of Loki was unrealistic -- even though I had literally modeled his behavior after the movie that inspired it. 🤷🏽

I have some prompts done for the 100 Ways to Say ILY writer's block challenge and for one of them, I borrowed the storyline from an episode of Will & Grace when Will's father dies of a heart attack after they have a bad argument where his father basically admits he wished Will wasn't gay so he could have had an easier life. In the epsiode, the fight starts because Will's parents gift his baby blanket to Grace, who is pregnant with her ex-husband's child. Will takes offense, they don't understand why bc he never mentioned wanting children, and a fight ensues. Similarly, in my fic, Frigga and Odin offer a pregnant Natasha (his BFF) Loki's blanket. Some readers did not like this and did not understand why I would write it. In another prompt, one that was literally how my last relationship ended, got some harsh critiques. Those ones hurt especially bc it was such a personal experience I wrote about.

And I actually got into a fight -- like a screaming match -- IRL with my best friend's boyfriend at the time. One of my bestie's friends asked about my fanfiction and I gave them the gist of one of my stories where Loki has a brief relationship with Sif that results in a child and later reconnects with Tony. Later on, Sif offers to be a surrogate for Tony and Loki and eventually births three more children for them. Bestie's boyfriend could not fathom why a woman would purposely get herself impregnated and then give the child away. I tried to explain that this was a thing that a lot of women did IRL -- and some don't even use their own eggs, but the eggs of a woman who cannot conceive; Sif used her own eggs so that all four children were half related (two by Loki, two by Tony). But he just did not believe me and told me I must not be a very good writer. Worst night of my life.

10) Do you write smut?

I was just telling @teadrinkingwolfgirl the other night how when I first started writing fic I did not write sex scenes. It was always inferred or glossed over. When I started writing again in 2012, for FrostIron, it was my first time writing more detailed sex. I cite Jackie Collins as my smut-writing mentor. I've written almost exclusively M/M smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Which is like the best thing ever! A couple of my older fics have been translated to Russian. I have one *NSYNC fic that was made into an audio fic. And someone recently messaged me on ff*net to ask to translate as many of my fics as they can to Spanish. :D

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

No, not technically. I've gotten a lot of prompts and ideas from friends and mutuals, and I started reformatting my WinterFrost RP with my ex from 2014-2015 into novel form a while ago. That's tecnically the only thing I've written with someone else and published.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

I have two that will always, ALWAYS, have my heart and attention. FrostIron (Tony Stark/Loki) and WinterFrost (Bucky Barnes/Loki). They are the two ships that I write the most, read the most, and seek out fanart for the most.

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

Probably The Flame. It's a fic that starts out ThunderFrost (not related; Asgardian Prince Thor semi-rescues an imprisoned Jotun Prince Loki) but eventually ends up FrostIron. It's the only fic I've ever written that features Loki with both male and female biology. I have a few chapters done but I haven't worked on it in years.

16) What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I write realistic relationships. And I think my dialogue is also realistic and easy to grasp. And I put a lot of humor in between all the angst and hurt.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I get too detailed with background. I just reread my Picture Perfect series (which I do like once a year), and there are literal paragraphs of background that in Google Docs is like pages and pages. But I want to make sure people understand my characters! LOL

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

I'm a big fan of it. I featured a lot of Norwegian in the Picture Perfect series. And French. I think as long as it flows with the storytelling and it's not forced on the characters it can be really cool. It should be natural. I always leave a translation list at the end of the chapter or explain in-text what was said. Which I think most authors I've read do.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Backstreet Boys. LOL. Don't judge. I started writing my own fics after discovering BSB fanfiction written by an author named Mistress Lynz. She wrote a lot of fics about bloodletting, but I really enjoyed the fics where the guys were hooking up with each other behind the scenes, LOL explains why I write mostly M/M now. 😂

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

They're kind of like my babies so at different times different ones are my faves. But if I really had to pick one, I would say Stay With Me is my favorite. I got some of the most amazing comments on this story from people that found meaning and themes in the story that I didn't even realize I'd put in there. It was one of my first WinterFrost fics I'd posted and the response was more than I could have asked for.

And now I have to tag people! @teadrinkingwolfgirl @incredifishface @incubigirl @rabentochter @marvelswinterfrost and whoever else feels up to it.

xoxo

[carewyncromwell]

Hi guys! I thought I’d start this HPHM AU Ships Challenge, just for funsies! Feel free to steal and pass it along, if thou dost wish!

Tagging @dat-silvers-girl, @annabelle-tanaka-official, @angellazull, @lifeofkaze, @samshogwarts, @drinkyoursoupbitch, @kc-needs-coffee, @cursed-ice-spirits​, @thatravenpuffwitch​, @cursebreaker-lilith​, @cursebreakerfarrier​, and @cursebreakerelmswood​! 💖💛💙💚

What HPHM characters (or MCs) could you see your MC dating, in an AU? What would their relationship be like? Why did you ultimately decide not to go with that ship, or do you still hold a torch for it?

My answers for my girl Carewyn are under the cut!!

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist starting with a recycled doodle of my canon ship, the HMS Carion. 🥰)

Andre Egwu

Alright, right off the bat, we should discuss Carewyn’s canon ex, Andre. Carewyn and Andre attended the Celestial Ball and dated until their fifth year, breaking up right after the All-Wizard tournament. Fortunately despite their break-up, they’ve stayed on good terms and still greatly respect each other -- but truthfully, I never intended for them to be a long-term match in any universe. If you’d like to read more about why Carewyn/Andre didn’t work out, you can consult this analysis, but to put it very simply, Andre was someone Carewyn admired deeply, but couldn’t ever be completely herself around. And from a personal perspective, my parents are one of those rare couples who remained friends even after divorcing, and I’ve always found their relationship really fascinating, as no one can deny they do still sincerely love and admire each other, even if it’s no longer romantically. Carewyn and Andre know each other in a way no one else does, so it gives their friendship a depth that it didn’t have before -- so unlike with a lot of relationships, their bond actually strengthened after they broke up, rather than falling apart. 

Bill Weasley 

In Carewyn’s canon, Bill ends up becoming Carewyn’s best friend. Although at the start, their relationship had much more of a surrogate big brother/little sister dynamic, over time the two ended up on much more equal terms, both as Cursebreaker partners and as unofficial “parents” for the rest of their friend group. Bill is Carewyn’s right-hand man both while dealing with the Cursed Vaults and while leading the Circle of Khanna, and even though Carewyn wants nothing to do with Cursebreaking after dealing with the Vaults, she’ll still drop everything to help Bill with his work, should he need her. Bill is the one who came up with the nickname “Carey” for Carewyn, and he’s also arguably the friend who understands Carewyn best after the death of Rowan, given the similarities in their personalities and how long they’ve known each other. I actually did write out a post guessing what a romantic relationship between these two might’ve been like if they’d become a thing, but honestly, I’ve never really shipped these two. Carewyn may not be entirely based on me (she’s got elements of my mum too), but one aspect of the wish fulfilment for me early on was that my girl could have a ride-or-die best friend like Ron was for Harry in the original Potter books. In the end, that friend ended up being Bill, Ron’s eldest brother and a character I loved when I first read the books and only became fonder of through the game. And honestly, we could really use more sincerely loving, but completely platonic male-female friendships that never bump up against romance!!

Talbott Winger

Talbott and Carewyn are truly “birds of a feather,” though one would never know it based on their respective masks. Talbott is the sort to put a gruff facade on to hide his more sensitive feelings, while Carewyn is the sort to put on a pretty face to hide her angrier and sadder feelings. Underneath, though, they both are stubborn, intelligent, and distrustful people with a strong desire to fight evil and a creative spirit. After becoming an Animagus, Carewyn would frequently fly around the school grounds with Talbott in robin form, singing songs for both herself and Talbott, and even though Talbott teased her about it, he did sincerely enjoy it. Carewyn loves reading Talbott’s poetry, and Talbott is also one of the few people who can get Carewyn to laugh a lot, since their senses of humor line up really well. Last but not least, they become a lawyer and an Auror post-Hogwarts, so they end up working together A LOT, especially post-War. I did write a prompt once about what a Talbott/Carewyn romance would be like, and I admit, I could see them being a relatively good couple, particularly since I headcanon both of them as being on the ace spectrum. That being said, though, I ultimately didn’t go with Talbott for Carewyn for two reasons. One, I thought they’d be too similar in a lot of ways (most notably, they’re way too friggin’ serious -- give each of these two some sunshine, will you??) -- and two, on a much more superficial note, Talbott was so popular that I kind of hesitated before having Carewyn ask him out. (Plus come on, for that date, how much of a b*tch would you have to be to break Andre’s heart and then snatch up an outfit he made for you to wear on a date with his dormmate?! Just -- COME ON.)

Chiara Lobosca

When I first started playing HPHM, I strongly considered shipping my girl with Chiara, once she broke up with Andre. From the moment Chiara and Carewyn met, Carewyn just knew she had to know Chiara better, and that ended up being because -- thanks to her latent Legilimency potential -- she could subconsciously sense that Chiara and she were similar in a lot of ways. Most importantly, Chiara was very lonely and desperately longed for a friend, which reminded Carewyn of how lonely her pre-Hogwarts life was, especially after Jacob disappeared. Once Carewyn earned Chiara’s trust, Carewyn proved herself to be a very loyal friend, even learning how to become a robin Animagus so she could keep Chiara company and cheer her up with twittered songs during full moons. Both Carewyn and Chiara are sensitive “Healer” type personalities (though Chiara is a bit more literal of one) who fight against their own crippling self-loathing to try to nurture others. This, in the end, though, is why I hesitated on making them official and why I’m ultimately glad I didn’t. Like Talbott, Chiara in some ways is too similar to Carewyn, and I think in a romantic relationship, they wouldn’t grow as much as people through their interactions. I did come up with quite a few ideas about what their relationship might be like -- but ultimately I couldn’t help but feel that Carewyn’s happy ending couldn’t just be about peace, but about finding someone who could challenge and contrast her.

Diego Caplan

This  started off as a crack ship for me before actually gaining some legs and becoming Chiara/Carewyn’s main opponent, when it came to my debate with myself regarding Carewyn’s romantic future. In contrast to Chiara, Diego is pretty much Carewyn’s complete opposite. Carewyn is a planner. Diego is spontaneous. Carewyn is meticulous. Diego is flirtatious. Carewyn is serious. Diego is anything but. Carewyn is ace. Diego I headcanon as pan. And yet they both have their romantic and creative sides and are both seasoned fighters and loyal friends. Diego would definitely be able to bring some levity to Carewyn’s life, while Carewyn could bring some grounding to Diego’s. Diego even has a cute little nickname for Carewyn from their time in the Circle of Khanna: “general!” In short, these two would be perfect leads in a rom-com chick flick. But this, ultimately, ended up being why I hesitated on making them official and why I’m ultimately glad I didn’t. Diego/Carewyn is a ship that could really only bloom and blossom under fair conditions, and I had trouble seeing Diego being equipped to deal with Carewyn’s darker emotions or even her more intellectual bent. Just like with Chiara, I came up with plenty of ideas about how these two could be as a couple -- but I really felt as though Carewyn needed more than just “fun” as a happy ending. And ultimately, this conflict between peace VS fun ended up coming to an end when I discovered Carewyn/Orion, as Orion could provide Carewyn with both.

Jae Kim

Okay, honestly? When I first encountered Jae as a character, I didn’t think he and Carewyn would have anything in common, but in a weird way, they sort of subvert their respective house’s stereotype by exhibiting values from the other’s house! Gryffindors are seen as these rash, reckless, show-off hero types, but Jae showcases a lot of Slytherin-worthy cleverness, resourcefulness, and disregard for rules and what others think of him. Slytherins are seen as these cold, cruel, ambitious villain types, but Carewyn showcases a lot of Gryffindor-worthy courage, nobility, and selflessness. And so even though Jae is generally a rulebreaker and Carewyn is generally a rule-follower, when circumstances made it ideal for them to be on good business terms (namely, working in detention together and Carewyn needing an ally who knows Knockturn Alley and Jae needed an ally who was a Prefect), they soon found a lot of common ground. Add to that how much Carewyn encourages Jae’s cooking talent while respecting his privacy, and it’s little wonder that post-Hogwarts, when Jae opens up his own pub on the border of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, the two still meet up very frequently to swap news from their respective corners of the world. I admittedly don’t know how well Carewyn’s job as a magical lawyer would be conducive to her being anything other than friends with Jae, and I don’t think they’d ultimately have many interests in common, so I do much prefer them as friends, but their dynamic is full of fun contrasts! 

Ben Copper

Hahaha, oh god. So. Obviously Ben in-game is still very polarizing, but in my canon, Ben and Carewyn’s relationship is really complex and honestly one of my absolute favorite friendships for my girl. Ben was one of Carewyn’s very first friends, so he -- like Rowan, Bill, and Penny -- knows Carewyn in a way few others do. He befriended her before she became known as the poised, perfect Slytherin “Mama Bear,” but unlike her other friends, he was a bit disappointed by her abrupt transformation between her third and fourth years. While those like Bill, Penny, and Andre saw it as Carewyn coming into her own, Ben noticed how much Carewyn put herself “over” the rest of her friends, becoming their protector more than their equal, and Ben lamented it, disliking how he felt like a responsibility to Carewyn more than her friend. But Ben kept those feelings inside, not knowing how to properly express them when he did still cherish Carewyn’s friendship. After the events in the Portrait Vault, Ben went through his own dramatic change, and Carewyn sure enough didn’t end up liking it any better than Ben had liked hers. But ultimately the two had a heart-to-heart and realized that they both had become very different people than the kids who’d befriended each other in first year. After Rowan’s death and the formation of the Circle of Khanna, the two reforged their friendship on more equal terms. I did actually write out an AU roleplay where Ben and Carewyn’s confrontation in Jacob’s room ended up hinting Ben/Carewyn, but I ultimately think that the people they ultimately become are way too different to be a great romantic match. It makes their friendship fascinating, as it makes you wonder how such a tall, suspicious, reckless Gryffindor ever befriended such a poised, methodical, lady-like Slytherin...but even if they do feel a lot of deep platonic love for each other and I personally headcanon Ben being on the ace spectrum like Carewyn, I ultimately think they’d have very different dreams in mind for their future and would each need something different in a romantic partner. 

Barnaby Lee

Barnababy!! 💚 Yeah, Barnaby Lee is my personal favorite HPHM character, and yet I have never really shipped him seriously with Carewyn, even though I love their relationship and could see potential chemistry. Barnaby and Carewyn are both amazingly sensitive, loyal, and modest Slytherins with a love of magical creatures and a strong sense of honor, but they also contrast each other in some fun ways too. Carewyn may put on a happy face a lot, but she’s actually rather pessimistic. Barnaby’s unblinkingly optimistic and he wouldn’t even dream of putting on a mask to hide his feelings. Then of course there’s the fact that Carey-Bear is this tiny and rather physically weak thing, while Barnaby is a perfectly dashing tank. 😂 Barnaby and Carewyn are both protective of each other, as seen by Barnaby throwing himself in front of Carewyn to shield her from an Imperiused Rowan’s spell and Carewyn verbally tearing into Ismelda when she learned she planned to use a Love Potion on him. Barnaby was the one who really taught Carewyn about how deceiving appearances can be, and Carewyn was the one who really taught Barnaby about how generous and selfless friendship could be, so they both respect each other a lot. For all that respect, though, there’s a significant slant to their relationship. Carewyn supports Barnaby emotionally infinitely more than she would ever let him support her, so their dynamic comes across as very “mother/son”-like rather than complete equals. Plus, honestly, I think Barnaby and Carewyn’s dreams for their respective futures -- namely, to be a magizoologist traveling the world and to be a magical lawyer for the Ministry of Magic -- don’t match up in the least bit. I could also see Barnaby wanting a large family, and Carewyn has no interest in bearing children herself and would prefer a quieter home life. 

[albatrossisland]

AO3 tag game

Tagged by @luthienebonyx, thank you!!!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

17. Such a great number (it’s my birthday)

2. What’s your current AO3 wordcount?

189,412. Not too bad for two years of writing

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

Just two, GOT and a Peggy/Steve Marvel ficlet. I’ve dabbled in Sherlock fics, but those are not for publication. 

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Knock Three Times - My exchange fic from last year, where Jaime opens his apartment door to find a naked and wet Brienne standing in front of him, asking to use his phone.

Saving Jaime Lannister - While on a hike in an old forest, Brienne hears a voice in her head, imploring her to find Jaime Lannister. Find him and save him. And she does. And it’s only the beginning.

The Love I’ll Never Recover From - Jaime is inspecting a newly acquired hotel for his father, when he sees a ghost, a ghost with a tragic backstory that she chooses to share with him.

Worthy - A canon divergence where Brienne goes back in time to stop Jaime’s maiming so he can fulfill a prophecy to defeat the Night King. Fun fact, this is the only canon fic I’ve written.

The Stoneheart Protocol - Brienne and Jaime are (space!) bounty hunters, but he’s disappeared. As the Stoneheart Protocol (shoot him on sight, basically) is authorized for him, Brienne goes on a desperate hunt to find him first.

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

Yes! It’s hard to leave comments (not all the time, but a lot of times I want to leave a well written comment and my brain short circuits from joy, so I just leave an emoji instead), and if someone can get past that, they deserve a response. I usually don’t reply right away, but I will eventually.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Now, the obvious answer is J+B, because it’s Romeo and Juliet adaptation, and I felt like I had to keep the original ending (like a fool). But in Valyria, I dialed up the angst to the highest possible level, and it’s a happy ending, it’s bittersweet. The good guys win and all that, but it comes at high cost. So I’m gonna put that in for the dark horse winner.

7. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I haven’t, but it would be an interesting exercise. Maybe someday.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, and I hope it stays that way.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve dabbled in smut, but it’s never going to be a regular feature in my fics because I’m just not super comfortable doing it. 

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, thankfully.

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

No. Would be an interesting exercise, because writing is so solitary for me, so I’d be open to it.

12. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Stands to reason that it’s JB, because no other ships have inspired me to actually read/write fic to this degree. But here are some others from my life of shipping:

Jeff/Hillary - Remember Wenn

Adama/Roslin - BSG

Michael/Jan - The Office

Ned/Chuck - Pushing Daisies

Shepard/Garrus - Mass Effect

Jackson/April - Grey’s Anatomy

Kevin/Nora - The Leftovers

Sam/Jack - Stargate SG1

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Some 20+ years ago, I wrote two fics for Remember WENN, a 90s AMC show about a radio station in Pittsburgh in the late 30s/early 40s, but they’ve been lost to internet history.

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

This is a tough one, but I narrowed it down to two, and I can’t decide from here, so here are my top two favorites:

Saving Jaime Lannister

Valyria

Tagging: @shipping-receiving, @pretty--thief, @nire-the-mithridatist, @aviss, @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined, @fine-with-my-spite

[apexapricity]

what do you think of your muse’s popular fandom ship? - G.///enpact SPILL THE TEA VEGA

I'm trying to think who Lumine is most shipped with. Childe? I guess? I love the ship just because they bounce off one another very well in that they're polar opposites in terms of methodology, but are a lot alike in the fact they both LOVE a good fight. I know that's probably a lot of my headcanon coming out and the TLDR is that they're an adventurer at heart which is why they put up with all the bullshit they do. They never back down from a fight they need to fight and secretly LOVE the adrenaline they get from it and that high of beating a worthy opponent. I know Lumine is kinda OVER all of it but, i think that helps her get through everything.

Zhonglumi is probably another popular one which I like and can see given they're both immortal beings and tired as fuck. For different reasons, of course, but there aren't a lot of immortal beings in Teyvat to bond with. Then there's XiaoLumi which I can also see with a lot of time and trust building between them. I think those are the biggest for her?? OH AND DAINLUMI. Which I adore. Hello I love Dainsleif and I love the fact he's like...One of the most honest people with her as far as we know. Whereas the other Archons are keeping shit a secret and not saying JACK TO HER. but yeah. IS THERE ANY BIG SHIPS INVOLVING LUMI AND OTHER WOMEN? I haven't see any if so which is big sad for me.

For Jean most people really on ship her with Lisa or Diluc which I'm down and fine with. They're both fairly reasonable since they're both the "childhood friend" trope and let's be honest. Jean doesn't get out much or do anything other than work. So if she's romancing anyone it'll probably be someone within her close vicinity which limits it down to the Knights of Favonious members, the Traveler, or people she'd interact with via rp.

Rest under cut bc its long rambles.

EULAAAAAAAAA

I don't have any icons for her yet because I'm lazy buut. Most I've seen shipped with her are either Amber, Yanfei, or Jean. I'm not really a huge fan of any of these since I almost feels like it would cheapen the friendship she's built with them? MAYBE I'm wrong but Eula is an outcast. She's been one most of her life and has been treated horribly. She gets why, she does, and she fights tooth and nail to right the wrongs her family did. She doesn't trust easily. She doesn't let people into her security blanket easily either. I feel like her own personal fears and inexperience with relationships in general would make her hard to ship with. Both since it would take a lot of time to like...Get her to that level of comfort and get here to understand you were trying to romance her. All she knows about it are probably old ass courting rules from when nobility actually mattered in Mondstadt and it hasn't in quite sometime. SOoOo yeah. I think Yanfei is the ship I can see most with her out of the 'popular' ones. I think the distance would probably kill that though as Eula has no intentions of ever leaving Mondstadt entirely even if that would make her life a lot easier.

Rosariaaaa

SO. Full disclosure not only do I not have icons for Rosaria yet but I have no idea who the fandom ships with her. Cue me going on an adventure in the tags trying to find out. So the only ones I could find quickly were here and barbara which...is wrong on so many levels since I think Barbara is canonically too young???? The other being with Eula. Her and Eula I can see since they're in similar circumstances and both really independent with how they operate. AkA they go off on missions to survey Mondstadt and other spy shit so they'd need partners who are okay with that and trust them. That being said isn't Rosaria kinda hinted at with having a thing towards Albedo? Or did I misread that?