#and I think that idea should be utilized in fics more

[fandomfuntimem]

Dp x Dc or just Dp things I (personally) want to see more of.

Just some stuff I've seen and really liked but never see enough of.

Danny is very casually a genius and/or skilled (engineering, gymnastics, really any skill you pick):

There isn't enough of it tbh. I dont think people realise just how smart and skilled he is. Being a ghost probably made him very flexible and gave him extra abilities the average human may not have. Also he comes from a family of scientists, yeah maybe up against them he doesn't seem smart, but being "smart" comes in different forms. More often than not the ability to be smart comes from your ability to pick up on things, retain information, understand information, and use that information accordingly. Danny does that, especially with his villains. He even finds outside the box ways to defeat his villains. Like tricking Freakshow into becoming a ghost.

I just think its under utilized. A lot of Teen heros are geniuses but no one ecknowledges it. Hell, you can make it that Danny doesn't even realise just how smart he is. He doubts it and often thinks he's one of the dumber people in the room. But when sleep deprived and running on a cup of coffee he can solve a problem he hasn't even seen before the konk out for an hour.

Danny has BEEF with the JL or isn't outright a fan:

In a lot of fics the JL (especially Batman) are huge hypocrites. Like they'll barge into Amity trying to solve problems that don't even effect them, screw things up more, then offer Danny more training. Hello????? You guys being there caused the problem???? Then, in other things Batman preaches about territory and Danny will get threatened or treated with suspicion for even stepping foot NEAR Gothem, but then barges into his territory like its his buisness.

Let Danny call them out. Let him point out that everything has been fine untill they showed up. Let him get MAD. This is HIS territory, HIS haunt, HIS people. These guys have done nothing for him! Why should he accept their help when their help only makes things worse? In fics where they help him because he needed it and ended up in Gotham let him be suspicious and careful. He doesn't need to be vivasected or hurt to be warry of the crime fighting furries he just met.

Mans has the experience to know you can't trust anyone untill they prove you can.

Danny should be casually overpowered and spooky:

This isn't even he has to be experienced. He is so used to his powers he doesn't realise how scary it is. He will casually stop a punch from superman, laugh, quipe, then punch back.

He accidentally breaks stuff, walks through things, glows, its so normal for him. He apologizes and does it again because he forgot. He genuinly has no idea how strong he is, he just knows he needs to be soft on humans.

Danny and Phantom are very different personalities:

I'm not saying they're two different people. They have the same mind same person. But the way they act is so different. Danny is grumpy, quiet, whimpy. Danny is a loser, and everyone knows it. Phantom, on the other hand, is confident, he jokes, smiles, makes a game out of his struggles, he's strong. Phantom is just a good guy. Everyone (minus others) loves him!

This happens because Danny is more comfortable as Phantom or Vise Versa. Sertant trates carry over, they're nerds, they're smart, they enjoy a good pun, they're sassy. But because Danny is a loser everyone sees it as lame, but with Phantom its endearing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

None of this means you need to get rid of silly nerdy Danny. You can have that but all these other things ad depth to his character. Hes smart but not confident, he's kind but not naive, he's powerful but not violent, and he finds comfort in the fact no one knows him.

Idk. I'm not a big fanfic writer so i thought i would just share and see what others do with it.

#dp x dc crossover #dp x dc prompt #dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #dcxdp #danny phantom #batman #dc comics #writing #text post #funtime speaketh #just some of my thoughts #personal stuff no one has to actually follow #just putting it out there

[suzukiblu]

thinking of fully-not-cryptid tim still being horny about kon making shinies, because both 1) incredibly cool display of scientific understand and superpowers and 2) kon clearly thinks that he would appreciate them, and he’s making them solely for that purpose, and that just does something for him

You may or may not be tapping into something I am trying to tap into with the actual fic version here, lol. In fact, have a lil' excerpt along those lines:

"I got you something else too," he says eagerly, jamming a hand into his jacket pocket and then pulling something shiny out of it and holding it out in offering. Tim takes it on reflex, which is a stupid reflex, but Superboy just looks so excitedly hopeful that he does it without thinking. It's a crystal-clear and faceted rock with an unmistakably heart-like shape to it, and it sparkles brightly in the late-night Gotham moonlight. It's not a particularly big rock, but it'd be a pretty damn big gemstone. Which–if Tim didn't know better, he'd think Superboy had just handed him a perfectly flawless fifty-carat diamond. But that would be insane, because a diamond this size and quality would be worth a good five million dollars, if not significantly more, and– "I made it," Superboy says, his face turning a little pinker than the cold night air up here should account for with a half-Kryptonian, even one whose full powerset allegedly isn't in yet. "Like, I mean, I sat in a volcano and crushed some carbon and cut it with my TTK so it'd look nice and then–I just thought maybe you'd like that kind of thing? Birds like shiny stuff, right? And like, you're kind of . . . bird-ish, right?" . . . okay then, Tim thinks as he stares blankly at the custom-cut, custom-crafted diamond in his clawed gauntlet. He has absolutely no idea how he feels about this situation. "Ishhhhh," he says, then sort of just . . . disappears five million dollars of "shiny stuff" into the tattered folds of his cape and inside his hidden utility belt, because Superboy seems really invested in him liking it and also he apparently literally made it, which Tim is just . . . gonna need a moment about, maybe. Superboy's only existed for five months, two weeks, and six days. Exactly how long does it take to learn how to telekinetically cut a diamond? Much less one this flawless? Like . . . percentage-wise, how much of his life so far did Superboy just spend on learning how to make him a fifty-carat heart-shaped diamond? Just . . . mathematically-speaking and all.

#astralscar #meta ecetera #timkon #wip: a fake cryptid and a real romantic

[yourheart-inmyhands]

Hiya! So I saw your request box is open again. In that case, I Hope you don't mind me requesting something.

You know how in pretty much all the Archon Fics it's said that Reader is much weaker than the Archon obsessed with them? Well what if that wasn't the case, and by some miracle reader is actually more powerfull than the Archons?

Sorry if it didn't make much sense, you have the right to ignore this Ask if you don't want to write for it.

- 🐶 anon

i love this idea so much! i can't really see a case where they would be stronger than the Archons unless it was a situation much like travelor but i didn't wanna copy that so i hope you enjoy! :D

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including delusional behaviors, obsessive behaviors, mentions of violence against reader, and other potential topics. Please read at your own risk!

Yandere!Venti doesn’t care how much stronger you think you are then him, he’s got the real power here. He’s fought in wars, raised hell like no other before him. He may not have been the first Anemo Archon, but there’s a reason he’s the one everyone talks about versus Decarabian, the original Anemo Archon. He’ll use any dirty trick or tactic to get you back under his control, disorienting you with wings so strong you can’t breathe, intense dreams that have you waking up in a cold sweat, even resorting to gaslighting you so intensely you could never imagine standing up to him.

“Oh dear, don’t you see it? You aren’t that strong. You’d have been worshiped like the beloved Archons if you were anyone with true power.” Venti smiles at you sweetly, a faint bitterness to his tone as he tries to calm you down. You had gone a little stir crazy after being locked in the apartment with him for so long, and he couldn’t blame you for it. But now he needed you to calm down, while he could use all the dirty tricks in the books to slow you down, he knew that if you caught on to his schemes and realized that you really did hold the power, him and everything he’d worked so hard for in this relationship would be over.

Yandere!Zhongli would be indifferent to your strength. Be as strong as you want, you’ll never be strong enough to break his shield. He’ll simply stand there, shield standing as strong and firm as it has been as you slowly tire yourself out, beating yourself black and blue against his impenetrable wall. He doesn’t need to fight you, you fight yourself enough every day trying to get away from him, but he’ll never let you leave.

“You really ought to stop this my sweet, you’re only making yourself look pathetic.” Zhongli’s soft, monotone voice reaches your ears as you slump to your knees in exhaustion. Your hands were bloody from all the fighting you had done, the vital fluid making a gently dripping noise as it hit the ground every so often. When Zhongli was certain you weren’t going to continue, your determination having worn down with your mortal flesh, he’ll disperse his shield, beginning on your medical care. “There we go my sweet, just relax, and remember. Humans bruise a lot easier than real gods.”

Yandere!Raiden has far too much battle experience under her belt to be so easily overpowered. Regardless of how much power you wield, it isn’t always about the strength but rather how you use it. She’ll continue to beat you in every battle, breaking down your pride and hope little by little as she knocks you off your feet, slashes against your skin, sends you flying across rooms, whatever it takes to show you who is superior here.

“You should give up already, you will never beat me. When you can slay beasts the size of islands perhaps then we can consider a real battle. You claim to hold so much power but what good is it if you cannot even utilize it?” Raiden’s voice has that same, eerie calmness to it as it always does. The way she carries herself as she walks slowly across the Plane of Euthymia, the chosen battlefield, holds that same, strange calmness to it. It’s almost as if she doesn’t find any threat in your attacks, not only dodging and deflecting them with ease, but also counter-attacking with the kind of expertise only someone centuries old could have. She didn’t secure her land in the Archon War by just swinging her sword about wildly, no, she fought like a proper expert should.

Yandere!Furina would be distraught internally. She may be the Hydro Archon but she has never fought in any grand wars or had any grand display of power to boast about. Her predecessor, Egeria, was the grandiose one, she was merely the replacement. She isn’t entirely sure how to keep you from leaving, oftentimes having to resort to getting help from Neuvillette to keep you contained.

“Neuvillette!” A shrill scream echoed through said dragon’s office, the doors slamming open as Furian waltzed in. “They got out again, I need your help.” A common occurrence as of late, with Furina being unwilling to fight her beloved head-on, she often resorted to pestering the long-haired male for help. Of course, once she got you home and secured again she’d flip her lid on you, but for now, her main focus was getting you there. The strategy as of late, one you hadn’t seemed to recognize yet, was that she would distract you with some petty argument, one that is often what resulted in you leaving in the first place, while Neuvillette sneaks up and knocks you out from behind. While this works for now, she knows she’ll eventually have to change it up, you are unfortunately smart.

#genshin x reader #genshin x male reader #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin x male reader #venti x reader #venti x male reader #yandere venti x male reader #yandere venti x reader #zhongli x reader #zhongli x male reader #yandere zhongli x reader #yandere zhongli x male reader #raiden x reader #raiden x male reader #yandere raiden x reader #yandere raiden x male reader #furina x reader #furina x male reader #yandere furina x reader #yandere furina x male reader #yandere genshin #yadere venti #yandere zhongli #yandere riaden #yandere robin.

[chiffiorra]

╰┈➤ Let's Go into Overtime

➜ Synopsis: You, a broke college student, weren't satisfied with the hours that your job was giving you. Seeing that you needed another way to pay your tuition on time, you decided to look for some other options and found the best one.

➜ Pairings: Sugar daddy!Kento Nanami x fem!college student!reader

➜ This Fic Contains the Following: modern AU, sugar daddy and baby relationship, age gap (reader is in her early 20s, Nanami is in his late 20s), unprotected sex, minor alcohol usage but both parties are still aware of what they're doing, Nanami is a little soft here, possibly ooc Nanami, oc of mine is a friend of reader, a bit of unrequited love from reader's side

➜ WC: 1,352

➜ Note: for the sugar daddy collab by my bestie @sleepysnk! i haven't written for nanami in forever so i apologize for him seeming off (y'all know the obligatory from me by now lmao) ;w;. despite kinda struggling on this one a bit, i hope i did my hubby justice~

➜ Song as Inspiration: Overtime - Jessie Ware

You felt your breath hitch as you felt him kiss and nip at your neck. Already feeling buzzed from the drinks you two shared earlier and this rush of excitement that you haven’t felt in forever, you couldn’t even remember the last time someone made you feel this way. The thought of it making your knees weak as he gently laid you down on the bed.

As for how and why this was happening, your mind began to wander back to the days leading up to this arrangement.

—

‘Good start to my morning’, you thought sarcastically as you plopped down onto your couch, letting out a long sigh. 

When you checked the mail this morning, you thought it would be the typical mail you got almost everyday. What you found was a letter from the college you attended, and you didn’t think much of it… that was until you opened it and read what was inside. 

It was the last thing you could’ve imagined and also dreaded: your tuition bill. 

You gulped and began to sweat as you read the letter over and over, hoping that your eyes were playing tricks on you and that it was all in your head. But no, this was reality. And there was one problem: you didn’t have enough money to pay for said bill.

As you sank into the couch more, you dropped the letter and began rubbing your temples with your fingertips, as if you were feeling a headache about to happen. How the hell were you gonna pay this off? You used the majority of your savings to pay off utilities and to put food on the table. It wasn’t easy due to the fact that you lived alone but you managed. But with this bomb dropped on you, you felt that your time was starting to run out. 

You sighed again, unsure of how you were going to do this, you were already in debt as it is! And so, you called a friend of yours for advice, in which she agreed to come over. 

—

“Why not just get yourself a sugar daddy?” Your friend Hoshiko asked, giggling at the spit take you just did. You really wished you weren’t drinking at that moment as you began to cough, not expecting such a question.

“Are you serious?” You wheezed out, trying to breathe. Meanwhile Hoshi just giggled at the scene happening in front of her.

“Yeah! I know someone who has a sugar daddy and it worked out perfectly for her! I’m telling you, you should at least try it out and see how it goes!” She said, patting you on the back.

“I dunno, Hoshi… I feel like this is gonna be a bad idea,” you add, unsure about this. “What if it doesn’t work out?”

Hoshi pats you on the back, “Well, you can at least say that you tried, right?” She asked before playfully nudging you. 

With that final push, you decided to try out the dating app specifically catered to sugar daddies that she introduced to you. It took some time to find the right man, but it seemed so difficult at first. You just couldn’t see yourself dating whatever man the app would recommend you.

And that was when you met him. He was a salaryman who appeared to simply never dream of labor but was still looking for someone to spend his extra earnings on and take as a plus one to events that he was most likely dragged to. 

He was a serious, no nonsense man when you first met and yet he intrigued you like no other. He eventually let his guard down around you once he became more comfortable around you. 

The best part? He was better than the college jocks that you hooked up with in the past. You began to think that all you needed was an older man to take care of you. And take care of you he did indeed. He brought you everything you could ever desire, he helped you pay for your bills, he did anything for you… but not without a price of course.

For every time you needed his help, you would pay him back in full with pleasure. This was no issue for you, but every now and then you couldn’t help but feel a tad insecure. You would always get a nagging feeling in your head, that feeling being that you were starting to fall in love. And that aches you knowing that he would see you as nothing more than his sugar baby. But that still never stopped you from fantasizing about him officially being yours in your alone time. It was something you craved more than the finest jewels and designer clothing that he brought you. 

You felt yourself come back to reality after feeling his lips kiss at your neck. The kisses would soon turn to him licking and nipping at your neck, before those nips would turn to bites. You felt like you were in heaven.

“Is this okay?” You felt him whisper in your ear. You felt flustered at his care for you, always seeming to put your pleasure before his despite his being repayment for you needing his money.

Nevertheless you nodded, hearing him chuckle into your skin as he left one more love bite on you. Your breath then hitched, feeling his warm tongue along your neck. It made you relax under him, his body seeming to cover yours.

After spending time with you over the months, it was like he knew your body better than yourself. Maybe this should’ve scared you but at the same time it turned you on, this was much better than your previous hookups. So much better.

“It’ll be alright, don’t worry,” he reassured you, this not being his first time doing so during your private time together. Usually you wouldn’t start tearing up until you were overstimulated, but this was different. His touches, reassurances, and kisses made you think: what if he was more than just a sugar daddy? What if he was your boyfriend? Your fiance? Maybe even your husband? 

The thought of it made you tear up a bit.

Soon enough, you began to feel him thrust into you; deeply but gently. Your legs trembled, feeling him hit your sweet spot with barely any effort. He sure did seem to know your body better than yours. 

Your hands were already ready to move on their own, one tangling into his hair and the other lacing your fingers together with his. You never held hands with him before until now, but something about tonight seemed more intimate compared to your previous nights.

If Nanami was surprised, he didn’t express it as he leaned down to kiss you deeply, his pace picking up. The squelching sounds from the both of you sounded so obscene that you felt flustered. 

Not too long, his pace began to pick up, making you moan loudly. It was a good thing that there were no neighbors living nearby, otherwise you two would hear a complaint. Not that you and him would even bother to care. 

“Ken… I’m close,” you moaned out, your hips deciding to move on their own to gain your release. This made him chuckle.

“Go on, baby. Let go for me,” he said to you, before kissing you again.

The kiss was enough to have you cream for him all over his cock, making you let out a loud moan in the otherwise quiet room. A few thrusts later, you felt him finish inside you.

As he slowly pulled out and went to get you some towels and water, you began to think. Was it worth the risk to pursue a relationship with him? Despite how it all started? Did he have any feelings for you as you did for him?

When he came back to clean you up, you smiled to yourself when he wasn’t looking. Even if he didn’t return your feelings, this relationship you had now could at least be the next best thing.

You could live with that.

#candy uploads 🍭 #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #kento nanami #kento nanami x reader #nanami kento #nanami kento x reader #nanami x reader #lemon pastries 🥐 #SugarDaddyCollab

[lorcandidlucienwill]

me and sjm are about to have a world building problem because she's killing me she obviously takes inspiration from ancient civilizations and geographical names around the Mediterranean, like the greeks (Eris, Helios, etruscans (literally their goddess of dawn is named thesan). Tarquin the last king of rome (and ironically the opposite of acotar Tarquin). Adriata should then come from the Adriatic sea and their architecture seems greco-roman. But then she mixes it up and gives the court fae brown skin (by the way, what kind of brown, this tells me nothing, i don't need like pantone, but slight more description) For the night court, she's just weird with it. the clothes Feyre is initially given by Rhysand kind of read to me like what you find when you search up 'sexy belly dancer'). Same with all of the clothes she wears when visiting Hewn City. I feel like she was trying to incorporate some more "exotic" things but it doesn't match the rest of the court. It seems like there's a couple different groups with completely different aesthetics that are completely separate from one another. Both Illyria and the court of nightmares seem like vassal states to Velaris and aside from Illyrians having tan skin and being called something around the lines of savages (very POC-coded), there is little to no evidence of any aesthetics that could be considered non-European. Not architecture-wise, name-wise, or (for the most part) fashion-wise. Now, it is a free country, SJM can write however and about whatever she wants. But I feel like there is just such a loss there. No matter where in the world you go, there is evidence of different cultures. Rich cultures which someone could easily take inspiration from!! I just wish she took the time to go down some of the rabbit holes fic writers go down, learning a multitude about what ends up being a small part of your story. Right now, her POC characters feel like an afterthought where she had her story written and then just inserted the word dark/tan on a couple characters. (Also I had no idea Amren was east asian until someone said she was on here and I do have to ask, where is the east asian exotica? Normally if you have one you have the other.) Also her in-universe world building is so convoluted and i hate it and nothing makes sense. I love magical objects as much as the next person, but some of these are one-and-done objects that you definitely could have had more use over. I think she has a vague plan and is just doing whatever she thinks of first to get to each plot point. (me in essays) Also, someone should make an anti-inner circle timeline with all the fucked things they've done so we don't forget. (And hope in the next book, sjm writes about a war crime tribunal for the past... century) thanks for listening to my rant, I've just been struggling to figure out how characters and courts play out and getting more frustrated as I continue.

Anon, you summed up all my frustrations perfectly!

Sjm writes her worldbuilding and tropes like she’s still writing fanfiction. I try to write fanfiction of her stories and I realize I know nothing about the places we’re supposed to be exploring.

Sjm takes inspiration from many many things but then she doesn’t commit to anything. She cherry picks shit to utilize based on vibes and together it doesn’t make sense. It’s really annoying when you see inspiration from your culture that could’ve been used so much better.

As for the IC, they’ve committed so many crimes it would require a thorough reread of all the books to note down all of them.

#anon asks #sjm critical #anti ic

[loquaciousquark]

okay but pls to tell me about the horror of hunger

BOY WOULD I LOVE TO okay so, first, it is imperative to understand that it's Tavish's canon that Astarion kills her the first time he feeds. This is because in playing the scene the first time ever, I was in MP with @mystery-moose & @eponymous-rose, and it so happened that the scene triggered on Tav & it so happened that she rolled TWO NATURAL ONES on both those checks & outright died, and it was so hilarious and unexpected that it simply had to become an integral part of her story.

Except of course as I got to know the character over several playthroughs, I was presented with a couple of questions! Why in the world would Tavish (selfish, self-centered, uniquely concerned with her own survival early in the game) firstly allow Astarion to feed on her at all, and secondly, fail so fatally to stop him before he killed her? How can I reconcile the dice with the narrative?

What I realized on the second run, though, was that Tav was a street kid from the age of 14. She had to fend for herself completely, unable to even scrounge up protection from the Thieves' Guild, and I think there were a lot (a lot) of nights where she went to bed hungry, especially the first few years. I think she developed a bone-deep fear of that hunger, and I think recognizing that same hunger in Astarion's eyes on bite night is what pushes her over the edge to allow the feed, even though it's not something she would have ever agreed to in a million years otherwise.

She likes Astarion by now, even if she doesn't like like him, and along with her realization that she doesn't mind helping others altruistically (some of the early tief stuff) comes the same realization about her companions. (It helps that Tav has additional hangups about her worth as a person being tied to her utility, especially surrounded by people she sees as much more competent than herself; if she can make Astarion dependent on her in this way, she can cement her place in the gang and they won't leave her behind. This is why she fails to stop him when she should, and then can't stop him when she must.) (This entire relationship is initially founded on bilateral manipulation and I love it.)

Anyway, the fic will start with an exploration of those events, then hopefully will move into other expressions of hunger & its dangers for both Tav & Astarion. She sees his ostensible hunger for power & recognizes his true hunger for safety & freedom, both from Cazador & the sun; he sees her hunger for gold and understands she's actually after the security of a warm place to sleep with food in her belly & someone who'll notice if she dies.

I have strong ideas for the first half of this fic & more nebulous vibes for the second half, but I think it'd be a really fun investigation of the way their characters mirror each other, & I like the idea of examining what they think "help" looks like, ahaha.

Thank you for asking! <3<3<3

#quark replies #blackestnight #wip name meme #tavish gale #astarion #quark plays bg3 #baldur's gate 3

[doodles5555]

Mary's Song (Oh my my my)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader, Steve Rogers x Adopted Sister!Reader

Summary: This fic will follow the lyrics of the song “Mary’s Song” by Taylor Swift

Word Count: 1500+

Warnings: None! A little angst at the end that is unresolved, but since this is just a blip in the character's lives, it will be ok by the beginning of the next chapter.

A/N: Here is some probably necessary information before starting: In this fic, all of our characters are a bit older than in the last one. Timelines and some details may be a bit wonky, but that's ok. I hope you enjoy!

p.s this is not a lyric fic, but instead, a fic that was inspired by the song

Chapter 2:

Sitting on the ground underneath the shade of the biggest tree in your backyard, you are focused on your favorite book, and your brother, Steve, is quietly humming to himself while working on some of his math homework. You can see the tip of his pencil moving around in smooth motions. You look over to the bright paper and see him doodling some pretty flowers on an expanding landscape, and you can imagine them in your mother's garden, the one your father built himself as a gift for your mother's birthday last year.

“That’s very pretty Stevie. You’re so talented, y’know that? I hope you do. One day, I’ll get to see your amazing artwork in a gallery. I just know it,” you ramble out before you even think about it. 

You see the corners of his smile tug upwards. You only wish he knew you really meant it. His skill is beyond his years. His teachers often comment about the doodles left on his classwork, about how he should take some art classes, to further his knowledge and skill. 

You had overheard your mother and father arguing about saving up some extra money, cutting any extra expenses to pay for any costs regarding the proposed extracurricular. Still, it ended up the same every time – Times were getting tougher, money was harder to come by, and panic was starting to settle like dust in the community. Any leftover profits from previous years were going to support your family. The stock market crashed only a few months ago, and you and Steve were none the wiser to how bad it truly had gotten.

“Maybe one day buttercup,” the nickname rolls off his tongue with ease for the commonality of its use, making his words sound sweeter than the undertones. Steve understood that your family was in an unfortunate situation and had grown poorer in the more recent months, noticing smaller dinners on the dining table and less familial outings, but he wouldn’t let that stop him from practicing and utilizing his drawing as a creative outlet. It helped him keep in touch with how he feels.

“Hey, Punk! Buttercup!” Shouting could be heard from the other side of the fence. As you turn toward the sound of the voice, you spot Bucky in the act of climbing over the worn-out fence surrounding your house. As his feet reach the ground, he races over to the shade the tree provides. He plops down at Steve’s feet, his eyes gazing upwards towards the paper in his hands. He snatches it, almost tearing the frail sheet with his tight grip. His blue eyes scan the paper intensely. The wide-eyed expression that lights up his face is priceless.

This wasn’t the first time that Bucky had seen one of Steve’s impressive drawings, but this one seemed to strike a chord in his brain. He just seems to be fascinated by the image.

“Wow, just wow,” Bucky is in awe of the gift that his best friend possesses. “So when will I be seeing this in a museum?” Bucky continues. Steve lets out a small chuckle, the idea absurd in his head.

“As cool as that would be, I already know that will not be my future.” You knew Steve always dreamed of joining the army and battling alongside other determined men and women defending the country, but that fantasy just wasn’t possible in his current state. You would never say anything to crush his persistence since the idea made him so happy, but you would always worry about his safety if he ever went through with it.

“As long as you’re happy, then we will support you, no matter what!” You smile. You meant what you said, and you know Bucky shares the sentiment. 

—--

As the sun passes through the sky and falls below the horizon line, you and the boys start running around the yard and playing tag. Steve was huffing and puffing, needing to sit out for a second to avoid an angry asthma attack. You and Bucky had been playfully bickering while the time-out was called on Steve’s behalf.

“I was goin’ to get you, I just know it!” You exclaimed through hard breaths.

“Yeah, yeah, sure you were,” Bucky said with a good-natured eye roll. 

Sensing his playful spirit, you sprint towards him intending to knock him to the ground, but you can only slightly shake him off the spot where he stands.

“Oh, you’re asking for it, Buttercup!” He tries to grab you from where you are, but you swiftly dodge his hands, barely escaping his grip. You run in towards Steve, trying to hide behind him while he is still recovering. Bucky wouldn’t want to hurt Steve by accident just to get to you, right?

Before you can even test that thought, Bucky manages to get a hold on the back of your shirt, slowing you down just enough for him to be able to strengthen his grasp on you. He throws you over his shoulder, and you shriek in surprise.

“Let me down, you goof!” Giggles are pouring from your mouth as Bucky carries you towards the big oak tree. You start to lightly hit his back as a signal for him to put you down on the solid dirt. As he starts to do so, your unstable legs accidentally make you stumble and start to fall. Unluckily for Bucky, he was still holding on to you, so you end up as a clump of bodies on the ground. You can hear Steve shout from the other side of the yard, most likely asking if you are both okay. You holler a confirmation before assessing the situation you have gotten yourself into.

Bucky adjusts himself so that his body is hovering over yours, his body being propped up above you. You can’t seem to stop staring at his eyes. They have you in some sort of powerful trance; you can’t escape if you try, but you don’t want to stop. Bucky seems to share the sentiment because your eye contact goes unbroken for what feels like minutes. You see Bucky’s mouth start to move, but what he says doesn’t register in your ears. Before you can process what you are about to say, it spills from your parted lips.

“Kiss me,” your words are breathless. Your face surely mirrors Bucky's expression; The shock is evident, but he isn’t off put by the idea. He nods, the motion so small that you barely catch it. 

He wants to kiss you. You want to kiss him. This recurring dream is coming to life right before you. This is all you have wanted since you realized your emotions for Bucky are more than platonic. He leans in, now inches from your face.

You freeze.

Every other thought bouncing around seized to a stop at that moment. You start to scramble out of Bucky’s gentle hold, untangling your body as quickly as you possibly can. Your panic is palpable. You hustle to your feet and book it towards Steve. You look over your shoulder to interpret the situation you ran away from. The regret starts to simmer beneath the flush on your skin.

Bucky’s face doesn’t show much emotion, but you can read the disappointment in his body language. His shoulders are slumped and his demeanor is troubled, almost as if he is grieving the loss of your body from under his. You automatically feel like a jerk. In your frenzy, you didn’t even think how Bucky would react to your sudden frantic disinterest in an innocent kiss.

The tears started to well in your eyes. You stammer out an excuse to head back inside the house to the comfort of your room before you let the drops roll down your cheeks.

—--

A few days have come and passed since the “incident” with Bucky, and you have been trying to avoid him. You know he feels whatever it is that is bubbling inside of you, but your embarrassment has stopped you from trying to fix the mess that you created. The consequences of your actions are starting to catch up with you. You are miserable without his companionship. Even Steve has started making comments about Bucky’s sudden absenteeism from your days under the oak tree. You want to mend the tear you created in your friendship, but the uncertainty of how Bucky may react is sending you in the complete opposite direction. 

Growing up alongside each other has created a special bond between the two of you. You never had many friends, seemingly always on the outside of everyone in your year at school. You were also not a stranger to rude remarks and getting into fights trying to defend your honor. Everything culminated in your only friends being your brother and his best friend. 

Were you lonely at school? Yes, but that didn’t matter because once you reached your front porch, you had everyone you needed at your fingertips. 

Now that one of the members of your tiny group was consistently missing, it felt as though a piece of the puzzle was missing, just shy of being complete. You know you need to fix the mess you created, but you are unsure of how to do so.

Oh my my my…

—--

A/N: Thanks for reading! I am a very busy college student, so it may take a while for me to get to writing and posting part 3, but I will do my best for it to come out sooner rather than later. Have a great rest of your day/night!

#fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #reader insert #x reader #steve x adopted!sister reader #steve rogers x adopted!sister reader #james buchanan barnes #writing

[robotlesbianjavert]

Do you think horikoshi just forget to give spinner a tail. or was it on purpose, so that he can't be another Ojiro? i honestly thought spinner was to have a tail and went through tail trauma like in your fic, but i guess the story just decided spinner is tailless. :(

honestly this is a good question and i have absolutely no clue! my feelings on horikoshi's character designs range from "that is perfect and i cannot imagine this character looking any other way" and "well it's certainly memorable", but one thing i always feel comfortable with is that horikoshi's designs are always evocative of the character and given a lot of though.

so that said, i doubt that horikoshi just forgot that geckos have tails. maybe he did have ojiro in mind, whose gimmick is being Exceedingly Normal but is still able to utilize his tail effectively in contrast to spinner whose entire deal is that his quirk is lame as hell.

i'll be 100% honest that i don't have strong feelings either way - i don't greatly desire a be-tailed spinner or feel like it missing from his design is a great disservice. spinner losing his tail traumatically is less a firm headcanon of mine / something i actively want out of canon, and more me fulfilling my righteous need for spinner whump. and also cuz it would be fascinating. while there are interesting implications with like, the religious undertones and ideas of contamination or whatever i can't find the meta about it rn of what shouji went through, it's ultimately wasted on his absolute nothing of a character arc. spinner should have gotten that sweet suffering. justice.

#bnha bloggin

[angelosearch]

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY FELLOW WRITERS

I've been tagged by @chainsawmascara! Thanks! ^_^

Tagging a couple of writers... @cynic-view-ahead @gardengalwrites @aleheartilly @suleikashideaway @mathiwrites @sevlinop @lenorelovesmax + Anyone else who wants to give this a go!

Last book I read: Oh shit I can't remember the last book I finished. It's been a while - I am in this space where I want to create more than I want to consume so I'm not reaching for books. I think I finished "An Immense World" by Ed Yong around this time last year? It was a good nonfiction piece about how humans and animals have different sensory experiences of the world. It sounds nerdy but this is the stuff I gravitate toward.

Greatest literary inspirations: Perhaps not "greatest" but the ones I think of most automatically right now - Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Terry Prachett and Shel Silverstien. What a bunch.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write: Seifer-focused stuff.

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: Psychology-heavy stuff with realistic, gritty experiences of mental illness. Also, characters playing D&D together – have two different ideas centered around that!

You can recognize my writing by: So. Much. Dialogue. I am beginning to wonder if I should try writing screenplays because I utilize dialogue so heavily.

My most controversial take (current fandom): I don’t know how controversial this is, but I am not a big fan of the Ultimecia=Rinoa theory. Now, if it’s a good fic, I don’t mind reading about it, but I don’t think I will ever be convinced it is or should be canon.

Top three favorite tropes: Can I be honest for a second? I really don’t look for specific tropes. I barely look for specific pairings. When I choose to read a fic, I look to see if the concept intrigues me and then give it a shot. If I like the author’s style by the end of the first chapter, I trust they are going to be able to keep entertaining me. I have noticed that I do tend to gravitate toward magical realism, time travel, and fated lovers but I don’t look for those tags specifically. Maybe it’s because I have only been back in the fanfiction game – both writing and reading – for a few months, but a good synopsis and the right vibe is all I am looking for in a fic, just like if I was browsing a bookshelf.

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Gosh it’s a 10. I rarely want to do anything else. Writing is the only thing that can 100% keep me from ruminating and it is addicting how effective it is at doing that. And when a chapter or one-shot has a hold on me, I can’t do anything else. It’s somewhat of a problem but my therapist hasn’t said that yet so I guess I am okay.

Share a fandom frustration: The FFVIII fandom is amazing. I don’t have any frustrations with it other than I wish it was bigger. Although, our small community is so wonderful and enthusiastic maybe it is better if it’s just the few of us gathered in a corner laughing and screaming.

#ff8 #tag game #writing tag game #fanfiction #writing

[aeternallis]

from the choose violence game: 12, 18, and 21 👀

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them Uncle Gun! He’s such an underutilized character because the fandom often define him only by his emotional/physical abuse of Vegas. Pete semi-armchair psychoanalyzed him, which is all well and good I guess, but I feel like there’s a lot more potential for him beyond being the bad daddy antagonist. For all the façade he puts up in front of Korn as a loyal younger brother, it’s fascinating to me that the bottom line of their competition boils down to “love” (in the sense that “love” = “power”) aka Nampheung and who was better suited to protect and maintain her. It’s an odd Helen of Troy situation, since it’s obvious Nampheung in their lives ceased to be a person a long time ago and more of as a “concept,” in that she was the prize to be gained. Gun’s role in the series poses an interesting question as to whether or not love should be considered as power or a weakness. I still have a lot of thoughts on this kinda vague answer, so maybe I’ll do a deep dive in the future!

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on… KimChay smut writers, why haven’t we made use of any of the pools in the Theerapanyakul compound? I have yet to see a fic of this, although it could just be because I haven't come across it yet, lol KinnPorsche got a lovely moment in their private pool, why can’t KimChay?? After the shit Kim put him through, Chay deserves a thorough fucking in the pool with Deutsche Bank as his audience too, ya know! 😤

21) part of canon you think is overhyped Kim and cats. 😂 I’ve just seen it one too many times, lol But as is with most things regarding fanon!Kim, this thing kinda contributes to the recent penchant of babygirl/uWu-fication of Kim, which I’m not a big fan of in the first place. I know it’s basically a thing since Chay pointed out the number of cats featured in Wik’s videos and that’s kinda how their meet-cute went down, but I’m more invested in the idea that perhaps “liking cats” is part of the image Kim has curated for his persona of Wik, yknow? I've mentioned the idea before that BOC/Jeff added to Kim's character by creating the persona of WIK, which is closest to Jeff's media personality, not necessarily the character of Kim. I like the idea that his version of his “ideal self” is full of soft attributes, in order to better utilize it as a façade designed to persuade unsuspecting people to drop their guard.

Thank you @venagrey for the lovely questions!! <3<3 It was so nice to get some things off my chest for this series, hehe!

#kinnporsche the series #ask game #kimchay #kinnporsche

[otherworldlygate]

The Fascinating & Frustrating Experience of Writing AUs for Tales of Symphonia

You might have been wondering when I would type out some juicy meta for this blog instead of just reblogging art, so congratulations! Here.

Enjoy this "meta" about AU fics and concepts.

--

The truly fascinating/frustrating thing about designing any remotely serious AU within the ToS fandom at large is dealing with the fact that the characters in the game are heavily—and I mean HEAVILY—ingrained into the world. I’m not necessarily talking about Sylvarant and Tethe’alla, but rather their universe at large. Aselia as a whole has so much going on, and the cast is firmly rooted in it. We can’t even separate the history of the world from our cast, because despite being 4,000+ years in the making, we have 4,000-year-old characters thrust upon us.

The world of Aselia is a deeply interesting place, and there’s a lot to explore there. This is probably why in-universe fanfiction is so incredibly popular.

I’ve been in many fandoms over the years, and something I’ve noticed is that most of them have a pretty balanced ratio of canon to completely AU fics. That is decidedly not the case for ToS. While there are AUs, quite a few of those continue to explore within the canon world using the rules the canon has given: for example, a semi-popular idea is Tethe’alla as the declining world where Zelos is the current journeying Chosen. We also have a handful of canon divergent stories (what if X didn’t happen within the story/what if Y happened instead of X?). Lastly, there are a wide variety of fics that explore the world or timeline at large: there are stories about the original Hero Group, stories that poke around in the rich concept of the Balacruf Dynasty, fics that utilize the Otherworldly Gate in interesting ways, and even stories that detail the lives of other Chosen, like Spiritua.

I shouldn’t discount the difficulty that comes with writing these kinds of stories, especially large sweeping concepts that require a lot of thought. The best example of this is Declining!Tethe’alla. At a glance it sounds so incredibly simple: all right, so…Zelos is the journeying Chosen, then!

I mean, yes. But you have to consider everything that comes along with Tethe’alla as the declining world, not just the fact that Zelos is the one making the journey, now. For example, I think it’s especially important to imagine the kind of world Sylvarant might have become, if the Balacruf Dynasty had never lost its seat of power (or if it had, but to another military force). Copy-pasting Tethe’alla’s particular brand of “flourishing” into Sylvarant doesn’t work; you have to put more thought into it than that! Colette, as part of the mana lineage in Sylvarant, would always remain there. But the Ranches would be in Tethe’alla now, so Anna wold have been there, and Lloyd should be, too.

Would Sylvarant send a team to Tethe’alla (via Yuan) to assassinate Zelos? Would Raine and Genis have gone through the Gate if they lived in the declining world, and if they didn’t, what kind of place would Sybak be in an impoverished world? Would they even be forced to go there? Would Presea have been experimented on? Would Alicia have followed after by circumstance? Would Alicia and Regal have even met when competition to work for a rich family would be so intense in the first place? (Would the Lezareno Company even still exist at this point? Would Regal’s father still be alive and heading the company? Would Regal have gone to prison?) Would you even place these characters in the declining world, or move them to the flourishing one?

Like, the easy road is just checking similar boxes to the canon to keep things familiar, but that isn’t always the right—or best—choice for a story. Like, if we’re here to read about Declining!Tethe’alla, I think most people are interested in how the world has been affected by that difference, as well as the characters within it, especially our main cast.

Even then, those considerations branch out: would Kate exist in this version of Tethe’alla? Would Corrine? Would Sheena’s fate be different or the same when it comes to Volt (would Mizuho be more cautious or desperate?). How are half-elves treated? What is the caste system like? What kind of village is Heimdall now, after 800 years of the world declining and everyone scraping by for mana? Is the king’s power tentative or is there even a king anymore? (Is he constantly in danger of being overthrown? How has this affected the way he rules and the laws he enacts? Does he have many children and wives to ensure the bloodline doesn’t end?)

Tethe’alla knows about Sylvarant in the canon, so with Sylvarant as the flourishing world, do they know about Tethe’alla? How widespread is this knowledge? Is the Otherworldly Gate even working in Tethe’alla when it’s declining? Is there perhaps a Gate to match it in Sylvarant that is working? Would Raine still be obsessed with history or language if she was not abandoned at a historical-looking site as a child? (What might their education look like in this world, if they even get one?)

Did Zelos’s father still die in the same manner, or did he die on his own Chosen journey? Would Zelos’s father have taken the role of Chosen more seriously if he’d grown up in the declining world, or would he have carried on with a lover anyway? What about Mylene? Knowing Zelos would die either way (trying to save the world or actually saving it) how would this affect Zelos’s relationship to his mother? Might she be able to love him? Would Seles even exist? Would Zelos want to save the world so that Seles would not have to?

Not every “Chosen” bothered going on the journey; many simply continued the lineage instead; what about a Declining!Tethe’alla story where that is Zelos’s responsibility and he does not have to journey, but will have to give up one of his own children to that fate?

This is just one semi-AU concept, and it even takes place within the canon world, so…we have the same magic system, expsheres, exbelua, familiar towns and cities, races, ranches, Desians vs. Renegades, summon spirits, seals, Chosen Journey, and so on.

It wouldn’t be difficult to flip the script if the characters weren’t so ingrained into the world, which, to be perfectly clear, here, IS A GOOD THING! It means the worldbuilding was well done.

--

Let’s talk about Presea for a second. She’s a great character, but a lot of what makes her interesting hinges on her backstory, which is firmly rooted in Aselia. If you popped her into a modern day AU, there’s no really effective way to build a story around her that works to the degree the canon one does: her backstory of being poor, experimented on, losing 16 years of time, finding out her sister died horribly and partially because of her, finding out her she’d been hanging around with her father’s corpse for a long time without realizing it, dealing with the fact that her emotions have been severely suppressed…and a multitude of other things, is…baked so far into the ToS canon that it’s hard to find anything that works in a similar way and doesn’t feel icky or insensitive.

Like, for all intents and purposes, canon!Presea is 12 years old. Her body should be 28 years old, but it’s not. Her mind should be 28 years old, but it’s not. She remained “frozen” at the age of 12 for 16 years and she logically knows it, but wasn’t mentally present for it. That’s a huge character bit. It’s integral to her story. It’s hard to just…throw that away and carry on in a modern AU where she’s sipping Starbucks and texting Colette dog memes.

When it comes to characters like Regal or Sheena, who canonically carry a lot of guilt on their shoulders, this issue is still quite difficult. I like to imagine with characters like this, their primary character traits are not the guilt they feel, but rather, the capacity for feeling emotion that deeply in the first place. Sheena is canonically a very emotional person, so this fits her easily, and Regal comes off a lot like an empath to me, so it works for him, too. Sheena’s story is about failure (and overcoming that failure); the failure doesn’t have to be “making a pact with Volt” in an AU. In fact, I’d argue that the game never really settled the score with Sheena’s issues regarding Volt in a satisfactory way in the first place, so in an AU there’s no real need to explore the guilt if you can’t find a place to put it where it actually works. (I also take some issue with the “solution” of the guilt surrounding Volt to be…more guilt. Yikes.) Far more integral to Sheena’s character is the depth of her emotions anyway, and her desire to make friends and form meaningful connections to people (even though she struggles with it). Obviously her situation with Volt did affect her, and deeply so, but since the game tied it up so poorly it doesn’t feel like it’s cheating to largely ignore it in some AU circumstances.

In the case of Regal, I think many fans believe his primary character trait is “man who feels too much unreasonable guilt” but that belief is wrong. It’s not that his story has nothing to do with guilt, but I think at its core it’s about compassion and empathy. I wish the game had gone a bit more into Regal and his family’s history, particularly his relationship to his parents, because the only information we get about them is from the drama CD (where his father functions as his foil: an unempathetic scumbag who does not care about the health or well-being of his employees). When Regal inherits the position of a CEO and eventually the title of President, he struggles with the policies his father put into place that actively harm his employees and the rules he was raised under that don’t allow him to have any time for himself (no friends, no fun, everything must always revolve around working). It’s very clear he’s miserable living like this. The drama CD has its issues, of course, but I do like how it goes into the boring way Regal meets Alicia, and how long it takes him to even realize he doesn’t know her name, which, in the drama CD, is an extremely important part of Regal’s initial character arc. Neither the game nor the CD make Regal and Alicia’s relationship about love changing someone: rather, Alicia says something that weighs on Regal’s heart (“I don’t expect you to know my name; you employee hundreds of people.”) and he realizes he doesn’t have to be like his father and so chooses to be different. He was always a compassionate and empathetic person, but he gives himself permission to take control of his own life and do things his own way. He starts pushing for employee safety and making an effort to appreciate and protect the people who work for him. He doesn’t do this just for Alicia—he does this for himself.

Obviously he falls in love with Alicia in time and then struggles with the guilt he feels over being forced to take her life, but part of what makes this interesting is the timing of it. He’s only recently taken control of his own life, and was then forced into doing something that felt out of his control. He’s supposed to be protecting his employees, not hurting them. He’s supposed to protect the people he loves, too, not hurt them. This is the core of the guilt he feels.

Anyway, while guilt does play a role in Regal’s life, it doesn’t define him; what does is his capacity to feel compassion and empathy for others. He’s a good businessman, and he’s smart, but he makes a very real effort to think for himself and do things his own way for his own reasons. This is explored a bit in the game when he does things like passlock the Toize Valley Mine, admit that his family’s wealth was had on the backs of Sylvaranti humans, and per his ending, funnel resources into rebuilding Palmacosta despite it getting him side-eyed by people within his own company. I think it cannot be overstated, either, how important it is that he is neither racist nor classist, despite his upbringing. This is the way he chooses to be.

Presea, on the other hand, is harder to work with. She doesn’t have a lengthy and rich history before her time was frozen for her, so her character feels very reliant on “being 12, but knowing she should be older and all the trauma that goes with that.” That said, I think one could explore Presea in an AU in the context of feeling like she was out of the loop for some years with her sister. It’s not the same as losing 16 years of life, and it’s not the same as realizing Alicia’s been dead for the last 8 years or seeing her father’s still-reeking corpse in his bed. But there is a similar “vibe” to, for example, her being separated from her sister for years and losing a connection she once felt to someone dear to her.

--

That said, this mostly just proves my point: most of the characters in this game are extremely hard to separate from the world they were written into. It means great things about Tales of Symphonia, but bad things for me, a person trying to write an AU.

Like sure, you an come up with ways to kind of “copy/paste” the traumas of the canon into a modern story; for example, instead of Regal and Kratos killing someone, maybe they’re driving the car when they’re involved in an accident that ends up taking the life of their loved one. In Kratos’s case, maybe it was an accident where a drunk driver hit them, to help spread the blame; Kratos’s guilt could come from being out on a night when drunk driving rates are notoriously high—for example, New Year’s Eve. But in Regal’s case, there’s just no real way to seriously mimic the canon while still remaining true to his character. The point of his guilt in the canon is that it’s not completely misplaced: it’s just taken to an extreme. If he goes to prison in a modern story for being behind the wheel of a car when one of his passengers dies, he has to actually be found at fault: under the influence of drugs or alcohol, neglectful in caring for the car to a serious degree, driving without a license/insurance, or failing to wear glasses/contacts when he needs them. However, doing this goes against his character because the point of the canon is that even though he feels guilty, he isn’t actually to blame.

Colette can be born with expectations of her (becoming the first doctor in the family, for example) but it’s impossible to carry forward the Chosen traumas without making an AU feel convoluted. Like yeah, med school and residency require a lot of sacrifice, but it’s not the same as ACTUALLY GIVING UP YOUR LIFE TO SAVE THE WORLD. The burden feels different and will affect the characters in different ways.

--

Anyway, all of this is not to say that I have anything against AUs, or that I think it’s bad that Tales of Symphonia works so hard to root the characters within the world of Aselia. It’s the opposite, actually. I think it’s fascinating how much work has to go into an AU of any kind in this fandom for it to feel natural for the characters. I love that the cast feels so “at home” in their own world that it’s reflected in the kinds of fics we see published on AO3.

It’s just hilariously frustrating that, if you want to include the entire cast in an AU, and not just the blorbo or two that you really love, you have to bend over backward to worldbuild a ton before you begin to write, lest you end up writing yourself into a corner… Or worse, you might shoehorn a character into a role because you need the role filled, even though it doesn’t work very well for the character in question.

Like, Zelos feels as if he’d be easy to transplant into a modern AU of any kind, and I would say he definitely is…but only if he remains on the fringes of the story and doesn’t play a major role. If he needs to matter to the story to any serious degree, you can’t ignore the fact that canon Zelos has so much going on in his life and world and head that taking only the easy parts of him into an AU doesn’t feel right.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of copy/pasting one big trait of a character into an AU to try to make it work, but what ends up happening is the whole thing feels flat and boring. A guilt-soaked Regal in a modern AU isn’t very interesting, for example; the guilt isn’t the trait that makes him feel whole: it’s his capacity for compassion and empathy despite his privileged position in society that does that.

I’ve toyed with a few AU ideas for Tales of Symphonia, and honestly just looking at the sheer amount of worldbuilding I would have to do is instantly overwhelming. The current one I’m turning over is a modern Aselia AU, so I can’t even come up with “similar” vibes from the canon or it instantly reads as if the characters are just on some kind of tragic hamster wheel, doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

It was during my quest for world and character backstory-building for this AU that I realized the heart of what matters to me in any AU is not that the characters feel like a copy/paste of their canon selves, but like a believable version of their original self: one built not on the circumstances of their birth or life experiences from the canon, but rather, character traits they hold that feel ‘core’ to me. Lloyd and Colette’s optimism and trust, Regal’s empathy and compassion, Sheena’s emotional depth and search for connection, and Presea’s desire to be treated normally are all examples.

Still, it can be hard to apply these in a meaningful way when crafting a character’s backstory, especially in AUs that differ drastically from the canon, either due to a completely different setting (mermaid!AU), metaphor for something (werewolf!AU), or tableflip (Declining!Tethe’alla). If the setting is modern and we’re more concerned with core character traits and not putting them in Situations Similar to the Canon, does Alicia still need to die? Does Virginia have to abandon her children? Can Kate’s father just be a regular scumbag? Does Presea need to be deeply traumatized? Do so many parents have to be dead? Marble? Does Colette have to suffer so much? Can we allow the characters to live happier lives and still manage to write them in such a way that they feel naturally like themselves? Can we give them worse fates and still come out of it having written the characters well?

Things to think about!

#tales of symphonia #tales of symphonia meta #also huge thankyou to feluka for releasing the unhyphenated url for me!! ty ty #fanfiction

[sometimesanalice]

🛼 and ❄️ for the ask game!

ames @laracrofted

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

I answered that one here!

But for you, I’ll give you the vibes of the next thing I plan to work on after I wrap that other one up!

🏫🛏️🌸🇬🇧🍕

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

This was literallyyyyyy the easiest thing I’ve ever answered.

I DESPERATELY WANT A BOB/RHETT FIC WHERE HE UTILIZES X READER’S WHITE IRON BED. (Yes,this is fully inspired from WYWS and Lucy’s bed and the idea of that big carpenter man in it, blessssss)

When I say I am FERAL over a blue eyed man with floppy hair in that white iron bed, I mean it in a way that I should probably be sedated over. This is so near and dear to me that it can only be trusted with members of the Lewis Lot/Pullman Posse/Lew Crew (is there an offical name??)! The girlies(gn) that GET IT! (If you (@laracrofted) or @callsignspark or @attapullman ever feel the desire to write this please know I will happily ship you a kidney. I think about it all the time, lmao)

THE POTENTIAL! THE VIBES! I NEED IT MORE THAN AIR!

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

#the fact that man was thinking about her black underwear but never got to run his calloused finger over her quilt is a CRIME #he deserved to at least SEE it! some fuel for fodder as he made a rocking chair #but like Bob or the cowboy man?? stick a fork in me #ask game answers #ask game #emoji ask game

[gobblinhours]

Thin Line Commentary

I've never done this before, but @alchemicallymoon made one for their Agent 32 fic, (which can be read here) so what the hell, seems like an interesting idea!

And fun fact, the whole idea for this fic was spawned because I cannot smile, I just press my lips together into a Thin Line (title drop)

Biggest thing to note: How long it took to write. I thought that it would be around 5000 words and I could get it out by Thanksgiving.

This was not the case. The original roadmap was Eight & Four -> Eight & Three, with a one-day time skip in the middle. But then I had an idea to make it less abrupt, so I integrated Off the Hook into it, before realizing I was leaning into Eight's relationship with Pearl, at the cost of Marina, so I had to make another scene with Eight and Marina to even things out. (leading to this post) Then I figured I should throw in a little bit of positive interaction between Pearl and Marina, which luckily was easily able to be adapted into something subtly referencing Pearlina at the end.

Then I realized that someone had to stay back to commentate over the radio, and if Three and Eight were going to go into a kettle together like I planned, someone else would have to be in the story. I'm not confident in writing Cuttlefish or Sheldon for extended periods, and I already utilized Marie for a joke, so Callie was the most viable option.

And she worked surprisingly well! She and Eight bounced off of each other as if they had been friends for years, even though at this point in time this was the first time Eight had spent any time 1-on-1 with Callie, and she was a great foil to Three, with both examples leading to slapdash photoshop jobs. I had them run through a kettle, (24, for obvious reasons.), and fun fact: That was written as I played through it with a charger, albeit with two people and an increase in skill.

After that, I finally was able to get Three and Eight together, although by that point I was already over my estimate and had to cut out a plot point to save time and energy. (Three and Eight get sushi together during the evening with a Three name drop!) Luckily that was at the very end of the fic, so that fact, combined with the fact that I had no idea how to bridge the time gap except for a shopping montage, which seemed like too much of a cut for me, so I chopped it down to lunch, turf war, and video games. In the end, the roadmap ended up more like Eight & Four -> Eight & Pearl -> Eight & Marina -> Eight with Pearlina in the background -> Eight & Callie -> Eight & Three.

The biggest time loss besides IRL business was finding ways to connect the scenes together organically, as I didn't want to overutilize line breaks. I spent days unable to think of a way to connect them, (the kettle run and lunch being especially egregious) to the point where the once-liberal Thanksgiving estimate was now a speck in the rear-view mirror. The second biggest issue was writing a turf war, as I realized that fight scenes (specifically choreography) were not my specialty. (Also why you don't get to see Eight play generic-brand DDR) I can visualize it in my mind, but I can't put it into words. Hopefully with practice that can be fixed.

Overall, this is the second fic I've written that I was 100% proud of upon release, possibly due to the anxiety that came from accidentally posting it early drowned out any perceived issues, which happened with my first fic, which is the other one I was satisfied with. (my one complaint is that I couldn't come up with a good name for Callie to use in a chatroom, because agentFUN was already taken and I couldn't come up with anything else.)

Overall, I'm surprisingly happy with the quality of this, and I doubt that I'll write anything close to this length and quality, at least for a while. And while I know that I did say that I would write another Agent 24 fic next, this has drained me of any motivation to write anything focused on this ship, and I need time to recover. But I have plenty of non-24 related ideas, and motivation still flows within me. The most anyone should expect for a bit is occasional updates to my microfic dump, but that by no means means that I am not going to write anything big again, just taking a break from more time-consuming projects, as I spent over a month on this, and the added pressure of having people vote on this didn't help at all, so from now on I probably won't do that.

But even though it was absolute hell to write, it was oddly satisfying to work on, and it feels weird not having to think about what to write next.

#splatoon #agent 24 #agent 3 #agent 8

[ussjellyfish]

1, 3 and/or 24 for the fic writer asks! (These are questions that could run long answering, so feel free to answer as many or as few as you like, please!)

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

I wrote several drabbles, which was so much fun. I love how they're like poetry and you're so limited with what you can do or come up with. It's all about the economy of it, and I get wordy or have too much talking, so drabbles are really good for me. They're an excellent challenge.

They were fun to write and turned out well! people enjoyed them. I'm really into my niche little OTP at the moment so my audience is small, kind, and generous. They were enjoyed. I got to really think about how to make the most use out of the words I have.

Another new thing I did was write in second person POV? I have this very odd little fic (you will be mentioned in their biographies) which is about a side character to my current OTP, and how he perceives them, and it was neat to write. I had been having a bit of a block, so somehow writing that cleared my thoughts and I was able to work on Quantum (which is wonderful).

I have only written second person pov once before, so this was an adventure, but it let me say some fun poetic things and really get into how someone like Vance (who is the shining example of a good admiral, good dad, good person, but not extraordinary). He's a utility admiral, where he does a great job, but he's not a protagonist (like Janeway, or Sisko, or Kirk).

Michael is, and how strange it must be to have someone like her just turn up and turn your universe upside down, because she's that once in a blue moon, virtuoso kind of captain.

3. What’s something you learned about yourself as a writer?

The USSJellyfish signature fic (because I am the babyfic specialist) is the long, slow moving, character gets pregnant (usually through accidental-magical-handwavy means) and goes on a long emotional journey before giving birth under unpredictable circumstances (I think I have about 10 of these, depending on how I define it). Sometimes I don't get to the birth, depending on how long the story is. Sometimes my head moves on before I get there, some of these are REALLY long and took me more than two years to complete.

This is one of my favorite things to write. I get to fully immerse myself into the character's feelings. I get to do the big world building, I get to go on a journey...they're wonderful fics to write.

They take work, and it's HARD to sustain that kind of effort and inspiration for two years or so. i have a few that I burned out on the ship before I finished, or swapped.

The first one I posted was started in 2007, so I've been at this for 16 years.

It's the most self indulgent wonderful thing to write (for me). It's so much fun when it goes well and I love it and getting to the birth is wonderful because there's so much I can do with a birth scene, I love them. Usually my favorite characters haven't had children in canon so I have to do some cheating (Star Trek makes it easy, so does Once Upon a Time, and Agents of SHIELD).

I feel guilty about writing them. They're just babyfic and not important and not really plotty and no one really needs them and just niche for me and...self indulgent. So very self indulgent.

And that's okay. (I sort of believe it typing it but, I know intellectually that they're wonderful and fill a space and people should write what they want to write and enjoy it. What really matters is that they're bringing joy, to me writing them, to the handful of people reading them.

I learned in 2022 that I could write without needing to get feedback. Firefly (Star Trek Discovery, Mirror Philippa Georgiou & learning to have feelings), has several chapters that have no comments, and I wasn't sure if anyone was reading them, but I enjoyed writing them.

I got a little spoilt in 2022 and 2023 having people who would workshop plot ideas with me, and they're much busier than they were so that's gone for the moment. So I have to get back to the independent writing place. (I'm kind of there, it's less fun). It's also hard writing something that takes two years, because if you want to work on it with people, you need people who will be into what you're into for two years, and have time to play with you, for two years. I have several stories that have outlasted the friendship I had at the beginning. Usually I made other friends by the end, but it's a long, lonely endeavor.

There's a venn diagram of niche ship and having time to work on it and sustained interest and I feel rather alone at the moment (again, I've been there before) and it's okay. It's a good challenge to work through things on my own and have a dialogue with myself about what I'm writing. It's doable. It's less fun.

Life in general is a lonely place at the moment. I need to make new offline friends and branch out my online friends and...

One of the ways I make friends online is talking about writing and shipping and when I'm really into my tiny tiny ship. (as I am in the moment) it's not the easiest way to make friends.

The thing I'm trying to say that I've learned about myself as a writer, is that I am capable of being a self-sustaining creature. When I'm really into something, it's nice to just let myself enjoy it, and write what I want to write. I shouldn't (but do) feel bad for that, and lonely, but...the only way out is through. So I need to write what I like, and enjoy it. The other option is not writing, which is miserable. Writing by myself is better than not writing because I don't have people, but it's a different kind of energy. Less of a yes and, sort of thing, more of a find your joy.

Embrace it? I learn to be less self-conscious of a writer as I go, but it's always a process.

Right now I'm writing the "giving birth under unpredictable circumstances" chapters for my favorite ship at the moment (Michael/Laira) which is my emotional climax to my favorite ship at the moment in my favorite kind of fic to write so it's everything I like at one time.

AND IT'S HARD.

I need to get it right and find the right emotions and I have to drag myself into it to write it with the right emotional truth and detail and senses and...

It's the best but it's hard, and I'm on with it, so extra hard. (who wants to plot babyfic birth scenes...it's super niche).

I feel guilty for having likes that are so...unliked? That's a thing.

I enjoy it enough to keep going though.

#writing asks #about me #there's a lot of about me #but eh

[the-one-with-the-nails]

chris/justin, motionless in white, t, 800 words

"… leaping into the other’s arms" from the semi-NSFW meme. My first Motionless in White fic 🤘 Thanks for the prompt, anon! :) You can find this one on AO3 too.

The cool thing about going from openly-affectionate-bros to boyfriends is that basically nobody bats an eyelash when the openly affectionate shit keeps going. (Well, that’s not totally true. Ryan gets this sly look behind his vape sometimes, like the facial manifestation of tutting ‘heh, gay.’ Like he wasn’t egging them to hook up from the day Justin got Motionless minted for real. Justin just flips him off, it’s all good.)

When Chris comes loping down the otherwise abandoned terminal like a rescue greyhound chasing some fresh frisbee, Justin just braces his knees and throws out his arms to catch him. Chris is kinda obsessed with being picked up, which Justin totally gets. Once you hit the five foot mark as a dude, it’s kinda game over in the uppies department – unless you find someone bigger than you. And before Justin, Chris was usually the biggest motherfucker in the room.

It’s total hell on Justin’s back… but it does great things for his self-esteem, being able to catch Chris and hike him up on his hips for a wobbly ride down the dank, carpeted corridor. Chris is bare faced like he usually is during downtime, so Justin can see splotches patches of pink high on his cheek bones. Even better, when Chris breathes “hey,” it’s in that low, happy rasp that usually precedes a kiss.

Justin’s hard in his joggers.

“Hey, hot mama,” Justin jokes, still toddling along with Chris’s arms snaked around his neck and his warm, heavy, be’sweatered body draped along Justin’s front. He grins. “Ya miss me that much?”

Chris’s eyes go heavy-lidded. “What do you think, asshole?” he asks, and then they’re kissing. With tongue. Like, kind of way more tongue than should be legal in an airport, even if it’s a fuckin’ ghost town at this hour. Justin groans a little, moves a hand to Chris’s butt for a possessive squeeze.

“Where the fuck is the baggage claim?” Ricky grumbles somewhere to their left. Justin stops sucking Chris’s tongue and sneaks a glance at the guys to make sure that, yeah, they’re all just moseying like normal.

“Downstairs,” Vinny says without looking up from his phone. “Hey, do we have, like, a van waiting, or did you Uber here alone?” he asks Chris.

“Van,” Chris confirms, contentedly tucking his face into Justin’s neck. Which basically melts his heart into bubbly goo. One less solid thing for his spine to have to support, he guesses. “They’re circling outside until we get out there.”

“Cool.”

“I know I’m too heavy, I’m just being a greedy bitch,” Chris says lowly. Ryan and maybe Ricky can probably hear him too – everything echoes a little in this utility carpet purgatory – but nobody says anything. (“You’re not heavy,” Justin lies immediately.) Chris butts his beaky nose against the hinge of Justin’s jaw. “I missed being in your arms.”

“My arms missed you being there,” Justin says conversationally. It’s still so fucking weird, doing the cutesy couple talk shit and it’s legit instead of brohomo. His boots clunk extra heavy on the floor because he’s kinda stomping to make room for the big booty koala in his embrace, but like. He’s a corn-fed American, it’s his god given right to be loud for no reason. “I missed you being there.”

“What else do your arms feel about me?” Chris asks, and okay, that’s a silly thing to say, obviously meant to make Justin laugh, but like. Justin’s arms actually have a lot to say on the subject of Chris. How if they could get away with it, they’d never let him go. They’d keep Chris tucked against him even on stage, Justin’s bass slung over Chris’s backside so he could keep playing while Chris yowled into a mic right by his ear. (Justin likes when Chris yowls right by his ear. Hopefully he will be doing it in a hotel bed in the next hour.)

But, uh, the whole stage cuddles idea might actually be too openly affectionate, actually. Codependent. Clingy.

Chris must sense his line of thought, because he breathes a warm laugh against Justin’s neck. Chris wiggles to drop his long legs down and force Justin to let him walk on his own before they get tangled and fall over. Not that Justin’s dick would mind rolling around on the floor together.

“Someone else missed me too,” Chris points out as he loiters all hot and lanky and fat assed against Justin’s front. Jeeesus Christ, this guy.

“Of course I missed you, buddy,” Vinny deadpans without missing a beat, and Chris laughs all the way to baggage claim. Justin’s right on his heels like he’s the rescue dog now, no frisbee necessary to keep his attention.

He has no reason to hoist Chris up while they wait for their bags to come around the conveyor, but nobody but Justin’s back has shit to say.

#my fic #motionless in white fic #justin morrrow x chris motionless #miw fic #motionless in white rpf #miw rpf

[blorb-el]

Hello! What are the things that you'd like to see (or see more) in a Superman story?

o/ !

hmm, fanfiction or canon? Because in fanfiction... we're all here for fun, and I'm more interested in reading something the author's genuinely interested in writing. What I want out of canon Superman stories is pretty different than what I’m looking for when I fire up AO3. That being said, here is a long stream of consciousness of fanfic concepts that are currently living rent free in my brain. at least the sfw ones lol

there was An Art gremlin did a while back of Bruce tearing up when Clark was washing his hair and tbqh i think that would go both ways. the idea of an invulnerable man being treated softly drives me insane

superbat hand kisses. do i even need to elaborate. i will (threat)

i love plotty long world built alien space mission fic, which I realize is hard to write, but I love it anyway

Kryptonian. I know the grammar is hard and the vocabulary is sparse but I would be willing to beta or translate lines of dialogue if anyone wants to include Kryptonian in their fics...

(clark and diana teaching each other kryptonian and themysciran greek…)

general Kryptonian worldbuilding. I am on the verge of trying to encyclopedia precrisis Krypton just so people can throw in tanthuo flez or :dhosurro.

also kryptonian myths, ethics, nicknames... like just tossing it out into the wild that zhor krigia means bright heart... clark calling kara kir-a as a pun on bright... kara calling clark kahl-te...

also alien biology but that’s a given with me. still. had to throw it in

i know i'm superbat on main but. good clois content...

good kara content................

kara where she shows up and is markedly Other and. everyone is at first confused (’that’s not how kryptonians are’) and then slowly realizes how much clark masks...

ABOVE ALL ELSE. COMPETENT SUPERMAN. PLEASE.

how many languages does Superman speak? Can Superman pull a child out of a mudslide in rural India and reassure her she's going to be all right and help her find her parents - in her own language? (yes. ideally he should be able to.)

the adventures of insomniac superman. precrisis the man only sleeps 1 hour a day. granted lots of time is taken up studying aforementioned languages but. 3AM clark sitting in an all night diner in texas because there was a robbery nearby and he needed to not to be alone wanted coffee afterwards. clark watching the earthrise standing on the moon. sunlight tasting different at different altitudes.

(clark bringing a moon rock back to bruce like hey thought you might like this)

you know those fics where clark meets the batfam and like. learns to get along or whatever with them. that but in reverse. give me bruce wayne learning how to tolerate the menace that is jimothy james pulitzer prize winning photographer turtle boy menace olsen

young clark reading. actually clark in general reading but especially young clark reading, trying to understand his place in the world. Superman should have an opinion on Nietzsche's Ubermensch.

clark as a chaotic good person locked into a society and a role that demands lawful goodness of him

well thought out implications of growing up with superpowers. not to toot my own horn but this post i did from a while ago explains why the concept of infrared vision still lives rent free in my head

i am ALWAYS trash for listening into people's heartbeats. it makes no sense auditorially but neither does superhearing in general. read this fic diptych from bruce and then clark pov it's about their twinned nightmares and listening to heartbeats and overhearing bruce crying and the hurt of privacy invasion!!! then go read the first one in the series. wah.

The Call from Batman Black and White has a pretty garbage Clark but the idea that sticks in my brain from that is when Clark is afraid he’s just another tool in Bruce’s utility belt. chefs kiss. god i love angst. not the time to angst when someone’s bleeding out clark but god i love it anyway. anyway fic of this scenario (Clark is Bruce’s absolute last resort and he has to call on him) but not bad

crossovers... get flashpoint kal some HELP that man needs HELP

GET DCAU CLARK SOME HELP THAT MAN NEEDS HELP. PLEASE PEOPLE. WATCH STAS’S APOKOLIPS ARC SO YOU WILL UNDERSTAND HOW BADLY THAT MAN NEEDS HELP.

just because bruce timm was not going to address clark being essentially sexually assaulted during that arc doesn't mean we gotta leave it alone

anyway basically. just. good characterization. or. i’ll settle for interesting characterization at this point. my personal standards of clark characterization hinge on my three favorite Capital S Superman Stories: birthright, all-star, and miracle monday. if a fic has just one of the aspects of those characterizations I'm content. I would elaborate on that but this is already too long.

#jellyfitzjelly #thank you for the opportunity to ramble #hmm mostly #superbat