#IDL WHY I WROTE THIS I JUST HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS

[ilydeku]

not an expectation | izuku x reader

You stood at the far end of the common area with Ochaco, eyes dragging upon the envelope in your hands. Your head spun back and forth, glancing at Izuku, then the card, Izuku then the card, Izuku then the card. He sat at the couch located in the middle of the room, surrounded and kept in idle converse by Todoroki and Iida. On the contrary, pretty much everyone in the room swarmed in little groups, probably speaking of any love struck infatuations among them. It was Valentine's Day after all.

Ochaco noticed the anxiety emitting from you, all shown through your body movements; the poker face you strained to hold, the weight shifting of your feet, the twiddling with the envelope paper. She rubbed a gentle hand on your back in attempt to calm your nerves.

"Hey, I know you're nervous, but it'll be just fine, y/n! Just go for it! What's the worst he could do?" Ochaco smiled, clenching her fist and cheering you on while keeping a steady hand on your back. Still, your body tensed up. You couldn't move, as if some unnatural force was holding you back.

"...but I'm nervous." You sighed, a small frown beginning to form. Ochaco stepped in front of you and firmly grasped your shoulders. Her face showed nothing but determination, all for you to have that letter in his hands and, hopefully, your hand in his as well.

"C'mon, y/n. What could possibly go wrong?"

"..." You turn your head towards Izuku's direction, your gaze lingering on that beautiful smile he kept on his face, that until a heavy wave of doubt broke contact. "...a lot of things." Ochaco huffed and shook her head.

"Y/n, if you're going to keep having your feelings hidden from him, you're gonna regret it in the long run. Your feelings will have never been acknowledged, never have been thought about... You're overthinking the worst outcomes instead of having confidence. So, go ahead! Just go for it!" Your body hunched over in defeat. You sighed, taking a deep breath in and out.

"I guess you're right," you answered. She smiled in response. Her eyes flickered toward Izuku's direction and back to you, signaling you to strike the ball. After gathering your senses and pulling yourself together, you turned around and began walking towards Izuku. It seemed like he was looking for someone, judging by how he looked around the room. He stood up from the couch. He, too, was holding a card.

"Hi." You smiled. Your hand fidgeted with your other sleeve as you waited for his response.

"Oh!" He faced you and returned the smile. "Hey, y/n! I was just looking for you!" Your face twisted in confusion as your head turned in denial.

"You were?"

"Yeah so uhm..." He ran his hand through his hair nervously. You noticed his cheeks gaining a red tint of color. "...I wrote this letter..."

"You did..." You felt your tummy begin to erupt with the flutter of butterflies. Ugh. What a wonderful feeling it was to be in love. The world's colors just seemed so much brighter, feeling happy and as light as a feather. Like you could just get up and dance and-

"...and I was wondering if you could give it to Uraraka."

"..." Your mind went blank. The butterflies were no longer there, instead scattered into dry descent. Your heart was still for a moment. And then anger and sadness surged through you with so much power, you didn't know what to do. Why? You didn't even get to share your feelings and yet still, your heart was completely shattered by that mere question. Rejection would've been a more tolerable way to get over because hey, you told him the truth, didn't you? You told him everything and the reasons being about your little infatuation for him. But now, those immense feelings you held for him had to be kept in. After all the time you had spent with Izuku.

The back of your throat stung as you struggled to hide any feelings of sadness. You didn't know what to think anymore. All you could really do is accept it. Accept it. Accept it and make things even better for Izuku.

After all, his happiness above all mattered to you the most.

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Ochaco waiting for any positive signals., oblivious to the event. You put a smile on your face for Izuku and nodded. "Sure!" His face lit up, showing deep gratitude toward you

"Thank you so much, y/n!" He handed his card to you, like little the delivery girl you were. Before awaiting a response, he pointed out the envelope still gently clutched in your hand. "I see you've written a letter a letter too!"

You sighed. "I did," you replied numbly, lowering your gaze toward its neatly sealed edges.

"Who's it for?" He teased, wiggling his eyebrows. "I could deliver that one to...whoever it's for if you'd like!"

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Smile.

"...well actually...I didn't write it."

"Oh..?" He rested his hand together as he waited for you to complete your statement. Witnessing that pretty expression on his face after you spoke gave your heart its last spring of joy.

"Ochaco wrote it, and it's for you."

sometimes your loss is someone else's win.

support me? :)

#w.midizu #deku x reader #deku x y/n #izuku x reader #izuku midoriya #midoriya x reader #mha x reader #drabbles #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku angst #deku angst #izuku x reader angst #deku x reader angst

[magellanicclouds]

Halo - An Essay: regarding waste management systems and devices for MJOLNIR armoured Spartans It has been a hectic sort of few weeks. Between work and getting sick again (for the fourth time already this year thanks to my crewmates who can't remember it's their duty to stay home when they're ill) I've been on the outs. I haven't had the energy for much, but I'm usually a pretty active person, so this has kind of made me loopy? Which feels like as good a time as any to talk at length about the concept of catheterizing Spartans for waste management in MJOLNIR.

Let me explain.

This Silly Post crossed my dash recently and I fully understand it is meant as lighthearted fun - we have fun here. But it also dragged out some strong thoughts I've had haunting in the back of my mind about this for years because I'm super normal about Halo, and have time on my hands and the right amount of sleep deprivation and medication on board. So I wrote 3500 words about it. And about Karen Traviss, who is pretty knotted up in this conversation, since she's the one who decided to start it back in 2011.

To preface, I'm not an expert, but I have worked in emergency medicine for 25 years, and been a fan of Halo for almost as long. I've had more of a lukewarm relationship with it the last decade or so if I'm being honest, but it will always have a home in my heart; I just think letting it under my skin like that in the first place may have made me feral and prone to biting. Thankfully, I can always happily rotate Fred in my mind until the heat-death of the universe, so that's nice. Anyway, full disclosure: the essay below contains discussion about medical devices, physical trauma, and I am sharing quite a lot of personal negativity about the Kilo-5 trilogy and Karen Traviss. That said, if you'd like to sit in on the length of what I'm about to yell into the sky about all this, you can find it under the cut. I love you.

Welcome to my dissertation.

Section 1 - The Relevant Background:

Equipping Spartans with urinary catheters weeded itself into the Halo universe in the 2011 book Halo: Glasslands, during a conversation between Spartan II Naomi-010 and ODST Mal Geffen. Glasslands was the first in Karen Traviss's Kilo-5 trilogy, and she is both the originator of this, and the only official Halo author or source to have used catheters specifically since. Some context: I don't personally like these books, or their author, or even her reasoning for why she chose to add this. My personal preference doesn't make something 'bad', and I'm not out to hurt any feelings. Kilo-5 isn't a total wash for me, there are some characters and ideas that I'd of otherwise loved to have seen explored through the lens of a different author, but these books felt smothered under Traviss's habit of always injecting her very loud personal voice into the narrative fabric. I think this is something that's fine to do in an original series, but doesn't really belong in an established third party IP. She bangs on about so much of her own narrow worldview and self-assured prejudices across the trilogy that still discussing them today creates division in the fandom, and sadly did a lot of lasting damage to a couple characters. But for the topic here, the dialogue that started all this cath chat came from Naomi-010, having idle conversation with Mal who asks her about bathroom breaks. “I’m catheterized. Another reason why that machine has to be so precisely calibrated. This suit plugs into me in a lot of places.” 'The Machine' she's referring to is a Brokkr assembly, which was introduced to the lore as a large mechanical armature used to get Spartans in and out of MJOLNIR. You can see them in action in cinematics from Halo 4 (+Spartan Ops) and 5.

One single mention, and it was big news. Traviss was naturally interviewed about it because of course she was - people can't help themselves but forget an entire novel and tunnel vision on 'but how pee pee?', and her answer has always irritated me. It's not in what she says, so much as what 'what she says' means in her voice. Traviss didn't answer it directly, but instead talked about how she likes to get into character's heads by addressing the mundane necessity of things that often go overlooked to expand a sense of familiarity with the character and their world. Sounds super reasonable, I know, but don't give her too much credit - that's not a quote. It's just me paraphrasing and honestly I was pretty generous in my wording. Probably because I agree! What bugs me about it, is if you've ever read literally any interview with her, or her personal musings about her writing process, you know there's a bit of an 'honesty' issue there. She's somebody who feels perfectly comfortable ignoring established character voices, traits, or histories to satisfy whatever roles she's reinvented for them, and too many others wind up as mouthpieces. How much are you really challenging yourself in finding characters' voices when most of them are just yours? And the part about familiarity with their world? I giggled a little. She doesn't care about their world, or their aesthetics, or their technology, or their medicine. Because she didn't care about Halo while writing these, and she's not vague about admitting that. It's a matter of pride for her to purposefully refuse to research those things, in the same way she disregarded Star Wars and Gears of War - she doesn't consider the effort to be a valuable part of her process. So instead she'll skim the foundation, gather some recognizable names, pick her targets, and trusts that her personal experiences combined with an outsider perspective will generate better content to seamlessly overwrite what existed. Cool, Karen. Annoying, but why bring all that up? We're here to talk about catheters, right? Well, the fandom for the most part begin and end their assessment of the dialogue at urinary catheters, but the whole quote implies so much more than that - "This suit plugs into me in a lot of places." We're not just dealing with a cath, but apparently with multiple additional external-to-invasive connections. Reader, this dialogue is a plinth to Traviss's bizarre refusal to research not only the franchises she's contracted to write in, but also just into the basic function and hazards of existing concepts that she wants to introduce, and all because she's convinced herself she's done learning about the world. Choosing to ignore the creative freedom of limitless potential in a future of technology that would be basically magic to us today, and instead degrade 529 years of advancement is certainly a take, but it's even more ridiculous to do it with a subject (The Spartan Programme) that is considered to be the peak of advancement in that future's setting. That's clownery, just like her alleged commitment to adjusting her perspective to suit a universe's world.

I want to close out this section with a question: Why is it that writers in the Halo space - both fan and official - cling so tightly to current-day modern concepts as if they'd still be perfectly relevant in 500+ years? Music, for example, apparently suffered a multi-century stagnation in lots of published and fanmade Halo media. Though my partner made a strong counterpoint about this to be fair: we still listen to music composed by Mozart. So there's an argument to be made there. Medicine though. There is way less latitude to embrace the classics there. It's been shown across several games, novels, and films to be sufficiently advanced well beyond anything we're currently capable of or even understand, so why undermine that and choose to drag it centuries backward? For clarity, I am not talking about what might be standard in the public or private sectors, nor the enduring things that'd be used by the public and military alike, like sterile dressings, syringes, supplemental oxygen equipment. Those are the Basics and they will be relevant to us indefinitely. But I'm talking about the UNSC. I'm talking about ONI R&D. I'm talking about Section Three. Retrograding tech and failing to address a necessity that applies to every living person in the Super Soldier Wizardry department makes my mouth flatten into a tight little line.

Section Two - Caths, and why this whole thing got written:

Indwelling urinary catheters, both urethral and suprapubic. There's a laundry list of problems here, but I've distilled it down to the three biggest when suggesting they'd have any safe practical application in Spartans: Care. Activity. Damage. There is unreasonable expectations of care and maintenance for caths with regards to people who can be on operations isolated for months at a time with no support of any kind and are often limited to carrying only what can be kept on their person. The level of extreme physical activity Spartans engage in on any perfectly normal day whether deployed or not is unfit for the stability and safety of a cath. And damage; obvious enough, but with this one I'll be taking a huge emphasis on concussive forces - explosions. Something Spartans are subjected to a lot. I'll be using the height of modern-day catheter quality as a baseline for this, since that's what Traviss felt was sufficient. Regarding Urethral vs Suprapubic, Traviss doesn't specify by name, but Naomi's comment in full reads to me that she's only catheterized temporarily while armoured, hence the assembly needing to be so finely calibrated. Foley caths are temporary urethral caths that would only supplement the urinary process while a person was armoured. Suprapubic caths however are surgically placed devices. They do need routine tube replacement to keep them clean, but unlike the Foley that just serves as an aide measure for an otherwise fully functioning bladder, suprapubic caths are usually placed in people with congenital bladder disfunction, or who've suffered injury or disease that left the bladder in poor health or failure. This type of access will always require a tube in place and this would be the exclusive method of urination - in or out of armour. My Big Three Concerns fit both types similarly, though there is some additional risks associated with urethral caths that I'll cover.

Care: Caring for an invasive cath is a not insignificant effort. They're prone to blockage, kinking, and bacterial growth. They're so frequently responsible for UTIs and kidney stones that these complications are just considered the Standard Fair for having a cath. Their need to be frequently replaced because of their penchant for bacterial growth is the kicker here - whole floral colonies sprout up in caths and can eek their way out into the body through compromised tissue and wreck havoc. They have no self-cleaning mechanism, and steadily deteriorate. Changing and replacing an indwelling cath is a procedure that requires additional supplies that'd have to be carried, and needs to be done in a practiced and clean setting; preferably medical. Granted, there are people who manage the removal and insertion of their own caths at home, but they still need to ensure a clean and safe environment while they do this. A Spartan could never be guaranteed that, nor would it even be wise to consider the vulnerability of removing so much armour to handle it. Modern day caths are recommended to be replaced every 30 days or so, with some models able to be in place for a few months at a time, but that's with constant daily care and cleaning; something that'd be unreasonable for a Spartan to maintain while entrenched who knows where for who knows how long, and without access to replacement medical supplies. Those endurance times between replacements are geared for the average public person who leads an average public life and care for their cath as directed and don't get into fist fights with Sangheili. Needless to say, the endurance time for the same device in a Spartan who leads a wildly different lifestyle probably cuts those times down to a third.

Activity: Modern day caths are designed to offer people the most utility and versatility possible. Both models are available for people who are bed-bound or have extremely limited mobility, as well as for those who are mobile, independent, and live out average lives. With regards to the latter, suprapubics are somewhat more common, if for no other reason than to reduce the Foley's higher risks of induction injury, but modern urethral caths also allow for regular movement and activity with a more reduced chance of becoming dislodged or damaged than they would have had a couple decades ago. But when I say regular activity, I mean going on a walk. Shopping for groceries. Doing basic house chores. Even light exercise and sexual activity can be managed with physician advisement and the appropriate precautions taken. Anytime a Spartan was fielded they'd have to be all the more overly-cautious about Movements Outside of Their Control during confrontations, maneuvers, ambush, environmental or vehicular incidents. Even when things go well there'd be too much risk involved. That said, traumatic decatheterizations happen more frequently than anyone would like, and I'm talking about regular old Joe Everybody. I respond to no less than a dozen of these incidents a year. Both types of catheter are held in place by a bulb balloon that's inflated from a port with around 10-30ccs of saline after the tube enters the bladder (30ccs would be more appropriate for better security of the line). Before removing a cath, the saline is removed to deflate the balloon and the tube is guided out - with a Foley cath, that means being guided out of the urethra. When a Foley cath is traumatically removed, the saline filled balloon - which is like five times wider in diameter than the average 6mm urethra - does a pretty devastating amount of damage on it's way out, penis or vagina; though a penile urethra has significantly more length to damage, and the penile meatus very typically is torn. These incidents run high risk of bladder hematoma as well, which requires urgent surgical intervention. The very worst traumatic decatheterizations I've responded to were all penile and had trauma to external tissue. Ever microwaved a hotdog a little too long?

Damage: How often are Spartans subjected to explosive and other concussive forces? Silly question - answer: a lot and often and unavoidable. And we know they still feel the powerful feedback. Despite shields and dampeners and a self-moderating gel layer, strong inertial forces are still felt through the suits. Across multiple novels we're given details about near misses and blasts, accelerated or uncontrolled falls, rattling their teeth, hampering their vision, hearing, or balance; they've been rendered unconscious and suffered internal injuries. The fact that most of these events don't flat out kill them is a credit to their armour and augmentations. For reference - when a person experiences explosive or concussive force from a distance enough to avoid separation of limbs, bisection, etc, the totality of their injuries can't and won't be seen externally. How they present on the outside is just the tippy tip of the iceburg - it's what's happened to them internally that you need to be concerned about. Cracked or fractured bones, torn musculature, arterial shearing, hollow organ rupture, cardiac and brain tissue bleed, to name some common ones, and this kind of trauma extends to all implanted devices as well. For example, rods and nails and other structural aids or replacements are much more resilient than your organic tissues, and can dislodge when tissues tear or rupture, damaging anything in their way like shrapnel. The fragile little balloon of a catheter will shatter when subjected to even relatively minor explosive force, so to even consider for a moment that this would be a viable piece of equipment for people intended to routinely be involved in explosive environments is beyond willful negligence. That there wouldn't be a better solution to the question of waste management - a necessity for literally all human people who make up the entirety of the Spartan branch, with the infinite funding of ONI R&D seems so stupid to me that I… well, that I wrote this. Because, friends - participating in active warfare is not cath-safe. The kinds of physical demands and forces on Spartan bodies are not cath-safe. The risks will never outweigh the benefits to this. Even while sealed in powered armour and a skinsuit tech layer, the very thought of Section Three engineers or Halsey or anyone involved in the development of MJOLNIR dismissing the glaring obvious failure of Spartans having any kind of externalized invasive devices is so unreasonably negligent that it could only be the brainchild of an author who's convinced that these characters are all actually just psuedo-intelligent government boogiemen who aren't as capable as they claim to be. But No. They are that capable, and they are that intelligent and the fact that they have a bottomless budget and deeply flexible ethics is literally what makes them so dangerous.

So if we have to address this, how do we do it? Apparently there was always an official answer for this. Former Franchise Development Director, creator of the Master Chief**, and extremely racist asshole Frank O'Connor weighed in on this in the same interview, where he almost immediate rejected and denied Traviss's catheterization claim and says that 'this sort of stuff' was the kind of thing he and the other creative heads at Bungie/343i talked and planned about all the time. So how does this work then, because we're invested now. According to 'ol Frankie's elegant input: they just pee freely into the suit. That's it. For clarity, he's talking about the skinsuit and not the MJOLNIR interior proper. He goes on to say that connectivity between body and MJOLNIR at all levels is fully noninvasive, but precise, and that it doesn't matter what kind of body output a Spartan introduces into the suit interior, because a hygienic valve system (??) will scrub it continually and collect all matter for recycling and reintroduction via capillary action powered by movement. It's not clear in what layers or intermediaries these mechanisms occupy, he doesn't break it down more than that. But that's the answer, and it did exist back when Traviss was penning Kilo-5.

Is this answer better than haphazardly plugging extension cords from actual organ systems into MJOLNIR interior? Yes. Like, leagues better by comparison, but also I still think it sucks. To me anyway. It's flat out gross as hell, which definitely fits the personal brand of a man who proudly overfed his cat and called himself "Stinkles", but also it just doesn't strike me as the kind of design strategy ONI would pursue for any of their assets. Beside it just being 100% torn from Dune's stillsuits, it's also missing that special brand of proprietary Section Three je ne sais quoi. There's layers upon layers of too-specialized equipment installed into these people for everything else, why skip this? A body function that should have been Point 3 on a 50 point list of 'stuff to manage'. Also though? It's a lot of freedom. This is just another easy opportunity to add yet another layer of dependence. Spartans are expensive equipment. It doesn't do to give them any fewer reasons to think they can ever walk away.

So anyway, I figured I'd take a crack at it. I came up with this while editing the last two paragraphs: [Waste management] - a fully internalized collection and processing device - lets say a cybernetic implantation - that entirely replaces the bladder. It has bio-organic lumens that interconnect it to the GI and Hepatic organs. The implant assists in accelerating the processing of gathering and refining waste materials with the help of nanobots that identify and redirect waste along the lumens of each system, plus they keep the implant clean and free of bad flora. All twice-processed waste gets refined a lot quicker and any water by-product of the process is refined and redistributed back to the organs along the lumens. None of the refined water is removed from the body for drinking, because that's an unnecessary step; it's already inside. (Drinking water would be the responsibility of a suit system more likely - like, sweat leeching in the skinsuit; refine, filtrate, purify, collect into a reservoir, and jettison the excess sodium. ) There is no 'extraction of other viable nutrient' from the remainder, it's been twice identified as waste. It gets catabolized and consumed by the nanobots as a fuel source, and no externalized waste is created at all while the Spartan is geared up. The implant doesn't always run like this - it only engages this way when the Spartan is wearing MJOLNIR, and when they're not, it just works like an out-of-the-box bladder. The intermittence of usage lets the organic organs truck along as usual, preventing risk of atrophy, and the Spartan can just use a bathroom like everyone else. I'm not a bioengineer, but I do like sci fi and I think all that sounds like something that'd be possible in this sandbox. And that's the real fun of it, isn't it? There's no way anyone today can anticipate what sort of gadgetry might be available 500+ years from now, especially in a fictional universe that includes military tech hybridized with reverse engineered alien tech.

I think it's fascinating when writers and artists shake loose and really grab the reins, and I love seeing the fruit of that labour in this particular tumblr community so often. We're not a huge Halo circle, but we're a passionate one, and if this essay leaves you with nothing else, I hope it will at least remind you to Go For It when you're writing your next fic or drawing your next piece, or composing, or sewing, or printing, or anything!

In Conclusion: Rest easy, friends.

Despite Traviss's word and even books that went to print, the official canon is that Spartans are not catheterized. If that's a bummer for anyone, canon can't stop you from writing whatever you want, but I do hope maybe you'll remember my reasoning for why it might not be the best idea? At least not for armoured Spartans. A Spartan, but they're laid up in hospital? Any non-Spartan personnel? Maybe you're writing in the public sector, a colony world or vessel? Sure - I'll bet caths are still plenty widely used. Why not? They're a blissfully simple and useful effective piece of equipment. It's just all about adjusting and adapting for practicality. Medical science, like any technology, adapts and evolves infinitely as we learn and discover new things. Treatments or drug algorithms I'd of used just last year have already undergone changes, and protocols are amended constantly. It's why a person 'practices' medicine; why a scientist is always a student. If questions like this or similar really need answering in your next work, remember: Give yourself the credit you deserve, and embrace the spirit of invention. Let my Cyber Bladder, by Sparklets be the candle in the window for you!

You may all retrieve your keys from the bowl and unsilence your phones. Stay safe and please text me when you get home. Thank you. ' u ' **Addendum: Former Bungie Creative Art Director Marcus Lehto is in fact the person who is most associated with the creation of the Master Chief.**

#halo #long form #my writing

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 5!

(Using the “Book of Clarence” GIF because I just watched it today.)

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Warrior lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because toward the end, Jace has to pick up a blade (so to speak) and physically defend herself for the first time in her life.

Chapter content warnings also apply for this commentary, since we’re talking about the same topics.

Aegon seems like he’d be an oversharer when he’s emotional. Just get everything off his chest, either as a form of catharsis or in the hopes of receiving validation, or both. I feel like Aegon is capable of having an excellent poker face (useful for gambling), but TGC puts so much emotion into Aegon’s every expression that it makes me think Aegon chooses to wear his heart on his sleeve. Everyone has already made up their minds about him so why try to pretend to be something he’s not?

Jace doesn’t like being idle, and Aegon’s speech is very very long. So she keeps her hands busy, and her instinct is to clean up Aegon’s face 🥺.

I was debating whether Jace forgives Aegon too easily, since she was very upset earlier. But Jace is generally quick to forgive, and she now has the missing pieces of the story. The drafts I wrote where she continued to be angry at Aegon made her seem unreasonable, and she isn’t the kind of person to value a feast/public appearance over innocent lives. But she is the kind of person to worry about lot (at times unnecessarily), so that becomes the new thing she fixates upon. Aegon and Aemond were a bit reckless, and of course Jace is going to focus on the worst possible scenario that could’ve happened.

Aegon sees Jace as perfect and himself as the total opposite, so he blames himself instead of Jace. But Jace isn’t afraid to do some introspection and examine herself for flaws—in fact, she often thinks about what she did wrong and could do better next time. And because Aegon is an oversharer, she picked up on his feelings of being neglected, even if he didn’t explicitly state them, and she’s able to put herself in his shoes. So they have a little marital spat, as every couple does, but they’re able to work through it without dragging it out unnecessarily long. Neither of them is looking to “win” the argument, they just want to put it behind them and return to their usual state of contentment.

Jace’s line about Aegon not being a beggar waiting for scraps of her time resonates with him. A variation of it pops up again in Chapter 10 when he makes his resolution to play the game.

The “send me a note so I know where you are if you need rescuing” line is foreshadowing Jace’s kidnapping. She sends him a sort-of note in the form of the necklace she gives to the Garden girl Liane. And “that’s what guards are for” highlights how Jace isn’t a fighter. She’s a lady/product of her society and upbringing, and nobody—herself included—expects her to pick up a sword if there’s trouble.

I wanted Jace to explicitly say “I’m proud of you” because that’s the kind of validation Aegon lives for, and she knows his love languages. Honestly these two have a mutual praise kink

The original draft had Jace being jealous and telling Aegon to get rid of the brothel, but the jealousy ended to seeming kind of petty, so I deleted that bit. Jace doesn’t want her husband to own a brothel (people are always going to assume he’s patronizing his own business), but now that they’ve had a chat, she feels very secure in his affections. Also, when they have more time to think about it, I think they both realize that hastily offloading the brothel to the first person who’ll buy it could potentially go very badly; if the buyer is a nasty person, the girls there probably suffer. Hence, Aegon’s hands-off, “I’ll pretend it doesn’t exist” managerial style.

Jace is usually very self-conscious about her body, but this is an era where it’s normal for royals/nobles to be assisted while bathing and it isn’t sexual at all. So she mentally compartmentalizes it differently than, say, bathing with her husband. Aegon is aware of this, but he likes teasing Jace 😛. (I’m sure he actually has caught Sabitha, who supposedly likes women in F&B, admiring Jace a few times, but otherwise Sabitha knows how to be professional.)

Aegon genuinely cannot comprehend the idea of Jace being unattractive. Bless him.

When Aegon pauses over Jace’s stomach, he he realizes it wasn’t just Jace waiting for him tonight but also his unborn child. Jace’s earlier words about him endangering himself really hit him, and he has a little growth moment where he realizes he can’t just act like a reckless bachelor but has to think more about his growing family as he runs around the city.

Like most Targs, Aegon is officially raised as a member of the Faith but he doesn’t really believe in it. Meanwhile Jace does have sincerely held beliefs which are pretty standard for the time. It should be remembered that historically, religion was more widespread and important in daily life, and going to weekly services would’ve been the minimum expectation.

In the show, Rhaenyra is portrayed as not even knowing how to pray at age 14, which was an odd writing decision IMO. Religion is pretty engrained into medieval society, and Aemma is from the Vale, which is a region that strongly worships the Seven. So even if you argue that Viserys didn’t care much about Rhaenyra’s spirituality, I’m sure Aemma did. Rhaenyra doesn’t seem to believe in the Faith at all, but she can still perform the outward motions of belief while being agnostic inside. So in my version of events, Rhaenyra arranges the typical education for her children, which includes a septa (especially important to girls) and the in-world equivalent of Sunday school, even if she isn’t going to otherwise encourage them to pay heed to religion. But because Jace is a very good girl, she paid attention to all the lectures. Hence, Jace and Aegon’s very different reactions to his blasphemy.

Anyway, I hope I made it obvious with all the religious dirty talk and innuendos, but this smut scene is intended to show that Aegon literally worships Jace 😇.

Rhaena hasn’t heard about the Targbros’ adventures yet, so from her perspective, Aegon has miraculously managed to talk himself back into Jace’s bed after a colossal fuckup. No wonder she’s exasperated lol

Aegon doesn’t usually read for pleasure, but he’ll make an exception for trashy erotica 💋.

The garden party scene is an appetizer to how Jace and Aegon can work together to manipulate the courtiers if they’re so inclined. Most of the plan was Jace’s idea, but Aegon was definitely the one who suggested showing off the hickeys. And he ad libbed licking his finger 😛.

There was originally supposed to be a comedic sequence where the story of the Targbros’ heroics wins them a lot of fan girls. Since Aegon is married, most of the ladies begin obsessing over Aemond, who literally runs away from his admirers and at one point just straight up leaves for Driftmark for an extended visit. Alas, it didn’t fit in the chapter—but I might retell it from Aemond’s POV in the next fic LOL.

As Aegon starts hearing the petitions and doing more investigating, we see that he might not be as averse to duty/responsibility as he claims. He’s averse to feeling unappreciated, and since the smallfolk are very appreciative of his help, he keeps doing the petitions.

Aegon assumes that the Tyroshi does the reasonable thing and flees Westeros when he has the chance. Unfortunately, we shall see that the Tyroshi is not a man driven by reason.

Now that our couple have recalibrated so Jace isn’t overworking herself, Aegon feels less like he’s competing for her attention so he’s able to open himself up to impending fatherhood. A lot of his growth in this regard is a gradual process, not a huge eureka moment, and he’s still working on it when we get his POV again in Chapter 6. But he develops the new habit of communing with the baby because he wants to try, even if he still isn’t sure he’ll be any good at fatherhood. At the very least, he knows he doesn’t want to make his child feel neglected by his father, as Aegon felt growing up. And because Aegon spends so much time talking and singing to the baby, Cheeseball essentially comes out of the womb recognizing his father’s voice 🥹.

Aegon does still have some hangups. He acts a bit weird during the name talk because he thinks he would prefer a daughter. Similar to Laenor, Aegon thinks a daughter would be easier because in his mind, he’s imagining a mini-Jace whom he can spoil. Also, daughters tend to be raised more by their mothers and he thinks Jace would do great. But fathers are supposed to be more involved with sons, and Aegon thinks he’ll be a bad influence. So he’s still trying to wrestle with those feelings.

Gyles is NOT a good businessman. There’s no way he could ever recoup the costs of shipping cheese from the Vale just through selling pies. He’s lucky he found a royal patron 😂.

In an early draft, I had the baby’s name down as “Rhaenor” so it could simultaneously honor Laenor and Rhaenys. Then I started doing High Valyrian on Duolingo and I noticed there were words like aegion (iron) and rhaenagon (to find), which had the same roots as some Targ names. I developed a theory that the Targ names are supposed to have some kind of meaning, just like how our real world names have meanings (the High Valyrian creator David Peterson basically confirmed my theory on tumblr when I asked in December). So I began hunting through an online Valyrian dictionary for other roots. At first I wanted to use the word for gold, but that’s aeksion and I couldn’t think of a pleasant sounding name based on it. Then I stumbled across the words eleni and elenar, music and tide respectively, and that was PERFECT for a baby who’s part-Velaryon and has a daddy who likes to sing to them. And it sounds really nice! I played around with some name suffixes (Elenaron, Elenarys) but I liked the original word the best. I decided that instead of continuing to use the same dozen Targ names, or mixing up different name prefixes and suffixes, Jace picks a new name for her child which symbolizes that her reign/generation is going to do things differently, while still paying homage to their ancestors by continuing to use a Valyrian name.

The above then led me to exploring potential meanings for Jacaerys/Jacaera and Lucerys/Lucera. They’re supposed to be traditional Velaryon names, and Velaryon names seem to be mildly “corrupted” forms of Valyrian with some Westerosi influence, so I gave myself a little more liberty with picking origin words. I imagine Jacaerys/Jacaera as derived from jaes (goddess), which Rhaenyra picks after Laenor’s comment (and I guess it’s even more fitting with all of Aegon’s blasphemy and worship 🙈), while Lucerys/Lucera is derived from lyka (quiet, silent, calm). For our Lucera, it’s an ironic name because she’s the complete opposite, but Rhaenyra picked it because of lykiri (a dragon command we see in the show, “calm down”).

I wanted to emphasize Jace’s loving, pampered environment during the first half of the chapter. She’s in her element when she’s inside the castle, but if you take her out of her natural environment, she has no idea what to do. She’s also never truly been alone in her life. She’s always with her husband, family, or ladies, and even if she’s alone in a room, there are plenty of guards and servants nearby. When she’s kidnapped later, it’s the first time she actually has to figure out what to do with no help whatsoever. And she’s jumping from her life of backrubs and hot baths to walking alone in the rain with only one shoe.

The second half of chapter 5 was originally VERY different. It was actually supposed to start with Jace and Aegon having a Jasmine/Aladdin-esque “whole new world” adventure where Aegon shows her around the city during a weeklong festival, then later their siblings all want to join the fun, and it spirals into the Tyroshi grabbing Jace. I even wrote out the whole thing…and then I realized how idiotic everyone was acting 🥲. When you have Jace, Aemond, and Rhaena in the group, somebody would’ve mentioned how reckless the outing was, and I just couldn’t go through with all the Targkids being willfully blind to the risks of sneaking out to the city. Afterwards, there’s a scene with Viserys yelling at them all for being so stupid and endangering an entire generation of Targs, and then he decides to put 100% of the blame on Aegon. I actually really liked the confrontation between Viserys and Aegon, but I couldn’t keep the “family outing” plot, so I had to get rid of that aftermath scene too. I might be able to reuse it one day in another setting though.

Instead I went with the Sept outing in the final version. Jace does everything right, but unfortunately the grippe (a medieval illness that was probably the flu) strikes the entire Kingsguard. I’m a firm believer in writers being able to use luck/coincidence to get characters IN trouble (as long as it’s believable, and it’s super easy for the flu to spread among seven dudes living in a frat house!, but not out of it. And this definitely gets our characters in trouble. Without the grippe, Jace still would’ve had other guards at the sept, but a Kingsguard would’ve been in charge and more competently handled the bathroom trip. Instead she gets a less experienced knight, whom Viserys picked to be in charge probably because of a combination of vibes and politics. The Grand Sept is a normal and frequent destination for royal outings, and Jace is very popular with the city’s people, so nobody is expecting trouble.

I invented Maiden and Mother’s Day as a two-day holiday, so that there’s an explanation for the Tyroshi being able to suss out Jace’s plans. On day 1, he observes the guards not following her to the septas’ quarters and figures out she’s likely to repeat the pattern on day 2; it’s pretty common knowledge that heavily pregnant women need to use the bathroom often. And I added the growing crowd of beggars receiving alms to show that Jace’s outing is far from a secret from the public. On the contrary, in addition to the religious stuff, it’s another PR opportunity.

I kept Sabitha and Rhaena back from the outing, because all six ladies really would have been too much for the Tyroshi and his henchwoman to overcome. Also, Sabitha canonically takes up arms during the Dance, and I think she would’ve walloped the Tyroshi. Rhaena isn’t a fighter, but her presence alone would’ve impacted the odds, and her absence allowed me to play with some tension between her and Jace later. (And yes, Helaena was getting some bad omens about the outing. But as I’ve said before, I think her visions operate on vague vibes, so she knows something bad is coming but not what exactly it is.)

The Garden madam doesn’t immediately leave Westeros because she’s lured into a false sense of security after the Targbros raid the warehouse. She’s taking her time planning her trip to the Summer Islands or wherever she wants to retire when the Tyroshi—who’s pretty cunning and knows she snitched on him—leaps back into her life and takes her brother hostage. Considering how brutally the Tyroshi has killed other people in the past—and she has firsthand knowledge of Daisy—she’s too afraid to risk angering him further by trying to report to the Targs or anything like that. And she is very close to the bottom of society; really poor smallfolk like her don’t think that royalty are going to pay any attention to them, even if she wanted to try sending a message. So she’s just in this to try to save herself and her brother. All the descriptions about her odd behavior and cosmetics are to foreshadow that something isn’t right, and she’s not a normal septa.

I got snarky feedback from someone who thought it was stupid that the Tyroshi didn’t immediately kill Jace and that the ladies didn’t immediately scream for help, and apparently they were hoping for a red wedding scene 💀. Idk about other people, but if I were reading a fic tagged with fluff, comedy, hurt/comfort, and “detour into drama and angst,” I would honestly be quite mad if one of the narrators/ship characters/a pregnant girl died horribly on screen, and there was nothing in the tags or chapter notes to warn for it. ANYWAY, here’s my unnecessarily long rebuttal of that reader’s feedback about my characters 😇.

The Tyroshi’s goal isn’t to assassinate Jace, it’s to get revenge on Aegon, against whom he’s developed a vendetta. He is a sadist and sociopath. This was already seen in how he treated Old Willow and Daisy in Chapter 4. Instead of just killing them, he drew out their deaths with horrible torture and abuse. His plan to take Jace so he can extend the torment Aegon feels is in character with what little we know of him so far, and we haven’t even gotten to the convos with him in Chapters 6 and 7. Sure, he could’ve just slit Jace’s throat and that would’ve been ample revenge against Aegon. But if he’s going to go through so much trouble to get his hands on Jace, he’s going to make it worth his time. And he’s very confident he’ll succeed, which he would have done if Jace didn’t have a secret weapon. Also, he quickly becomes interested in Jace as soon as he talks to her, so his desire to kill her goes down sharply.

As for the ladies’ reactions: like Jace, they’re all pampered girls who’ve never had to deal with real problems before. They’ve always had other people, like guards and servants, to deal with problems for them. This is a very shocking situation that they are in no way prepared for, and it’s natural for them to have have a moment where they’re trying to comprehend that Sara just died. This is definitely the case for Jace, who is initially too tongue-tied to do or say anything.

Why don’t they instinctively scream? I’ll address each of the girls below, but there are some answers that apply to everyone. There’s a saying “fight or flight,” but it’s more accurate to say “fight or flight or freeze.” All the girls are initially defaulting to freeze, and this includes their mouths/throats; their bodies/instincts are telling them to stay still and silent so they don’t draw more attention to themselves.

The Tyroshi “immediately” turns on Elinor, who has her inglorious moment. She acts as a selfish coward saving her own skin. I wouldn’t expect her to shout for help from the guards. She’s too busy hiding in the privy and praying the Tyroshi forgets about her.

Floris is 9/10 years old. She’s the youngest of the group, and she takes a lot of cues from the others. She has to be specifically instructed by Bethany to do something before she acts. Think of the bystander effect, and how in modern emergencies, it’s advised that you say “you [specific person], call 911” instead of a generic “somebody call 911.”

Bethany is the likeliest candidate to actually shout for help. If Elinor hadn’t run for the privy, I think that would’ve been Bethany’s next step. But because Elinor abandons Jace, Bethany switches from “freeze” to “fight” since she’s the only person left who can defend Jace (she doesn’t count Floris, who’s too little). I was also hoping that it comes as a pleasant-ish surprise to readers that Bethany actually takes her duty as Jace’s LIW very seriously when it matters. So even though Bethany is very scared, her priority is putting herself in front of Jace. And even though we the readers might be thinking, “This is a logical opportunity for Bethany to shout for help now,” I think most of us overestimate how logical and capable we would be in an emergency. Bethany is only able to think one step at a time, and those steps are 1) protect Jace 2) send Floris to get help. Only after Floris fails does she think of 3) shout for help, when it’s too late.

TLDR all the ladies are acting like the scared girls they are. Everyone reacts differently in an emergency, and it’s easy to provide armchair commentary of “but they SHOULD have done this instead” when the truth is most of us would also probably freak out and act irrationally ☺️.

Notice how the Tyroshi addresses Jace as “Princess Targaryen.” I’m sure he’s learned her name during his surveillance, but he sees her as Aegon’s princess rather than her own person, hence the impersonal address.

Jace’s good manners are so engrained into her that she defaults to using them while in survival mode. And honestly it probably saves her life. If she were rude or mouthy, like Baela, the Tyroshi probably would’ve killed her much faster. Instead he’s intrigued by meeting the epitome of a well-bred princess.

Confession: I originally had Cheeseball kicking in the womb when the Tyroshi touches Jace, which meant the Tyroshi was the first person to feel the baby move. Then I got really angry at myself for writing that, so I changed it and made Aegon the first person to feel the baby in Chapter 6, as he deserves ☺️.

Earlier drafts had Jace conscious while the Tyroshi fled with her from the sept, because I wanted her to drop a trail of cedar beads from Joff’s amulets to help people find her. But if she were conscious, she would’ve tried VERY hard to escape the hay wagon or get passersby’s attention, and it would’ve been really dumb of the Tyroshi to give her that opportunity. So dreamwine and strangulation it is. I highly doubt dreamwine takes effect instantly, so I added the strangulation part to speed things up. I did think very hard about how strangulation can cause miscarriage, but Jace proves to be a lot tougher than expected, as does Cheeseball, and it’s not a guarantee of miscarriage. Now, I don’t know for sure if dreamwine plus a moment of strangulation would actually cause Jace to black out and remain unconscious for hours, BUT dreamwine is fictional and you can only google so many things about strangulation, so we’re just going to say it works.

Jace uses the dragonglass from Joff’s amulet for a girl-child. Jace is a girl, so in a way, the amulet’s protection works even though Joff had a different target in mind 🥲.

Initially, Jace is hoping somebody miraculously comes to her rescue, because she’s been raised to expect that someone will always be around to help her. But it’s just her 🥺.

The Tyroshi’s inspection of Jace’s features is intended to be very uncomfortable and to show that he sees her as an object, albeit one to be admired. He compares her features to various Tyrosh-related things because he’s already thinking about bringing her back to Tyrosh, so he’s kind of justifying it in a “she clearly belongs in Tyrosh” way.

In case it isn’t clear, he wants her gown because he intends to wrap the baby in it for Aegon to find 🙁.

The Tyroshi has decided he enjoys cosplaying as a courtier and princess engaging in courtly love/romance, hence his very polite mannerisms. Jace senses this is what he’s up to so she plays along.

The Tyroshi is convinced he can keep Jace alive (as he says, he’s done this before), but it is REALLY dangerous for Jace to have moon tea so late in pregnancy. In ASOIAF, Lysa Tully almost dies and has fertility issues when she’s forced to drink moon tea, and I suspect she was earlier in her pregnancy than Jace. So even if Jace survived (big if), her health would never be the same. (Would be an interesting succession crisis issue, but I can’t bring myself to write that AU.)

Laenor in the afterlife is so happy that his advice about rivers helps save his firstborn 🥹.

I just want to point out that it’s REALLY fricking dark where Jace is. There’s absolutely no light other than the occasional lightning, and the light pollution from the city is minimal since we’re in an era where lighting at night is expensive and firelight only. Girl is operating on hopes and prayers and thoughts of her husband right now. TBH if I were in her place, I’d just give up and cry 🥲. But even though Jace is pampered and gentle, she’s surprisingly resilient, and she has her baby to think about. I mentioned earlier that Jace has never truly been alone before until now, but she actually has Cheeseball to keep her company, and I think that helps her keep going until she reaches civilization.

#my writing #meta #house of the dragon meta #hotd meta #fanfic meta #aegon ii targaryen #female jacaerys velaryon #the golds

[lovifie]

Okay you’ll have to excuse me- I kinda got carried away 🥺- i was just kinda bored and thought it was a cute prompt-I think you could put this together so much better, but this is a rough outline of what I was trying to write

:Biker Simon and car girl reader:

Y/n goes to many car meets, she has an absolutely amazing looking car, and a reputation to go with it- it’s not all just a good exhaust job and an amazing wrap on the car it’s what her car actually does, she’s won many races and along with that *lots of money*- which she happily spends on new parts or on herself for some new heels and or a new set of nails

—

But this particular meet was different, it was absolutely boring her, she won every race (like always) but there were barely any cute guys to meet. The cars were… okay, it was just average people and average *cars*-an average car meet

Until…

Simon came along. As you pulled up to the starting line for yet another drag race(and again most likely going to win) you her loud bangs, almost like gunshots-(I’m not going to try to make motorcycle sounds 😭)- it’s sounds like the engine itself is whining, and the all of a sudden deep growling is heard next to your car.

You roll your window down and see the biker, who is Simon. After rolling down your window you both just look at each other.

You notice his all black outfit, he’s wearing black tactical boots and pants, and a black hoodie, with some motorcycle brand-(I’m not going to start a war about brands)- his helmet has a matte black color with a red visor; which accents his bike, which again is a mix of different cut angles and shapes, colored with red, black and white.

He looks at your car, the dark windows tint, he sees your license plate which says “ GHOST”-(yes I did that on purpose 🙃)and the outline of the license plate, which is bedazzled in diamonds. Your car is ___.( whatever you want it to be, preferably red and black bc those are my fav colors but you do you boo❤️), he hears the deep growl of the car idling next to him.

After the minute or so of just looking at one another and each others ride you say something…

“This is a drag race babe not a cycling marathon”

He responds with confidence, he opens his visor and hits you with a smooth wink before saying - (idk what I could put, so up to you)

After some snarky back and forth comments about each others ride you both make a bet-

if Simon wins he gets your #, a date, a night with you-(again depends on you), if you win you get to (idk 🥲sorry)

In the end, after you both settle on a deal you both get to the starting line. The girl in the middle of the both of you at the starting line puts the flag up,you roll up the window and he shuts his visor, like an instinct both of you rev your engines, both sounding similar and very different- his with a high pitch screams yours with a loud growl- she announces very loudly “are you ready!” And the crowd surrounding the meet cheers, excited for this interesting match up between the two of you. As soon as she puts the flag down, the two of you are off neck and neck but who will win…

( tried to base this off the first fast and furious scene bc why not)

AGAIN SORRY THIS IS SO LONG- Im sorry 🥺but pls look at it

First of all; DON'T APOLOGISE YOU LOVELY ANON!! ❤️❤️ Really, feel free to talk to me as much as you want I have loved to read your prompt.

Second, I have been wanting to write about biker Simon and car fan reader for a bit now! So you told me at the perfect time, love! Thank you!!! 🩷🩷

I also loved the way you wrote it, even if it was a rough draft you had me hanging on it love!

I'll definitely use your prompt in the future, so if you want me to tag you feel free to drop another ask (I won't post it if you don't want to, don't worry) or if you want you can do the form linked on my masterlist to get added to the taglist and I'll add you. Whatever is comfortable for you love! ❤️

[wrishwrosh]

Talk shop Tuesday!!! How do you decide what research to do for a specific fic and which details to include?

talk shop tuesday!! thank you!! this is a fun question bc im very prepared to articulate HOW i do research and WHY i do research but its a lot tougher to explain WHICH research. a lot of times i’ll decide on a vague premise or setting for a fic and then let the research suggest the story, like whatever interesting resources or anecdotes i come across then shape the plot. so in most cases i am researching before/during the drafting process rather than trying to fill in gaps while editing, i think “write first research later” is terrible advice that i dont follow. the rabbit hole is where the magic happens!!

example: i started ‘not a strange thing amongst the people’ with a vague idea of boyd and raylan in wwi meeting in the trenches or something, and then started researching to figure out the exact circumstances: what their wars would have been like, how a guy from kentucky might have ended up in europe, under what circumstances they would reconnect, where and when exactly this would be happening (on the one hand, probably few of these details would make it on the page and this level of rationalization doesn’t matter when The Trench is a perfectly legible symbol to most readers. ((its the scary wet place where homoeroticism happens!)) however i think its more fun and a better characterization exercise when its realer and also the cliche is right truth is very often stranger and cooler than fiction. history is full of extremely weird coincidences and patterns that make excellent stories.)

the original vague plot i had in my head for ‘not a strange thing’ based on zero research just vibes was boyd as a jaded middle aged kentucky national guard nco who got dragged to belgium and raylan as an mp or something and they reconnect while boyd is awaiting court marshal for some kind of uuhhhh trench scam. or something. however then i started digging into the minutiae of how enlistment worked in wwi and under what circumstances particular types of guys got sent overseas and then thought ‘hey were the marshals in the trenches could that be why raylan was there?’ and looked at one timeline on marshals dot gov to learn that the marshals stayed stateside spying on german civilians and chasing down draft dodgers and a little lightbulb went off in my head and then the story became a totally different story. and this was approximately minute 19 of the research process which was still the idle googling phase.

the other way i decide to do research is by questioning all my own assumptions as im writing. like if i am writing about a place or time that is not my own and i find myself going ‘yeah thats probably how things work’ then that is always going to be a productive place for more research and for the inclusion of detail based on that research bc the gaps between my experience and the character’s experience are why im writing the story. as another example a lot of the first bits i wrote for not a strange thing involved raylan having a car and driving around. this was just an instinctual decision i made (aka assumption) (also i had recently come across the phrase “touring car” and liked it and wanted to use it in something) and then questioning that instinct led to qs like well how did you get from lexington to harlan in 1918. what kind of cars would a marshal have had access to. if other marshals in other places in the country didnt NOT have cars could raylan have had a car. and then that led to an unproductive rabbit hole where i was looking at archival marshal financial records to see if they were buying cars and then i had to just cut myself off and say raylan was allowed to drive. BUT i learned a lot about roads and transit and car culture in the place and time that i think made the story a little juicier.

as always this is long as hell and probably too detailed but i just like to talk about research! i just think its neat! talk shop!

#ignoring the fact that it is now wednesday. these things happen #focusing on not a strange thing bc its a little fresher in my mind #also bc my research process for aint had meat in years was less of a process #and more of a ‘one month coal mining fugue state that kind of scared my friends and loved ones’ #histfic #long post

[spectralharvest]

20 Questions for Fic Authors

Thanks for tagging me @sunhatllama although I only have 2 posted fics so this is gonna be kind of sad

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2, although I used to have a lot more that I orphaned because I wrote them when I was 12 and was ashamed of myself lmao

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

2,242

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've posted things for Spy x Family and The Longing, although I've been sporadically working on something for South Park

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I only have two but I'll put them here anyway

1.) Happy Endings - My Spy x Family fic about Twilight's mom that I based off of a fan animation. Ironically, a couple months after I posted this, Chapter 62 came out which basically dealt with the same thing lmao

2.) Counting the Seconds - My fic for The Longing, an idle game that I really really love. It's not very popular fic wise though, so it makes sense why it has less kudos.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I keep meaning to, but I get nervous and then forget and by the time I remember, it's way too late to respond. Or at least it feels like it's not socially acceptable anymore.

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

None of mine so far have had angsty endings, but I'd probably go with Happy Endings just because there's some canonical character death.

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

Counting the Seconds? It's just me going through my favorite ending of the game and what The Shade might have been thinking.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, I don't post enough to get that kind of engagement lol.

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

Nope, I just haven't seen a reason to.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

I have not written crossovers, I like to keep my fandoms separate.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah, like I said, I haven't done anything notable enough to get my things stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

^^^

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

No, but it does sound kind of appealing. I would worry about dragging down someone else's work though since my work ethic is so goddamn terrible.

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

Creek!! I actually wasn't all that into them the first time I watched South Park, but when I came back to it years later the Post Covid special had come out and the fact that they were still together 40 years later really cemented them in my heart. I <3 old man yaoi.

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

I have a Creek-focused South Park 60's au that I've been trying to write since June, but I went to work one day with a bunch of ideas and then I left my shift feeling so drained and I haven't been able to get that spark back. I also have a Damianya-focused Spy x Family royalty au based on that one line from chapter 88 but I got too carried away with the planning instead of actually writing.

16. What are your writing strengths?

My roommate (@sunhatllama) says that I conveyed emotions pretty well so I guess I can do that

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My work ethic :(

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

I've certainly tried it before with some of the fics I orphaned, and I feel like it can be fine. Nowadays, I'd just rather have it be like "character said something in a different language". idk i don't feel strongly either way

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gravity Falls! My ff.net account is still up with them but they're BAD. I wrote them when I was like 10 and I don't remember the account info so I can't go and delete them.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Probably Happy Endings, just because I wasn't expecting a lot of engagement but the creator of the fan animation that I based it off of actually found it and left a comment about it! It made me so happy and I was so goddamn happy when I went to high school the next day lmao.

I'm tagging no one because I have no friends heehee

#spectre talks sometimes #fic game #writing game

[inkedroplets]

Wait?! You have a Supercorp x Lucifer fic just collecting dust? If you ever decide to share it I would love you forever

Kind of...

It's maybe half finished? But I haven't been able to touch it up the way I usually like. I'm a little stuck on an ending which is why I let it languish in WIP superhell. I know I posted a snippet like a year ago and I can't find it because Tumblr.

I'll post it again but basically it's set sometime after Lena and Kara's Fortress blowup. Lena goes to Lucifer to ask for a favor. Helping her disappear which she thinks the best way to go about that is to fake her death. She only goes to him because she knows that Kara might suspect her to do just that and wants it to be unimpeachable. He turns her down until he catches her drunk at the bar, wishing she could just have a fresh start of some kind which hits home for him. I wrote it that Chloe assisted but only did so if Lena promises to go to therapy because she so obviously needs it.

But snippet below. For now that's all but once I have more free time I do want to share it. It's a fun story.

Lena thought that the worst thing in the world for hangovers was just how unyielding bright the L.A. sun could be and how it always seemed to find a way into the room, even when one had taken measures to prevent such a thing from happening. But when she awoke in a tangle of blankets with her head throbbing like an infected tooth, she knew she had found something far worse: the repeated bleat of a car horn right outside her window. Cursing under her breath, she burrowed deeper under her blankets, trying to escape the sound but somehow found the muffled bleating even more annoying and dragged herself to the window, one eye open just a crack, not at all surprised to see Lucifer sitting in his idling corvette. “I thought this the best way to wake you, seeing as you were so adamant that no one should enter your bedroom,” he called up to her. “But if you prefer I could always give Maze a call, she’d jump at the chance to kick your door down.” Lena mulled over flipping him the bird and shutting the window again. She found the prospect so tempting that she had raised her middle finger halfway up before she changed her mind and stuck out all five fingers. “Give me a minute,” she called down and felt a deep stab of pain in her temples. 

She couldn't help but scowl at him when she exited the lobby and found him lounging in the driver's seat with his feet up as if there was not a care in the world that concerned him. When she didn’t immediately hop into the idling car, Lucifer laid on his horn once more which made Lena quickly raise her hands in reluctant surrender, wincing. “I thought you said that angels couldn’t kill humans,” she said, sliding into the passenger seat, fumbling with her seatbelt.

"We can’t, but throw up in my car and all bets are off.” He surveyed her with a somewhat pitying look before cranking the wheel and joining the flow of traffic. “I’d offer you some pills but I doubt any of them are aspirin although you’re welcome to check,” he said and tossed a small pill caddy into her lap. “Perhaps a little hair of the dog?” He reached into his jacket and Lena saw a flash of silver that she knew had to be his flask before he withdrew his hand. “On second thought, the good doctor might not like it if you come in with alcohol on your breath… And there's no point in dragging your feet on this. The Detective made it abundantly clear that you attending therapy would be the price for me assisting in your little act of subterfuge.” 

"Yes, I remember," Lena said sourly. "When I asked the devil for a favor I was under the assumption that the eventual repayment would come much later and be far less annoying.”

"As did I,” Lucifer said, making a hard right that sent a bolt of pain through Lena’s temple. “Usually when I call in favors they’re a lot more fun for me. I’m the devil, not some wish-granting fairy-godmother.” He appeared to shudder at the thought and focused his attention back on the road. “I can assure you that Linda is the best of the best. She’s been my therapist for years now…” “So,” Lena said slowly, rattling the pill caddy before tossing it back into his lap. “This is you after years of therapy?”

“Yes, yes,” Lucifer said, sounding as if he were only half paying attention. “Far be it from me to start throwing around the term ‘miracle worker’,” he said, taking his hands momentarily off the wheel to make air quotes. “But whatever issues you might have, she’ll undoubtedly get to the bottom of them.”

“That sounds great,” Lena grumbled, resting her head against the dash, praying that Lucifer wouldn’t drive any large potholes.

#asks #supercorp #ancient snippet #I really should just bite the bullet and post it

[void-spells]

Survivor time! (Actually 2 sessions bc I got a new PC between em)

Mission with Bode!!!

Go's I wish Bode was a woman bc I would be SO in love with her

Damn Rayvis saw Cal and just went. Yoink!

Is it just me or does Dagan's general cadence sound a lot like ROTS Anakin? Is that intentional? Every time I hear him speak all I hear is "I have brought PEACE! FREEDOM! JUSTICE! and security to my new Empire!"

Did....this this fucker just call Cal a wretch? Hello????

Escape pod ptsd.....my baby boy,,,,,,,

BOGLING YOU ARE SO SO MUDDY!!!!!! YOU ARE SO ABSOLUTELY COVERED IN MUD MY GOOD MADAM!!!

The middle part hair style just kinda. Makes me think of Tim Minchin ngl. All Cal needs is the messy eye makeup and a fresh mental breakdown

New PC Time!

It is also cold and rainy so I have me some warm spiked apple cider!!

Oh man this is a whole different game when I can turn graphics as high as they go...windswept hair still looks terrible when it moves

I'm supposed to go to the crumbly moon but....I wanna explore Koboh some more.

Also WHAT did Cal do to his shoulder!!! Why are like threw of his idle animations stretching out his right shoulder!!!!

Oh wait i accidentally wrote that with my fic Sugaan Essena, didn't I...

I should write a "how Cal fucked up his shoulder" fic but on purpose this time

Oh shit! BD has a taser gun now!!

HUH????

I THOUGHT THE FANDOM MADE HIM UP

RICK THE DOOR TECHNICIAN?!?!?!?!?

RICK WHY WERE YOU DRESSED AS A TROOPER??? YOU'RE A DOOR TECH RICK!!! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE, RICK!!!!

Rip in pieces Rickaroni the door guy

Have this sick ass screencap I got in honor of Rickolas

Okay....now I will go to the shatter—oh wait I can open new chests with the taser gun

Okay NOW I will go to—what's over here?

....I feel like this will be important later....

Very surprised nothing happened in the suspiciously arena-shaped room with the echo at the far end of it and a big ol door

Okay. NOW—lemme get more bourbon

NOW I go to the shattered moon!

OH FUCK MERRIN JUMPSCARE

Ngl I fully forgot she came to Koboh..finished chatting with Bode and Greez on the Mantis and turned around to see a whole other person

Merrin why are you LOOKING at him like that!!!!

Rayvis stop TALKING to me! I'm literally gonna GET you!!

Oh fuck two spiked apple ciders in is NOT the time for this Big Laser Dodging

Why is every bad guy so OBSESSED with Cal! He isn't into you!!! Stop talking to him!!!!

I am so SO enamored with how this fucker died. A vision

RAYVIS FIGHT RAYVIS FIGHT! He creeps me out almost as much as Malicos did every time he spoke to my boy

RAYVIS CTHULU CONFIRMED????????? ON CAMERA??????????

Weeps and sobs in 2 part fight.....

Takoyaki time

Cal I support you killing anyone who picks you up like an invasive gecko the way Rayvis did on the Lucrehulk

Don't beat yourself up Cal!! You did good!!!

Also makes me feel Emotions how Cal is honestly comparing Dagan turning against the Jedi and going insane over Tanalorr to....him being a little intense about fighting back as a victim of genocide. Sweetie. Those situations are so uncomparable

Return to Koboh!!!!! And I will have another drink and go to bed!!

#voids survivor playthrough #jedi survivor #jedi survivor spoilers #rayvis grabbing cal reminded me pf that one guy who walks around barefoot in the florida everglades #picking up various animals who are never happy about it and going “yoink!”

[iuteamstarcandy]

[NEWS] 151023 IU chats with her same age peers.. in ‘A Bunch of Twenty-three’

The dress code for the CHAT-SHOW was ‘flower’ as flipping the number 2 to look like an ‘S’ and adding a ‘3′ to it looked like a flower. The title of the event was also ‘A Bunch of Twenty-three′

“Just writing the number 23, it looks like flower petals. Doesn’t it? Am I the only one that thinks so? It’s in the lyrics for ‘Twenty-three’ too. It goes like ‘a bunch of twenty-three~’. I think the age of 23 is just like a flower.”

“I’m in a really good mood right now. More people are listening to my songs than I thought and I tell them that too. My songs are doing really well. Am I being arrogant right now? It’s the first album I’ve done producing for, so the sense of responsibility I have for it is really different from before. I searched it up at 1am and was like, oh, I made it! I was really thankful. Really, I thought to myself that I have to live as a good person from now on (I guess she means for good karma). I’m being really excited right now, isn’t it?”

“I wrote all the lyrics. There were a lot of things I wanted to say. Also, the topics were not light ones. These are songs that contain some of my serious concerns. Originally I thought of having an ordinary album title like ‘People’. Or ‘Purple’ as an extension from ‘People’. I didn’t want to make it sound so serious for everyone. That’s why I put a layer of protective film on the album title. ‘These are not serious words, but just my idle talk (which is where the ‘CHAT’ in CHAT-SHIRE comes from).’ Like this.”

The title song ‘Twenty-three’ is inspired by the cheshire cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. When Alice gets lost, the cheshire cat appears in front of her and she asks, ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ to which the cheshire cat replies, ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

"I don’t know what’s real, really. An article about me appears on a web portal. On some days, it puts me in a good mood? Uwah, I’m just staying at home, but there’s an article on me? But on some days I think to myself that I just want to hide somewhere. I don’t know for sure what I really want and all I have are short moments. Is it like that for you guys too?”

IU sang ‘Zeze’ for a fan with relationship issues. It’s a song that uses the motif of the main character, Zeze, from ‘My Sweet Orange Tree’, which is about an angelic boy with a gentle heart who is at the same time a devil and incorrigible.

“It’s the most fun song I’ve written. I thought Zeze’s temper was sexy. Despite his two sides, I was supporting Zeze and fell in love with him as I read the novel. I become the Minguinho (tree) and the song contains my message for Zeze. I left a lot of things open to interpretation as I was writing this song, so if you read the lyrics, you’ll find it quite interesting.”

To a fan with family issues, IU said, “I hope you know that you’re being really cool” and sang ‘Red Queen’ to the fan as a gift. This is a song about the Red Queen in ‘Through the Looking Glass’. A woman everyone hates, a story about a time she was pretty. IU got her inspiration from a picture that f(x)’s Sulli drew.

"I went to Sulli’s house to play, saw the picture and thought of the Red Queen so I wrote this song. ‘That woman’ is mentioned a lot in the lyrics, but to everyone a different person would probably come to mind. Although I called her a ‘woman’, you can think of the person as a man too. Actually the lyrics to this song are rather bitter. So I tried to sing it as cunningly as possible. In order for my voice to sound cunning in talking about that woman, people listening to the song might find the woman quite poor thing and take her side. Did I manage to pull off the cunningness well?”

To a fan troubled about career and aspirations, IU sang ‘Knee’. This song was written on a sleepless night because of how much doubt she felt about herself and she missed the times when she lay in her grandmother’s lap and could sleep without any worries.

"I feel the same way. I’m 23 now, but why have I not adapted to life yet? Spending each day clumsily like an amateur. ‘Knee’ is song I love the most on the album. I think it’s the first time I almost felt like crying while recording. I was feeling so sad that I couldn’t take it.”

IU won’t be promoting this album. From November onwards she’ll start her nationwide concert tour. “This year, I was involved in all kinds of activities. Other than for my concert, I think I’ve spent all the rest of my energy. I wouldn’t want the emotions I felt while producing this album to mix with those while doing broadcasts. I just want to end on a happy note. That’s what I wish for.”

Sad to part with the fans, she said she would create such opportunities for them again. IU went down from the stage and took a group photo with the audience and promised to post it on her Instagram.

“I’ve got to go and work now. Today was really fun. It’s such a pity, I find it a pity too. Two of my ex-classmates are here. You guys are my true friends. I really really had fun and thank you for coming. Get home safely. It’s a burning Friday, so go have fun somewhere. Don’t just go straight home. Annyeong~”

Source: Newsis

Translated by squishy with love

#IU #chat-show #news #151023 #twenty-three #chat-shire #fanmeeting

[charm-p]

Some Thoughts on "Are You Happy In Paris"

I've been working on this song for so long, I feel the need to talk about it.

Towards the end of 2021, I wrote this song. "Are You Happy In Paris?" I was really proud of the lyrics and the tune and everything. But when I went to produce it, I struggled a lot. I wanted it to have this big, angry, electric sound. Because, at its core, AYHIP is a very angry song. However, I couldn't get it to sound right at the level of producing skill I was at back then. And I couldn't get the vocals to sound right either. I worked on it for months before giving up and throwing in the towel.

A few months later, I decided to start all over. I am a big fan of Halsey. On her debut EP, they have a song called "Trouble." It's a very emotional song with this beautiful piano to accompany the vocals. Halsey said that they also really struggled with the production of the song and that the version that ended up on the EP was actually the demo version. Which is why it's called "Trouble - Stripped" even though there is no "un-stripped" version.

I tried to make a "stripped" version of AYHIP. And I thought it sounded much better. The only problem was, it had lost so much of that angry sound to it that I felt even the lyrics felt like they had a different meaning. I'm not sure how to explain this, but for example, this was how the bridge original sounded:

Compared to the bridge in the "stripped" version:

When Solaria is practically screaming the lyrics, it sounds more bitter. And the lines like "do you really think you'll find somebody who loves you like I do?" are more clearly shown to be a toxic statement. However, in the stripped back version, the lines are trapped in this self pitying victim complex that makes it seem as though the narrator is unaware of her own part to play the end of this relationship.

That's what bothers me most about the song. It feels like a pity fest. Which is fine. I know lots of people have felt the same way after a relationship ends. And that's how I felt when the relationship I wrote this song about ended. But in the original, there was meant to at least be some level of self awareness. The answer of "why did this person leave me" is evident in the lyrics, from acting as though the narrator is entitled this relationship because of everything they did for the friend to accusing the friend of be like her mother who she clearly hates.

For this reason, I didn't do anything with the song for a while, even after making the stripped version. But, as I listened to it more, I thought that perhaps it was fine the way it was. Because there is another story being told with this slower, more emotional take. A story of someone who so deeply cared for their friend and was terrified of them leaving that when that friend did leave, they were so blindsided that they couldn't see their own fault in the depression that they were left in. All they could focus on was "how could you leave me?" That makes the ending more healing in my opinion. Because once the narrator realizes that all they truly want is for their friend to be happy, they can move on and learn from their mistakes. I don't know, it's something to think about.

But that's only my own take. I like it when people take their own meanings from my songs. It doesn't have to mean just "one thing." If you have your own take of the song, that's fine too. This is how I personally view it.

In any case, I decided to put this track on the Deluxe version of Idle Worship because I just want to be done with it. I think of it as a prequel to "I Know You're In Town," although from that perspective one must assume that the epiphany the narrator had in AYHIP did not stick as they are still clearly angry at this friend. But that's human nature, isn't it?

If you're read this whole thing, thank you for taking the time to listen to my thoughts! I've got a bunch more music I'm working on. I hope you like the new tracks on Idle Worship. Thanks again for reading.

#idle worship #are you happy in paris #my posts

[bluestringpudding]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @silently--here and @uncannycerulean for the tags!

How many works do you have on AO3?

19 (+ 1 that's waiting to be revealed for a fest)

What's your total AO3 word count?

329,661 😳

What fandoms do you write for?

Just Harry Potter. Maybe I should diversify?

What are your top 5 fics by Kudos?

Live like common people Dramione/Draco pretending to be a muggle (88,794 words)

How did we get here? The sequel to the above, aka Draco wishing he could still just pretend he was a muggle. (153,536 words)

Dragons Only The Draco/Charlie drabble (289 words)

A Song of Ice and Fire and Awkward Ex Boyfriends The other Dramione, this time with dragons. 🐉(20,272 words)

Just a Minerva in time The MinMione time travel one (6,460 words)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Unless you're an absolute arsehole, and even then, I would rather reply (but only if I can come up with an appropriate retort). Why? Because I love the interaction. Getting a comment, no matter how small, will always make my day. So, it feels right to at least say thanks. Also, I met one of my now good friends through us chatting in our fics' comments. So who knows what might come of it.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, probably One Last Cup.

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I've not written the ending yet, but it's going to be How Did We Get Here? If only because I have become waaayyy too attached to all of the characters to give them anything but.

Do you get hate on fics?

It's not quite hate, and I know it could be worse, but How Did we get here? garners some pretty strong reactions. They're a downer.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I've only published very mild smut, but I have written more explicit stuff since, and some of it is in the next chapter I'm publishing, and I'm scared.

Do you write crossovers?

No, I struggle enough with one fandom. Huge respect to the people who manage it

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah. They're not good enough for that.

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! Three actually. Idle in Kangaroo Court W1, for the mixed up writer fest. We ran out of steam, so it's unfinished, but I keep promising myself I'm going to finish it one day. Then two more with some friends, one short one for the rare pairs fest, that will be revealed soonish. Then one long fic that 3 of us a writing, which is err... in progress.

What's your all time favourite ship?

Call me a basic bitch, but I will always be such a sucker for Dramione.

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

I have a really unhealthy stubborn streak that won't let me leave things unfinished, so hopefully none. Though Idle in Kangaroo Court is most at risk, because its been so long (and I feel I have to reach out to my co-author to check they don't mind, and my social anxiety is one of the few things that trumps my stubbornness).

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. I keep thinking I should try writing something as a script.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and flowery language. I have to work hard at imagining visuals, so a lot of the time I don't. And I'm too literal to do well with metaphors.

Thoughts in writing dialogue in another language?

I've never really had any before. I guess I don't mind it in small amounts, if the meaning can be inferred from context or reactions. It's annoying if you miss something by not understanding what it means.

First Fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter

Favourite fic you've written?

Oh god, that's like asking me to chose between my children! Live Like Common People will always have a special place in my heart, as it was my first and the characters will forever live rent free in my head.

But also, I'm most proud of Tattletail, because I think it is technically my best piece of writing.

Tagging anyone who wants to play, as I suspect I'm one of the last of my mutuals to get round to this.

[asterkiss]

This fanart by @miragexd is so cute that I wrote a oneshot inspired by it:-

Why is Bill in human form? Why is he hanging out with the group? Who knows, this is a drabble so I don’t need to go into that backstory. :p

- COLD EMBRACE

If Mabel had to pick between her favourite season, she would probably say summer after some consideration.

Afterall, summer had flowers, smoothies, trips to the beach, and cute boys in swimming trunks.

That last one was very important as it had given her a prime excuse to see Bill shirtless at the pool earlier this year and had been the first initial step upon the mental ordeal of a mountain that was realising her feelings for the demon.

—She still wasn’t entirely at the top yet. A girl needed more than six months to grapple with the internal realisation of holding feelings for Bill Cipher.

Bluh, she always chose the challenges, didn’t she?

Currently, the brunette was wandering through the woods near the Shack as snow fell from the sky and coated the landscape in a pristine white blanket. She and Dipper had decided to visit all their friends in Gravity Falls for the holidays this year and were currently enjoying their first week of three.

It was also a chance to visit Bill, who was squatting at the Shack until the unforeseeable future.

...Who was tagging along with her right now.

Mabel looked down at her feet as she crunched through the snow, enjoying the sensation of making tracks in the otherwise untouched snow. Dipper had gone off on “not a date” with Pacifica so she’d been left by herself. Not one to stay idle, the teenager had decided to wander off and make some snow angels.

But then Bill had followed her.

And what should have been a short walk a few feet past the treelines had become a lot further and longer as she kept striding on so as to avoid looking back at him.

At least she could blame her red cheeks on the cold.

‘Oi, Shooting Star, where the hell are we going?’

She faltered at the abrupt voice, realising they were by now pretty deep into the woods.  Ah. ‘Uh,  here!’

‘Here?’

Mabel span on her heel and flashed him with a wide smile she hoped appeared genuine. ‘Yeah, here!’

Bill stared at her with keen golden eyes. ‘…This is a ditch.’

She faltered, averting her gaze quickly. Had his eyes always been that scrutinising or was she imagining it? This was probably the first time she’d actually made eye contact with him since arriving.

‘Okay, you’re acting weird,’ Bill said gruffly, folding his arms. ‘You have since the moment you landed in town, what are you hiding? Did you go and get married off to some other supernatural creature again?’

She pouted. ‘No.’ Jeez, you almost marry a herd of gnomes once and you never hear the end of it.

‘Then what?’

‘I’m not acting weird,’ she retorted before jabbing a gloved finger in his direction. ‘You’re the weird one.’

‘I’m an ancient and immortal all-powerful demon parading around in a human body whilst wearing a fluffy parka and earmuffs, of course I’m fucking weird.’

Fair point.

‘And I know a liar when I see one, so fess up.’

She internally groaned. ‘It’s nothing, just drop it. Girls are allowed to have secrets.’

‘Not when it means you can’t even look me in the eye, kid. Jeez, you’re treating me like I killed your pet pig. I haven’t tried that since last year!’

She frowned, eyes sliding in his direction. He had been making a real an effort to act nicer. It was part of the reason she’d ended up liking him before she realised it.

‘Yeah, that’s my chest. My eyes are up here.’

Mabel huffed as she finally raised her gaze up to meet his stare. There were those piercing honey eyes again that she could get lost in. She swallowed thickly.

Bill arched an eyebrow. ‘So? What’s up?’

Her lips parted, struggling to find her voice as she considered actually being honest. What was the worst that could happen? He laughed in her face and made fun of her and told the entire town she had a big fat crush on him?

—On second thoughts, nope. She shook her head frantically.

‘Urgh, you’re so frustrating sometimes,’ Bill muttered, rolling his eyes. ‘Good luck to your next boyfriend.’

Mabel scowled at that, stomping her foot as she glared. ‘As if I’d ever ask you out!’

‘What?’

Mabel blinked. ‘What?’

They stared at one another.

Bill regarded her with confusion, blinking owlishly as her abrupt words sunk in. ‘Wait a second…’

Meanwhile, Mabel felt panic clawing up her throat as she registered what she’d just said and the implications it could lead to. She didn’t like that look of dawning realisation beginning to cross his face.

Time to abort. Mabel out.

‘Bye!’

She turned on her heel and fled.

‘What- hey wait a second!’

Mabel ignored him, skidding partially in the snow as she legged it. Nope, nope, nope.

‘Shooting Star!’ he yelled, voice echoing through the trees as she continued to rush ahead. She leapt over a fallen log in her haste and landed on the snowy ground past it. ‘Look out for the—!’

The rest of Bill’s words were lost as Mabel fell through the ice and plummeted into the lake.

The freezing water instantly soaked her clothing, the cold seeping through her skin and penetrating her bones. She quickly scrambled to escape, her head breaking through the surface as the cold air hit her wet skin. However, she only managed one gulp of air before her sodden winter coat weighed her down again and dragged her under.

Oh no, no, no, no.

Alarm swelled inside her, heart slamming against her chest before something grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her out of the frozen lake. She spluttered out water as she found herself tossed on the shore, her entire body shivering whilst the teen gulped in greedy breaths of air. She’d only been in the water for less than ten seconds, but it felt like forever as adrenaline continued to course through her body.

‘You…. You sure know how to break the ice,’ Bill breathed from beside her. Mabel slowly raised her head to find him sat panting heavily beside her as he clutched a hand over his chest. He was a demon, so he didn’t get out of breath which meant his current reaction was the result of pure panic and stress.

Mabel swallowed, teeth chattering as she tried to speak. ‘Th-Thanks.’ For not letting her drown a terrifying watery death.

Bill glanced aside at her, still breathing erratically and she found herself frozen for an entirely different reason beneath that gaze of his once again.

His eyes swept over her for a second before he spoke. ‘Take your clothes off.’

‘Wha-!’ Her face flushed, some heat creeping back into her cheeks although the rest of her body remained like ice.

‘Your clothes are soaked, you need to get out of ‘em,’ he snapped, shooting her a fierce look. ‘Lose the oversized coat and get over here.’

He looked so commanding and she felt so cold that she didn’t question him. She shifted onto her knees and tried to unzip her winter coat but her hands were trembling so bad that she could barely get a hold. In the end Bill grunted and leaned forward towards her. She blinked at the proximity of their faces, though he didn’t seem to notice as his gaze remained rooted down as he grasped her zip. He yanked it down in one swift motion that made her squirm for some reason before he leaned away and allowed her to pull her arms out of the thing. It instantly dropped to the floor like a dead weight, and Mabel hugged herself as she now found herself in nothing but a sweater and jeans.

Bill leaned back, offering a hand. ‘Now here.’

Were they going to go back to the Shack? She reached out and accepted his hand, fingers lacing with his before he abruptly tugged her forward into his lap. She let out a small yelp of surprise, scrambling as she found herself on top of him.

‘Oh my god, will you quit squirming?’ he growled, and in the next moment Mabel found her back pressed against his chest as he wrapped his coat around her shivering frame. She hadn’t even realised he’d unzipped his own clothing. She blinked as she processed the fact she was sitting in Bill’s lap. Sitting in his lap whilst he hugged her.

Oh my.

‘W-What are you doing?’

‘Preventing you from turning into an ice cube,’ he drawled, his chin resting atop her head. ‘I think you’ll find as a demon I’m quite warm.’

That he was. Confined between his body and the inner fur lining of his coat, Mabel found she suddenly didn’t feel so cold with her personal demon-shaped hot water bottle. Or perhaps that was because her face and chest felt flushed from how much of Bill’s body was pressed against hers.

‘Oh good, your body’s already warming up.’

‘You can tell?’

‘Yup, I’m a demon. It’s why I’m good at picking out liars.’

Oh.

Part of her wanted to ask why they weren’t returning to the Shack, after all shouldn’t they be getting her indoors? But she rather liked their current position and wasn’t in a rush to disrupt it. Even if it did mean possibly getting a slight case of hypothermia.

He hummed. ‘By the way, Shooting Star?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Next time you confess, try not to run off immediately after.’

Mabel blinked at that. Next time? Was he saying he wanted there to be a next time? His grip on her tightened and she swore she could feel his own heart pounding away through his chest against her.

Rather than question it and ruin this moment she instead managed a small nod as she leaned against the demon and relished in their closeness. ‘Okay,’ she whispered, eyes fluttering closed. ‘I won’t.’

Unbeknownst to her, the demon smiled warmly.

After that, Mabel decided winter was her favourite season. No particular reason. Just cuz.

#mabill #miragexd #oneshot

[cf56]

i think what you’re doing is just fine. okay, so what if you’re overly invested in a cartoon? i mean the next sentence in the most supportive way possible: who gives a shit? you still find joy in this series, in these characters. you just have a lot of criticisms as well. and if these characters hold a lot of importance to you, that’s not gonna go away just because of some rando anon.

also it’s like… last anon, do you want to pay for op’s therapy? no? why’s that, besides them being a stranger? because therapy is expensive, you say? huh. it’s almost as if several mentally ill individuals can’t access therapy because it’s too expensive 😲

my point is that yes, while it can sound concerning to others that animaniacs is one of the few things that makes you happy at this point in your life, at least you have something that brings you joy at all. mental illness is messy and doesn’t always make logical sense. i’d say being very invested in a cartoon is one of the better coping mechanisms out there.

if the other anon is uncomfortable with the intensity of your opinions, then that is entirely their own preference, and they should block you just as you said in the last ask. you aren’t actively attacking fans with opposing opinions to yours, so it’s not as if you’re harassing others

Thank you. This is exactly how I feel about it. Even before all this, I’ve never made it a secret that my love for Animaniacs isn’t normal. I mean, I wrote 24 fanfics about this show in 2 years. Those are only the ones I posted.

“Normal”, though, is not something I’ve ever strove to be. Animaniacs makes me happy. It occupies 75% of my idle thoughts when I’m not focused on something else. I’m bored at work, I think about Animaniacs. I hear a song, I think of ways to associate it with Animaniacs. I’ve never considered this a negative, because it does bring me joy. I still don’t consider it a negative.

I will contest one minor point of yours. There are plenty of things that make me happy besides Animaniacs. It’s just, when this show is so intrinsically connected to everything about me, it also drags me down when I’m feeling negative about it. When your happy place isn’t all that happy, it’s hard to escape life’s stresses. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m in some major depressive mental crisis over this, because I’m not. I’m alright. I just need some time to sift through my emotions. Those emotions are intense, but I’m not ashamed of that. It wouldn’t be healthy to be ashamed of that. It also wouldn’t have been healthy for me to keep them in and pretend like everything was 100% okay.

What certainly doesn’t help is people preaching to me and saying I need therapy because I like my hobbies a little too much. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you folks don’t even know my first name. How do you know what my relationship with therapy and mental health looks like? How could anyone possibly try to tell me what I need to do in that regard? We’re all just trying to get through life in the best way we can. This is my way. I criticize because I care, and because I’m not going to feed you all BS and dance around how I actually feel. You get the real me, even if you don’t know my name. Thanks so much for speaking up in my defense. :)

#answered ask #cfposts

[greenie-teaa]

Stuff I Played in 2023: Hi-Fi Rush

I could’ve sworn I wrote this but I guess not. Oops. I actually finished this back in early February, but I swear to god this is the best game to come out this year so far. Yea blah spoilers.

What drew me into Hi-Fi Rush at first was “rhythm based game,” but immediately after that, the visuals completely overshadowed it. It has a very comic book-y style, with sound effects being represented with words, shading on characters in certain cutscenes, and even straight up having actual animated comics play out. It’s the most visually interesting game I’ve seen in so long and I wish I could express how excited that makes me through text.

If you ask anyone about this game, the first thing they’re gonna mention is the art style and animation. There is never a dull or boring moment when looking at it. Cutscenes switching between 2D and 3D one frame to the next, the limited frame rate with animations, literally EVERYTHING that moves syncing up to the soundtrack. It’s so vibrant and always moving. Even your footsteps and idle animations are in sync. On top of that, everyone compares it to a cartoon, and it’s really obvious as to why, with the (actually funny) quips, visual gags, and other things that you can literally only get with either a set piece or by watching motions. All of the jokes feel like they were carefully placed and barely any went by without at least a chuckle from me.

Okay but, like, the gameplay now. It’s really interesting, being rhythm based. While you aren’t strictly locked to it, you get bonus damage from attacking in rhythm. There’s a letter grade for each fight like any other beat-em-up (I assume), and enemies have different attack patterns and defenses so none of them feel like they’re the same as a different one, in most cases. All of the bosses were made to be distinctly different from one another. Rekka and Roquefort could be compared easily - just hit big guy til they go down - however they have different mechanics and structuring that make them feel different. Korsica’s fight is nothing but parrying. Zanzo isn’t even fought, you just take his money from him. Etc. No boss felt like the last and it’s rare to see a game do that these days.

But the best part about the game by far? It’s really sad I have to say this but... it’s a finished game. No early access, no DLCs, no updates. It’s a finished product that just shadow dropped out of nowhere and exploded. I really, truly do hate that one of my selling points for this game is the fact it’s DONE. It’s long too!! It took me (with a lot of failing on hard difficulty) like 12 hours to finish it!! And it has a postgame!! Name another game published by a big name company in the past 10 years that’s done that. It was such a nice break.

Honestly, with how much I can talk about it, I don’t feel like my words could do it justice, so I’ll just recommend reading through this post here. It expresses my thoughts much better than I ever could. Buy it buy it play it play it.

#hi-fi rush #rambles #2023

[tothedarkdarkseas]

In honor of your fic being awesome, I have to recommend "Beneath the Brine" by The Family Crest as the perfect Seething Coast mood. "Why have taken me in your fall?" sums up Studoc and your fic nicely, not to mention the ocean imagery and references to "the fall." It reminds me of how "the fall of man" in Plastic Beach was meant to be Murdoc's fall; Stu's album is titled The Fall because he is also part of the same fall. Anyway, songs about the ocean are good and so is your fic.

🥺 That's really kind of you to say, and it means very much to me that you'd read it and think of songs. I gave the song a listen, and it hits like a ton of bricks doesn't it? It is quite the sweeping tragedy rich with literary reference. The overwhelming oceanic imagery definitely hits home, and the emotive wailing vocals accepting but mourning the fate they are soon to drown under feels like a powerful contrast to Stu's silent screaming. I'm really touched you would think of something I wrote when hearing such a well-produced song. I'm really touched that you would think of Seething Coast at all.

I agree with your interpretation of The Fall being metaphorical, even mythological to complement Murdoc's fall of man, thoughts of Icarus and Orpheus and Lucifer plucked and swirled together, but I also just found it funny when putting the tour dates together that Damon wrote the whole thing between October and November. I like to think Damon was playing a bit with that double meaning, letting the album live in the space between reality and not despite how heavily the day-to-day songwriting skews toward lived experience. From his nonfiction perspective it is a touring diary of that fame and displacement in America, contained to a single season, and the use of "fall" feels more Americanized than "autumn" would be in his personal lexicon (presumably!) I just think that Stu disguising the title's meaning, maybe even to himself as he conceptualizes a monthlong tour diary to give escape from the prolonged trauma of idle time, is an interesting idea.

Thank you again for reading, and for saying so. It really takes more than I can write to properly express the gratitude. And I am sorry to casual blog-goers if I've been tedious, or glum, or desperate about the fic and my feelings thereafter. There's much to be said, most of it unflattering toward me, but reflection shows me time and again that showing a wound and lamenting how it hurts you doesn't really change what put it there, and it instead brings pain and discomfort to those who wish to see you heal. And that's wordy bollocks, right, it's dressing up my meaning when the thing to do is be gracious. It was and is asking a lot for you to read any of my fics, new or old, or to look at this blog, or to be here at all. It is particularly special to read that fic, as it meant very much to me. Thank you. Sincerely, thank you.

#fic asks #music junk

[rubymoon-snape]

Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron Defender of the Universe. I do own Ruby though.

Summary: As Ruby heals, the team and her friends write/draw on her cast.

Author Note: This is Keith/Ruby, Lance/Rachel (belonging to QueenScene2), and Allura/CJ (belonging to 80sGayTrashGoblin).

"Cast Signing"

Keith normally liked going on patrol, but he managed to get Hunk to do it for him as he didn't want to leave Ruby alone too long. He did one time and came back to find her trying to do some work around the castle.

Ruby knew she needed to take the time to recuperate, but she didn't like being idle...unless she was cuddling with Keith. She hoped she would be cuddling Keith that afternoon, but he was supposed to be on patrol.

Even though it was Keith's room, they were slowly adding Ruby's things to the room that they would now both be sharing. The first things had been her clothes and toiletries, and the next things would be her books and mementos. It would go a lot faster when she could move on her own, but Keith didn't even want her trying to go out of the room on her own.

Speaking of Keith, he entered their room to her surprise and approached the bed. He tucked an errant strand behind her ear and leaned in for a kiss. She eagerly responded to his kiss, and when they came up for air, Keith put his forehead against hers. "Darling, would you like to go to the lounge today?"

"Sure, but I thought you had patrol today," Ruby replied, holding out her arms.

Keith gently swept her into his arms and left the room. "I did, but I asked Hunk if he'd do it for me."

"But why?"

"I wanted to spend this time with you."

"And to make sure I didn't try to do any work?"

"That too." Keith carried her into the lounge, set her on the couch, and sat down next to her. He smiled and pulled out a full set of markers, selecting the red one. He proceeded to draw several red hearts and then sign his name underneath in cursive.

As he was signing his name, Lance and Rachel walked in. Rachel hurried over and sat down on Ruby's other side. "How are you doing, Ruby?"

"As good as I can be."

"Can I sign your cast?"

"Yeah, sure."

Rachel picked up the purple one and wrote 'Get well soon' on the opposite side and drew hearts around her words. Once Keith was done, Lance picked up the blue marker and wrote his name in all capitals, making the 'L' all fancy, displaying his knowledge of calligraphy.

While Lance and Rachel were signing Ruby's cast, Allura and Pidge stopped by. Allura smiled when she saw everyone signing the purple-haired maid's cast. She selected the pink marker and started drawing a pretty good chibified rendition of a lion on the same side Keith and Lance signed, while Pidge used the green to draw some symbols on the opposite side.

"What are those?" Ruby asked.

"They look like just random symbols," Lance mentioned.

"You wouldn't know an alien language if you saw one," Pidge quipped, completely lying.

Ruby giggled at Pidge's comment, and Keith wasn't going to mention that he knew Pidge was lying. If thinking the symbols were an alien language made Ruby smile, then he wasn't going to ruin the trick.

Just then, CJ popped out of the vent, hearing the slight commotion in the lounge. "Are we having a signing party?"

Ruby looked up and smiled. "Apparently we are. Come on, CJ!"

CJ grinned and jumped down from the vent. She grabbed the orange marker and started drawing silly faces on the opposite side of Pidge's symbols.

The group didn't know how long they were in there, but they were joined by Hunk, who had just finished the patrol Keith requested him to go on. He saw what everyone had done and approached, grabbing the yellow marker. He found an empty place and wrote 'feel better.'

Ruby admired all the additions to her cast and smiled as she realized that all her friends were there with her and would be for her entire recovery period.

Fin

#voltron #voltron defender of the universe #voltron dotu #80s voltron #voltron keith #dotu keith #keith kogane #voltron lance #dotu lance #lance mcclain #voltron allura #dotu allura #princess allura #voltron pidge #dotu pidge #pidge stoker #voltron hunk #dotu hunk #hunk garrett #f/o x s/i #rance rance revolution #keith x ruby #Allura x CJ #hurt ruby