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#otp: doomed from the start in this life and the last
swiftletinthecloud · 2 months
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― Margaret Atwood
@pscentral event 26: minimalism
@userdramas event 16: fools (in love)
@asiandramanet event 6: antagonists | enemies to lovers
@asiandramanet april bingo: quote
“As expected, we were not supposed to be together.  But even if I go back to the beginning, I think I will fall in love you again.” ― Han Ri Ta | MOON IN THE DAY (2023)
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sinecosinewheel · 1 year
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@galaxirin @bornetoblood
😭 i rly am the amelia guy huh (nm about it!)
- How I feel about this character
to start, she is my funny guy. in-game i think she's an awesome depiction of the healing church's state, the last vicar is powerless to do anything but pray, alone, clutching the medallion of her predecessor who all but set her up to fail. she's both a tragic figure, and the highest remaining member of the organization who doomed the town. in my hcs she is all of that, and she regularly mulches and beheads people, and she likes bugs. she is my funny guy!
- All the people I ship romantically with this character
hmmm. melia x early retirement. jshdj fr I don't have any specific characters? maybeeee henriett? ok wait i like to think she's henryk's great grand niece or smth and theyre really on the nose w/ the names. ok divergence, my henriette hc is that she was rejected from the church hunters and inherited her old mans Old Hunter style duds nd started vigilante mushing beasts w/ her kirkhammer pro bono. so tool of the institution x bitter rogueish vigilante. plus u summon henriett for melias fight so putting down an old flame .... i have successfully talked myself around to this ship let's get it 🎉
- My non-romantic OTP for this character
she really could've used some guidance other than laurence in her life, so i like to think she would've found a mentor in maria, had maria lived long enough to meet her. rlly tho most people were scared shitless of her and/or intimidated by her status so she had no non-killing, non-laurence social outlets. i haven't arbitrarily picked and made up a backstory wholecloth for an npc hunter to be her dead friend yet but also them lmao 😭
- My unpopular opinion about this character
slamming my fists on the ground beating my head on the wall SHE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE, I QUOTE, 'THE SEXY DOG FROM OLIVER AND COMPANY'!!!!!!
ok that's a personal grievance but i stand by it. umm i wish she showed up again? not sure if that's unpopular but i don't think many people think of it. like maybe she could've showed up in the hunters nightmare...even as a gorpse.....or had more item descriptions ab her!! i want the bell ringing woman set!!!
- One thing I wish would happen/had happened with this character in canon
hrmm i wish we could have gotten to see more of her in general!! the fight intro cutscene is fucking iconic but maybe she could've been an npc u can talk to... and then u have to fight her when u progress the night farther... n u could start her fight early like the dancer in ds3 by attacking her and get an alt intro cutscene....basically just any content of how the church worked, or what her role was before everything exploded i think
- My OTP
apparently amelia x henriett! news to me. real enemiesish to lovers opposing forces attract type shit here
- My crossover ship
ourgh. hmm maybe millicent elden ring or emerald herald ds2? maybe the ds2 miracles lady lmao melia would in her head b like my dads a much better grifter than her...shes silly i like her :) n the miracles lady is into muscles maybe. idk lmao it could be unhealthy, it could lead to melia unlearning some toxic shit bc the miracles lady is like a cartoonishly over exaggerated version of the people she was raised with, i don't even remember her name though x.x
- A headcanon fact
i stg this entire post has been a headcanon fact lol 💀 uhm uh oh lol we are ending on a sad one heehee. so u know how vicar amelia boss form is covered in bandages? after the school of mensis began kidnapping blood saints the healing blood of the healing church began to run dry, leading yharnam citizens to seek it from other sources, like certain prostitutes with special blood. seeing no other course and to uphold the legitimacy of the church's special blood, the vicar underwent the mysterious process of becoming a blood saint herself and all but bled herself dry to make up for the demand
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tameila · 8 months
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Thanks for the tag, @belphegor1982!
3 Ships:
THE OTP: Pikelan (Critical Role / of course, they are my actual parents who raised me but also [Maisie Peters voice] 🎶 I still love you, but you're taking me from your arms...back to therapy, therapy, oh lord, I'm going back to therapy 🎶 )
a recent ship: Nelendira (Trigun / made the mistake of reading the only two good fics in the world that includes this ship and now im doomed to suffer eternally)
a classic: FenHawke (Dragon Age / fighting off the urge rn to replay DA2 but also I gotta see my mans, light of my life, Fenris)
First Ship: gotta be honest, it was probably Maxwell and Sandy...yeah, from Hamtaro....uh huh, the show about the hamters, ye.
Last Song: So Much (For) Stardust, Fall Out Boy
Last Movie: I think it might have been The Barbie Movie from when I saw it back in July
Currently Reading: rereading Trillium and Ivy for the third time because I gotta get my Vashwood and Nelendria fix somehow. though last night I did fall down a rabbit hole of rereading some of my old FenHawke fics, because I miss 'em 🥺
Currently Watching: Nothing in particular, but I'm very excited for the new D20 season that starts tomorrow!
Currently Consuming: I just finished my daily lil treat, a grande London Fog with soy milk from Starbucks. Understandably, they didn't have them in Dublin, but now I gotta make up for lost time.
Currently Craving: ....another grande london fog with soy milk from starbucks....😔
tagging anyone who sees this and feels inspired, just be sure to drop me a tag when you do so I can be nosy hehe!
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nabulsi · 2 years
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got tagged by @vakarians-babe and @leirsulien to do some shipping and songing (ship song inspiration, 5 song OTP playlist, and OC song association and I'm just mixing them all into one)
So I'm doing 2 ocs and two ships because i do not have the spoons for more sdfhsdk
(ground rule: we don't talk about how much AURORA I listen to)
tagging: @zeesqueere , @rosarx , @griffin-wood , @honeysofte , @askweisswolf , @serenpedac , @amlovelies , @nerdferatum
ship: ava x nayzak (the wayhaven chronicles)
1- To Be Loved by Askjell and AURORA
You touched my skin, so warm but Time is cold and trust me I would know in my heart I'm the half of a whole And it's making me feel so alone
2- In the Kitchen by Mree
Bounded by the gravity Of all the other dreams that I was given Memories start calling me I have to find my way to find my rhythm Night on the avenue on the wrong side of town I thought, I thought, I thought I heard them call
3- NOT HUMAN by ionnalee
I felt you take a bite Your calming voice silently whispered How do you see your life in time? And is it worth all of these blisters? These broken limbs are worn and tired But our words are not yet written Our ember still burning inside
4- Into the Unknown from Disney's Frozen (which I insist should have been gay)
You're not a voice You're just ringing in my ear And if I heard you, which I don't I'm spoken for, I fear Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls
5- A Potion for Love by AURORA
When I see you again as a stranger or a friend Could you give me a kiss from the past? Make it soft, make it last like a lake in a glass Like an endless reminder of us
ship: ashti x zareen (a tale of crowns)
1- Moondust by Jaymes Young
The brightness of the sun, will give me just enough To bury my love (to bury my love) In the Moondust I long to hear your voice, but still I make the choice To bury my love (to bury my love) In the Moondust
2- Sculpture by Kooma and Veela
Tell me now of what stuff you're made Material and all I wonder if we're built the same Or not at all I'll write you a paragraph To thank you for your soul I'll keep you safe behind my mask I'll put us both on
3- SOS by Elizaveta
Hold on tight Don't let go of me Love is all there is Love is all we need Darling don't be scared I can feel your pain Even heroes fall
4- Half Love by Elohim
Let me run to you Let me break down your walls Let me melt into you 'Til there's nothing left at all Grab me, take me, love me all the way Wake me, chase me, embrace me all the way
5- Exist for Love by AURORA
And when you say my name Like white horses on the waves I think it feels the same As an ocean in my veins And you'll be diving in Like nothing is out of place And we exist for love
OC: Anya Sharmin
Science/Visions by CHVRCHES
Breathe Don't speak It's leaving your body now Slow heart Set free A circuit of consciousness When you are truly yourself You will Succumb to a permanence A light by day A shadow resides by night
OC: Ayat Ferdous
Doomed by Bring Me the Horizon
So come rain on my parade 'Cause I wanna feel it Come shove me over the edge 'Cause my head is in overdrive I'm sorry, but it's too late And it's not worth saving
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How about 3, 14, 20, and 21 for Adrian?
Well this one was a lot of fun 😂
3: Scars or painful spots: Many |D Her hands got it worst, ME1 era they were littered with scrapes and burns from weapons; and there's a large scar across her face that she has no active memory of receiving (happened while on raid-guarding duty on a colony world, she got ambused with a knife). All of these get nullified during the Lazarus project- but hey, blank canvas! From there on, she develops:
-Permanent burn scars and mild nerve damage (even with the cybernetics- its not enough to mess with dexterity, there's just some loss of sensitivity) in her left hand from heavy use of fireballs, she's actually lost part of her fingerprints for a while there.
-The glowing scars fade, but that side of her face is always a little... tender.
-Everyone Lives scenario sees some nasty damage from the Citadel's fall, but her right leg gets it the worst- even when re-set, it's not straight and tends toward nasty flares of pain.
14: Ingrained habits/force of habit: Adrian Shepard's weapons are extremely well maintained, her armor is spotless, and if she has a bed, it is  c r i s p. She also tends to position herself at the front of any group she's in- even fully off duty, which gets annoying and kind of hilarious when it's somewhere she's never been.
20: What Ifs/Alternate Timelines: WELL FOR A WHILE I just had an 'everyone lives' AU but in trying to cross media to poke a buddy's angst button I'm now on uh.
Take your pick depending on angst tastes I guess, all stemming from 'haha hey what if Cerberus DID chip Shepard with an Order 66 style deal', and further context that Shrios happens.
Fuck it, is it really an OTP if you can't make them kill each other: chipped Shep goes after the salarian Councilor so it's Thane vs Shepard instead of Kai Leng! Fun options of:
otherwise fully canon compliant so Thane is far from top form and further hampered because this is is partner coming at him with full intent to kill, and we basically get That Renegade Interrupt From Later but now. (Further flavoring: Shepard as we know her is gone. Or: oh no she is FULLY fucking aware in her own mind and can't stop her body)
Less compliance with canon but following the sense that yeah if Mordin starts trying to cure Joker's issues for shits and giggles, he can probably at least alleviate Kepral's symptoms if he puts effort into it. Thane is in good form. Reapers and emotions be damned, he is one of the best assassins in the galaxy and a Shepard under Cerberus' control will doom them anyway. Assume the Virmire Survivor takes over from there. (I've always thought one of the cruelest AUs for my runs is Thane Lives Shep Dies, but wait! It can get even worse!)
Non-lethal takedown and chip is neutralized but uhhhh. It was pretty fucking wired in there. You don't have Shepard actively trying to fuck things up! Because her memory is rapidly deteriorating and her health won't do much better, so it's similar to above of the Virmire survivor taking over, while Adrian rides out her last few weeks with this very sweet guy who she halfway recognizes as being very important, but can't really place it. (In particular: early in, it seems to be a good day, they're talking... and Thane is very abruptly thrown back to what had been a very treasured memory of the SR2 when Adrian says, 'I think my translator just glitched.')
(I'm aware these are far from original, I've seen a few chipped Shep takes around xD but I never really considered it for Adrian til now.)
21: Turning Points In Their Life: Getting lost as a little kid and a turian helped get her safely back to her family. She didn't have a translator of her own yet (& human dialects had literally only JUST been added), and she had seen glimpses of stuff from the war (hard to avoid when your mom had been on the ground at Shanxi), so she was very nervous but put on a brave face. The turian was nothing but concerned because like, that's a clearly lost kid and some instincts are very common between space-faring sapient species. That pretty much sticks with her forever, the fact that even if she couldn't understand the words, their body language and actions were just like when her parents were irritable from worry.
Akuze, naturally, is another one. For a solid three years after, she simply gave in to a near fugue state of following orders... and more importantly, even once she started waking up and really got back to herself, another notion stayed in: She's the first one into a fight and the last to leave, even if it kills her.
(Send me some numbers + character for some headcanons!)
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margoshansons · 5 years
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the leftover children (+ crisis on infinite earths)
--you are allowed to watch the sun swallow them whole and burn them up, to stain your fingers to the bone holding them together
(j.p.)
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inspired by @cassercole and her amazing edits. (in fact, they’re the reason I got into the oc community in the first place, so please check them out!)
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a-slut-for-smut · 3 years
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R u an ichiruki? I’m still salty about the ending lmao I can’t believe it. Do you know any IR blogs and any archive/library (fics) blog?
Also, recommendations of IR for horny jail pls
Hello fellow ichiruki anon!
Yup, big sloppy slut for ichiruki indeed, ill honestly go down with this ship despite that shipwreck of an ending. I'll admit i didnt follow the anime/manga entire as it dragged on with filler arcs and life got busy etc, but when i heard about the ending i thought i was having a fucking stroke, i still cannot make sense of it to this day (nor do i want to because my brain actively works to delete this kind of dumbfuckery from my memory). While its such a shame how it ended and spiritually i wanna be outside kubo's house like
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...but then I take a deep breath and just tell myself titty kubo had a brain aneurysm and just leave it at that.
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ANYWAY to your ask- full disclaimer when i was primetime ichiruki slut i was just a lurker, and this was YEARS ago but ill do my best to help ya out. I do follow some ichiruki peeps from back then but they more or less have moved to other ships/interests, but the ones below seem more active IR blogs from what i can tell:
@dangerousbride IR fanart/comics. Love her artstyle and always will @jellyribbons IR artist, gorgeous gorgeous art @hashtagartistlife IR artist/writer. Big slut for her work
@ichiruki good IR treats, very active @ichirukilover good IR treats, very active
Now im actually not aware of any IR archive library blog, but if there is one i would also be curious to know! @ ichiruki fandom, can anyone help us out???
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And to the last part of your ask re: IR horny jail fic recs, there are 2 things you should know:
1. I am so out of date when it comes to the latest fics, and i mean by YEARS. So any i recommend will be old but obviously TASTY AF
2. At the time a lot of smut fics were "post-686" "fix-it" naturally, but a lot dealt with blatant adultery/infidelity. Now anyone who knows me i have a mutual respect kink. Not just to how my OTPs have towards each other, but for ppl they care about. While the smut was amazingly written/angst-ridden and im a total angst slut too, part of me had a hard time really investing myself in those fics as I personally cant condone cheating ever, because i know from experience how utterly it can destroy a person. So in general, my fic recs will be AU/canon divergent. AUGH i lament how kubo didnt make the ending open-ended, it would have been so much better :( Also in my headcanon i like to think despite IR being soulmates, they have utmost integrity to not hurt ppl they care about despite their immense love for each other, and that folks is some sweet sweet angst/doomed romance. Actually if anyone knows any fics like that pls share!!!
OKAY HERES THE IR SMUT FEST, ENJOY!!!
Unveiled by@hashtagartistlife God tier IR smut. Like seriously, this one is BEAN-FLICKIN good yaknowwhatimsayin Winter Warmth by@gunnerpalace Starts fluffy but then HOTHOTHOT The Two-Body Problem also by@gunnerpalace I remember how well-written the sexual tension building between IR was, i FELT their anticipation and anxiousness around each other. I think the smut chapter is actually on their blog and not on Ao3 for some reason! Nurse Rukia by Aquari Lynnel (MazokuSempai) Premise is a little silly/kinky but has all the good stuff :D The Red String That Binds by DeathMeetsLife Actually this one isnt really smutty but i HAVE to rec due to the sweet sweet angst scenario i just went on about because this is an angst FIESTA. BUT no cheating as Kazuo and Ichika are actually IR baby twins but are separated from birth...i wont spoil just READ its so good The Parting Glass by Darksknight LOL ok this isnt even primarily IR more Orihime x Ulquiorra, and actually is post 686/fix it BUT i had to rec because a) Orihime is given some fuckin agency her character deserved and i really like the authors take on her/POV b) the author is fuckin hilarious and on point with all the characterizations c) this fic is a fuckin gem, seriously just read it you wont have any regrets trust me
fuck me this post was long and i am sooooo behind on shit i needa do gotta end it here, hopefully this helps anon!!! xoxo
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musicallisto · 2 years
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I couldn’t fit all of this in my reply so just know this is a response to your response of my questions over bly manor and hill house. Also another message will come in after this one that is the continued response to this one.
This is such a great review and very much valued opinion.
In my personal opinion, I think both shows were very much beautiful haunting, and neither really outweighed the other (though I am a very indecisive person).
Both really grasped the phantom of what it means to die but never really meet death. To be a ghost haunting the future as your maimed by an untold past.
Bly manor held the more tragic aspect of a thousand love stories (*spoilers ahead so if you haven’t watch Bly manor or Hill house you might not want to read*) with Dani and Jamie holding the trophy of what it means to selflessly love one another in life past death (their love story was by far the most tragic and I haven’t cried more than watching the last episode.) While Hannah and Owen (otp who deserve everything) display what it means to love someone who death has already claimed, that their love was only to be told in past tense never holding promises of the future. However, Owen never lets the grief of losing both his mother and lover tear down his own bright future and instead uses the love of which both brought (different ways of course) and builds it into his future in a healthy way that prosperous as both are not remembered for what was lost but what is loved. You even have the aspects of what it means to be both self sacrificial and uplifting the unconditional love of a true family (doesn’t matter if blood or not only matters of the unrequited love) can have between all of the characters. Starting with Miles and Flora (my god was flora precious. Miles was adorable when he who shall not be named wasn’t possessing him), the close connection (not in a weird way) between a brother and sister who despite their grief have been pulled closer to one another where they are willing to fight tooth and nail for one another, is such an emotional packed bond that I must elaborate on. I found seeing Miles do all those atrocious acts when Flora sent him that letter such a raw act of selflessness that shows how much Miles loved his sister and despite the trouble and own trauma it may bring him, he was willing to do it to save Flora. Then with Flora you have her uplifting selfless spirit that shows no bounds as she takes on the grueling task of keeping everyone safe from the lady of the lake while still loving the other faceless ghosts and giving them an identity so they may feel less forgotten. She shows self sacrifice when she stopped Dani from being taken by the lady of the lake even when she knew it meant her own doom. Flora holds together the love of bly and you can quote me on that. (Also I wonder if Flora knew the entire time Hannah was a ghost). Henry (my saints did this man put me through turmoil) displays his own love for the family. Despite the love affair and being cut out of his own family by his brother, he still shows care for his family, thought it may be distance (which is a bit warranted since he just lost the mother of his child who also happens to be the wife of his now deceased brother and blames himself for being the cause of their death), he eventually takes control of his own ghosts and is there when he is needed. (Also him calling flora to hear her voice but then never being able to speak is such a heart reaching moment for me as it connects to my own personal experiences). Hannah, Owen, and Jamie are pretty self explanatory as they make up the family of bly and keep it from falling apart. But then there’s selfless Dani, who despite everything, is willing to save everyone she loves (her family) without thought. That in her time of death, she carried no anger toward anyone but only love and when Jamie offered to take on the role of sacrificing herself to save her, Dani refused as she loved Jamie too much to condemn her too. (Now away from family and back to the others) There was of course the obsessive love between Rebecca and Peter, which was challenged by (queen) Rebbeca’s own moral compass and love she had for Miles and Flora. I like to think of Dani and Rebecca as a mirror (tee hee) of one another as both experienced what it felt to be-
in a lifeless love, yet their heart would guide them back to the love which made them feel alive (and both ended up showing that in love there is death and in death there is love.) So watching Rebecca help out Flora and Dani was such a heart warming moment as it shows that Rebecca deep down was a good person who had been maimed by a toxic love. Lastly, the guttural love of a dead mother and forgotten daughter that Viola displayed. Watching Viola seek out her daughter for centuries with nothing left of her, but that love for her daughter. However, Viola’s love is based on loss and revenge and the audience gets to see the love dwindle away as obsession takes place in Viola killing those who got in the way. It took me a while to understand Viola as she is (a very complex character with so many layers) very much more than just a vengeful mother seeking to kill. Bly manor really changed my idea of how I viewed love,death, and obsession. The show really showcased how truly haunting love can be, and that in death love exists.
Hill house to me was more the scarier side of what it means to conquer, succumb, and live with your own demons. And besides Theo, Nell was my favorite character as she is very much relatable to my own personal life experiences. And realizing that Nell was the bent neck lady all along really mind fucked me, because goddamn was that sad. Also i made the mistake of watching Bly manor before hill house so seeing Peter Quint (that man was vile) as sweet Luke Crain really tore at my heart strings as much as I hated Peter, I loved Luke. I was one to cry at the last episode when he blew out the candles. The soundtrack really messed me up too, because hell hearing “if I go, I’m goin” by Gregory Alan Isakov is already a shit show but that with the last episode of Hill house playing was what made me loose my mind. And let’s not even talk about the Dudley’s and how sad all that was.
I'm terribly sorry for how long it took me to answer this, but know that I've been cherishing these asks and adoring them in the comfort of my ask box because oh my GOD, the analysis!! I agree with you on so many points about Bly Manor, but you've also given me tons of new lenses to look at the show through. you've given it so much thought, and everything is so careful and precise and also loving - I can tell bly manor really left a mark on you (but on who hasn't it?) and it would have been a crime to leave these pieces of meta hiding in the corners of my ask box.
I think I've had a stronger attachment to Hill House because I watched it first, and was completely blown away by the mastery of the craft and themes - it was the first time I'd ever seen family and trauma discussed in such a way, and ghosts and spirits are one of the most recurrent themes/metaphors in my writing because I'm obsessed with all that they convey. the lingering of something both loved and despised... something undecipherable lurking in the walls of your own house, something you cannot run from, something that imbues your bones... but also something so very loving and protective, at the same time, like a watchful guardian shielding you from the horrors ahead and behind? and how all the siblings respond differently to the ghosts of Hill House and what they mean to them!! how, in the end, they all are one of the ghosts of Hill House!! I've just never recovered and I don't think I ever will.
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theolddivorcedzukka · 2 years
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002 with yue
How I feel about this character: yue is so important to me cause u know me i love tragedy i love it when characters were doomed from the start (her life literally came from the moon she was born dead she couldn't have survived without the moon's power HER LIFE ALWAYS BELONGED TO THE MOON THIS IS INSANE) but also she was so sweet and i miss her every day ("an activity?" girl come back to me..)
All the people I ship romantically with this character: sokka and suki!! this girl can hold so much bi energy because what's gayer than being the moon??
My non-romantic OTP for this character: yue and katara !! also i think she would have gotten along really well with mai
My unpopular opinion about this character: well part of what i said in the first question. i don't get why people say there had to be another choice for yue where she didn't die like there literally wasn't any other choice babygirl lmao. or maybe that's just me loving tragedy sorry
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: ok forget what i said in the last one for this one, i would have loved to see her travel with the gaang or just travel the world when the war was over
my OTP: yuekka <3 but yueki comes really close like..an inch behind it
my cross over ship: none
a headcanon fact: yue bi ace btw!!! if u even care!! also i think she would love poetry, both writing it and also hearing sokka share his
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beccanoodles · 3 years
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Spike and Faye Pairing Analysis
March 2021
Ah the hit or miss pairing of the century! If you don’t love it, you probably hate it lol. I’m a very analytical person so I love analyzing works of art and overall enjoy deep discussions about them too. I have SO much to say when it comes to Cowboy Bebop (and oh I plan to), but I have decided to start with my very own OTP. Here, I am not really going to discuss Spike and Faye’s feelings for each other, but rather why I think people are drawn to this pairing and why I think they're totally valid. Get ready for a long read!😁
⚠️SPOILER WARNING!!! [Major Cowboy Bebop and the movie Out of the Past spoilers]⚠️
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First off, let’s clear something up. I am confident most of us can agree that Spike was in love with Julia. Some people assume Spike and Faye fans are deranged and disregard Spike and Julia’s romantic relationship to try and make something of Spike and Faye that never was. While some people may have their various theories and opinions on this, generally, I don’t think anyone denies Spike’s love for Julia. As we will see, this pairing is not really driven by who loves who...let’s first look on the surface.
I don’t know your experiences with the series, but in mine, every time I show this to people it never fails for someone to say something along the lines of,
“Wait, they don’t end up together?”
“Why didn’t he kiss her!?”
“He should have stayed with her...”
and so fourth. 
Naturally, this pairing catches many eyes. 
Think about it, you are given two really cool, really hot and really deep characters that are really fun to see together! There are so many parallels between the two and they are arguably the strongest characters of the bunch. Granted, you can agree with this and still not ship them, but these aspects are part of what opens up the door for many fans of the pairing.
However, there is certainly more to this pairing than them simply looking good together right? As the years pass and I’ve now seen the show multiple times, my understanding of it has evolved in many areas, Spike and Faye included. 
Spike and Faye really couldn’t have ended up together. Sure, it’s a nice thought, but It would have been an entirely different show if they had. I don’t feel that the show should have happened any other way and I don’t think many other fans would either. 
So, what am I saying here?
What’s the point of this paring if I don’t think they should have ended up together? 
It is what's so frustrating about them, yet keeps you coming back and what honestly validates this pairing in my opinion. Spike and Faye are not driven by what is, but rather, what could be.  
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I personally feel the themes of classic film Noir are not discussed enough when it comes to Cowboy Bebop! This is one of the show's major influences, especially when it comes to the plot and characters.
One of the common tropes of a film noir is that of a protagonist who is drawn back into his past and ultimate doom, usually by the “seduction” of a femme fatale. In these movies, the women are either a femme fatale [devious, dangerous, mysterious, greedy, troubled, or unreliable] or a woman of virtue [reliable, dutiful, trustworthy, conventional and loving]. 
I am going to use the 1947 classic, Out of the Past to make my comparisons from here on out.
In Out of the Past, Jeff is a former detective who gets caught up in a love triangle between a gangster and his girlfriend Kathie, sound familiar? He attempts to run away with her, but is betrayed and runs off to start a new life in a new town. Here, he meets Ann and falls in love with her, but of course, his past catches up to him and he is drawn back into the world of criminals (largely by Kathie’s involvement). This ultimately results in his and Kathie’s deaths and Ann’s heartbreak. 
Even though Kathie is the femme fatale in this movie, I found myself comparing her more to Julia’s role in the show, than to Faye’s and I found that Faye actually fit best in Ann’s role (this is a bit unusual considering Faye is typically seen as the femme fatale of this show).
Does that mean I think Julia was as ill intentioned as Kathie or that Spike fell in love with Faye? Well, not exactly, let’s look at it a bit further.
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“The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can’t leave alone...Like an angel from the underworld or a devil from paradise.”
Most of what we get about Julia is from Spike’s point of view. From this, we learn she is at the center of Vicious and Spike’s conflict, but aside from that she is basically depicted as “The Virtuous Woman” of a noir. The colors around her are warm and she is shown caring for Spike. There is an innocence and modestly about her as well.
Yet, when we finally do meet Julia, we get a different image. We know she is tied up with dangerous men, but is she herself a dangerous woman?
She is certainly capable of betrayal. 
Suddenly she is a bad-ass-gun-toting woman in leather and black, surrounded by hues of grey and dark blue. Intentional or not, Julia is a major part of what lures Spike back into the past and ultimately to his death. In this case, Julia is the femme fatale of Spike’s story and thus, their relationship is doomed from the start.
Faye, on the other hand, is portrayed in somewhat of a contrast. When we first meet her, she is the clear cut femme fatale, appearing cunning, strong willed and seductive. However, we soon find that she has quite a bit of kindness and naivety hidden behind her facade. She uses the former tactics as a way of emotional (and probably physical) protection. Gren points this out in his conversation with her. 
Gren, 
“You’re just afraid they’d abandon you so you abandoned them. You distanced yourself from the whole thing.”
As the show progresses, we start to see less of her “femme fatale nature” and something more genuine. Think about it, between Hard Luck Woman and RFB Part 2 we don’t see much of Faye as her typical conniving or unreliable self, aside from changing the course of the Bebop maybe. Sure she takes off, but it isn’t at all for the same reasons she did in Jupiter Jazz or Speak Like a Child, for example. 
I would argue we actually see her more trustworthy and caring than ever. Since I don’t want to spend too much time talking about Faye’s character development (not here at least) I’ll give one example of this. 
When she returns to the Bebop after her encounter with Julia in RFB Part 1, she gives Spike the message, even though the outcome might hurt her (i.e. he leaves and/or dies). While she does first say “It’s gonna cost you,” she doesn’t really mean it because she tells him without hesitation only moments later.
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This isn’t to say Faye good, Julia bad. Both women have their layers and even though we know way more about Faye, I don’t get the impression that Julia is selfish and cunning like Kathie was. But I do get the feeling she was enclosed in a world of crime and betrayal the way Kathie was. We really only know the basics of Spike and Julia’s situation. Who knows the details like motive or how long it lasted etc. etc. We can only speculate...
There is a scene towards the end of Out Of The Past, where Kathie tells Jeff to go away with her. This time it is her asking him, just like Julia asks Spike. During this she mentions,
“I never told you I was anything but what I am, you just wanted to imagine I was. That’s why I left you.”
This got me thinking...did Spike imagine Julia as something she wasn’t? Or something he wanted her to be that she just couldn’t be? 
It could explain why we get such contrasted images of her.
There are themes of this “dreamlike” relationship between Jeff and Kathie, similar to Spike and Julia’s “It was all a dream.”
The two of them were going to “live and be free,” probably something neither of them knew how to do and most likely wouldn’t have been able to get away with.
When Jet asks Spike if he can just forget the past, this is his answer.
Spike,
“There was a woman. For the first time in my life I saw a woman that was truly alive. At least that’s what I thought. She was the part of me I had lost, that part that was missing, that I had been longing for.”
I always wondered about this, because Spike is clearly talking about Julia, but right after is when Faye shows up. To me, that spoke volumes...
Faye is a woman who is terribly human and terribly alive.
Going back to Faye and Ann, I find their similarities shine not so much in the “Virtuous Woman,” concept, but rather in Ann’s dedication to Jeff and her optimism for the future. She is also the last person to talk to Jeff before he leaves for the final time, as if he were being presented with one last alternative. Spike spends his last moments with Faye as well, in which she basically begs him not to go and keep him in the present that she has now discovered for herself. She may be stuck, but she is definitely someone that yearns for human connection, love, and life.
The problem is, Spike and Faye are both set in opposite directions. Her’s leads to a future and Spike knows this because he points it out early on (My Funny Valentine). He also knows, his most likely does not. He has already dug himself too deep into this hole, if you will, that there is really no turning back. 
But let’s say none of that was an issue? What could be?
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I sat and watched this movie (Out of the Past) with my mom. She didn’t know anything about it and didn’t know why I was watching it. I wanted her genuine reaction. The whole time she was getting mad at Jeff until the very end. I asked her why and she said that she wanted him to be able to live happily with Ann. I explained to her why he had to do what he did. She understood this, but still couldn’t help but be sad at how things turned out for him, when they could have been good.
Even though Kathie and Jeff are the “lovers,” of this movie, you don’t really want them to end up together. Forget that Kathie has a devious nature, regardless, you know where it has to end and you don’t want to see your hero die.
Like Kathie, Julia symbolizes Spike’s inevitable doom and Like Ann, Faye symbolizes his possible future. 
“I’ll be with you till the end”
                           “You’re the one still tied to the past Spike!”
                                                               “Why do you have to go? Where are you going? What are you gonna do, just throw your life away like it was nothing?!”
It’s two sides of a sad coin...
We want Spike to have a future and because we love the characters of the show, it would be really great if he could have it with them, but that is where the tragedy is. It's only an idea we can think about, a possibility presented to us as it was to Jeff and Spike before their deaths.
The bottom line is, when it comes to Spike and Faye you are really only given a taste. You are not given what you expect to see, which is why I say this ship is driven by what could be. As it is with most of the character relationships in the show, no major breakthroughs are made until the very end, when it's too late. Then it just feels like such wasted potential, but sometimes in life, that's how it is. And thus, we have been given a very classic noir here ladies and gentlemen!
So no, I don’t think people miss the mark when they ship Spike and Faye, nor do I find they invalidate the show by any means. I kind of like that Watanabe switched it up and didn’t do the expected, but left us those subtle hints. He didn’t outright give Spike another lover, but he gave us someone that represents what he could have. Kind of does that with the crew as a whole too!
UGH. I love-hate this show and I love this pairing! Thank you for reading my thoughts and I know this may not be the case or reasoning for everyone, but just based on what I have seen around the community and where this show draws inspiration, this is what I have concluded. I didn’t get into Spike and Faye’s feelings for each other because it gets a little more theoretical there, but I would like to do a post on my thoughts on that as well sometime. I also didn’t touch too much on Spike’s reasoning for choosing to face Vicious in the end, just because I know that will only lead into a whole other analysis lol. But you know I have my thoughts on that and certainly plan to share them 😎 Also, I know I basically spoiled it, but Out of the Past is such a great movie!! I think if you’re a fan of this show it's definitely worth a watch! There are so many more parallels to Cowboy Bebop that I didn’t even mention. Anyways, thanks again and talk to you soon!
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gffa · 4 years
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There was this viral tweet that went around about THE UNTAMED awhile back that was basically the cycle of every fan of the series that I have ever met: 1. Wtf, THIS is the show everyone is losing their minds over? This isn’t even good! 2. Well, I guess it’s not that bad, it’s pretty watchable and fun, it’s all right. 3. I would now die for these characters. So, when I swore this drama wasn’t going to be a big fandom for me, I was just going to watch the show and then fuck off again, I should have known better. Because here I am, crying about feelings about the entire cast and devouring fic and yelling at anyone who will spend even five minutes listening to me about how much I love the OTP, how much I love the Yunmeng Siblings and their Terrible Communications Issues, and the Tragic Sibling Duos and the Tragic Doomed Loves and The Cutest Juniors In The World and how I want to lock ALL OF THEM IN A ROOM until they sort out their feelings! THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - EMOTIONAL CONSTIPATION RUNS IN THE FAMILY - YUNMENG SIBLINGS FIC: ✦ Still in the Water by airgeer, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jin ling & lan sizhui & jiang cheng, 45k    A year after Jin Ling’s early succession to the position of Sect Leader, a letter is delivered to him under strange circumstances. A night-hunt follows. ✦ no one lights a candle to remember by asravine, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jiang yanli (& wangxian), 7.9k    “Didi,” Wei Wuxian says softly. His thumb on Jiang Cheng’s cheek is calloused and warm and burns of affection. Jiang Cheng barely stops himself from leaning in. “Didi, don’t cry because of me.” ✦ can people untie themselves, uncurling like flowers by annemari, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji, 19.3k    Wei Wuxian gets hurt on a night hunt. Jiang Cheng is displeased to find out that he’s been wandering around on his own instead of living with Lan Wangji in Cloud Recesses. He ends up fixing it. ✦ bark, bite by chashmish, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & lan wangji & jin ling (& wangxian), modern au, 3.4k    Jin Ling finds a dog and learns some new things about his uncles. ✦ before you stumble by ribena, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji & lan sizhui (& wangxian), 9.8k    “Uncle,” Jin Ling says. “Just because Uncle Wei - I mean, Wei Wuxian - just because he’s leading the night-hunt, he’s teaching, he’s not doing anything wrong, he even notified you ahead of time -” ✦ Five Dogs, One Cat by ryfkah, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji & lan sizhui & lan jingyi & nie huaisang, 13.4k    If you’ve ever believed me in anything, believe I want what’s best for Jin Ling, the first line of the letter reads. Jiang Cheng has to stop and take a moment before he continues on to the next line: You must come to Carp Tower as soon as you can and lavish praise on the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen. ✦ Life is Very Long by Vamillepudding, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji & lan sizhui & lan jingyi (& wangxian), 12.7k    Wei Wuxian is a good for nothing, possibly evil, possibly fake uncle. But he’s Jin Ling’s good for nothing, possibly evil, possibly fake uncle. So it stands to reason that when Jin Ling starts to suspect that Hanguang-jun is mistreating his husband, he immediately recruits Jiang Cheng for a rescue mission. ✦ a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see by paperminds, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji & lan sizhui & lan jingyi & ouyang zizhen, 9.7k    For as long as Jin Ling can remember, he has been immune to the majority of supernatural hauntings that plague the cultivation world. Or: what if Jin Ling had received his first-month birthday gift. ✦ plea from a cat named little plum blossom by rolameny, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling, 5.1k    Jiang Cheng is trying. Jiang Cheng is having a very trying day. At least the cat likes him. ✦ JC and WWX’s Get Along Sweater by newamsterdam, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan wangji & lan sizhui (& wangxian), 29.6k    Convinced Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian will never reconcile of their own accord, Jin Ling takes matters into his own hands by trapping both of his uncles alone, together, without their cultivation. ✦ passed down like folksongs, our love lasts so long by finedae, wei wuxian & jiang cheng (& background wangxian), 6k    winning a drinking contest, wei wuxian finds out yunmeng has got new folklore since he’s been gone. those are the stories of the Twin Prides of Yunmeng. naturally, he has to go confront jiang cheng for doing the opposite of talking shit about the dead; this is a confession of love. ✦ sorrow waited by curiositykilled, wei wuxian & jiang cheng, 2.3k    No one gets out of the Burial Mounds alive and so Wei Wuxian cannot have been in the Burial Mounds — but sometimes Jiang Cheng starts to think it might be the inverse instead. No one gets out of the Burial Mounds alive and so Wei Wuxian didn’t get out at all. Someone, something, else crawled out. ✦ the trick is to keep breathing by alessandriana, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling, 3.4k    Jiang Cheng probably should have anticipated the assassination attempt. He’d spent the last three weeks in Lanling browbeating the more intractable elders into supporting Jin Ling before his nephew’s first discussion conference, and he hadn’t exactly been kind about it. Still, he was a cultivator– if someone was going to try and kill him, he expected swords, or curses. Not poison in his tea. ✦ the road in leaves no step had trodden black by Skadiseven, wei wuxian & jiang cheng & wen ning & wen qing, 1.6k    Jiang Cheng gets a little therapy session from Wen Ning, learns to plant potatoes, and decides he’s not giving up on something he wants. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - JUST STRAIGHT UP WANGXIAN OTP FIC: ✦ Fire in the Blood by Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle), lan wangji/wei wuxian, nsfw, 20.7k    Wei Ying is traveling, and he gets busy. Lan Wangji knows that sometimes, Wei Ying forgets things. ✦ scapegoat by astrobandit, lan wangji/wei wuxian, 1.3k    Four ridiculous things the Yiling Patriarch was blamed for, and one ridiculous thing that was positively his fault. ✦ Content Warning: Romance by Ariaste, lan wangji/wei wuxian, nsfw, 5.9k    Wei Wuxian just wants a little warning before Lan Wangji says nice things. Lan Wangji just wants to love on his husband, thanks. ✦ Where the Lonely Ones Go by CSHfic, VSfic, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & cast, 23.9k    Accidental (haunted) baby acquisition ✦ devotee by tagteamme, lan wangji/wei wuxian, NSFW, 5.8k    Lan Wangji does not control Wei Wuxian. Not in the way many wish he would. But like this— ✦ nothing gold can stay by rikke, lan wangji/wei wuxian & cast, nsfw, 10.3k    Before Wen Chao can throw him into Yiling Burial Mounds, Lan Wangji finds Wei Wuxian. ✦ Wait, What? by MarbleGlove, lan wangji/wei wuxian & lan xichen, time travel, 1.5k    AKA, that time sixteen-year-old Wei WuXian showed up at Cloud Recesses, took one look at Lan WangJi and declared, “That’s my future husband!” … and Lan WangJi said, “Mm” ✦ Beyond All Reach by airinshaw, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & nie huaisang & lan xichen, NSFW, 27.4k    Wei Wuxian heads back to Cloud Recesses to find out more about a curse someone has placed on him, that appears to do nothing. Until he meets back up with Lan Wangji and finds out that what the curse really does is stop them from being able to touch. ✦ Key Differences by pupeez4eva, lan wangji/wei wuxian & cast, 5.6k    Wherein Wei Wuxian ends up meeting an alternate version of himself who, much to his horror, never married Lan Wangji. Obviously he has to do something to fix this. ✦ the heart is hard to translate by vespertineflora, lan wangji/wei wuxian, NSFW, rough sex, non-con play, 10.8k    The moment comes almost out of the blue when, one relaxed spring afternoon, Lan Wangji decides that he’s ready to offer Wei Wuxian an opportunity to play out that very delicious fantasy about their stolen first kiss. ✦ Pigtail Pulling by protos_metazu_ison, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & nie huaisang & lan xichen, 3.7k    Wei Wuxian trips over Jiang Wanyin and sends both of them to the ground in a tangle of limbs and bruises. ✦ The Last Three Feet by etymologyplayground, lan wangji/wei wuxian & lan sizhui & lan wangji, 3.7k    A moment of down time in the Cloud Recesses. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - SOMETIMES YUNMENG SIBLINGS FIC, SOMETIMES WANGXIAN FIC: ✦ put your heart where your mouth is by protos_metazu_ison, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng, 19.9k    Having lost a month’s worth of memories might have been fine if Wei Wuxian hadn’t managed to forget the part where he and Lan Wangji got engaged. If that was, actually, what happened. He hasn’t figured out that part yet. ✦ Orchids in Lotus Pier by Vamillepudding, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & lan xichen & jiang yanli & jin zixuan & cast, 21.6k    Against all odds, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng become friends. It’s just Jiang Cheng’s luck that people think they’re courting. And it’s just Lan Wangji’s luck that regretfully, Wei Wuxian is also People. ✦ Deeper grows my longing by feyburner, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng, 4.4k    Jiang Cheng stared at him. “How are you this dense,” he said flatly. “Wei Wuxian. The common people aren’t scared of you, they’re scared of your husband.“ “My what,” said Wei Wuxian. ✦ A Civil Combpaign by Ariaste, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jin ling/lan sizhui & cast, 31k    “And,” said one of the pompous ministers, “there’s the matter of a marriage to consider as well!” Jin Ling, who at the beginning of that sentence had expected to slam into the very last wall of his patience and lose his temper entirely, paused. “A what?” ✦ Being Known by dragongirlG, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jin zixuan/jiang yanli & jiang cheng/wen qing & nie huaisang & wen ning & lan xichen & yu ziyuan & lan qiren & cast, 36.3k wip    Teenage Lan Wangji drunkenly confesses his lust for Wei Wuxian during the guest disciple lectures at the Cloud Recesses and wakes up betrothed to him by way of forehead ribbon. It all goes from there. ✦ heaven and earth as witness by scheherazade, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & jin ling & lan sizhui, 8.5k    Jin Ling has an emotional meltdown involving Lan Sizhui. Lan Wangji predictably overreacts. Somehow, it helps Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian finally have a conversation that they should have had years ago. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - SOMETIMES CASE FIC, SOMETIMES WANGXIAN FIC: ✦ grow by cafecliche, lan wangji/wei wuxian & lan sizhui & the juniors, case fic, de-aged, 14.4k    Or: Wei Wuxian is cursed on a night-hunt, and the junior quartet rapidly finds themselves in over their heads. ✦ Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground, lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng & ocs & cast, 39.4k    Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find themselves cursed, unable to see or hear each other. They figure things out anyway. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - WHEN I WASN’T LOOKING, I DEVELOPED NIE BROTHERS FEELINGS FIC: ✦ Pushover by nirejseki, nie huaisang & nie mingjue & lan xichen & jin guangyao & cast, 1.9k    Every once in a while, not often, people who know them well will say that Nie Mingjue lets Nie Huaisang walk all over him. That isn’t quite right. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - YOUR HONOR, HAVE YOU SEENA-YAO’S PRECIOUS FACE? - LAN XICHEN/JIN GUANGYAO FIC: ✦ half cloak & half dagger by Fahye, lan xichen/jin guangyao (& background wangxian), NSFW, 13.1k    Jin Guangyao lifts his head and smiles. "I’m considering a problem.” “Can I be of any assistance with it?” He drops a kiss on Lan Xichen’s chest. With the nail of one finger he lightly traces the characters for irony on Lan Xichen’s side. “Not this one, er-ge.” ✦ Hindsight by clockwork_spider, lan xichen/jin guangyao, ~1k    Three years after the incident at the GuanYin temple, Jin GuangYao and Nie MingJue’s coffin was unsealed and their corpses, depleted of resentful energy, were finally laid to rest, their spirits released. In his dream, Lan XiChen is visited by the spectre of his sworn brother. ✦ beyond reasons by welcome_equivocator, lan xichen/jin guangyao & lan wangji, 5.2k    “a-yao,” he says, and you are almost surprised to hear it, but he is still facing away from you, “i know about the music.” ✦ Spring Dawn 《 花落知多少 》 by iskendaris, lan xichen/jin guangyao & nie mingjue, modern au/reincarnation au, 4.5k    Meng Yao is given a second chance when he’s reincarnated. He doesn’t want a repeat of the past. However destiny has a way of interfering, and he finds himself working together with student president Lan Xichen?! Really, what is this fate?! ✦ Hold the Baby by Moonsheen, lan xichen/jin guangyao & jin zixuan/jiang yanli & lan wangji/wei wuxian & jiang cheng, 6.4k    A collection of shorts: In which a chance encounter and a fussing baby causes a slight change to Jin Guangyao’s MO. ✦ Ornament by syriala, lan xichen/jin guangyao & nie mingue & lan qiren, 1.6k    He starts to go into the bow again, and Lan Xichen intercepts his movement, stops him from bowing in a move that he might have learned from Nie Mingjue, and then his brain must short-circuit, because the only thought Lan Xichen has is that Meng Yao has the perfect height for forehead kisses. THE UNTAMED/MO DAO ZU SHI RECS - EVERY OTHER KIND OF FIC: ✦ fierce corpse Jin Zixuan by EHyde, jin zixuan/jiang yanli & jin ling & cast, 10.6k    Jin Zixuan died at Qiongqi Path. Then, Wei Wuxian brought him back. But what place does Koi Tower have for a fierce corpse? ✦ The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere by FairestCat, jiang cheng & wen qing & lan sizhui, 2.3k    There are rumours going around of a woman – a healer – travelling the countryside alone. Jiang Cheng needs to know if the rumours are true. ✦ If you only knew then (the things I only know now) by Nillegible, jiang fengmian/yu ziyuan & wei wuxian & jiang cheng & nie huaisang & lan wangji & & lan xichen & jin zixuan & cast, time travel (of a sort), 34.7k wip    Yu Ziyuan receives a warning, a letter in Jiang Cheng’s handwriting, familiar, though it seems to have evened out over long years of practice. This was from her child, but not. This Jiang Cheng, grown up in ways that it hurt to contemplate, had endured the death of his family, his Sect, and his soul. ✦ partly frozen, partly flowing by astrolesbian, lan wangji & lan xichen & lan qiren (& background wangxian), 4.9k    To discourage Lan Wangji from this idea would be to discourage him from loving, and Lan Xichen has always known that to be impossible. All he could do was nod as his brother looked at him, and finished, calmly, “Zewu-jun, I accept any punishment you see fit.” ✦ Delight in Misery by nirejseki, lan wangji & jiang cheng & lan sizhui & jin ling & lan xichen (&background wangxian), 17.4k wip    For the first time in his life, Lan Wangji didn’t want to go home. (what if he had another option?) ✦ into the light of a dark black night by dragongirlG, lan wangji & lan xichen & madam lan, 3k    On a snowy night in the dead of winter, Wu Yuhua, formerly known as Madam Lan, unexpectedly spends one last night with her sons before escaping from the Cloud Recesses. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE
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swiftletinthecloud · 6 months
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Moon in the Day is a glorious 14-episode slow burn enemies to lovers, and when it happens, we fall hard. OTP is “I wished we could have the happiness of normal but normal would mean we would have never met in the first place.” They're “I only need to see you to be relieved in this hellish place” “even if I’m the one to put you in that hellish place?” They're “I will protect you and save you from this living hell even if I’m condemning myself to hell because how can I let the one I love be in hell.” They're “I will choose you over everyone and everything over and over again, in every lifetime.” They're “the desire and hope of a person to protect the one they love is so strong that it endures for 1500 years to find its way back to their love.” They're "I'm willing to kill for you, to die for you, but more importantly, to live for you." And it's not one falls harder than the other, they are both insanely pro-each other.
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linkspooky · 3 years
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This is kinda random, but what is your top 10 favorite otps?
Sure.
#1 of All Time SPUFFY
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Spuffy, it wrote the book on both beauty and the beast archetypes, and enemies to lovers. For me the most important thing in a ship is the character development it brings about. Spike's redemption doesn't work without Buffy, because it's meeting the one person who expects better than him and won't put up with his selfish crap, that forces his character arc. Buffy's development is also nothing without Spike, it's meeting Spike that makes Buffy confront her dark side, and realize that being a good person isn't something you are, but something you work towards for the sake of your loved ones. The ideal ship should inspire this permanent character development and chane (Unless it ends tragically), they should be an inseperable part of each other's character arcs.
#2 Kumagawa / Ajimu
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This is what I was talking about when I said "unless it ends tragically". Sometimes you ship two people who should never end up together, because they probably won't accept their differences. However, even in a failed relationship, two people can be important to each other. There's not really a hapyp ending for Ajimu and Kumagawa, despite their similiarities when they're together they just seem to make each other worse. In Medaka Box they are the anti-Zenkichi and Medaka. However, for Ajimu Kumagawa represents her only human connection, and for Kumagawa Ajimu represents the first person to be "good" to him even though their relationship soured at one point. Therefore I find the ship interesting because despite the fact that they are permanently separated they are still an incredibly important part of each other's identities and who they are now.
# 3 Matsuda / Junko
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Basically for the same reason as what I said above. There is no universe where Junko and Matsuda end up in a happy relationship, as long as Junko is still Junko. However, Matsuda and DanganRonpa Zero as a whole add so much to Junko as a character. As long as Matsuda exists, Junko's more than just a black hole that only cares about despair, and I think together the side materials like IF and Zero show that Junko actually is capable of caring for people outside of her natural tendency to want to throw everything into despair, however, humanizing Junko in this manner doesn't actually make her a better person. She can have feelings like romantic, and familial love, and she still chooses to destroy those things and the people in her life. It just adds so much to Junko as a character, which is what I like ships as, an extension of characterization through character interaction.
#5 UIHAI
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I love Ui and Hairu because it's like a broken fairy tale. It was a love that could have saved Hairu, but it didn't, because for Ui he always realized his feelings too late to save anyone. Hairu was obsessively chasing after Arima for the smallest amount of approval, when Ui was right there, and already in love with her. They seem like the perfect couple that could never get together, because Hairu is too fixated on Arima, and Ui is too fixated on his job. They are perfectly suited to giving each other what they wanted, and even in lots of side materials and sketches they seem like a pair, or Ui's feelings for Hairu come across as pretty clear but it never came to be in canon.
#6 ZACK / AERITH
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Once again for the same reasons as above, it seems like a fairy tale romance of a knight, and a girl he wants to protect, but it fails completely to live up to that story. Zack and Aerith is a tragic story of first love for both of them, and it's also really formative for who Aerith is now as a character. Zack tried to be there for her, and he tried to be a hero to Aerith, only to very consistently not be there for her, and then disappear from her life all together. Much later on, Aerith is incredibly isilated, unable to fall in love with the real cloud without projecting Zack onto him. It's a relationship where in a better world they could have been there for each other, but also the failure of the relationship develops them as much as characters as them getting together might have. Zack and Aerith are one of those relationships that seems ideal on the surface but they are very different people with different wants, Zack wants to be a hero, Aerith just wants to be a person first.
#7 LINK / MIDNA
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The best zelda ship period. Once again the most important part of a ship interaction is the change that both characters inspire in each other. Midna begins not caring about Link at all, never referring to him by name, only seeing him as an object, an old legend, a hero to be used instead of a person. Midna's a manipulative freak, and Link breaks through to her because he actually isn't interested in being the hero of legend, he just wants to save the people closest to him at the village because he feels indebted to them, and Midna inevitably becomes one of those people. Link and Midna's partneship makes the game, because it's Midna who pushes him and makes him into a hero, but it's Link through his unfledging acceptance of her who inspires her to be a person once more, and not just the twilight priness.
#8 Morrigan / Warden from DRAGON AGE ORIGINS
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This and Spuffy are like the only two on this list who actually end up together, so let me just have this. Once again my favorite aspect of a ship is the transformation the relationship brings baout in a character. The warden is a non-character, but for Morrigan herself, her relationship with the warden is what allows her to escape an abusive household, and beyond that decide not to repeat the cycle of abuse with her new family. What made this ship an all time fave was in witch hunt when the Warden gets to ask her what she wants, and she's just completely confused. Even with her mother dead, Morrigan is still a tool of her mother's ambitions, it's still all about her mother wants. It's her love with the warden, either through friendship or romance that awakens Morrigan to the fact she's allowed to exist as a person with wants and needs outside of what her mother wants her to be.
#9 Kaine / Nier
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It's the Most Humanizing Ship Ever Between Two Mass Murderers. As a story, I think Nier is about finding the life, and love, in a story that is ultimately, fatally doomed. Nier only worse and worse as the game goes on but that doesn't mean there was never any love in his life. For every bad thing Nier does, he was not bad to every single person, specifically Kaine, it was Nier's love and belief in her that allows the wounds in her heart to start to heal. As Nier and Nier gets worse, Kaine's own shadow self says, that her feelings in her heart are no longer hatred, or even revenge, there's just a pure white light of love left. In a game where everything only rots, Kaine has healed to the point where she can love again when she never thought it was possible. It's why I like ending D the best, because it's Nier knowing he can never escape his own sins, but he can use his last action to heal Kaine fully all the way and allow her to live on a few more years.
#10 SATOSUGU
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Once again, there's no universe where they end up together, and yet still on opposite sides of a conflict they remain each other's closest friends. The most important thing about a ship is the character development it leads to and Gojo would not be who he is today without Suguru. I generally get the sense that Gojo's idea of a good person isn't himself, but rather who Geto used to be before he broke. Gojo actually relied on on Geto for a lot more than he realized, considering it was the one connection he had that seemed to humanize him. Geto provided the chosen one who can do literally anything in the world with his powers, support and guidance. He was the jade, and the foundation of their two person friendship, and then the jade broke.
Gojo and Geto's broken relationship is not only the most emotional thing in the series to me, it's also an incredible part of who they are ten years after the fact. Gojo straight up didn't bother to make friends for ten years later after the fact even though he could have, Geto still told his daughters that Gojo and him were best friends, they just had a fight. He couldn't comperehend in Volume Zero that Gojo would still regard him as a friend after everything that they had done.
It's like one of those "Can't live with them, can't live without them" pairs. They want to be each other's one and only but it just won't work because they don't understand each other, and neither of them is willing to compromise. They are also each other's perfect yin / yang complement. Gojo is the opposite of Geto, and still carries a part of Geto within him, and Geto even after becoming the enemy of the sorcery world while Gojo is the savior, still carries that friendship with Gojo inside of him as well. While their relationship is a failed one, it's also a past I hope that the next generation Megumi and Itadori both learn from, even if Geto never truly comes back.
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its-chelisey-stuff · 3 years
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My 2020 in dramaland pt 1/4
I’m doing this at the start of december but I’m scheduling it to be posted on Christmas Eve, because that way I can say to everyone Happy holidays! Anyway, these are the Korean dramas I watched this year (listed in the order I saw them, NOT including my favorite dramas, those will have its own post!)
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Love Alarm (2019): I don’t think I need to say what this was about lol if you haven’t seen it, chances are, you’ve heard of it. This is like all those Netflix shows I binge in one day, hate them but still can’t help but want to know what happens next and immediately need a season 2. Btw, this drama has the type of love triangle that I tolerate the most: the men who like the girl are also BFFs and never actually turn against each other, or at least suffer because they don’t really want to hurt the other. Bros before hoes! Kinda.
OTP: Jojo&SunOh. Hate that I love them tbh. But it’s mostly all thanks to him. To me, KimSoHyun’s chemistry with SongKang is the best chemistry she’s ever had with any of her co-stars. Well, maybe it’s a tie with Jisoo. Sorry Jang DongYoon. 
Thing I enjoyed the most: Knowing there’s a second season coming. I NEED CLOSURE! Dramas should never have seasons, it’s cruel.
Do I recommend it? Uhm... Yes. But beware of old tropes like Noble Idiocy super idiotic, a FL that never speaks her mind and a whole lot of nonsense angst and pining. Hey, your average kdrama basically.
Crash Landing on You: You know she actually did crash land on him. Twice. I loved that they were so doomed, it was awesome. A forbidden and beautiful romance, they were all in for each other. He was handsome and cute I mean is HyunBin! but she was my favorite: brave, sassy, bold and a CEO. I hated when they shoot her. A pity they can only be happy in Switzerland, but I liked that about their ending. (I made a sort of review of the finale here)
OTP: Awesome chemistry, have you heard about all those dating rumors? But my favorite couple was actually the second lol. I will never forgive this drama for NOT giving them a happy ending. WTF? And that’s why it’s not in my fave’s list.
Thing I enjoyed the most: Apart from the love stories? North Korean soldiers from Captain Ri’s team. Bless them.
Do I recommend it? Oh, is there someone who hasn’t seen it? For real, go watch it. It’s a romcom for the ages. Lots of nonsense and cliches. Loved it, just *one* little flaw. ALBERTOOOO!
Witch’s Court (2018): A law drama. I never watch these types of dramas. Only did it because I had a crush on Yoon HyunMin at the time, my sister made me watch it (she also had a crush on him) and I thought there was going to be way more romance. Heavy subjects, a great mom’s love and a lot of prosecutor bs.
OTP: They were cute. Wish I’d seen more of them though.
Thing I enjoyed the most:  Yoon HyunMin. But the FL was awesome in her own right.
Do I recommend it? If you like law/criminal dramas and barely a hint of romance, this one is great. And justice is served at the end.
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Hospital Playlist: It was an adorable, peaceful and relaxing watch, not what you’d expect from a hospital themed drama. Very healing (no pun intended lol). And I loved the songs they played! The weird thing is that I kept forgetting about it, and that’s why it took me so long to finish it. 
OTP: I do have one, but not the one everyone ships: Dr Yang SeokHyung and his resident played by one awesome Ahn EunJin. She confessed, he turned her down gently, Buuu!!!. Waiting patiently for S2 and HOPE their love story develops more. Dramas shouldn’t have second seasons!
Thing I enjoyed the most: The friendship of the five besties duh
Do I recommend it? Awww but of course! if you liked the Reply Series and slice of life dramas, you will like this one. Only 12 eps but they were as long as a movie lol
WHY (minidrama) 2019: Two good friends trying to cheer up their bff who just got dumped (without any explanation hence driving him slowly into a mental breakdown and an identity crisis) by going on a Jeju vacation. In the guesthouse they’re staying, they encounter two awesome, chill and fun noonas. What you’ll see here: a moving story about heartbreak and letting go, bromance and noona romance.
OTP: While most of the time the lead was in deep heartbreak thanks to his awful ex, there was a subtle romance developing while he was healing. At the end, there’s a time jump and he’s totally in the right state of mind to completely be with her and give love another try. Lovely ending.
Thing I enjoyed the most: Jung GunJoo! AKA Dohwa from Extraordinary You!!!
Do I recommend it? Of course! It’s an adorable watch. And it only takes like 2 hours of your time, maybe less, I don’t recall. Here, you can watch it on YouTube. Also, not really a fan don’t hate me lol but there’s Hwang In Yeob as the bff of the lead. And he has a very meaningful role.
Where Your Eyes Linger (minidrama): First Korean BL drama I’ve ever watched and I’m so glad that it was a wonderful first. Given the amount of time and resources I was expecting a lot less from this but they all did a very good job. Beyond my expectations, really. Wonderful acting and such an angsty friends to lovers romance that was delightfully done. I don’t usually give out scores to dramas but omg 10/10!
OTP: THEY HAD SUCH GOOD CHEMISTRY! UGH THE ANGST
Thing I enjoyed the most: Oh, everything!
Do I recommend it? Like BL dramas and want to see more of them in kdramaland? Then YES YES YES. A thousand times YES! The reason why it’s not on my favorites’ list is because I wish it was longer.
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It’s Okay to not be Okay: It had been so long since I’ve seen a KSH drama. Since his alien days lol Plus, my sister is a huge fan. Horniest kdrama of the year, for sure. Which is hilarious since the message of the whole thing was more about family. From the first episode I was waiting for the OTP to have a steamy makeout and have sex HAHAHA You know, they actually delivered, so I was happy. My review about the ending HERE
OTP: Queen MoonYoung and her horny but super restrained caretaker, KangTae. Love them.
Thing I enjoyed the most: All hail Queen Ko MoonYoung! And the best hyung, SangTae.
Do I recommend it? Yeah. Let’s be serious for a moment lmao it was a healing drama and the ending was beautiful. A few things here and there didn’t make sense though. The mom’s comeback was crazy, but meh, what are dramas without crazy? lol I guess this is not on my favorite’s list because I wasn’t as obsessed as I wish I’d been.
Was it Love?: Mamma mia, here we go again, my my, I should have resist ya! it was ALL right there but the writer didn’t have the guts to do the story right. It COULD’VE BEEN Mamma Mia, but all the potential went to waste. THE POTENTIAL!! You want to know who the dad of her daughter is? The only dude she ever slept with, her only ex! Big surprise. The writer! There, saved you the trouble. My rant on the ending here
OTP: Well, it wasn’t the leads, that’s for sure. It’s the second leads (or was he the third lead and she the second?)who ended up together, or at least it was hinted at. The female lead had way more chemistry with the one dude she was never romantically linked to, which is hilarious to me. Ugh so much wasted potential...
Thing I enjoyed the most: Gangster dude and his son! Bless them.
Do I recommend it? Jesus, NO. DON’T. Watch Mamma Mia with Meryl Streep, instead. That’s gold and it’s what they wanted to try to do for a moment here. Still wondering how I managed to finish this...
Record of Youth: Another drama I can’t believe I actually finished. A handsome model transitioning into an actor and becoming the main provider for the family that never fully supported him and had to pay for the debt of the dad that always belittled his dreams. Underdeveloped characters, a female lead that was outshined by CAMEOS of other women(in her 1 minute scene, KimHyeYoon had more chemistry with PBG), plots that went nowhere and a terrible pairing that had very little chemistry. A ranting about the finale and my wasted time, HERE
OTP: who? Ah, yeah, I guess there sort of was one... The photographer friend and the sister of the jealous friend. Their ending was ambiguous.
Thing I enjoyed the most: PBG, he carried this mess on his back.
Do I recommend it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA No. Please, don’t watch it.
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Private Lives: An orphan who was recluted to become a spy and works for a conglomerate that holds the power to decide the next president of Korea AND a con woman who wants revenge because her dad got sent to jail. They meet and fall in love and it’s the cutest thing ever but on their wedding day he misteriously disappears and... that’s it. Everything that happens after that makes zero sense. By the end I was more interested in the second leads.
OTP: TWO (but mostly the second couple) and the reason why I finished this drama at all.
Thing I enjoyed the most: Second leads. BokGi and Eduardo (yeah, I know that wasn’t his real name). I’d watch a drama of those two. Even if it was by the same writer.
Do I recommend it? Well... not really. LOL If you’re interested to know more about it, read my “recaps” of each episode HERE or read about the last ep here. You’ll understand about the same as if you were to actually watch it, but you will not waste your time. I hope? LOL
Start Up: A grandma with good intentions, a FL that lost it all as a kid, letters that weren’t really that genuine, a rich, cocky and petty jerk who wasn’t the ML (I mean by definition he had everything to be the male lead lol) and the actual ML (a genius who suffers from the biggest case of Impostor Syndrome I’ve ever seen). No one except for the FL mostly is honest. A time jump that was there just for the sake of angst and not quite done right. Also, making a business with your friends involves a whole lot of nonsense and drama. And a “love triangle” that drove the fandom to madness. And wait, the sister was the second female lead? She was more secondary than the secondary characters. This drama is seriously not what it seems at first lol
OTP: DalMi&DoSan. Adorable. The oly reason I finished this. From the moment they announced the cast and learned who the leads were, I knew I was gonna ship them. And that’s how I never get SLS lol
Thing I enjoyed the most: The answer to that question is HERE
Do I recommend it? Honestly, yeah. Just turn off your brain and never discuss it on social media. Binge it and move on with life. Not the best drama, but tbh not the worst. Well it is the worst by the writer lol Wow it sounds like I hated it, but it’s just that the fanwars really got to me haha and it’s all so recent, but I actually did love the love story and the grandma was a treasure.
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Author Interview
I was tagged by the lovely @ianandmickeygallavich1​ 
(Throwing a read more in here because this bitch got LONG!)
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
I have 136 works across 45 fandoms, just to give you an idea of what a shameless fandom hopping multishipper I actually am.
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
My total WC is 676,938.
3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
By a Thread, By a String, By a Rope The Magnificent Seven (2016), WIP, Kudos: 987
Matinee Suits, 5125 words, Kudos: 947
Careful Application of External Pressure Grimm, WIP, Kudos: 876
This Night Ain’t for the Holy Man The Magnificent Seven (2016), 5578 words, Kudos: 875
Catch It Like a Butterfly Leverage, 1497 words, Kudos: 658
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I try really hard to respond to every comment, but sometimes they pile up and the anxiety of seeing the number gets to me and I just mark them all read and start over with a clean slate. So, apologies if I skipped you. I promise it was nothing personal, just me trying to practice some fumbling self-care.
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Probably Curtain Call, which is a Roy Harper-centric DCU fic exploring his feelings in the aftermath of the 2015 Red Hood/Arsenal run.
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
Pretty much all my fic have happy endings, so I’m not sure which one is the happiest. I feel like that’s a subjective question, haha.
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?
I do write crossovers! I love crossovers and crack fic premises and wild “okay but just go with me here” scenarios, haha. They’re the most fun to figure out, imo. The craziest one I’ve ever written is probably the Shameless-meets-Ducktales crossover I did for Tumblr Jukebox a little while back, though the one I picked up as a pinch hit for the Crossworks Fandom Exchange just last month, crossing over Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Dragon Age: Inquisition is definitely a contender for that spot.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
I received a couple of snide comments on a Matt/Foggy Daredevil fic I did under a different name back when I was in college, but that’s about it.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I do! I don’t think I’m particularly bad at it, though I do find it very difficult. I’m not sure what the “what kind” question is asking, exactly, but I actually do a smut writing challenge called Monday, Slutty Monday that includes a list of kinks I’m willing to write. You can give it a gander here, if you’re curious.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
No, though I have had someone ask if they could use the concept of the lover’s noose from By a Thread, By a String, By a Rope for their original works. I said no, largely because it’s a concept I intend to use in my own original works, though I welcome transformative, not-for-profit works to remix or reimagine or play in any of my sandboxes.
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
I have! I was lucky enough to have Doomed to Play, a Magnificent Seven werewolf/vampire AU, translated into Russian several years back!
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
I have not! I am extremely interested, though, as I’m a huge fan of old-school, forum-style roleplaying and I really, really love collaborating on projects, so if you’re interested, please feel free to reach out to me and ask! I can’t promise anything, because I’m lucky enough to live a very full and busy life, but who knows!
13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?
I am not really sure that I have an all-time favorite ship. I have a few oldies but goodies that I revisit pretty regularly, including Harry/Draco, which was baby’s first ship, and Fraser/Kowalski of Due South fame, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a true OTP.
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
God, so many of them, haha. I’m terrible about finishing WIPs because I have a very short attention span, but I’m not fully willing to write any of them off because I do periodically poke at the GDocs for a lot of them, even if they haven’t been updated in years. The only one I truly don’t foresee finishing is So Let Us Not Be Lonesome, which is a Magnificent Seven ghost/medium AU, and the only reason I don’t foresee finishing it is because I hope to one day revisit it as an original work.
15. What are your writing strengths?
I’m pretty routinely cheered in comments for writing true-to-character dialogue, really lush sensory descriptions, and tempting food descriptions, so I’ll go with those.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
I tend to overwrite and I really fucking love adverbs, haha. I was a big reader of doorstopper fantasy in my youth, which tend to be really, really purple in their prose, so I lean in that direction. I have a lot of betas whose opinions I trust tell me I go too purple quite often, but I love my descriptive language so I’m not sure it’s a weakness I’ll ever overcome. Let’s call it a stylistic choice, for now, haha.
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I do it all the time, and I really enjoy it in other folks’ fic, so long as the dialogue is something that a non-speaker can still understand from context. I think I probably wasn’t great with that when I first started writing Spanish-speaking characters into my fic, but I like to think I’ve gotten a better handle on it since then.
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
I think it was honestly Ronin Warriors, an anime that used be on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block way back in the day. I had a lengthy and involved Mary Sue self-insert fic that got be like, a few hundred pages long, though it never saw the light of day.
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
The two currently at the top of my list are Ted Lasso and 9-1-1, though I can hardly watch a piece of media these days without seeing something in it I want to explore that the creators didn’t have the time or inclination to explore, or that didn’t fit their narrative.
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
Oh, this is so hard! I honestly don’t know. I don’t tend to go back and re-read my own fic too terribly often, so I’m really not sure, but I will say that one of the ones I think is underrated is The Lady and the Knife, which is a Luther/BBC Sherlock fic that came about because I got tired of Sherlock stans claiming his behavior should be forgiven because he was a high-functioning sociopath and thought it would be fun to see what happened if he ever crossed paths with someone who was actually a high-functioning sociopath and not just a dick. (Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the early BBC Sherlock and some of the fic is chefkissingfingers.gif, I just really hate it when people require their characters to be morally upright at all times. Let them be villains! Let them be dicks! Don’t apologize for finding that interesting!)
I am tagging @thesummoningdark, @blahblahblahclintnickiscanon, @townhulls, @ksansart @rubinecorvus @persipneiwrites @irolltwenties and anyone else who feels like participating! I have a lot of mutuals who write fic and I’m really bad at remembering everyone’s various handles, so please, if you want to participate but I didn’t tag you, go ahead and do it and @ my ass anyway!
Luh ya bbs.
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anika-ann · 4 years
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Attached: Hurtful Words Pt.2
Type: (mini)-series,  Modern-college-professor AU… aka the wrong attachment AU ;)
Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader   Word count: 3530
Summary:  Steve’s been hit hard with the events involving bad poetry on campus too. He thinks he knows what needs to be done; but sometimes, what people truly need is a really good friend who knocks some sense into them. 
Enter Bucky Barnes and Penny Cooper.
A/N: Attached: Hurtful Words is an addition that loosely followes the Attached series. You don’t necessarily need to read the mini-series as a whole, but you will understand much better.
Warnings: mentions of name calling and humiliation, brief violence, swearing, some angst and lots of talking
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Story masterlist
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The friendship between Bucky and Steve had begun with a beautiful chain reaction.
On a cold November day many years ago, a six-year-old Steve Rogers witnessed a pair of stupid boys stealing a girl’s hat and tossing it around and he stepped in; a seven-year-old Bucky Barnes saw two jerks hitting a younger and obviously weaker kid and decided to take it personally.
That day, Bucky Barnes met Steve Rogers and instantly became a protective older brother, for he recognized that Steve had a brave and kind heart. That day, they became easy friends, because Steve recognized the same qualities in Bucky.
Even if they grew as people, they had their ups and downs, they never grew apart completely and stayed best friends for life – and the protectiveness over each other never disappeared. Which was only one of the reasons why Bucky felt an unbearable urge to punch someone – preferably the idiots who got his OTP into this mess.
Fairly enough, he wanted to punch you a little bit as well for keeping Steve in the dark and hurting him too, but hey – you were entitled at least, you were the target of the jest that the three antichrists came up with.
Hell, Bucky even considered reaching out to you himself since you kept ignoring Steve; not necessarily to scold you, god forbid actually punch you, but just to beg you to talk to his friend.
In the end, he decided against it, because it wasn’t quite his business and you probably knew better than him when you were ready to talk. God knew that seeing you broken and in tears would hurt Steve too and it would only feed his doubts and as Bucky suspected, misplaced guilt.
No one wanted to see that right? Bucky surely didn’t.
He truly just wanted his friend happy and the thing was, you made him the happiest Bucky had ever seen him, even with the complications and ‘controversy’ surrounding your relationship.
So when after days of silence on your end Bucky entered the office and saw a sombre expression on Steve’s face, somewhat more pensive than his recent usual, and a phone in his hand, he froze in the doorway, heart stopping in his chest.
Oh. Oh no, please don’t let that be it.
His heart kicked back in when he focused on Steve’s eyes – they were downcast, but visibly not teary and Bucky breathed a sigh of relief. Manly men and all that, but fuck, Steve would shed a tear or two if you two were completely definitely over. Oh, and he would probably devastate the office in a burst of frustration.
“Hey Steve,” Bucky hummed nonchalantly, closing the door behind him and making his way to his desk. “Who was that?”
He purposely didn’t look at Steve so the punk wasn’t shy about talking about whatever conversation he had. It happened on occasion, Steve keeping stuff to himself, when he was thinking he was annoying Buck – but joke was on him. Yes, Steve could be annoying as fuck, but Bucky could stand a few emotional talks when his friend was on the verge of losing what seemed to be the love of his life.
“Uhm… nobody,” Steve responded simply, putting the device away. He started going through the papers on his desk as if searching for something in attempt to look busy.
Bucky rolled his eyes. As if that would work on him.
“Right. Try again.”
The rustling stopped, a resigned sigh falling from Steve’s lips before he admitted the truth. “Penny Cooper.”
Bucky’s head snapped to Steve, eyebrows jumping for a second.
He did not expect that answer, but he couldn’t say he found it an unpleasant surprise. When Bucky had thought about contacting you, he considered getting in touch with your best friend too.
And yes, he knew Penn Cooper’s name; hell, he had met her on a sort-of friendly hang-out night where you and Steve tried and very much failed at not being a disgustingly-in-love couple when having a night out with friends. Bucky hadn’t complained nearly as much as he could have, mostly because he was delighted to see Steve so lovestruck for a girl who was evidently just as lovestruck for him.
Anyway.
“Ah, Penny. You finally decided to call her. Good. How did it go?”
Steve didn’t appear to share Bucky’s hopeful sentiment, running a hand down his face and turning his gaze to the ceiling.
Bucky narrowed his eyes; while his heart sank at what seemed to be no good news, he could tell that this was not a mourning Steve. In fact, looking closer at Steve as he approached his desk, it was dawning to him that this was Steve overthinking something he heard from Penny.
Great. That’s probably even worse.
In attempt to prevent a catastrophe in making, Bucky did the only thing that came to his mind. He probed.
“That bad, huh?” he stated more than asked, crossing his arms on his chest. “She told you to leave her bestie alone?”
Steve grimaced, his eyebrows furrowing; a clear sign that he was digging deeper into a hole he was creating for himself in his head. The pit of misery and gloom. The pit of despair.
“Not exactly… I think.”
That was the problem with Steve really – sometimes, he thought. Steve Rogers was in fact known for occasional and epical impulsiveness, but so the gods above help if he sank into a well of overthinking. Because that usually led to a stupid decision, which was practically irreversible due to Steve’s infamous determination and stubbornness. It was next to impossible to talk him out of something once he made up his mind.
“Stop that, punk,” Bucky warned him silently, uncrossing his arms and giving Steve a glare.
“Stop what?” Steve asked with a sigh, as if he didn’t know.
“Overthinking. Get out of your head. It just produces loads of bullshit right now.”
“Bucky-“ was all that Steve said, sending his friend an imploring gaze, but Bucky was not fooled. The wheels of doom were still turning in Steve’s head, inevitably leading to the aforementioned bullshit.
And as Bucky had learned the hard way, once the final stage of decision-making was reached, there was no going back. Not with Steve. Which meant he had to stop that disastrous thought before Steve’s stubborn ass grew it into an apocalypse plant.
Then, Steve’s expression shifted; a minor change, yet all too visible to a man who knew him since he was a kid.
Bucky recognized what just happened… and he panicked.
When Bucky Barnes was panicking, he did things he wasn’t necessarily proud of later, but of which he was certain would work.
Plus, the quickly set-up plan was bound to kill two birds in one stone, giving Bucky’s unbearable urge lasting for the past few days an outlet. Win-win, crisis averted, right?
“Get up off your ass,” Bucky ordered, earning a half-heartedly invested surprised and confused raise of eyebrows from his friend.
However, Steve did not stand up.
“Get up, Steven.”
Slightly annoyed but resigned, Steve rose to his feet, the movement a testimony of how exhausted he was. How much energy the past few days had stolen from him… how much of energy he had spent on navigating through the maze of confusing and self-doubting thoughts.
But that was ending now; Bucky was going to make sure of that.
“What?” Steve sighed, clearly expecting more of the pep-talk, possibly more intense since he was asked to stand upright.
He was wrong.
Sorry, Steve.
Like a lightning, Bucky’s fist shot up to Steve’s nose and connected with it with a snap.
Steve stumbled back into the chair, barely catching himself and his nose, staring on Bucky wide-eyed and hurt.
To be fair, Bucky was hurting too – fuck, he forgot how punching people without boxing gloves felt.
“The fhuck-“
“-is wrong with you?!” Bucky finished as he was wondering the same, shaking his hand in hopes to distract himself from the pain.
For a brief second, satisfaction flashed in Steve’s eyes; but Bucky could tell that his get-out-of-your-head technique worked, so he was pretty satisfied himself. Not to mention that Steve probably felt that punch in the back of his skull, having literally rocked his world.
“I wah jugh godda hask!” Steve mumbled, checking the fingers hovering around his nose for blood, frowning as they indeed stained in some crimson – but nothing terrible, Bucky thought.
Then again, he wasn’t the one with cracked nose.
“Outta your head now?” he asked, unable to hide all of his smugness.
Steve frowned at him, clenching his jaw, but didn’t try to punch him back as he probably realized which purpose the unexpected and unusual violence served.
“Bhacky, wah ta hell-?”
“Right before I punched you – you decided to give up on her, didn’t you?” Bucky questioned, being 95% sure about it. Steve’s face told him it should have been 100%. Idiot. Sad and having the right, but still an idiot. “The Steve Rogers I know wouldn’t give up.”
“How did you even-?” Steve asked incredulously, not trying to deny it, not even with his words.
As if Bucky still needed words with him. He knew him almost better than himself.
Also, it was funny how quickly Steve’s punch-induced mumble disappeared.
“You kidding? You’re acting like I didn’t know you since you were six. And during all that time, I didn’t see you give up, not fucking once!”
The slight raise in volume of Bucky’s voice stirred something in Steve – or perhaps it was the accusatory tone by which Bucky was shamelessly trying to provoke a reaction. Because really, Steve desperately needed to leave his overactive brain behind and experience some new emotion besides pure misery and guilt. Anger was okay, Bucky supposed – not great, but okay.
“Jesus, Buck! You know this isn’t it! Look at the mess we already made!” Steve exploded, throwing his hand in the air. “What about in the future? She was planning doing her master’s here! And what about in her future job? It was on the Internet – it never goes away! It will stay with her like a fucking plague, a bomb loaded with C4 ready to be set off! They’ll do a background check and come across it and decide that it would send a bad message to people. Or they’ll humiliate her again, mock her that she’s gonna start an affair on the workplace too. She won’t get the job just because of being with me and they’ll call her a whore on top of that--she doesn’t deserve that!”
The name you had been called stood out even in the long passionate monologue – Steve spited it out with so much venom and hatred towards anyone who would dare to call you that that Bucky nearly had to take a step back from the intense crackling in the air.
He watched Steve take a deep breath in silence, frustrated and sorrowful blue orbits watching with a silent plea to understand.
And Bucky did; he really did. To a point.
“She doesn’t deserve that, Buck,” Steve echoed in a whisper.
A whisper of a broken man, torn between seeking his own happiness on expense of someone else’s and doing what was right in his mind.
Bucky reciprocated the stare, simultaneously impressed and unimpressed as his mind had already put together what Steve had been thinking before saying it out loud. Steve’s speech only confirmed his fears of how Steve would twist what was happening into something he was to be blamed for completely... and would come up with doomsday scenarios.
Except there were always two people (well, sometimes more), when it came to this sort of thing, weren’t there? Two people who were equally participating in this relationship, both very much willingly.
“…you done?”
The plea in Steve’s eyes seemed to deepen before he averted Bucky’s gaze in shame.
Like Steve should be ashamed for the crimes against human decency others committed. Crimes like writing bad poetry and putting in on walls.
“No. You know what else is there. I know you know.”
Yes, Bucky knew.
“You bet your perfect dramatic ass I do, Rogers. I figured they weren’t exactly love letters, because you have zero poker face. How many times? What did they call you? A perv? A molester?” Bucky grinded his teeth, the urge to hit someone returning instantly, hungry and thirsty for blood – and Steve’s nose wouldn’t do this time. He needed a real asshole so he could feel like he made a difference.
Bucky was aware that Steve had started receiving the hate letters almost as soon as the whispers about the relationship started. He had never said a word about them to Bucky and at first, Bucky had been thinking they might have been love letters from someone else, causing him to frown, because in which universe wanted Steve someone unhappy, let alone because of him?
But it soon dawned to him; precisely because Steve hadn’t shared them. Not with Buck and not with you, he suspected. He couldn’t decide which was worse.
“…among other things,” Steve sighed and shook his head. “It would be tiring, it is, but… you’re right. I don’t give up easily. That kind of hate letters… those I can handle. But they said I’ll ruin her future too… and they’re right, it’s already started. I can’t-- not her, Buck. I can’t watch her deal with that bullshit. This can never happen again. I—I have to let her go.”
Weren’t they just over it? That Steve’s head was in no state to make reasonable choices?
“You cannot unring a bell, Steve. It’s done. You said so, it’s on the internet. Tony’s done his best to delete the trail, so the digital print is practically non-existent, but it’s done,” Bucky remarked matter-of-factly. “The things you’re saying, they might be true to some extent, not as tragic as you paint them though. The question is – are you gonna fight for the two of you, so the good stays too… or are you gonna leave like that, on that real fucked-up note and regret it in few years’ time when you look back at this?”
Bucky could pinpoint the exact moment all fight left Steve’s body – his shoulders slumped and his expression turned resigned, almost desperate as he looked up into Bucky’s eyes, his gaze speaking thousands of words.
“It doesn’t matter,” Steve whispered, averting Bucky’s gaze then, focusing on his desk instead, staring blindly ahead. “She wouldn’t talk to me, Buck. I tried, you know that. She’s done with me.“
Bucky sighed and leaned his palms onto the desk, easing the pressure on Steve’s poor tormented soul by softening his demeanour. In the end, all he was trying to do was to help – no matter how frustrated he was getting.
“Of course she wouldn’t talk you, Steve. She’s probably just as caught up in her head as you are in yours. I just hope that Cooper is working on getting her out. What did she tell you?”
Steve gulped and bit on the inside of his cheek. Bucky would swear he saw a hint of a blush on his friend’s cheek and an unpleasant hunch crept up on him.
Oh no, he didn’t.
“…that I shouldn’t come over so I don’t push her too much. That she might not be responding, but she’s listening to all of my voicemails and reads all the texts and e-mails, so until she explicitly asks me to lose her number, I should keep trying,” Steve mumbled, traces of both hope and shame lacing his voice.
Bucky pushed off of the desk and huffed loudly, looking up to the ceiling and pleading God for strength.
A dumbass. His friend was a complete and utter dumbass.
When Bucky spared him a glare that told the blond what he was thinking, Steve sunk further into his chair.
And Bucky was honestly so so done.
Hadn’t he been delighted at the turn of events and Penny, the best friend, giving them hope, he might have punched Steve again for being a dramatic fool. And for being an idiot.
“Sometimes I think you like getting punched, Steven, I have no other explanation,” Bucky deadpanned and then closed his eyes and went to massage the bridge of his nose to ease the headache that was starting to build up in reaction to stress. He loved Steve to bits, honest to God, but he really could be an idiot sometimes. “So you talk to the friend, who probably knows her through and through, she tells you this and still you go: nah, let’s leave her alone, let’s break things off, let’s give up. Jesus, Steve.”
Steve held up his hands palms up, apparently lost and clueless.
Okay, Bucky felt for him. But still.
“I don’t know what else to do, Buck. I- I love her. She’s everything I could ever want, I cannot imagine losing her. It’s… it’s making me sick to just think-- but I don’t want to ruin her life either, Buck, I don’t want to-“
“Be happy?” Bucky interrupted, earning a deadly glare from his friend. “Don’t give me that look. I told you. Now, she’s probably still processing, just like you. Her head is probably a mess… just like yours. I know it’s hard, fuck, I know. But try and do what Cooper is telling you and stay patient. Oh, and I don’t know, maybe just-- don’t. Give. Up.”
Bucky had to gather his next thoughts, not at all happy about what he was about to say next, feeling like he was undermining the message he was trying to get through. But he believed that Steve needed to hear that too – his righteous side would love it, in fact.  
“And then, let her make the choice. It will hurt like a bitch if she decides to break up, but at least you won’t be making her choice for her. I think there’s a fair chance that she’ll come around. She likes you a lot too, you know.”
“She said anything to you?” Steve’s head snapped up automatically, his face lighting up with a hint of an eager smile.
Hadn’t he been so cute, Bucky would have rolled his eyes at him. Instead, he shared his observation that took zero effort to gain. Everyone who had at least one functioning eye would notice… which included Fury. Anyway-
“She didn’t have to. It’s written all over her face, in her body language. Shit Steve, you practically live together, how can you even doubt her feelings for you? I thought you were like… soulmates almost. Shared everything and stuff…” Which lead him to another thought, a brief surge of fear that there was one thing that might complicate this matter further if possible. “But she doesn’t know about those ‘love’ letters, does she?”
“God, of course not!”
“Good, then she can make a decision to overcome this on her own, just like you decided to deal with your problem alone,” Bucky offered and a smile slowly spread on his lips. “Just… share it with her once things are a bit calmer, will ya’? You don’t want her to find out on her own.”
Steve mirrored his expression, the tension in his body visibly easing. Bucky could kiss Penny Cooper at that moment. Hell, maybe he would the next time he saw her, just because.
“…you really think I should keep trying?” Steve asked, genuinely curious, but obviously knowing the answer already, seeing as his bashful smile widened.
Really?!
“Steven, my hand hurts, don’t make me punch you again.”
“…point taken,” Steve chuckled, turning his palms to Bucky in a show of meaning no harm. And not wanting to get hit again, probably. “I can’t believe you hit me.”
Bucky had to admit that it wasn’t his brightest moment – but hey, it worked, so guess it was sort of a genius move after all.
His eyebrows jumped suggestively, teasing. “Didn’t think I’d see the day you’ll be on the receiving end of the infamous Barnes’ super-jab.”
“Oh, quit bragging.”
“Blah blah blah, you’re just mad because my fists are like made of iron,” Bucky exclaimed, clenching them and showing them off, causing another chuckle bubble in Steve’s chest.
Bucky’s heart jumped in joy – it was like gift from heavens to see Steve like this after the days of gloom.
“Jerk.”
“Punk.”
“Thank you,” Steve retorted in the same manner, but Bucky read honest gratitude in the two simple words.
“You’re welcome,” he replied with the similar simplicity and depth they both understood. “Drinks?”
“God, yes.”
“No hard liquor tho, we need you in good shape when your girl calls you back,” Bucky pointed out, satisfied when Steve’s smile widened a fraction more.
“You got yourself a deal, Buck.”
⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰
The night before graduation ceremony, Steve forwarded one of the strangest texts he had ever received to Bucky: Come. Incognito. Blend with the crowd till you get a signal.
Steve apparently wasn’t sure what was your best friend trying to say – or he rather had no clue why would she ask him to do that, why come to the graduation (which made him hopeful) and why in secret (which confused the heck out of him).
He and Bucky agreed that Steve should listen to the advice though; what did he have to lose anyway?
Few minutes before midnight, Steve sent a simple answer: OK.
Several moments later, somewhere in the campus, another phone beeped on a young woman’s nightstand.
Operation: Morons is on.
⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰
Part 3 (final for Attached: Hurtful Words)
⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰
Thank you for reading! 
It got a bit out of hand... I really had planned this to be a two-shot for the series, but my usual longwinded writing got in the way. I hope that’s okay and that you liked the Steve-Bucky bro moment at least a bit :)
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