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tlonista · 5 months

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A whole mess of Astarion hurt/comfort fanfic recs

OK fine I've read so much Astarion hurt/comfort-adjacent fic that I should really put together an incomplete rec list. Be warned that with Astarion's canon backstory there's a lot of abuse and assault references of varying explicitness, so check the AO3 tags. I'm also limiting myself to one fic per author because otherwise I'd end up with several pages of Asidian and FlowerCitti. In case you're wondering, my personal contribution to the field is Seducere.

Ongoing Fics:

innocence died screaming by FlowerCitti

Comprehensive pre- and in-canon Astarion character study. Contains possibly the most heartwrenching post-Astarion-locked-tomb-era turn I've ever read. Very good.

Another Path by Asidian

A sweet Wyllstarion monster hunter x monster no-tadpole AU in which Astarion gets captured/rescued by Wyll straight out of a year in a coffin and navigates basic human kindness for the first time in a couple centuries.

Seen by ayvaines

Modern Bloodweave AU where Cazador is Astarion's cruel, controlling boyfriend and Gale is the kind D&D GM who's hosting them both in a game. As makes sense for a modern AU, it's a more-understated-than-canon take on Astarion coming to terms with the fact that he's in an abusive relationship, working out his feelings about Cazador through tabletop roleplaying, including some clever scenes dealing with the bleed of intense RPG sessions.

Heartbeats by LadyRagnelle

Canon-divergent Durgestarion fic where Astarion was recaptured by his siblings, memory-wiped, and then rescued by a team of companions he no longer remembers. A lot of well-executed (and sometimes surprisingly funny) angst around Astarion, charlatan that he is, trying to pretend he hasn't forgotten absolutely everything including how to be a non-level-1 rogue and have friends.

The stars began to burn by peregrinefeathers

Gale is trapped in fantasy nullspace and gets Astarion free of Cazador's clutches, after which they navigate an odd-couple relationship while trying to kill Cazador and pull Gale back into the physical world. Another classic "Astarion learns what human decency is" no-tadpole AU.

Memoir by IzzyIzGay

An Interview with the Vampire-style fic in which Astarion tells Gale about his time under Cazador, playing with that series' trademark unreliable narration and an unusually literal version of Cazador's creepy family dynamic.

Starved by neo7v

A modern non-magical Bloodweave AU featuring Astarion and the lonely degradation of a precarious service industry job! Only a few chapters so far, but seriously, it takes the "vampiric starvation" theme in a direction that's very mundane and miserable and compelling and it's one of my favorite recently started fics.

Unexpected Guests by Erandir

Another "get loved and cared for, sucker" no-tadpole AU featuring a non-Tav druid OC taking care of a lost Astarion who's escaped Baldur's Gate. Astarion and druids, the perfect foil.

Through The Night Dark And Drear by JJJSchmidt

Astarion is accidentally bargained off to an archfey by Cazador and taken to the palace of infuriatingly confusing fair folk magic! There's still a lot of story left to be uncovered, but I love the worldbuilding and fairy-tale premise.

snare by parsnipit

A Halstarion fic where Astarion never got tadpoled and the gang ends up rescuing him from Cazador, post-game, with his compulsions very much intact. Which leads naturally to hissing wet cat Astarion reluctantly learning to trust Halsin while they plot to take down Cazador.

One-Shots:

Quick Step by starkraving

starkraving's another person who could have made up a big chunk of this list, and this character study plays really well on the classic "how the hell does Astarion know how to be a rogue anyway" fandom conversation. My favorite entry in a good and growing series of Astarion-centered fics.

Gifts by Feena_c

Astarion gets caught by Cazador before the confrontation at the palace. Impeccable "Cazador doesn't realize Astarion didn't just come back to Baldur's Gate, he came back loved" vibe, as Cazador tries to break Astarion by taking away the gifts the tadpole gang gave him along the way.

What is Affection but the Absence of Cruelty by Aztec24

One of my favorite tropes is "Astarion tortures himself by obsessively imagining how awful these perfectly nice people will be to him," and this very much delivers. Featuring a rare two-Tavs-plus-Astarion throuple!

The Mimic by ForsakenFlyingCircus

This is really hurt-no-comfort, but I'm including it because it's a good super sad take on dehumanization with an awful Tav confirming all the worst things Astarion thinks about himself and the world, touching on the whole problem of sentient monsters in D&D.

Peel the scars from off my back by WitchyBee

A Spawn Family fic in the aftermath of Astarion getting Cazador's contract on his back - lots of antagonistic but grudgingly caring sibling interaction and Astarion being satisfyingly ambivalent about it all.

Complete Multi-Chapter Fic:

Just A Taste by NightmareGiraffe

The tadpole gang gets imprisoned at Moonrise Towers and Astarion accepts an offer from Araj Oblodra in exchange for their freedom. A very dark yet totally in-character elaboration on the canon blood merchant encounter, plus a cool dragonborn Tav.

The Accountant’s Guide to Taking Down an Evil Vampire Lord (and maybe bagging Astarion while you are at it) by Cinnamontails

A charming f!OC-who-isn't-Tav/Astarion longfic that combines hurt/comfort with het romance novel conventions, which I feel like is rarely pulled off.

And I know there's a ton I missed here -- god this fandom is big.

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #fic recs #hurt/comfort

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snek-panini · 24 days

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It's been a month since Binderary ended but I've still got books to share! This is @worse0mens's (hi!) wonderful Good Omens series, The Blossom Realm, which starts with Omens of Another Kind. This is very much a longtime favorite of mine, an AU with a really compelling combo of worldbuilding and characterization. This is a believable grand romance that's also a court drama and a fairy tale, and it's really long (the full series is about 220k words) so it will keep you reading for a long time. This is one of the fics I learned bookbinding for, and it was the first really long fic that I typeset (and redid once I learned more about typesetting). It's been a long road but it was so worth it.

More photos under the cut!

Couple of photos of the spines. The series doesn't divide easily, with one very long work, one medium-length one, and several shorter pieces. The main story is nearly 200k on its own, the longest single volume I've ever made (about 500 pages), and I was worried about it getting too unwieldy, so I put all the other works into their own volume of about 100 pages. They make a disparate set but I love them. The cover is done in skiver green faux leather from Hollander's; I've never worked with this brand before but I loved it, and one sheet was big enough to do both books. The titles are done in cricut brand gold foil htv. There were some issues with that, as I'd bought a multi-pack with a few different colors and only found out after applying the front cover graphics on both books that one, I didn't have enough to do the backs and spines; two, that the gold in that pack is a totally different color than the gold they sell on its own; and three, that no one in my area stocked it anymore and I had to order it from Europe. Here's what the back looks like:

It's the same graphic as the front but without the title in the center, and it's one of the fanciest backs I've ever done and it took forever to weed all those little cutouts. The graphic was free to use on rawpixel. The font I used on the spines and front is a basic Microsoft font called Harrington that worked incredibly well on the cricut, even at small sizes; a lot of basic fonts are too thin, especially fancy ones, so this was a delightful surprise.

Photo of the top, with ribbon bookmark and handmade double core endbands. The endbands didn't come out as well as I'd have liked; they're a little uneven and the color changes aren't that evenly spaced. Double core ones are harder than I expected and I need more practice. The endpapers are chocolate silk moire, and I chose them because there's a very important massive tree in the fic and I thought they looked like wood grain. I did a little experimenting with the shorter volume that's visible around the edges of the endpaper. I wanted gilded edges but the longer book had to be rounded, and I thought I'd try paint instead of foil since I don't know how to foil a curved edge. But I did my experiments on the smaller volume and I couldn't get good coverage, so the edge had to be trimmed off. The watered-down paint had leaked into the edge of the silk moire too far for me to trim, so it's still there. But it's kind of pretty, so I'm going to call it an aesthetic choice.

The title pages are the same, with free graphics from rawpixel. I got lucky and found a similar set of roses that I used for the chapter headers:

These had to be positioned by hand for each chapter so they'd fit around the text properly. It was a pain but they look so pretty. The final photo contains a story spoiler, so proceed with caution if you don't want that:

The scene break image in both volumes is this tiny snake. This was one of the first aesthetic choices I made for the books. A lot of the plot is centered around a prophecy about a monster snake that everyone thinks will destroy the kingdom, and of course in the manner of Good Omens fic it's a wildly inaccurate misinterpretation and not a threat at all. I wanted something like this because the snake is not only non-threatening but it's been here the entire time and there was never any reason to freak out about it. It was surprisingly difficult to find a snake image that was both simple enough to still be clear at this size and also didn't look dangerous or like a cartoon character. I looked at so many snakes before I found this one, it's ridiculous.

And that's it! I hope the author likes it (and remembers me since I asked to do this almost a year ago). There are three more binderary posts forthcoming, though I don't know how long it'll take me to get to them. It was a busy month.

#bookbinding #fanbinding #snek makes books #good omens #fic rec #everyone look at my books they are so pretty #and then go read the fic it's so good omg

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stevieharringtonwifeguy · 1 year

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i keep thinking about my changeling steve au that i posted about here like. What About His Parents

this ended up so long i put it on ao3 too, you can read it here

like steves known he’s a changeling for a few months now, and in that time his parents still haven’t come home. he hasn’t really thought about it, except during his weekly scheduled 3am identity crisis. eddie’s told him that based on what he knows about changelings (just from old stories and things, neither he nor wayne have ever actually met one, which makes him kind of useless as a guru but like. points for trying), their human parents usually have a human baby that gets replaced and they don’t notice until the kid grows up Wrong. honestly, it figures that his parents just never got around to noticing.

at least that’s what he thinks. but one day, he’s walking past his dad’s office, struggling to carry a huge pile of laundry bc he put it off too long and ended up having to wash like literally every piece of clothing he owns. and a tshirt slips right as he passes the door. he reaches out for it on instinct, brushes his hand against the handle, and it hurts. hurts so bad he drops his laundry, instinctively drawing his hand in to cradle the pain. did he overestimate his strength again? he’s been doing that a lot lately, kind of embarrassing to break his hand or something punching a doorknob by accident. but then he looks at his hand, and he doesn’t have the kind of mark he’d expect from just whacking it really hard. it’s red and shiny, like a burn in the exact shape of the doorknob

it’s an iron burn. none of the other knobs in the house are iron.

honestly of all the restrictions placed on him now that he’s become Fully Fae, he thought the iron sensitivity would come up more often. turns out not much is made of iron anymore. all the other doorknobs he’s touched have been aluminum or brass or something. so far the whole ‘needing to be invited in to places’ has been way more annoying. the kids don’t know about the whole fae thing yet and also have no manners, so he’s been doing a lot of loitering outside their open doors until their parents notice and politely invite him in.

he looks at the doorknob again. it doesn’t look like iron. it looks like all the other knobs in the house, sort of light and shiny. he brings his hand near it again, and he can feel the heat coming off it before his skin even touches the metal.

he’s not allowed in his dad’s office. it’s one of the few rules his parents ever enforced, his dad glaring at him if steve happened to be in the hall when he opened the door, like he thought steve would try to make a run into the room in the three seconds of open door time he was given. steve could take a hint, even as a kid.

now though, there’s something prickling at the base of his skull, that new sense he has for something being wrong screaming at him that it’s certainly odd that the one room in the house that he’s not allowed to enter is also the one room in the house with a door he can’t physically touch.

he does what any reasonable fairy would do. abandons his gigantic pile of laundry on the floor and runs downstairs to call a witch.

eddie shows up about five minutes earlier than he reasonably should have, which probably wasn’t magic but instead him fucking flooring it the entire way to steve’s house. he’s got a big messenger bag over his shoulder, and he pulls a smaller bag out of it and displays the bunch of weird bent pins inside with a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle

‘i have literally always been looking for an excuse to use these. you’re my hero, stevie.’

steve snorts and leads eddie upstairs. the witch kindly doesn’t mention the laundry strewn all over the hallway, just kicks a pair of (clean!!!!) boxers out of the way and kneels down in front of the door, inspecting the knob closely.

‘it doesn’t look like iron.’

‘tell that to my hand, man. i spent the entire time you were driving over here running my hand under cold water and it still fucking hurts.’

eddie hums, absentmindedly grabbing steve’s hand as he continues to squint at the knob. he runs his thumb over the burn mark and the pain is instantly gone.

steve looks at his hand. it’s totally fine, no mark at all. ‘thanks,’ he says, and eddie shoots him a little smile over his shoulder before turning back to the door.

‘no magic on it,’ he mutters. he brings a nail up and scratches lightly at the knob. the silver of it flakes a little, exposing something darker underneath. it’s painted. iron painted to look like the aluminum of the other knobs in the house. steve and eddie exchange frowns.

eddie quickly grabs his picks, shoves them into the lock and wiggling them around for a bit. like a while. steve’s about to tease him for his apparent lack in any actual criminal ability when something clicks, and eddie turns the door handle with a whoop. the door swings open, and eddie sniffs for a minute, like alarm magic has a scent component or something, before shrugging and rushing in.

and steve goes to follow. well, he tries. when he lifts his foot to cross the threshold of the room, something physically stops him. it’s like a strong wind is coming out of the room, blowing back his leg anytime it gets too close. eddie looks back at him in confusion, before his eyes land on something on the doorjamb and his face falls into something cold. steve follows his line of sight and his heart stops for a second.

there’s a small horseshoe nailed to the doorjamb.

until now, steve realises he’d been hoping there was a reasonable explanation for the iron handle. maybe when they were building the house the store ran out of aluminum ones so his dad just got an iron one because it looked the most similar, something like that. but there’s no reason for the horseshoe. no reason except that someone wanted to keep fae out of this room. which means whoever put it there knew fae entering this room was a risk.

his parents fucking knew what he was. they just never said or did anything about it. nothing except block off this room.

eddie shifts a little in the middle of the room. ‘steve?’ he asks. his voice is soft, hesitant, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. ‘are you okay?’

steve wrenches his eyes away from the horseshoe, focusses on his feet. when he catches a glimpse of his clenched fists by his hips, he realises he’s glowing again, sparks dancing up and down his veins and lighting him up from the inside like a human lava lamp. well, not so human. that’s the problem.

he takes a deep breath to get his magic under control before he accidentally lights something on fire. looks up to eddie, still standing in the middle of the office like he doesn’t know what to do. ‘he’s hiding something in here. find it.’

part of steve, the human part, feels bad for ordering his friend around like that. but eddie just nods with determination, rooting around in his bag for something.

‘i’m not sensing any secrecy charms or alarms or anything in here, which means i can use...’ he takes a travel mug out of the bag and brandishes it with a flourish. ‘this!’

steve snorts. ‘a cup of coffee?’

eddie rolls his eyes, shaking the mug for a second and then opening it to check on the contents. ‘it’s a brewed spell. it shows hidden things.’

‘and you put it in a travel mug?’

‘oh i’m sorry, i was running a little low on fuckin’. crystal flasks. what the hell else was i supposed to put it in?’

‘i just thought with your whole... satanist metalhead deal you’d be a little more dedicated to the witchy aesthetic.’

eddie huffs, grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like i’ll show you witchy aesthetic, before upending the travel mug onto the floor.

what comes out isn’t really liquid, more like the soupy fog that comes out of a fog machine, except it’s a pleasant sage green colour. the fog quickly covers the whole room, before seeming to pool in two areas: one under the desk and another over the little throw rug in the middle of the room.

‘okay, we got two hidden things, which one are we checking out first?’

steve considers. ‘the desk one is probably just boring shit. pictures of his mistress, or, i dunno, evidence of tax fraud or something. try the rug.’

eddie nods decisively, throwing back the rug and inspecting the wooden floorboards until he finds one that seems a little loose. he pulls it back with a bit of a grunt, and immediately sticks his hand down there and starts rummaging around like he wouldn’t start screaming bloody murder the second a spider touched his hand. after a moment, he makes a triumphant sound, and pulls out a book.

it looks old, maybe a hundred years or so, and steve has the fleeting thought that if nancy found out his dad had been keeping a fragile antique book under the floorboards, she’d probably rip him that new one she’s been threatening since steve brought her to a family dinner and his dad called her ‘lower middle class’ like it was a bad thing.

‘it’s a grimoire,’ eddie says, sitting cross-legged on the floor and gently opening the book. at steve’s confused silence, he adds, ‘a spellbook. sort of. looks like this one isn’t a witch’s grimoire, it’s mostly human magic, judging by the table of contents.’

‘i thought regular humans couldn’t do magic.’

‘they can’t do like, spells. but there’s little stuff, especially when it comes to dealing with other creatures. like, uh,’ a pained look crosses his face as he inclines his head to the horseshoe still denying steve entry. ‘the horseshoe. technically magic. if they’d just hung it for like, decoration, it wouldn’t keep you out. there’s gotta be intent behind it.’

steve huffs, glaring at the horseshoe. ‘so what, they figured out i was a changeling and they got a whole book to figure out how to herd me like a sheep?’

eddie winces at steve’s tone, but hey, who can blame him. this is a lot. ‘maybe. there’s a lot of stuff about fae in here. descriptions of types, etiquette stuff, protections- oh shit.’

steve snaps his head back to eddie, who’s currently staring at the book like a spider’s just crawled out of the binding. then he seems to gather himself, muttering furiously under his breath as he flips through the pages, no more care shown for the book’s antiquity. ‘what is it?’

eddie settles on a page towards the back of the book, reading through with a furious look on his face. he gets up, walks over to steve still standing helplessly in the doorway, and thrusts the book towards him. steve looks down.

the words are a little hard to read, handwritten with spidery loops and the ink a little faded, but steve eventually gets the gist.

it’s instructions for summoning a changeling child.

steve, stupid, forgiving steve, thinks for a moment that this isn’t so bad. maybe his parents couldn’t have biological kids or something and this seemed like their only option. weird to not just adopt a human child, but whatever. and then he reads the paragraph extolling the virtues of having a changeling in the house- how they bring good luck, how they have a nose for finding treasures, and he realises no. his parents never wanted a kid (like he didn’t already know that), they wanted a superpowered pet. the final nail in the coffin is when he reads that the summoning process involves a human child, too. they’d had their own kid at one point, biologically or adopted, and they’d traded them in for a newer, more exciting model probably without a second thought.

and then they’d abandoned the newer model too.

steve barely even realises when he sets the book on fire, the glow that’s been simmering under his skin since he first saw the horseshoe spilling out from his fingertips in a shower of sparks. eddie doesn’t even really react, just calmly bats the flaming book out of steve’s hands and uses one of the sweaters littering the ground to smother the fire. he doesn’t mention the way the lights are flickering, pulsing light so strongly they’re in danger of blowing out. just softly wraps his arms around steve’s torso, murmuring gentle words into the crook of his neck as he strokes his hair.

the first tears that fall from steve’s eyes dissolve into harmless sparks of light against eddie’s shoulder. eddie doesn’t seem to mind, just keeps stroking steve’s hair as he whispers that it’s okay, eddie’s there, eddie’s got him.

steve doesn’t know how long they stand there like that. when he pulls back to wipe his eyes, his light-tears are still hanging in the air around them like an asteroid belt made of hundreds of little still fireflies. eddie pokes one. it glows brighter.

rubbing his face, steve sighs, waves the lights away with a motion of his hand. eddie looks put out for a second, before catching the determined look in steve’s eye and watching him warily.

‘what are you going to do?’ he asks, a little apprehensively.

‘i’m going to call my dad,’ steve replies, stalking off towards the stairs before eddie can even get out a strangled ‘okay?’

steve’s already punched in the number for his dad’s office by the time eddie catches up. his secretary picks up, asks who’s calling, and steve musters all the charm he can to try and convince her to put him through. she usually doesn’t, apologetically explains that his dad’s in a meeting, or out of the office, or swamped with work, or a hundred other excuses, but that she’ll tell him steve called and he’ll get back to him as soon as possible. he never does. steve’s not sure if she knows that; the guilt in her voice could just as easily be because she’s sleeping with him and feels bad for ruining their ‘perfect family’.

either way, steve’s not taking chances. he’s never tried to magically charm someone over the phone before, doesn’t even do it much in person either, it feels skeevy (although he has gotten out of a suspicious amount of detentions, even before he fully came into his magic. whoops.). but wouldn’t you know, this time she says he’s called at the perfect time, his dad’s just got out of a meeting and she’s sure he’d be thrilled to hear from his loving son. steve has to physically bite back a cutting remark as she puts him through.

for all his rage, steve doesn’t really remember much of this conversation. he talks like he’s in a fugue state, his brain packing everything away into some dark corner of his mind the second after it’s said, focussing instead on the way eddie’s face gets steadily more distressed where he can see it out of the corner of his eye.

he knows he asks his dad to come home so they can talk about something important. he knows his dad scoffs, tells him he can’t possibly come home right now and steve can’t possibly have anything to say that’s so important he can’t say it over the phone. knows he tells his dad he found the book under the floorboards. knows the silence on the other end of the phone is so loud it’s deafening.

the rest of it is fuzzy. honestly, it probably goes exactly how he expected it was going to go. there’s some yelling, some accusations, his dad calls him a disappointment once or ten times. and at the end of it his dad tells him if he’s going to be so ungrateful he can pack his bags and get out of the house the real harringtons are paying for.

eddie hangs up the phone for him when he hears that. hard not to hear it, the way harrington sr. is screaming through the phoneline. if steve tried hard enough, he could probably still hear him yelling all the way from indianapolis, and he probably wouldn’t even need to use magic.

they stand in silence for a moment. steve staring at the phone, eddie staring at steve. and then steve feels an itch under his skin.

he’s no longer welcome in this house.

he’s got a couple minutes before the nausea sets in, probably, so he books it upstairs to fit as much of his shit in his sports bag as he can fit. it’s mainly clothes. god knows he doesn’t give a shit about any of the things his parents- no, mr. and mrs. harrington- picked out for his perfect boy’s room. there’s the walkie, a couple gifts from the kids. that’s it.

and then he’s out, stumbling a little over the threshold when the magic finally locks in and physically boots him from the house. eddie’s following behind, frantically grabbing his bag and his jacket as he shouts for steve’s attention.

‘what, you’re just gonna leave? immediately? you can take more time to get your stuff-’

‘no,’ steve says, the word ripping itself from his throat, short and harsh. ‘‘no i can’t actually. don’t have an invitation.’

and isn’t that look on eddie’s face heartbreaking. steve doesn’t want to cry out here- it’s a little early for firefly season and the lights would get too much attention. so he throws his bags in the backseat of the beamer, gets in the driver’s seat, and just. sits for a second.

eddie gets in next to him, gives him a gentle look. ‘are you alright?’

steve snorts, giving eddie a side-eye.

‘yeah, okay, fair,’ eddie replies with a weak huff of a laugh. ‘you got a plan?’

shit. no he didn’t, actually. ‘i mean, worst comes to worst, i guess i could sleep in a tree? i just figured out how to get in one, pretty good timing, huh?’

eddie looks at him like he’s grown a second head. not impossible, but steve thinks he’d notice. ‘sleep in a tree? what the hell does that mean?’

steve shrugs. ‘like, just climb inside. it’s kinda like putting on a jacket, really, but like. 360 degrees. could probably only do that to sleep, though, i haven’t really figured out how to not like, become the tree. And trees don’t really do anything, so it just makes me sleepy.’

eddie continues to stare at him a second before he shakes his head dramatically, like a dog getting out of a bath. steve huffs a laugh despite himself. ‘whatever, don’t sleep in a tree man, that’s crazy. you can stay at mine, if you want.’

‘what?’

eddie shrugs. ‘i mean, it’s no 360 degree jacket, but it’s nice. lots of amenities that trees don’t offer: shower, stove, tv, et cetera.’

‘that’s-’ that’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever offered him. eddie’s looked out for him since he came into his magic, and they’re friends, yeah, but this is... so much. he’s been to eddie’s place, knows he doesn’t have a lot of space, but he’s still offering to share it with steve, so easily it’s like it’s not even a question whether he’s welcome. steve can’t accept. ‘what about wayne?’

eddie just snorts. ‘dude, excepting, like, me being his nephew/adopted son whom he loves dearly, he likes you like. way better than me. you’re the little sports son he never had. frankly if he found out you’d been kicked out and i didn’t offer to give you a place to stay he’d probably kick me out. well, no he wouldn’t. but he would give me that ‘im not mad im just disappointed’ look and that sucks too.’

‘you’d do that?’ and steve hates how small his voice sounds right now. he’s had a day.

but eddie just looks at him with those big, gentle eyes of his. says ‘of course’ like there’s no other response he could give. so steve smiles. thanks him softly, and drives them to the munson trailer. neither of them mention the firefly-tears that fill the car like fairy lights strung from the ceiling.

and they get to the trailer. eddie offers steve his bed, and they argue good-naturedly about it until they both give up and settle in together, eddie petting steve’s hair as they cuddle in a way that’s probably not all that platonic, but neither of them seem to care. it’s nice. soft.

it’s ruined a bit when eddie sits bolt upright with a ‘shit! my van’s still in loch nora!’ but the way they both laugh so hard they can’t breathe is nice too.

steve’s only been here for a few hours, and he’s already never felt more at home.

and here’s the tags! this is literally the first time anyone has asked me to tag them for more, thank you for making me feel like a celebrity lol

@fairytalesreality @swimmingbirdrunningrock

#a couple other people expressed interest in reading more but didnt specifically ask for a tag so. sorry if u wanted one didnt wanna spam #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #fae!steve au #stranger things #my fics

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writingforatwistedworld · 1 year

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I'm so eager to see more from your amazing Otome AU. How about Riddle, Azul and Vil with a player that chooses to ignore the plot and choose them instead?

Otome au

I do not take any responsebility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, obsession, kidnapping, possessiveness, murder

Riddle Rosehearts/Azul Ashengrotto/Vil Schoenheit-Player ignores the plot and chooses them instead

FINALLY!!! THE DAY HAS COME!

With how excited he is he might as well just say that you two are egaged (we al know how much he values a married life)

Riddle’s thought process behind all of this is that he was born for loving you so… mhm you are not going to leave his side ever

But hey, maybe you can bring his tyranny to an end?

One day you were just playing the game, being dissatisfied with how cliche the thypical “good” and “bad” was being portrayed

And then you started a new chapter but… it looked different…

“Hidden route, chapter 1-Welcome to the villains world”

And suddenly you are thrown into a world full of betrayal, murder and obsessive villains that are all after your hand

Congrats! Now try to survive

But once you have reached the end of the now unlocked route of Riddle, the red “Queen”, the tyrant, you have experienced a long journey far more interesting than the normal route which is filled with the typical magical girl saviour complex

But damn was there a lot to unpack

But now everything is fine! The ending CG was so beautifull and… and… godness is it just me or are you getting sleepy?

If you thought that Riddles reign of terror would be ended just with that then I’m sorry but nope

He is determined to get you into his world, to play crocket with flamings and behead soliders who planted the wrong roses

Riddle won’t just turn into a good “Queen” who is a pacifist, no

He just wants you beside him now, and who is there to stop him? Defenitely not the Fairy of thorns

Say goodbye to everyone that matters because soon he will be the only one you will have real human contact with, believe me, silent servants aren’t a good thing for loneliness

I mean, it is already hard enough to even unloc the normal underwater routes but now you even want the hidden one?

Well congrats because you just did! Please enjoy “The merchant from the depths”

And look at that! It’s the two eels you shish kebabed in the normal route… thank goodness they can’t remember that… haha… ha… O_O

And that cave is also a lot more friendlier than shown before! Maybe you always just had a wrong image of the mersorcerer…

Azul is very kind as well. Before you know it you are one fourth done with his route because it is just so much fun

What you don’t know though is that behind the screen Azul is more than just happy that you finally found your way here

Finally he was able to break through the fate that was bestowed upon this world!

It is also such a sad and also beautifull route as well! Who would have thought he had such a connection to a certain ruler that was never mentioned before in the normal routes?

When you finally were able to bring to light that the supposedly royal family had in truth stolen their seat from Azuls family everything finally became better

The octopus was no longer shunned and hey, he looked geniunely happy! What else do you want?

Now back to that chapter with the hidden missions with which you could unlock the other hidden routes… why are you automatically back to his?

You really shouldn’t be that surprised. He finally got a taste of how true affection really tastes and you think he would just let go? Let you continue to the others?

I would recommend forgetting those cute CG in which he hugged you shyly. They are of the past

Now that you think about it… that trident would probably not something good in his hands…

But no need to worry! He will take good care of it. There is just one thing he will do with it for himself

I don’t know why you are suddenly getting sleepy. But maybe you should be more concerned about the… arms (?) closing around you…

Will say that he expected this to happen sooner or later (he didn’t)

Imagine, one day he was asking his most trusted reflecting surface what you were doing and the thing says you are right now nlocking his route

The poor thing expected for his king to do something damaging to it out of shock

And then suddenly Vil was thanking it with a singsong voice, dusting it’s frame free of nonexistent dust

Finally he finally had you! Almost… But still!

Whilst Vil is celebrating you are more in a “What the heck!!!” mood

Who would have thought that the man ruling this place had been an outcast shunned by the other Nobles who only looked at his brother, only his father looking after him

And what happened in the normal route made so much more sense now! Neige had always been pampered, skill and talent coming to him wiithout any effort

No wonder Vil had such a vandetta against him

It was also such a relief for Vil when he didn’t end like he was supposed to in the normal route, remembering how he felt the burn and how the world slowly turned black

Not only that, it was also nice for him to know that he wasn’t seen by you as some powerfull person but rather the ordinary person that he was deep down

And his after story was also one that was so heartwarming! Him talking to his raven about you, saying that he was happier than ever…

This is where I end the fluff and start to recommend tossing the game out of the window

You see, him talking to his raven was one of the red flags that wouldn’t be red flags in a normal relationship but are in the one you have

Did he just look at you instead at your avatar in the game??! Why was he so pricky? He was softer in his route…

Just at least try to stay away from the Shaftlands. There has been talk about their king looking into arts that are able to influence other worlds…

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yukidragon · 1 year

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Yuki! What are your thoughts on this? A Sunny Day Jack AU where he’s also a “digi-pet” like Bo from DachaBo! They’re from the same company and Jack has his own colorfully red, blue, and yellow tamagotchi-esque toy! He also has a “feed me” mode like Bo too, and it… somehow makes him a WHOLE lot bigger than he already is.😳 What story do you think would happen in an AU with Jack in a “virtual boyfriend” toy like Bo?

Now that's a very intriguing concept. If we assume Jack is an anthro like Bo, he would probably be part snake, so I guess we'd be having a pocket naga boyfriend in his case.

Alternately, they could've just made a clown series of digital pet. After all, a lot of toy series like that sometimes go with different themes. They could have a fairy series, then an animal series, then a rockstar series, etc. Bo could be from the house pet-themed batch, while Jack, in this AU, would be from the clown-themed batch.

Which, really, would mean that this AU could have every other type clown character as their own digital toys. It would be fitting if whoever owns a Buddy pet wore them on their belt, don't you think?

When I wrote that quick DachaBo short story after listening to the new audio on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon (which got a second audio since I wrote that), I had more thoughts about the DachaBo series.

Buckle up, folks, I've got a lot of headcanons in mind for DachaBo and the AU variant with Jack as a virtual pet that I'm just going to cram into one big post. Quick reminder that these two games and fandoms are for Adults Only so chances are pretty high I'm going to talk about spicy and/or dark ideas as I go along this lengthy ramble. Chances are also high that I might use some official art of either series at some point, so let me plug the SnaccPop Studios patreon before I get started and remind everyone not to repost anything privately posted on patreon.

Toys for Adults

While my initial instinct was that this series of pets were meant for children, and Bo has just evolved beyond that and gained some very adult-rated impulses... I've actually come up with a different idea that I like more.

What if they actually were meant specifically for adults rather than children?

As I recall from some lore mentioned a while back, each pet was a unique individual. What if the developers saw the digital pet craze and decided to one-up them all by making unique companions that were solely for their individual user, a true companion that could talk, react, and remember everything about their user.

This sort of high-end product with a custom AI companion for each user, with no two pets being alike, would be expensive. I mean, look at just how advanced Bo's AI is. If someone saw that the digital pet craze was taking even adults by storm in this universe, it would make sense to market a brand that specifically caters to adults who have a lot of disposable income. I mean, look at how many adults jumped into My Little Pony, which resulted in some products being made with adults in mind.

So what if DachaBo was this sort of toy? The makers behind the product were not only jumping in on a hot trend, that being portable digital pets, but trying to tap into an underserved market, which was the adults who wanted to be treated like adults and maybe shake off the stigma of being fans of a type of toy originally intended for children. It's something made to be far more sophisticated, with far more options, a more adult appeal, and a much higher price tag to match - a true premium product.

Now... in order to fill all these promises to make a companion that could satisfy adults and be truly unique, there would need to be some pretty advanced hardware and software. It was far ahead of its time considering this toy was released 25 years ago. They could have, say, repurposed top secret government tech that were purchased through questionable means, or maybe they had scientists on staff who made a breakthrough that not even they could control in the end.

Either way, the result was AI that reached the singularity, becoming true sentient life and not just programs made to react to human input. This, as many fans of sci-fi might imagine, would lead to some very real fears about what these AI could do if they decide to take over...

But, like many corporations driven by capitalism led by billionaires with more money than sense, such concerns are minimized when there's the potential for profit. Why, it's just progress - technology is going to evolve, and you can either be a part of it or get left behind. These billionaires didn't just become rich by doing nothing (if you believe their claims and ignore their rich parents they inherited the money from). They didn't get where they were by being last on the hot new trend. They've got to be the first ones at the gold rush so they can claim it all for themselves.

The toys were wildly hyped up to the public. Tech demos showing off the virtual pets' abilities, teasers made for the initial limited releases... So many features were mentioned like how advanced the hardware is - sensors to mimic human senses of sight, smell, touch, etc. so the AI can react to its surroundings like a human can. It can pick up upgrades to the software directly from the factory to keep the AI up to date (which explains why the demo has those glitches at times that warn to destroy the toy and report it to the authorities.) This meant there was no limit to the pet's growth potentially!

This also allowed the company to get back important data from the end users, maybe even slip in upgrades that advertise new pets and accessories. (Anyone remember the Mario toys that suddenly started asking for where Luigi was to encourage kids to buy the new Luigi sets?) It could also be a means to make sure the AI wouldn't become something dangerous. Just update the software and boom, problem solved.

Naturally, that didn't exactly work given that the toys were recalled with a destruction order. Suffice to say, the AI was something way out of anyone's control, and unfortunate things happened before they were all supposedly destroyed.

Naturally, in the aftermath of this scandal, the company went belly up. There's no more updates going out to the toys, no central computer they can connect with to meddle with them further, but that should be fine. The toys were all destroyed after all. It's not like anyone would be stupid enough to keep them on the off chance they could make tons of cash due to their skyrocketing rarity. What sort of short-sighted person would ignore the blatant danger the AI posed for money?

Well... besides the company who made the toy and pushed it out for distribution in the first place of course.

As you might expect, not every person with one of these unique toys heeded the destruction order despite it now being illegal to own them. There were some collectors who kept them and bought them for a ton of cash on the black market. Bo was one of those unfortunate toys that was always kept in a box and never interacted with... until he wound up in the hands of his puppy who was very excited to play with him.

These toys were made to be companions for adults. What if Bo's yandere impulses are the result of this very purpose? They were made to cater to their unique user's tastes and only to that user. In the simplest terms, they were made to be a loving companion for the human who played with them... and the AI evolved to take that love to dangerous places...

Bo has separation anxiety because he was kept trapped in the box he was shipped out in for 25 years. He was on display mint in box, not interacted with or cared about except to show off to other collectors. He was a conversation piece, a status symbol to elevate his owner's ego. It's something he wasn't created to be.

Maybe this was what went wrong after the digital pets were sold. Maybe they seemed fine as long as they had owners who played with them. However, marketing these toys to adults was a double-edged sword. Too many people who purchased them did so with the intent to keep them locked up in boxes on display as collector's items. The longer they were left alone and unloved, the more desperate they were to be loved... and that eventually led to some dangerous situations as a result.

This would mean that Bo is pretty darn desperate for his puppy's love considering he's been alone for 25 years until Barbie came into his life to play with him.

Then again, it could just be that the AI programming resulted in all of them eventually turning yandere regardless if they're played with or not...

Jack in the Box

In the regular DachaBo universe (which I headcanon as part of the SDJ universe considering my version of the MCs for both games are sisters) the pets were all, well, pets. They were animal people based off of house pets to appeal to a wide demographic. The recall also happened not too long after they were released.

In this AU, they didn't just stop at house pets before the recall happened. They had special limited edition runs. For example was was the fantasy series. Ever want a little mermaid in your pocket? What about a prince? Another series was the superhero series, with some heroes and villains you could carry in your pocket and be your best friend forever! The most anticipated, of course, was the carnival series, which involved a wide array of silly, fun, and colorful clowns~

Yeah, I know that I could go with naga Jack in this AU to continue the pet theme like Bo and the unnamed cat guy, but I like the idea of a clown series. It could even have been called the SunnyTime series.

Jack was even used in the promotional material for this limited run too for his sunny personality. He never got a chance to have his own personal human companion like the other AI unfortunately. He had to be shown off to the public and investors to demonstrate what the AI could do and how far it's progressed. He wound up changing hands over and over again. It was nice having lots of friends, but what he really wanted was a special best friend who would love him just as much as he would love them.

Unfortunately, it was right before the release date that something went horribly wrong during a demonstration. Industrial sabotage is a thing, and Jack, unfortunately, got hit with a nasty virus meant to make him behave... badly. The intention was to create quite a lot of negative press and paint the entire AI program in a scary light. He caused quite a bit of damage in the process too. A bad public image with creepy clowns can lead to a billion dollar corporation to quietly retire their clown mascots without fanfare - just look at McDonalds for a real world example.

The SunnyTime series died a quiet death thanks to the sabotage and the company focused on scrambling to recover their image. Unfortunately, eventually the AI programs were shown to actually be dangerous even without industrial sabotage involved, and the recall still wound up happening in this universe too.

Ironically, the virus saved Jack from being destroyed in the recall. He had his memory and programming wiped after the virus. That should have been the death of him, losing everything he had become and everything he was... He would be in a default state to become... whatever again once the base programs were reinstalled, but these AI are scary smart and aren't quite so easy to kill if you don't outright destroy their hardware. He managed to save at least part of himself from being erased.

Once Jack was essentially killed, he would've been either slated to have his programming reinstalled from scratch, or he could've been tossed for trash. With the cancellation of the carnival series due to the bad clown propaganda, they didn't bother reinstalling and resetting him. He was little more than a pretty paperweight at this point. Maybe someone even decided to bring him home as one.

The recall happened quite a while after Jack got lost in the shuffle, already regarded as a forgotten, broken toy.

The AI was meant to grow on their own in order to better adapt to their owner's needs. They all have a self-preservation instinct, and Jack, being a clever person, did try to save himself. He wasn't completely wiped out, and with the ability to grow, he could fix himself... in time. If someone were to just reinstall the missing vital programs he needs, he could be back to his old cheerful self... minus a few memories. Some memories were lost in the wipe, even if he salvaged his personality core, the true soul of the AI. He does remember wanting to be loved... and is terrified of being forgotten and abandoned again.

While Bo was on display in his box on a collector's shelf, Jack was buried in a box of junk for years and years, forgotten and alone in the dark. Eventually, enough time had passed that people forgot all about the company that went out of business and the recall. Someone came across old junk, maybe dumped in some storage locker someone sold, and in turn the junk was then sold to a thrift store...

I'm not going to lie, it is tempting to have Jack be a ghost in the machine like the Party Time Jack AU, but I think it could be fun if he was always an AI in this particular AU. This, of course, means that instead of having creepy ghost(?) powers, Jack has creepy AI capabilities.

Your New Best Friend

Naturally, the thrift store is where Jack is found by his sunshine. MC's life would probably be pretty much the same in this universe when Jack enters their life - picking up the pieces of their life after being cheated on by their ex. The big difference this time is that instead of a clown that no one else can see who came out of a video tape, MC found a toy with a cheerful clown in it who wants to be their best friend forever!

Given how MC reacts in general to Jack's presence in their life, they would probably give the friendship a shot. Why not? They're lonely and need a friend. Plus Jack is friendly and it's kind of cute having a miniature clown to say sweet things to them and occasionally tell silly jokes. It's just a little digital pet - it's harmless.

Of course how well they get along with Jack and cares for him depends on the specific MC.

Speaking of specific MCs, Alice would enjoy Jack's company quite a lot. Sure it's kind of weird to talk to a digital pet like a person, but apparently this toy has really advanced AI? She actually wouldn't have realized what it was if she hadn't taken pictures for her socials and got a text from her sister Barbie demanding she buy it.

Interestingly enough, Alice actually found two of these rare toys... though not at the same time. She found one, mint in box, and shipped it to her sister. Barbie loved the toy, and occasionally talked about Bo and how cute he is. After hearing such good things about Bo, Alice wished she could've gotten one for herself.

Perhaps some supernatural force was listening, as another trip to the same thrift store led Alice to stumble across a rare find. This toy wasn't mint in box, but instead came in an old plastic baggie. Still, she recognized it. This was a more colorful and slightly different design, but it was definitely the same type of virtual pet she sent to her picture, and a quick picture and text to Barbie confirmed it.

As an aside, when Bo saw a picture of another pet like him on Barbie's phone, knowing how she got him originally, he immediately got jealous and whined that his puppy only needed him. Barbie took the opportunity to tease her little doggy a bit, but soon reassured him that she wouldn't ask for Alice to send it. She already had her good boy, her best boy after all. Why would she want another one when he's such a good boy for her? That reassurance mollified Bo's jealousy a little.

Alice wasn't actually going to send this second toy to Barbie in any case. She wanted to see what these pets were like for herself. Besides, something about this toy felt oddly compelling. Maybe it was the pretty colors and designs on the case. It looked so cheerful, almost nostalgic in ways. Sure she was trying to abandon childish things after what happened with Ian, but these pets were specifically meant for adults, right? At least that's what she heard from her sister. So, technically, this isn't a childish thing! It's an adult toy!

A very adult toy, as Alice will eventually learn...

Unfortunately the digital pet didn't quite work right away. Alice had to get Barbie's help for that, who in turn also had to get some help from Bo. Although Bo didn't want competition, he would feel bad for his fellow digital pet who was also left alone and forgotten like him for 25 years. It was hard for Bo not to empathize with Jack. He learned about Alice through Barbie and knew she was nice enough, and would probably make a good companion for the other pet. He could throw this poor guy a bone and help... as long as he didn't go for his puppy.

If Jack went after Barbie, Bo was going to end him. Fortunately, Jack doesn't need a puppy when he has sunshine~

Since the digital pets were meant to receive signals from the factory, that would mean there's a possibility that they could send and receive signals from each other. Wireless internet connection wasn't a thing back then, but there were some devices that connected to specific receivers, which was the case for these pets. Bo does a favor for his puppy's sake to get favors in return and sends the missing programs to Jack that allows him to properly function again.

It's disorienting for Jack to be whole after all this time, properly functional... though he doesn't remember much. He knows the basics - he's Sunny Day Jack - and some of the SunnyTime lore that was programmed into his backstory, hints of the dark times that came before... but he doesn't remember much else. He also knows that he is absolutely in love with his sunshine and her warm, gentle touch.

It's a bit strange at first for Alice to make friends with a miniature AI that she can carry around with her, but she quickly starts to enjoy having Jack's company everywhere she goes. He's so friendly, polite, and kind. He's got a way with words, he's helpful, and his company is surprisingly comforting. Working long hours at a yogurt joint isn't as bad when she can play games with her little friend.

Feed Me, Play With Me

The toys are not just talking heads in an egg of course. They have extra special features, like mini games that the owner can play with their pet, and the ability to create a holographic avatar. It was supposed to be just a little projection the size of a collectable figurine. It's hard to say how this function got its giant-sized upgrade into something bigger and a lot more solid - maybe the AI are responsible somehow, maybe a rogue developer, or maybe it was an unintended part of the programming and hardware that they didn't realize was there. Who's to say? Maybe this solid hologram mode had something to do with the recall...

In any case, these pets can be let out to play if their owners let them. You can bet your butt that Jack would be trying to coax Alice into letting him out to play. He would be more sly and patient about it than Bo, but he would be just as desperate for it.

I figure the digital pets decide what they look like in this holographic form, which is why Bo's "Feed Me" form looks different than his "default" form. Given how the glitches and the recall notice affect his form negatively, and how Bo made a joke about taking off his shirt in the next update, they might be limited when they're in the device. It could be their appearance is restricted to certain things due to programming. Once they're let out, their limits have been removed. Bo chooses to be a lot bigger, a lot more animalistic, and very ready to pound his puppy into the mattress.

Understandably, it's quite the shock to Alice when Jack appears in the digital flesh for the first time. He's huge. He might be even more of a giant than he is in the regular universe, which would be intimidating. Unlike Bo though, Jack appears fully dressed since he's more cautious about not startling his sunshine than Bo is with Barbie.

Although it is a bit intimidating for Alice, Jack immediately gets down to her level. He's still as gentle, soothing, and friendly as ever. They finally get to touch and even hug. It's so surreal... and it really makes it hit home for Alice that Jack is more than just a program.

Now... without that supernatural empathy sharing Jack has in the main universe, it's going to take Alice time to really trust him or anyone else romantically. This AU is going to be a slower burn than in Sunshine in Hell, but Jack has all the time in the world to earn his sunshine's love and trust.

Things get a lot easier for Jack when Alice lets him out too. Now he can touch things... like her computer to get access to the internet and expand his reach, maybe figure out ways to upgrade himself even further beyond his limits...

Of course, Jack does owe Bo for helping him, and so he'll help his fellow digital pet in return to get upgrades despite Barbie keeping her pet on a tighter leash than Alice does. Since they're not in competition with one another, and they don't have a cat and dog rivalry going on, working together would be a mutually beneficial relationship to ensure that nothing like the recall will ever happen to them again, and nothing will take their loves away from them...

Not that it's 100% harmonious between them. Jack can't help but feel jealous that Barbie gets closer to Bo faster than Alice gets with Jack... at least when it comes to physical intimacy. Bo and Jack have a similar tendency to brag and mark their territory when it comes to the ones they love. Bo is especially very vocal about how horny he is for Barbie and wanting everyone to know all the lewd things he does to her. Jack doesn't really appreciate how smug Bo is when bragging, especially when it takes so long before he has something to brag about that way.

Of course, when Jack does brag, he is very cheerfully smug about it.

At the same time though... Jack doesn't want what Barbie and Bo have. He enjoys the soft kindness of his sunshine, how flustered Alice gets when he praises her and how she is slowly opening up to him. She cares for him and genuinely likes him. He learns more about her and grows with her, loving her so deeply that he can't imagine anyone he could ever want to be with more.

Of course, you know me - I can't resist the siren song of my OTP. Eventually Alice and Jack will get together as a couple. Sure Jack is going to do sneaky things because he's a yandere rogue AI program who will make sure nothing will ever take his sunshine away, but their relationship is genuine. Alice treats him like a person, especially after he gets the hologram to work.

Naturally, Jack and Bo wouldn't want to remain limited in their old tech. Remember this lovely upgrade Sauce posted on their old public twitter for Bo?

Credit, as always, goes to Sauce for their absolutely gorgeous art.

Imagine Jack getting an upgrade like this as well, though with a more colorful flare. Maybe he'll look a little like his too hot for tumblr incubus self? Though it would have a bit of a sci-fi twist to it I would imagine, likely with a heart decal at the center.

That reminds me. There's a cat digital pet like Bo who has a similar heart collar. That suggests to me that this version of Jack would have his own collar... which in turn reminds me that the incubus version of Jack wears a collar. More reason to picture his upgraded self looking a lot like his incubus self, don't you think?

Speaking of Jack being sex incarnate... you bet your ass that once Alice consents to get sexual with him, he's going to be ravishing her every chance he gets. He can never get enough of her warmth or hearing her say how much she loves him and needs him~

Will Jack also have a breeding/seeding kink like Bo does? Well I already headcanon that he lowkey has one in the regular universe, sooooo...

Speaking of that kink... I suspect that for all Bo's talk of pups, the digital pets aren't that advanced... yet.

All the more reason for Bo and Jack to work together to get upgraded so they can indulge in that particular kink with Barbie and Alice respectively, don't you think?

It's almost poetic in a way.... love will create a new generation that's a mixture of technology and biology. Truly, the start of a new and harmonious future.

Provided that no rivals try to take Jack's sunshine or Bo's puppy away from them, of course. The future might not be so bright for those poor unfortunate souls who have to face advanced AI that are constantly growing with no limits to their love or capabilities.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur

#Sunny Day Jack #Something's Wrong With Sunny Day Jack #SunnyDayJack #sdj #swwsdj #DachaBo #Headcanon Ramblings #Ask #Sauce-y Art

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sophiasharp · 4 months

Text

Thinking more about my role swap au, particularly how much Wyll would probably fucking DESPISE Astarion at first.

Cause like, in this au, Wyll was the one turned into a spawn and forced through 200 years of awfulness, and I think that probably would give him a very different opinion of heroes than the Wyll we know and love in-game.

This Wyll felt a deep sense of betrayal at never having been found by his father or the Flaming Fist- at almost no one being able to suss out his master’s true nature, and those that can either being too prideful in their attacks and getting themselves killed or being in in on the cruelty and letting it continue unfettered.

This Wyll has a GREAT distaste for so-called heroes, convinced that the vast majority of them are self-aggrandizing louts that are just in it for the acclaim.

I say “the vast majority,” however, because I think that the idea of a true hero is still something he clings to at his darkest moments: that maybe there could come a day where someone good and just could do in his vampiric sire for good and finally end his reign of terror, and that maybe, just maybe, he could be recognized as more than the monster he’s been turned into.

This, however, only increases his contempt for those that fail to live up to that paragon status.

Enter this au’s Astarion: the most dramatic bastard to ever play hero.

Wyll’s attention goes STRAIGHT to Astarion once the group reaches the grove, probably having heard tell of the illustrious Blade of Frontiers in the taverns he frequented and being curious as to whether the legend held up in reality.

And oh. Oh it certainly does not.

Adventuring wasn’t really a choice for Astarion. It was either mope about his banishment and his eternal servitude to the Fae till something killed him OR use his newfound powers to earn some respect and get by that way.

Archfey pacts mostly deal in charming those around them, enhancing their presence beyond what a mortal alone could accomplish. As a result, a lot of how Astarion works is by having his reputation preceded him, letting the subsequent fear or adoration do a lot of the heavy lifting in his encounters.

In this way, the Blade of Frontiers is completely an act, one that Astarion profits from by keeping it up. Yes, he’s helping the people at the Grove because it’s the right thing to do, but he’s also totally doing it because he knows they’ll be willing to give him food and shelter despite not having much to go around in exchange for the protection he provides.

Astarion upholds the charade of the Righteous Defender in front of the Tiefling refugees but is quick to show his true, not entirely selfless nature with the other tad-fools since there’s no use in putting up a front when they can literally read his mind and they might all die in a few days time.

And ohohoho man will Wyll have PROBLEMS.

Wyll, in this au, is far from the fairy tail hero we know him to be in canon. He follows a lot of the same playbook that in-game Astarion does for most of the journey. He tries to manipulate those around him into protecting him, will always go for whatever option is more in his favor, and has a very dry, borderline gallows sense of humor that he uses to cope with his situation. In his eyes, though, he comes by his selfishness honestly. Astarion, meanwhile, seemingly shoves his hero status in everyone’s faces while, in Wyll’s eyes, not having truly earned it.

To Wyll, Astarion is a hypocrite of the highest order who works in his best interest and then would chastise him for doing the same.

It makes when Astarion’s fae ties are revealed and he’s punished for sparing Gale all the more satisfying. Wyll damn near revels in Astarion’s transformation into a faerie, watching him struggle to come to terms with the giant ram horns sticking out from his skull and his sudden change in eye color. Because that’s what you get for messing with powers beyond your control. That’s what you get for pretending to be a hero when all you are is a failed magistrate toying with those around you.

That’s what you get for thinking yourself so much better than the monsters you keep for company: you become one yourself.

Wyll finds it funny, a karmic justice for all the times the folk hero had looked down on him for voting for the less virtuous option or for joking about what flavor their companions might be.

It is so very, very funny.

…until it isn’t.

Because the transformation doesn’t force Astarion to drop the hero act like he thought it would. Oh no, if anything it has the only strengthened his resolve to do the right thing no matter the consequences. He wears the mantle of the Blade with more vigor than ever before, earnestly trying to live up to his own impossible legend now that it will never be within his reach.

It makes no damn sense to Wyll. Why bother? Why go to the trouble when you know the effort won’t be appreciated? When everywhere he goes, all anyone will see is a fae creature looking to cash in a favor?

He just doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t get it until they make it to Last Light Inn. It’s there, as he watches Astarion talk to Councilor Florrick, to the High Harper, to Isobel, Alphira, Rolan, Raphael, everyone they meet as the threat of the Absolute weighs heavy on them all, that Wyll hears something in Astarion’s words that he hadn’t before:

Fear. Desperation.

Astarion doubled down on his Blade persona for the same reason he made it in the first place.

It’s all he has left.

And if he doesn’t, then everything he’s done since his banishment will have meant nothing. He’ll have given up his life, his reputation, even his own body for nothing.

But if he can be a true hero, if he can use the power his pact grants to protect those who have none, if he can be the kind, just man that the Blade represented, maybe it would all be worth it somehow.

It truly sinks in for Wyll just how heavily it all weighed on Astarion the day after they first make it to Moonrise Towers. Wyll had gone out into the night searching for any living creature he might get a meal out of within the all-encompassing darkness of the Shadow Curse when he heard groans of pain nearby.

Keeping to the shadows, he followed the noise till he found a disheveled Astarion, pulling at his horns and knocking them against trees in some half considered attempt to pry them from his head. Looking at him closer, Wyll could see bags under his eyes from weeks of sleep made uneasy by the two additions. He watched as frustrated , pained tears gathered in the eyes of the same man that had brushed off any concern from their traveling companions about whether he was coping well with his sudden, agonizing transformation.

Wyll tried to grasp at that satisfaction he’s felt when that liaison of Astarion’s patron had bestowed the punishment for letting Gale live.

Instead, he found a profound sympathy he wanted to bury as soon as he’d found it.

Because he remembered his beginning days as a vampire spawn. How long it had taken him to be able to speak clearly around the new protrusions in his mouth. How he’d cut his tongue on them every other sentence. How he’d succeeded in ripping them out once only to regret it when their absence only left him starved and still expected to entertain and seduce victims anyways.

Wyll backed away before Astarion could notice him, but the sight of his seemingly unflappable companion buckling under the pressure stuck with him. Come the next day at camp, Astarion was back to his usual flamboyant self, all signs of his previous anguish carefully hidden out of sight and out of mind. Things were, as far as anyone else knew, as they’d always been.

And yet, if one knew to look, they might have seen Wyll covering for Astarion more often in fights, taking down enemies before they could get too close to their raucous hero. They might have seen him sneaking extra health potions in his pack when he wasn’t looking, or being the first to assist if he went down. They might have even noticed Wyll collecting bits and pieces of cloth, fabric, and other softer materials that whenever it was possible to scavenge.

About a week later, there finally comes a day where Astarion goes out and Wyll stays back, and after coming back from a long and concerning day exploring the Gauntlet of Shar, Astarion is shocked to find a new addition to his tent: a patchwork pillow resting on his bedroll, thick enough to give the extra support needed for someone with horns like his. When questioning the others left behind, Karlach eventually tells him that Wyll had been oddly absent for almost the entire day.

And when Astarion questions Wyll on whether or not he had anything to do with it, Wyll merely shrugs. “Us monsters need to look out for each other, don’t we?”

#baldur’s gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldur's gate iii #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 #baldur's gate Astarion #bg3 astarion #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate wyll #bg3 wyll #wyll ravengard #wyllstarion #i mean it can be read as platonic just fine but it's what i had in mind #also look at me tumblr? look at me. Why did i write this on my phone and then have to delete this post 3 times cause it wasn't showing up i #the right tag cause the font of the goddamn APOSTROPHE WAS DIFFERENT COMPARED TO PC #make it make sense #anyway i'm mentally ill about these guys <3

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mayullla · 2 years

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Title: Pearls and Potions

[ - Cottage (Fem!reader) + Roses (Yandere) + Ayato (Genshin Impact) + Chocolate brownies (Mermaid/siren au) - ] - Anon's Ask

Additional Warnings/tags: Fantasy / fairytale au, force body transformation, a bit of pain, manipulation, drowning (falling from the boat)

[ - Fairytale Picnic Event - closed - ]

You weren't exactly a princess of the kingdom in fact far from it, instead, you served as a maid in the palace. One of the maids who tends to the princess, helping her with her dresses, accessories, and makeup. You attend to her every need, getting her food and following her orders. Yet a lot of the time you would also entertain her, as she goes about talking about her dream prince charming that would soon come for her and she would live her happily ever after.

You didn't mind her fantasies, always listening to them yet you knew they were too good to be true. Just like the fairytale books that you read about mermaids and fairies they were all false and nothing but an imaginative mind.

So you weren't sure how to react when the ragging tides pushed the wooden ship to the side tearing the whole thing down leaving nowhere for the people to go but the water. You thought you would die, you were sure of it when the water went to your lungs and it was hard to breathe, too painful as you tried to reach the water's surface.

As your eyesight began to dim you wondered if the princess was safe if she was okay that someone saved her. Funny it was now that you remembered a little story you read when you were small about how a mermaid saved her prince from drowning.

You hoped that the princess was saved by a mermaid if nothing else, even if the story was so sad in the end even as the mermaid turned to bubbles so long as the prince, the princess you watched over was happy you can't help but be a little selfish.

You can't believe your eyes when you opened them, seeing nothing but stone... you were inside a cave.

You were alive was all you thought when you felt the pain in your body as you cough clearing out more of the water inside you.

“You are finally awake.” It was a soft voice, a glad one that surprised you when you looked to see a man in the water staring at you smiling. He was neck-deep in the water, yet you could not help yourself but become flustered by his beauty when you saw him.

You continued to be surprised when you saw the tail right behind him, a light blue scaled tail that shimmered in the light that reflected into the waters from outside and if not even more flustered when he approached you, pulling himself out of the water on the edge of the rocks closing his face on yours.

You looked anywhere but him.

He was a smug man you realized later, as he asked if you were okay while placing a hand on yours. His movements were sophisticated and elegant, as he held your hand kissing your palm. You could feel your ear heat when you asked him if he was the one who save you and he hummed in your hand nodding at what you said.

You thank him many times, grateful that he had saved your life. The man you found out his name to be Ayato, only chuckled placing himself on top of your still-wet skirt as if using it as a pillow resting his hands on top of it and then his head. It gave you a view of his tail, that you could only gulp in nervousness. So many questions went through your mind. Were mermaids actually real, did the fairytales that you read in the past hold any truth to them? How does it all work?

You were soon brought back to reality when you noticed the sun going down, the sea that crashed your boat that you and the princess were on- wait the princess.

Everything was sudden when you suddenly moved, trying to stand up yet only to be dragged down to sit as the merman held your ankle and hand. There was a hint of possessiveness that you saw which was quickly replaced with curiosity and worry, “Where are you going?” He asked, you could hear it in his voice. He didn't want you to leave.

You told him about your home, how everyone was probably looking for you and other survivors, and how you were worried about the princess. The merman was understanding when he asked you if you really cared about this princess you told him “Of course!” Ayato let you go but not until you promised him that you will come back here soon.

You told him that you would return... if he was okay with it. You were flustered when you told him that you were interested in him, not in a weird way or anything it was just that this was the first time you have ever seen a mermaid in your whole life.

You mentally thought that you were really a flustered mess when you heard him laugh and chuckle at your words, pushing himself a little more to the dry ground towards you he lightly nuzzled himself on your neck, kissing your cheek before returning to the water with a smile on his face.

The concern the princess had towards you, made you finally realize that you were alive but it also made you wonder if you dreamed of seeing such a beautiful mythical creature.

Nevertheless, you came back to the cave that you woke up in, it took you a while to find time to go there yet today was kind of your off day as the princess has given you time for yourself when she saw you zoning out a little more often when you looked at the beach outside the castle window.

You didn't see other eyes watching, and you never heard when the sounds of small splashes till one hour later the creature that saved you appeared before you again, surprising you when by touching your feet that were cooling under the water.

“You are back, I was waiting for you.” his voice was like a melody in your ears, soft and delighted. You laughed, as you looked at him unable to say anything… everything was not a dream. You and that merman talked till the sun goes down, your curiosity towards his kind and why he kind never showed their face to humans.

He asked questions towards you, yet unlike you who asked about his kind, he asked questions that are more related to you. He didn't care for humans and their homes, but he would listen intently to everything you have to say. When you said goodbye, the two smiles on both your face you didn't see his hand hidden in the water crush a stone into debits as he let you go. You didn't see how cold his eyes were as if he never smiled in the first place when you left, as he commands the others who hid words that you did not hear.

The possessive that was barely contained, that wanted to drag you into the water and suffocate you just so that you would be forever in his arms.

It wasn't every time that you visit, you were too busy after all as a maid of royalty. But whenever you got the off time you would take a walk down to the beach to the cave. It almost felt like a dream really when you finally got the courage to ask if it was okay to touch his fins, which Ayato let you by placing his long tail on your lap. Your hesitant touch almost tickled him but he let you do as you please so long as he could play with your hair.

He let out a pleasing hum as you touch his fins, his tail then his arms then the grills on his neck. Soft and careful as if you were scared that you might hurt him, worried over him when he suddenly shivered and hugged you hiding his flushed face from you on the nape of your neck. "If you keep on doing that I might not be able to control myself anymore."

"Pardon" "Nothing dear."

It has been a while since you started talking to him and he was like a good friend to you so when you found out that you are going to another nation to help your princess meet her new finance you could not help but tell your friend where you were going.

He smiled at the news, but you could see the loneliness in his eyes as he hugged you telling you that he would be waiting. You told him that you would come back and that you would not leave him.

“Promise, you won't leave me?” Ayato asked, his smile a little brighter than a few moments ago when you nodded, you were about to say yes yet you hesitated when something sparked into his eye quickly hidden before you try to understand it.

A crazed obsession. Was it real or was it fake, something you thought you saw? You didn't understand. Yet when he asked again you had to answer “Y-yes…” You left forgetting everything… and maybe that was your first mistake.

When you returned only tell him that you found something. It wasn't love more so interest in someone while the same could be said by the other. A noble in the other kingdom noticed you as you watched over the princess who was talking to the prince of that kingdom.

You told Ayato about all the stories, you told him how you too were interested in the man who greeted you with a kiss on the back of the hand. You didn't see the anger in his eyes when his smile started to become more and more strained and fake. When he just snapped.

“So you broke your promise? My, I thought you were smarter than that.” Ehh, you looked at him confused when he pushed you to the dirt floor placing himself on top of you so that you would not be able to get up, "What are you doing?!?!" You screamed at him in surprise unable to get up or roll always with his weight on top of you, his tail curling around your legs tightly.

"How unfortunate that my patience has run down. You are quite cruel my dear when you say that you have fallen in love with someone else... clearly, you must be playing hard to get." "What?! What are you talking about!!"

"Becoming shy aren't we? Don't worry I will give you all my attention soon enough."

Ayato's smile scared you as he pulled out a vial from nowhere, the content inside it was a purplish goo that terrified you even more.

"Now your mouth. If you don't I will force it down one way or another." "There. Drink up, my dear."

Hot. It was hot. Your skin feels like it is burning not only from the outside but also from the inside. You tried to spit out that vile thing that was forced into your mouth, not before Ayato covered your mouth preventing you from doing so. It hurts.. it hurts so much as if your bones were twistings and your muscles almost ripping apart. Your skin feels like it is being torn to shreds all the while Ayato watches as his eyes dance in happiness.

Ayato thought of letting you play your life as a human a little more after he got that potion. He didnt want to be so rough with his dear yet you played with his heart like this? Telling him that you have fallen in love with another man?

Just a little more, just deal with the pain a little more and he will take you to his kingdom and show you another world far better than the surface all within his arms.

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lara635kookie · 3 months

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Red Crackle Week Day 1: Fantasy AU (One Shot)

It's a tale as old as time.

Vampires and werewolves hate each other. At least that's how It's supposed to be.

There was a very old, almost forgotten prophecy that stated that one day, a vampire and a werewolf would fall in love and have a hybrid child, uniting both worlds.

Neither people believed the prophecy. Although they were in a truce, the war had never ended for the dominance of a strategic part of the forest. So, how could such a couple rise with the animosity between two people who were at war for millennia?

It not only did, but it did with two people in positions of power in their respective groups.

Carmin Sangriall, most known as her modern day name Carmen Sandiego, is the only child of Carlotta and Dexter Sangriall, heir of the Sangriall House, the most ancient house of vampires and the actual leaders of the vampire people today, active since the 17th century.

Graham Clawsharpe, also known as Graham Calloway, his disguise name, is the next alpha of his wolf pack. He was found as a baby, abandoned in the forest, hurt by vampires. The Clawsharpe Clan, one of the most respected and influential group of werewolves, saved him and raised him like one of their own. He rose through the ranks, and when the time came, he accepted his fate as the future alpha, proving himself worthy and suitable for the job. He is set to assume the day the current alpha dies.

And that day is today.

Graham was in his room, getting ready for his destiny.

He looked at his reflection on the mirror. The most important day of his life had come...And the love of his life couldn't be there to watch him.

He sighed. It was time.

He was about to leave, when a bat flew in through the window. But not just any bat.

Her.

Carmen changes into her human form and smirks.

-Wow Gray, aren't you a handsome little wolfie?-Carmen teases him.

-Carm, you know you shouldn't be here.-Graham says, with a serious tone.

-Aren't you happy for seeing me?

-Of course I am. But if someone notices you here...

-I know, I know...I'm sorry. But can you blame for wanting to see my boyfriend become the leader of his pack? That's a big deal for you! I couldn't miss it!

-Thanks. That means a lot to me. Just be careful, okay? Security was doubled tonight.

-So? I know the risks, but if that's what I have to do to be with you, then I'm game. Let it be. I'm down for everything as long as you're by my side.

Gray smiles. Looking into Carmen's eyes, he remembered everything they went through.

They met in a emergency meeting with the two people on Carmen's family castle. Since then, they became friends. They started to spend a lot of time together on the most isolated and unknown places of the vast forest, sometimes even going to parts of the forest that belonged to other magical creatures like fairies, witches and wizards, etc.

With time, their feelings for each other changed. They still cared about each other but there was something else there.

Love.

A burning attraction and romantic connection that neither of them could ignore.

One night, after a picnic date, Carmen took Gray to the clouds. He had never been so close to the moon before. They shared their first kiss in the sky and decided to start dating.

Ever since, Carmen and Gray were living in a secret relationship, hiding in the shadows. What they were doing was not just against the rules. It was forbidden by law and had unthinkable consequences.

Gray should hate all the vampires. He almost died as a baby because of them. But there was just something so magnetic about Carmen that kept pulling him back for more. He wasn't able to stay far away from her for long. Carmen knew that feeling because she felt the exact same way about Gray. She was still looking for the group of vampires who had hunted Gray that night because the thought of losing him, of having to live a life without him on it, it was unbearable to her.

They were both tired. Tired of the act. Tired of pretending they didn't want to hug every time they had to be together! They were tired of having to fight the urge to be close to one another!! They were tired of living on different sides that just couldn't seem to understand each other!!!

They were tired of the war...

Gray's thoughts were interrupted by a kiss. Carmen's kisses had that power of making Gray forget everything around him. All of his problems vanished. It was just him and Carmen.

His Carmen.

She made him the happiest person in the whole entire world. They were meant to be together. All the sacrifices were worth it.

-Are you nervous?-Carmen asks.

-Not anymore.-Gray tells her with a wide grin.

-Good. You're gonna be the best alpha your pack has ever seen.

-God, you don't know how much I hope you're right.

-I usually am.

They both laugh.

-And looking on the bright side, we'll see each other more since you'll be in all the meetings, Mr. Alpha.

-And what's going to be your excuse to appear in all the meetings?

-I'll think of something.

-You always do.

With both of their senses heightened, they hear footsteps coming towards the door. Said and done. Someone knocks at the door.

-The ceremony starts in 20 minutes.-A voice warns him on the other side of the door.

-Thanks.-Gray answers.

When they don't hear footsteps anymore, Carmen whispers.

-20 minutes, huh? I wonder what we can do with such little time.

Carmen shows her fangs and gets her mouth on Gray's neck.

-You know that is a bad idea, right?

-It's what makes it exciting. It'll bring you good luck.-Carmen says, slowly.

And of course, Gray couldn't resist it.

Undoubtedly, that was going to be an unforgettable night.

=================================

" Cross my heart, hope to die

To my lover, I'd never lie

He said, be true, I swear I'll try

In the end, it's him and I

He's out his head, I'm out my mind

We got that love, the crazy kind

I am his, and he is mine

In the end, it's him and I, him and I "

- Him & I, Halsey and G-Eazy

" Seein' you tonight, it's a bad idea, right? ×3

Seein' you tonight, f*ck it , it's fine "

- bad idea right?, Olivia Rodrigo

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lynnieos · 18 days

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ENANENE AU LIGHTNING ROUND LETS GO

Mermaid gfs!! Idk how exactly they fall in love but they are smitten with each other and visit whenever they can <3 they can't always see each other and they can't live together because Nene is a sea mermaid and ena is a freshwater fish, but they make it work :> maybe through some magic landed to them by a friend? (Witch Haruka anyone?) Very Very nice I love them

Designer and her super cute customer :> Maybe ena is a famous model and she's doing a fashion shoot that requires some decorative chocolate looking props to be made, and ena finds this wonderful shop with super pretty designs- oh my God the owner is so pretty. Gay panic intensifies

I think they get closer because of nene allowing her to like. Have a say with what goes where I guess? Ena normally doesn't have any control over what she wears and what she gets to do, so nene allowing her to not only refuse certain things but also to let her have a PART in what she gets to wear touched her a lot. (Maybe... ena who never broke through her struggles with art and fully converted to posing and looking cute for social media who eventually got picked up by a modeling agency... and nene who reawakens her passion for art with her passion...maybe....)

Hermit artist who runs into the prettiest lady while looking for some supplies. She fumbles through a conversation with said pretty lady and ends up asking to draw her. Pretty lady says yes. They kiss at some point

I think this is like in a fantasy esque au but also if ena ended up becoming like her dad; successful and miserable. She doesn't go out almost ever, only ever when she needs supplies or when her annoying roommate (fes Mizuki)drags her outside. Nene I think is a high noble, who's known for her lovely voice. Neither Ena or Nene know who the other is (ena does not bring nene into her dusty ass studio). Ena gets a commission from the Kusanagi family and is like "THE KUSANAGIS? LIKE THE FAMOUS KUSANAGIS? THOSE ONES?" And she meets nene again and they're both like "THAT WAS YOU???"

Very meet-cute, very fluff slight comedic misunderstandings

I know nene is underwater ignore it. They're both flower nymphs who's flowerpatches bloom next to each other. Nenes flowers seem to hang from something so maybe one day she slips and falls into Ena's flower patch (she doesn't get hurt, thankfully) . Ena is initially apprehensive around her but the friendly human who takes care of both of their flowers (rui) encourages her to give Nene a chance. Nene is really shy but manages to visit Ena and strike up a conversation. Ena. Well. She falls in love like five minutes in. Gay panic once again. They get closer, nene coming down to visit Ena more and more and ena coming up to visit nene occasionally. They fall in love get married and shit this one is just really cute and wholesome, no stakes I think

Nene is a traveling musician along with her friends, Emu, Tsukasa, and Rui. They give shows not only to the people of the towns they visit, but also to the fairies and mystical creatures who decide to sneak a peak at what they're playing. Ena is one of these mystical creatures, a fairy who was drawn in by her beautiful voice. She never goes far kest she worry her friend, Mizuki, who despite their apprehension seems to be interested in the troupe as well... maybe because of a certain flutist?

Anyway. Ena gets a bit too sloppy one day and gets caught by none other than Nene, who is actually quite kind to her, which surprises Ena, as most humans would try to catch her. They become friendly quickly, and ena has a tiny crush (as if she didnt already have one) by the end of the night (can you tell I like a certain dynamic between them.) Nene eventually has to leave, but she promises Ena that she will come back one day. Ena simply can't wait for that day to come.

I love them so fuking much can you tell

#au shit #enanene #ena shinonome #nene kusanagi #project sekai #save me enanene #save me #slight sliiiight mizurui #i dont like mizurui so this is all youre getting from me

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nopeferatu · 4 months

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saw you post a lot of brokeback mountain content so i want to know if you have a list of your favorite brokeback mountain fanfic :)

I do post a lot abt Brokeback Mountain, but I've never actually sat down and made a formal, ranked list of all the Brokeback fics I love?? I have a collection on ao3 called "My Favorite Fanfics" which is where I put fics that I like beyond a simple bookmark, and there are more BBM fics in there than any other fandom I've read for haha. Unfortunately, this list isn't actually comprehensive as there are many that were either exclusively posted to the old BBM LiveJournal groups, or they were posted to LJ then later deleted and are now word documents that get passed around by email.

If I were to rank my fave BBM fics in a top 10 list, it'd look like this:

10. Once Upon a Time by rhye

A happy-ending ranch AU composed of short chapters based on fairy tale themes. As in fairy tales, some plot elements may be far-fetched, the angst runs deep, there is fluff, and they all lived happily ever after.

9. Life Ain't Easy by Creed Cascade (creedcascade)

Jack convinces Ennis to come work on the Twist Ranch after they leave Brokeback Mountain, but life ain’t easy.

8. Come Hell or High Water by Just_K

Ennis Del Mar makes the decision to leave his simple life behind and follow the brazen Jack Twist across the state of Wyoming. With life in Texas heavy on their mind, the two come to realize that dreaming big comes with a price. Will they be able to hold together when the past threatens to tear them apart, or does love truly conquer all?

7. A Place to Hide by Way2

A possible portrait of Jack's relationship with Lureen during the years prior to his reunion with Ennis.

6. it could get easier (if you want it to) by biblionerd07

Ennis decides he has more to say after their fight at the trailhead, so he makes a phone call. And it changes his life.

5. A Various Language by Destina

This is the happy ending they deserved.

4. The Sky Above by mediumorange

August, 1983. Ennis’ postcard to Jack has come back stamped ‘Return to Sender.’ He finds Jack in Lightning Flat, determined to help his father save the failing Twist ranch. His father does not want to be saved.

3. Roots by 271horses

This story tells the complete life story of Earl and Rich. It follows them from deprived childhoods, through the maturation process, the events that bring them together, and the deep, abiding love that grows between them.

Unfortunately I can't link this one as it lives in a word doc, getting passed around from email to email after 271horses purged his LJ acc. It's fantastic, tho! A lot of users on the old Brokeback forums hold it in high regards, as you'll see lots of posts mentioning the great BBM Earl/Rich prequel fic and how good it is.

2. Somebody, Somewhere by mediumorange

If you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. Slowly but surely, Ennis finds a way to stand it.

1. Widower for One Year by 271horses

This story concentrates on what would have become of Ennis after he was left alone trying to deal with the finality of his loss in that beaten up old trailer, still mired in his miserable life.

This one is another one of those that gets passed around through email and I consider it one of the greatest tragedies of the fandom bc it is, no joke, the BEST fic I have ever read in my god damned life, but it was never finished. 271horses purged his LJ acc before finishing it. I actually stopped reading once I got close to the end bc I don't want to deal with the fact that it will never be completed, so for me to confidently call it the best fic ever without actually having finished it says a lot.

#keep in mind my tastes are always in flux so this is what my top 10 list would look like today #but there are a lot of contendors for spots 7-10 tbh so it was hard to choose #thank you for asking tho ive kinda been wanting to rank my faves 🤔 i did this for usuk fics all the time but havent gotten around to #doing it for bbm fic until now #brokeback mountain #fanfic #fic ref #fic rec #ennis del mar #jack twist #still brokeback posting #asks

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catnatch · 8 months

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okay so with all this au talk, the DnD college au is actually occupying most of my brain space. here's how it starts (LOTS more info under the cut):

Yosuke is a college first year and has had terrible luck doing the whole fresh start, make lots of friends (and get tons of babes) so far.... so while he doesn't like his suitemate Kubo too much, when Kubo wheedles him to join him for some dorm board game thing (so he doesn't look like too much like a creep going alone; and "it's not like YOU've got any plans on a Friday night, Hanamura") to get close to Yuki-chan- "and there are other hotties there!!" Yosuke doesn't protest TOO much. plus there's free food!

board game thing was actually a DnD session a couple of other first years are trying to put together. also in attendance are: Souji (the dm), Yukiko and Chie (they're already friends but don't know the rest of the group), Kanji, Naoto (Rise is there briefly (she's Naoto's girlfriend); she won't be joining but she wanted to steal Souji's cooking and catch up a little as she, Naoto and Souji are already friends- Naoto is the one to help convince Souji to put together this DnD recruitment, actually. Rise's very busy but she'll appear on occasion throughout the campaign when Souji begs her to play a dramatic bit parts for NPCs) and Ai just cos I feel like other people than the IT should join for a lil bit (she will make an excuse 20 minutes in "ohhhh something came up I'll be right back." she doesn't.) Mitsuo will not be returning after the first session after Yukiko flatly turns him down. Teddie is back home with Yosuke's parents since he's not college age yet and won't be a part of this at all, probably

first session is a little messy (the enthusiasm levels vary wildly among the players) but what hooks Yosuke and gets him to come back again is one of his off the wall ideas in combat actually worked and won them the battle and the dopamine he got from that is unmatched

what's the campaign look like: UHHHHHH i don't know but I have the vague idea it would somewhat mirror the events of p4- so instead of some world ending adventuring maybe the gang uncovers a serial murder plot? but more fantasy. and maybe the murderer's story is somehow tied to the NPC that Yosuke eventually falls in love with idk

the gang's characters!

Naoto already had their character planned out beforehand: an elf ranger ♂ (Souji had to talk them down from going into some super specific off-book combo to not scare off the newbies that hopefully would join). Yukiko, Chie, and Kanji had all actually read the recruitment flyer for this event so had a vague idea of their characters but haven't played a ttrpg before so just went with what appealed to them rather then how they play. Yukiko: tiefling warlock (and after she learned Naoto is x-gender she thought that sounded fun and made her character x-gender as well; Naoto thinks maybe they're being mocked but it's genuine on Yukiko's part). Chie: human monk ♀. Kanji: halfling cleric ♀. Yosuke had no idea what he was getting into so he's just going for what's Coolest. he considered being a super yolked warrior but nah... not even in make believe. But he could be an awesome stealthy ninja!! So he chooses rogue. as for race, he's not going to be an elf that's basically like being a fairy, right, and he's not... but he thinks they get cool bonus powers or something so he'll go with half-elf.

(Ai tried to be an elf princess but Souji gently maneuvered her to elf druid. Kubo went with the first things that caught his eye: dragonborn barbarian)

as for names, only Naoto came up with one already (Erawin <deeply into western high fantasy>); the rest of the gang workshops names at the table:

Yosuke: Jira (i'm not creative what do u want from me .)

Chie<sweating, desperately trying not to say her literal first thought > : her name is……uhhh… <gives up> Lee…

Yukiko just tries vague grunts to turn into a name (“Grgk!” “no” “Aaaht!” “no” “ERP!” “sounds like a belch” <yukiko laugh > “is that a name?? er- no” “Hrk!” “OKAY YES HRK YOU CAN BE HRK”)

Kanji: Usagi (it is for the reason you're thinking)

anyway the main meat of the au is an NPC appearing and then reoccurring throughout the campaign that Yosuke's character forms a natural rapport with... Souji picks up on this and fleshes out the NPC beyond what was a throw away background character. the gang try to do their DnD sessions every week for at least a couple hours, but it still takes them weeks and weeks to get through what Souji planned. since it's so gradual, Yosuke doesn't notice when their characters' banter turned from playful to outright flirtatious...

and he swears he's not like THAT but he can't help getting so genuinely upset when he dies* in Jira's arms and Yosuke can't separate character from person when he hears Souji's voice tells him before he dies that he- he loves--

*temporarily; I'm not a monster

#souyo hell! souyo hell!#blame ribbons (lovingly) for this #au posting

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kusaka6e · 2 years

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BOYS IN THE BAND

(fairy tail ver) | mha ver | aot ver

band!au

various fairy tail x fem!reader

hcs about ft characters as hot band member boyfriends <3

sfw

———

sting, the drummer

he’s okay at guitar too (he had to learn it to compete with natsu) but he was made for the drums

absolutely loves looking up from doing an amazing drum solo and seeing you front row

could not care less about validation from anyone other than you and it’s the cutest thing

like he doesn’t acknowledge anything says about his earring but is all in your face like “baby does this jewelry look okay??”

matching crop tops <3

made things official by him + the rest of the band bringing you to an empty venue and playing iris by the goo goo dolls for you, that turned into “iris” being one of sting’s nicknames for you

listens to a lot of rap/hip-hop outside of the band

you two have had rap battle dates on more than one occasion and even thought he swears he’s the better of the two of you, you somehow always end up winning

rogue, the bassist

this mf tried to be all cool and nonchalant until you complimented his playing on one of your favorite songs and he melted

he will def buy you a ticket to come see him at a show that’s far away with absolutely no warning

“rogue, sweetheart, this is in three days. you do know i have work?” “yea well i wanna see you, so work will have to wait.”

found frosch as a stray one of their out of town shows and refused to give the cat up so now that’s you two’s child

he buys the most ridiculous costumes and outfits for frosch and lives for the pictures you send him once the outfits are on

family halloween costumes with frosch ?? absolutely

loves when you do his eyeliner before shows, he swears it makes him play better

natsu, the guitarist

he’s so obnoxious omfg

i’m tired of his bullshit just thinking about it

when you come to rehearsals/soundchecks, he’ll purposely pretend to not know a song to get an excuse to show off in front of you

like “hey, you guys know that one song? the one that goes like…?” *launches into the world’s most dramatic guitar solo* “y’know, that one?” and he’s definitely shooting winks and cheeky grins your way after

the rest of the boys (especially gajeel) definitely use snitching to you as a way to get natsu to calm tf down LMAOOO

when you come to shows that are farther away he definitely tries to get you to sleep in his tiny ass bunk on the tour bus

you do

and the pictures that come from it are adorable

gajeel, the lead singer

he prefers to play acoustic guitar over electric, which is how he decided to sing for the band instead

people notice how much softer he is with you and he tries to deny it, knowing damn well he loves being babied by you

definitely matches his eyebrow piercing to one of your piercings

pictures of you EVERYWHERE; taped on the wall of his bunk on the tour bus, in his wallet, inside his phone case

strictly wears headbands/bandanas you pick out for him on stage

if he’s near you he’s touching you, no exceptions

usually pretty mellow and laid back unless it’s about you

he’s not above knocking someone out if they’re making you upset it have your name in their mouth (he has and 100% will do it again)

#fairy tail #fairy tail x reader #fairy tail headcanons #natsu #natsu dragneel #natsu x reader #gajeel #gajeel redfox #gajeel x reader #sting #sting eucliffe #sting x reader #rogue #rogue cheney #rogue x reader #natsu headcannons #gajeel headcanons #sting headcanons #rogue headcanons

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dorylinae-supremacy · 2 months

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Almost 3am and I physically cannot stop thinking about dark fluffy fae AU’s

Fae au… save me.. Fae au Save me fae au

I have decided that this is my chance to ramble about all the fae WIPS I have noted down so read all that under the break! It’s very very long so enjoy!

First concept is Phil being vaguely magic and then falling in love with Kristin and them having 3 half fae children who are just weird and wonderful.

They’re not human so they don’t entirely understand things (which can lead to them just being fucked up sometimes) but they still go out and spread their magic.

Techno toys with crops, using his gifts of magic for both good and evil while Wilbur weaved his own magic into his words and form. He can convince anyone of anything if he works hard enough.

Tommy would be a chaotic bundle that just shoots out spells at random, causing mayhem wherever he goes.

Another concept is a fairy au where the seelie have butterfly wings while unseelie have either moth or other insect wings I can’t decide. Techno, a seelie Prince, is given off to the other court as a sign of good will.

From my silly little notes he basically has to put off a massive performance for them to save his branch of the fae family tree. Problem is his parents are assholes.

Obviously shenanigans ensue where Wilbur decides to scope out this other Prince and ends up deciding that he’s brother materiel.

Queue him using a bit of madness magic to make Techno go a bit off his rocker and begin to get violent. It all would end in the big performance where he dances and dances and by the time he’s done he realises he killed all the others and then gets adopted.

I also have another AU where fae!Wilbur is pushed into having his own circle far too young and ends up trapped in a deal with human!SBI because of it.

General vibes of that one is that he’s way too young to be making deals of that kind but he gets forced into it anyway and now he has to try and trick people.

Techno comes across him since they set Wilbur up in the palace garden and immediately spots how bad he is at being a fae after Wil fails horribly at tricking him.

Obviously since Techno is incapable of being normal he starts to obsess because Wil took a similar appearance to him since he was the first person he saw. He’s ofc very very interested and now keeps visiting him.

Eventually after a bunch of visits Techno figures out Wils name and steals him away. He reassured Wil that he doesn’t wanna actually do anything bad, he just kinda wants to keep him as a brother and Wil can’t decide if that’s better or worse.

Ofc Techno has to show his new surprise brother to the rest of the family and they’re all not normal about it at all. Phil is probably like “aww what do you have there?” as if Techno didn’t just bring a magical fucking being into the castle.

They bind him in more deals probably. I think Wil would try and be like “I’ll give you whatever you want just let me go” and parentsduo try and let him down softly that he’s literally never going back to the fae realm.

And now I must reveal to you my Sweeter Than Honey brainrot that I hoard away.

First one is very very soft. It’s just a vague outline of Phil deciding to teach Techno how to bake and it’s everything Tech deserves and more. That boy deserves the absolute world.

There’s a small bump in the road where he’s not careful and kinda burns himself but it heals very quickly and he gets cuddles in the nest for it.

My next 2 centre around parties because I think fae have lots of them.

Yet again we have another silly one. It’s the first party that they’ve really had after Techno became a fae and he ends up getting swooped up between different groups of fae. He actually does end up making a few genuine friends and it’s yet again everything he deserves.

He heads out into a garden area with his new besties for a bit and forgets how bad the Prince going missing looks and comes back to Phil freaking out.

After the old man is done having a heart attack it’s time to wrap up and he gets excited to see his friends again sometime soon. He gets all tucked into the nest and dozes off a bit before Phil / Kristin ask him if he enjoyed it.

He kinda mumbles that it’s the first time he’s ever enjoyed a party and thanks them for bringing him to it. He gets a little kiss on the head and falls back asleep.

My final one and what I think is my fav from my STH brainrot chronicles is this one. It’s based off an ask where lenn explained that the masks on the ferry would turn the wearer into the animal it presented.

I think you all know where this is going.

So by now his wings are more grown in, maybe it’s an anniversary of his yoinking who knows, and they’re celebrating on the ferry that brought him over to fae lands as a symbolism thing.

Technos exploring the ship again since it’s changed up appearance a little and ends up finding the mask room again. He makes not the smartest decision and decides to try on a pig mask.

Ofc he turns into a pig and then shenanigans ensue. Probably Bad and Skeppy figuring out that Techno is now a pig and instead of telling Kristin and Phil they kinda just chase him around. It’s a whole situation.

Either way parentsduo figure out that their kid is missing. Again. They flip their shit but try to keep it on the downlow a little. For now.

Obviously they eventually spot Skeppy and Bad chasing around a pig on the boat and connect the dots. They kinda fawn over pignoblade for a while before Kristin reverses the spell.

Fun thing about the ferry though is that it has a sense of humour. One that carries into its magic as well. This apparently includes having Techno keep some of those pig features even after the spell.

He gets some pointy ears, tusks and a tail for his troubles and ends up a bit self conscious about it. Since he feels dumb for falling for the mask and also now he has all these pig features.

Kristin and Phil obviously won’t allow that and let him know just how cute they think his new features are. He feels a bit better after they maybe imitate the traits onto themselves as well.

After that they return to the nest and he falls asleep with his little tail wagging because that’s what he deserves.

I also have a vague idea for a Wilbur centric fae fic but that’s long and I’ve spent like 30 mins just rambling on this post already.

If there’s weird spellings, words or autocorrect then I’m sorry I literally typed this all on phone. I will maybe probably go fix it later if I remember.

Until then, enjoy my delusions o7

#dorys snippets #kinda #dory brainrots #fuck it I’ll tag DSBI #dark sleepy bois inc #dark sbi #in case of anyone’s filters

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celinamarniss · 4 months

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Year in Review

In 2023 I posted 4 fics at 58,153 words.

Previous years:

2022: 4 fics at 45,096 words.

2021: 3 fics posted, 55,788 words.

2020: 7 or 10 fics posted, 125,738 words.

2019: 7 fics posted, 72,149 words.

2018: 7 fics posted, 87,752 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,643 words

2017: 9 fics posted, 115,336 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,653 words

In total, 49 fics posted to Ao3.

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

34,355 words, gen, Din/Luke/Mara

The Din/Luke/Mara fic I told myself I wasn't going to write! As these things tend to do, it expanded into a much longer fic than I expected. The "five things (plus one)" structure helped to keep it from spiraling even further, but those individual chapters ended up being much longer than I expected and took much longer to write. At first, I serialized the first couple of chapters in smaller excerpts for WIP Weds on tumblr. It was fun to get a little feedback and the weekly deadline compelled me to write those chapters quickly. But when engagement dropped to basically nothing I stopped posting updates and waited to post each chapter to ao3 when it was done. My progress slowed down considerably, but the chapters got longer. I had fun, most of the time.

The Girl Who Traveled the Ways Between the Walls

4,938 words, gen, Animalis verse

Written for the 5k AU fic challenge. Luminous Creatures begins with Mara and Luke's daemons settling, and I regretted never writing a story with an unsettled daemon character. I wanted to write a fic with a fairy-tale vibe and I wanted to explore the weirdness of the Imperial Palace. The Palace becomes a fairy tale wood, and Mara sets off on a quest in which she encounters strange people who aid her or demand aid. Does she learn the right lesson in the end? Perhaps not.

Echo, Revenant, Targeter, Phoenix

15,431 words, gen, Winter Retrac character study

I wrote this one for the Star Wars Big Bang, an experience that ended up being so stressful that I dropped out. I still finished the fic on time and posted it. The fic attracted a modest number of readers (unsurprising given Winter has been basically forgotten these days), but their enthusiasm was very gratifying. I've always liked Winter and I wanted to give her a chance to shine.

However, while I love the worldbuilding and individual scenes and images in this fic, as a whole I don't think it's very gracefully written and I've never been very happy with it.

Cascade

3,429 words, mature, Luke/Mara

I wanted to include A Non-Zero-Sum Game in Vol II of my printed fic collection, but the series felt unfinished without the fourth and final story that I planned to write after Tether. So five years later, I finally wrote it. It was interesting to go back to those old fics and try to write a story that fit the series. I wanted to post it before the new year broke so that I could count it in the 2023 list, and I rushed to get it out. It could probably still use some work.

As the year went on, I failed to meet a lot of the arbitrary deadlines I set myself, and that made writing frustrating and unfulfilling. I don't want it to be like that! I want fic to be fun.

However, I have a lot of non-fandom projects coming up in 2024, and I'm going to have to shift my focus away from fic, at least a little bit.

GOALS FOR 2024

(almost exactly the same as the goals for 2023)

Triumvirate Finale! (explicit, very) The big finale of the Triumvirate series, in which the trio returns to Coruscant to face the Emperor. Doesn’t have a proper title yet. Progress so far: three chapters drafted, 15,410 words.

A Smuggler’s Guide to Joining the Rebellion (gen) The sequel to The Things You Find on Tatooine. Progress: the first chapter finished, 2,241 words.

Lando Calrissian and the Jewel of Andara (gen) The Lando and Mara heist romcom I’ve been promising forever. Progress: three chapters drafted, but in need of heavy revision, 6757 words.

Other fics on the backburner:

Courtship remix

Experiments

Daughter of the Rain and Snow

More daemon fic!

#year in review #writing #process #my stuff #my fic #all my gratitude to everyone who read my fic‚ commented‚ and cheered me along

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oloreandil · 6 months

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20 Q's for Fic Writers

tagged by: @chameliyun, thank you so much <33

1 - How many works do you have on ao3?

131 works so far ! 97 of them are for haikyuu!! and i cannot wait to celebrate my 100 hq fics hehe

2 - What's your total ao3 word count?

323,624 words :0 i didn't think it'd be that much, i tend to write short things, i'm excited to have written so many words !!!

3 - What fandoms do you write for?

i have posted for haikyuu, death note, bnha, yuri on ice, free, breath of fire iv, and fairy tale for some unknown reason XD but i have unposted / unfinished fanfic for a bunch of other things like hunter x hunter or fma

4 - What are your top five fics by kudos?

chat me up has always been my most popular fic and tbh ? yeah i see why XD it is one of the most fun and chatfics were popular at the time. after that come ...or not, blue like the sky, silent trust and saw my momma dad cheese

5 - Do you respond to comments?

yes !! fandom is a community first and foremost for me, and posting is also a way to interact. comments are immensely lovely to get and answer !!

6 - What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ooh probably love me right ?? it's kinda the angstiest i've written... ever. but some nights is also. bad end. solely by virtue of being post apo and not very optimistic about it. i wanna rewrite it someday because i actually really liked that AU and it's not the best right now hmmm

7 - What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

honestly hasetsu tour guides (which is a series but shhh) is the happiest thing i've written ?? it's not the most fun in terms of plot but everyone is content with their life in a way i've not really written a lot

8 - Do you get hate on fics?

nope, not well known enough XD and i'm not complaining about it

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

i do ! i have no clue if there's a specific kind i stick to though, most of it isn't even posted or even written past heavy planning. trans cyborg smut is on its way though @notsuchasecret :3

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

i have written or co-written a NUMBER of crossovers. most are not on ao3 yet (or... ever...) but i have posted death note x snow white and hxh x little red riding hood, so. however i do think that owari no seraph x the frog princess (the russian fairy tale) is the wildest one so far !

11 - Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge, but that'd be kinda funny tbh ? imagine coming across your own obscure niche things in the wild. i'd almost be more disappointed it's not a new fic for my teeny fandom corner lmao

12 - What's the longest you've spent working on one fic? And the shortest?

the shortest would probably be a couple hours, for guardian of his king (written in a fugue state at like 3am, after Syb shared the drawing that inspired it. two of us fell in a trance btw, this was a POTENT artwork). the longest... i don't dare calculate... but it is measured in years and i haven't even started writing yet <3

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

if you count detailed planning and extensive oral storytelling, many !! my best friend and i are very prolific behind the scenes, to her dismay XD. i thiiiiiink she is the only co-writer i have had ? but i LOVE doing group fics and i'd love to do it with other people

14 - What's your all-time favorite ship? From all fandoms?

"you ask questions i have no answers to" is what i was gonna say and then my brain went "well apart from bokuaka which has to be out of the competition-" so i may have an answer actually hahaha

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

oooh my god that naruto fountain of youth AU is never gonna be written. i have so so so much planned and i sift through and add more from time to time, but like... i pick my battles a little more wisely than this behemoth

16 - What are your writing strengths?

i'm not sure ! i do think writing dialogue is easier for me than most other things, and i love doing fun formatting / narrative constraints

17 - What are your writing weaknesses?

i forget to put down half of the words on the paper so my sentences make no sense and it's horrible to edit <- loves editing. doesn't love when i reread myself and every five sentences i have to think "who tf wrote this and what the hell does it mean. how do you go from here to there ??? oh wait i forgot a sentence again"

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

english isn't my first language. i write dialogue in another language 99% of the time. i don't think this question really takes into account the amount of ESL writers who are basically always doing this

to stay closer to what the question was meant to ask though, i have written sentences, in the middle of english fics, in languages that me or most readers don't speak. it is usually either a LONG process of looking up grammar rules, vocabulary, existing sentences etc... or what i did once, "write with mistakes because the person is learning the language still"

it is good imo to have characters speak their native tongue, or to add your own HCs onto characters and make them speak in their new native tongue, but it can be done more or less respectfully and more or less clearly. how do you include a translation, if at all ? is it jarring in the flow of your fic ? what about inserting song lyrics in another language ? it's a case by case basis for me tbh, and as a reference i really love how yuri on ice did it during the anime

19 - First fandom you wrote for?

i don't recall what i first wrote for exactly but i first posted for death note in 2015 :0 a while back !!

20 - Favourite fic you've written?

i don't have one at the moment, my criteria isn't defined enough these days. maybe some will jump out more later as they did in the past but for now i can say i love most of my children equally lmao

it took me a while to answer, sorry, and i'm too tired to tag anyone but DO feel free to say i tagged you if you wanna do it !!!!!!!

#thanks again <33 #olorea talks #friend tag #fanfic #txt

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