#wednesday fits here except it's a series

[shinehalley]

I'm weak for movies that are a little confusing, a little messy and clearly of questionable quality, but with characters so likable that I find myself watching them again and again and again just because of them.

[loveshotzz]

All I Really Want Is You

older!neighbor!widower! steve x fem!reader chap one/ten - a slow burn series of blurbs - updated every wednesday

Welcome To The Neighborhood

—> chapter two

summary: There’s a Bandit on the loose.

wc: 3.6k

warnings: 18+ series for eventual smut, 12 year age gap, reader is 30 and Steve is 42 otherwise none for this first installment :) it’s a meet cute baby.

author’s note: Here it is! chapter one of this little slow burn series with your painfully hot and confusing older!neighbor!widower!steve. This story will take place over the course of one summer, told in mostly blurbs of your chance encounters and run in’s with Steve. This series will have lots of pining, flirting, mild angst and eventual smut. Most chapters will range from 1-2k each except for a few. I hope you guys like reading about these two as much as I liked writing it & I hope to see you back next Wednesday! 🥹♥️

Series Masterlist // Playlist // The tune:

End of May —

Highways and state lines blur together like the buzzing of cicadas into busy Chicago streets. A fresh start. A new life. No plan - that was the promise you made to yourself ten years ago almost down to the date.

The excitement outweighs the embarrassment of how long it takes you to parallel park the Uhaul when you find that one in a million spot in front of your new home. Your hands are numb from the constant battle between the wind and your steering wheel. The breeze from the lake testing your strength for the last hour of your drive. The machine creaks loudly when you slam it into park, your legs wobbling like jello when your converse hit the pavement and out of your truck.

The city hits your ears like the humidity on your skin. The exposed parts of your thighs stick together when the thick air wraps around you like an unwanted blanket. Taking a deep breath, exhaust stings your lungs. Far away from the only place you’d ever known, it’s comforting the feeling that washes over you. You didn’t come here with an agenda. A fresh start with nothing to lose. You came here just to be you.

It seems like everyone is on their way to do something, going somewhere they have to be. They brush past you without even a glance in your direction, air pods buried deep in their ears caught up in their own little world. The sounds of dogs barking mingle with cars honking and loud conversations from patio bars the next block over. The city is alive with summer hanging fresh in the air.

The trees that line both sides of your street are lush and green from the moisture. They drape over phone lines, weeping under the heat of the sun. Bumper to bumper cars from all kinds of walks of life make the one way street even smaller. Mini gardens in front of mismatched houses only inches apart. This was your new home.

The three story townhouse is covered in dark green wooden paneling, the floors split up into separate apartments, and you managed to bag the top floor with protruding bay windows. Dumb luck mixed with being on craigslist minutes after they posted, you found the one mom and pop place in the city that fit your budget.

The chipped black metal gate that blocks off the front steps lands at your waist, and runs as a property line against an even nicer house next to yours. One that looks like it belongs to someone, not rented out to a bunch of someones. The bright red brick looks new, and the dark wood steps and patio freshly stained. An oriental rug that matches the house has chew toys with missing limbs littering the front entrance. A porch swing faces you and it sways gently with the wind. Your eyes catch the silhouette of someone on the other side of the stained glass in the middle of the thick mahogany door, and it reminds you to stop being so nosy.

Keys dangling in your hand, you take your first steps through the gate. The metal groans loudly before slamming closed behind you. You jog up the less polished, salt worn steps to your front door and the faint sound of a deep voice catches your ears from next door as you jiggle the lock open. Crossing through the threshold of the entryway you’re not surprised when there’s no reprieve to the heat, but disappointed just the same as you pull at our tank top that starts clinging to your skin. You eye the narrow staircase that curves up leading to your apartment, immediately regretting doing this alone. 

It takes you less time to unload than it did to load up, at least that's what you tell yourself as you round to the back of the open trailer. Sweat is slick against your skin and you thank yourself for keeping the previous owner's couch even if you thought it was an ugly shade of green.You stare pointedly at the four heaviest boxes left and you swear they mock you while you try to catch your breath from pushing your mattress to your room. The words ‘winter clothes’ scribbled sloppily in bright red marker make your face twist up.

“God dammit,”you breathe out running the back of your hand across your forehead trying to rally. Your A/C was already in the window and the cool air inside becomes your motivation.

You aren’t expecting the abrupt shove forward or the feeling of paws on your butt, sharp nails digging into the soft material of your shorts. Then you hear it, his voice.

“Bandit! Bandit - no! Down!”

Your hands hit the metal of the trailer stopping your fall under the weight of what you’re now realizing is an over excited fully grown German Shepherd. Pink tongue out with spit flying everywhere, you can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you when you turn around and he starts sniffing all over with a tail that wags a mile a minute. High pitched whines leave him when he realizes how much he wants you to play, but he accepts the scratches you offer behind his ears just the same. Body wiggling while also trying to stay still.

“Hi buddy!” you coo, your voice instantly slipping into the embarrassing one you only use for animals.

That’s when you see him. 

He has a few years on you, that part is obvious with the pepper that spots the sides of his honey colored hair and the scruff that lines his sharp jaw, but it only makes him look better. His broad shoulders are wrapped up tight in a white undershirt, the thick cotton telling you it was the kind that cost more than your phone bill. The black shorts he wears have a hem high enough to almost be inappropriate when you swear you see the outline of what’s underneath. The Nike swoosh near the slit at the top of his hairy thighs. His shoes match the color of his shorts, the On Cloud symbol etched on the side flashes in the light. Two hundred dollars on just his feet. 

The trained muscles in his arm flex when he runs a hand through his hair, catching the stray that flops over his forehead when he comes to a halt in front of you. The bright red leash clutched in his fist matches the color of his cheeks. Big hazel eyes meet yours after lingering on your curves a little too long, making you realize you’re showing off just as much skin as him. Clearing your throat, you tug at the bottom of your yoga shorts, willing them to grow just an inch longer with cheeks burning and not because of the sun.

“Sorry, I have a bad habit of getting him excited before I leash him up. I swear he’s friendly, are you okay? He didn’t scratch you or anything right?” 

You’re too distracted by his hands to comprehend his words, tendons moving under taut skin as he hooks Bandit’s hardness. The heat, the move, and the man all getting the best of you.

“Hey -“

His voice brings you back to reality, his brows furrowing over perfect features when he looks at you with genuine concern.

“Yes! Sorry, I’m fine. Honestly! I love dogs. The move in the heat, I think, I think it’s just getting to me.” You smile doing your best to calm the worried look on his face, and you swear you see him flush deeper because of it.

It’s his turn to clear his throat, left hand flexing like he’s looking for a ring that isn’t there. The skin is a lighter shade than the rest of him like there used to be. There’s a beat and an awkward silence before he finally notices the mostly empty trailer behind you. 

“Looks like you’re almost done though, top floor?” He questions rocking on his heels a little, pointing over his shoulder to your window. Your A/C is already dripping water onto the pavement.

“Yeah! You live in the building?”  Please say yes.

“Me? No.” He coughs a little uncomfortable, while you fight to stop the disappointment from showing on your face. “I umm, I actually live next door.” He winces, almost like he’s embarrassed.

“Anyway, sorry about Bandit. Your boyfriend is probably wondering where you’re at.” You don’t miss the way he assumes with a secret hope he’s wrong hidden behind the mossy greens of his eyes. 

“Probably,” you pause, ego boosting when you see him squirm, “If I had one.” You giggle and you hate the way your hips twist a little. 

That’s when he does it, he smiles, with all of his teeth. It’s just as blinding as it is contagious, and it makes your skin tingle, giddiness dripping from your limbs. It’s short lived though, like pieces of a puzzle clicking together you watch it disappear. It’s replaced by the same concern from before only with a new layer of disbelief.

“Wait, honey, who’s helping you move in then?” He looks at you stunned like he can’t fathom the answer he knows you're gonna give.

“The same person that drove here - me.” You grin a little proud with your chin pushed up and it makes his lips twitch, the same smile from before itching to come back.

“Let me at least help with these last few.” He peeks behind you, eyes scanning over your messy writing, “They look like they might be heavy.” 

He teases you just enough to earn a roll of your eyes, but the grin on your face makes him huff out a relieved laugh. Nerves like a first date twist in his gut when he sees the way you look at him from under your lashes.

“I mean, if you insist…?” you trail off, fishing for his name. 

“Steve, sorry! It's Steve, Steve Harrington.” He runs one of his big hands through his hair again, a nervous tell of his you pick up on instantly, before offering it out for you to take.

“I don’t think I caught that, can you repeat your name one more time for me?” Biting your lip into a smile, he narrows his eyes playfully, cheeks blooming, flustered from your words.

Sliding your hand into his, it disappears completely when he wraps his fingers around yours. The softness of his palm is warm like the sun that beat down on you all day and it sends electric currents running through your veins, heart thumping loudly in your chest and you wonder if he can hear the way he can hear it. Minutes pass before either of you make the first move to let go, or at least that’s what it feels like. It’s not until Bandit whines at your feet that Steve finally caves.

“Let me go put him back inside real quick, it’s still a little too hot out anyway and I’ll help you bring the last of this up, tough girl.” He winks with the kind of casualness that makes you question whether you saw it at all and you have to hold in the sigh that begs to slip past your lips.

“I’ll be waiting,” your voice cracks, your confidence slowly disappearing like the sun behind the hazed skyline. 

You try to cover it up by swooping down to give Bandit a kiss between the eyes. Only it backfires, making it worse when you realize how weirdly personal that was to do to someone else’s dog, despite the more than pleased wag of his tail.

“That - that was, oh god. I don’t know why I kissed your dog like I knew him. Or you. I’m - I’m sorry.”  You pinch the bridge of your nose, embarrassment rolling off of you in waves.

It’s not until you hear his laugh, and god is it pretty too, that you finally look up.

“It’s understandable, he’s a handsome guy.” Steve smirks with flirty eyes and it makes you dizzy. 

You can’t stop your giggle, the back of your hand doing little to hide your smile from him. Butterflies breaking from cocoons in your stomach as you watch him walk away to that big house right next to yours.

“What exactly do you have in these boxes?” Steve grunts as he follows you up the narrow staircase with two in tow despite your multiple warnings. 

“Winter coats, sweaters, maybe some boots...” you trail off trying to think, your disorganization more than evident when you open up your front door to even more boxes and bags spread out in disarray.

“You packed your coats and your boots in the same box?” His voice is muffled behind cardboard as the cool air hits, sending goosebumps across sweat-kissed skin. The low hum does something to dull your nerves when you work up the courage to turn around and finally face him. 

“Maybe! Who knows, I’ll find out tonight when I open it.”  

He huffs out a breathy laugh as his broad shoulders almost brush the sides of your door frame. Stepping one expensive sneaker in front of the other into your more than humble apartment, there’s a fleeting moment of regret about taking him up on his offer when your eyes dart around the mess. 

“Where am I puttin’ this boss?” His eyes meet yours from around the side of the boxes, playfulness filling the greens and browns like before.

The muscles in his arm flex when he re-establishes his hold on the box, the sleeves of his shirt getting tighter and the whites of his knuckles start to show. The simple brown leather band of his watch strains, and it makes your throat dry up.

“Ummm.” You shake your head, willing your brain to regain its normal function as you start a clumsy walk towards the direction of your bedroom. “We can put them in my -“

Your shoe hits something hard and you don’t have enough time to realize what’s happening until you're already on the ground. Palms flat against the scratched wooden floor and a sharp pain in your ankle. The culprit, an already half opened box labeled KITCHEN you must’ve left in the hallway when you got distracted by something else.

“Jesus, are you okay?” Steve sets the boxes down, pushing them against the wall and out of the way raking his hand through his hair again, it must be a stressed habit too. 

“Yeah, yeah, my ego is a little bruised but I think I’m gonna survive.” You try to smile, but only end up wincing when you go to push yourself up.

“Here, let's get you on the couch, let me take a look.” He doesn’t wait for your reply, both of his hands coming out to you in an offering. Stubbornness losing for once, you take them.  

He lifts you up like you’re weightless, moving you around with ease as he tucks you into his side. His fingers wrap around the curve of your hip to steady you. He’s warm, the pine of his body wash mixing with the spice of his cologne and it surrounds you in a strong hold. It's a short trip to your couch, his abs moving with each step, and you secretly wish it took just a little longer. 

He’s gentle when he untangles himself from you. Soft palms on your elbows to hold your balance as you sit down. There’s a hint of his aftershave that hits your nose as your muscles melt into the softness of the cushions, the day quickly catching up to you. Eyelids going droopy.

“Sitting was a mistake Steve,” you groan with a light stretch of your limbs, and another subtle wince.

“Well good thing you conned me into helping you with the last of your boxes then.” He waits a second before meeting your eyes as he pulls one of your many boxes over to sit on, his lips twisting up when he sees the way you scoff. 

“Conned you?! You practically begged me to let you help.” Your head bobs with attitude dripping from each word and it makes him grin. He nods furrowing his brows like he’s hearing you, but despite the limited time you’ve spent with him you knew whatever he was about to say was just going to egg you on more.

“I mean, if that’s what you need to tell yourself sweetheart. I remember it a little differently.” He can’t hold in his laugh when you roll your eyes hard at him trying to ignore the newest nickname.

His knees brush against yours when he finally takes his seat, the hem of his shorts rising higher, running tight against the muscle of his thigh. The cinnamon hair that covers his legs tickles you while the sun hits your bay window with just the right light to reveal an expanse of freckles and moles you didn’t see before under his five o’clock shadow and across the bridge of his nose. God, he’s handsome. 

His eyes catch yours like he can hear your thoughts, and for a moment you wonder if he actually can.

“Do you mind?” The teasing edge is gone, his eyes a little more soft when the tips of his fingers tap against your leg.

Your voice is lost in the shift in energy, static filling in the air between you when you shake your head ‘no’.’’ His touch is feather light when his fingers wrap gingerly around your ankle bringing your foot to his lap. He makes quick work of your laces, using extra care when he pulls off your shoe. The pad of his thumb rubs over the bruising bone and you notice the way he licks his lips.

“Does this hurt?” He applies a little bit of pressure to the spot just below your calf, his gaze making you nervous as he gauges your reactions.

“No,” it comes out a little breathless and he exhales deep through his nose because of it.

“How about here?” He does the same thing as before, only this time closer to your heel and you wince. “There it is,” he hums to himself, rubbing soothing circles as an apology.

“Like on a pain scale of one to ten, I’d give it a three and a half or four” you tell him, when really you’re too proud to admit it’s actually a five.

“Three and a half? You can’t use that. Solid number only,” he scoffs meeting your eyes from under his lashes, the forest inside them turning black.

“I actually think I can do whatever I want,” you laugh incredulously, your toes wiggling under black socks in his lap.

“I guess it is your house, I stand corrected.” Steve admits defeat with an exaggerated sigh before showing you his teeth in a wide grin, his thumb still rubbing circles because it never actually stopped. “Do you have an ice pack?” 

Your finger drums against your bottom lip as you think about everything you had packed, his eyes fixated on the way you lightly pull it down with each tap.

“I don’t remember and if I’m being completely honest I don’t think so.” You look sheepish when you admit your lack of first aid supplies to him.

He chuckles lightly, hot breath fanning against your skin with a shake of his head.

“I think I have one, I’ll grab it and bring those other two boxes up. Keep your foot elevated for me tonight tough girl. Unpack your chaos tomorrow.” He mocks the way your jaw drops at his teasing.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were tryin’ to take care of me Steve.” The joke is innocent, at least that’s what you thought. 

Something clicks behind his eyes, the warmth draining from his smile when it falls. His brows furrow and he won’t look at you anymore, his thumb stops rubbing those circles, and your foot is placed gently back on the ground. He’s standing up faster than you can catch your breath, faster than you can comprehend.  The energy shifts to something distant and the warm summer is replaced with frigid winter. He clears his throat with glassy eyes scratching the back of his neck, and you have no idea what you did.

“Hey I’m sorry if I -“

He cuts you off before you can finish.

“You didn’t do anything, It’s me - look, I’m just gonna go get those things. I’ll leave it at your door, please just elevate your foot. You should be okay by tomorrow.” He doesn’t let you respond, long legs taking him out of your place and leaving you to wonder what you did wrong. 

Your head lulls against the back of the couch, staring fixated on the old popcorn ceiling of your living room for what feels like twenty minutes as you replay everything back. Over analyzing his tones and body language coming up empty every time. This was going to drive you crazy.

There’s three raps on your front door, one coming down hard followed by two quick knocks. When you stand up this time, it hurts less, more true to the pain level you gave him as you slightly hobble to answer.

When you open it, your two boxes are stacked where he promised. A dark blue ice pack with a yellow sticky note that says:

beta’d by @superblysubpar 💕 (also made the cute post it for me 🥹)

dividers by @newlips 💗

chapter two

[willofwinnie]

Calendar of Auldrant

Though I do not know if other games in the Tales series go by a similar date and day naming system, this will primarily be Tales of the Abyss. This is a long post!

Here is all the information the game gives regarding the calendar.

The Days:

This is a funny nod towards the origins behind the names of the days of the week. Rem is light and the “Sun” in Sunday is directly referencing the Sun. It's pretty neat that both reference a form of light. 

Similar situation with Lunaday and Monday (Luna- Moon, Mon- also Moon). 

Ifrit(also spelled Efreet) is Fire. Potentially in Korean the Tuesday equivalent translates to “fire day” according to Wiki about Tuesday. I don’t speak or read Korean so I also checked WordReference and found similar characters in some of the words like rage, wrath, ire, (further down that provided list) great fire. So it potentially could be a fun nod to that, can’t completely confirm. 

Undineday is water day. In Japanese and Korean Wednesday also translates to Water Day. Yes, in WordReference the Japanese character used in Wednesday is used for water so this seems fairly straightforward. In Korean I also found a bit more difficulty as the characters are widely used in many words, there are some water-related words in the sea of words the character appears in so I wouldn’t completely dismiss the possibility. 

Sylphday is wind. Thursday is a reference to Thor, the god of thunder. The wind would relate to stormy weather that thunder and lightning often appear with. 

Loreleiday- Lorelei. Friday- the greatest day of the week. In Auldrant Lorelei is considered pretty great! Just kidding, well partially. Friday comes from Freya, the goddess of marriage and love. Lorelei is a godly figure in the world of Abyss. Though Lorelei may be caring, it’s more related to sound and memory. Daath in general is fairly religious, following Lorelei, with the Order of Lorelei. In Christianity, Good Friday is a widely celebrated day. In Catholicism, all Fridays during Lent, you can’t eat meat (but it is supposed to be all Fridays to abstain from meat not just Lent). This being Friday's equivalent does make sense with the more religious aspect of the day (since Sunday was used for the more straightforward “light” connection).

The Gnomeday-Saturday connection is fairly nonexistent. Gnome is the element earth in Auldrant. Saturday is a reference to Saturn (God of Time), sabbath day (for romantic languages), and bath day (Old Norse). I will be honest, none of these fit. Sadly, it may be a case of “just put it in somewhere.”

The Months:

There are 13 months in Auldrant. As far as I can tell, there is no official count of how many days are in each month.

If we ignore Lorelei Decan for a moment, the rest of the months go forward and reverse except for Rem Decan and Luna Redecan (which is in place of the counterpart of a potential Rem Redecan). The order of Rem, Sylph Undine, Gnome, Ifrit, and Shadow are not in the order of fonon numbers. The number order of this month list is 6, 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7. I am assuming Luna and Rem are two sides of the same coin and are referencing the same fonon so they are both the 6th fonon. There was close to being a pattern of taking a number, halving it, adding one, and halving it again but they ran out of whole numbers to continue that.

The first half of the year has the postfix Decan and the latter half Redecan except for the Lorelei month. This could be because Lorelei signifies that a new year will arrive, so it has the postfix Decan. Lorelei is an important figure in Auldrant, especially Daath, so a month that stands out in the name of Lorelei would be fitting.

To think of a wild interpretation of the months, it could represent a person’s life or the year’s lifespan. The beginning starts with the sun, a new beginning. The person/year goes through the experiences of their life, experiencing all it has to bring (with fonons making up the world). The center point of the person/year’s life is the Shadow months. At this point, they are no longer young and will have to figure out what to do for the rest of their life (a very shadowy midlife crisis). They reminisce about their life and go back to relive the experiences of their youth until the sun sets and the moon rises. The end of the line. Then as all 7th Fonists do, they return to the Fonbelt, to Lorelei. Then the cycle of fonons can begin again. 

Or a more logical explanation of the months could represent the cycle the memory particles go through when traveling through the Fon Belt (The Planet Storm). Then to encompass all the Fonons Lorelei represents the final one of the 7th Fonon.

Anyway, all the months can comfortably fit 58 days in them but there is a remainder of 11 days to account for in the year. If we add a day for every other month starting with the first month, that would leave 4 days remaining. I do not know a logical placement for these days, so I will add them to Lorelei Decan. The month count would be Rem Decan- 59, Sylph Decan- 58, Undine Decan- 59, Gnome Decan- 58, Ifrit Decan- 59, Shadow Decan- 58, Shadow Redecan- 59, Ifrit Redecan- 58, Gnome Redecan- 59, Undine Redecan- 58, Sylph Redecan- 59, Luna Redecan- 58, Lorelei Decan- 63. (This will be helpful for some calculations later.)

The Year:

A year in Auldrant is 765 days. That is 2.1 times longer than our calendar year. If we compare that to our world, Jade would be 70, Guy 42, Natalia 36, Tear 32, and Anise 28. Dang does Jade look great at 70 haha! I do know the 765 days is a pun because that number sounds somewhat like Namco in Japanese. In this world, I assume people age at half the rate (My condolences to all the Auldrant parents with tantrum-throwing toddlers). Since the year is twice as long, Luke being locked in his Manor for seven years and the time skip in the story would be way longer than originally believed. Nothing like Auldrant continuing to be worse and worse, right?

Birthdays:

Can't have a ramble about a fictional calendar without talking about birthdays! From around the internet, the birthdays of the characters are listed as follows: Jade- Sylph-Redecan 22, Guy- Efreet-Decan 41, Natalia- Rem-decan 37, Luke- Lorelei-Decan 48, Tear- Lorelei-Decan 1, Anise- Shadow-Decan 46. Going along with my guess on how many days per month, the day each character is born in this: Jade- 607, Guy- 275, Natalia- 37, Luke- 750, Tear- 703, Anise- 339. (Basically, add up all the days of the months prior and add then the day of the month they were born). The birthdays I got from fan sites that supposedly got them from a QNA. I do not know the accuracy of these but for the purposes of the rest of this, these are the dates used.

I have noticed that there are assigned birthdays for the characters per our calendar year. Jade is Nov 22, and Luke is Dec 25th. I found these from fan sites and repeated them across the internet. Again with these, I do not know the accuracy, so I did my own take on the potential calculations.

There are a few ways to calculate the birthdays of these characters with our own: Divide the year by two (2.1 to be more accurate) and get an approximate answer, place our calendar year onto Abyss’, and count the days (for example there will be two Decembers).

The first option is easy. Divide the day they were born by 2.1 to get the day they would be born on Earth. It would land the characters birthdays like this: Jade- 289 (Oct 16), Guy- 130 (May 10), Natalia- 17 (Jan 17), Luke- 357 (Dec 23), Tear-  334 (Nov 30th), Anise- 161 (Jun 10). These are pretty close to the associated birthdays with Luke nearly being a Christmas Eve baby and Jade being born in fall.

The second option is also easy, for any character whose birthday is over 365, subtract 365 until it is a number below 365 and find the date associated (For example, if a character is born on the 366th day, they would be born on Jan 1st in our calendar). It would land the characters birthdays like this: Jade- 242 (Aug 30th), Guy- 275 (Oct 2nd), Natalia- 37 (Feb 6th), Luke- 20 (Jan 20), Tear- 338 (December 4th), and Anise- 339 (December 5th).

Despite the numbers not exactly lining up (there will be human error on my part with calculations and rounding), if people celebrate Jade's birthday on Nov 22 that's completely fine by me! It's a fictional birthday anyway! If it means more Tales of the Abyss art and content, Jade's birthday could be Feb 14 for all I care!

This was just something fun I've been thinking about when I learned about the calendar of Auldrant! And might as well try to put all my thoughts together for a big ramble. Hope you all enjoyed!

[vioartemis]

Hold your breath

(Emma Myers x fem! reader)

Summary: You are a new cast member for Wednesday’s second season, and you fall hard for one of the cast members. a/n: I don’t usually write for “real people” so it might be awful Warnings: none (English isn't my first language, I'm sorry if there are mistakes or if something doesn't make sense TvT)

It was your first day on the set of Wednesday, and you were more than nervous. Arriving in a cast later than everyone made it difficult to fit in easily.

You were in front of the studio's door, trying to put yourself together, when someone arrived behind you.

"Is everything okay?"

You jumped and turned around, cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"Y-yeah I'm just... nervous..."

"Oh wait- you're Y/n L/n right? I'm-"

"Hunter Doohan, I know"

You smiled at him nervously.

"Of course you know, sorry" he chuckled "They told us you would play C/n, everyone wants to meet you, come with me. And don't worry, they don't bite"

He winked at you with a smile, opening the door for you. You stepped in hesitantly, followed by Hunter. He lead you to where the rest of the cast was, and introduced you to them.

They were all here, except for one person.

You started to talk with the cast, feeling more and more at ease, before you heard footsteps coming from behind.

"Sorry I'm late! I was so excited to meet the Y/n L/n I forgot to check the time..."

"Emma-" Joy tried to interrupt her

"She's so cool and pretty and talented-"

Hunter stepped to the side, revealing you standing right here with red cheeks. Immediately, she stopped rambling, embarrassed, her cheeks reddening too.

And that's how you met Emma Myers, the last cast member you had to meet.

Your first day went well, everyone was welcoming and smiling at you as if you were always with them. They invited you to a little party later in the evening, to "celebrate the arrival of our new friend" Georgie said.

As the new antagonist of the series, you had a pretty important role, and so a pretty important number of scenes to shoot. Well you were not revealed as the antagonist at first, you were undercover at Nevermore and tried to befriend Wednesday and Enid.

Because of that, you arrived a little late to the party. Half an hour in the party, half of them already seemed to be drunk.

Georgie was trying to explain something to a perplexe Joy, while Hunter was lying on the couch, head in a bucket, a little green, a worried Jenna by his side.

You backed up a few minutes ago, not wanting him to throw up on you, and were on the balcony, fresh air helping you keep your mind awake.

"Can I join you in this safe place?"

Emma arrived next to you cheeks a little red.

"Sure" you smiled "Are they always like that?"

"Almost all the time... but you'll get used to it" she chuckled "By the way... I'm sorry for earlier, if it made you uncomfortable or anything..."

"Don't worry about that" you gave her a little smile "Beside, I think you're pretty cool and pretty yourself"

<><><><> ♡ <><><><>

It had been 3 months since the shooting begun. You grew close to everyone, and to them you were already part of the family.

"Anddd cut! That's all for today, thanks girls"

It was your last scene of the day, and maybe the last scene of the day. You hadn't paid too much attention to it but everyone seemed to be already gone, except for you and Emma.

You all decided to book rooms at a hotel nearby for a special night. You were supposed to meet after work.

"You're really good at playing a villain!" she complimented you

"Are you saying I'm a good psychopath?"

"Wha- no I just-"

"I'm kidding I'm kidding" you laughed

You both went to change in your casual clothes, putting away your costumes for the night. You took the drink you got earlier in one hand, and your bag in the other, ready to go, but you tripped on a cable.

You almost fell on your face, but fortunately Emma was here to grab your arm and hold you. Unfortunately however, you drink splattered all over your shirt.

"Are you okay?" she asked you, worried

"Yeah, thank god you were here..."

You put your bag on the floor and pulled the aim of your shirt, trying to figure out if it was really stained. It was.

"Shit..."

You were supposed to meet the other at the hotel in less than ten minutes. You didn't had time to go to your room to grab another shirt, and you couldn't come looking like that.

"Is it bad?" Emma stepped in front of you "It is bad..."

"I can't come to a hotel like that..."

"Wait I think I have another shirt!"

She looked in her bag for a second and pulled a short sleeved shirt out of it. Ramen n' chill was written on it, with a ramen bowl drawing. Totally the type of shirt you figured she would wear.

"Here take it"

She handed you the shirt, smiling softly. That smile that made you melt since day one. That smile that made you fall so hard for her.

"I don't know what I would do without you..." you sighed

You took the shirt, thanking her, and took of your stained one before putting it in your bag and putting on the grey shirt.

While you were changing, you didn't notice Emma's gaze on you, nor did you notice the blush on her face as she looked away.

When you arrived at the hotel, everyone welcomed you, and drinks were soon put in your hands. Jenna and Hunter shared a smirk seeing you were wearing Emma's shirt. You were their ship number one.

Everyone started talking, bout you couldn't say about what. You were drowning in Emma's perfume - in a good way. Her shirt smelled like her, like when she hugged you.

"... Y/n?"

You looked up, hearing your name.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention"

"We noticed that, what were you thinking about?" Joy asked with an innocent smile

"Maybe a certain someone you would really like..." Hunter continued

"I was thinking about throwing this glass of water at your face if you don't shush right now" you said, cheeks burning

"Oh so you like someone??" Georgie asked "Who??"

All of a sudden everyone got very interested in what was said, especially Emma, sipping her drink quietly.

"Maybe..."

That was all you were ready to say, not wanting to give more detail with Emma right here. She would understand who you like quickly if you were to say anything else.

You avoided all questions for the next fifteen minutes, until Georgie came back. When did he left? You had no idea.

"Guysss! There's a billard over there! Please someone play with me I've always wanted to!"

That caught everyone's attention. They all got up and followed Georgie, letting you breathe a little.

You were about to go with them when Emma grabbed your arm.

"Want to go to the pool with me? They're very loud when they play"

You glanced over to the rest of the group, before nodding with a smile.

"Let's go before they see us"

She took your hand and started running, dragging you with her.

You were both out of breath when you arrived at the pool, laughing like teenagers. You both took your shoes and socks off.

"Do you think the water is hot?" Emma asked after a minute.

"I don't know you" got closer to the pool "I'm going to check"

You bent down to touch the water, when you felt Emma's hands on your back.

"Hold your breath" she whispered right next to your ear before pushing you

The water was rather cold. It soaked your clothes and your hair. When you came back to the surface, you rubbed your eyes-

"Hey! Not cool!" you pouted

"Sorry, I couldn't help it" she smile "here, I'll help you out"

She held her hand for you to grab. You took her hand, and paused.

"Hold your breath" you said, winked at her, and pulled her down into the water.

"Guess I deserved that" she said

She looked at you and at the water, a playfull smile on her face.

"Don’t even-"

You got cut off by water splashing on your face.

"You want to play that game? Ok let’s play"

You spent the next 30 minutes splashing water at each other.

"Ok ok I surrender!" you finally said, lifting your hands up

She stopped with a victorious smile and ran a hand through her hair so she could see properly. The light of the moon and the pool reflected in her eyes . They seemed more blue like that. You felt like you could drown in them.

She was pretty everyday, with or without makeup, with every style of clothes. You never saw her with wet hair before. She was gorgeous.

You knew you were staring for too long, but you just couldn't look away. When she got a little closer, you noticed she was staring too. Her eyes flickered from your own to your lips.

"Y/n..."

"Hm...?"

"I really want to kiss you"

You got closer to her, never breaking eye contact.

"I really want to kiss you too"

She closed the gap between you, soft lips pressed against yours in a soft kiss. She cupped your cheeks with one hand and placed the other on your waist as you locked your arms around her neck.

She was a good kisser. The best kiss you ever had.

When you pulled away, her lips were all red. They curled up into a smile. She took you hands and led you to a stack of towel. She took one and started to dry your hair gently.

You grabbed another towel and threw it around her so she wouldn't get cold. Unfortunately the other towel were small ones, so she pulled you closer to her, wet bodies pressing against each other.

"Looks like we have to share the big towel" she said

You kissed her again. She smiled against your lips, kissing back. Soon, the kiss turned into a more feverish one.

Hot breaths were shared after you pulled away, before you pressed your nose into her neck. She hugged you thight.

"I love you Emma" you whispered

"I love you too Y/n"

׺°”˜`”°º×•°¯`•• ♡ ••´¯°•×º°”˜`”°º×

This isn't something I usually write for a lot of reasons, but there's literally no fics with her!! So I had to created the content I'm desperately looking for... If you find some Emma fics please tell me I'm interested :))

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Honestly? While there's no doubt that Luffy fucked up in Whiskey Peak? Like 80% of the outrage and 100% of the accusations of "ooc"ness come from 1) the misconception of Luffy being this super intuitive guy leading to him being put on an altar, and 2) a refusal to allow him any emotional depth.

To start off – Luffy's not that intuitive. The closest thing to it is what the crew call his "animal instincts" in Water 7, where he predicts that he will have to fight Rob Lucci, like he predicts other fights before and after. Only – is that really what happens? He "just knows"? Because, from what I remember, he very clearly identifies him as the leader and the strongest member of CP9 (#366: "of all the people we'll be fighting in a little while, the strongest is that pigeon guy! I'l definitely be the one to send him flying!"). Of course he assigns himself to fight him. That's his reasoning every other time, as well. At times (certainly not often, but sometimes), he demonstrates actual strategic thinking, like with Moria.

I think a lot of people want to think that Luffy "intuits" the Straw Hats' potential or even their pasts when he asks them to join, but we don't see any evidence of that. What we do see is a lot of instances where Luffy witnesses good things about his friends, both in terms of skill and of character. In Brook's case, he literally just went "talking skeleton cool cool cool cool cool". And that's all. It might be hard to swallow that some of the deepest and strongest bonds we see in the series, the most important ones and the cornerstone of the story, are based on something as flimsy as "hee hee I like you be my nakama", that Luffy didn't somehow know that they needed to be taken in. But that's just the way it is. Hell, if it had been solely up to him, Kureha, Iceberg and a bunch of random zombies without a will of their own who were trying to kill them would be part of the crew.

I think that what happens is that Luffy is very undiscerning and undemanding about who can join the crew or even sail with them (he also let Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 go with them without a fuss, same with the Franky Family, who he only knows from, you know, having beat up Usopp and stolen 200mil berries from them) and we want to think that there's some deeper reason for it. We know that it's nothing rational, because we're not so detached from what's happening on the page, so that leaves some kind of instinct telling him that these are the right people. It's a nice idea – it gives Luffy some unconventional wisdom to make up for his lack of it otherwise and fits well with his upbringing in the jungle.

But there's not really anything special about the people he picks up, except the fact that he picks them up. Not in the sense that they're special because of him, but that they become special to him. That's the real reason why he goes after Nami and Robin and Sanji when they leave. It's not that, oooh, he can sense how tortured and traumatized they are and that deep down they're good people. Nah – he just believes them when they say they are his people, so he refuses to abandon them.

And, okay, this might seem damning in the context of Whiskey Peak, because where was this faith when it came to Zoro, who arguably earned it more than anyone else in the crew? To be honest, that's one of the points where I'll concede that Luffy fucked up the most, but there is another matter at play here: everyone else claimed to be on his side, or at least be a certain kind of person, before apparently turning on him. He chose to believe that original impression out of loyalty.

Not only is Luffy not that discerning, he is known for being a sucker for deception. He can't lie, and he's so honest that most of the time he can't even conceptualize that someone might be lying to him. ("Are you going to betray me?" "No." *grins*) The idea that he could just... take a look at someone and divine either good or evil intent goes directly against canon. He gets taken in by CP9, by Kanjuro, hell, he buys that King Cobra betrayed Alabasta as Vivi is telling him of how Crocodile manipulated them.

And that leads me into Whiskey Peak and point 2.

Before we start, think back to Wano, if you would. (If you haven't reached Wano, don't worry, the spoilers in this paragraph are very light.) Imagine that, after spending the day with Tama, and Tsuru, and Kiku, and the rest of the village who gave up their scarce supplies to feed them, Luffy and Zoro go to sleep. The morning after that, Luffy wakes up to a massacre. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has been cut down. The people who helped them, the people who he was talking and laughing with just a few hours ago, dead or near enough. He recognized Tsuru among the pile of bodies and she still has some breath left, so he asks who did it.

Basically, imagine sympathetic victims to the Whiskey Peak massacre.

When we read Whiskey Peak, we know there's something fishy going on. For starters, it's Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9's town, which makes it suspicious enough. Then, before the attack, we see them writing a letter saying that they wanted the Straw Hats to go there, making it obviously dangerous. This is without even getting into the clear threat evident to us readers because we know this is a story and that there's no way the heroes will have it that easy. We mistrust and refuse to sympathize with the Whiskey Peak inhabitants from the start. Until the reveal that Vivi's undercover, they're enemies and future meatsacks to us. We forget that that's not the case for the Straw Hats. Especially, that's not the case for Luffy, who takes everyone at face value.

I think a lot of people maybe get too caught up in their image of Luffy as a sort of chaos, "do things for the laff" entity who'll liberate you from tyranny in exchange from food, so they don't realize that there might be emotional, non-transactional reasons for his behavior. That he feels thankful to the people who help him, because he's survived on the kindness of others all his life and he would've died without it (and if you think that doesn't apply now that he's a pirate, go back to read the Baratie arc). That he might get attached to the people who are kind to him and others. That, even if he doesn't feel affection for them, he'll still be outraged when their kindness is met with cruelty by others. We joke about his disproportionate responses to being fed (aka overthrowing the government for a bowl of rice), but that's because he's not acting under a perceived debt, but out of a bond he's created with his benefactor/s.

So Luffy, who couldn't understand duplicity if it showed up with a twin, gets to a village full of people who happily welcome him and his crew, who appear to do this for every weary traveler that has just passed through the harrowing ordeal of Reverse Mountain. They offer them food, drinks and shelter for as long as they need it. Not only that, they all spend hours partying together, chatting, having fun. Than, Luffy wakes up to find everyone either slaughtered or nearly – the people he was partying with not long ago, from the elderly to children, and, okay, gross, but let's recognize that One Piece is a piece of media with an antiquated system of gallantry that says that it's also an outrage that the women were also hurt. He walks up to one of them and asks them who did it. He says it was Zoro.

Take a moment to place yourself in his shoes. This was objectively a horrifying experience. You wouldn't be surprised if he went after the culprit if it was a stranger. And while I think he should have given Zoro the benefit of the doubt, there's something actually a lot more horrifying in the fact that it was one of his friends who did it: that means Luffy's responsible. He's the one who brought Zoro there, after all. Most codes of honor would have the leader of a group vouching, at least implicitly, for its members.

And it might have easily felt like a betrayal. Not because Zoro went against Luffy, but because he let him down.

A lot of people bring this fight back to loyalty – hasn't Zoro shown Luffy how loyal he is? (And, you know what, I think we could have an interesting discussion about that? About what's said, what's implied, also what's actually witnessed by the characters, but never mind.) Zoro promised him he'd be the best, and that he'd stick by Luffy in his path to achieve that... but he never promised he'd never cruelly cut down an entire village in the meantime, something which is not beyond what any other pirate would do, loyalty notwithstanding. And a good thing, too, because he did, in fact, do that in WP!

That's the other thing. Imagine waking up to a whole village of people who helped you and your crew cut down by a member of said crew. The children included. The idea of there being a good reason for it is actually more out there than a prideful and powerful man who agreed to become a pirate, specifically to establish himself as the strongest in his field, would lash out at the flimsiest offense to his ego, to be honest.

Basically, it all goes down to how this guy, so honest he can barely conceive of being lied to when he's directly informed of it, should have walked out to find bloodied piles of bodies and gone "this guy with violent tendencies I met like a month ago killed dozens of people, including children, who fed us and sheltered and fed us, who I like because of that, probably did it for a good reason". Forgive me if I bring up the children too much, it's just that, if there's one demographic you don't expect anyone to have enough of a good reason to maim, it's that one. Faced with this kind of scene, it makes sense to doubt your initial judgement of a person.

Of course, what he did see of Zoro before that should have told him enough to at least doubt. At the very least, he should have heard him out before killing him. Zoro did try to explain. (Then again, if someone admitted to slaughtering a whole neighborhood and then claimed to have a good reason for it I wouldn't be jumping to hear them out.)

That said, it's not about Luffy doubting Zoro's loyalty, it's about doubting his character when faced with incredibly damning evidence against it. One the one hand, maybe Luffy's the one who should've been more loyal. On the other, the fact that his loyalty didn't extend to forgiving one of his crew when they apparently go rogue and attack not just an entire village, but of full of people who helped them and continuously did the same for others, just goes to prove that he doesn't have the moral backbone of a wet noodle, in addition to checking out with his tendency to develop an attachment to people who feed him.

[galvanizedfriend]

hi, yokan <3

I read that in Brazil there's a week-break because of carnival, therefore I hope you're finally having a bit of rest!

I was wondering if you could post an outtake with the klaroeve scene? from you comment I understood that there was more than that little scene in the latest chapter, and I would LOVE to read it!

sorry if I sound rude or pressuring, it's not my intention at all :(( I'm just Eve's third parent, I need more scenes with my babygirl being adorable 😭😭

I totally get why you don't put more of her in the main story. I ALWAYS say that babyplots are terrible due to a lot of factors, one of them being the constant present of a baby who basically does nothing (rightfully, since, yk, it went out of the whomb last year) and that adds nothing to the plot but just terrible fan service.

I think most people would agree with this, maybe even you!

HOWEVER, my little wolf/fish/mermaid is THE exception and I would love to see more of her, and, since u have a series dedicated to those fluffy moments that don't exactly fits with the plot, I really wish you will post something there 😭😭

sorry for bothering you, I hope you'll have a good day!

P.S.

totally off-topic but I also read some of your comments in Portuguese (AT LEAST I think it's Portuguese 😭) and I understood like 80% of it, privileges of being Italian ‼‼ so lol now you really can't escape me >:)

Yes, it's Carnaval right now! It's a nearly weak-long holiday, but it sadly ends on Wednesday. 😢 And I was technically on call yesterday, so 😂 But I am very much enjoying not doing anything 🤷‍♀️

About the baby thing, yes. 😂 I've been so lucky to get some passionate readers almost from the start with this fic and to have people who are still reading it a ton of years later, but I've also had to read some very mean things over the years that have stuck with me. It has made me extremely self-conscious about this story. I sometimes find myself almost apologizing for writing it, like I'm commiting some kind of crime against fandom or like I should be banned for inflicting this upon people for as long as I have. I wish I could be the kind of person who just doesn't care and remains blissfully unbothered, but I'm not. I'm not a naturally confident person in any way, and that kind of thing does get to me.

It's gotten better, of course. I care a lot less now than I used to, and the fic is not as popular as it was a few years ago either, so there's that But some of that stuff has just ingrained itself into my brain. Objectively I know this is stupid and I don't owe anybody anything, I don't have to apologize for writing a fanfiction for god's sake. There's room for everyone in fandom. I can have a corner to rewrite the show and have a magical Klaroline baby, fuck it. Who cares, you know? But it's almost stronger than me sometimes, I don't realize I'm doing it. I get this feeling that I need to be more critical otherwise people are going to think it's ridiculous and OOC and nobody's gonna want to read it anymore and etc etc. It's exhausting. And it's obviously nobody's fault, it's just me in my own head, but that's how it goes.

The scene you're talking about in particular. I had it written years ago. Literal years, maybe 2021 or early 2022. Some of my friends had even already read it a loooong time before the chapter was finished. And I was convinced that it was so cute and totally fine. Then as I wrapping up the chapter, I started getting this itch that it was actually ridiculous and the folks who had read it didn't say anything because they were being nice, they didn't want to hurt my feelings, and I had to get delete it. So I did. In all truth, I think the chapter is more polished like this. But then I removed a family scene and ended up writing smut that also had no place in the chapter, so. 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, I'm sorry for the rambly response. 🥲 I'll tell you this: I will read the deleted scene again and if I feel it's not dumpster-fire bad, I will post it here. But I need to check it first, because there is chance that it's not just my paranoid head telling me to get rid of the baby scenes and it really is just that bad. 😂

And as for the last part, yes, it's Portuguese. It's my native language. And it's so funny how Italian, Spanish and Portuguese can be so similar. I understand Spanish much better than Italian, but I do get some of it as well. Latin languages 🤜🤛 (except French, I don't understand French at all 😂)

[grapenehifics]

WIP Wednesday

I realize 'be your own biggest fan' is a nice sentiment but usually easier said than done...except in this particular case, wherein I have to admit, I am so excited about what I have planned for the future of this series. If it turns out even half as good on paper as it is in my head, it's going to be such a ride - although it is a little difficult to pick out parts for WIP Wednesday to share that don't contain major spoilers. So, here is a, only slightly redacted, scene of Anakin admiring Obi-Wan's butt.

“What do you think?” Obi-Wan asked, holding out his arms and spinning in a slow circle, letting Anakin take a good look at maybe the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

Obi-Wan made a full rotation and stopped spinning, biting his lip and nervously looking to Anakin for approval, and Anakin wanted to reassure him – reassure him by kissing him until they both couldn’t breathe, ideally – but what came out of his mouth was, “Dank farrik, Obi-Wan; your ass looks amazing.”

Ahsoka laughed out loud, then tried to quickly stifle the sound by pressing her fist against her mouth. Anakin, though, only had eyes for Obi-Wan, who was rolling his and pretending to be annoyed. “Be serious.”

“I am being serious!” Anakin yelped. “You look fantastic. You look…” He tried to come up with vocabulary that would come close to describing how good Obi-Wan looked and came up short.

“Like a smuggler, hopefully?” Obi-Wan guessed.

That wasn’t nearly comprehensive enough, but it wasn’t wrong, per se. “Well, yeah,” Anakin admitted. He reached out and put a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Turn again?”

“He just wants to look at your ass some more,” Ahsoka snorted.

Anakin nudged Obi-Wan into walking in a half-circle. “I’m checking out how many pockets these pants have, thank you,” he sniffed, purposefully not mentioning that he also was absolutely checking out Obi-Wan’s ass. “Hmm.” He let go of Obi-Wan’s shoulder, not wanting to push his luck. “What’s your plan for concealing your weapons?”

“There appear to be some other shops nearby that specialize in leather goods,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing. “I thought perhaps there might be some sort of…holster, that would fit my lightsaber?”

Anakin nodded. Obi-Wan just so clearly wanted his approval, and that was an uncommon, but endearing, situation for Anakin to be in. “That’s a good idea. We’ll go there next. But first you need to buy…all of this.” He waved his hand up and down in the air, gesturing to Obi-Wan’s body.

“Well the boots were already mine,” Obi-Wan corrected, and when Anakin looked down he realized that was true; Obi-Wan was still wearing his standard-issue brown knee-high leather boots. “I am trying to be…cost-conscious. So all I really need to purchase is the shirt and pants.”

Anakin was going to spontaneously combust out of his body if Obi-Wan did not buy the shirt and pants. The shirt was a fairly standard design, with sleeves that came about halfway up his forearms and a short, soft collar. Anakin was torn on whether his favorite aspect of the shirt was its deep purple color, which was by far the most interesting color available in the shop and really brought out the dark auburn of Obi-Wan’s hair, or the open placket, which went far enough down Obi-Wan’s chest that he was constantly flashing a peek of reddish-blond chest hair no matter how he moved.

That somehow still didn’t compare to the trousers, though, which despite being made of a thick protective material were so tight on Obi-Wan, and hugged the curves of his ass and his thick thighs so well, that it looked like they’d been tailored for him specifically to Anakin’s personal taste.

“You should definitely get the shirt and pants,” Anakin repeated, his mouth suddenly dry.

“So whenever you’re done gawking at General Tight Pants over there,” Ahsoka called loudly from the dressing room, “and are ready to pay attention me” –

“Are they too tight?” Obi-Wan asked nervously, craning his neck around behind him to look at his own ass.

“No!” Anakin said quickly, almost shouting.

“Ahsoka, you’d tell me if they were too tight, yes? I don’t want to be…”

“Ogled?” Ahsoka guessed.

Obi-Wan frowned. “I was going to say ‘constricted’.”

“Well, no, they’re not too tight. I picked them out for you, didn’t I? You definitely look the part.” As she spoke, Ahsoka held her hand out in Anakin’s direction, and Anakin pretended it was a very great hardship to reach into the pocket of his own robes, pull out one single credit, and slap it into Ahsoka’s waiting palm. Honestly it was one of the least-onerous bribes he’d ever paid to his Padawan.

(Well done to anyone who caught the Firefly reference in here.)

[keelywolfe]

FIC: With Interest 1/1 (baon)

Summary: Why is it when Edge is doing his brother a favor, somehow he still ends up in Red's debt?

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Established Relationships, Mentions of Genocide Route, Making Out, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

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Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

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On most days the fitness rooms in the basement of the Embassy were crowded after the workday and even during it. Monsters were encouraged to attend the available yoga classes, meditation hours, cardio jazz. Even Undyne’s infrequent krav maga classes were highly sought after, although in that case after the first class, one of the medical staff was always in precautionary attendance.

Wednesdays were an exception, the single day that was never on the public schedule. It was set aside specifically for the Security team and while anyone could make use of the training rooms throughout the rest of the week, on Wednesdays the classes were ones that would never be offered to the Monster populace at large.

On this particular Wednesday, the entire floor was empty as Edge walked through it. He was already in his workout clothes, his suit carefully hung in his office upstairs, and his gym bag only held clothes for him to wear home. He’d been making use of the training rooms frequently as of late, originally following his physical therapy instructions for his leg and after the kidnapping incident, as a way to exhaust the LV that occasionally flared up in his soul.

Not that he’d needed it very much. Despite the severity of that situation, his LV wasn’t troubling him as badly as it had in the past. Something to be grateful for and he was cautiously hopeful that this would be a trend going forward, that years without accumulating fresh LV was settling what he did have. He would never be able to shed it entirely but if it could be less troublesome, he would be grateful.

It was also possible his weekly visits to speak with his therapist were helping, loathe as he was to admit it. After pressuring Stretch to work with Dr Lee in the past, he was learning for himself that it was somewhat cleansing to talk to someone who only listened without judgement, someone whose opinion of him mattered very little. He was of two minds whether or not to bring that theory up to Stretch, much as he deserved his husband’s smugness…no. That was unfair, his own embarrassment casting Stretch in the wrong light, he knew better. As much as Stretch tried his best to talk to Edge about his own health issues, it was his responsibility to attempt the same. Stretch would only be relieved for him, he was sure. He was.

But that could wait for another time. Today he was testing a new design built for assisting in training the upcoming security recruits, with an emphasis on not only learning attacks but also how to finely control them. Any form of damage to a Human was highly discouraged and lethal attacks were always meant as an absolutely last resort. Before any recruit was allowed on even a trivial duty roster such as a crossing guard, they had to prove their skills at confinement rather than injury.

Edge was skilled in both, having trained since he was a child but in recent times, he could practically feel his skills atrophy the longer he sat at his desk. There wasn’t time to keep his reflexes as razor sharp as they’d been in Underfell and truth be told, it wasn’t necessary. Despite everything, this world was a much safer place to be. Logically, he knew that.

Illogically, his soul demanded he needed to be in top form to protect those he cared about. Not only Stretch, but both their brothers, Sans and Papyrus, Jeff and Antwan, all the children in New Home, and so many others. A part of him would always be the captain of the guard and the need to protect his people was deeply ingrained in his soul.

(And he couldn’t, couldn’t have protected all those in Underfell, an impossible task he’d nonetheless undertaken but he would not fail here, he couldn’t—)

This new setup was designed by a fresh-faced young inventor barely out of internship who’d somehow managed to get themselves assigned to Red’s team. Thus far, Edge had resisted the morbid urge to go through their files to see what atrocities lay in their past to make that a fitting post.

They’d come to Edge’s office in a lab coat still creased from the packaging, their lizard-like tongue flicking eagerly as they told him it was at Red’s suggestion Edge test it before they subjected the new recruits to the program.

Not that Edge couldn’t easily see through the paper-thin veneer of Red’s machinations. Whether this was a test of his physical ability after his injury, a trial to see if he was keeping up on his training, a way to help exhaust his occasionally troublesome LV, or perhaps all three, whatever Red’s intentions, it didn’t matter. His brother would keep his secrets and handle things his own way and the best Edge could do was keep up.

He did not allow this young, eager scientist whose name badge read only ‘D’ to see his sourness. They looked nothing like Stretch, but Edge was still reminded of him, a little. He didn’t know the details of why Stretch hated working within a proper lab, why he verged on panic even visiting one, preferring his own setup at their home. Perhaps someday Stretch would tell him, but Edge never wished to ruin that enthusiasm for anyone else, not if he could help it.

More surprising, and relieving, was that they did not ask to watch him test their design. Perhaps that was more of Red’s influence, knowing he was more likely to agree if he weren’t being gawked at. Recordings were to be expected but he had no interest in being a spectacle to a group of interns scribbling notes behind him.

Whatever the reason, Red’s newest disciple showed no sign of disappointment that they would have to get their results from the security footage. They only thanked him cheerily and told him he could try it out at the end of the day and that was exactly what he was doing.

At the very last room, he entered his passcode at the door and as he stepped inside the training room, it came to mechanical life around him.

It was a clever design, Edge would admit. The training dummies were on tracks that allowed them to move in startling ways and instead of bare padding, they were dressed as a Human might be. Well. They were dressed as a Human might be if they only purchased their clothes from the local thrift store by way of a head injury and Edge made a mental note to have them review Human fashion before releasing this as a general training tool. As important as it would be to be able to defend against a Human whose outfit consisted of sneakers and frilly lingerie, it was hardly a likely scenario.

Going through training exercises wasn’t precisely relaxing, but in a strange way it did soothe, scratching a kind of undefinable, nebulous itch. After so many years of training, dodging attacks and forming his own came down to pure reflex. There was very little real thought to it, he simply knew, and for this straightforward exercise, he could allow his body control as he moved automatically in something like a dance between each wave. There was a rhythmic back and forth between him and the training dummies, and there was an issue to report right there, a real attack should be more random, he should be less able to anticipate the moves of his opponent.

It would still be an effective training device for novices, but they would have to work much harder for it to be a genuine sparring tool for him. Not that anything could be more confounding than his own brother; even if they could somehow clone Red’s personality into their program, it was not a route Edge would recommend. Just thinking of an artificial intelligence based off Red gave Edge the urge to start hoarding supplies for the inevitable apocalypse.

Still, as a workout, it was more than effective. By the time the program ended, he was breathing hard, sweat stinging in his eye sockets and his t-shirt clinging to his ribcage. He raised one hand and the program immediately ended, the dummies moving back into their starting position.

As he walked to the bench by the door, he made a mental note to ask about what other safeguards they’d implemented. Not that he didn’t trust their design, but he knew a little about how scientists and engineers could get caught up, laser-focused on the outcome. Better to confirm than for anyone to end up injured, or worse.

Edge grabbed a towel from the bench and wiped sweat from his face as he mentally went through the design and the report he intended to write about it. He was intending to shower before heading home, absently looking up…and froze at what he saw through the breakproof glass.

Stretch was standing right outside the window, watching him. His sockets were huge, filled to the brim with the pale white of his eye lights.

He didn’t like violence, Edge knew that, knew about Stretch’s past, about what he’d been forced to do. These days Stretch didn’t even care for action movies and obviously he was appalled, horrified to see what damage Edge was capable of wreaking and perhaps he was imagining those attacks against frailer Human and Monster forms rather than training dummies. Wondering at what became of those from whom Edge acquired his LV; EXP hunters, all of them, but he’d never had a chance to tell Stretch that, never wanted to discuss it at all. Somehow, he’d always hoped he wouldn’t have to, that Stretch already knew. A Judge should know, shouldn’t he, he’d admitted to seeing Edge’s soul and while the idea still unnerved him, at least something useful could have come of it.

There was no way to guess exactly what Stretch knew and only one way to learn. Edge tossed the damp towel aside carelessly and hastily made for the door. Stretch turned to him as he came out, hands hanging empty and loose at his sides as he stood, making no move to reach for him as they so often did.

“Love?” Edge said, hating the slight tremor in his voice, “What are you doing here?”

“red told me i should come down,” Stretch whispered blankly, still staring at him with those wide, wide sockets. “oh, my god.”

Temper flared at his brother’s meddling, viciously tamped down because the expression on Stretch's face demanded his full attention. How much had he seen, what brutality did he now know Edge was capable of? Stretch knew he had LV, of course he did, had since the moment they’d met but the difference between knowing and seeing was astronomical, the distance between planets, galaxies.

Even when he’d used his attacks before, as recently as the incident with Jeff at the Golden Moon, Stretch had been distracted, not standing and watching at a ringside seat, staring, appalled perhaps even afraid and--

Edge swallowed hard, forcing calm as he asked, softer, “Rus?”

Stretch only repeated, squeaky and weak, “oh my god.”

“I understand what you saw was very violent but—“ it was necessary, he couldn’t say, the words choked off. An unfortunate necessity, this world was still a dangerous place for monsters, for Stretch, his skills needed to be sharp, surely Stretch could understand that, surely he could accept this side of him. He would never reje…he wouldn’t…he…

Edge grunted in surprise at the sudden weight in his arms as Stretch flung himself into them, his mouth hot and eager against his own. He couldn’t help a sound of his own, guttural and shocked between them before Stretch broke the kiss and instead dropped his chin to lick at Edge’s cervical vertebrae, tongue curling around the intricate bones, uncaring that Edge was filthy with sweat before he drew back, the diffused glow of his eyelights tinting to orange.

“oh my god,” Stretch practically moaned, “take me home right now and fuck my brains out.”

Edge could only blink at him, dazed and still holding him, hands braced under his femurs as he held all Stretch’s light weight against him. “What?”

“that was the hottest fucking thing i have ever seen,” Stretch breathed, the bright orange of his tongue running tantalizingly over his even teeth. “fuck me, the way you moved. You were just—” he gestured wildly, a ridiculous pantomime of a proper battle form, so enthusiastically Edge was forced to tighten his grip to keep from dropping him. “i need us to be naked together like, as soon as physically possible. now. immediately. yesterday.”

The heat of that visible desire finally broke through Edge’s shock and engulfed him, visceral and exhilarating in a way that no amount of exercise could hope to mimic.

There was a brief moment of honest temptation to simply take Stretch upstairs to his office. The only thing stopping him was the knowledge that the cleaning crew would know exactly why he was dragging his husband through the empty darkened hallways and even so, it took a reluctant mental debate to decide that tomorrow’s regret would outweigh tonight’s pleasure.

As it was, it was difficult to set Stretch on his feet though Edge kept hold of his hand, unable to keep from touching him in some fashion.

“Come on,” Edge said brusquely, only taking the time to grab his gym bag before leading the way to the elevator.

It seemed to take forever for the doors to close behind them, difficult to resist pulling Stretch back into his arms, but there were few places in the Embassy with any privacy and the elevators were not one of them.

It did not help that he could hear Stretch breathing raggedly, feel him bouncing restlessly on his toes, his grip tight on Edge’s hand. The knowledge that he’d watched what Edge was capable of and wasn’t disgusted, was instead enraptured was so very unexpected and the purity of his lust was nearly a physical force, battering at the iron gates of Edge’s control.

The sudden chime of his cell phone startled him, barely loosening the hold of growing desire. Edge fumbled his phone from his pocket with his free hand, unlocking it to read the new text.

cameras are off in there, boss, in case you wanted to know. might accidentally get stuck between floors if you ain’t careful

Edge closed his sockets, counting to three, then texted back. Do it.

They both jolted as the elevator came to a sudden halt, the lights dimming to the emergency overheads.

“what—” Stretch began, confused, only to yelp in surprise as he was suddenly scooped up and pressed against the wall, Edge crowding against him as he took his mouth fiercely. There was no hesitancy in the kiss, only eagerness, and a distant corner of his mind was grudgingly sending gratitude to his brother. Their unspoken ledger was definitely in Red’s favor.

Edge shifted to yank down the neck of Stretch’s sweatshirt. He pressed the sharp line of his teeth to the smooth, wide bone of Stretch’s sternum, barely on the side of too hard and felt him jerk, his hands scrabbling to pull Edge even closer.

His wordless groan for more, a conglomerate of consonants that made an approximation of “nggg!” was a delight, Stretch’s smoke-raspy voice was ever an enticement, growing louder as Edge slipped a gloved hand into his pants, watching his love’s expression tense, his sockets closing tightly. Beautiful, so beautiful always, even in the dim glow of the emergency lights. This would be only for him, Edge could wait for the privacy of their own bedroom, wanting his love bare and begging; there was time yet to allow that flame to burn ever hotter. More than anything in this brief moment, he wanted to watch Stretch’s face as he found his pleasure.

Edge would always have LV, but he could certainly appreciate a technique for soothing it that ended in his husband’s arms.

fin

[aspd-culture]

Do you have books/movies recommendation that represents aspd well fiction or nonfiction?

Hhhhh I was waiting for this question to come one day. The answer is lowkey v v disappointing.

Because... no, not really. I've got like three, two of which do what I consider a fairly good job, and one that rides the fence of being a lil "oh great, the ASPD character likes blood and guts and death".

Sorry this is so long-winded tldr Ender's Game (book only), House, MD if you can handle some not ok 2000's comedy, and Wednesday if you never get into the fandom.

In order of, in my opinion, best to least best (they're all still p good):

I tried to make these spoiler free but it's hard while explaining good vs bad rep. I would recommend going into Ender's Game blind without reading what I wrote about it and coming back to this post after. I would read the warning attached to the other two.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (The book not the movie, oh my gosh, not the movie) - Peak ASPD right here. When I was a kid with ASPD, this is the only book I ever related to and I randomly picked it bc it was the third name on the mandatory summer reading list and 3 is my OCD's favorite number. It rarely lets me down, and in this case, brought me a seriously well-done look at ASPD done, possibly entirely without meaning to. Orson Scott Card, as far as I'm aware, set out to write a book about trauma and the way that different types of trauma shapes the mind in early childhood, and preschool aged children engaging in active military training is... woof. It's a lot when something that you relate to so much is a depiction of a war-era dystopia. There are definitely parts that still push the stigma, and a lot of what makes Ender "good" is the sympathy and compassion and "purity" he shows, so be ready for that. That said, this also shows how a kid can still fit the definition of a loving, innocent child even while actively engaging in violence. It's a bit preachy with its message, but it is a damn good book. I will openly admit I have never gotten around to reading the sequels purely bc they were not in my school libraries. I wonder if Libby has them... *takes mental note*. There are also questions about if Ender's siblings possibly have cluster b disorders themselves. I have seen theories that both Peter and Valentine have NPD, and a more controversial theory that Valentine has NPD while Peter has BPD and the book just happens to focus on demonizing him (as a character to make a point about him and Valentine, not because of the disorder) so it doesn't emphasize the non-splitting behavior. Just, do yourself a favor and don't read into psych articles about Ender's Game. They make a big deal out of Ender being a good character because he is "saved" by his empathy and just... idk the book is written from his POV and I don't see much empathy there. I see compassion. I see cognitive empathy. I do not see affective empathy besides with a couple Exceptions.

House, MD - the profile pic is for a reason. More than House, MD is a show about doctors or medicine, it is a show about House's struggle with his mental health. We watch him slowly get through the process of recognizing, adapting to, and working on his symptoms throughout the show. It honestly helped me before I even realized I had ASPD to improve my relationships with people by learning from his mistakes.

House is (minor spoiler) canonically diagnosed with "Antisocial traits" around season 6 I believe, but he experiences them the entire time. He is written as a character who I believe was supposed to have ASPD. If not, he is one of the most accurate accidents turned canon I have ever seen. That said, this show does not shy away from the negative aspects of ASPD. Many people say horrible things about House throughout the series, many of them he does not bother to argue with or deny. It is... really emotional for me sometimes to see how they speak to and about him and how he handles that. It's really good, but does have one very triggering episode about a "true sociopath" and House's struggles with relating to her also around Season 5 or 6. It's one I wouldn't skip if you're watching this for ASPD reasons, but House *does* try and separate himself from a "true sociopath" so be ready for some stigma. Also please note that this show is from around 2004. Lots of flip phones, ha ha ha, but also lots of excess stigma on things, somewhat homophobic and transphobic jokes, etc. Although, it is worth noting that it is a symptom of House's ASPD to make these jokes - he expects that they know he is not serious because of his tone and doesn't, due to lack of empathy, understand that these jokes are hurtful even when people know you don't believe what you're joking about to be true. He builds his team around making sure they can handle that part of him, which is a pretty decent thing to do, in my opinion, even though the right thing to do would be to change the behavior. But yeah, shitty early 2000's humor incoming with this show. I still 100% feel it is worth the watch, but I am white and thus have the privilege of feeling comfortable while watching it. Black people especially may be really (understandably) unable to feel comfortable watching this because the person that House worries is most similar to him and thus most threatening to his position is Foreman, who is a Black man, and thus many of House's "it's ok because he knows I don't believe it" jokes are targetting Foreman and many times they are racist jokes. He in no way solely targets Foreman, but that is there and it is extremely frequent. When you meet people named Taub and Thirteen, Jewish and fellow LGBT people will join the club in being potentially seriously uncomfortable with these jokes. I could handle watching it, ymmv.

The third and somewhat problematic lil sister, Wednesday (2022) - Hear me out, it is so good, imo, but I cannot interact with the fandom on this one and it loses serious points because of that. The reason that I can't? The entire fandom has decided that Wednesday Addams, a long-time rare ASPD coded girl, is autistic and "through the lens of Tim Burton" vs acknowledging that she is ASPD coded. Everything that can be an autistic trait, many have cherry-picked as proof she is autistic, and they openly choose to ignore a major step in diagnosis, making sure that the symptoms are not better described elsewhere. I will concede she may be autistic (although tbh I don't think so bc of her serious lack of stimming, - and no the SINGLE DANCE SCENE AT A SCHOOL DANCE doesn't count - lack of meltdowns, and affinity for sitting perfectly still don't read autistic imo), but she has ASPD. A literal therapist talks to her about "the source of (her) antisocial traits" and because she is a child, that is the closest thing to a diagnosis of ASPD she can be given. The girl is loudly ASPD coded just like the character Wednesday Addams always has been.

Further, there is a point to be made about the ASPD coded character being given her own show for it to turn out to be a m*rder mystery as well as her obsession with everything dark, broody, bloody, and macabre. Admittedly, in The Addams Family, that's everyone in her family not just the ASPD coded one but in Wednesday, she is the only character who likes those things so it's a bit ick in that regard. Still, I relate a lot to her and always have and people used to try n bully me in school by calling me Wednesday but my mom showed me it and said I reminded her of Wednesday as a compliment when I was little and I always took it as one after that even when I knew they meant it in a mean way.

Unfortunately, ASPD, unlike many disorders, is not underrepresented in media. It is overrepresented in the worst ways possible. Every other book or movie I can find is full of stereotypes, mean-spirited commentary, and m*rder. There might be something to be said about a character from It's Always Sunny, but that show is a major trigger for me so I haven't been able to watch it to tell, and Lisa from Girl, Interrupted (book or movie) is just... painfully bad but well-loved rep. Like, I love her, but holy crap girlfriend, how did you manage to add stigma in a book and movie about destigmatizing mental health?

The fact that even counting bad but well-loved representation I can still count all of it on one hand sucks, and if anyone has more I am begging you to share in replies.

[sunnyie-eve]

1 | Nevermore

Series: Valentine Addams | Wednesday

Paring: (Xavier Thorpe x OFC Addams! Tyler Galpin x OFC Addams!)

Word Count: 1626

Warnings: talk of attempted murder

Next: Therapy

For over 200 years, Nevermore Academy, a private school, have welcomed outcasts of all kind, in the town of Jericho, Vermont. As Principal it is my honor to announce that Nevermore has accepted your application to attend this upcoming school year. Can't wait to for you to join our very unique school, Principal Larissa Weems.

"Mother, why wait till now to send me to Nevermore? You've talked about wanting your children to go where you and Father met since we were born?" I ask my mother. 

"Because dear, no other school will take you after what you did to those two last school year. And I wanted to see if you children could work well in a normal school." My mother explains to me calmly. 

"They had it coming." I look out the window. At the moment it was just mother and I on our way to Nevermore while Father stayed with Wednesday and Pugsley at home.

Stepping out of the car I take in the exterior of the school, "Looks just like I pictured it for a school for outcasts." I look over at my mother. 

"You're going to love it here." She gives me a smile. 

"I know if Wednesday was in my place she would find away to escape. She hates the thought or mention of this school." I say as we head inside to meet the principal. 

"But you are not your sister. You are more accepting to some things. Yes, you both share some characteristics being twins but you each are your own person." She tells me as I look around the inside as we walk.

"Morticia, it's a pleasure to see you again. You must be Valentine? I'm guessing it was the day you were born?" Weems asks me as we sit in her office. 

"I was born on Friday the 13th." I tell her, "My Grandmother named me after the origins of Valentine's Day. The Romans' celebrations were violent... The men would strip naked and sacrifice a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain." I explain to her and she just stares at me and my mother uncomfortably. 

"The French origin meaning is strength and health. Originally you pronounce her name Val-en-teen, but many insist on pronouncing it like the holiday so we gave in except my mother." My mother adds.

"You've certainly had a very interesting educational journey. Ten schools in five years." Weems looks at me. 

"My sister is at seven. But what can I say... students and teachers don't quite understand my ways at times. My mother says this school is different and will be good for me." I give her a smile. 

"I believe you will fit right in with the rest of the students." She gives me a smile back. 

"And her therapy sessions... The court ordered them." My mother gives me a look so I roll my eyes. "The school has a relationship with a therapist in Jericho. She can meet twice a week. Now, I've assigned you to Ophelia Hall. Let's go meet your roommate, shall we?"

When we get to my dorm I see a girl with long brown hair wearing blackout round sunglasses. "Meet your new roommate is Yoko Tanaka, she's a vampire. Yoko, this is Valentine Addams." Weems introduces us. 

"Hey." She nods her head at me. 

"Hey." I do the same then see her uniform on her bed. "I have to wear that color as well?" I look at it. 

"When we got your application we've special order you a uniform. Yoko, please take Valentine to the registrar's office to pick it up along with her schedule, and give her a tour along the way." Weems tells her so she gets up. "I'll walk you back to your car. Valentine, say goodbye to your mother." Weems smiles.

"I know you'll love Nevermore and find it as life-changing as I did." My mother gives me a smile. 

"I hope it'll be a perfect fit for me. I'm tired of jumping from schools to schools." I give her a smile back. 

"I'm sure it will be, darling." She touches my face. "Now, we can't talk to you the first week so next week we'll give you a call to see how you're doing." She places the crystal ball on my desk. 

"I'll be looking forward to it." I smile and we do a tiny hug before I leave with Yoko.

"Are you anything? Vampire, Werewolf, Gorgon, Siren, Psychic?" Yoko asks me. 

"Psychic but also a tad psychotic at times." I turn my head to look at her. 

"You won't try stake me in my sleep will you?" She raises an eyebrow. 

"Only if you get on my bad side. Kinda the reason why I'm here. Two people last year got on my bad side. Neither of them died though from what I did to them." I chuckle as she shows me around the school. She shows me the clichés of each group and tells me a bit about everyone.

"You must be Yoko's new roommate. She told me she was getting one before school started. I'm Enid Sinclair, a werewolf. And you are?" She puts her hand out. 

"Valentine Addams, a psychotic psychic." I shake her hand as she looks at me with wide eyes. 

"A tad, only if you get in her bad side." Yoko adds. 

"Okay..." Enid smiles tagging along with us as we go pick up my uniform and schedule.

"So Valentine, do you have any social media accounts?" Enid asks me. 

"I do. I'm the only one in my family that does." I say as we sit at a table in the quad. 

"Do you ever wear color?"

"If I do it's only red. My closet is majority black, some white, a little red, and there could be a tiny bit purple. Specifically dark red and dark purple." I tell her as she goes on her phone. 

"Whose your new friend?" A boy in a beanie walks up to the table.

"My new roommate, Valentine." Yoko tells him. 

"Like the holiday. I'm Ajax by the way." He takes a seat. 

"Hello, and yes like the holiday but because of the dark origins." I tell him. 

"You almost killed two people at your last school!" Enid gasps looking at me. 

"The articles are misleading and missing information. They say I was a jealous crazy ex. That's not true and I didn't try choking her to death nor did I drop a brick on his head." I huff making them look at me.

"What did you do?" Ajax asks. 

"Not what they said I did. Now, excuse me. I'm going to my dorm to get things ready for my therapy session tomorrow." I get up leaving the table. 

So far Nevermore didn't seem that bad from what I've seen and taken in. As I was walking a picture caught my attention and I see my mother in the fencing group photo. "I swear you were born with that hair." I shake my head at the photo. 

"Valentine Addams." A boy stands next to me looking at the photo with me. 

"Let me guess, Enid already put me on her blog? She forgot the second D in Addams?" I turn to face him and he looked familiar as he smiles.

"She did. Both. I'm Xavier, Xavier Thorpe." He tells me his name and it rings a bell. 

"That's why you look familiar. My sister saved your life from being cremated with your godmother. I remember telling you that was terrible idea but you insisted."

"I'm surprised you still remember." He chuckles. 

"Why wouldn't I remember you and your intelligent idea?" I chuckle as well, "I'll probably never forget that day because of your hiding place. It brings me joy that I was right." I tell him. 

"Xavier!" A girl calls out his name making us turn to look at her. 

"Girlfriend?" I ask him. 

"Yeah, Bianca. See you around, Valentine." He leaves me so I go to my room to get settled in.

"You didn't say orange was in your color palette." Yoko walks into our room. 

"It goes with Halloween and that's my favorite day of the year." I say typing on my laptop. 

I had a typewriter, just like Wednesday, I used at time because it was a birthday gift to the both of us but I prefer my laptop. Wednesday didn't understand why I would be a slave to technology. One of a few things we didn't have in common. Like mother said we have some similarities but we are each our own person. Wednesday wasn't one for emotions, whether that be showing or caring about others feelings. Me on the other hand is the opposite most of the time. There are times where I will act cold, careless, and heartless to others. We both have sadistic tendencies with a dark personality and take turns on whose the darkest. I personally say she is since there's times where for fun she would try to kill Pugsley growing up.

"So you have to go into town tomorrow for a therapy session. Because you want to or have to?" Yoko asks me. 

"Court order but I've been going to many different therapists since I was ten because of other court orders. Normal people don't tend to agree with how I function as a person. I don't mind going to them because I like to see how long they can last before quitting." I explain to her. 

"You're very odd and out there Valentine." 

She says making me smile, "I take that as a compliment. My sister would too but would prefer it in a ruder way. She's worst than me in some departments."

[dwell-the-brave]

WIP Wednesday 24/01/24

Welcome to another WIP Wednesday! I haven't made too much progress on my WIPs since the weekend, but have some snippets anyway!

From the Wedding AU (title reveal soon?? It's more likely than you think).

When Alex looks across the road though, his interest is suddenly piqued. He grabs Zahra by the arm, quickly checks the one-way traffic and pulls her across the way. “Alex, what the hell!” Zahra shouts at him but he releases her wrist and points at the suit on display. “I want that one,” he says in an admittedly childish tone, and Zahra frowns at him. The suit in question is an impeccably cut modern fit suit in a pale heather corduroy. Alex wants it with his entire being. “What for? We’re spending thousand of pounds on that morning suit you just got poked for, what do you want this suit for?” Zahra asks him and Alex thinks rapidly. “It can be my afterparty outfit?” he suggests and Zahra gives him an exasperated look. He pouts despite himself. “Come on, Zahra! I’m barely allowed to choose my own wedding suit, can’t I choose something fun for the afterparty? Plus, Pez is hosting so you know the fashion is going to be off the charts,” he adds. Pez is, indeed, the host of the afterparty, even though the venue is Frogmore House. He has told them nothing except to expect a wild party. Henry is nervous about it. The insurance on Frogmore House has been increased significantly.

And from the Las Vegas! AU:

His Mom is waiting with Zahra and a man Alex only vaguely recognises - he’s tall with close cropped hair, wearing an impeccably tailored burgundy suit. Zahra and the man stand when they enter, purely for Henry, but his Mom remains seated. She gestures to the two empty seats on the opposite side of the table and they dutifully sit down. Alex feels like a schoolboy called in front of the Principal for being disruptive. His Mom clears her throat to get their attention.  “Your Highness, you’ve met Zahra, of course. And this is Valentine, from the Press Office. He’s currently working on the media release regarding this… situation,” His Mom’s voice goes icy and Alex winces. Henry dutifully shakes Valentine’s hand across the table, as does Alex. Once they’re settled back in their seats again, she continues. “First things first - are you two in a romantic relationship?” she asks.  “Mom! No!” Alex exclaims just as Henry replies flatly. “No, Ma’am,”  “So, what is this then? A cry for attention, a drunken mistake? Alex, honey, you know I’d support you in anything, but I am struggling to understand what the hell happened here?” Alex can tell his Mom is upset by the way her drawl thickens. Strugglin’. 

As always, if you like what you read, you can find me on Ao3. I'm currently working on part 3 of my Heavy Weighs the Crown series (WIP 1), which started with Give Me Comfort, Give Me Help, followed by it's prequel, But Still My Griefs Are Mine.

See ya! x

[youhideastar]

WIP Wednesday: Net Impression

Back after a brief hiatus to get Tender out the door! I'm now working on the next fic in the Wangxian A/B/O Bingo series, the alpha LWJ/beta WWX installment, which now has a working title, Fit for Purpose. You can read past WIP Wednesdays for that fic here and here... but the truth is, it doesn't make for a very good WIP Wednesday because the very first scene ends with a big surprise that affects most of the rest of the story, so basically everything except the two scenes I've already shared is a spoiler. Whoops!

So for the next little while, WIP Wednesday will be for stuff that's further up the pipeline in terms of coming attractions. Meaning probably a lot of Net Impression, a.k.a. the Lawyer AU, a.k.a Deastar's Take Your Fandom to Work Fic. 😂 Here's a scene from very, very close to the end of that fic, featuring Lan Zhan being way too much in the very best way. I hope you enjoy!

Wei Ying can't meet her eyes. “I still… sometimes I still think that—that now that Lan Zhan is more experienced, more comfortable… that you’ll… move on. To someone classier. Neater, more sophisticated and calm, better-educated, just—better. And—”

“Wei Ying. Marry me.”

“What?”

Throat tight, desperate, “Bear my children.”

“Lan Zhan—”

“Tell me where you want it, and I will tattoo your name on my body. On my face, if that’s what you want.”

“Lan Zhan, why—”

“I have tried to convey with words that you are everything to me. That there is no one ‘better.’ That I will be yours until the day I leave this earth. But words have failed. So all I have is actions. Symbols. Please, Wei Ying. Accept them. Believe them.”

“Lan Zhan. Oh, Lan Zhan, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m so fucked up. I love you so much. I do believe you, I really do—I just get scared sometimes because of my dumb brain but I always know you love me—”

“You didn’t answer,” Lan Zhan says, in a small voice.

“I didn’t—”

Beat.

Voice totally wrecked: “Yes. God, of course yes. Yes, I want to marry you. Yes, you—you already know I—I want to have your babies. I will have your babies. Oh my god, Lan Zhan. What will I do with someone so good? Hm? What can I do with you?”

“Where.”

“Where wha—oh! No, come on, Lan Zhan. I don’t want you to—to get a tattoo of my name. You don’t need to do that. I don’t want you to!”

“Fine. I will respect Wei Ying’s wishes.”

Beat.

“I want it. But I will respect Wei Ying’s wishes.”

“You want a tattoo of my name?”

“I want to carry a piece of you on my body forever.”

“Damn, Lan Zhan.”

Beat.

“Not my name. That’s—ugh, not to be judgmental bitch, but that’s tacky. But if you really want a tattoo, I’ll—I’ll pick something out.”

Kiss.

“Thank you.”

Beat.

“So we’re getting married, huh?”

“I wish to make a permanent and public declaration that I intend to stay with Wei Ying forever.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Mn,” says Lan Zhan, perfectly at peace.

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (13-19 Nov 2022)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😍 👂‍Ocean's Echo (Everina Maxwell, author; Raphael Corkhill, narrator) - same universe as Winter's Orbit but completely unrelated so you absolutely can read this standalone. where WO was a sci-fi romance, this is more a romantic sci-fi. Lots of space military and politicking and being used as pawns in everyone else's games. I absolutely adore Tennal, who shows up to everything with an "I think I will cause problems on purpose!" mindset and Surit, whose steadfast moral compass makes him a great soldier right up until orders conflict with that bone-deep conviction. I also really dug the expanded world building; genuinely hope there'll be more books where we get more of it.

😍 Itsy Bitsy Yoga (wearing_tearing) - reread, 59K - Stucky no powers AU with single dad Steve and toddler yoga teacher Bucky - soft & fluffy as a fleece blanket straight out the dryer

😍 Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots (The Cabots #3) (Cat Sebastian) - every book in this series is solid gold and this is no exception - great execution of the 'didn't realize we were already dating' trope. also Cat had this to say about it in her last newsletter and I think it's so dead on accurate: Earlier this year I read a slew of Kirk-McCoy fanfic in which those two fools didn't realize they were dating. I was enthralled. Delighted. Mesmerized. I took to social media to complain about the lack of this trope in commercial fiction and, predictably, within 48 hours was drafting this book. And thus was born Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots, in which two people love one another very much and then later on realize they've been in a relationship all along. I think (and I'm spitballing here) that there may be something inherently queer about this trope, maybe because in order for it to work, the characters pretty much have to be in some kind of queerplatonic relationship to begin with. Also, there may be something queer or queer-friendly about how even discussing this kind of relationship involves getting into the weeds about what constitutes a relationship in the first place, which kind of goes against the grain of a heteronormative prix fixe one size fits all relationships? 

💖💖 +107K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

love you like rlb (orphan_account) - MCU: Stucky, 3.4K - reread of this fave - forever grateful the original creator chose to orphan it and leave it available rather than remove it entirely

Ninety-Nine Problems (lordeofstucky) - MCU: no powers omegaverse, 27K - reread; semi-traditional omegaverse with some absolutely premier dirty talk from steve

Stevie Doesn't Know (aaliona) - Stranger Things: Steddie, 34K - a fun little rock star/barista AU

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

The Big Brunch - s1, e1-3 - this has the same peaceful vibes as the original flavor GBBO and I love it

Death In Paradise - Christmas Special 2021; s11, e1

Leverage: Redemption - s2, e1-3 - delighted to have my beloved thief family back again

Abbott Elementary - s2, e8

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Ologies with Alie Ward - Bryology (MOSS) Encore with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer

Switched on Pop - Willow Smith rocks harder

Decoder Ring Plus - The Truth About #TheDress

Vibe Check - All Skinfolk Ain’t Kinfolk - this podcast is THE BEST WAY to start your Wednesday!

It's Been a Minute - 'Abbott Elementary' gets teachers

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Trailing of the Sheep

Shedunnit Book Club - Clerical Crimes

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - African Heritage House

99% Invisible #405 - Freedom House Ambulance Service: American Sirens

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics

One Year Plus - 1942: When Internment Came to Alaska

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Tanks of Flamenco Beach

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Synth War II: Digital Doom

Song Exploder - Omah Lay "Never Forget"

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 151: Rob Brydon

Into It - 'Wakanda' Over It or: How I Learned to Come to Terms with 'Black Panther' Ambivalence

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 21: Dara O Briain

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

my "Invisible Miracle Sledgehammer" playlist - basically just all of Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins & Mike and the Mechanics discography 😆

CREDITS: Joe Strummer

Meet Me @ the Altar

The Donnas

Swinging Sixties Hits

Bruno Mars Radio • Upbeat

[beautifully-lumpy]

the beautiful person's journal - #9: the twists and turns of the caddy show and the gradual rejection of formulas

the caddy show (january 18th, 2017 - december 12th, 2019)

strap in, folks. this is going to be a long and convoluted one. but i never realized until now just HOW much i had to say about this show.

the month is january 2017. caddy had just moved to his current house, he's now going by jim, and the last pre-2016 side show - current quickies - has just been axed. gone were the days of gimmicky characters and review methods...well, at least for shows that weren't the caddicarus show.

in this update video, the ultimate side show replacement - the caddy show - was announced to be a variety show that would cover just about anything. modern game reviews, drum covers, video game event vlogs, reactions, shitposts, rants, discussions, the whole shebang. caddy's film fridays (soon to be rebranded as cinemaggots) would still serve as an outlet for film reviews - with the exception of one caddy episode that covered a quiet place.

the caddy show was really, truly the very first time the channel had ever seen a central modern game review series with no gimmicks or formulas. the closest thing there was to a formula was the "spoilers, alright? ok, noice" in every video, but that was mostly it. it was the only modern review series from 2017 to 2019 and it covered all kinds of modern games.

series overview

the show began the wednesday after it was announced, debuting with a review of the last guardian. next week's episode saw caddy attending a press event for the nintendo switch. if this event had occurred before this show was introduced, caddy probably would've tried to implement a video based on it into the caddicarus show, or current quickies. because of the way the channel was run at this time, every single video uploaded had to be a part of some kind of show, which limited video ideas and possibilities. the caddy show opened up so many new possibilities, such as videos like this.

another example of the benefit of this show is the mr. youtube videos, two satirical videos created in september 2016. these videos didn't really fit into any kind of format, but they were billed as caddicarus show episodes and put into the show's playlist. by january 2017, they were rebranded into caddy show episodes, with caddicarus show branding being stripped from them.

the show also had rant/discussion videos that discussed new gaming topics or anything else, such as the one about the n. sane trilogy where caddy expressed his worries about the game's graphics. obviously, that one didn't age well. there was also the one where he discussed those weird bootleg kids' peppa pig videos, and how an article about them conveniently dropped around the time he released the caddicarus episode about the show.

drum covers were moved to the main channel with this series. before this, there were only 3 drum covers ever posted, and all of them were on the second channel. but 2017 saw a blossoming in the number of drum covers posted due to this series.

strangely, not all of the episodes of the series were kept online. a couple of the discussion videos - the ones on caddy jumping off the hype train, and the playstation classic wish list - were privated in october 2021.

the caddy show also had sponsored videos, most of which were produced through 2017 and 2019, and none of which are public anymore. there were videos on portal knights, dreadnought, crossout, an acer predator laptop, oculus rift... i haven't listed one, and oh boy i'll get into that one later.

unfortunately, i couldn't find a working capture for the crossout vid. :(

he also did a few shitposts, a couple of them being about metal gear survive and the spyro reignited trilogy. unfortunately jim didn't unlist the original "pain" video, which was the "crash 1, i did it, crash 2, i did it, crash 3, i did it" video. but i got a capture here! there was also one on the nightmare creatures remake.

there's also a lorne lanning interview from 2017, which was strangely unlisted along with the 2014 interview...

branding/graphic design history

so for the first 9 months of the show, the thumbnails and titles of all the videos had the same format:

the thumbnails all had the caddicarus show's grunge background (albeit in grayscale), BUT there was a different thumbnail avatar specifically made for this show.

all the titles were "(subject of the video) - caddy". simple enough, right? well, this caused a lot of confusion among viewers. some viewers actually mistook these for caddicarus episodes and had assumed that the caddicarus show was going away and this new format was its replacement...no joke lol.

so, by september 2017...the entire "caddy" branding was removed from the channel. the videos still used the show's intro, but there was no longer a singular playlist titled "the caddy show", and jim no longer referred to the show as being called "caddy". jim began to start the videos by saying "hey everyone, caddy here"...which was weird af at the time.

"caddy" was removed from all the video titles and all the thumbnails were changed. there were now 3 playlists made up of episodes for this series - "NEW GAME REVIEWS" for the review episodes, which there were most of; "DRUM COVERS", for, you guessed it, drum covers; and "ETC" for everything else. and yes, those quotes were actually in the playlist titles. that same day, the caddicarus show's and cinemaggots' playlist titles were also capitalized and had quotes added to them. 15-year-old me did a humorous commentary on this back when it happened.

the playlists weren't the only instances of loud, all-caps yelling being added to the caddica-sphere. the titles of all the reviews were changed, and...hoo boy.

just by looking through some of these, you can tell that these stirred up a bit of...controversy in the fanbase. i was also pretty critical of this title format, and i'd roll my eyes with every new review that dropped. if you weren't around during this period, this was a time where the channel was in stagnation and in dire need of support. the channel was running almost exclusively off of patreon donations, and jim needed to do all he could to boost engagement...even if that meant changing all his titles to all-caps eye-catching clickbait.

off the top of my head, i can think of a couple issues that sprung up with this title format. one is pictured above - the shadow of the colossus review. caddy adores that game, but he decided to name the video "RANT OF THE RANTOSSUS". the word "rant" is generally considered to have a negative connotation. when someone is "ranting" about something, they are usually complaining about that thing. so when jim named his video that, there were fans that were reasonably confused. caddy defended this, saying "oh, this is a positive rant!" but like...idk dude. i always saw that title as being crappy SEO.

and then there was the infamous god of war review. posted on the caddicarus show's 6th anniversary, the video was originally titled "GOD OF DISAPPOINTMENT". now, there was nothing wrong with this video...well, at least from what i remember of it. i've not played the god of war games personally, but there is nothing wrong with giving a 6/10 score to anything, no matter how acclaimed or panned that piece of media is. and god of war 2018 was one of the most praised games ever when it came out. so lots of fans didn't take kindly to this video, or its title. caddy would eventually change the title to "IS IT REALLY 10/10?" before ditching this title format altogether by next month.

so with the trashing of these titles, we had to give up something else...

...what if i told you that the thumbnails pictured above didn't always have googly eyes?

on one night in june of 2018, 16-year-old mel noticed something strange when looking on jim's channel. first of all, i saw that the modern game review series had its awful all-caps titles gone, and that it was now called "CADDY REVIEWS". the "ETC" videos also no longer had all-caps titles...but they now all had entirely low-caps titles, which made them look very cryptic. (i.e. "I'M NOT SURE ABOUT CRASH ON PS4" became "i'm not sure about crash on ps4".)

but i looked a little closer...

one of the modern game reviews had googly eyes on the thumbnail, and i was like..."that wasn't there before..."

so i refreshed...and more googly eyes showed up.

panicked, i scrambled over to the playlist...and there were more.

i refreshed again. and there were even MORE.

needless to say, i lost my mind.

about a few minutes after i yelled about it on wattpad, caddy posted this tweet...

...and i proceeded to laugh my ass off. this man, who had just been utilizing these SEO-attention-grabbing-clickbait-ass video titles for 9 months, was now once again firing gunshots into the air, keeping property values low. caddicarus truly is the [tumblr] of personality-based video review channels.

a couple months later, with the debut of its 11th season, jetpackbraggin began doing thumbnails for the caddicarus show. these thumbnails initially didn't have borders, akin to the 2020 reboot. but about a few weeks in, the season 11 thumbnails so far were actually given red borders - which is definitely not a color that gives caddicarus vibes, if you ask me.

the modern game reviews were given blue borders. this didn't last for very long, as by the next week, jim would eventually settle on the blue borders for TCS that would last until the end of 2019, and modern game reviews were given the purple border that we see today.

after jetpackbraggin began drawing the TCS thumbnails, the caddy show - pretty much just referred to as "bonus videos" at this point - was still using the same thumbnail avatar...at least until the last episode. the last episode of the series - posted in march 2019 - was a drum cover of the tetris theme, and it was the only episode that ever used JPB's thumbnail drawing for drum covers...it was also the first thumbnail since 2017 to have the "caddy" logo on it, and the only drum cover to have the purple border on the thumbnail. it seemed like jim wanted to do more things with this show, given its updated thumbnail format, but he just ended up integrating most of it into the caddicarus show.

the fall...and rise...and fall again

by 2019, the caddicarus channel was back to one video a week - that one video being the caddicarus show, and the caddicarus show only. it began covering more and more modern games. drum covers were out the window, as his work became busier, and mainline videos kept getting longer and more elaborate. by may, we were seeing caddicarus episodes chronicling video game press events - episodes that previously would've been caddy episodes. basically, TCS was performing all of the functions of the caddy show, because caddy wanted to invest in the main series the most. he was drifting away from having other "shows" on the channel, as that was stressing him out. waits between videos became longer...and "longer" back then meant 2 weeks to a month. CRAZY shit for the time.

so basically, the show went out with a badass tetris drum cover, and then came the buildup to the channel's reset!

oh wait...the PUBG video...

in may 2019, caddy posted a sponsored video for PUBG mobile. it had a pretty bad like/dislike ratio. the comments were divided. he endorsed lootboxes. it was...it was a mess. he unlisted it in 2021, along with all the other sponsored videos.

and that was the last we heard from the caddy show...no more side shows...just the last of the original caddicarus show until the 2020 reboot! well gee, this sure was a long entry. for the next entry, we'll be covering the second chann-

OH CHRIST, REALLY???

so a few months after the PUBG video, crash team racing: nitro fueled had a bit of a fiasco with microtransactions. caddy was so angered by this, he decided to retool the caddy show into a rant series. this series would cover gaming news and other random things in culture.

of course, if you scroll through his mid-late 2019 videos you'll notice these videos aren't there. every single rant was unlisted, along with the series' dedicated playlist. one way you can get to them is through my unlisted videos playlist.

these 8 rant videos were produced between august and december 2019, and were produced during the peak of the channel's recession. caddy himself wasn't in the best mental state as well. these videos had thumbnails and titles of the clickbait-y variety, with the thumbnails featuring caddy's actual (non-negative filtered) face - something that was rare before this series. and that wasn't just the case for this series - you can identify season 13 caddicarus show episodes by the thumbnails that feature caddy's actual face (with the exceptions of the final 2 episodes on death stranding and jedi fallen order - it seems like these thumbnails were so poorly received that cartoon caddy returned for the very end of the original series). the definitely-not-reminiscent-of-another-gaming-youtuber upside-down profile pic was also introduced with this series, along with the banner featuring caddy's screaming face.

other than CTR microtransactions, he discussed things like the sans nintendo direct, playstation state of play, COPPA, the PS5 dev kit...your typical late 2019 stuff. interestingly, he discussed the controversy behind the IT part 2 poster, and it was strangely political for a video from this channel. basically, these videos were caddy's twitter rants put into video form - there were discussions from fans who were worried that the channel could possibly become strictly a political/game news rant channel filled to the brim with clickbait and horrid fans. i had the thought before that the channel would've become this had the caddicarus show not been retooled. and i thank the lords above every single day that didn't happen.

these videos didn't do astoundingly well, apart from the CTR rants - which got about 600k - 700k views. but other than that, the videos did alright. they were mostly well-received, but there were also fans who had concerns about the channel's future, as i mentioned above. and there were others who just saw it as his lowest form of content. but of course, you have to remember that this was a very taxing time in the channel's history when caddy wasn't doing great mentally and when he was struggling to pay rent.

and so, to FINALLY end off the entry, the last episode of the rant series aired on december 12th, 2019. after that was the caddicarus episode on jedi fallen order, and...with 2020 came the reset!

these videos were all privated in october 2021, but then unlisted in september 2022 - i guess if caddy couldn't private the caddicarus episodes, he could private these to get rid of the memories of that era of the channel.

and THAT was the history of the caddy show. there were so many twists and turns...and i had no idea this would be as long as it was. geez.

for the next entry, i'll be talking about the second channel's history, and it shouldn't go for as long as this one did.

take care! 💜

[zaftikat]

WIP Wednesday March 27th 2024

Hello tumblypoos I have had a whirlwind week of writing this week so let's talk about it! A week ago, I started a Sisters of Dorley X Greenwing and Dart crossover fic, and something about these characters in this setting has driven me WILD like 20k words wild. More under the cut:

So Greenwing & Dart is a series for which I have one MAJOR trans headcanon (and many textual clues to support it) and a few minor ones. Every time I write her, the title character, Jemis Greenwing is a closeted or out trans woman. Most of the time she is named Primrose because that's the name her parents were going to give her if she had been AFAB.

Naturally, she felt like a very good fit to slot into the Dorleyverse as a result, except I didn't want to write about a transfem going through the Programme, because that's sort of just Steph Riley. So I made Primrose a Dorley Graduate instead, and threw her friend/boy who has a crush on her, Roald Ragnor, into the Feminizing Torture Basement.

Roald is a good fit because in canon he had a falling out with Primrose (then Jemis) over his bad habits, so if she disappeared right after their fight and was presumed dead, it would only make sense that he started to spiral, especially if you accept that his crush was already there during childhood. Where that leaves us is one Master Roald Ragnor, son of a baron and complete piece of shit, currently kidnapped into the basement of Dorley Hall. This story is also, though, still about Primrose as well. If she disappeared at 18, what would have changed about her life at home? What would have changed about her canon relationships? Those questions were also compelling to me. So I'm also telling the story of the ways she has to contend with losing her family, and the shock of finding out her supposedly dead father is still alive. She is a story of what life is like after the Hall, but also what it means to love and be loved by flawed people.

There are scattered other POV characters. Indira from OG Dorley was Primrose's sponsor and is now also sponsoring a new soon-to-be girl in this year's intake. Perry Dart, a man who is so sad and so alone after his two best friends have been dorley'd, on a search to redeem himself by way of helping to save Primrose's father. And probably a few more as the story evolves.

I've written 3 chapters~ so far and those chapters cover the first week and change of the new intake in this mashup AU set in G&D's nine worlds setting, but with modern tech and a lot of Earth pop culture. I'm really looking forward to where this story takes me, because every time i try to follow my outline this story gets away from me. Lastly, here's a fun snippet of the stuff I've written today (Still in first draft, and missing dialogue tags)

“You alright? They started breakfast about ten minutes ago and you just didn't move.” “Is he right, Ina?” “Del? I didn’t hear what he said, but from what I know about him, he’s not exactly trustworthy.” “Are you? Like Ina, I want to believe you because sometimes it feels like you’re the only other sane person in down here, but I can’t trust you. I’ve been such an idiot. Of course you’re trying to be nice to me, you want me to roll over for you. You’re trying to get into my confidence, by acting like you’re my only friend down here, so that I follow you like some obedient little duckling when you start making me take pills to grow tits. I don’t want that, Ina. So tell me honestly, are you trying to force me to be a girl?” She takes a deep breath, and Roald studies every small twitch of her face as closely as he can. He studies the truth in her eyes, and the faint pulse he can feel through her hand on his shoulder. He needs to know the truth. “There’s someone I think you need to meet.” “What the fuck. Inyara. That’s basically a yes. I… what the fuck!” “Roald. Roald, look at me. I am not trying to force you to be a woman, but I’m serious when I say there’s someone you need to meet. I haven’t been completely honest with you, and I hate myself for that. It's something I have wanted to tell you from the beginning of this whole thing, but you need to hear it from her. Can you trust me, at least until the weekend? She has to take the train here from Inveragory. Here, give me your phone, I’ll add her on consensus for you two to connect before then. She might be in class right now, but she’ll get back to you as soon as she can.” “What’s her name? I’m serious, if she is just another sponsor hiding out in the security office, I will make the common room Hell on earth until you toss me back in a cell.” “She’s not a sponsor. Her name is Primrose Harper and she’s one of my best friends.” “And if I tell her about this place? Ask her to call the cops or Crimson Lake or the fucking Red Company or something? How is she going to react?” “Well, for one, she’d probably laugh. She changed her middle name Jullanar because she loves the Red Company that much. But also, she’s a graduate of the Programme, and she can tell you first hand, no one forced her to be a woman.” “That’s such an insane way to phrase that, Ina. Are you serious? No one forced her to be a woman? Was she born a woman, like a cisgender woman?” “No one is born a cisgender woman, people are born as babies.” “Fuck all the way off; you know what I mean.” “She has always been a woman, but I don’t think she would use the label cisgender to describe herself, no.”

Thanks for reading if you have! Back to the forcefem mines for me!

[jandjsalmon]

2023 FFRC - July🌞

Hello friends! July passed in the blink of an eye. I'm definitely not looking forward to the end of summer (because it snows like 9 months of the year where I live and I just want to freaking enjoy my back-yard okay!?) Anyway - I hope you've all been enjoying the sunshine.

As far as the @fanfic-reading-challenge goes- I’m 5 tasks away from finishing the whole thing - (4 of which I can’t finish until December) so that’s neat. Gotta get up to 15 million words and then I'll just be waiting to finish the monthly tasks. This month I got to help Juulna sort out next year's list of tasks though and that was a super fun time.

July 2023

As you can see, I read lots of really great stories this month. I reread a lot of fic and then double read fics too - there isn't a lot of new content for Wenvier so I reread over and over again. It's never a bad time to reread. I also read a Needle Bughead story that I'd held off on because of the tags - but it was wonderful - as all of her stories are. I'm glad I came back to that one. And given the circumstances, I think I'm going to deep dive into some Fexi favourites this week - so if you have any suggestions, please send them my way. 💔

As always - I’ve gathered a couple recs but I'm going to put them under the cut to save your dashboard. I hope you enjoy them.

–*–

Dear Annabel Lee by @ozmathegreatand (Wenvier - T 6/6)  Summary: Wherein Wednesday is forced to Cyrano her own love story when she is tasked to take up the mantle of Annabel Lee, the school newsletter's biweekly advice column, and receives a letter from Xavier asking for advice on how to get over her. Notes: It's always a special treat when someone gifts you a fic. BUT it's even more special when the fic is as fun and lovely as this one. Wednesday is forced to be an advice columnist and Xavier unknowingly bears is soul to her. It's funny and sweet and yet still perfectly in character. It's wonderful. Read and Review. Do it! 😉

–*–

–*–

Xavier Knows Wednesday Loves Him (series) by Agmo (Wenvier - T/E 4 fics) 

Summary: Xavier keeps a running list in a notebook in his desk drawer.

Notes: This story started out with one story with bullet points of how Xavier knew Wednesday Loved him - then expanded into this SUPER cute fic with a chapter for each one of those points (but the chapters are sometimes only a few lines long). Then there are a couple more one-shots to really flesh out some of the bigger points. And each and every one of them was delightful. All told, the series of 4 stories is only 20,000 words, so it's not long but it's wonderful and funny and touching and perfect. Give it a try!

Starving Faithful by @shesonlylittle (Fez/Lexi- E 1/1)  Summary: In most respects, he’s a nineteen year old. With the glaring exception that he can feel where his wings have been clipped— and that he can nudge the material world a little, here and there, from time to time.  He has childhood memories, a normal human’s wants and desires, but he also knows he’s got a divine mission. And that he has it because he fucked up somehow. Ash was supposed to be his redemption. He was supposed to watch over him, keep him safe.  -- or: Fallen Angel Fez has one last shot at redemption, his new charge Lexi Howard. Guardian Angels probably shouldn't be down bad for the humans in their safekeeping, though. Notes: I have a lot of feelings right now. After yesterday's news - the first thing I did was go find and read a Fexi fic to calm my broken heart. This one is SO good. Fez is SO well written. And there is a lot of neat religiosity that fits with him too. It hurts to read because we've lost Angus - but it has a happy ending and it's beautiful. So you should read it too!

–*–

See you back here in a few weeks! Happy reading! 🖤