#we still have 100 fics that need to be written and the challenge is basically dead in the water rn.

[syn4k]

*that one unemployed friend at 7:55 PM on a Tuesday evening voice* what if i planned another hermitgang on ao3 event and we actually finished the project this time

[avelera]

Sandman Meta: Hob has exactly zero way of figuring out who Dream is (before they reunite)

More than once in a fic I've written from Hob's POV I've had readers note their astonishment that Hob has not yet figured out Dream's identity, even if Dream does not reveal it himself.

Even in fics of mine where Dream reveals his name, like in Giving Sanctuary, I have Hob be slow on the uptake when it comes to the extent of Dream's powers, even things like being able to enter and control dreams, and the reason I do this is carefully considered and based in the fact that Hob would have no way of knowing who Dream is or by extension what he can do.

So I kind of want to take a step back and address in detail just how actually impossible it would be, objectively, for Hob to figure out who Dream is in a world that doesn't have The Sandman comic for him to read to figure it out.

This is, of course, because, from a Doylist angle, Neil's "Dream of the Endless" is not based in any single mythology. Indeed, Dream as we know him is cobbled together from at least three or more different mythological figures, none of which combine to actually form the "Dream of the Endless" we see in the show or read in the comics. The Endless are completely made up for the comic and the Sandman, Morpheus, and Oneiros are all from wildly different mythologies and none of them actually overlap to form the complete picture of who Dream is as an entity in the Sandman show or comic.

So even if someone straight-up told Hob that the person he meets is the Sandman, Morpheus, or Oneiros (btw, there is no singular figure of "Oneiros" in Greek mythology) he would still not be able to put together the full picture of who Dream is. Even if he's given the name "Dream of the Endless" to work with, those words combined don't mean anything on their own if you don't have what an Endless is filled in, because it was made up entirely for the comic. (Of course, a fanfic author absolutely could make up such a book for their fic but it would be a creation for that fic, serving a purpose within that story like to tip Hob off, though I think it's entirely reasonable to make up a book in the Sandman world that goes into detail on who the Endless are. The Magdalene Grimoire, btw, is not that book. It only talks about Death. Death is a figure in many mythologies including the Christian one, but Dream is not. Even Burgess needs the Corinthian to tell him who Dream is in the show, and he's an occultist.)

Couple all of this with Hob's personal experience with Dream, encountering him as part of a wager with Dream's sister Death to see if Hob could bear a life of immortality, you get far more clues that would send him hurtling off into a totally incorrect direction before you'd get anything close to the truth, if we assume only the books available in our world are available to him.

So the reason this is a bit of an irritation for me that there's this idea that Hob has "all the clues" to figure out who Dream is because it smacks of a logical fallacy.

Basically, it's easy to see that the answer to a complicated math problem is "obvious" if someone just hands the answer to you. But challenging people to actually solve it themselves could be quite a bit more complicated. And in this complex formula solving for "Who the fuck is Hob's mysterious stranger?" there's actually so many blank X's of unanswered questions that I genuinely think there's no way for Hob to solve this equation without someone giving him the answer.

Let's go through this systematically, using just what Hob knows as observed on screen in the show.

1389 - a pale man in all black with a ruby at his throat approaches Hob's table and challenges Hob to meet him there in 100 years. He then smiles enigmatically and leaves.

That's it. That's all Hob has to go off of. He never sees Death, he has no idea about the wager. As far as he knows, Dream gave him immortality. It would be the most logical conclusion given that the day before Hob didn't have immortality and the day after, presumably, he does.

1489 - The only confirmation he has is actually seeing Dream there in 1489 and the first thing he asks is, "How did you know that I'd be here?"

Dream does not answer him. Hob takes a few stabs at guessing his identity which reveals his Christian European context: are you a wizard, or a saint -- to be clear, these are two types of human magic users that make sense to Hob for his context. The only other figure he can think of is The Devil. He doesn't ask if Dream is a pagan god or a faerie, he assumes a man with arcane or divine magic, or the Devil.

Dream says that he's not the Devil, much good that would do if he was a Devil who could just presumably lie to Hob, and says he's interested in Hob's experience and implies that he will grant him another 100 years of life. He is sarcastic and unimpressed about Hob's wonder at the world. He doesn't even actually show much interest in Hob being in the printing business. He only shows a spark of interest in Hob's continued desire to live, and then immediately takes off.

1589 - The only new information Hob gets this year is 1) Dream is supremely uninterested in food or the wealth Hob has earned, or his family, and 2) puny little Will Shaxberd, a crap playwright with no shot at becoming anything more, suddenly becomes a famous playwright. He would eventually become a renowned playwright in his day but keep in mind, Shakespeare didn't actually become mega famous centuries after his death. In his day, many people thought other playwrights like Marlowe were better.

My point is, from this Hob doesn't necessarily get even the pieces to determine that Dream likes art. It might seem obvious to us because Dream is Prince of Stories, but that's not the offer Dream gives Shaxberd. He just asks if it is Will's will to create dreams to spur the minds of men. Yes, we know that Dream wants Will to make dreams for him, but in Hob's context, Dream is just asking what Will would sell his soul for, just like he overheard Hob saying he had no intention of dying. From this perspective the only strong conclusion Hob can draw is that Dream grants wishes.

From this, Hob could conclude that Dream is a djinn/genie, or perhaps a faerie, but there is absolutely nothing to indicate he's associated with dreams or literature directly besides a mention of creating dreams nested in the context of asking Shaxberd what he wants, giving him a supernatural gift much like the one Hob believes Dream gave him.

At this point, the domains of Dream's power are very muddled for Hob because he doesn't know Death gave him immortality. So as far as he knows, Dream can give immortality AND make an amateur playwright into the greatest writer who ever lived. Putting these two things together does not bring you naturally to the domain of dreams by any stretch.

(I will note here, that in Giving Sanctuary, I had Hob learn that "Death" is Dream's sister before he learns Dream's name. There, his initial conclusion is that Dream must therefore be Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the one known for wearing black (and not eating seems like a clue with Dream too) my point being that having another, small piece of the whole puzzle still would probably send him flying off in the wrong direction given his cultural context.)

1789: The next time Hob gets any hint that Dream has powers is with Lady Johanna. He uses his sand to show her her, "old ghosts". Note, she does not fall asleep but rather begins to hallucinate.

The Sandman myth has its origins of Scandinavia and it is first written down in in "Der Sandmann" a context that Hob might have access to, if he's very well read, in the early 1800s. By the way, the description of the Sandman in that book bears a striking resemblance to the Corinthian, because he eats the eyes of naughty children, and very little to Dream beyond the use of sand in his magic.

There is absolutely nothing to link the Sandman to Morpheus the Roman God of Dreams, who was made up entirely by Ovid in the Metamorphoses and never mentioned anywhere before that. That's because Neil Gaiman was the first to link those two mythological figures.

And on that note, there is no Oneiros attested to in Hesiod. The mention of Oneiros is actually to the "Oneiroi" an entire tribe of dreams and nightmares who are the children of Night (Nix). There's Hypnos (Sleep) who is the brother of Thanatos (Death) but that is about as close as we get to the Endless in any other mythological source besides the comics. And again, Dream does not put Johanna to sleep, he makes her hallucinate.

1889- Again, there is precious little to go off of. Dream is tight-lipped as ever. The only thing he gives away is that Lady Johanna later helped him with a task, a fact Hob is visibly annoyed and I daresay jealous about, and when he lashes out he refers to himself as, "One such as I."

But "One such as I," only reveals something Hob already knew: that Dream thinks highly of himself. That doesn't actually reveal that Dream is even magical, he could just be nobility or a powerful immortal magic user and refer to himself that way. Hob already knows that Dream is magical, and immortal, and probably some sort of high born or aristocrat. He's probably known that since 1389 given how Dream was dressed and given that giant fuck-off ruby (which actually might make Hob, in that day, wonder if Dream was a relation to the Black Prince)

That's it. That is the grand total of everything Hob has seen of Dream.

Hob in the comic will eventually admit, in The Wake, that he figured out who Dream was on his own. But this is after Seasons of Mist when Dream toasts him in Hob's dream and Hob wakes up with the impossible bottle of wine on his bedside. He has another encounter too with Dream where Dream eventually accedes to Hob's request to make the men who killed Audrey, his dead girlfriend, know who she was. Presumably, Dream makes them dream of her.

So Hob in the comics by the time we get to The Wake has more to go off of to make the link to the Lord of Dreams. Hob as we see him in the show, has had much less to go off of.

Even if you give Hob one piece of the puzzle, like one of the names like Morpheus, or The Sandman, or Oneiros, that still doesn't help give him the whole picture. The word "Endless" would be meaningless. He would have to have read at least three pretty obscure books that span a period of 2,000 years (between Hesiod and Der Sandmann) to get the three books that Neil primarily drew from to combine these figures into the Dream of the comic.

Look, my point is, unless someone gives the answer to Hob, and explains the full extent of what the Endless are, he's got little to go off of. Arguably, not enough at all to solve for "X" as to who Dream is, even if he's given more pieces. This would be a tough problem to solve.

[spicybylerpolls]

I agree the preferences are definitely relative to will, but also just who byler is? as a switch byler enjoyer I understand anon's points, and ultimately people can hc what they like, but I think it's worth noting that byler specifically have particular personalities that lend themselves to a dynamic which shouldn't make it surprising that it's what people prefer or notice in canon and work with. the writers have written them a certain way, and I personally don't feel a need to "subvert expectations" - personally. same with how public personas don't always =  you are different in the bedroom, that's not the experience for everybody AND there's different ways to view it. for example will being softer in his daily life means to me that he may be a slut in the bedroom, not a raging dom. also, dom/sub is not all that sex is or can be. byler can be neither to a degree.

I don't even think that it's just his Assets that make people see will as a bottom. if this was a ship between two more balanced masc men I'd get how switchvers debates are pointless, but they tell us explicitly that will is not masc and doesn't want to be and his acceptance is learning that he doesn't have to be, and accepting his visibility because he can't change that. wanting to see mike fucked like a bratty bottom uses will as a tool in ways I wouldn't want to because he doesn't like being aggressive (but this is now making fandom deeper and smut fic is usually fantasy, which is why I don't complain I just simply don't read those fics because will is unrecognizable, it's not my cup of tea but it's fine! I'll read eddiemike instead or something) and puts will/byler on the back burner

does the bratty bottom vision go beyond mike in s3, and somewhat s4 though? I see where people get it from 100% but I would gather mike mellows out as he matures, so I don't see that for his long term relationship with will. if it was another more masc guy, or eddie or whatever yeah I could see it better! less bratty, more cheeky and challenging. it's okay that will isn't the partner people might want for mike physically.

they're basically both bottoms in ways, but I agree with you spicybylerpolls, that if will weren't in the picture mike might be more of a switch or bottom with other guys. will is allowed to be a stereotype, which is the other thing people find hard to grasp, but it's fine for him and we can embrace that. even in sfw things.

the point brought up about will topping as a reclamation of control/power has always felt more like an excuse to me? maybe not excuse, but an easy explanation that's never explored. because topping is not only about power, or the only way to have control during sex, that's... really uneducated if people think so. will can find so much power and control in bottoming, he gets to set the pace AND it's with the most trusted person on earth who already loves to provide and protect him. that's a perfectly fine stereotype and not boring, and wanting to see mike get fucked doesn't erase how that initial dynamic is good in its own way 😭 and people have no issue with a top having no power when it's sub top mike, but will bottoming = bad because he has no power as a sub? it's just not how that works 😅

I enjoy switch byler so much but the way in which people insist mike is the subbiest bottom and get quite rude about how people could possibly see otherwise, when - like you said op - it's clear when will is right there why people enjoy the canon dynamic, and how these are not balanced macho male personalities (no matter how much puberty noah went through that changed will's physique. I rewatch s4 and will is still the softest guy, he's just taller. they purposely tried to hide his growth because that's not their vision for will. finn is also growing bigger too, so) is so unnecessary and shocking to me. byler are not st3ddie, it shouldn't be shocking that a lot of people are fine with a soft will and assertive mike because... well that's in the show? those are the boys we all love? I'm able to enjoy all dynamics while understanding what the creators like for them.

I don't intend to make things deep here, because we all know it's just preference and what we like for our faves, but speaking definitively like "at best"  doesn't make something true so I wanted to offer my two cents!

These are all interesting points! Thanks for adding to the conversation! I fully agree that certain things just are Byler, and as you said, "byler specifically have particular personalities that lend themselves to a dynamic which shouldn't make it surprising that it's what people prefer or notice in canon and work with." 100% true!

And yeah, subverting expectations is not always necessary. Because like you said, "byler are not st3ddie, it shouldn't be shocking that a lot of people are fine with a soft will and assertive mike because... well that's in the show? those are the boys we all love?"

Sometimes people role switch/subvert expectations - not just with the spicy side of byler but with all sides - and it ends up not even looking like them. Especially when the argument is rooted in Will's muscle gain and "buff Byers" which, like, you said is not the original vision for the character. Arguing that Will would top because he's physically stronger than Mike completely loses the plot.

But to play devil's advocate, I say that Will being the soft/gentle/less assertive/sensitive/INFP that he is doesn't necessarily mean he can't also fantasize about to fucking boys/Mike, just like Mike being the assertive/leader/knight in shining armor/more masculine one in canon doesn't mean he can't fantasize about the opposite.

(Like in the same way that a straight guy wanting to fuck his girlfriend also doesn't mean that he can't be soft/gentle/less masculine/less assertive/INFP/sensitive/etc. Even if this isn't in a hyper-masculine/aggressive way like other alpha types, it's still considered "normal" and even expected in straight contexts since, well, that's how straight sex typically works). So why is it different in a gay context? Horniness isn't always 2+2= 4, although it can be.

It honestly seems like a lot of these nuances of this discussion/debate are more about who is more dominant and who is more of the sub rather than their specific positions. One could argue that dom Mike/sub Will would closely link to their canon dynamics.

But even so, I remember one of the earliest polls on here had a high number of people who viewed Will as "domming from the bottom" and Mike as "subbing from the top" which is really interesting and somewhat throws a curve ball in this analysis. Maybe that connects to lots of people using the word "bratty" to describe Mike?

All in all though, when discussing gay sex, especially in fandom, there's always this huge emphasis on binary roles and positions that isn't really present when discussing straight sex, but really is that really fair? Will being more feminine ≠ automatically bottoming and Mike being more masculine ≠ automatically topping because these things aren't necessarily gendered or aligned with personality traits, where one is "the boy" and the other is "the girl" during sex, or at least they don't have to be. They sometimes are, but not always.

Through this lens, even if you view top Mike as more canon compliant, it's hypothetically possible that top Will/bottom Will wouldn't even really be role-switching. It could just be what they naturally gravitate to in the bedroom while still keeping all other aspects of their personality. BUT, like you said, if Will is indeed a bottom, it's 100% true that, "Will can find so much power and control in bottoming, he gets to set the pace AND it's with the most trusted person on earth who already loves to provide and protect him."

What does everyone else think?

[bleachbleachbleach]

7/2 - 7/19/2023

It’s been kind of hard to get back into thinking about my WIP? Which is an interesting experience, because yeah, sure, getting back into the idea of writing (what are words? who are these characters even) is usually a challenge, the "rotating this WIP in my brain" part is not. The Rotations have been a part of nearly every day for years, up until I needed to get serious about writing my Train Fanfic. And now it’s been almost three weeks and I’m still… honestly just fixated on my Train Fanfic. Every day, still thinking about it!! Train!

I did have to write something for another fandom a bit ago, which I wasn’t initially excited about. It’s for a challenge I’ve participated in every year since 2010, and have helped mod for a lot of that time. As mod, I basically get assigned whatever prompt set we think will be hard to give to a regular participant. Friends, the prompts were Not Good, LOL, and I’m really a very one-fandom-at-a-time kind of person, so I was like, "but... this is not Bleach... I do not want it right now!" It was actually a fantastic writing experience, though—I loved spending time with my blorbos in that fandom, and the writing went really quickly; I finished in 4 hours what for Bleach would take me 12 hours to 12 weeks, and I certainly can’t complain about that.

I really love how telegraphic you can get with the writing over there, and how that allows you to slash away so much narrative, really pare it down, and let the shorthand stand on its own. I think it works so well there because if you write late enough in the canon the characters have these very rote, old hat experiences they don’t feel the need to narrate in full, and the same goes with their relationship to each other. I’m not saying that can’t be done in Bleach, but I often feel like there’s a degree of novelty to most Bleach experiences where like, some weird shit is going down so even what is routine can’t entirely be so; or they’re doing it in new company, or after some fresh set of circumstances that have changed the terms of engagement in either major or minor ways, or they’re going to have to remember to write a report about it later; and the POV character is often needing to take all these things into account. Which is also enjoyable! And I’m not saying my blorbos in this other fandom are static and never have new experiences lol. I just think they’ve perfected the art of distilling their experiences very efficiently, and/or being comfortable with giving less of a shit. It was fun to write in that space!

I also wrote a bit of a Bleach fic I started last summer, which I’d backburnered because while I’m interested in the character relationship and the general premise, I haven’t yet been able to tell myself why it would need to be a story. And without those answers, it just feels kind of gratuitous in a way that I don’t like. There is more of it now, and there are more ideas with promise, but also more elements that feel gratuitous. I know I’m talking in vague generalities. But it’s kind of like—I don’t want to do this character the disservice of presenting her experiences as smooth and soft and clean when they surely were not; but it also feels like to delve into the parts that are jagged and awful requires a really strong narrative/character payoff. Because otherwise I’m like, well, she deserves to have stories that don’t need to be told. So I still need to figure out what the story is that needs to be told, and why it would need to include these things. I KNOW, THE VAGUE GENERALITIES, B3 WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT. I am talking about wanting to write a post-Soul Society arc fanfic about Hinamori and Jiroubou, which is surely the natural precipitate of a Soul Society Arc rewatch. It involves a lot of negative interactions with Gotei civil servants and the Gotei healthcare system, and how condor!Tobiume came to be, and a lot of suffering that, while 100% already extant in canon, just makes me feel like… if it’s all to be written out instead of something that happens behind closed doors, then it had better be worth her time.

But what I really want to finish this summer is finish Part 1 of my WIP, not work on this absurd Jiroubou fic!! I have no idea why I was doing that. Rukia has so many things to do in her chapters! Renji has a vending machine to encounter in his! There are alarmingly forthright heart-to-hearts with Akon to be had! Why am I not writing these things, and why have I not written them at any point in the last three weeks!!!!!

[emilykaldwen]

what's abby's relationship with her family

you ask me such sweet and thoughtful questions and I could kiss you for it. I've had so much happening these past few weeks all I can do is like, reblog people's stuff. hopefully after surgery, my brain can settle lmao.

This is gonna be long, but let's start with some backstory on Abby's creation because it leads into how her relationship with her family developed.

SO when I first created Abby, she lined up canonically with Lyonel's wiki entry, where his two maiden daughters were ladies in waiting for Princess Rhaenyra (Alicent and Rhaenyra shouldn't have been so fucking isolated in the show but here we are). I don't remember who I was talking to - probably @starcrossedjedis and @inmydrcams about what to do with her because I wasn't sure what her story would be (I was really leaning on the 'her marrying Otto Hightower' train because it made political sense and Clair and I had been talking about Alicent's mother being a Reyne and that's how Abby ended up being a Reyne). Then I started RPing Abby because I thought that would be a good way to see if she even worked as a character and find her voice. I was writing a secondary verse with @targaryenprinces where Aegon and Abby grew up together and basically Aegon x Abby is all Tate's fault but we of course regret nothing. (ILU Tate you changed my life and I give you credit on the 33k words of fic I've written and brainrot)

FAMILY DEETS UNDER THE CUT TO SAVE YOUR DASHBOARDS CAUSE IM NICE LIKE THAT

Also I have a crude and incomplete family tree that I'll pop in at the bottom of the post

Abby swung her legs and reached for the jar of honey. Papa caught her eye as he reached for it too, and their hands stilled in the air. He squinted at her and Abby peered back at him, to the jar, and then back at him again. His hand began to move and hers darted out to capture the honey jar before he could get to it. “Huzzah!” She relished the word, although the Queen would sometimes yell at them when they would start chanting. Abby is the first and only child that Lyonel and his third wife, Celeste Reyne had (grrm really loves unnamed dead wives). She's substantially younger than her elder three siblings, and she was born not long before Lyonel became Hand. Her papa can be an intimidating man to many, but as a father, he is undeniably loving and caring, if busy because of his duties. Neither of his daughters were ever treated differently and I think that has a lot to do with Lyonel's history of learning at the Citadel. He understands how important knowledge is and wants his children to be prepared in all ways. Oftentimes, Abby would go to his office and read books outloud to him - histories of the seven kingdoms, law, really anything. She didn't understand all of it, but the point was that her papa always, ALWAYS encouraged her and supported her. Abby is 100% a daddy's girl. He's her beacon of satefy. As a child, she would run to him and he would wrap her in big bear hugs, challenge her, play with her, etc. Towards the end of her mother's life it grew more difficult however and the sudden, violent death of Lyonel and Harwin nearly broke her.

Abby thought it chivalrous how Papa gave Mama the chair at the head of the table. The arms of it allowed several blankets to be piled around her and even though she was only in her robe, she looked very queenly. Celeste Reyne's first marriage produced one son (I haven't fully developed all of that). She was the niece of Cybelle Hightower (nee Reyne) (@inmydrcamscams needs to correct my spelling on that) and it was she who suggested to Lyonel that perhaps him and Celeste would be good for one another (this was during the early years of Lyonel being Master of Laws). Celeste was a very intelligent and very kind woman. She was even tempered, and took things in stride and didn't have a problem rolling with the punches. Abby is very much like her, although she attempts to emulate a far more childlike view and expectation of her mother. Celeste would let people get away with enough, but time and experience had her boundary and push back settings a lot sooner. After Otto was dismissed, he did ask Lyonel if it would be possible for Celeste to come to King's Landing and be there for Alicent, which both Lyonel and Celeste took seriously. Celeste was a pretty tempering influence on Alicent in the early years and vital in helping the young queen through her pregnancies. Abby's earliest memories are of watching her mother and the queen work on tapestries, laugh at their mischief in the gardens, just in general HAPPY times. But not long after baby Daeron was born, Celeste started getting sicker. Papa was sad a lot, the queen was sad (not just for losing an older sister/mother figure, but also post partum) and I think that in the long run, it's Celeste's memory that's had a negative effect on Abby. She was 8 when Celeste died, and the memories of her mother were seeing her wasting away, or supporting people (again, as a child, she had no real concept of her mother as a full person). Due to this, Abby put herself in this role of selfless, charitable, giver. Her mother was reserved due to propriety, but over time Abby took that as doing everything she could to hide her own negative emotions and burying it down, only wanting to be someone supportive and happy. So you know. Complicated. While Lyonel and Harwin's deaths nearly broke Abby, Celeste's long illness and death very clearly shaped Abby as a person.

(let's try this for the 4th goddamn time) “Come on,” Harwin’s voice was no longer quiet. “Up you get.” “I’m not ten, anymore.” “And yet the stairs remain the same.” Abby looked back, familiar with this dance and gave them a nod and hurried down the stairs. “It’s clear!” She waited for a moment until her brothers came into view, Larys on Harwin’s back with a flat expression on his face. There were so many stairs, and Larys' would complain of leg pain trying to navigate them all. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, but Larys said that he did not wish others to view him in such a way, since they might undermine his position and capabilities. It didn’t seem fair to Abby that he should have to hurt himself to be seen as whole. She hurried down further and gave an audible tap and they continued on - Abrogail would keep a lookout, and then would let them know if the coast was clear. I'm tired of writing this out in more detail so we'll keep it simple. I definitely feel like Harwin is the epitome of oldest brother energy, but it had been awhile since he got to do that. So once Abby comes around, he gets to channel all the untapped Dad energy he doesn't get to do with the boys into her. Harwin makes the world safer for Abby in a very similar way Lyonel does. If she's not with her Papa, Harwin is giving her shoulder rides, or teaching her how to defend herself, and he promised to teach her how to use a dagger. After his death, it's the hardest with him because Abby doesn't feel like she can *ever* talk about him (for obvious, strong boys reasons). I think she does with Helaena and maybe Aegon sometimes, but only to a certain degree. But it ABSOLUTELY says something that Aegon pisses her off so bad at one point, that she says "Were my dearest brother still here, he'd geld you and give me your balls on a platter". As for Larys? They're not close. Larys doesn't know what to do with kids, and he kinda looks at Abby for much of her life like a puzzle he can't figure out. I believe that once she gets into her teenage years, he does take more of an interest. On the flip side, Abby is unnerved by him. Larys is difficult, if not impossible to read, and she is always unsettled by him. I don't think that ever stops.

“Oh, there’s a raven from your sister, Abrogail. She’ll be coming to help you with wedding preparations.” Mother smiled across the table at her, where she still sat by Helaena. Aemond watched the slight rattle of her fork in hand before she nodded mutely. “Is she still a wretched bitch?” Aegon’s voice was muffled in his cup before he spat it back out with his eyes wide with some perceived betrayal. “This isn’t wine!” Corynna and Larys are about 11 months apart and the pair of them watched their mother drown when they were children. There's no relationship between the girls the way Abby has relationships with the rest of the family. If she'd been a man, Corynna would have been sent to the Citadel. She's intelligent, observant, and a calculating game player. Corynna was married to Erwin Lannister not long after Lyonel became Hand. When Lyonel dies, Cory rolls into town and basically exerts her authority over Abby by just criticizing the poor thing. That's how she exerts her control, her way being Best And Only Way. She knows how valuable Abby is in terms of connections (the same reasons Otto decides Aegon and Abby would be advantageous, although that main motivation is Harrenhal and the Riverlands). Corynna's plan was to take Abby back to Casterly Rock with her, which then set off Aegon's Uncontrollable Abandonment Issues, and, because he's a 13 year old prince with no impulse control or the ability to long term think consequences, he kidnaps Abby on Sunfyre (which is why they're on the outs at the start of the fic).

Thank you so much for this ask! It was so fun! And here's the crude family trees I'm in the process of making:

[malewifemanhunter]

Challenge is NOW OPEN!!! 9th August to 9th September 2022

Heyyy everyone! The Always Sunny Drabble Blast Contest is now open for submissions :D

Anyone can enter, whether you’re a confident writer or you’ve never written anything before, if you’re new to sunnyblr or you’ve been here since Charlie Kelly crawled out of the floorboards. You can also submit anonymously! (just talk to one of the organizers for that~)

“BUT WHAT IS A DRABBLE” you ask?

A drabble is a VERY short fic of just 100 words (not including title, tags or authors notes). And it can be about anything you like! As long as it’s Sunny related and hits that target (give or take) then you’ve nailed it. You can even write a series of drabbles and arrange them as chapters if you want to explore your idea more, as long as they work on their own too. If you need some examples, you can find them in the collection.

“HOW WILL YOU CROWN YOUR CHAMPIONS?”

Good question! We’ll be opening a poll on September 1st for people to vote on their favourite stories, with a contest winner and runners-up, and we’re ALSO going to hand pick the winners of some very special categories. (And yes, that’s because otherwise, our beloved macdennies will swamp the votes :p)

BEST IN SHIP: The big six, babeyyy. Macdennis, Deetress, Charden, Charmac, Chardee, Charmacden. You know the drill.

BEST RAREPAIRS: Any relationship not in the above list :)

BEST TEAM-UPS and FRIENDSHIPS: Non-ship based fics

GENRE: Best fluff, humor, angst, AU, horror, smut

HAND PICKED PERFECTION: Best Scheme, Most Sunny-ish Vibes, Best Twist, Drabble We're Most Desperate For More Of, Best Drunk/High Fic, Most In Character, Best Title, BEST SINGLE LINE, Dialogue Only, Fewest Filler Words, Best Fic In A Language Other Than English, Best Freeform/Visual Design, Best Meta, Best Crack Meta…

And finally...

WASTE NOT WANT NOT: The real deal. The most prestigious title. That’s right, we’re talking about Most Obedient. This is the award for whoever writes the most submissions with exactly one. hundred. words. No more, no less. 

SOME BASICS:

Content: write whatever you like! Try to tag things appropriately, but we can help you figure that out if you want (dm or send an ask to us @malewifemanhunter @headgehug @officialbillhader or @lets-dont-this)

Where to post: Feel free to post your work on tumblr/anywhere else you like - it’s your work! just make sure you also submit it to the collection on Archive Of Our Own 3 so we can keep track of them all. And don't forget to tag sunny d blast!

Submitting anonymously: There are two ways you can do this. 1. Upload your fic to your Ao3 account, make it anonymous, then submit it to the collection, or 2. Send it to one of us (@malewifemanhunter @headgehug @lets-dont-this @officialbillhader) on anon and we will post it for you (although it may mess up your formatting a little to do it this way). 

But what if I dont know what to write?!: Do not worry - as well as having beta readers available we’ve also got this list of prompts! No need to stick with these (seriously, write what you wanna), but If you wanna write and the creative juices just aren’t flowing, you can take your pick from this list and just go to town

PROMPTS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED:

moments when Dennis kissed Mac on the forehead, Mac and charlie have a bike race, Dennis and Charlie sing together while high, Charlie takes care of a sick Dee, the gang tries to catch a turkey for Thanksgiving, Mac and Dee want the same man, Charlie and Mac almost set fire to Mac and Dennis’s apartment while cooking, the twins (children) hate each other but they still spend their birthday together because being together with someone you hate is better than being alone, Frank swindles a street vendor and gets food for everyone in the gang, water fight turned erotic. You can take these as they are, or play around with them a bit, whatever floats your boat~

ADVICE:

Don't forget you have a title! With only 100 words it can really help to set the scene or the tone of your fic. And make sure you tag the fic. If you don't know how, or have any other questions, just ask one of the organizers!

GOOD LUCK!

[butwhatifidothis]

In the analysis of CaptainFlash's fic, a common theme of the notes is "this is not how Edelgard is", as in the claim is that she is being mischaracterized. But for how much the claim gets thrown, there's little in the way of "this is how she SHOULD be written". And so a question I have is - for fanfic writers, how do you think Edelgard SHOULD be written in order to be true to canon? Assume both from a perspective of BL/GD fic and a BE fic.

Well, I believe that I have put in guidelines at the very least lol, but I get where you're comin' from.

Edelgard is bold, fearless, arrogant, self-serving. She is detached from others for the most part, she does not like being challenged (and not just because the other person is oh so wrong and it just annoys her because how could they be so wrong - no, when her flaws are pointed out to her she does not listen to what the other person says). She allows those in her care to be hurt - sometimes mortally - to get what she wants, and almost always without any guilt or regret. She thinks she's the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most correct. She uses people, lends out her men like tools. Violence is the first option, and peaceful surrender something she will never consider when asked to do so. She looks down on those who oppose her, no matter how they do so, whether they stand their ground and fight to the end or if they try to surrender - that they've fought against her at all is worthy of derision in Edelgard's eyes. She's racist towards the Nabateans and will always kill them. She looks down on religion and those who believe in it. She's deceptive and manipulative. She's selfish and power-hungry. She has no self-awareness, saying things that are factually incorrect without knowing that they're incorrect often, accuses others of doing the morally reprehensible actions that she performs often.

Those above traits ought to always be incorporated into her character no matter what the route - at the minimum, these are the traits an author must work of off from a ground level in the beginning of their fic, because these traits are always present in Edelgard. Of course there are nicer traits - she's a romantic, she's secretly childish (and not in the strictly derisive way either, but that she likes sweets and teddy bears and is embarrassed about it), on the rare occasion she'll try to accommodate for someone (Bernadetta... when she's not setting her on fire that is), she very obviously cares a good deal about family (again, I don't really count Dimitri here for her since she forgot him and even then didn't know they were step-siblings). Edelgard isn't literally, actually, 100% No GMO's evil evil, she has her traits that can make her likeable, but there's a very big reason why she's not just an antagonist, but a villain.

If an author genuinely wants to make Edelgard grow out of a villainous status and be a genuinely good person, they must work through the numerous flaws she has. Her moral bankruptcy, her selfishness, her hunger for power, etc. etc., these must be actually addressed in order for her to have even a chance at being better.

Like, take Flayn's kidnapping for example. In canon, we know that Edelgard willingly hands over the Death Knight to Thales with quite literally no fear in her at all, and we know she must have had, at the very least, some clue as to what the guy was using the Death Knight for (since she teleports to directly where Flayn and the Death Knight are, and will even take them both away if over 25 turns have passed). There are a couple ways to go about this scene in a fic trying to make Edelgard a better person: either 1) have sufficient build-up of Edelgard's very gradually growing morals, have her commit the crime anyway, and then feel a twinge of guilt that steadily grows larger as she grows as a character, or 2) have her commit this crime with little to no guilt at the current state of her character arc, keep building her character until she gains more self-awareness over what all she's doing, and then have her feel guilt. These possibilities (and likely more that I can’t think of at the moment) keep her flaws intact while still allowing her some room for growth; the flaws are acknowledged, and so they can be properly grown out of.

But look at Cap'n's version of events. Remember, in canon, Edelgard was directly involved with the kidnapping. Cap'n, however, not only has it to where Edelgard was forced to hand over the Death Knight, not only was she terrified of Thales while doing so, but she had no idea that Flayn was being kidnapped. It ignores all of her flaws and places her into a status of helpless victimhood, and places her on a higher moral ground than Thales when in reality, in that moment, she is just as bad as him. Her flaws can't be grown out of because they've been erased. This is a prime case of canon!Edelgard being swapped out for Woobiegard - we aren't seeing Edelgard feel guilt for allowing Flayn to be kidnapped, we're seeing Woobiegard feel guilt. Woobiegard doesn't have these flaws that Edelgard has, so she doesn't have to have them acknowledged - which, I don't think needs to be said, is terrible from a fanfiction writing standpoint.

Edelgard has been morphed and twisted so much as to not even really resemble her canon iteration much at all. Woobiegard isn't bold, she isn't arrogant, she isn't morally bankrupt - or at least, isn’t intentionally these flaws, or other flaws - she lacks so many of the deep, troubling flaws of Edelgard because, frankly, they make her too mean and Cap'n very clearly doesn't like that. But, in erasing those flaws in her, instead of writing a fic where Edelgard grows as a person due to the positive influence of Byleth (and, through Byleth, the Black Eagles), he’s writing a fic where Woobiegard feels oh so much guilt for things she just shouldn’t feel guilty for because the poor little darling didn’t have any way of stopping anything. 

Edelgard is a conqueror, as said by her creators themselves. She mows down anyone who stands against her convictions and ideals, even if she knows them personally. This is true for all routes, even and especially CF (as it is known as the Military Rule route), and so this must be kept in mind when writing Edelgard whenever someone tries to write her base character as someone better than she is in canon. What Cap’n is doing is basically writing an OOC crack-fic, except he’s doing so unintentionally. He flat out removes every single flaw Edelgard canonically has, pretends as though he didn’t do that, and then flaunts how much Woobiegard has “grown” thanks to Byleth. But, again, since Cap’n doesn’t want to write Edelgard’s flaws he’s never really written Edelgard. It’s the same idea as keeping Claude never fully trusting his friends in mind when writing him - this is a large part of his character, and leaving that out means leaving out a significant portion of who he is as a character. That has to be acknowledged before having him grow out of it, or else you haven’t really written Claude, as that is a huge part of who he is.

So I guess a TL;DR version of this answer is that to properly write Edelgard, one has to keep in mind her flaws and have her actually act them out before having her grow out of them. It’s just that for Edelgard, because of who she is, it would take a lot of time and effort for the fic to realistically have her grow out of all of these flaws (or at minimum grow out of the more severe ones). That stays whether from a BL/GD perspective or from a BE one. Hope that answers the question!

[the-bat-collector]

SUPERBAT Rec List!! AU NO POWERS ish PART 2

No Powers or No Capes (There are some minor exceptions but I think this still applies)

Soo it’s become harder to find these fics and I kept postponing making this list just in case I found moreeeee. After some time convincing myself I decided that If I find more I’ll just make a part 3.

Here is the link to Part 1 Post

So without further ado. Here you go!

Storge by ichikonohakko @ichikonohakko

G - 3,310

Storge (storgē, Greek: στοργή) is liking someone through the fondness of familiarity, family members or people who relate in familiar ways that have otherwise found themselves bonded by chance. An example is the natural love and affection of a parent for their child.

Or the story of how Clark Kent meets the Wayne family children.

So this was in my mark for later and I read it as I was making this list and it’s very cute and adorable and highly recommend it! 

don't you know an apparition is a cheap date by knoxoursavior  @clqrkkent

E - 39,385

Clark has been able to see ghosts since he was eight, just a few days before his Pa died in his sleep. Years later, after having moved to the city with Martha to pursue writing, Clark meets Bruce Wayne, who takes an interest in his work and Clark in particular. Not long after they meet, Bruce asks Clark to marry him and Clark moves into a mansion that has more ghosts than it has people.

So I couldn’t find more AUs for this list, I was about to quit looking and yesterday I ran into this one and it gave me so much hope that there might be more out there (part 3?maybe?) I think of this as Ghost Whisperer Clark 

Stories for the Loved and Lost by MatchaMochi @renaimori 

M - 9,681

The first chapter leads Clark to another, and another. He turns the pages, eating the words up hungrily and feeling them, pored over the story as if he was reading someone’s personal diary. And the thing was, he knows it, he knows this story. He remembers flashes of memory that aren’t his, thrown in yesterday’s weird dream or last night’s nightmare.

or in which Bruce is an author and Clark is his fanboy.

I WILL read every single SOULMATE AU FIC I CAN FIND CAUSE I’D DIE FOR THIS TROPE. This is beautifully written <3 <3

Ghastly Murders in the East End by dippkip @dippkip

T - 38,227

London, 1888. A vicious killer known as Jack the Ripper has begun haunting the district of Whitechapel. In light of Scotland Yard’s inability to solve the case, intrepid reporter Clark Kent has made it his mission to track down this fiend and bring them to justice, though he may find himself more deeply involved in the affair than he bargained for.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne, a seemingly irresponsible and eccentric duke, remains largely unconcerned about these atrocities. The Batman, however, has taken special interest, and spends his nights relentlessly hunting the new murderer at large. The paths of these men will converge as the body count begins to rise, and their investigations and growing affections will cement their bond, intertwining their fates with that of the most notorious murderer in all of England.

OKaaaay this is one of the exceptions, Bruce is Batman but it’s a different century and Clark is powerless, I think it compensates. Usually I prefer when they’re both “capeless” but this was such a fun read. 

As You Grow by dnawhite76 & Prubbs @prubbs​ 

M - 59,946

After the death of his wife and children, Clark returns to the United States after spending years abroad to reconnect with his friends and their families. And while trying to gather what little remains of his old life and possibly move forward in his grief, he ends up falling into old habits with his first love and best friend, Bruce Wayne.

A story about grief and acceptance.

So I want to point out how good this fic is. I hate sad and this story has a lot of grief and I felt it was very grounded on its depictions of feelings. I tend to avoid this type of fics buuuuut this was so good. I couldn’t stop reading even if the grief got to me. It’s very wholesome and does have a satisfying ending. 

A good start by BlueAlmond @discretocincel​

G - 1,253  

Clark loves being an elementary school teacher, but it breaks his heart to see any of his students hurting. So, when he notices Jason waiting over forty minutes every day for someone to pick him up, he decides to have a word with his father.

Absolutely love Professor Trope!!! Sooo you could argue this is ficlet but doesn't feel like one to me so I’m not putting it in the ficlet section. 

Engraved In Our Souls by Nixie_DeAngel @nixie-deangel​

T - 9,004

It started with pain, with warm blood and bold, black letters. How was he to know it'd lead to a pair of gorgeous eyes, shimmering with the promise of life long happiness and love?

Or, after years of waiting, Bruce finds his soulmate in the least likely of places.

Little cute soulmate AU<3  AS I SAID I WILL READ EVERY SINGLE SOULMATE AU OUT THERE CAUSE I LOVE THEM

Ghosts by ren_makoto 

T -3,067

Wayne Manor is haunted. Clark doesn't mind.

Here is another of the exceptions, this is neither No Powers/No Capes, but they’re not relevant to the plot or we don’t see them using them (I don’t think they are mentioned but its implied). The Fic’s whole focus is on the ghosts! and absolutely loved it I LOVE REN MAKOTO FICS

There is Little Danger by ren_makoto

T - 5,327

"It's tradition," he said, one inch from Clark's mouth. "Yes," Clark said. "Tradition."

Or, where Bruce and Clark are trapped in an elevator

another Ren Makoto cause I can’t help myself

Semi-Permanent Couplings by ren_makoto

E - 10,463

"So, Bruce, how do you feel about one-night stands?"

Ren Makoto <3 <3 <3 This fic contains Adultery soo Read the Author’s Notes

Hubris by ren_makoto

M - 20,197

"This is turning into a routine," Bruce said breathlessly. "What can I do for you, Clark?" "Please," Clark said hoarsely. "I just want to get some sleep."

I really like the writing on this fic, this is a 100% NO CAPES, Clark does have powers and he’s starting to process them. Ren Makoto stole my heart with this one.

Not so Perfect Afterall by tekowrites

E - 6,966

AU: High school, Senior year. Clark thinks his life is nearly, if not already perfect. Then he overhears a conversation that changes absolutely everything. Bruce is there to pick up the pieces.

Red, White and Blue by melmel_79

E - 3,639

He works for the Secret Service, and it's best that no one knows he is in a relationship with the president. At least he hoped no one would know...

He grips the envelope tighter and knocks on the door to the Oval Office.

This was a mistake.

Late Night Feelings by the_butler @the-butler-fanstuff

M - 9,283

It was a little past one in the morning, the phone the only light in his room. He glared at it, then threw it to his side on the bed, not caring to see where it landed. A few seconds after, he patted all along the side to find it and looked at it again. He pulled up the messaging app, scrolled down, and then sighed. He exited the app and threw the phone on the bed again. He repeated this several times until some minutes later the phone chimed and he hurriedly sat up and felt for it on his bed. He opened the messaging app again and finally breathed a sigh of relief when he read the reply he’d been waiting for the whole night.

“Be there in 30 mins.”

I LOVE CLARK HERE, GOOD FOR YOU. He’s such a good adult looking out for himself! self-loving and self-respecting Clark here everybody.

it took me by surprise (I know you felt it, too) by jessequicksters @jessequicksters​

G - 1,124​

In which Clark and Bruce fall in love in between study sessions, track races, grocery shopping at Whole Foods and romantic student dinner dates, burnt lasagna and all.  

FLUFF, could argue this is a ficlet buuuuut dont care, it goes here.

Towards You by tekowrites

E - 22,607

AU where Clark is a new transfer student at an elite high school, and he encounters Bruce Wayne. Clark doesn't fit in, not anywhere it seems, and his crush on the star of the football team? Only serves to shows how much. Jealous girlfriends, misunderstandings, hormones and lurking trouble are just some of the challenges he's going to face.

I LOVE THIS , basically this fic made want to make a PART 2, just had to find 15+ other fics to add to the list. 

Read the tags, this does contain some heavy topics towards the end

The Game (of Love) by KaizokuHime @kaizokunohime

E -12,288

In WayneTech VR Augmented Gaming, a guild of superheroes has arisen who volunteer to help police that reality. One of these superheroes, Superman, has had a crush on his fellow member, Batman, for many years, but thus far has had little success on asking him out, even as fellow guildmembers. How will their relationship progress? And how intimate can they truly become without knowing the other's identity offline?

A Game You Can't Win gave me hunger for gaming fics, then I found this one and I WANT MORE GAMING FICS

Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang by ShowMeAHero @andillwriteyouatragedy

E - 8,354

Clark Kent is a professor at the same university as Bruce Wayne. Not that it matters, because Bruce doesn't really speak with his co-workers - they're there to work with, not befriend. That is, until Clark and Bruce are assigned to teach a class together in the fall, and start spending more and more time together, and Bruce starts to realize, maybe, he just might need a friend - and maybe, he just might need something else, something Clark-specific.

YES YES PROFESSOR TROPE. They are the best together!

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SORTA KINDA MAYBE FITS THE CATEGORY

The Gift by tmelange

E - 5,564

University student Clark Kent is on a field trip to Gotham City where he meets a creature of the night.

VAMPIRE AU, soooo Clark has powers but he is not superman so NO CAPES on his part. Bruce is a Vampire and I’m not really sure if he’s Batman but he’s some sort of vigilante. This felt very AU and sorta? fit the category, so I decided to add it anyways but it’s worth to mention this is an outlier on this list.

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SPECIAL MENTION CAUSE I HAVENT READ THIS ONE BUT IT WAS RECOMMEND TO ME by @just-add-butter​

Spoils of War by littlechinesedoll @cumdumpsterbrucie

“If I go with you as a spoil of this pointless war, will you leave?” Bruce stands his ground, terrified and shaking, but he keeps eye contact with the warlord.

“Excuse me?” Kal must be hearing things.

“If I go with you, if I serve you, will you let my people live? Will you let my brother live?”

This is not finished buuuut it’s a Medieval AU. I just need to get myself in the right mindset to read an unfinished fic but will get to it! love what llittlechinesedoll writes.

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FICLETS 

This section was accidental. I like my fics long and rarely read ficlets but here are a few that came across my way when I forgot to set word count filters.

Snapping the Chats by littlechinesedoll @cumdumpsterbrucie

G - 2,278

Clark tries to use the Snapchat filters on Bruce.

General Check-up by littlechinesedoll @cumdumpsterbrucie

T - 906

One where Brucie is getting a check-up from Thomas Elliot and he touches Bruce more cause Clark is obviously jealous

Subway Providence by the butler @the-butler-fanstuff

G - 400

A short drabble about art I did of Clark and Bruce waiting for the train on a subway platform.

So my first list was me coming across and realizing I love this kind of AUs and this second list is me carefully looking for them! Even tho my 1st list has some of my favorites, I hold this one closer to my heart. Hope you Enjoy it. 

Also if you know of any that I haven’t included on these lists, please I beg you send them my way <3 

[whatareyousearchingfordean]

The One With The Merry Little Christmas

Summary: The chill at this year’s Lawrence City Fire Department’s Christmas party has nothing to do with the snow falling outside and everything to do with the Dean and Y/n. 

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 3.5K+

Warnings: Language, implied smut, angst (with a happy ending, no pun intended)

Author’s Note: Ah, can you smell Christmas in the air already? Cause I can! Anyway, this fic was written for @smol-and-grumpy​ ‘s SuperFriends Title Challenge, The One With The Friends With Benefits, and @janicho88​ 100 Followers Supernatural Christmas Celebration with, of course, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. These both kind of morphed into the same idea so I decided to combine them. I hope you guys enjoy xoxo and a very Merry Christmas -Alex

Check out Alexandra’s Library for more by yours truly!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

From now on

Our troubles will be out of sight

Across the small town, snow covered the streets of Lawrence, Kansas, the massive, fluffy flakes continuing to fall as the street lights came on that evening. The town was quiet, the blanket of snow muffling the ambient sound in the winter evening. Just south of downtown sat the city’s one modest fire station. The golden brick building was glittering with red and white twinkle lights, the glow lighting up the street for a few feet in either direction. Music could be heard bumping on the sidewalk from inside the building, its inhabitants sure to be enjoying their company Christmas party. 

Inside, the common room was filled to the brim with the entirety of the company and their loved ones. The kids were chasing each other around the bases of the fire poles. A few of the older ones knew enough to jump full force on the metal to pull open the chute at the top, entertaining the younger ones each time the plastic split open, their giggles chiming in with the festive holiday music the Captain had found in his playlists earlier that day. 

Food and drink littered the expanse of the countertops. Anything one could have been craving was set out for the group to enjoy. Dean was pouring himself a soda since this was his year to be on shift during the party and he had to behave. The fireman had grumbled about it when he stopped by his best friend’s apartment to drop off the ingredients for her taco dip. The taco dip she had only agreed to make for him if he purchased the product. After all, the woman had already made a few dozen sugar cookies for the festivities as her own contribution this year. She politely reminded him then that he could get as pissed as he wanted next year. Not that her words much appeased the Winchester. 

The first responder turned to his buddy and coworker, who was filling another bowl with his famous chili, and held up the red plastic cup with a mock look of disgust, “What is the point of Coke if it doesn’t come with any Jack?” 

“A suga’ rush?” The Cajun drawled in his signature accent. Dean snorted, bringing the cup to his lips when the object was snatched from his hand before the two could meet. 

“Hey--” he spun on his heel, coming to face to face with his best friend. Her eyes were narrowed as she looked over the rim of the cup at him. “Come on, you don’t want that, there’s no rum.”

“Sure,” the woman wet her lower lip before taking a sip of the soda that Dean had poured for himself. 

“Satisfied?” He quirked an eyebrow at her, holding out his hand for his drink back. 

“For now,” she admonished. “But I’m watching you, Winchester.” 

“That’s hurtful, Y/n/n.” Dean placed his hand over his heart, giving his friend the puppy dog look that he had learned from his little brother. A peak of a smile tugged on the corners of her lips as she looked at him before it faltered once again. Finally, she relented and gave the drink back to its rightful owner. 

“I’d say more like rightfully cautious,” the other firefighter chimed in on their conversation, earning an elated grin from the woman standing across from him. Y/n clapped her hands together like a child, her tongue peeking between her teeth as she bounced on her toes. Placing his arm over Dean’s shoulder, Benny added, “Right, Dean-o?”

“You two are incorrigible,” Dean lamented, shrugging his friend’s arm away from him. The pair laughed at Dean’s irritation as Y/n scooted her way in between Dean and the drink table. 

Dean internally cringed as Benny chose then to walk away, leaving the two friends alone for the first time that evening. The thing was, the air between the two friends was actually colder than the snow that blanketed the town outside the fire station. He knew that Y/n was putting on a show for everyone in the station since she couldn’t get out of going to the party last minute, which he also knows she would have preferred. The woman was as much a part of their work-family as she was her own family. That was what happened when best friends were joined at the hip for over fifteen years. There was no way she was getting out of going without raising suspicion, and Y/n was too private of a person to deal with answering questions that her absence would have surely raised. 

As much as people like to think they know the real woman, she only has ever fully opened up to two people in her life, her mother and Dean. No one else has ever stuck around long enough to try and break down that wall that she had put up around herself. If Dean wasn’t just as stubborn as her he might have stopped trying a long time ago, but he was determined to get to know the real woman no matter how hard she seemed to try to stop him. 

In the grand scheme of things, he supposes that’s is why it was so easy for them to fall into their friends with benefits relationship. One post-breakup, alcohol-fueled night in bed together two years ago had begun the whole thing. It didn’t take them long after they woke the next morning to realize the cliche arrangement could be just what both of them needed. Even still, Dean could count on his hands how many times in total they had spent in the other’s bed. 

The most recent of which just happened to be last night. Dean had stopped by with dinner for his friend and the ingredients for the dip he had conned her into making. A few glasses of wine later, as it usually did go, and the two of them enjoyed their time together. But it wasn’t the sex that was the problem, it was the conversation after. 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the yuletide gay

From now on

Our troubles will be miles away

Dean ran a hand through his sweaty hair as Y/n climbed from the bed in search of her strewn articles of clothing. She picked up the various garments, throwing them in her hamper as she passed by it and into her ensuite bathroom. 

“Why are you so quiet?” Dean’s voice carried across the room and over the sound of the shower starting. He pulled himself out of the bed and slipped on his boxer briefs as he followed after her. 

The woman bit her tongue as she tested the temperature of the water. It was only a matter of time before Dean caught on to her charade. Some days she hates how well he knows her. It’s not that she wants to keep secrets from her best friend but it can be downright creepy when he basically reads her mind. “I’ve been thinking.”

“About?” he questioned, stepping into the bathroom as she climbed into the shower. 

“How to tell you something,”

“Alright, you’re kind of scaring me, Y/n/n,”

Allowing the hot water to cascade down her face and body, Y/n took a deep breath before choosing to answer him, “It’s Sean.”

“As in douchebag Sean?”

“Dean, do you have to call him that?” she sighed, having already expected this reaction from him. 

“Yes, because he is one. You know what, douchebag is the nicest thing I could be calling him right now,” Dean countered, leaning against the bathroom vanity, his arms crossing over his freckled chest at the mention of that prick’s name. 

“He wants to get coffee,” her voice was low, knowing her admission was about to rile up the man on the other side of the curtain. She wasn’t even sure he had heard at first, that was until he whipped the curtain open.

“What?!” 

“Jesus!” Instinctively, her hands flew to protect her modesty as her heart tried to escape from her chest. “Dean, what the hell?”

“I could say the same thing to you! Do you not remember what that jackhole put you through over the last year, because I do. He doesn’t deserve a second of your time.” 

“You think I don’t know that? It’s just coffee, he didn’t ask me to move in with him?” Y/n spit back, her stance relaxing along with her heart. 

“But you and I both know that all it takes is one look at those blue eyes and you’ll be putty in his hands. You can’t go.” The way the last three words came out of his mouth, the definitive tone behind, it them was enough to get her blood boiling underneath her skin. 

“Oh, I can’t? Is that an order, Lieutenant?” The title rolled off her tongue, her eyes hardening as she stared at Dean. “Last time I checked you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“You know that’s not what this is. Y/n/n, I only want what’s best for you. I don’t want to see him screw up your life again. I was there to pick up the pieces last time and I don’t want to do it again.”

“Well I can guarantee you won’t ever have to do it again,” her voice was low, her words steady even though her eyes were filled with unshed tears. 

“You know that’s --”

“Get out!” she commanded suddenly, stopping him before he could say anything else. Her eyes scrunched closed, willing herself to not look at her closest friend, the one person she was supposed to be able to count on as he let her down. 

“Y/n,”

“I said get out!” 

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us, once more

That was the last time the two of them said anything to each other until she walked into the fire station a little over two hours ago. He had to give it to her, she was putting on a good show, even messing around with him like usual. But he could see the truth in her eyes when she looked at him. Y/n was pissed, but most of all, she was hurt. 

Dean turned around, leaning against the counter to face her. The woman didn’t acknowledge his presence, instead choose to continue with preparing herself a drink, one with a bit more whiskey than needed, but he wasn’t going to comment on that. “I’m glad you are here,” he tried instead. 

“Well, I haven’t seen Sam and Jessica and the kids in a while, I wasn’t going to miss out on that because you are an ass,” she noted, still choosing to not look at him. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

“No, you never do, do you?” She swallowed thickly, turning on Dean, the flicker of a flame telling the experienced first responder it was best not to stoke the fire. The two of them stared at each other for what felt like minutes to them, when in reality, it was merely a few seconds, the bubble they were in being popped by Dean’s niece running and crashing herself into his legs. 

“Uncle Dean!” She cheered, reaching up with her short arms as he bent down to pick her up. He situated the little girl on his hip as she squealed in delight. “Can I have another cookie?” Her tone dropped, the small child looking up at her only uncle from underneath her insanely long lashes. 

“How many is that now?” He asked her, the glint of a smirk on his face. 

“Uh… two,” she held up two fingers, her argument completely unconvincing. 

“Uhhuh, I bet,” Dean grumbled, but he knew in his heart he couldn’t say no to that face. “Okay, one more cookie, but you can’t tell on me to you Daddy. He thinks sugar is for suckers.” 

“Promise.” The little girl held up her pinky to her uncle, one of the first things he ever taught the kid because he knew he was a sucker from day one and he was not trying to get into trouble with his little brother over it. Even if it never worked to his advantage.

Dean held up his pinky and wrapped it around hers. He shrugged to Y/n before taking his niece over to the sweets table. In reality, Dean knew the conversation needed to be over, it wasn’t the time or place, but if there was one thing he hated more than anything it was fighting with Y/n. It felt like a piece of him was missing when he couldn’t talk to her or see her, and if he was being honest with himself that kind of scared him. When he became so codependent on her he couldn’t be sure. It just felt like she had always been there, and always should be, right by his side. 

Clara tried to steal a second cookie as Dean helped her pick out the first, but he knew he would be in it if he let her get away with that one, so he made sure it got put back. When he turned around to set the five-year-old down, he noticed Y/n was gone. He scanned the whole room and couldn’t find her anywhere in the mix of people. 

As suspected, the little girl rushed right to her Daddy, who scowled at his brother. Dean offered a shrug and a smirk as he made his way over to Sam. “Don’t you start with me too.”

“Oh, it’s not me you have to answer to, it’s Jess because she’s the one that has to put her down tonight.” 

“Eh, she’ll forgive me, I’m her favorite brother-in-law,” Dean waved off his brother. 

“You’re her only brother-in-law.” 

“Whatever. Did you see where Y/n went?” 

Sam crossed his arms, his brows rising on his forehead, “Looked like she was headed outside.” Dean pursed his lips, two small dimples forming at the corners. “Did you two fight?” 

“Is it that obvious?” 

“No, but you are all brooding and pensive right now,” Sam moved his hand in a flourish in front of Dean as he spoke. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, what’s going on with you two?” The taller brother pushed for Dean to talk, and he pondered his pros and cons of answering. 

“Sean wants to have coffee with her?” Dean said, nonchalant. 

“And?” 

“And the guy is a dick, she deserves better.” 

“Better? Like you?” Sam tried to hide the amusement from his features as Dean whipped his head from where he was staring at the door to his little brother. 

“What?” Dean’s voice rose an octave at his brother’s question. 

“Oh come on, I know you guys have been sleeping together for a while now.” 

“Sam, it’s not what you think,” Dean sighed before running his tongue over his bottom lip. “It’s only happened a handful of times.” 

“And?” Sam shook his head, trying to convey his meaning to his brother. “Listen, you guys have known each other for longer than I’ve known Jessica. You spend all your free time together. You are basically a couple which I would say without the sex but we all know you are doing that too, so basically a couple. Why can’t you just man up and tell her how you feel?” 

“Cause I don’t know how I feel? It’s never felt like a relationship with her. It’s just always been easy.” 

“That’s how it should be, Dean. The two of you are perfect for each other. I think you owe it yourselves to at least try.” Sam urged.

“And what if it all blows up?”

“What if it all works out?” Sam countered. “Every relationship is either going to end in forever or end in a breakup, but that doesn’t mean that you just don’t try. Take the leap, Dean.”

“I hate you, you know that,” Dean grimaced, knowing that his brother was right. While he had never thought of Y/n like that before they slept together the first time, he couldn’t ignore the chemistry they had together. She was his other half, he already admits to that, and he would be lying if he said it wasn’t amazing sex. Sam was right, how would admitting anything be different than how they already lived their lives together?

“Yeah, well, I’ll say I told you so at your wedding,” Sam clapped his older brother’s shoulder before running off after his toddler. Dean glared after his brother, he hated when he was right, mostly because Sam loved to say ‘I told you so’. 

Through the years

We all will be together

If the fates allow

Hang a shining star

Upon the highest bough

The firefighter stalked off towards his locker to grab his jacket before following out the doors that lead to the side of the firehouse. If Y/n went out, that’s where she would be, sulking in the shadows. Cold air swirled in to replace the heat from inside as he opened the door, the rush of it sending a chill through his body. He zipped up the coat as he went down the few stairs, finding her sitting there on the stoop. 

“Dean, I don’t want to talk about it,” She sighed when she looked up to see it was him that had followed her. 

“Then just listen?” He quirked one brow at her, waiting for her invitation before taking a seat next to her. “I know that you are hurting and I wanted to start by saying I’m sorry. It was never my intent to hurt you.”

“I know that.”

“I just… I can’t stand seeing you so down. Sean hurt you badly and I didn’t want you to allow him to do it again. You deserve so much more than that.” Dean pulled his arms in closer to his body as the chill of the night set into his bones and the snow continued to fall around them. 

“It was just coffee Dean, not a marriage proposal.”

“Yeah, and I hate that even more,” Y/n looked up then, confusion written all over her features. “Y/n you know that you are the most important thing in my life, next to my brother. Hell, most times you outrank him. When we fight, or you go out of town, it’s like there is a piece of myself missing, I have this hole in my chest that only you can fill. I guess I never really understood what that meant in the grand scheme of things.” 

“Dean,”

“You know I love you right?” He cut her off.

“Of course I do. I love you too,” The word rolled off the tip of her tongue like honey. Like it was the most simple thing in the world. Because she did love him, and she had for as long as she’d known the eldest Winchester. 

“But Y/n/n, I think I’m in love with you,” Dean held her gaze, his amber green eyes searching hers for the words she had yet to utter. The girl across from him could feel her chest filling with emotion, the confession by her favorite firefighter igniting something long dormant inside her. 

“You do?” Tears were threatening to overflow her eyelids, the feeling inside her needing to escape somewhere. She wasn’t in control anymore, her voice cracking with her words. 

“I do,” he nodded, affirming his words to himself as well as her. “And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. I just thought that maybe we could give us a chance.” 

“Us?” Dean nodded, at a loss for what she was thinking for the first time in a long time. “I like the sound of that, us.” Y/n repeated the words with a snort,  a coy smile upturning one side of her mouth. Dean’s breath hung in the air as he waited for her to continue. 

“Is that a yes?” 

“Yes, Winchester.” The woman shook her head as he sighed, his body visibly relaxing next to her. Dean took his hand out of his jacket pocket, cupping her cold cheek in its warmth. A bright smile lit up her face as he ran his thumb over her reddened nose and down over her bottom lip. “Just kiss me already.”

“Is that an order?” He threw her words back at her, earning a fist to the chest. Her nose scrunched up as she playfully scowled at him. Dean felt her fingers wrap around the lapels of his jacket before she was pulling him to her, their lips meeting in the middle. Both of them were hesitant, this being their first kiss that wasn’t alcohol-fueled or rushed. Dean opened his mouth to her just as the alarm inside the firehouse sounded sending the two of them apart as if they had been electrocuted. 

“I’ve gotta go,” Dean silently cursed the universe’s timing. 

“Go save lives,” she patted down his jacket against his chest as her fingers unraveled themselves from the material. Dean pecked her chilled nose before getting up and running to the door, pausing as he pulled it open to turn back to her. 

“Wait for me?”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” 

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Forevers: @22sarah08​ @akshi8278​ @anathewierdo​ @atc74​ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce​​ @callmekda​ @dawnie1988​ @deanwanddamons​ @ellewritesfix05​ @emoryhemsworth​ @flamencodiva​​ @foxyjwls007​ @hobby27​ @janicho88​ @jensengirl83​ @katehuntington​ @lyarr24​ @malfoysqueen14​ @miss-nerd95​ @mrsjenniferwinchester​ @msmarvelouswinchester​ @polina-93​​ @sleepylunarwolf​ @stiles-stilinski-24-dylan​ @smol-and-grumpy​ @suckmyapplejacks​ @superfanficnatural​ @supraveng​ @talesmaniac89​ @tranquility-or-chaos​​ @waywardbeanie​ @winchest09​

[mayonnaisetoffees]

Mayo's Fic Recs

List of my favourite fics below the cut; this list is a WIP and completely personal taste; a mix of fandom classics and lesser knowns

Please remember to leave comments and kudos for the authors and podficcers!

*shows particular favourites

Fandoms currently included: Spn, Merlin, Les Mis, BatFam

Fics That Changed Me Fundamentally

Loaded March*** by Footloose. Merlin | E | 1.26M(Series)/ 35k (First part) | 188k hits (First part)

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can’t keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn’t good enough, either. Except he is.

You can read all about my thoughts on Loaded March here, here, and here. Basically this fic series is beautifully written, has absolutely delicious UST, has found family, magic, and high stakes. It’s been part of my life for almost a decade now, I made friends through LM that I still have to this day, and it genuinely changed me as a person. Plus there are 78k of Extras to itch that I Finished Now What scratch. Parts 1-5 have been podficced and you can find them in works inspired by this one in each part.

Down to Agincourt*** by Seperis. Supernatural | E | 1.12M(Series)/ 154k (First part) | 73k hits (First part)

The world’s already over and they’re already dead. All they’re doing now is marking time until the end.

S7!Dean is transported back to the aftermath of where 5x04 The End left off. Much like LM, DtA was one that I avoided for a while. I didn’t think it would be my thing. I’m not usually into End!verse, it sounded so bleak from the summary, and it sounded so long for something I wasn’t sure about. If you’re reading this and nodding along? You are as much a fool as I was. Yes, it’s the end of the world. But it’s not over yet. This is a beautiful journey in what it means to be yourself, how to survive the end of the world, a How-To for Coups, and a study in food as a love language. I only read this fic this year, but like LM, it has genuinely changed me. Map of the World has been podficced.

Supernatural

Let’s start with the current hyperfixation. All of these are at least passively Dean/Cas unless otherwise stated. I've split into ones from my first time around in the SPN fandom and more recent ones because the vibes are actually really different and it took me some time to adjust (Not in a bad way! In a time has passed they have grown as characters way)

Old-School SPN (AKA the Classics my first time around)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Home in Motion* by nomdeplume13 M | 232k | 48k hits

Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of dean's life: Fatherhood.

Did someone say kid!fic in canonverse? This is perfect. Canon divergence from the end of S6. Cas saves a baby from a neglectful mother and gives him to Dean to raise. They all move in with Bobby. Great OCs. Bobby considers Cas his son. Listen everything I say here will not be able to begin to encompass how much I love this fic. Just trust me on this one.

Named* by RC_McLachlan M | 95k | 95k hits

Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that isn't the worst part of Dean's week.

With a summary like that, need I say more? No but I'm gonna. This is one of the funniest fics I've ever read, but it doesn't take any emotion from the serious moments, if anything it heightens them. There are so many quotes from this I think about all the time. It was written in 2010 and so there's a bit of misogyny/character assassination of Anna in places.

Second Childhood by CloudyJenn (read by exmanhater) G | 16k (1h30) | 10k hits

"Dude, I can't do this whole thing by myself," Dean said with far more desperation leaking into his tone than he liked. It would just be too much to make it through hell and death and Lucifer only to have Castiel bail on him because of a frigging baby.

They beat the Apocalypse (OG-S5) and then Sam gets de-aged by a spell. I've listened to this so many times I know it by heart, it's an ultimate comfort fic to me.

Defy Any and All Expectation* by Tenoko1 (read by Tenoko1) M | 138k (14hrs) | 37k hits

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord. Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected. But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time. Alternate Season Six.

So this is a re-written version of Tenoko1's The Path We Choose which I don't think is around anymore. By the time I was reading the re-write as each chapter came out, I knew every single line of TPWC and it wasn't all that much shorter. It's such a perfect canon divergence because they are all 100% in-character. If you're into podfic, you already know what an absolute gift 14 hours is, but if you have never tried podfic before, Tenoko1 is a fantastic place to start. Her voice is soothing and energetic and her Cas sometimes comes to mind when I'm reading fic in Misha's place (sorry Misha)

His Fucking Kids 'Verse by 8sword M | 96k(Series)/ 3k (first part) | 26k hits (first part)

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

Emma survives and Dean and Cas are raising her and Claire. This fic series will make you laugh, make you cry, and (nowadays) make you wish Emma had survived to be a part of Wayward Sisters.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 22k | 37k hits

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Dean breaks his legs, and honey!Cas brings home some kittens to foster. It's achingly sweet and also painful because you know Dean wants to fix Cas but there's nothing to fix. It is tagged for ableism for this.

Tripping* by Hatteress E | 49k | 78k hits

That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn't afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean's life.

Alt!S5 and it is beautiful. Also any fic with Missouri is an automatic win.

Broadway Musical by Grifitings M | 12k | 79k hits

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at. Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

Jimmy deserves a sainthood and frankly I don't even want to hear about crack if it's not on the level of the Host yelling at Cas not to touch the butt.

Classic AUs (AKA AUs from my first time around)

Try Something Tuesday by almaasi E | 48k | 144k hits

Dean Winchester teaches a third-grade class. He's new to this whole ‘bisexual’ thing - but by pure happenstance, he meets Castiel: a particularly dapper male librarian who moonlights as a substitute teacher. Dean's curious and Castiel is willing, so why the hell not? Except, fate never intended it to be one-time-only...

This was one of the first spn fics to really really stay with me and it never really left.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by ChasingRabbits E | 127k(Series)/ 8k (Part1) | 29k hits (Part1)

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

This series. If you've ever felt unsure or out of place or anxious or just really felt like no-one understood you, this fic is for you. I first found this series when I was coming to terms with my queerness and I genuinely think it was invaluable. Also I am a sucker for the go for a dinner at Cas's family and end up storming out trope.

Play It All Night Long by janie_tangerine (read by Tenoko1) NC17 | 43k (4hrs)

The rom-com-ish one where Dean hosts a late night radio show, Castiel is a regular listener of his who starts calling one day and ends up calling more often than not and Dean finds himself liking it. This, until one day Castiel calls for not exactly petty reasons (just before Dean's brother Sam is visiting with his girlfriend for spring break) and things get very, very crowdy at his place. He also doesn't know it's just the beginning of it. Also features Gabriel, Chuck, Andy, the Roadhouse crew and a huge amount of music quoted. Especially Bob Dylan.

Again, this podfic has got me through many a night of insomnia. Cas calls in after a particularly shitty day and it all goes from there.

New-School SPN (AKA post-2014)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara E | 57k | 28k hits

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says. Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away. Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

There is a reason you will see this recced time and time again. It healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing.

So Says the Sword* by komodobits E | 85k | 73k hits

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected

I saw ssts mentioned in like every single If you're getting back into the fandom READ THIS rec list. For good reason. It's described as "canon-adjacent in that seasons one to three happened exactly the same, but when Dean goes to Hell, he is not raised by Castiel". It's one of the most interesting concepts I've read and it's one of those fics where the writing style will stick with you. Castiel POV in a way you've never read before.

Aching in the Absence of You* by sobsicles E | 95k | 9k hits (in 5 days)

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back. He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales. "Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time. By nightfall, Cas is gone.

If you don't already know sobsicles, I am delighted to introduce you to the person who will smash you to pieces with a hammer to put you back together Kintsugi-style. This one is post-finale but without 15x18 (it'll make sense as it goes). Cas says he's going to leave again and again Dean doesn't ask him to stay. Full of lines so beautiful they'd make Shakespeare weep, Sobsicles has this way of writing that is so evocative and paints such a clear picture. Fair warning, if you're Dean-coded, this might be A Lot.

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)** by sobsicles E | 108k | 25k hits

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next. ~~~ Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want." "What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before." "Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out." "Easier said than done."

Yes, two sobsicles recs back to back. This one I read first and it still holds such a special place in my heart. A sign of a good fic is being able to picture it perfectly. The sign of an amazing fic is that when reading this I was so in Dean's shoes I could feel a pool cue between my hands and Baby behind my back. And I sobbed like a baby in this. It has probably my favourite ending ever. It's genuinely beautiful. If you don't read another on this list, read this one.

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara M | 52k | 14k hits

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean. (A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

The ultimate Cas character study and interwoven with poetry.

So There It Is, I've Said It All by PorcupineGirl (read by Ceewelsh) G | 4k | 13k hits

"Why, do you have something you need to say to me that you don't think I'll like?" I think I'm in love with you. "Yeah. I guess so."

Dean figures out he's in love with Cas then can't stop thinking it. This is genuinely beautiful and if you've ever had trouble actually saying the thing you're thinking, you'll relate to Dean here. I recently did the podfic for this.

you won't find this place alone by amidsizedfrog G | 9.5k |

When Claire said she was dropping out of college to pursue hunting full time, Dean said, “right,” and left the room. Or, the cross-generation conversation about formal education, choosing your own path and figuring out what it looks like to find a family. Or, in other words: "But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell-attitude, and I'll figure it out." - Dean Winchester

This is a beautiful look at education in the hunter world, and I love anything that looks at Dean and Bobby's relationship and this does it perfectly. Also best cameo ever.

Seek to Know You Better by ahurston E | 33k | 23k hits

Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love. As if they weren't already.

This is perfect. It has a lovely slow pace like it has the vibes of an indie film if that makes sense? Like it's two guys going from place to place talking. It was an instant favourite.

Newer AUs (AKA more recent AUs)

And This, Your Living Kiss* by opal_bullets M | 57k | 69k hits

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

When I asked which fics were absolute must-reads for someone who'd been out of the fandom a few years, this was said repeatedly. But what really got me to read it was everyone actually told me more about what it meant to them than just the summary. It's a study in poetry, a study in learning who you are and who you used to be, and a reminder that it's never too late.

The Graveyard Shift* by riseofthefallenone, PurgatoryJar E | 620k | 175k hits

Dean’s favourite coffee shop, The Graveyard Shift, is only open after the sun goes down. Which is perfect for him, because that’s exactly when he craves coffee the most while doing the overnight at the fire hall. The coffee shop’s owner is pretty perfect too, but it’s kind of a bummer that Dean never gets to see Cas during the day. In a world where the supernatural live more or less in peace with the rest of humanity, it’s a little impolite to ask Cas just what he really is - or what his dark past entails.

A fantastic magical realism fic - magical creatures live and work with humans. Gabe and Cas run a coffee shop, Dean is a fireman, and the burn is slow and delicious and the intrigue kept me reading for like a week every single spare minute.

Painted Angels by WinJennster E | 106k | 162k hits

Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

The first part of this I actually saved back when I was first in the fandom but I never got around to reading it (I had a To Read folder of 100+ fics that I absolutely dove into when I got back into spn) and the rest of the series finished in 2016 so I'm counting it in this section not the other. On the one hand, I wish I'd read this when it first came out. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and so visual. On the other hand, I think I appreciated it a lot more now than I would have seven years ago. The parallel of me coming back to the old fandom that I loved dearly with Cas coming back to see someone and places he loved so much really hit. (Although coming back to the spn fandom was much easier and much less heartbreak!)

Finale Fix-Its (yeah fuck you Dabb that this has to be a whole category)

The Goldenrod Revisions by aethylas M | 66k | 15k hits

A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.

Script format re-write of 15x19 and 15x20 into a 5-episode finale fix-it. As far as I'm concerned, this and chocolatecakecas's American Pie fanvid are the Supernatural finale.

break the skin (to break the barriers)* by sobsicles M | 30k | 9k hits

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. ~~~ Dean is silent for a long, tense moment, then he gruffly says, "It's not for banishing the angels. It's to summon them. So, it doesn't—it's not to get rid of 'em, but to draw 'em in." Mitzi can't help but glance up at him at that. His voice is so heavy with so much unexplained pain, and she doesn't understand why, or what angels have to do with it. She knows religion can impact people. She's very aware that it can get complicated, and that it can be a huge source of pain for someone, but Dean sounds grievously wronged, somehow, as if it's a truly personal thing. She pushes through, focusing back on her job, clearing her throat before murmuring, "Well, I guess we all want angels to visit us sometimes." "Just the one," Dean mumbles. "Your guardian angel?" Mitzi asks. Dean breathes out, "Something like that. As close to one as an angel will ever get."

Therapy through getting tattoos and telling your life story to someone who obviously doesn't think it's real. Outsider!POV not just done well, but done literally the best.

Kingdom Come by ahurston E | 17k | 10k hits

Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.

I don't know if this counts as finale fix-it as it's more fuck the finale we're ignoring that. There's just so much love and care in this fic.

The Family Business by chai_lattes M | 16k | 5.5k hits

It's all over. It's been weeks since Chuck's defeat and Cas' return from the Empty. There are no threats on the horizon, no apocalypses to stop, but there's something that keeps the Winchesters from being happy. Something that's maybe always been there. On their way back from a hunt, they find John Winchester, back from the dead.

If you're anything like me, you start rubbing your grubby little hands together at the tag John Winchester's A+ Parenting like yes let's address this! This is one of the best examples of John coming back and how it jars with the life that they have built. Also Claire and Jack getting to share screentime!

Merlin

If I have a forever fandom, it's Merlin. I've always kept one foot in this fandom, and it introduced me to fandom, and most importantly to podfic which kinda had an impact. All Merthur unless stated.

Canon-Verse

Seven Magpies by syllic (read by lunchee) E | 33k (3hr15) | 58k hits

Arthur opened his eyes a minute later to the sight of seven magpies streaking across the top of the clearing, their shapes dark against the white clouds and the muted grey of the sky. He tried to remember what it was that seven magpies meant—he'd had a nurse who had sung the rhyme to him as a child—but couldn't. Arthur wakes up somewhere he doesn't recognise, but where he clearly belongs.

Okay so this is an AU but it's Canon-AU so it's going here. Fantastic role reversal fic that you will be thinking about for weeks.

and from your grace, i fell by TheDragon (read by Ceewelsh) T | 4.6k (41mins) | 13k hits

“Where’s Merlin?” he asks the maid. “Where’s that idiot of a Court Sorcerer?!” “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I thought you knew,” the maid replies, not daring to look him in the eyes. “He’s taken ill.” “And he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself that he would be unable to attend today’s council meeting?” Arthur questions, voice full of acid. “He hasn’t woken since he collapsed two days ago, Sire,” the maidservant says, blissfully unaware that what she’s saying the power to stop Arthur’s heart in its tracks.

When I first read this, it had me completely transfixed. I could not stop reading. It was so raw and so full of emotion. I was then lucky enough to get TheDragon in our exchange, so I did a podfic for it and it's probably the most proud I've been of one.

Modern AU

The Student Prince* by FayJay (read by FayJay) M | 145k (15hrs) | 696k hits

A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love...

A classic is a classic for a reason. I'm also pretty sure this introduced me to podfics so like special place in my heart x2. Did you know if you filter AO3 by hits on Merlin, this has 426k more hits than the second result? Now that is a Fandom Classic.

Drastically Redefining Protocol* by rageprufrock (read by lunchee) E | 46k (5hr30) | 269k hits

In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

As I always say, if this can happen to me and I still love the fic, nothing is going to change that. Arthur hides from his duties in a cupboard and gets stuck in there with a chainsmoking med student.

Fundamental Imperfections by Starlingthefool (read by bravenclawsome) M | 12k (1hr35) | 123k hits

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing. (Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

This fic has everything: Charles Dickens, long distance texting, Morgana choking a Sherlock cosplayer with his own scarf. This is the ultimate comfort fic and I compare all fics to this even when they're incomparable. I never read the sequel because it was WIP and I was waiting for it to complete, it hasn't been updated since 2015 and apparently ends on an unhappy note, so if you're going to read the sequel you have been warned.

Les Mis

Modern!AU

Overzealous Oddities by YassHomo e/R, Courf/Cosette/Marius, Comb/Ép | G | 6.4k | 4k hits

Courfeyrac: Remember when I smashed our tv and we laughed about it? Enjolras: No. Courfeyrac: Let me rephrase Courfeyrac: I've smashed our tv, lets laugh about it.

I love me a text fic and this is in my opinion the best one around. Just look at that summary. I have quoted that so many times.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young* by GingerNinjaAbi E/R, Courf/Jehan | M | 99k | 42k hits

Perhaps somewhere in between all the cups of coffee, shots of tequila, sunny March days, terrible lumpy jumpers, love, cigarettes, drunken nights and the desire to change the world they'll all leave Paris with a degree in something. Or not. Grantaire's money is on no. But he's a pessimist who's hopelessly in love, so perhaps his opinion shouldn't count.

The ULTIMATE modern!AU tbh.

Tagged by Salomonderiel E/R, Courf/Jehan | E | 155k | 28k hits

So there's this artist. He could probably be compared to Banksy, but he's a lot more... cynical. He shares rooms with a poet who braids his hair with flowers, in a flat near Covent Garden they rent from a short-tempered shop keeper with a penchant for fans and who'd do anything if you mentioned Poland. Sometimes, the three of them will go and deface public buildings in London whilst completely smashed off their heads. And then there's this, shall we say, 'revolutionary'. He has a band of other revolutionaries, who all meet at this cafe by Borough Market. He shares rooms with his best mate, a philosophy student, spends too much time with a flirty guy who has a thing for poets, goes boxing with a guy in a red vest, wants to punch the wet sop who drools on the blonde waitress and is getting tired of this guy who keep breaking his laptops through sheer dumb luck. Thank god the hypochondriac's there to keep an (slightly too) attentive eye on their stress levels. The revolutionary thinks the graffiti artist's work is a waste of space. The artist thinks the revolutionary's campaigns are a waste of time. And all the while, the poet and the flirt drool over each other in the background...

This is perfect and it's funny and it's beautiful and it rips my heart out multiple times.

Canon

To Be Free by kjack89 (read by Ceewelsh) Gen, Cosette/Marius | T | 3.8k (32mins) | 375 hits

Three blows from a bayonet had transfixed Combeferre’s breast, followed by a fall from the barricade as he rapidly lost first blood and then consciousness. But neither of these, it seemed, was enough to kill him, as much as later he might perhaps wish that they were.

I read this because it was on a list kjack89 did of their favourite fics which don't necessarily have the same hits traffic. It's nothing I would have usually read (canon era, not e/R, MCD) but I am so glad I gave it a go. It's a study on what if Combeferre had survived the barricades too and the guilt. This stayed with me for days afterwards until I eventually messaged kjack89 to get permission to podfic it.

BatFam

Canonish (I don't know differences between canons but these are all they're superheros fics)

Robins United by laceymcbain (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | T | 49k (6h15)/ 19k (2h25) (First part) | 103k hits

Bullets, knives, a three story fall, even a fucking crowbar hadn't managed to keep Jason down permanently, but Dick Grayson (and the rest of his "family") was going to kill him with kindness.

The ultimate batbros series. Also if you haven't heard reena_jenkins' podfics before, you are welcome. Pre-pandemic I took a lot of public transport and reena_jenkins kept me sane.

batcoons by drakefeathers (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | G | 6k (49mins) | 14k hits

Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)

This is funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a really good character study.

AU

Here Comes the Sun by batsy_rocks Clark/Bruce | T | 19k | 20k hits

Clark Kent is a kind-hearted reporter working in the big city. Bruce Wayne is a stressed dad of four with no idea of what he's doing. Then they meet.

Bruce Wayne is a Tired Single Dad™. It's genuinely such a sweet fic.

[solange-lol]

hiii in celebration of AUctober, what are some of your fav solangelo AUs?

Anonymous said to solange-lol:

Hi! Kinda a random question: do you have any favorite riordanverse fanfics that you’d suggest reading? I’m looking for ones to read, but I’ve been having trouble finding new ones! Thanks!

rec list #1 | rec list #2

all recs can be found under the tag ‘lizs solangelo fic recs’ on my blog!

technically its past auctober now, but better late then never to drop my third solangelo rec list!! especially considering the state of the world rn ... lets just say its a celebration of me actually participating in sw for the first time in a while

rec under cut as always!! its not all aus but its the count that thots

Find Another Place to Stay by @unwieldyink

personally i think breakup fics are incredibly underrated, and i also think annie is incredibly underrated, so enjoy ur little cry if you read this one (tw // violence in this one)

Hershey’s kiss by @unwieldyink

we love a godswap!! it’s actually been a while since ive read this one and i reread this while making this rec list and can i just say that zeus!nico and hermes!will are both such valid concepts and this just has a rly good dynamic to it

Actors by @buoyantsaturn

i could talk about this fic for hours but lets just say ao3 has told me ive visted this fic 40 times. im not kidding. fake dating is just a godtier trope

start of something new by jinniefic

if you know me, you know that i fricken LOVE high school musical, and this is literally just the start of the first movie but solangelo and honestly a little more iconic please read even if ur not a hsm fan

paper/plastic by @rosyredlipstick

the fact that this is from 2018 and took this long to get into my rec list is tragic because i think about this fic a lot... a lot. mortal au. very chill, strangers to lovers, very good vibes, will be rereading soon (everything rosy writes is amazing we already knew this)

10:37pm by @buoyantsaturn

surprise another cj fic! fun fact she debated with us for a good half hour about what to title this fic so go read it so you can tell her you like the name (and the fic itself... its a very good fic) (tw // alchohol and drug use for this one)

Sunflower by ChiseHatori

3 days in the infirmary is probably the easiest trope u can find in the solangelo tag but i have to say this one really made me soft just bc it feels a lot more in character than some of the others ive read, and it basically picks up right where they ended in the books

Will You, or Will You Not? by @thebluesideofmyworld

marriage fics... also very soft. just boys bein boys. dual engagements. mortal au. all that good stuff vv soft i loved it

let your heart win by @justanothervampiregirl

this one is short but its also probably one of the most in character fics ive ever read and i really like this style of writing mixed with canon compliance so :)

The Magic of Naomi Solace by Sweetymomo

naomi solace, underratted legend. i aspire to have her relationship with will. lots of familial background if you like that!! and its set at a bnb!!

forget all the shooting stars and silver moons by itotallyreadthatbook

when i saw this in the tag i was SO excited bc we love high school aus here and it was!! very good indeed!! this trope is one ive never seen before and i recommend 10/10 good banter

They won’t always live by Phantomxlegend

will overworking himself and coping with loss always makes me :(( so if ur okay with some will angst then buckle up

“I am fully capable of kicking your ass” by @unwieldyink

i remember i saw the email notification for this one and immediately was like yup absolutely im in and it 100% lives up to its title we love capture the flag solangelo

the night we met by peachyytomlinson

a lil ooc but also very angsty and did make me emotional when i read this late at night. i think i wrote something similar a while back but i just aaaaa will angst man

“look how hard i can cry FWSHHH”  by @buoyantsaturn

call me biased bc i like to claim that i originated the idea of demeter!will and cj dedicated this fic to me but like BRO its so soft and i love it here nico leave the plants along challenge failed

femboy hooters, or the time percy jackson failed to keep a secret by luciethebean

its all fun and games until the fic turns out to genuinely be really good. like, yes the title is exactly what you think it is but it doesnt matter bc its so fricken well written im^@*#&(*)($_$#&^@$(@*)* yeah

Of Ties and Significant Annoyances by seokjinvilla (@thechampagnecocainegasoline)

we dont support jkr in this household but what we do support is this bc this plot is genius and i love it

everything’s going swimmingly by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

fun fact i posed the idea of a sports/team prompt to the sw mod crew literally just so someone would pull through and write a swim au and ethan DID without even knowing. i love them and their writing style is so !!!! please read it

when you smile (the whole world stops) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

another ethan fic!! this is the perfect fic for a rough day where u just want some cuddles bc thats literally the plot of the fic. i love this one with my entire heart its very fluffy 10/10 do reccomend

pumpkin spice (i hate it, it's not nice) (ok maybe it's a little nice) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

ethan fic part 3!! bc i binge read these all in one night!! literally again their writing style is so amazing and the witty banter!!!! also we love a retail bookstore au 

Burnt Plastic (and Other Bad Ideas) by More_of_This

so this one isnt exactly romantically solangelo but it is hilarious in my opinion and i absolutely adore well written college aus and while i know nothing about college this fic is so funny to me (if you read the tags there is, in fact, a raccoon involved) (tw // drinking for this one)

all because you kissed me goodnight by @buoyantsaturn

i have been WAITING for a mortal counselors au and im sure theres some out there already but y’all already know im a cj stan! lots of slowburn, friends to lovers, coworkers, all the good stuff (and i named this one and offered cj a lot of materials from my own camp so this one especially hits!! i reccomend for those good ol summer vibes!!) (tw // drinking for this one)

Waiting With You by @buoyantsaturn

oh boy buckle up if u want an angst ride because this fic tore me apart. i keep threatning cj with “dont pull another waiting with you”. that being said, very much feels like a movie while youre reading it, very fluffy in the middle, we love mutual pining. 

Little Italian Boy by @buoyantsaturn

stream little italian boy by grace gilmore. youll get it. thats it.

The Clues by @thebluesideofmyworld

secret dating when done well is legit one of my favorite tropes of all time and this!!! this!!!!!!!!! its outsiders perspective also which is another one of my favorite tropes, and just little views on nicos life and i love it

So Come On, Talk it Out (your voice brought me back from the dead) by @buoyantsaturn

will solace, sponsered by kitkats, cj edition

no but if you read tower of nero you’ll really like this missing pieces pre-ton fic this is a really soft little fic with a bunch of easter eggs from the book in it, so i highly recommend! if you havent read ton yet and are still avoiding spoilers, come back to this one!

reaching for the sun (you, you, you) by moonswords (@tortadelimao)

i just read this one about 2 hours ago for the first time and i am Still thinking about it. its like the getting together that i literally feel like is canon and the vibes are Immaculate (also william “what about me looks straight” solace)

“Are we on a date right now?” by @unwieldyink

overworked will, nico helping out in the infirmary, first dates & hikes, canon compliant, we love to see it (also its an annie fic so ur required by law to read it)

Outrunning karma by Phantomxlgend 

more will angst! featuring angry overworked will!

Everlasting Ring by minyoongurt (@blueblackslowtown)

i was Very excited when i read the summary of this one, and i think minyoongurt did a really good job!! healer will, injured nico, the whole dynamic. also i love the idea of nico only knowing “thank you” “go away” and “fuck you” in sign language. im pretty sure thats canon

The Little Thing by Rainbow_Mess

i belive this is also a pre-toa fic thats just exploring all the stuff we found out about will in ton and its very short and sweet :)

and of course, a few of my recent works for your consideration

who is he (and what is he to you?)

just doing my silly little tasks

i don’t need three bars to tell me we’re meant to connect

truly, madly, deeply

[jbbuckybarnes]

We need to talk...

I knew that this topic of interactions will come up again, because it has never been talked all the way through, so I had this drafted for a while. So much of this old draft still resonated with this permanently unfinished discussion that I just had to edit it and post it, because I feel like it has to be said and put into one post. We can’t keep starting this conversation and then make it so dramatic that there is no conclusion or compromise. The only reason this time is more mellow is because people have better standards for this stuff due to a pandemic going on. This is written for the MCU fandom, but I’ve seen this go down in different fandoms, so here we go:

Things that are NOT at fault for readers not interacting:

The Readers. Should be clear after asking them again and again. And nothing changing. The readers at large are not at fault for a couple people being demanding or hateful. Neither are they at fault for this website and other social medias automatically putting writers at a disadvantage. They do their best with the time they have in their life (just like writers). And after asking them over months to try and reblog more and not much changing, it should be obvious that it isn’t where the problem lies. At least not 95% of it. NOW:

Things that ARE at fault for readers not interacting:

Pushing them, thinking they owe you stuff, while you tear other writers down saying that nobody owes them stuff. That happens time and time again. To me, to friends, to writers I check in with. Don't expect community to come to you when you don't come to them.

Not putting anon asks off when demands and hate get too much. It’s literally THAT easy when people get nasty. It’s sad for the nice anons, but they will understand. Save your mental health! Save the mental health of people reading that hate on their dash. I don’t know how many people constantly answering to hate I have unfollowed and I’m sure people have unfollowed me for doing the same.

Ego and hypocrisy. You can't say numbers aren't a problem and then say they are. In the same post. AND then also deny it later in some of the cases we’ve seen in recent months. Yes, that happened. In several fandoms where this topic comes up semi-regularly. And that might also be the reason people are tired of this stuff and speak out against it.

The fact Tumblr is only used approximately twice a year by most people. And has a shitty tag system. And a shitty algorithm. You are at an automatic disadvantage.

The fact some of you can't understand that 3-5% of your following interacting is a good and normal rate on pretty much all social media. The bigger you get in followers, the bigger the gap gets between followers and interaction (and demand and hate). There are literal statistics on that. 1% interaction at 10k is still good for a platform you have no power over!

The fact some of the people here call anons *haters* for pointing out that you interact w the same 10 people, making that speace seem excluding, when it's literally true what those people say!? Nothing wrong with only support the same 10 people on your blog, but then don't say that you practice what you preach (cause you don’t). You can’t demand more interaction when you don’t interact more yourself. That is how it works, for anyone, not just people of a certain follower count. If I reblog more fics, my blog gets more clout. Logical conclusion. Works for everyone. You have no time for that? Then don’t expect more back. It’s called SOCIAL media for a damn reason.

Telling people asking for Tumblr advice to interact more to make new friends but being the most defensive/indifferent person once they talk to you in DMs. Yes, that keeps happening and I know it from either my own experience or from others sharing their experiences with me. It’s kinda sad. It’s more of a minor factor in people not interacting, but I’ve seen it enough to mention it.

Making shitposts and personal posts all day and then saying you don't have the time in your life to interact w peoples' writings. Like, drabbles exist on almost anyone's masterlist. 5 minute read, easy support for a writer that might be losing motivation. Not every work has to be written like a novel to be great as hell or “quality proven.”

Oh, and there hasn't been a MCU movie in a while, making most of our readership probably currently not care about the fandom as much. Especially after Endgame ended up being a total opinion splitter.

Bonus: The misunderstanding that pushing shy readers to interact does the exact opposite. Not to start about the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic at the moment. That means they may not have time to read and you may not have time to write. Normal. Logical. The same reason lots of people currently don’t publish. Don’t expect anything predictable and controlable out of current times.

Bonus: Check how you connect interactions to self worth and worth/fun of your writing hobby. Define what success means for you in this space, otherwise you will never be satisfied. It won’t matter if a post has 1k reblogs, you’ll always want more, because you chase an infinite metric.

Bonus: Maybe take a month to concentrate on community, getting outside of your bubble that you deny but very likely have (I’m not excluding myself from this), and actually improve interactions. Some people seem to have forgotten that when you interact with other writers, they probably interact back. Surprise! Your followers already know your tried and true fanfic friends, they want some new stuff without searching for it. Basic Marketing knowledge, know what your audience wants. If you do this for the interactions you gotta look at it from a marketing standpoint and not a pure passion standpoint. Oh: And maybe they find you interacting in the notes of someone else’s post and become an active follower. Win-Win-Win situation.

Bonus: Community is a loop, a net of interactions. Some people here have clique behavior, sound defensive and/or simply don't practice what they preach. That is not me or anyone else hating on specific blogs (I’m also no complete exception), it’s people trying to tell you that you can’t ask for shit you don’t practice yourself. Nothing wrong with supporting your friends only, but then don’t go around expecting new people to find your stuff. It’s literally THAT simple. You can’t have both!

Bonus: Ignoring some of the ride or die readers that are already there. Some of the people on here wish they had that and it’s deadass taken it for granted by some. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with Serotonin levels like christmas when someone I know reblogs my stuff and my fic gets some clout. Imma repeat myself: If you do it for the numbers, you gotta look at it more like marketing and less like pure passion.

And again: You are on a social media platform that will always put you at a disatvantage. That is not the readers' fault. It's how social media works at this point. If you want as much interaction as you can without putting in more interaction work yourself, simply share your works on here, AO3 and Wattpad simultaneously. Problem solved.

Bottomline: If you want more love on your work you gotta go beyond what you currently do, since it’s clearly not working for you. Reblog stuff from people you don't know. I don't give a sh*t if it's a 5k or a 100 follower blog. Hell, there is the whole 366 reblog challenge and some of you deadass went on reblogging the same people when that’s not really what this was made for. I, personally, haven't run out of new people to reblog, so this shouldn't be hard. Actually take time to talk to people in DM's, it takes 10 minutes in the evening to write a few people a message asking how they are or sending a cute gif. If you want stuff, you have to give it. Not leave it. People have come to me before, telling me "the community doesn't owe you stuff", no, they don't, but they do owe if they wanna be owed something back or even demand to be owed something back. Community is about back and forth. You give, you get. It's work, cause it's a big hobby. If you don't have time, that's cool, but then don't be sad about lower interaction. It’s logical that low activity from you leads to low activity from others in the long run, unless you do something worldshakingly new. You don't wanna look beyond a circle of friends or your go-to writers much? That's fine, but don't be upset about barely new people interacting cause they feel excluded or simply don’t find your work because of the same people seeing the same people reblogging the same works. What's not fine is not seeing how readers are NOT THE PROBLEM.

I haven’t talked to a single person about this that DIDN’T find the posts surrounding it demanding and completely ignoring the arguments some others had...repeatedly. Every single time it came up. Not just once but time and time again, whenever this topic comes up. You want interaction? Interact. You don’t want hate? Don’t give it a platform. As harsh as that sounds, I’ve never felt better on this platform since I put anon asks off, even when I miss the nice anons. They probably understand. PS: Again, this was written a while ago and edited to fit into a more general context now. I hope people can discuss this in a civil, non-judgmental way, because that is how I tried to write this. This is not again a specific person or group, it’s pinpointing what I see repeating for two years on this platform now, in all corners. I’d also like to mention that we are still in a pandemic and lives have never looked so vastly different, so you can’t demand anything normal in this very not normal time. Even if you do it all right, your interactions dropped in the pandemic cause people likely stay away form this platform for mental health reasons. There is so many layers to look at, these clearly aren’t all, but I hope it makes some people think about what and when they complain. Numbers will never satisfy you, they will always leave you wanting more if you don’t know why you do what you do and for what. Anyway: Be nice to each other and me in the notes in case this gets shared! No drama please! Ignore any grammar and typo mistakes, lol. Love ya!

[baticorngirl]

Title: "And They All Lived Happily Ever After"

(Dedicated to @mac-attack5)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Fandom: Batman/DC

Warning(s): Graphic Depictions of Violence

Relationship(s): Ra's al Ghul & Talia al Ghul, Talia al Ghul & Melisande, (Heavily Mentioned) Ra's al Ghul/Sora,

Characters: Ra's al Ghul, Talia al Ghul, Melisande (Talia's mother),

Summary:

When she was small, Talia al Ghul's favorite bedtime story used to be her father's own origin story. It had excitement, twists, revenge, and a moral that Ra's urged her to follow constantly, but that was not the reason she liked it. She liked it because of the beginning. The part where her father was kind, anti-murder, anti-death, and pro-humanity. Perhaps it was a guilty pleasure of hers, to imagine that time. Her father would be very upset to think of her enjoying these thoughts, she knew. Perhaps rightfully. Perhaps she needed to learn better with maturity, or needed to stop being so naive.

Or perhaps, those thoughts were the most beautiful thing she had.

Chapter 1 of 6

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Author's note:

First of all, my dear readers, if you don't want heavy spoilers for Birth of the Demon, this fic is not for you. It's mostly based off of that version of Ra's' origin (with some additions from The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul too ofc), so almost the entire thing's gonna end up spoiled if you haven't read it already.

Second of all, if you are one of the rare people that has some huge problem with frequent updates, this fic is also not for you. It shall be updating twice a day, for reasons I will explain in a moment. All six chapters have already been fully written and edited, so, going along with that, this fic is labelled with the characters/relationships of the full story. (Specifically, Melisande will not show up until next chapter, and there is no Graphic Depictions of Violence yet.)

Third of all, this fic has a little backstory in itself that I would like to speak of. Basically, here's what happened:

Last month, I was just casually messaging @mac-attack5 (the person this fic is dedicated to) on discord, and we ended up talking about the headcanon that this fic's idea surrounds. The ideas for it got very angsty very fast, though, so...

Anyway, I took that as a challenge, so here we are. I have written a 6-chapter fic, which will end up totaling to 44k words when finished, to make my friend cry. I shall keep you guys updated on whether or not she does cry. If they don't, then... LOOK I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA DO, OKAY????

That being said, this chapter is probably the least angsty out of all of them, so I don't expect any tears for the moment.

But, as a matter of fact, that's actually not the entire backstory. The reason it shall get updated so quickly is because I must get it out before the 25th. Why, might you ask? Because that's when the next Robin issue comes out, and this fic ALSO serves as a little goodbye to Ra's' wonderful old backstory, since I am 100% sure Robin is going to ruin it. The preview doesn't look like the worst thing in the world, but A) I wrote this fic before it and B) it's still seems like they're gonna push away the importance of Ra's' uncle for his mother, that Ra's will probably treat Damian worse than he would at this point realistically, etc. and just in general I don't trust DC writers lol so I gotta stay pessimistic so I'll at least get proven right if it's bad.

Okay, that should be it. Enjoy!

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It was almost 8:00 at night.

Talia's voice was high-pitched, squealing. She plopped down onto her bed, bouncing with energy. Her feet kicked in the air, even as her bottom began to settle down on the firm mattress. Her squealing didn't even pause, though, as she began to chant out fumbled incomplete sentences about beds and stories and sleep. She looked at the bedroom's door, watching as her father calmly followed her in, over 10 feet behind her.

She spun herself to face him, staring up with her beady 4-year-old eyes. Talia pushed herself up from sitting again, flinging her stubby arms out from the bed impatiently. With another weary step, Ra's came into her reach. She grabbed his hand and rushed him closer, until he began to pull a chair over and sit next to her bed, ready to begin. Another squeal of excitement echoed out of the little girl's mouth.

Talia swiftly toppled into a lying position, plopping her head down onto the fluffy pillows. Her body shifted over to point towards Ra's, still staring at him with big eyes. He eyed her back, rolling his eyes, but only a moment and an exasperated sigh later, simply patted her head affectionately. She giggled.

"Alright then, my child," Ra's leaned over to her, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. His fingers pressed together. "Any specific kind of story you'd like to hear this time?" He titled his head, letting his back hunch over while still cracking his neck back to see Talia's bright eyes.

Talia tugged her blankets over her shoulders, snuggling into them, "Any story," She whispered, a grin growing on her face. She fidgeted under the covers, kicking her legs around with a persistent childish energy. Her head rocked backwards, "Any exciting story,"

"Okay," Ra's paused, patting Talia's blankets down on her nonchalantly. He glanced to the left, letting his pupil drift to the top corner of his eye. Simultaneously, he bit the inside of his mouth and lowered his eyebrows, lost in thought as he considered his storytime options. After a minute, he slowly began to nod to himself, but before he could even start to open his mouth again, Talia opened her own and spoke rapidly.

"Story!" She squeaked, "Come on! Please! Tell me a story!" She parsed every sentence oddly, letting everything be short and concise, unlike Ra's' thinking time. Her head popped up from the pillow. There really was no end to her energy, apparently.

Ra's nudged her head back down, "Yes, yes, I will. Patience, Talia. Patience." Despite his insistence, he put his hand up to his chin, rubbing it with thought. It took much too long of this dreary silence before he fully decided and finally gave Talia the entertainment she had been bugging him for.

Fortunately, though, he did eventually open his eyes wide in realization, "I… I have one. It's… exciting, I believe. With a great moral of the story, too. A very important one." His voice deepened, "I want you to learn it and remember it well, Talia. I want you to focus on it more than the story itself." His mouth fell into a flat frown, running creases down the sides of his nose.

"Okay," Talia's chin bounced in a small nod, pushing the blankets downwards slightly. "I'll try to remember it,"

Ra's' eyebrows sharpened, casting shadows over his eyes, "You must remember it, not just try," He criticized, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. His arms crossed, "You must follow it, most importantly. Listen carefully. Don't make any immature jokes at the expense of such a story… or any jokes at all, really. Unlike most basic fairy tales, this story isn't even partially an overdone fib… it's just the reality of what happens -What did happen, as a matter of fact- when a person spends their life making this mistake. It's for your own good tha–"

"I'll do all that," Talia's chin bounced again, pushing the blanket just the tiniest bit further. With the way her feet rubbed together rapidly, it had become more than clear how bored she was. "Just start!"

"God, you're a lost cause," Ra's spit out under his breath, "When I say you need to remember this, I mean you, specifically. I've seen you, the way you speak about my job. The way you speak about me, the way you speak about this league, the way you speak about our sacrifices in general– It could be worse, but it's flawed. You haven't fully grasped this concept, even with my constant teachings." He glared.

"I...understand," Talia's chin bounced in yet another nod, but slower. She rolled flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling as her blank expression quickly proved her claim as a lie. But after a moment, she just shrugged and turned back towards him, smiling again. "But Father, come on! You told me there was excitement!"

Ra's' shoulders rose, and his breath became much louder. He huffed at Talia's disregard for the 'important moral', pressing his teeth against each other sternly. His neck leaned over, sighing again as he rested his head on his propped-up hand. Talia blinked, confused yet again by his behavior.

Ra's pushed his hand up, flinging away a short strand of hair, "Fine, fine, I'll just let you figure out all this when I'm telling it if you lack such patience," His expression gradually softened the more he glanced at Talia's adorable face. "Hopefully I am not acting foolish to trust you with such an important story at this ignorant age of yours. Just don't go around telling everyone you see and…"

"I won't!" Talia instantly swore, nodding furiously. Her eyes lit up, only now realizing that this importance made the story even more of an excitement. "I promise, Father!"

"Good," Ra's nodded in return. He took a deep suck of air into his mouth and lightly coughed, clearing his throat to prepare. Talia pressed her eyes closed in a sleepy gesture. Ra's' mouth flipped open, and his tongue twirled into a familiar pattern, "Once upon a time, in a faraway land… there was physician."

His backstory. His origin. Everything that made him who he was today, tucked in that little story. He didn't tell many people it, and frankly tried to hide it most of the time. Burying the past out of shame, grief, anger, or some twisted mix of the three was not something he was innocent of. No, not in the slightest. But history repeats itself, they say, and he could feel Talia going down that route. Even in her smile. She was still such a young child that surely it meant nothing, he would assure himself, but every action hinted. The hints built up, almost like a subtle taunt.

"Blood is gross," She had stated one day. So confident, so adamant. Her hips swung as she marched in there and made her statement. "Human corpses are gross."

Ra's had cocked his head back, "Why? Humans deserve it with the way they've treated their own habitat. It's revenge, if you put it harshly, or in truth, hardly more than a natural consequence." He turned his back on her again, shrugging. "Unless you knew the person on a deeper level, they should be sparking only joy in an intelligent witness."

"But that person was alive and then they're not," Talia argued, "That's gross and bad, because now the person has to get to a Lazarus Pit to go back to living their life. That doesn't seem good."

"As I just said, even if it's bad for that individual, it was deserved and, in most cases, a necessary punishment." Ra's shifted through a stack of books, which had laid neatly on the table in front of him, His voice had substantially increased in volume, turning harsher in tone. "If humanity doesn't benefit, that is positive, not negative."

"But–"

"But you have not been paying any attention to the lessons, have you?" Ra's accused. He spun on his heel, finally fully turning to face her. He took a few steps towards her, only to waiver of the path to grab a globe off of a nearby shelf. With a soft plop, Talia felt him place the globe in between her arms. She stared down at it curiously. Ra's kneeled down next to her, staring as well.

Ra's picked up a single finger, giving the globe a gentle spin. He placed the finger down on where it landed on, tracing it against the smooth surface. With a hint of hesitance, Talia put her finger down next to his. There were words written there, which Ra's was currently reading silently. Talia was still learning to read, though, so she simply mouthed to herself the few parts she could make out. The words were not a country's name, though, as this was not a normal globe. It was a kind of key, connecting symbols to words and descriptions. Each symbol was scattered over the map. The climate, the plants and the animals of each environment, carefully shown. Like a very specific map would, but in a spherical form.

The countries weren't even labeled, as a matter of fact. There was another globe, usually laying under a thin layer of dust next to this one, that could give Ra's his information on that if he had forgotten. But this one was not to remember labels or names, as almost every single one of those borders were man-made. Fake, ruled to exist through the minds of one species. The only names that were labeled were the continental plates. It was all that mattered to Ra's, when he looked at this globe, and all he wished to teach his daughter, at least in this moment.

"This is what the world looks like now," He explained, "Gorgeous oceans, gorgeous trees. Just a gorgeous planet, wouldn't you say? Absolutely beautiful, with all its thriving life of all kinds of animals. A miracle creation. Our miracle creation." He pressed his palm against it, rubbing the globe as he quickly pointed to different areas. Teaching Talia through gestures, he gave a tap to the key, as well.

Talia smiled, "Yes," Her eyes opened wide with wonder.

"But it's a privilege to live here, isn't it? Something we should appreciate?" He remarked. Taking his hands and eyes off the globe, he stretched his legs upwards until he stood tall over Talia. Talia's eyes followed upwards, nodding. "Well, the humans aren't appreciating it, so we must cut back on them, as it is the only effective way to save our planet. We must get rid of 9/10th of them as if they are litter –which, with the way they scatter litter around aimlessly, they have proved to quite literally be– but your many lessons, if you were paying any attention at all, should have explained all this to you in solid detail."

Talia glanced down at her shoes, fidgeting, "I know," She pulled the globe up to her chest, hugging her arms around it securely. She tapped against it's hollow ball for a moment before looking back up at her father. "They need to be punished, it's about the protection, I know…. But it just seems like a lot of death. People look sad when they die. It makes me sad."

"If you want to hold your full potential as an assassin, we'll need to work through that," Ra's stuck his index finger in the air, making a mental note of the problem. He paused for a moment, only to then stride over to his table of books and go back to sorting through them. Talia, still in his peripheral vision, pouted. "For the time being, since you're still so far away from becoming one, just always keep in mind what I taught you. Stating the wrong opinions, such as corpses being bad, is only going to manipulate you into believing them more. We don't wish for that to happen, do we?" Ra's called over to her.

"No, we don't," Talia nodded,

"So then keep your naive opinions to yourself until you have matured," Ra's advised, flipping one of the books open with a small swack. Talia nodded again, still frowning. When she left the room, her eyes glanced only to the floor. Her hips did not swing, but rather drooped. Ra's wasn't paying attention, though.

Despite all the nodding Talia had pleased him with, that was far from the last time Talia said such traitorous statements. The only difference was, they were usually said to someone else. Of course, word still trailed back to her father regardless, and although he kept quiet, this behavior worried him to the fullest extent.

It reminded him of his young self so, so very much. The same young man that betrayed his wise uncle's mildly-murderous nomads, and the same one who saved an evil person's life only for it to result in a much kinder person's death. He had to teach her better. So, without an ounce more of a hesitance, he illustrated the story's setting with his words, letting a large city in the middle of a golden desert seep into her sleepy imagination. Then describing Sora, and himself, so much younger, just before beginning to paint out the royalty of that city.

"The Sultan had one son named Runce. That son was very muscular but very ugl–" He bit his tongue only a moment before slipping out such a petty word. He could insult Runce once any spoilers were out of the question, at the end of the story. "His son was muscular and skilled in horse-riding, along with many other catches such as simply being royalty in itself, but he had no respect at all. He was not just rude, but blatantly awful to those around him…."

Ra's went back to explaining the story in a matter-of-fact tone, describing the incidents and flaws Runce obviously possessed and showed constantly. Then, he quickly switched to a slightly different topic, deciding to go to the Lazarus pit creation and, right before that, his attempts to save an old woman's (Huwe's mother, to be specific) life.

"I know this may surprise you, Talia," He quietly remarked. A sadness lay in his voice, low and gravelly, "But back when I failed to save that old woman's life, I was displeased by seeing a human being die. Overdramatic, really. I went on and on about death taking away loved ones and the despair of it all… death, how terrible, I thought. Death, a fate worse than anyone deserves…."

Talia's eyes popped open with curiosity. She scooched up horizontally more, still laying down but with her head positioned so it was propped up against her pillowed. Her mouth was open, and her eyes were widened, "But that's crazy. I mean, not what you used to say, but…. You couldn't have been like that. I know you. That's not you!" She laughed, but there was a hint of hesitance in her voice, mixed with another hint of something quite the opposite– intrigue.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" Ra's' eyebrows rose, glancing up to make brief eye contact with her. Not one hint of laughter lay in his expression, though. It chilled Talia, just the slightest bit. "Calm down, I told you, no jokes. But yes, I see what you mean… it's ridiculous to think I could've acted so willfully ignorant of all the horrid people in the world. So naive to the horror of humanity as a whole, truly. But, unfortunately… Well, of course I would not lie to you, Daughter." He flung his head over to face the ground again.

"I never said any of that," Talia mumbled, "I just said you're different now. You're the one hating on your old self, not me."

A single eyebrow rose on Ra's' face, "Oh, I'm just saying what we are all made aware of in the League of Assassins, Talia. It's so obvious, and I do hope you're not ignoring the facts." He stated, sounding almost apathetic with such a lack of tone. "Just promise me, Talia… when you grow older, you won't act as naive as me, will you?"

"Umm…." Talia wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders uncertainly. Ra's pushed his head forward, gesturing for her to go on. She glanced around the room, back and forth and back and forth. "I won't act naive." Talia stated monotonously.

"Good," Ra's swallowed down a load of phlegm before continuing his story, "As I was saying, when that old woman died, I spoke about all my views of death….. The pains of death, how brutal was the enemy of humanity. How brutal was my enemy, I would describe it as. Everyone used to describe the words I spoke as prattle… well, most of it, and frankly they had a point. I was lost in this wondrous world where I could be anything I wanted. Where the world could be anything I thought it was. I was an adult, -albeit a young one- but an adult, most certainly… yet I acted like no more than a child. Not like you, Talia, My Dear, though. I've taught you better than that. I acted like a particularly immature, sheltered child…."

"Wait, Father…." Talia paused, eyes widening even more than before. "Does that mean you didn't kill people?" Her young voice squeaked again.

"Yes, clearly, but… just let me continue." He picked up his hand, pushing air around as he quickly waved away the question. Talia looked to the side, considering this answer even as Ra's changed the subject. "Huwe tried to kill me, as he had previously threatened to, and I was about to let him, when–"

"Why would you let him kill you?" Talia blurted out. Her nose scrunched up, looking almost disgusting by the idea.

Ra's sighed, loudly, as her expression faded. He put a hand up to his forehead, facepalming in annoyance.

"You do need to stop questioning every little detail of the story, Talia." He let out another sigh, pushing Talia down onto her bed. With a gentle plop, he pushed her blankets back over her. "I almost let him kill me…. Well, out of curiosity, if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago, it's… hard to remember. But I loved to learn. I suppose the afterlife is something we have learned very little about, isn't it? Not that it matters much. Death is something you inflict on the wrong, on your enemies… not yourself. Immortality is the goal. Immortality is always the goal, and I've nearly achieved it now, but then I hadn't. Frankly, none of this matters, though…. At some point I'll die permanently, and then I'll learn more of that, but even then won't be able to inform the living. There was no reason not to wait, so yet again, this is just proof of how foolish I used to act. Sure, I discovered germs and invented the Lazarus Pit at that time, but when it came to basic common sense, such as self-preservation skills and any matter of awareness, I was horribly lacking ..."

Talia glanced away from Ra's, "Al…right," Her nose was still a bit scrunched up, but the muscles were beginning to relax. "I guess you were just stupid….. Or really easy-going. Even with getting killed." She squeezed a corner of the blanket between her fingers.

"Yes, yes… something along those lines. I will say that I simply wasn't against the idea of dying, not in the slightest bit for it. That would be a completely different situation." Ra's explained, making a small, loose, hand gesture in the air with one of his hands. With that same hand, he waved this question away using the same gesture as he did to the last one. "Now, if you'll care to stop interrupting me, I do need to continue my story."

Talia flopped to her side, specifically the one facing directly away from her father. She made a small squeak of acknowledgement, but then stayed quiet to let her father speak as he had instructed. He went on and on for around a couple minutes, pulling Talia's imagination through the story. The entire time, she hardly stirred. Her ears perked up at some parts, of course, as proof she was fully listening, but her mouth certainly didn't pop open to shout out some curious queries. Ra's seemed pleased by this, in a quiet kind of way. His shoulders were loose and relaxed, at ease as he spoke.

Eventually, his shoulders did start to hunch, though. Not through anger or annoyance, especially not at his currently well-behaved daughter, but a tingling of stress and sadness in his mind. He had just resurrected Runce in the story. Runce was alive, now, and he had already gotten past his young self's original reaction. There was only one thing left to happen. It made him twitch, then pushed that twitch into a shudder. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a breath before he spoke the next part.

"Well, Talia," He commented, drifting out of the story's plots for a moment. "The next part has excitement, I'll tell you that much. It's climactic, at least. Something happens. But… well, you'll have to wait until later for the positive excitement, for right now is… the consequence." His volume abruptly lowered, reaching almost a reluctant whisper.

Talia turned back to him, eyes wide open,"Don't spoil the next part, just tell! Does Runce say sorry about his actions after you saved him, or does he still act mean, or ..." Talia's excitement quickly lessened as she noticed her father's stern and saddened expression sharpening down on her. Biting her lip, she frowned. "Oh…. um, just go ahead," Her voice wavered, unsure what to make of her father's body language.

"The Lazarus Pit madness is what happened, Talia," Ra's made eye contact with Talia through a piercing gaze. His entire body froze, suddenly even more exhausted than before. "That cruel man… that cruel human is what happened. I don't blame the Lazarus Pit, truthfully, because I doubt it was what made his desire to act so brutal. It simply gave him the guts to go for it. It simply made him turn far enough, a turn that he likely would've made on his own regardless of the insanity… if it wasn't for the mortal illness that I cured. What happened was that he acted so horribly, naturally, human."

"But–" Talia muttered, "But what did he do?"

"He grabbed Sora," Ra's stated softly, "He did it all the time, but much more violently on this occasion. Now, I have no issue with violence, at least presently, but not against Sora. Not against someone who deserved only the gentlest of grabs. But, well…as much as I tried to stop him and save her, he…. strangled her to death." His eyes closed half-way, looking around as he considered the statement. At this point, he didn't quite look sad, but rather, emotionless. Every ounce of expression seemed to be whisked away in his far-off gaze.

Talia's mouth gaped open, "Oh," She pulled up her blankets, shuddering slightly herself. She had been told it would be an exciting story, not a true story of murder. Her lips quivered, forming a shaky pout. Her eyebrows tensed. She was so small, just half the size of her father, and her mind so fragile. But just as she was about to get even more upset, or even let out a tear at the terrifying tale, a glimpse of hope sparkled in her eyes. Still a bit shaky, her lips curled up. "Oh, I know! You'll just put her in the pit! It's already right there and prepared!"

"I tried to," To Talia's dismay, Ra's' frown only deepened.

"Did it– Did it not work?" Talia asked, "Did Sora… go crazy as well? Show her human inside?"

"Of course not, Sora was wonderful!" Ra's yelled, but his tone went straight back to normal only a moment after. "Regardless, I didn't even get that far to find out what would've happened…. Because I got strung along to the sultan's dungeons. For the crime of slaughtering an innocent woman… the one his son had committed. There were multiple witnesses, but no one stood up for me. Not one of those people cared about Sora's suffering, and they certainly didn't care about my wrongful suffering, either. No one was on our side." His head drooped down as his eyes sharpened with anger.

Talia's lips went back to their shaky quivering. Her throat felt itchy, wanting to say something while also wanting to close up and keep quiet forever at the same time. She didn't have anything to say, exactly, at least that she wanted her father to hear. Her body twisted around, burying her face up against her pillow.

Her father's gaze softened, seeming weak for half a second. His entire body slouched, dreary and outdone deep inside. Talia's eyebrows furrowed at the behavior, so different from his usual confidence and rage. His eyelids dropped to the point of almost looking closed all the way. Except then the anger came back, along with a sense of confidence, and he nodded to himself. Suddenly certain. Suddenly normal.

"A perfect example of humanity being cruel, as a whole, together," Ra's remarked, raising his eyebrows calmly. "It surprised me, back then. Now it does not, seeing the much, much, worse ways they torture the planet they were invited on to. But I don't want it to ever surprise you, My Love." He patted her head for the second time, letting every inch of mental strain Sora's death had brung up drift away.

Talia rolled flat on to her back again, only to then throw the blanket over her entire face. "That's… scary," She quietly whimpered underneath, proving herself to, despite all the desensitization, still truly be such a small child. Her back was against the headboard, with her knees shoved up to her chest, very much awake.

"Oh, you're just a little shocked. Next time, it'll come smoothly, and I'll move over this depressing part in a quicker manner. I understand you're young, but this basic story will only benefit you, I promise." Ra's arms made a loose shrugging gesture. "Speaking of which, I'll move on now. This isn't the worst of it, but I'll move fast through that if you're really so sensitive to it. At the end things will get much happier with the excitement. Satisfying, even. So very satisfying." He then let his arms drop down onto his lap, folding his hands together neatly, with the fingers securely intertwined. As he spoke, a smile abruptly took over his mouth. Unlike most smiles, though, his eyes did not squint upwards with joy, but rather stayed eerily emotionless. Angry, even. Talia's head bobbled in a nod from under the covers.

As he explained the torture and imprisonment, Talia still did not relax from her scared pose. A few whimpers even escaped, almost silent but still there. It was only when he reached Huwe's rescue that she calmed down a bit, but even then, it took until right before Runce's death for her to have finally finished gradually shifting back into a lying position.

"...So, the wrongly-done Lazarus Pit burned his ugly flesh off until all that was left was a skeleton," The same eerie smile Ra's had presented before was here again, even stronger in expression. His back had straightened, just as his arms had crossed, both showing pure confidence in his stance.

Talia was actually smiling, too, now. "I bet his corpse wasn't gross," She said. "I bet it was nice and good, just like you've been saying." Ra's' confidence only grew from this sudden agreement.

"Of course it was," Ra's nodded boldly, his chin bouncing high in approval. "I already promised you this would be righteous-feeling. See? Humans deserve all this death. It's a wondrous thing, as a matter of fact, and it's progress to see you addressing it all on your own."

"Maybe," Talia replied, tilting her head. Ra's' eyes squinted for a moment, unsure what to make of the short answer.

Despite it, he went on with his story. All about fighting together with Huwe and his uncle, defeating and slaughtering all the warriors. Talia's smile certainly faded at those parts, but she stayed calm, at least relative to before. She even closed her eyes in an effort to start falling asleep, and although her happiness had pretty much all gone away, she was content enough. Or, at the very least, apathetic.

Until Ra's reached the part where the group came back to the big city, that was. Until Ra's stated bloody descriptions of every single human being's death that lived there. Talia's head darted up from the pillow, pouting yet again. Pouting more than the part where Sora died, even. Her stubby, frail arms wrapped around herself, and her eyebrows tilted downwards with a burst of anger in her gaze. Ra's' eyes widened at the sudden reaction, expecting if anything, her to react the same as with Runce's death. He sighed.

"Why would you kill those people?" Talia exclaimed, "That's so random! They didn't kill Sora, Runce did, and you already dealt with him. Why– why would you–?" The words stumbled out of her frowning mouth in a frantic load of concern. She bounced up and down on her mattress, but not with excitement this time. Anxious was the only way she could describe the movements now.

"Do you really believe simple murder to be enough when they murdered my true love and tortured me almost to death?" Ra's questioned, his voice getting louder with a hint of frustration. "Stay calm, Talia. It was all in my grand plan to take away their power, and even erase what they had used their power for in the past. It was the ultimate revenge, truthfully. It should be satisfying, if you consider it on a deeper level."

"But–" Talia doubted, "But those people didn't do anything! How would that help? I don't get it." Her voice squeaked again as she got more nervous.

"It's not about the individuals," Ra's explained. He blinked slowly, as his voice gradually faded into a single tone. "It is about the full picture. It's about what all this will result in, and that was revenge in this situation. It's the same with my world-domination plans. You focus too much on the human corpses in it… when you could look at the bloodless animals saved." A soft smile covered his face.

"But–" Talia doubted for the second time, "But that doesn't make… But those people…. But what if you or me were one of them? They weren't any worse than us. We could've died. That's… That's scary, too!" She whined.

"It doesn't matter anymore, Talia. I achieved my means and there's no going back so we'll just have to assume it was worth it." Ra's tightened in his arm-crossing, turning from confident to angry and stern. "Although, well.. I will admit I didn't feel too good after it. I admit Sora was still gone in my heart, and I admit my actions did nothing to save me from that. But I also happened to become sick right then, so for all I know, it was just an effect from that. An arbitrary mix of emotions from a burst of weakness." Ra's shrugged it off.

"Those people probably felt really scared," Talia stated. Some small wrinkles puffed in her primarily-smooth forehead at the concern. "Those feelings they felt when you were killing them probably weren't very… very… arbi– arbitr…." Her mouth made a funny face as she attempted to repeat Ra's' complex wording.

A much louder sigh poured from Ra's' lungs, "Ah, Children. Always so naive. Always so sensitive to these matters." He didn't even bother to argue with her. Instead, Ra's rolled his neck around, glancing to the floor with a sense of subtle anger at the child.

Silence took over the air for a good minute or so. Talia was still sitting straight up in her bed, looking directly at her father unpleasantly. Meanwhile, Ra's did not return the looks, as he still rolled his neck around to glance at the most spontaneous things around the room. He ignored her out of his annoyance. After another second, Talia just wiped her eyes of any welled-up tears and plopped back down sadly. Ra's took this as a cue to continue with his story.

The last few details were mostly adding on to the part that Talia didn't like, so she made sure to position herself to be as far away from Ra's as possible. A puffed up piece of blanket blocked him away from her. From where she couldn't see her, Talia's eyes were angry in expression. But also sad… quite sad.

"That's how I became who I am today," Ra's finished. Talia breathed a sigh of relief at the end, exhaling out quite audibly. Ra's didn't respond, though, but simply pushed the blanket wall down and gently patted her back. "Are you still awake under there, my love?" He smiled at her.

"Yes…" Talia replied, slowly beginning to turn around to face him. Her face still displayed visible distress.

"Then how do you feel about the story?" Ra's asked. A single eyebrow rose in genuine intrigue. He leaned in, making eye contact from only a foot away. Talia rocked her head back and forth, swishing her mouth about uncertainly. Ra's' eyebrow rose again. "What did you take from it?"

"Well… I liked the beginning part," She mumbled. Her mood quickly changed, letting a small smile take over her. That smile only grew as she spoke once more. "I liked hearing about when you thought killing was bad… And I liked hearing about Sora and how you loved her. I liked hearing about the part where you thought corpses were gross."

Ra's' eyebrows quickly furrowed in concern and barely-hidden disappointment, "Because you learned from it, I assume? Because it was interesting to learn how such actions backfired?" He lifted his chin upwards slightly. Under his breath, his mouth quietly muttered out a whisper. "That's not a part you're meant to like."

"Probably," Talia shrugged, biting down on one side of her lip innocently. "Or maybe it was just interesting to learn about your past in general. Your old opinions and stuff." She glanced downwards, narrowly avoiding Ra's' eye contact. Her blanket was in a twisted mess over her now, and she nonchalantly began to fix it. Ra's waited to answer.

"I… guess that makes sense," Ra's agreed, but his judgemental side-glance proved otherwise. For around half a minute this time, Ra's and Talia stayed silent. Talia spent the entire time kicking around her bed sheets until they worked well, not even bothering to give a look back at her father. Ra's calmly sucked his lips in thoughtfully. "Any other thoughts you acquired about it?" It took a moment of confusion on Talia's face before she understood her father's formal word choice this time, but she eventually got it.

"Well," She began, "I liked it when you killed Runce,"

Ra's went back to peacefully smiling, "Any specific reason for that? Because he deserved it, I assume? Because humans deserve it? Because Sora deserved all the vengeance in the world for the unjust he put her through?" He stuck his chin even further outwards towards Talia as he encouraged her forward, subtly anticipating a good response.

"Yes," Talia said. She turned from her blankets to her pillows, throwing one up in the air enthusiastically to puff it up. Apparently, she'd done it harder than she realized, as it nearly flew right on to the floor, if it hadn't been for her father catching and handing it back to her. She positioned the pillow down and then got comfortable on top of it. But right as she rolled herself down on to it, a couple quiet sentences seeped out of her mouth. "But honestly, I also just… liked it when you killed someone to help her. When you killed out of love, instead of… you know. I don't see you do that much anymore."

Ra's' brow scrunched up in confusion, "On the contrary, that's certainly not something I quit after that. I've killed for my loved ones plenty of times. Loved ones of all kinds, even, as sometimes even people as far as allies will get a simple vengeance if they're murdered offensively enough." Not even looking down to do it, he grabbed Talia's blanket and gently wrapped it over her arms to tuck her in.

"But that's just if it offends you, isn't it?" Talia clarified, pushing herself down even deeper into the sheets to get fully cozy. "I meant when you kill that person because they're bad. Simply because they hurt the person, and you love them. When you explained it, it sounded like that's what happened with Runce."

"Of course it was," Ra's nodded. He was now standing up from his seat, stretching his legs out as he walked careless circles around his chair. "He brought harm to me as well, but at that moment, of course I had Sora on my mind. It was for her, not myself, I promise you. But even those kinds I haven't stopped doing. Just consider our entire plans to save the earth with the cutting down of the human population." He broke out from the circle to make his way to a blank wall in Talia's bedroom.

On the wall, he traced out a circle with his fingers. His head leaned against the wall as well, gazing directly out at the large circle he was mentally marking out. It was no more than a gesture, of course, but he repeated the gesture several times, as if it could somehow drill his points into Talia's head even deeper through it. Meanwhile, Talia's head had perked up to watch Ra's' movements, messing up her blankets slightly again.

"We're protecting the Earth, Talia," Ra's verbally established, making a tap on the wall with the same tracing finger. He briefly glanced back at her to make sure she was watching. "We're protecting it because we love it, and because we cherish it more than the rest. Is that not out of love?... Besides, consider the animals this organization has saved. Every single one lies so close to my heart, and I wish to get rid of humans to make room for more. Is that not out of love?" He pressed his palm against the wall, pushing against it to twirl himself around until his back was pushed against it. His arms pulled in, folding over one another behind his back.

Talia nodded, but while moving her head in a way that almost also made her shake her head, too. Her eyes began to fall closed, looking at Ra's and showing brief confusion while also being quite obviously much too tired to fully react.

Ra's walked back over to her, pushing her straight back down onto her back and tucking her in yet again. She didn't resist at all, just sitting there as the sleepiness took over. Ra's took a deep breath, letting his expression soften at the sight of Talia fall asleep. He patted her small, child-sized head.

Talia's imagination took over from this point. At first, her father's last words about murder and love crept into her mind, but the word 'love' stuck. It was such a beautiful word. In the League of Assassins, hardly anyone spoke about it, or used it to its full potential. So, Talia thought of love without murder, and the words of death taking away love, quoted from Ra's so long ago, filled her head. It was such an intriguing idea. It was an idea that for once, she wanted to believe in.

Eventually, her mind mashed all her scattered sleepy thoughts into a dreamland world standing in front of her. It was a beautiful world, with bright, shining, affection that she held onto and dreamt off all night long. It was a more beautiful world than she was surrounded by. There was no blood. No blood at all. Talia had already seen so much blood, even at 4 years old, that it was a simple relief to not see that disgusting death for a moment.

Ra's would not have liked her enjoying this dream. He wouldn't have enjoyed this dream. He would've called it naive. He would've called it too good, to the point of fraud. But in that moment, it didn't matter. Because that story had opened up a concept in her that she liked a lot– her father, despite his current bloodlust and obsessions with ends over means, was not always murderous.

As she was drifting out of consciousness, though, her ears had picked up one last goodnight from Ra's.

"You, yourself, are very much included in the loved ones I'd kill for, Daughter," He had reminded her, "And for you, I would kill a thousand times over. No one is allowed to hurt you, Talia, I'll make sure of it."

Even in her sleep, Talia had made a small nod back to him. Ra's leaned over, kissing the top of her head lightly. A few pit-patters echoed on the floors as he made his way to the light switch. Ra's flicked it off and took one last look at Talia, grinning.

"Not even a single punch,"

Meanwhile Talia, half-asleep but blissful, had believed those words with all of her heart.

------------------------------

Ending notes:

Reblogs, replies/comments, or even just likes are greatly appreciated <3

Also, I know some people are gonna be thinking "Ra's is acting way too nice" but just be patient because there's a point to it, and besides, back in his early years, Ra's WAS supposed to love Talia, and he did show his affection from time to time, so it might just be you reading too many modern comics where Ra's is worse than he used to be that's making you think it's more OOC than it is.

[zet-sway]

I'm making an executive decision to *attempt* placing all my shrios summer fills in the same canon. It'll be my headcanon but this is still a significant decision for me.

I accidentally a wall of text below the cut.

I want a happy ending. I'm absolutely not emotionally capable of reaching into my heart for bioware-canon levels of angst right now. When I was younger, I understood that people experienced soul-crushing losses, but I had yet to experience one of my own. I worked hard to push those memories into hard to reach places, and I'd like them to stay there. I'm sure the worst is yet to come. For fucks sakes I couldn't even bring myself to pick synthesis because it just felt so sad and unfair for Shepard to have to sacrifice herself like that. It's also unfair to sacrifice EDI and the geth to save Shepard but like... damn feelings are heavy ok?

I've always written with ideas first, canon second. I still don't plan to write in chronological order but this time I have to try harder if I want to tie things together. It's not the same as writing a chaptered fic but if I have the stamina, I'm hoping to explore:

More details on Thane and Shepard being in a relationship beyond just "damn he's a hottie amirite." This is probably the hardest one because they just go from 0 to 100 so fucking fast and I don't want to use the suicide mission as a crutch. Even still, Now that I'm 30 I'm wondering if maybe the older people get, the more confidently they decide they want to pursue a relationship.

How his Kepral's was treated and the consequences that followed

Thane's role in the war during ME3

Their life after the war

Shepard as a character all her own and not just whatever I feel like writing her as at the time

One of the interesting things that's changed since I last played Mass Effect is I feel much more attached to Shepard now. I'm not a huge fan of superhero stories but Mass Effect kind of is a superhero story. Shepard starts off as an accomplished soldier, then through circumstances outside her control she is elevated above her humanity. This infuses her with strength but is also unfair to her in many ways. I have basically nothing in common with her but I feel for her so much in my heart, I just want to hug her because I just want her to be okay. Even still, I feel like her needs are much different than mine.

And likewise, I also have to write Thane consistently. I will freely admit I often bend his character to suit my needs, especially since I used to fill prompts that conflicted with my headcanons. Don't get me wrong, I loved doing follower prompt fills, but it often meant digging into Thane's character for appropriate motivations to appear the way I intended. My fanfic Non-Negotiable is a great example of this lol. To summarize, when I write PWP I just write Thane as sweetly or as predatory as I feel like because I really only started writing fanfic for the smut and I'm not going to apologize for it. But I'm doing a writing challenge, so I may as well challenge myself right? So this would be my first time really thinking critically about Thane as a developed character with consistent motivations. I'm finding that actually I am quite critical of him, but he's doing his best and that's very important.

Anyway I hadn't meant to write this many words but the Adderall kicked in and here we are

[joon-ipersgirl]

O7 - “the promising proposition”

genre: mafia!au, angst, fluff, slow burn, mystery-thriller

pairing: namjoon x reader (f)

word count: 5.1k

warnings: cursing (if i miss any, let me know!)

summary: charismatic. beautiful. fearless without question. the ambitious team of seven young men in charge of spiral, downtown district’s hottest new club go above and beyond to provide 100% satisfaction to their clients. 

after an eventful night out, you have no choice but to join the team for property damages greater than your intern salary. challenging a series of events that can no longer be left to coincidence, secrets threaten to burst at the seams as your professional and private life collide, and another - more sinister - debt is added to your total. 

how far are you willing to go to pay back your pound of flesh? remember, nothing is ever as it seems...

a/n: it’s been a minute but we’re back! winter break is here and i’m determined to write so here’s part 7 as i still work on my tae halloween fic (whew) and some more holiday related scenarios/oneshots. thank you all for being so patient and i hope you enjoy this next part. i only have one more pre-written part for this story so updates may be even slower lol. as always, send your reactions as they make me super happy lmao. thank you vi for beta-reading this and enjoy everyone!

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

The four of you sit in Manager Kim’s office, tense. Well, three as Paul had ruined his chances during last week’s meeting but you know he can feel the heaviness in the air as you wait for Madeline’s decision. She sits comfortably behind her large desk after calling you in to tell you who’d be assisting her on the Cavallero project. Her large, black fedora is propped on her head at a dangerous angle as she has her feet kicked up on her desk, her signature steel toed boots accentuating her full black outfit. You’d spent the previous days in the breakroom trying to figure out what made this project a higher priority than the rest of the contracts you’d acquired and who would be the lucky winner.

“Lovely of you all to join me, though Paul you were not really needed.” He tries his best to hide behind Laura from Manager Kim’s disappointed stare, but to no avail. “I know you all have been eagerly anticipating which one of you lucky interns will have the privilege of working with me on the first part of the Cavallero contract. You’ll find out shortly as his assistant will be dropping off the final notes on what he expects to see at the event; I’ll send one of you down to fetch him. We’ll have a brief meeting afterwards and then get to work. The rest of you will work under that person, following their orders diligently. Now, I need updates on the rest of our projects. Where are we?”

You barely listen as James rattles off what he was able to accomplish with the Emmerson’s engagement party. You think his design is doable, chic for an event planned in spring, but lacking in some of the finer details you know the future Mrs. Emmerson would appreciate; she’s a woman after your own heart with her love for champagne, meals created by chefs with Michelin stars, and exquisite fine china. Of course Madeline would pit you against each other for this job though. Not that you mind, you’re more than capable of fighting for what you believe is mine. It’s just less work when it’s given to you nicely packaged. Like the gifts you’re sure future Mrs. Emmerson would like to receive from her future husband’s wealthy friends.

“Y/N?” You focus back on Manager Kim who’s waiting expectantly, her glasses slipping down her nose. “The Williams’? What’s going on there? Or have you not made any progress?”

“The Williams have signed off on the zoo theme for their son,” James interjets before you can gather your thoughts. “We’re looking into finding the best face painters in the city and we’ve almost secured a catering contract for the 150 vegan cupcakes Mrs. Williams ordered. The invitations are currently being designed based on the chosen theme and will be ready for client approval next week.”

“Very good, James. Please send me a copy of your notes to be added into the file. Y/N, I expect better from you. That’s everything I have for today. You’re all dismissed,” she finishes with a wave of her hand, her glasses sliding down her nose once again as she searches for one particular document on her desk.

You don’t wait for the rest of them to follow as you make your way back to the tiny cubicle-like room you share. Manager Kim normally never calls you out in front of the rest of them and you’re fuming. Tossing down your legal pad, you whirl around as the three of them enter the room.

“What the fuck, James?!” you hiss as he calmly sits behind his desk and resumes typing on his computer.

“Looks like the Princess is upset,” Paul stage-whispers to Laura as he too sits down. You ignore him. He’s just as irrelevant beforehand as he is now.

“What do you need, Y/N? I have to send the notes from the meeting to Manager Kim,” James responds, not looking up at you. Your face further sours.

“You read my fucking files?! That wasn’t your event to handle and you know that!” you yell.

“Well, you took too long to respond -”

“I had barely opened my mouth -”

“- and Manager Kim needed a response, so I responded,” he finishes, ignoring your outburst.

“Y/N, please calm down. We don’t want to make a scene,” Laura pleads.

“Calm down? Laura, he made me look incompetent,” you argue.

“But you are, Y/N.” You pause and turn to James once again. Disbelief is written across your face as you stare each other down. You were the imcompetent one? “You should be ready to answer any question about any event J&M has going on whether it’s your’s or someone else’s. It’s not my fault that you were never taught the basics of efficiency in a company. The job has to get done and I completed the task. Simple,” he finishes. His incessant typing is all you hear as you stare at him. James had never been this bold before. Especially not with you.

“Watch your mouth, James,” you tell him coolly.

“Furthermore, your failure in that meeting shows that you’re incapable of handling bigger projects. I mean, you couldn’t recall the most straightforward details of a birthday party for a six-year-old child. Why should Manager Kim trust you to work on the coveted Cavallero contract? You’ve given her no reason to. All you’ve done is eliminated yourself from the running, effectively leaving Laura and I. Which is no challenge because -  no offense Laura - you’re not really competition. I just hope you guys can maange when my hands are full with this project.”

You laugh as Laura cowers. You weren’t sure whether it was from the sound or James’ particularly harsh words, but the atmosphere in the room was much worse than in the meeting. Biting back the words you really wanted to tell him, you heed Laura’s advice and decide to not cause a scene. This is a professional establishment and you need this job. There are goals you want to accomplish and you wouldn’t let a slimy bastard like James Carter distract you. He’d finally shown his true colors - what he really thought of you - and you’re only grateful the others had been around to witness it.

“Alright, James. It seems like you’ve been holding back on us. Just remember: a word once let out of a cage cannot be whistled back again,” you tell him as you resume your duties at your desk. Flipping open a new page of your legal pad, you write neatly at the top: Emmerson Engagement. If James thought he had bested you, he had another thing coming.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” Laura asks as she joins you in the staff room for lunch.

“Never better,” you reply, sipping on your iced coffee as you warm your leftover lasagna in the microwave. Gods bless your sweet, sweet roommate.

“What James said to you this morning was pretty harsh,” she says as she makes herself a steaming cup of green tea. Always the health conscious one that girl.

“James seems to be tired of our shit,” you chuckle. “I’ve heard worse though, Laura. Don’t worry about me. He said some pretty harsh things about you, too.”

She nods. “I didn’t think he could be so mean! And counting me out?! I worked really hard on my designs!” Laura’s voice doesn’t sound too sure, but you nod in agreeance.

“Your bridal party design last spring was very well done,” you tell her around a mouthful of lasagna.

“Exactly!” she says in a huff as she plops down across from you, nearly burning herself in the process. “And your event was really good too! The one you did a few months ago,” she trails off. You laugh.

“Which one was that?”

“You know, the one for the family with that really fancy theme? And lots of people came...”

“Oh, the Winter Wonderland scene on the ice rink?”

“Yes, that one!” she exclaims.

“That was Marie’s project before she got transferred to Jenson’s team,” you say with a laugh. Laura almost chokes on her tea as you wipe your mouth clean. “No need for you to try and make me feel better by pretending to remember something I’ve worked on. I’m honestly fine,” you chuckle again.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry -”

“Y/N?” James stands in the doorway looking quite displeased. You raise your eyebrows at him in response. “Manager Kim would like to see you in her office. Please make it quick as I’m going to get Mr. Cavallero’s assistant soon.” You laugh loudly.

“Of course, James. I’ll be sure to let Manager Kim know you’d like her to rush her meeting for your convenience.”

He scowls as you brush past him, your half-eaten lunch and coffee in hand. Mercury must be in retrograde for James to think that he can make demands of you any type of way. It seems that you need to put him back in his place; he’d gotten too comfortable with the little office jokes you all shared. Grabbing your legal pad and pen, you smooth down the little flyaway hairs and your white button down shirt; you couldn’t receive another lashing looking unkempt. Knocking on the door, you wait for Manager Kim to answer before you enter.

“You asked to see me, Manager Kim?”

“Yes. Please take a seat, Y/N. I’ll be with you in a second,” she replies as she finishes typing on her computer. You sit gingerly in the unoccupied chair as you’d done this morning and wait for her to rip into you. “Right. Let’s get to it. What was that this morning?” You inhale deeply.

“Honestly, I was thinking about James’ event and mentally noting changes I would make as possible suggestions to him when you called on me. I wasn’t dozing off because I was bored,” you answer.

“Hmm. And what changes would you have made?” she asks curiously as she gives you her undivided attention.

“Well, the future Mrs. Emmerson is a woman of prestige. Class. While roses are a classic choice, white tulips are pre-on-trend and I think she would enjoy being a part of that group. He also chose the Dom Perignon champagne, but I thought Veuve Clicquot would be the better option. High price doesn’t always mean high flavor. I do agree with his choice of venue though. The high ceilings will look great in the low afternoon light and the white lights in the evening will make for great photos,” I finished. “But of course, the client is always right and if this is her chosen design, we’ll go with that.”

Manager Kim stares at you until you start to feel slightly uncomfortable under her gaze. You know you hadn’t overstepped and she had asked for your honest opinion, but when sitting in front of one of the best event designers in the game, second guessing yourself is inevitable.

“You didn’t think to say anything earlier in the meeting?” she asks.

“I wasn’t aware that giving opinions on other people’s events was ideal during a regular updates meeting.”

“You should speak up more. Your ideas aren’t as bad as you think they are,” Madeline says as she leans back in her chair. “How else do you expect to lead any major project?”

Just as you’re going to respond, a knock sounds at the door. “Come in!” Manager Kim yells.

“Should I leave? James did say he was going to collect Mr. Cavallero’s assistant,” you trail off, getting ready to stand.

“No. No, you’re fine,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Ah, Mr. Carlisle - oh! And Mr. Cavallero! What a surprise! I didn’t know you would be joining us,” Manager Kim says as she stands and you follow suit.

“I happened to have some free time and decided to tag along as Lewis was dropping off the notes. I hope you don’t mind. I thought it would be helpful to have me here in case you had any questions that needed direct attention,” Mr. Cavallero responds. “And please, call me Jonas.”

Mr. Cavallero, or Jonas as he would like to be referred to, is dressed in his typical big spender suit: a deep navy blue suit with a pristine white buttoned-down shirt and pre-released Versace patent leather monk strap shoes. His aura fills the entire space, though he only stands in the doorway of Madeline’s office. You can practically feel the gel between your fingers as you look at his salt-and-pepper slicked back hair; the sheen is almost as bright as his shoes.

“And Miss Y/L/N, yes? What a pleasure to see you again. Will you be sitting in on this meeting as well? Lewis could only sing your praises after you left,” he asks. You struggle to keep your face neutral as James’ searing gaze washes over you. You know Manager Kim’s ears must be red as her secretive meeting is foiled by her best client.

“Actually, I was just -”

“- going to bring the file for the event as you were previously suggesting. Right, Y/N?” Manager Kim says as she turns to you with a stiff smile. “You are our chosen intern, afterall.” You can barely contain your gasp as she says the words. You had gotten the contract?! James does not try to hide his shock at her statement as his eyes widen and his mouth nearly falls open.

“It’ll be a pleasure working with you again, Miss Y/L/N,” Mr. Carlisle says with a smile.

“Of course,” you reply with a deep head nod. “I look forward to working with you both as well. I’ll be back with your file shortly.”

“Thank you, Y/N. And thank you James for going to get them. You may leave now,” Manager Kim adds as she turns her attention back to her guests, inviting them to sit and make themselves comfortable.

You walk calmly, though you feel anything but that, across the room as James holds the door open for you. Pleading with the gods to be on your side, you race ahead of him to the breakroom for fresh, new bottles of water - a sight to see in a knee length pencil skirt and the infamous 4-inch stilettos that are apparently still required in this day and age. Your office is filled with hushed whispers until you round the corner and enter the small room.

“You got the Cavallero project?!” Paul exclaims. “Holy shit! You’re better than I thought, Y/N!” You laugh as you search your desk for the copy of the previous plans you’d developed from that day’s secret meeting.

“Congratulations, Y/N!” Laura cheers, bouncing up and down. “Your first real major project. Isn’t that exciting, James?”

“Sure. If you can be happy for someone who fucked her way to get the position,” he says biterrly. “Lewis could only sing your praises after you left?” James scoffs. “Sounds like you worked really hard in that meeting.”

“James!” Laura gasps.

“Oh it’s fine, Laura. If you think that James, I can’t stop you,” you say with a shrug. “But I’ll be happy to discuss my scandalous sex life with you after I meet with our coveted client.”

You prance out of the office with a smug smile on your face. Of course James would resort to a low blow because he didn’t get what he wanted; he was worse than the six-year-old child he had reprimanded you about. Tucking the fake file under your arm as the real one is still in Madeline’s office, you carry the bottles of water back to the meeting. After passing the bottles to your clients, you stand diligently behind Manager Kim with your notepad at the ready.

“Please Miss Y/L/N, take my seat,” Jonas says, standing.

“Oh no, I couldn’t.”

“I insist. I do my best thinking standing up.”

“He does this often in his office,” Lewis agrees. Glancing at Manager Kim, you gingerly sit down on the end of the chair after thanking Jonas again.

“You had mentioned that you enjoyed the designs Y/N had developed, but as you know these are drafts and can be changed as you deem fit, Mr. Cavallero. Are there any things that come to mind or can we work on finalizing these details?” Madeline asks. You watch as Jonas strides around the office, seemingly in thought.

“You proposed hosting the event at one of the upscale hotels downtown, but I was wondering if you had any other options. We want the environment to feel lavish, but not over the top,” he replies. “I was actually thinking of something -” he pauses “ - more intimate.”

Writing down his wishes, you rack your brain for places that fit his description. Most clients of his caliber wanted something extravagant, but Jonas was proving to be a very different man. Quite the surprise that you were not expecting. “Would you like something with more modern architecture or classical?” you ask.

“I have always been a fan of French architecture; the European style also seems to be popular among our own clients. Most of them come from European backgrounds,” Jonas answers.

“They might find the interior design reminiscent,” Madeline thinks aloud and jots it down.

“It could be very good for signing contracts, sir,” Lewis adds.

“I may have a suggestion. Chateau’s is a little outside of the city, but the view is magnificent. It’s family owned so that may benefit you with your clients as well. It also has a rooftop that would look great in the afternoon sun as well as the late evening should the event last longer than expected,” you suggest. “I’ve also read great reviews saying that the food is well prepared too.”

“This could lower your costs for your first event and more money can be reserved for the benefit gala you’re also organizing,” Madeline sneaks in. She’s right, of course. A benefit gala planned by Madeline Kim would require much more than what Mr. Cavallero had said he was okay with spending, but he didn’t need to know that right now.

“Hmm,” he ponders turning around. “This sounds doable. I’d like to see what you can come up with for designs for this new place as well as scheduling a visit to see it for myself. All of this can be done before the initial deadline of securing a venue, yes?”

“Absolutely,” Madeline responds and you keep your composure as you review your mental calendar of events knowing this would be difficult to pull off. Brunch is scheduled a month and a half from today’s date meaning you had to somehow convince Chateau’s to take on your client, create an acceptable menu, and allow you to make any decorating changes within two weeks to make the deadline. Madeline is batshit crazy, but it would have to get done to secure the benefit gala - the whole reason for the company even accepting this contract.

“I can have all the details typed and sent to you within the next week. I’ll also keep the downtown hotel as an option if Chateau's is unavailable for your intended date. I’m sure we can use the rooftop of a hotel to create an intimate setting that your guests would enjoy,” you add. “I would also like to request the location of the benefit gala. I understand this is a very important event for your law firm and I would like to begin drafting plans for your approval at the earliest convenience.”

“Yes, of course. We use the Finca Corte as they have the best grand ballroom in the city. Lewis, please send Miss Y/L/N the past itineraries of the event so she may have a better understanding of the atmosphere we wish to create for our guests.” Lewis nods and makes his own notes, before his wrist watch alarms.

“Ah, Mr. Cavallero. Your 4pm meeting is on time this afternoon. We should leave now so you aren’t late,” Lewis warns. Jonas nods and you all stood to say your goodbyes.

“Please, if you need anything, reach out to Lewis and he’ll get in contact with me so I can answer any of your questions,” Jonas says with a smile as he shakes your hands.

“Of course, Mr. Cavallero. Please feel free to do the same,” Madeline replies though you can hear the tightness in her voice and for the third time, you wonder what her relationship is with Jonas. They had to have had some history for her to always seem on edge in his presence.

“Let me walk you both downstairs,” you offer. J&M isn’t as large as Hastings and Lewis, but there are many twists and turns on each floor that guests could get lost in.

You don’t turn your head as you pass your tiny office space and head for the elevator. You wouldn’t give any of those fuckers your attention in the presence of high quality clientele. It’s cramped inside but not uncomfortable as you ride down from the fourth floor. Jonas turns to you once again as you stand in the lobby.

“Again Miss Y/L/N, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. Lewis would be happy to answer any of your questions if you can’t get in contact with me,” he says and hands you his business card.

“I actually did have one question before you go. Well two actually. Finca Corte - it isn’t a chain, is it? Just one location?”

“Right. On 17th and Main near the Grande Theatre, but the next block over,” Jonas replies.

“And there’s no need to call and reserve the date? The notes Lewis had given us hadn’t mentioned anything about the date or a deposit,” you state.

“No, the firm takes care of those details. The benefit gala is always reserved for the third Saturday in May every year,” Lewis responds. Three months from now, you think.

“Oh, wonderful. I know you have to get going so I’ll email you any other questions, Lewis. Thank you again. Please return to the firm safely,” you say cheerly and wave. They return it and you wait for them to get into their sleek town car before you let your face fall into a frown. You’d never been to or heard of Finca Corte before, but why did the location seem so familiar? You try not to dwell on it too much as you head back upstairs. There are more pressing matters at hand, like putting James back into the roach-infested place he’d crawled out of. You grin as you head off the elevator.

Rosalia greets you as you enter the old two-bedroom apartment you share. Slipping off your heels that you’re sure has blood crusted into the toes from excessive wear, you scratch behind her ears as she purrs. She’s one of the better things to happen to you in your life and you’re grateful for her little pieces of affection even though you’re positive she had made some attempts to smother you in your sleep so she could have your bed.

“You’re home?” Amaya calls out from her hidden position on the couch.

“Yeah! Did you make dinner?” you ask as you follow your nose to the kitchen where a large pot stews on the stove.

“Of course I did. We all know you’d starve if I didn’t cook,” she says as she bumps you out of the way to check on the food. You mock her as you sit down at the antique metal table that you rarely ate at, choosing to have your meals in the much more comfortable living room on the sofa.

“I could survive!” you yell, trying to defend yourself, but Amaya isn’t having it.

“You couldn’t. Was the lasagna okay today, though?” she asks, changing the subject.

“The best. You should really consider opening a restaurant and forgetting all this computer engineer stuff,” you tell her seriously.

“Ha! As if that would pay off these loans. Either way, this is an investment. Once I’m done with this degree, I’ll be able to program computers to make these dishes for me and rake in a ton of money to get us out of this place,” she says with determination.

Amaya is a third year computer engineering student at Oberman University. Surprisingly smaller than you, she carries as much kick as you do, the two of you getting into numerous instances of mild misdemeanors. Amaya had actually hacked a few systems after she had found out that you weren’t really registered for classes at the University so you could get some credit; she’s a computer genius. Thanks to her, you technically have an Associates degree, but of course Oberman would never grant it to you unless you actually re-enroll. Amaya doesn’t take anyone’s shit though she looks like she’s 12 with her big green eyes and short blunt bob, the bangs a little too long and falling into her eyes.

“Thank you for including me in your plans for world domination, Aya,” you say while taking your hair out of your bun.

“Of course. You know you’re family to me, even though you leave your fucking dishes in the sink,” she replies while placing a piping bowl of beef stew and white rice in front of you. You thank the gods for her as you tuck in, burning your tongue in the process.

“I love you. So, so, so much.”

“Are you talking to me or the stew?” she asks with a laugh as she blows her food to cool it down. You laugh in response. “How was work? Oh my gosh, did you get the project?!”

You grin and nod. “I did!” She squeals in delight and claps her hands. “Though James was extremely displeased. He actually called me incompetent -”

“Hold on. He called you incompetent? Has he seen his progress report? And wasn’t he the one that forgot to submit his file that made that whole project you did a few months ago late?”

“Right. He was so shocked when Madeline announced it was me, even insinuated that I fucked my way to get the position. Kim was heated that Jonas mentioned our meeting while he was in the room though because it was supposed to be a secret,” you explain.

“Of course he would say something like that.” She rolls her eyes. “There seem to be a lot of secrets happening around you. Speaking of which, when do you head back to Spiral to snoop?” Amaya asks. “Do you think you can find anything in the hallway? Maybe you should break into Suga’s office or something,” she suggests.

“Friday night and I don’t think Suga would leave anything lying around like that for me to see again, not after I’m pretty sure he caught me reading his papers a few weeks ago,” you reply, pushing the rice around the plate. That had been extremely careless and might have killed a lead to your mini investigation before it had even begun.

“The one with all that information right? Gosh, I wish you had my photographic brain, that way you could have written down what you had seen and we could solve this whole mystery,” she groans.

“Oh no, Aya. I don’t want you getting involved with this. It seems way too dangerous and you -”

“- have my whole life ahead of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. But I want to know where this guy went. Like what if he’s still out there and looking for you?” she questions.

“I know, I know. I don’t want you worrying about it though. I can handle it,” you promise. “I feel like I’ve seen the address before though, but I can’t figure out where.” You rub your forehead as if you could magically make the numbers appear in your mind again. Aya’s photographic memory really would have come in handy.

“What about the date?” Amaya asks. “Or the name? You said the name was weird, unusual.” You nod. What had it said?

“There was a date, a location, and a name with an amount of money. Like a contract or something,” you sigh. “It looked really similar to the ones we have at work. Fuck. I don’t know. Between this and planning the benefit gala, my brain feels like it’s going to explode.” Amaya laughs as she finishes her dinner.

“Please don’t hurt yourself. It’ll come to you,” she says, giving your shoulder a squeeze. “Well, I have Calc 3 homework to finish and these theorems won’t do themselves so I’ll see you in the morning. Wash your fucking plate,” she finishes and pointes her finger at you. You hold up your hands in surrender as she leaves hers in the sink for you to clean. It’s the least you can do as she made all your meals.

Grabbing your purse and lugging it behind you after washing the dishes, you head to your room, Rosalia following in tow. Surprisingly, your bed is still intact which means that Amaya had made sure Rosalia hadn’t gotten into your room. Bless her. Not that there was much to get into as you the minimum possessions a person could have: a bed, a few photos, and enough clothes to last you a few weeks without doing laundry. You place your files and notepads onto your bed, eager to go and take a shower before organizing your notes in preparation for the debrief you would no doubt have to give to the rest of your colleagues tomorrow.

“Was your day as long as mine, Rosalia?” You scratch her head as she hops up on your bed and makes herself at home between your papers, a few of them scattering to the floor. “Apparently not as you want to make mine even longer,” you murmur as you bend to pick up the loose sheets of today’s meeting notes from the Cavallero project. You pause.

Jonas. That was the name that was on top of the paper in Suga’s office. What would be the odds that the Jonas on the paper would be the Jonas Cavallero you were working for? If that Jonas was the same Jonas, then was the location on the paper one of the events you were working on? How would Suga have that information? You sit against the side of your bed. Unless -

Yanking your phone out your purse’s side pocket, you google “Hastings & Lewis benefit gala”. Just as you’d suspected, the information is public knowledge: the third Saturday of May at the Finca Corte. There is no way in hell that Spiral is catering that event; they weren’t ritzy enough to be hired by the likes of one of the most expensive hotels in the city for one of the biggest events on the city’s calendar. Something is going on and you just know all of this is connected somehow. You just need proof. Maybe Maya is right. You’d broken into a few places before. How hard could it be to get into Suga’s office?

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

ⓒ joon-ipersgirl, 2020

[porcupine-girl]

Untamed Fic Rec List

Look, most of these are reasonably popular fics already, so if you’ve been in this fandom for a couple months you’ve likely read them. Which is not how I normally do rec lists, but I’m new enough to Untamed that I’m still reading through all the fics by authors I know from other fandoms plus ones that have been personally recced to me, so I haven’t made it into the deep dive of underappreciated fics that I normally like to rec.

It doesn’t help that one of these recs is 445K, so for like two weeks straight it was basically all I was reading.

BUT if, like me, you are rather new to this fandom and its fics, here are some good ones:

The Same Moon Shines Series by sami

This is the 445K behemoth, made up of 23 works, and is technically made up of three interrelated series. The first fic, which establishes the whole universe/multiverse, is 139K on its own. Basically, decades into the canon future, WWX invents time travel.

He goes back to being born, but is reborn with all his memories intact. And he fixes, like, fucking everything and it’s so, so fucking satisfying. Everything’s not perfect though - for example, he like lowkey (highkey?) traumatizes LXC by showing him his previous life via empathy and that has some consequences eventually. Featuring ace poly JC/LXC/WQ triad.

Then in a cracky subseries, appropriately called “ridiculous future bullshit”, we assume that the main six from this universe (WWX, LWJ, JC, WQ, LXC, JYL, & Lan Sizhui) all achieve immortality and find out what they’re up to in the modern day, where they’re revered in the Five Nations (this does a great job of staying in the canon world instead of ours) but of course white Western assholes do things like try and make a disney movie called Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch where they marry LWJ off to a girl.

And then in a third subseries, which so far has only one WIP fic, we go back to the canon universe, find out that JC and LWJ were stuck there watching WWX disappear in his time machine array (so WWX actually split off into another universe, he didn’t rewind his own), and so they get into the array having no idea what it will do but wanting to chase down the asshole they love. And so a third universe is born, where they are both born with their memories but WWX is not. I absolutely love seeing how different their priorities are from WWX’s in terms of what they want to change in their new life.

(Also: This is technically a MDZS fic that usually goes with novel canon over show canon if there’s a discrepancy, so if like me you haven’t read the whole novel you might need to look up some plot points now and then.)

The Vermillion Ribbon by @unforth

AU where Wei WuXian was taken in by Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s parents instead of the Jiangs. LWJ (who is the POV character) is a super DUPER dick to him at first, like even moreso than in canon, but the speed with which he regrets his choices is breathtaking and extremely satisfying.

LWJ is a VERY unreliable narrator. He has absolutely no idea what is going on with himself or anyone else at any point in time. Eventually he at least becomes self-aware of this fact, and can at least go wait am I missing something? I think I’m missing several somethings but fuck if I know what. Wei WuXian not understanding this about him leads to some miscommunication, because WWX doesn’t get that LWJ needs absolutely everything spelled out to him in single-syllable words with crayon drawings and y’know, WWX isn’t going to be straightforward anytime he can pretend he’s TOTALLY FINE :D :D :D instead.

LWJ’s friendship with NHS is magical, and NHS in general gets 810% more opportunity to scheme and plot pre-time-of-NMJ’s-canonical-death than in canon and is honestly living his best life. It’s also valuable for LWJ to have a scheming friend because, aside from realizing he misjudged WWX, this is how he starts to figure out that he’s a dumbass who has no idea what is going on ever. But he can count on NHS to always be ten steps ahead, so it’s okay.

(ETA: I’m sorry, I made unforth feel like maybe LWJ was too dense, and no, he’s very much not stupid in general. Like, honestly the fact that he becomes so self-aware of the things he’s bad at, and does things like trust NHS to always understand the stuff he’s missing, makes him come off as very intelligent. It’s just in the specific realm of understanding anything that people say or do that isn’t 100% honest and straightforward that he is just entirely hopeless in a rather relatable way, and like I said, WWX’s go-to is hiding any and all pain so that is a bad combo.)

The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou

This diverges from canon when WWX is on his way to Jin Ling’s one month celebration, but doesn’t bring Wen Ning along. So when Jin Zixun attacks it goes very poorly for him, poorly enough that Jin Zixuan thinks he’s dead and it’s reported back at Carp Tower as such. Sending LWJ into a dissociative state. He manages to break through to reality just long enough to find out that Jin Zixuan took WWX’s body back to the burial mounds and left it with Wen Qing, and to get on his sword and go directly there. Thankfully, it turns out that WWX is not dead, but only just barely so.

So LWJ stays there, because now that he spent some amount of time (he isn’t really sure if it was like five minutes or two hours, because dissociation) thinking WWX was dead he now knows that he should never, ever be anywhere but with WWX.

Honestly, it almost feels like a spoiler to say WWX doesn’t die, but there’s no major character death warning while there IS one for graphic violence so it’s not a chose not to warn either, so that’s technically not a spoiler. But things are touch-and-go for him for a very, very long time. And the romance is a slow burn with pining galore. And you get to see LWJ teaching A-Yuan to play the guqin, so like imagine being WWX and you wake up from almost dying to see that going on in your cave.

Velle: to will, to wish by @aerlalaith

This one is actually canon-compliant, and as it’s both quite a bit shorter and more straightforward, plot-wise, than the others, my writeup will be short but that doesn’t mean I loved it any less. Basically, it’s the process of LWJ deciding to adopt A-Yuan in the aftermath of WWX’s death. It starts just after he’s been beaten for turning against the other cultivators, and at first it’s mostly his grief and both physical and emotional pain. A-Yuan starts slipping in to visit him. and LWJ isn’t sure if he’s really okay with that at first.

Of course he becomes very okay with it, but the Lan elders and Lan Qiren and all aren’t just going to be like “ok sure you can barely walk you should def adopt a four-year-old of unclear origins who may or may not have something to do with your demonic dead boyfriend and the evil people he helped, that’s cool,” so it’s not that simple.

There’s a followup fic where, years later, LWJ chooses the courtesy name Sizhui and Xichen gives him shit for it.

save a sword, ride a socialist by sysrae / @fozmeadows

Continuing on my grand tour of Untamed fics by my fave writers from other fandoms, I get to enjoy having overlapped with foz on a third straight fandom which is just fabulous. I totally thought I wasn’t gonna read AUs and then this asshole comes along and writes AUs, which is not playing fair.

I especially love this because it’s modern day but much like ridiculous future bullshit it’s modern day in (more or less) a canonish world, not our world. So like, they fly on swords, but not long distances because it’s easier to take a train or drive rather than use up all that spiritual energy.

Lan Qiren and Jin Guangshan miss the old ways, though, and they think the best ancient tradition to bring back is arranged marriage! Because that will go over well with today’s youth. They try to make LWJ marry Mianmian but he’s like “um I’m gay” and LQ throws a hissy fit about that so Jin Zixuan (who is LWJ’s bestie and is fucking hilarious) hatches a plot for LWJ to cause LQ to stroke out by bringing WWX to Lan Xichen’s birthday party as his fake date.

But when LWJ and WWX meet up to talk this over, LWJ is instantly fucked because WWX has a small child with him and it turns out that this small child is the orphan he adopted. He doesn’t notice he’s fucked until a few days later, though, when WWX comes over for “kissing practice” and they fuck and he calls Jin Zixuan all “I think I caught a feel, what do?” and JZX is like idk, you’re a moron, don’t ask me to clean up your moron messes. And the next day LWJ buys a car seat.

Lan Wangji heard about Jack 110% Zimmermann and said “challenge accepted,” is what I’m saying here. And now I’ve written as much about this 33k fic as I did about the 445k, so I’ll shut up before I just recount the entire plot.