#and having his self insert be mostly like him seems to make the whole improv semi lore aspect of his streams easiest for ranboo to play wit

[possiblyimbiassed]

The lying liars who lie

Years and years late to the party, I’ve finally gotten my hands on all the DVDs of BBC Sherlock, and I thought it would be fun to watch the extra material carefully, one piece after another, and also listen to at least some of the show makers’ commentary of the episodes. But at this point, after S4 where DVDs seemed to be a constant lying device in general, I tend to look at them with a bit more suspicious eyes...

I still love the show of course, but now that I’ve taken this deep dive into all the special features, I find them a truly hard thing to try to wrap my head around. Even this long after the fact, I’m amazed by the amount of shameless, self-congratulatory BS in the DVDs, where the people involved can’t have enough of complimenting each other and their show, while they skillfully avoid to discuss anything actually meaningful about the plot line. ;) For example, Moffat claims in the S2 DVD that “In fact, you’ll never see a more obsessively authentic version of Sherlock Holmes than this one”. But if we follow their light-hearted commentary, which basically takes the show at face value, I’d call that not just hyperbole, but an outright lie. If you want to see the ‘authentic’ stories from ACD’s work in this show, you’ll definitely need to go much deeper into the subtext and meta levels - neither of which are mentioned on these DVDs of course. Here’s my own (rather subjective) ‘review’ of the whole thing, trying to pinpoint why I view most of the commentary of the show from its own makers as an advanced art of deception. 

(My musings under the cut)

Series 1 - a wealth of extra material

First of all - as many of you probably knew already - the whole of the Unaired Pilot is added to the DVD of S1. In the extra material about the making of the series, they (Sue Vertue, Mofftiss and others) talk about what things they changed between the Pilot and ASiP, claiming that many changes were necessary improvements once they knew that they had a whole series and a lot more time at their disposal. 

Which I can perfectly understand and agree with in general. But I think what’s missing in their discussions is more interesting than what’s actually there (”Mind the gap” ;) ). Things that I would expect from the show makers when they go to the trouble of comparing the pilot version with the aired product. There’s not a word, for example, about the fact that they added both Mycroft and Moriarty to the story in ASiP - two characters who later turn out to play major roles and appear in almost every other episode until the end of TFP. Or about the choice that one of the screenwriters would play Mycroft. 

Neither do they discuss why they chose to relocate the place where Sherlock was challenged by the cabbie from 221B to Roland Kerr’s School of Further Education. Instead they focus on the details, like for example the new design of the interior of 221B.

Not to mention the fact that almost every scene in the Pilot is mirrored in ASiP (as pointed out long ago by @kateis-cakeis X), but at Angelo’s in the Pilot Sherlock follows the events with the cabbie while looking in an actual mirror. I even noticed that in the Pilot the cabbie is offering Sherlock dark-coloured bottles with the pills in them, while in ASiP those bottles are transparent, as if the cabbie is offering Sherlock to play Black or White in the chess game that he is simulating. What’s with all these mirrors, though? Not a word on the DVD... ;)

Now, even though these rather remarkable choices are neglected together with a great bunch of minor ones, I still think that the most interesting fact about all this is that they actually included the whole pilot version within this DVD, which is sold by the franchise. Why even do this, when it raises far more questions than it answers? The only logical reason I can come up with is that they’re laying out a track of little hints that anyone with a deep enough interest in the show to actually buy the DVDs can try to follow. And it seems to me that lying by omission is one of the first steps in the long line of cryptic and misleading author comments on this show. But at the same time, they clearly want the fans to have access to it all, even the abandoned version.

Moving on to Series 2, time for bigger lies 

In the extra material of this DVD Benedict himself describes how his character "faces one of his deadliest enemies in the shape of Love, and it comes in the form of Irene Adler, who is this extraordinary dominatrix [insert here a bunch of superlatives regarding Adler]...”. And then we see how Adler whips Sherlock with a riding crop (without any kind of consent, I have to add) while he’s lying on the floor, and we have Lara Pulver telling us how it was to have a go at Benedict on set. So Holmes whips dead bodies and Adler whips living; seems like a match made in hell! :))

Gatiss claims, grinning with his whole face, that “they’re clearly, absolutely made for each other”. OK, so I think we can see Sherlock being intellectually impressed by Adler, and even trying to protect her from Mycroft, and we can see John acting jealously. We can also see her being dressed and styled as a perfect, female mirror of Sherlock. But I’m still at a loss what all this has to do with love on Sherlock’s part? Especially since he’s not even responding in any fashion to her various attempts at seducing him. 

And there’s more: Paul McGuigan, the director of ASiB, claims that the scene where Sherlock has a conversation with Adler inside his Mind Palace about the crime case with the car that backfires "is a part of a kind of love story, if you like...” No, I don’t. Maybe it’s just me, but if their aim really was to convey to their audience a love story between Sherlock and The Woman, I think they failed miserably. All I see is a guy ’mansplaining’ to a clever woman how to use her brain, while she’s trying to flirt with him by expressing her admiration (to no avail, though) and make deductions at the same time. Nothing new under the sun, really. John did the same thing repeatedly in ASiP (without making own deductions) and got far more attention from Sherlock, but I’ve never heard any of the show makers call that ”a love story”. But by ’lie-splaining’ the scene with Irene to the audience, they try to manipulate us all to see it as such...

In all the direct commentary of this episode, where Steven, Mark, Sue, Benedict and Lara are present, I get the impression that every time they even touch on the relationship between Sherlock and John, they hurry to add the term “friendship” or “man love” or similar words in case they forgot them at first, avoiding even the tiniest possibility that there could be anything more going on between them. They even explain that when Irene calls them “a couple” she does not mean anything romantic. This whole approach feels almost paranoic in the midst of all the laid-back jokes and light-hearted talk about the filming. It’s as if a sort of restrictive, heteronormative filter or blanket is being constantly applied, to teach the audience the ‘no homo’ lesson of it all. And the more I listen to this, the more tiresome it becomes.

In the commentary Moffat does reveal an interesting detail, though: that the ‘Flight of the Dead’ in ASiB was inspired by a cut out scene in the Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To me this is just one more reason to question the ‘authentic’ quality of this scene, as opposed to possibly taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. But I digress... 

Listening to the commentary in general, it’s like it’s aimed to distract the attention from what’s going on at the screen rather than highlight it and try to explain their intentions. They do mention that Irene didn’t actually ‘beat’ Sherlock in the end of ASiB, but there’s no explanation of this obvious deviation from canon, where Adler does indeed fool Holmes, taking advantage of his prejudices.

The rest of the extra material of S2 is mostly about technical stuff, special effects and such, and also about filming techniques and Benedict’s delivery of fast deductions. But the part I really do love is the one where Andrew Scott talks about how much he enjoyed playing the scene where Moriarty dances before breaking into the Crown Jewels. That’s one of my favorite scenes of he whole show. :) Also, the takeaway message from this DVD is Moffat’s words at the end: 

“These are still the formative years of Sherlock Holmes, and the most important thing about this series is not that it’s updated; it’s the fact that those two men are still young and they’re still at the beginning of what they don’t yet know is gonna be a lifelong partnership”. 

And then comes Series 3... 

...and its extra material, with the most blatant attempts at deception so far, I believe. At this point Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by both the show’s characters, John’s blog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as if it were true, which is a big deviation from ACD canon. That simply doesn’t happen there; while Holmes is sometimes described as eccentric, no one in the books is ever claiming that Sherlock Holmes has some kind of mental illness leaning towards cruelty and egotism - not even his enemies say this about him. In the show, however, they begin in ASiP with making him torture a dying man for information (something that is not included in the Pilot). And in S3, where they avoid discussing the reason why they turned Mary Morstan into a ruthless assassin, this major shift is glossed over by the fact that in the same episode (HLV) they also turn Sherlock into a murderer, who cold-bloodedly blows the brains out of a blackmailer for threatening to make said assassin’s crimes public. 

But without ever getting into the “why” of it all, the cast and crew seem overly happy and smiling describing these rather morbid choices as something positive; “fantastic”, "fresh and new” and "amazing” are their choice of words. Benedict claims that Mary, who has literally shot and almost killed Sherlock in HLV, is now "a new best friend of Sherlock’s”. Amanda claims that Mary “is protecting John” when she shoots Sherlock in the chest. Now they’re both psychopaths, and poor little John is forced to stomach them both because he’s addicted to danger. In Amanda’s words, Mary also “kind of gets in between the two of them, but she wants them to be together as well”.  Which is a load of BS considering that Mary tries to kill the protagonist of the story.

Lars Mikkelsen thinks it’s “such a good script” because “you’re mislead as an audience”. But he never gets the chance to expand on what the misleading actually contains, because then Mofftiss cut in to express how much they love playing with “what ifs”. As if this whole mega-budget project of a show were just a big experimental playground without any actual story to tell. 

Benedict repeats his line from HLV that Magnussen “preys on people who are different” and Moffat also says he “exploits people who are different”. Which is really confusing, considering what we can see Magnussen actually do in the show. Lady Smallwood and John Garvie are two well-established, powerful governmental politicians whom Magnussen blackmails by finding their respective pressure points. In Garvie’s case his pressure point seems to be alcohol problems in his past, but according to media he’s later arrested on charges of corruption. Lady Smallwood is blackmailed on the basis of her husband having sent compromising letters to a minor many years ago, in spite of later claiming that he thought she was older and stopped when he found out the truth. And then Magnussen is blackmailing an assassin who recently threatened to execute him but shot Sherlock Holmes instead, in order to try to get at Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, another powerful governmental figure. 

But what does media seeking out dirt on certain people in power and their families have to do with “people who are different”? Despicable as the method may be, isn’t this unfortunately how political power play usually works in our society? Or are TPTB somehow a repressed minority group now? Unless this whole “people who are different” accusation is actually about something entirely different, something that none of the show makers even cares to mention... ;)

In these DVDs, none of the involved persons is ever discussing the change of roles with regards to canon, though, or the (lack of) logics in this turn of events, or even a hint about the narrative motivation behind them. It’s all about the great Drama, the extraordinary visual effects and the aim to endlessly “surprise the audience”. Which is fine by me to a certain extent, but when this is all that’s being said, it feels extremely superficial, as if the audience is merely seen as a bunch of consumers that have to be triggered more and more by horror, special effects and cliff hangers to be able to appreciate the show. (“Warm paste” indeed, like Gatiss has later criticized some viewers of wanting...) While the "why”; the idea behind this surrealistic adaptation, made by self-proclaimed fanboys of ACD, is not even touched upon. Around this, the silence is total and therefore totally confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t even go into Series 4...

...but why not, since I’ve already started? :) 

First of all, there’s a lot of extra material on this DVD and I particularly love the parts about the music and composing and Arwel Wyn Jones’ work with the design and build-up of John’s and Mary’s flat and the interior of 221B. Those bits are truly enjoyable. What I could live without, though, is the leading commentary that kind of instructs us, the audience, how we should interpret the show. 

Benedict is on it again on this DVD, telling us that in TST they picked up where they left off in S3 and “It’s a very happy unit of three people that then become four.” Why does he feel the need to make this statement, considering how S3 ended? Actually, if there’s anything I totally fail to see in S4, it’s happiness. The banter between the three  of them may seem entertaining for a while, but who could have a relaxed, warm relationship with someone who tried and almost succeeded to kill you less than a year ago? Without any sign of remorse? Now there’s a dark tone of discomfort and mean jokes that feels forced and not even a bit happy to me. 

But Martin tells us how excited John and Mary are about starting a family and Amanda mentions how much they’re looking forward to the baby. Again and again it’s repeated, as though trying to rub it in: “they’re in a good place, they’re a loving, married couple”. Yeah, right - a child that (judging by TSoT) wasn’t at all planned and now with an assassin for a mother... Twice we see the new parents complain that their daughter has the mark of Satan on her forehead and debate which horror movie she’s from. The clichéd hypocrisy of it all is sickening, and I’m willing to bet that it’s really meant to be. ;) 

But Gatiss chimes in, deciding for us all that the christening of Rosie is “a funny scene” and “they’re enjoying each other, enjoying being on adventures as a three”.

An interesting detail is that Gatiss also tells us that the working name of this episode was “The Adventure of the Melting power Ranger”. So this little blue guy was that important? :) And - even more interesting - is when he says: “Cake is now the code for violent death”. So how should we interpret Sherlock, John and Molly going out to have cake in TLD then, on Sherlock’s (supposed) birthday? 

These might be jokes, though, but when they tell us that Sue cries every time she sees Mary’s death I strongly believe they must be joking. How could anyone feel truly moved by this overly sentimental long monologue where far more efforts are put into reacting to Mary’s speech than saving her life? And John’s mooing like a cow, is that also moving? :)

One thing Martin says about TLD that actually disgusts me is regarding the morgue scene where John assaults Sherlock and Sherlock lets it happen: “From there, really, their relationship can only sort of rebuild, that’s the absolute worst it can get”. As if outright physical abuse would be something that makes you want to rebuild a relationship? Wow - just wow... How far can they go with this crap?

Anyway, when we finally arrive at the absurdity of TFP and Sherlock’s ‘secret sister’, everything is of course discussed as if she actually does exist on the given premises, and everything she does is ‘real’, no matter how impossible it would be in real life. The abandonment of any attempt to have the story line make logical sense is skillfully covered up by more distraction with fascinating technicalities of the film making process. This is where Gatiss makes his now almost classic statement that after Sherlock and John jump out of the window at 221B when a grenade explodes there, it’s just “Boop! And they’re fine.” 

Of course there’s no serious attempt at explaining this logically. Except perhaps Gatiss claiming that they both landed on Speedy’s awning - whatever good that would do to them, since the awning is leaning downwards, but never mind... But we never even saw that happen, did we? A great deal of time is then dedicated to show all the precautions to have Martin and Ben jumping safely at low level onto a madras supported by empty cardboard boxes.

Sian Brooke did say something interesting about Sherrinford, however, that got me thinking. She said that Eurus “wants revenge for the years and years that she has been held captive” there, isolated, and that in TFP the Holmes children are now “lab rats” and “it’s an experiment”. On a meta level, I think we can indeed see this episode - and maybe the whole show - as a kind of experiment, but maybe we, the audience, are also lab rats? Since Sherrinford is slightly shaped like a film camera (not commented in the extra material, of course), it leads my thought to all the adaptations through the years and years where Holmes and Watson have not been allowed to be together. A whole century when Sherlock Holmes has been held captive, restricted by the very same sort of heteronormative filter that all this extra material imposes; it’s like Sherrinford, isn’t it? Which gives all the more meaning to Moriarty’s arrival to the island, accompanied by Freddy Mercury’s “I want to break free”...

I think I’ll let the final words in this little exposé come from Mark Gatiss in The Writers’ Chat (my bolding):

“Moriarty is a fascinating thing in that in our sea of ongoing lies, one thing we’ve genuinely been completely consistent about is telling people he’s dead. But no-one believes it! And it’s a rather brilliant thing.”  Again - self-congratulatory statements. But instead of providing some actual evidence of the death of this character, who has kept popping up in almost every episode since his supposed demise, they think that the more a confirmed liar repeats something, the truer it gets? And the more we’re supposed to believe them? Well, all we can do is wait and see. :)

Tagging some people who might be interested: 

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @lukessense​ @sagestreet​ @thepersianslipper​

My earlier meta on a similar topic (X)

#bbc sherlock dvds #Deception in BBC Sherlock

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

#the love it takes series #to exist again fic #to become a man fic #dem speaks

[monysmediareview]

Mortal Instruments Series Review

My first review! Yay! 

We’re going to start with a series I recently got very into and then very out of: The Mortal Instruments series. I only read the first 3 books. I started the 4th and simply wasn’t interested, but we’ll get into that. 

This is honestly going to be a mixed review. There was a lot that I really loved about this series and was super happy to see so many well written or well thought out elements, but there’s also a lot that I wasn’t pleased with and could have done without. For the purpose of this review I will only be talking about the books and not the show or the movie, but again, we’ll get to that later. 

First thing’s first: the lovers to siblings back to lovers plot

What the actual fuck was that? I mean, I get it, the drama of it all was intense and emotional. I loved it for that but let’s take a moment to really consider what was wrong with this. I could have gotten on this band wagon, because it is dramatic as hell, which I love. But there are several moments throughout the first three books where, to Jace and Clary’s knowledge, they are full blood, 100% siblings, but they still make out. 

Outside the Wayland house in City of Glass they literally lay in a field, making out, taking clothes off. Not only is the world around them quite literally ending but at this moment they are under the impression that they are siblings. But they do it anyway. Which is disturbing to say the least. Sure, it makes it that much more of a relief when we find out they aren’t siblings and that Jonathan is a whole other person, but there were other ways to do that. This is a story read by a ton of young, impressionable, mostly female readers and that is just such a strange message to send. They’re already confused and worried about the world going on around them, why on earth would you throw that in, too? Thinking back to middle school, I can remember at least 2 cases of brothers and sisters being accused of hooking up and I now wonder if this series had anything to do with that. I shudder to think about it. 

Izzy deserved better

Right off the bat, we see Izzy through Clary’s pick me girl eyes and she does not like Izzy. She’s threatened by her and her connection with Jace. Again, why are we alluding to siblings hooking up with each other? It’s weird and uncomfy and Izzy deserved better than that. 

She’s a strong, independent, smart, well trained, self sufficient woman and I would have read so much more about her if it was there. Izzy is emotionally mature, resilient, and in my opinion would have been a much better main character for a series like this. There was no reason for Cassandra Clare to make Izzy so unlikable or have Clary put her down like that. This was actually an amazing opportunity to pass the Bechdel test but to have a strong female/female relationship and set a really good example for the younger readers. 

The Jace/Clary/Simon love triangle was weak 

I’m a sucker for a good love triangle. It’s an old, played out trope but I can’t help it. The drama of it all is intriguing and I like them. However, the love triangle with Clary and Simon and Jace just wasn’t juicy enough. Having Clary date Simon simply because she couldn’t be with Jace anymore was really weird, especially considering Simon had almost given up/gotten over Clary because he was interested in Izzy. Then, he drops Izzy, runs to Clary and then they just stop dating and decide to be friends. And then he goes back to Izzy from what I can tell from the beginning of City of Fallen Angels, which I think discredits her even more to go back to someone who left in her in dust like that. But I digress. 

If there was going to be a genuine love triangle, there needed to be a struggle of choice. Having her only choose Simon because he was what was left over was not a strong plot point and I felt that it took away from the story. It could have even been improved if Jace had shown outward jealousy or tried to convince her not to be with him but instead he ignored it. But that takes me to my next point. 

Jace was kind of an asshole 

I understand the idea of a “bad boy” love interest. It’s hot, it’s interesting, it’s everything every girl wants. But I’m also kind of over it. And in this case, it didn’t even stick. Jace very quickly goes from complete asshole to emotional loverboy and while I’d normally love that, it actually felt unintentional. I don’t have too much to say about this other than begging for writers and readers to have higher standards for male love interests in these types of stories. 

Jace’s unconditional love for Clary even though she’s boring

Category is: more tropes I’m kind of done with. 

The thing is, Clary isn’t anything special. It’s why I really don’t like her as a character. It enforces this trope of these “regular” but also “not like other girls” girls who get a bad boy to fall in love with them and suddenly be soft and gentle and kind just for them. It’s not realistic and it is so so damaging to the young girls who read things like this. Not that I think we should censor art or writing in any way to make it more morally upstanding or appealing to certain groups, but I do think that in wide spread media it is important to be conscious of the impact your work might make on certain groups of people. If a story like this needed to exist, then maybe it shouldn’t have been marketed to the audience it was. And let’s be real - there was no reason these characters couldn’t have been college aged instead of 16. 

Back to the topic at hand - Jace has completely unconditional love for Clary. I think that’s super cute but it is almost unhealthy the way he’s obsessed with her. Maybe it was just how I read it but I think there could have definitely been a better way to express that he’s in love with her without making it seem like he would die without her. 

Moral of the story, kids - let’s stop romanticizing unhealthy relationships. 

Simon being a Jewish vampire was a fantastic idea 

If you follow my main blog you probably know how much I love vampires. It’s kind of my thing. It’s why I picked up this series in the first place; because I was told that it had a really cool vampire subplot and it absolutely does. 

Vampires have always had a strong connection to catholicism, what with the crosses and the holy water and the churches and all that. It had never even occurred to me that a Jewish vampire might have to abide by different rules and it begs the question of how religion plays into vampirism in the first place. 

I don’t want to spend too much time on this because I could write pages and pages and pages on my take on vampires but I just wanted to praise this aspect of the series because it is badass. I hope we see more vampires of other religions popping up in media in the future. I think that would be dope as hell. 

Alec and Magnus are my OTP of this series

As far as love stories go I really don’t think it gets better than this couple. There wasn’t too much of them in the books I read but I became absolutely obsessed anyway. Magnus, who seems to be portrayed as some kind of bad boy in his own rite; you know, like an immortal whore, falling in love with Alec. Alec who is strong and kind and loves with his whole heart but hides who he really is. They help each other change for the better and seem to really complete each other. Even if this wasn’t entirely intentional, I’m here for it. I would die for them. If/when I review the TV show there will definitely be a ton about this. 

There are far too many parallels to Twilight for my liking

Okay, there aren’t that many. SMeyer does have a quote about how much she loves the series on the front of all the books that I have, though, and that’s too much already. Beside that there are a few things I noticed. 

Bella is obviously SMeyer’s self insert character and that makes me think that Clary is too. First of all the names are incredibly similar and let’s just take a look at Cassandra Clare.

Look familiar? 

Not to mention the story was stolen in the first place, but that’s for another review. I plan on reading that series as well to make my own observations. 

This series did not need to exceed 3 books

By the end of City of Glass, the story felt over to me. There were a few loose ends but nothing that ultimately made me want to keep reading and that’s why I think the 4th book fell flat. The entire thing could have been wrapped up nicely in three books or the end of the third book should have been more enticing and inviting to another installment. 

So, overall, I did enjoy the series. I think a lot of the characters were really well written, the dialogue was good, and the plot, while it has its flaws, was interesting at the very least. I’ll definitely be giving the rest of the books a shot at some point since the show opened my eyes to what plot lines may have been followed and I like that idea a lot. I know it seems like I really hate this series, but I don’t. It certainly has it’s issues but if you’re looking for something fun to read that you don’t plan on taking too seriously then I highly recommend. 

Until next time, friends!

#book review #series review #monyreview #mortal instruments #shadowhunters #cassandra clare #clary fairchild #clary fray #jace wayland #jace herondale #alec and magnus #magnus bane #izzy lightwood #city of glass #city of bones #city of ashes #city of fallen angels #opinion #opinion piece #unpopular opinions #fandom #series

[kingbennyboyyy]

benny’s RWBY rewrite: the white fang

so this is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and i’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts about it. the white fang in RWBY, as it stands now, is a really poorly thought-out approximation of the black panther party, an actual organization that fought for the equal rights and the equal treatment of black people in the united states. the black panther party’s actions have been long pathologized by white society and academia at large, and have been falsely contrasted with the ideals and teachings of MLK. the false dichotomy of violent and non-violent action is reductive at best, and blatantly racist at worst. while there is a whole fuckton to be said about the real-life consequences of these discourses, i’d like to focus on their impact on the writing of RWBY. i’d also like to talk about how i’d change how the white fang looks in order to make things a little less uncomfortable.

content warning for real and fictional racism, antiblackness, violence against marginalized people, and discussions of white supremacy under the cut.

so, the white fang. the RWBY wiki describes the group as “ a Faunus organization in Remnant. Founded following the Faunus Rights Revolution, the White Fang was initially a peaceful activist organization created to improve relations between Humans and Faunus and improve the civil rights of the latter.” more concisely, i would describe the white fang as a faunus rights activist group, whose modes of operation have changed over time. within the story, after the peaceful leader ghira stepped down, the faction as a whole took a notable nose-dive into violence. but why did this happen? why was the white fang written like this?

first of all, all of the following talk comes from the subjective opinion of one black genderqueer writer. i am not the voice of the entirety of my community, and i can bet that there are people who disagree with me. i’m just here to say my piece.

that said, i think that the white fang’s writing grossly misunderstands what oppression looks like to marginalized people. the RWBY writing team obviously wanted to handle racism in some kind of way- they wrote racism into the story. however, it’s incredibly clear that most of the writers don’t really understand how deeply racism runs in given societies. the oppression of the faunus is clearly mirroring the oppression of black people in the united states, and yet there’s little to this oppression other than surface-level discrimitation. ghira’s direction of the white fang doesn’t seem to understand that personal prejudice is a very small aspect of the continued oppression of the faunus. alarmingly, it’s only when “radicals” such as sienna khan and adam taurus take control that actual, structural avenues of racism are acknowledged. this has several issues.

- whether the RWBY writers intended this or not, attributing the acknowledgement of actual systemic issues to violent radicals is inherently a really bad call. the dismantling and destruction of racist structures is the baseline of most avenues of anti-racist thought, but by only assigning these beliefs to people like adam “kill all humans” taurus, you’re telling the audience that only people like adam “i’m gonna kill all my ex’s loved ones b/c she hurt my feelings” taurus think that these things are a reality. make no mistake, institutional racism and structural violence against marginalized people is a thing. by giving these ideas to violent actors, you’re sending a really shitty message. 

- another thing to note is the role of fear in the white fang’s activity. blake is quoted as saying that under adam taurus, people only pretend to respect the faunus because they’re afraid of the white fang. this is also bad. there is an actual line of racist thought that thinks that people who just want equality are a bunch of thugs using intimidation tactics to get special treatment, and by affirming this in-canon, you’re giving credence to these beliefs. in addition, adam’s literal desire to put humans in cages and make them go extinct is also an actual white supremacist talking point. actual fucking white supremacists go on about how the white race is going extinct as a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into committing acts of violence against marginalized people. but RWBY says, “no, the white fang actually wants humans to be wiped off the face of the earth.” i shouldn’t have to tell you how buck fucking wild this is. 

- there’s also the role of violence in activism. the black panther party has long been attributed with senseless and anger-fueled violence against white people, but this assessment of the party is completely false. in truth, the arming of black panthers was a direct response to overpolicing and police violence against black people. the black panther party advocated self-defense, and acted as its own protective force for black americans. they had guns so that they could protect themselves from the cops, who were assaulting and killing them in absurd numbers. if the RWBY writers wanted to draw parallels between the white fang and the black panther party, they could have very easily done so by actually doing their research.

the question becomes, is it at all possible to have members of the white fang as actual villains within the RWBY universe? i’d say that it is possible, but it has to be done very carefully. there’s several things that have to be kept in mind here, and the entire understanding of faunus oppression has be to restructured in order for this to work. i’ll outline what i would change below:

- firstly, there needs to be more evidence of faunus marginalization past the surface level. this could be evident in a phethora of ways, anywhere from the trend of faunus hiding their animal traits being more common (an important thing to note is how accessible passing as a human is to the faunus), to beacon actually having much more bias than humans are aware of. blake highlighting these biases would be extremely helpful in establishing how deeply anti-faunus sentiments run. the only racists being cartoon bullies and shady billionaires rings too closely to the sentiments that white people have about racism. this is also a comparatively minor gripe, but the whole “becoming the monster people think they are” mask thing is just so... dumb. there are legitimate reasons for faunus to hide their identities during protests, and pathologizing this is just such a shitty thing to do.

- next, the white fang as a whole cannot be a terrorist organization in actuality. people can believe that the white fang are a bunch of terrorists, sure, but this can’t be the truth. for example, it would make perfect sense for weiss to think such things. her being the heiress to the schnee dust company, being fed stories about scary faunus with weapons trying to hurt her and her family would make sense. but the stereotypes humans have about faunus activism can’t be true. in addition, there should at the very least be more than one faunus activist party. the fact that there’s only one in the entire continent of remnant is so fucking stupid. you don’t think that some group of people would be dissatisfied and go and do something else?

- adam and sienna cannot be the leaders of the entire white fang. i’m sorry, but it’s just way too fucking easy for racists to say “oh, the entire thing’s just an excuse for (insert minority here) to ransack property and hurt people!” ilia could have been promoted after ghira stepped down. it would be interesting to see how she uses her ability to pass as human to actually make some changes for the people of menagerie, and the power structures that led to its creation. sienna has the potential to be someone disillusioned by strictly pacifist ideals of ghira, but she can act more in accordance to the actual black panther party, advocating for self-defense and knowing one’s rights. the arming and training of faunus, as frightening as it may be to the humans in power, cannot and should not be depicted at the beginnings of terrorism. there’s potential for actual discussion of the effectiveness of pacifism and respectability politics in activism, but all of that was overshadowed by the gross villification and oversimplification of the white fang.

- finally, adam. i think that adam is able to remain mostly the same, with a few adjustments to the environment around him (along with the previously discussed changes). i don’t think that adam should be the only person whose violent oppression is readily visible. the trope of the oppressed person going “mad with vengeance” is just adding fuel to the fire of the belief that those who speak out against their oppression should be put down. as satisfying an arc blake and yang beating the shit out of blake’s abusive ex was, it did just kind of feel like two people being like “yeah! violence wrong! pacifism good!” the unification of faunus SDC workers shouldn’t be attributed to adam. the advocacy for faunus to be able to defend themselves shouldn’t be attributed to adam. adam needs to be labled extremely clearly as an outlier, and even then this is risky. i think that adam’s group should be miniscule in comparison to the other sects of the white fang, and i think it would be interesting for his dealings with roman and company to be based on the distribution of android soldiers. adam shouldn’t come from a good place. yes, he suffered atrociously at the hands of his oppressors, but as a character and as an element of the story, he should be uniquely evil. for the few actual people in his group, he should rule through fear and violence, and defectors should be common. his brand of violence should be unique: rather than actually aiming to make changes to help the faunus, he should be solely focused on revenge. blake’s leaving him makes more sense in this way: rather than her leaving because of the inherent evil of violence, she should leave him because of his twisting the good intentions of the white fang into a self-serving cruelty. this all has to be contrasted against the well-intentioned actions of the actual white fang. the terrorist logo that appears universally on white fang regalia should either be solely adam’s, or his group should have a different name entirely.

so there. there’s my thoughts on the white fang and the stuff that the RWBY writers were trying to do. what should be taken away from this discussion is this: it is possible to write racism into a fantasy story without it being an absolute garbage fire, but it takes work. it takes understanding racism, the fact that it’s not just cruel people, but people complicit in the structures that uphold it. it takes being mindful of actual racist talking points, and making sure that your work doesn’t play into them. finally, if you’re going to make a main antagonist a member of the fucking civil rights movement, please for the love of god make it abundantly clear that they aren’t the villain because they want equal rights.

i’ve read so many stories where this defanged, platitude-ridden form of activism is treated as the only valid form of activism. in reality, it’s the form that people in power are most comfortable with. people approve of the idealized version of MLK because his activism was one that made white people feel good. the MLK we read about in schools is an illusory one. the real man kept a gun on him because he knew that as much as white media would have you believe that people liked him, he knew that people still wanted him dead. 

#benny's RWBY rewrite #RWBY #story #adam taurus #the white fang

[millllennia]

I HAVE FINISHED ACOSF

thank you guys for dealing with my spam live blogging these last few days. the one friend of mine that reads didn’t get her copy until today so i had no one to scream at 

overall, I’m giving this book a 4/5 stars. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I do have some issues with it (and SJM, as per usual) but I am happy that I read it and I’m thrilled to see that she is improving on some things. slowly. not quick enough. 

detailed review below the cut

starting with the things I didn’t like about it because there aren’t very many:

i have my usual qualms with SJM. those haven’t changed. but there wasn’t a “killing calm” and the boob talk was limited to the first half (mostly) of the book which I appreciated. there was still no gays. every single one of the priestesses that got described was described at pale. her diversity isn’t any better and she needs to be aware and listen to her fans. 

I wish we’d gotten more of cassian’s perspective in the first little bit (like first hundred pages). it felt like that dragged a bit, which might have been a style choice because that’s where Nesta was at mentally, but I didn’t love it. 

There wasn’t enough Mor. making a character come out and then promptly sending her off to a foreign land is lazy and pandering. also one of Nesta and Mor’s only interactions being Nesta getting weirdly jealous for no reason was gross and uncalled for and no. if Nesta believed that she didn’t deserve cassian, she should be happy that he has another woman in his arms and punish herself with the image. that’s how that motivation base works. you don’t just get jealous weirdly one time and then never have it come up again. 

I fundamentally do not believe that SJM is going to kill any member of the court permanently, so the whole storyline about Feyre and Rhys and Nxy and everything fell flat. Rhys is SJM’s favourite and Feyre is her self insert and I just don’t think that she’s going to kill them. Not that I want them to die because I don’t (even though I don’t like Feyre, I think she does bring something to the story) but I just wish that I felt the stakes and that SJM would kill some people. 

NOW FOR THE THINGS I DID LIKE BECAUSE I AM SURPRISED THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF THESE

sjm needs to stay in new adult fantasy. her smut is SO MUCH BETTER when she doesn’t need to come up with creative ways to say dick. also she can have actual smut dialogue so it isn’t just hanging dialogue tags without the filthy talk attached that sound awkward and animalistic and it’s just all. so. much. better. I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT YOU HAVE NO IDEA

also the smut was good. just generally good. I didn’t feel like there was too much of it. consent was a thing without it being like ‘loOk fOlKs tHiS iS cOnSeNt’ which was better. have I read better fanfic smut? absolutely. but also this is a published book and there are different rules and I overall really liked it. 

the lack of feyre was wonderful (stans don’t come for me). she is a fine character but I don’t think she’s interesting and I don’t like her relationship with Rhys and I think they are kinda boring together (despite the fact that Rhys is fascinating. that’s how boring Feyre is. she sucks the life out of rhys) so I was happy that we had some space from her. also Nesta needed that space and Im happy she was given that. 

im very very happy that it was in third person and not first. that’s purely personal preference but I don’t enjoy first person. maybe that’s part of why I don’t like feyre? idk 

it didn’t feel like fake girl power. as much as i love the tog series, there were a lot of moments that felt like pandering. nothing in here felt like pandering and i really really liked that. the whole blood rite thing was well set up and well executed and it wasn’t just “hey girls are as good as boys!” 

nesta is super interesting. cassian is super interesting. i love a reverse slow burn. their relationship isn’t perfect but it’s good and I genuinely like it. I could have done without the mating bond but it actually had a purpose. it wasn’t just ‘ah they like each other so they are now mates’. like there was plot around it. which we love. that is definitely an improvement.

the little moments we get of azriels inner thoughts (like the thing about his scarred hands while holding the baby) made me HURT A LOT but it was really good and i’m hoping we get another book about him and elain? because the subtext is there. im annoyed that the subtext is there but it’s there. I don’t love the three brothers getting paired up with the three sisters because heteronormativity and i hate predictable relationships. but they do seem like they’d be relatively compatible. maybe. and i’d like to see a relationship that goes against the mating bond 

Emerie is a baby sunshine sweetheart that needs to be protected at all costs and I did not miss her queer subtext and maybe that’ll happen??? i just really hope it isn’t her x Gwyn because that would break up the sisterhood. maybe her x Mor? also GIRL GET YOUR WINGS FIXED YOU DONT HAVE TO HOLD ONTO THE SCARS 

speaking of GWYN IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH GOOD THINGS ABOUT HER

eris is everything????? he’s definitely one of the coolest antiheros i’ve read in a long long time. I really wanna know what the real story is with Mor. I hope we get more of him. 

I was very happy that this book didn’t end with another surprise army. she did it twice. twice was too much. she’d better not do that again. but this one was good and I was surprised (which rarely happens with her books) so that was nice. 

i’m glad nesta didn’t win the blood rite. it was so much better to have her stand in the pass. like yes that was such a good plot choice. 

I feel like her actual writing itself has improved. this feels like a stronger book and a stronger story and I am weirdly proud of SJM which I lowkey hate myself for saying but it’s true.

so there we have it, folks. 4/5. not bad.  

#acosf review #acosf spoilers #a court of silver flames #millllennia review #stans stay away

[cescalr]

Why Is Draco Malfoy So Underrated?

A repost of a Quora answer because Quora hates me for some reason

@vivithefolle​ i take little convincing here I go -

SO!

You. Yeah, you. You, nebulous quora questioner, you think Malfoy is underrated, do you? Well I, CescaLR, am here to set the record straight. The following is the answer I posted to Quora, that was flagged with ‘answer may need improvement’, which means some asshole was trawling the answers to the question posted and didn’t like mine so they had the moderators hide it because said person doesn’t like differing opinions. This post is thereby an archive, so if my answer is never again allowed to see the light of day on Quora, at least my maths is visible elsewhere. 

Hopefully, this entertains you, tumblr user reading this post. Also, as fair warning, if you do like Draco Malfoy and somehow stumbled across this post, I recommend skipping it. 

Why is Draco Malfoy so underrated?

Fleur Lee-Ranger

Author of 857406 words of fanfiction and counting.

ANSWER:

HAHAHAHA.

Ha.

Ha.

hah…..

For god’s sake, I hope you’re not serious.

Let’s look at YouTube, first:

Does 2.2 million f*cking views on a woobie Draco edit seem like he’s underrated to you? Any character that gets 2.2 million views on an edit that interprets the character in a sympathetic, caring light…. Jesus Christ. They’re not underrated.

You could make a clear argument for them being overrated, by matter of fact!

The first result is his entire life story, and a redemption of the Malfoy family as a whole, and it’s… super popular!

look at that! 70k likes versus 1.7k dislikes. Let’s use my favourite maths thing once again: Ratios!!

(I hate ratios. The things I do to prove a point, eh?)

This video has 5201431 million views. It has around 70k likes, 1.1k dislikes. We’ll round 5201431, as 70k and 1.1k are both rounded numbers and I can’t be bothered to deal with numbers that are too complicated right now, it’s nearly nine pm. 5201431 -> 5.2 million. It’s the rounded number YouTube itself uses on the search page - check the first image if you don’t believe me, and since YouTube thinks that’s good enough, so will we.

5200000 : 70000 : 1100

52000 : 700 : 11

Divide all by 11 (and round awkward numbers, because we’re already dealing in rounded numbers anyway, which is kind of bad practice, but it’ll do for this context):

4,727 : 64 : 1

As I’ve proven before (not on Quora, you can probably find it in the comments of one of my fanfictions, I’ll end up moving it over here one day when I find the right question), fandom content engagement rates are always pretty bad. But honestly? every four thousand or so views, you get 64 likes, compared to just one dislike. That’s great! That’s incredible! I’d kill for those kinds of ratings!!

(Draco’d probably wimp out, though. hehe. Jokes, jokes.)

As for his woobie video:

2.3m : 152k : 715

2300000 : 153000 : 715

Nice, don’t need to remove any superfluous zeroes. Bad, for… well, your hypothesis, to put it nicely, since that means there are only seven hundred and fifteen goddamn dislikes on this video, what the f*ck, why do so many people like this b*stard child.

Ahem. Sorry, that’s rude to illegitimate children like myself. There is nothing wrong with having unmarried parents.

…Anyway, lets slim down that ratio:

3217 : 214 : 1

Holy sh*t. I would do more than kill for this ratio. Oh my god.

That’s some great engagement there. So many likes! Clearly, Draco dearie is a very popular boy! He’d love that. I hate this on principle. God am I glad 13 year old me didn’t really use YouTube (I watched gaming content and little else, didn’t even find fandom content until 2015) or I’d have contributed one of those likes, probably.

Oh wait, no! Never mind! I can’t have contributed one of those likes, because this f*cking video was posted last year!!!!!

LAST GODDAMN YEAR!!!!

Do you understand that? Do you - do you have any idea how - just how difficult it is to get that many views that quickly and with that good an engagement???? Do you???????? It has been, get this, seven, seven whole f*cking months, Less time than it takes to make a baby, and this f*cking video has 2,265,900!!! million!!!! views!!!! With a ratio of 214 likes to one goddamn dislike.

oh my god.

oh my god

oh my god

I’m having a minor mental breakdown. Jesus f*cking H Christ on a goddamn bike.

Look at these comments! Look at how many likes they have!! Oh my god!!!! Draco Malfoy might just be one of the most beloved characters ever to get this sort of reaction, for hell’s sake!

I don’t know what kind of dunderhead you are to not notice how f*cking popular this jackass little b*stard boy is, but god, the whiny little sh*t has more fans than oh, I don’t know. Someone really popular. Tom Holland? I don’t know celebrities. Sorry.

But my point is, for god’s sake, Malfoy isn’t underrated. I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under, my friend, but that sheer idolisation you so crave of your wimpy f*cking husband is right there in front of you! Just search his name, and you’ll see it front and goddamn centre. Those of us that don’t worship the ground he walks on are generally much more background.

For god’s sake, he’s a trope namer.

Draco In Leather Pants.

How much more evidence do you need than that?

Of course, I could be jumping the gun. You could be a fan of his that is frustrated by the fanon interpretation of his character. ‘Why is he reduced to a bad boy with a heart of gold when actually he’s a more complicated asshole with sh*tty morality and no backbone that gives a whole ass damn about his family but not much else?’ Good question! Blame Cassie Claire, though I suppose that’s my go-to for most things.

Seriously though; Draco Malfoy is not even remotely overrated. He’s a whiny, terrible, useless waste of space in the books; and in fandom, he’s transformed into a cool, collected, redeemable or outright good person who’s smart and talented and like, super hot you guys, doesn’t he look cute with Hermione/Harry/Insert Author’s Projected Character Here?!!!!

Also: Y’all are f*cking creeps for this shit:

THAT’S A SCENE FROM WHEN THE KID IS TWELVE, FOR GOD’S SAKE. I’m not even joking, half of you are nonces and I want nothing to do with you! ‘hot draco malfoy edits’ HE’S TWELVE

HE’S TWELVE

HE’S TWELVE.

Hot take time:

Draco Malfoy is overhyped, overrated, and oversexualised and I want all of this to stop, because you’re doing it to Tom Felton, when he was a child. A child! That’s creepy! Please do not make hot edits of children, thank you!!!!!

Someone call the police. I’m done with this f*cking fandom, oh my god.

(Also, if you think I edited that in like some sick weirdo might do, just go find that video and give it a watch. I wouldn’t if I were you, I’d believe me, because watching that video probably puts you on a watchlist somewhere.

It should.)

Okay. Deep breaths. It’s been a few months, this answer was flagged with the wonderfully opaque ‘this answer may need improvement’, and I’m back to refine this. I’m not taking anything out, but I’m adding some extra investigation. For posterity’s sake; the original answer only contained YouTube analysis. Let’s look through Archive Of Our Own, shall we?

As I showed in my answer re: the well-liked-ness of Lilly and Hermione, this is the number of total fics within the HP tag.

This is the number of tags when ‘Draco Malfoy’ is added to the ‘included characters’ filter.

So, in terms of ‘fandom work presence’ (AO3 is mostly fanfic, but it is not all fanfic, there are a few vids and some art on there, too) Malfoy’s ratio is thus:

254603:65469

3.8889… : 1

4 : 1

So, rounding up, for every four works on AO3, there is one that includes Draco dearie. Good lord, he’s pervasive, isn’t he? Can’t turn a corner in the fandom without seeing his pasty ferret face plastered all over the walls… lovely.

Now, once again - that wasn’t the best ratio. I didn’t remove bashing, for example, so not all those works will be positive (as in, since you think he’s underrated, that means - I assume - you think people don’t like him enough) so let’s go the long mile:

I will find a ratio for Mr Malfoy Jr’s fans, versus his haters, in terms of - how many fics bash Malfoy, and how many greatly enjoy his existence?

Add the bashing tag, and now let’s see how many fics there are with a) Draco in it, and b) Draco Bashing:

hahahhahagag;k;asdkf

Oh no!

Oh my god I dodn’t…. one second… give me just one second….

Right. Laughing fit over, okay. 17.

So, 65469 works with Draco present, 17 of which don’t like him overmuch, and 65452 like him just fine/present him as he appears in canon! Awesome. Of course, people who present him as he is in canon may not like him the way you want him to, so, not awesome? Hmm. I’m not sure how to filter for that. I suppose you wouldn’t want people who write him OOC, though, because that’s not rating him properly, is it? Should we add OOC to the bashing, to get people who don’t appreciate his… many positive character traits… to the extent that you would like?

Yes, I think we should.

Now, there’s no tag for ‘OOC Draco Malfoy’, because that would make my life too easy. And, I’m not going through 151 works to figure out which ones have Draco being the one OOC. If they’ve written one person OOC, and they’re self-aware enough to tag it, then I’m going to meanly assume they’ve written Draco OOC as well. When one person’s out of whack, I’ve found everyone else is, too, so I’m not just doing this to be a dick, I promise, it’s for a real, good, understandable reason, one that is not only because I really don’t want to have to do any maths more complicated than basic ratios.

So. 151 OOC works, 17 bashing works. 168 works of not properly appreciated Draco Malfoy, coming up, which takes our 65469 Draco works down to… 65301.

Well, that’s a lot, still.

So, there’s still some tags to remove, like Evil, and Abusive, and all that lark. I’ll go do that quickly, and come back with the maths.

(okay, but I do have to show this:)

(fourteen works in the ‘Evil’ draco tag?? are you serious???)

(oh and you can’t filter by Abusive Draco Malfoy, like that’s not a tag, so I can’t exclude it, but it really adds to the general atmosphere of ‘Draco Malfoy? Yeah he’s cool I like him’ that this fandom has going on, doesn’t it?)

Alright so! We really only could take away those 14 works. Okay.

By the way, just so you know - I didn’t exclude tags like ‘Death Eater Draco Malfoy’ and ‘Bully Draco Malfoy’ (if the latter even exists), because those are things that happen in canon, and when I think of a character as being ‘underrated’ I include not acknowledging their canon actions, the bad and the good. A character is only as good as their complexities run deep.

So.

For the ratio, I guess;

65469 : 151 : 17 : 14

4,676.3571… : 10.7857… : 1.2142… : 1

4,676 : 11 : 1 : 1

…

Hmm.

For every 4 thousand 6 hundred fics Draco appears in, 11 of them have OOC tagged, 1 of them has Draco Bashing tagged, and 1 of them has Evil Draco tagged. That is…

That is unfathomably good. I’m really, genuinely having a hard time picturing it. I really, honestly, don’t think there’s been a character as unquestionably overrated as Draco Malfoy in all of fandom, because, good lord, look at that ratio! People love the guy!

Let’s see the good draco malfoy tag, shall we?

Now, to be fair, most people don’t bother tagging any of this sort of thing, usually, so that’s a minor flaw in my ratio-ing. We can’t actually know exactly how many works laud Malfoy, or hate him, or feel ambivalent, because people don’t tag their shit properly. But I’m hoping this helps, at least a little. Anyway, 905! That’s a few. Not many, but certainly more than Evil or Bashing or even OOC.

65469 : 905 : 151 : 17 : 14

4,676.3571… : 64.6428 : 10.7857… : 1.2142… : 1

4,676 : 65 : 11 : 1 : 1

Yep. That’s not bad, not bad at all.

So. Most people seem to like him, if we’re honest. As I pointed out above, he’s a trope namer. If you didn’t click on the link for Draco In Leather Pants, here’s a brief summary from the TV Tropes page:

[ Transcription:

Sometimes, a fanwork will portray a villainous character in a more positive light. It can be done out of sympathy for the character, for shipping reasons, as a part of a role-reversal story, several of the aforementioned or for the variety of other reasons.

The common subjects of this treatment are characters who are wicked in a classy or cool way. A physically attractive villain is much more likely to be subject to this trope than a physically ugly one; Beauty = Goodness, after all, and shallow as it may be, it seems that, for some fans, this is the case even when the character's beauty only extends to their appearance. All Girls Want Bad Boys may be a factor with male villains getting a female fandom that views them through this lens. A badass villain will naturally be preferred by many of these over meeker heroic characters at times, as well. Ugly Cute villains also get this pretty easily. ]

So! There’s that. He named a trope all about appreciating a character perhaps (usually definitely) more than they deserve, so I wouldn’t call him ‘underrated’ by most general definitions of the word:

People seem to mostly believe him to be quite good, actually! Certainly enough to write about him a lot, to draw him a lot, to edit him a lot, to theorise about him a lot, to ship him with the main character so much that the 99th filter ever on AO3 was Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter.

Hey, actually, that’s a good idea! Which filter id is Draco Malfoy?

Now, if I’m not mistaken, it’s been a while since I had to do this -

Draco Malfoy was the 1589th tag canonised in the tag system of AO3. Let’s check the Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter tag (which I know for certain was 99) to make sure:

And lo and behold, I was right. That’s mad. That’s mad!!!!

Ooh, I’ve found a fun trick

To change which rss feed you’re looking at, copy the https:// link up to .atom in the speech marks, and change the highlighted number. That shows you what uses that tag_ids: - in this case, 93 is Draco himself. The 93rd tag, dedicated to Draco Malfoy. Good lord, that’s insane! I guess there really weren’t many other things to prioritize at the time, but that’s still silly to me.

Fluff and Angst appears to be the fiftieth tag canonised, for comparison. Sometimes when you replace the rss feed’s ‘tag’ in the address bar it takes you to the tag’s page instead of the feed, because that tag doesn’t have an rss feed. The more you know!

Anyway, back on track: I think all of that, rss feeds, youtube analytics, fandom presence, all kind of proves my point:

Draco Malfoy is not underrated. He is, arguably, overrated as a character, but unarguably very popular within the greater Harry Potter fandom. Unpopular characters don’t tend to get paired with the lead, at the very least - and you can’t turn around in the Harry Potter fandom without seeing Drarry somewhere, can you?

#anyway #anti draco malfoy #hp #hp fandom #harry potter #meta #fandom meta #quora #fandom bullshit #long post #sorry mobile users!! very sorry

[somethingoriginal127]

I’m gonna be honest and say i don’t understand hating a vampire diaries character without just kinda finding them annoying ... bc how can you say one of them is truly worse than the other

Damon : killed jeremy

Stefan : almost drove elena off the bridge her parents died on literally the most traumatic night of her life (threatened to turn her) (probably just bluffing though)

Caroline : (it’s gonna be mostly season 1 stuff bc she’s the queen of development) made SEVERAL insensitive comments about Elena’s parents death all the time

Elena : complained about Katherine attacking her directly when she turned Caroline even though Caroline was the victim (although Elena was a big chunk of the reason she did it)

Damon : also threatened to turn her in season 1 (also probably bluffing)

Damon : took advantage of caroline

Damon : the whole Enzo, whitmore, fire thing was pretty bad but i also don’t know what else he could’ve done so idk

Stefan : stalked elena like hardcore before befriending her lmao

Damon : kills innocent people .. a lot

Stefan : (for most seasons) puts himself above damon and preaches abt how horrible he is to elena while damon does the opposite and defends stefan to elena

Elena : didn’t notice bonnie was dead over that one summer until she needed her magic (neither did anyone else but that was kind of the point)

Elena : will brush the brothers off and instantly become jealous when they sleep with someone else (i mean me too sis😂)

Elena : romantically involved with Caroline’s abuser (damon)

Caroline : romantically involved with the man (Klaus) who tried to kill her best friend (Elena) more than once and some of her other friends and he also killed her bf at the times mother

Caroline : (going off the Klaus thing) was hypocritical when explaining why Elena can’t be with Damon bc he’s dangerous when she slept with Klaus (unless you think rape is worse than murder idk...)

Elena : slut shames Caroline in a situation Caroline was obviously the victim in and never got the closure she deserved from it :(

Damon: constantly makes matt feel like shit for not dying in that car crash and it isn’t his fault

Damon: won’t allow Elena to make her own descions (if it means protecting her usually)

Stefan : lets Elena make her own choices but it includes the ones that will obviously have her end up dead

idk : the whole jessie thing is complicated Caroline was insensitive to Elena again regarding Damon bc she killed Jessie but i kinda felt like she had to kill Jessie i mean ...Damon’s her bf

Damon : doesn’t want Elena to have the cure because he thinks she’ll fall out of love with him (selfish)

Stefan : wants to find the cure badly on the off chance that human elena = stelena ! (selfish)

Stefan : went on and on about how Damon’s way of teaching Elena to feed was wrong even though it wasn’t and he taught her an effective way to feed without hurting anyone (the reason stefan couldn’t handle feeding was bc he’s a ripper tf did that have to do w elena ??) (seemed selfish like he had to be the one to show her)

Damon : was aware that Elena was NOT aware abt the intimacy of blood sharing annnd had her do it anyway (he seemed to think he was just all out of options though bc she wasn’t keeping anything down and was literally starving) but i digress

Stefan : didn’t have to kill Vicki

Damon : didn’t have to turn Vicki

Elena : constantly makes passes for Damon’s terrible behavior

Stefan : forced Damon to turn

Matt : is always talking abt how much he hates vampires ok buddy we know

Damon : literally tortures katherine while she was dying, like she was awful to you yes but give the bitch a break as Stefan said “she deserves peace”

Katherine : jumps into Elena’s body and just starts screwing up her entire life (Katherine obviously did a million more things but she’s supposed to be a villain so)

Stefan : doesn’t really admit his faults often has this “holier than thou” attitude (like as opposed to damon who is self aware he sucks)

Damon : killing Alaric ... several times 😂

Stefan : spilled the beans abt Katherine being a vampire to his father which started the whole mess

Stefan : hypocrisy (going back to the freaking out on damon for impulsively and forcefully feeding elena blood when he does the exact same thing later on)

Elena : (i was gonna put using Bonnie for her magic but i can rlly only think of 3 times she’s actually done it herself the rest was stefan and damon doing it to save her which she rlly had nothing to do with tbh)

Elena : that time she makes Jeremy kill Kol and kills an entire sire line of innocent vampires

Elena : not apologizing for her actions whenever her humanity was off (it wasn’t her fault at the time but afterwardsss yes ma’am it is)

Elena : leading on the salvatores (i kinda felt for her though she truly didn’t want to hurt either, can’t rlly help who you fall in and out of love with)

Damon : using Andie the same way he did Caroline although (not saying it was right) he seemed to rlly care abt her

Stefan : killing Andie :(

Caroline : accuses Damon of taking advantage of Elena which is impossible because he didn’t know about the sire bond and refused to touch Elena when he did find out (however Caroline was also just speaking off of what she should’ve been told when Damon did in fact take advantage of her in season 1) but still

Damon and Stefan : sure Elena was doing them wrong but did they both rlly have to sleep with the girls that tried to murder elena lmaoo

Bonnie : she’s just a lil judgy but is always saving everyone’s ass so...

Stefan : not telling Elena about Katherine

Stefan : didn’t he like murder all the founding families or something ( fact check me idk wtf i’m talking abt here haha)

Tyler : i think he almost raped Vicki

Damon : threatening to kill Matt if Jeremy didn’t let him out to see Elena

Damon : did not have to kill Stefan’s bestie even though it did help the council trust them :(

A lot of people : got pissed at Damon when he punched Kol at the michaelson ball but didn’t say a word abt the fact that he saved Matt’s life when he did that?? idk that just confused me Stefan literally just asked him if he was crazy

Elena : telling poor baby Damon his love for her was a problem :(

Elena : Breaking poor baby Stefan’s heart :(

Bonnie : was so cold to poor, scared, Caroline when she turned :(

Caroline : (before development) purposely putting herself in competition with Elena all the time

Stefan : he’s a ripper just as much of a serial killer as Damon

Everyone : says Elena wants everyone to save her all the time but like pretty sure she would’ve died for all her friends but THE SALVATORES WOULDNT LET HER ever it was not her fault lol

Elena : remember that one time she didn’t have to kill Rebekah (well dagger)

Caroline : telling Stefan abt Damon and Elena having sex (he deserved to know but she said she would keep it a secret)

everyone : using bonnie whenever it’s convient for them

Caroline : was really awful to her mom (improves later)

Caroline : forcing Stefan to turn off his humanity (then again her humanity was off)

Stefan : he didn’t rlly have to kill dad but like i kinda get it blood lust and all lmao

Everyone : hates on Elena for not knowing Bonnie was dead but nobody knew when Katherine was passengered inside Elena for freaking weeks

from : someone who likes pretty much every character, and someone who like pretty much every ship, i don’t get how can y’all hate ANY of them without it being basic annoyance none of them are worse than the other, life works different when your entire entire life is on the line 24/7. you can say you hate one for *insert evil act here* and you can pull up 30 more for every other character. you guys are lame and loooove to hate :) as for ships Stelena and Delena are BOTH toxic “Vampires are a toxic species” - the wise Stefan Salvatore BUT ships like matt and elena would be boring as hell considering the universe we’re in meaning the toxic friendships and ships aren’t rlly all that toxic considering their environment you guys forget they’re not us. they’re not human.

#tvd #delena #damon salvatore #the vampire diaries #vampire diaries #anti elena gilbert #anti damon salvatore #anti stefan salvatore #anti delena #anti stelena #caroline forbes #bonnie bennett #matt donovan

[readbyred]

Just a self-insert story

It's not romantic, it has some CharTed implications but nothing involving my s/i. It's just a vent, sort of, because well it's always nice to get it all out and have someone take my side (even if I'm not really in the right here).

What you need to know about my s/i is that she’s fairly new in the office and her name is R.J because I’m red and ‘J’ seemed to sound the best in there so her middle name is Julie now.

The story is long and was written as a dialogue-stylised vent. The rest was written after I finished and the quality varies. Also there is cursing and a sappy, probably rushed ending. I hope it's not that ooc but you know how it is.

Julie rarely came out to the balcony unless she needed something from a friend of hers. Today was one of those days so when she realized that Charlotte was nowhere near in sight she made her way out. What she didn't expect was to see Ted standing there with her, also smoking. He rarely did, mostly he would just lock himself in his office and do whatever.

The two weren't talking, being completely honest Julie had realized some time before, that something must have shifted, when she first came into work they seemed pretty close but lately they distance themselves from each other. For a moment she paused unsure if she should touch on the subject that was the reason of her talk around their coworker but in the end she approached them anyways.

“Could we talk for a moment?” she leaned over standing between them and looking at the road beneath.

“Oh sure! Here or...?” Charlotte threw a quick glance at the man behind Julie who not so discretely began showing signs of interest in whatever the topic of the conversation was.

“Yeah it’s no secret. I just want to get something off my chest. It's about Adam” she said his name quietly in a suvgestive tone, as if she tried to censor herself although the three of them were the only ones around.

“What is it? I must warn you I'm not good at advice, but I’ll still listen if you want me to” giving her a weak smile the woman waited.

“We’ve been going out lately. You know how it is” Ted now fully turned his head towards them not hiding that he was in fact listening but Red didn't notice still looking at the cars passing by.

“That engineer guy? Aww, congratulations!” feeling a hand on her shoulder Julie looked up but the smile she gave Charlotte wasn't sincere, it was just tired.

“Oh, thank you it's just... Oh well no need to get all sappy, I know, but I can't help but feel some sort of way about it” she shook her head at her visibly concerned friend ” Don't get me wrong he’s lovely! I'm just being silly”

“Well, I could help you, I have some experience in relationships-”

“Yeah, lots of it...” Ted started bitterly walking up to the two talking women “Anyways, yeah sure tell us about your perfect, dream guy. What problems could you have if he’s so great”

“Ted-” Charlotte shot him a look.

“Unless he’s not. Didn't you say he went out for a ‘business meeting’ again?”

“Yeah, about that...” Julie looked down.

“What about it?” Charlotte turned her attention away from their coworker yet again.

“So” Julie began “I don't know what we are, it's all complicated lately”

“Oh I'm sorry to hear that, I've been through rough times with my Sam and I could help you some or recommend a professional?” as soon as Charlotte said the word ‘professional’ Ted opened his mouth say something but quickly shut it.

“I appreciate that but I'm afraid it's far beyond just rough. He’s great! Things are just getting bizarre. I mean we haven't been properly dating since last year before I came to work here, you know? He was so thoughtful and, oh, so charming and goodness gracious, I was awful. I broke things off” her mood shifted from nervous to upset, fiddling with her hands she continued to intensely observe the cars passing by “He didn't take that well, I can't blame him cause I know I shouldn't have done it. He was sad a lot and it made him so... Angry at times, at our mutual friends and all. He told me he doesn't wanna see me, to get out of his life. We’ve known each other since diapers, I know I deserved everything he said it just... Hurt, you know? Oh how selfish I must sound!”

“But you two are still talking aren't you? So it all must have been fixed?” Charlotte offered her a smile “Me and my husband don't argue that openly, I think, so I might not be able to relate here but if you’ll tell us more I'm sure we can figure something out”

“Really thank you. Both of you. Here I am taking away your lunch break with all my silly ramblings” shaking her head a bit she gave both of them the same sad smile she had before. It was then when they noticed she seemed to have shrunken in herself, not only tired but also strangely worried.

“No problem, it's not a big deal I'm sure” her coworker tried to reassure glancing up “Right?”

“Yeah, yeah could you just move on with the story?” it seemed like it took all his inner strength for Ted not to leave although neither of the women understood why would that be. Charlotte knew he was like that sometimes, when she tried to talk about Sam with him it went pretty similar. That didn't mean however she understood more of it than Julie did “You broke up. He started acting like a jerk”

“Oh he didn't, I had no right to hurt him like that! And he’s not a jerk, far from it. He’s so thoughtful, so protective. Everyone I know wants nothing more for us than to be together. You know how I am... I get a lot of silly ideas, I can get pretty nasty, that you probably noticed. Adam doesn't like that one bit, I embarrass him a whole lot doing things without asking and all that. My friends noticed that too, they say I'm much more pleasant when I'm with him, he tames me, if you will. I know I give him a lot of crap for that, sometimes I feel like I either agree with him or am just wrong and he doesn't take my suggestions to heart but we talked recently, this weekend actually, he made me realize that I need improvement and-” she didn't look neither of her colleagues in the eye. Charlotte understood, she got nervous like that too and decided to give the redhead some space “here I go ranting about details again don't I? Oh, well, on with the story you say? Well, he stopped talking - I was a wreck. But gradually - when he came back from his business trip after summer - I saw him around Beanies a lot. Always on my lunch break, you know? And we got to talking and he asked what are we. I was surprised, I told him that we’re no longer together, he asked how so and one thing led to another he said it was just a break! I was... Surprised? But it was so nice to see him so happy. And Zoe told me to get him back, then. And I was so awful - I told her I don't want to live like that anymore. With him. But luckily we didn't stop hanging out, me and Adam that is. At first I was grossed out to be treated as such, afterall I said I want to be single. But he kept on pushing and that way around December we sort of got back”

“Why didn't you tell us that, congratulations!” Charlotte’s weak cheer brought a small smile on Julie’s face but it soon vanished when the other one of her two friends spoke up.

“Yeah, congratulations for dating a pushy asshole-” Ted paused frowning even more as if he said something wrong “...you could do better than that”

He turned to leave frustrated with Julie.

“Please stay” Julie fully turned from the railing and gave him a pleasing look “I... I'll get to the end soon, I want your perspective on that as well”

“Ugh fine... Just don't expect me to take this douchebag’s side”

“It’s nice to get to hear your opinion as well. As selfish as it sounds I think like that too sometimes, it's... Refreshing not to be in the wrong all the time even if I am” shaking her head she changed the subject “Oh, right! As I was saying. We had a talk then and he asked me what would I do if he started seeing someone. After all if I don't consider us a pair then he may. I told him that I'm fine with that, after all I started this mess, can't blame him if him for getting lonely. And I'm not a saint you see. Goodness gracious don't give my that look Char, I never cheated! I just... Going on and off Tinder, just chatting. It never got any further I swear, I felt so terrible. Anyways, after he told me that he got very... Touchy. And romantic. And I know I ruined the mood but after a few hours, I asked what are we. And he said he could take me back. And no matter how awful I sound I need to admit as wonderful as he is I don't think I want it. And I told him that I want to focus on work”

“But you don't?” it wasn't a secret that R.J wasn't avoiding relationships, not to the point of denying one in favour of work.

“But I don't. I know he’s amazing but I’m not happy. I‘ trying but I'm not. So I said that it’s because of work, I don't know what would he do if I told him the truth! And he didn't really get the work thing either, he’s the traditionalistic type. But! He said he shouldn't have told me about the other woman which is good I think” she bit her lip seemingly gaining a bit of life back “But what is that supposed to mean? That she’s just a concept he’s been contemplating or a human but I shouldn't know? I don't know... Anyways I asked him about what he wants. He’ll take some time to think and for now we agreed I can be sort of his... With him that is. Not that he has to call me his girlfriend. He just can get me places and I don't date or make him jealous with my make friends and stuff”

And with that Julie finished realizing just then that her hands were shaking a bit. It often happened in situations like that, stressing ones like opening up.

“Um, it does sound complicated. I might have to look for the contacts to get you set but you can make it work. I got this good therapist” Ted scoffed “he could give you some directions. Give me a minute and I’ll get back to you I'll forget about it if I’ll do that later, you know”

And with that she rushed out forgetting to get rid of the cigarette she was holding.

“You’ve been awfully quiet” gaining some of her cool back along with colour on her face, Julie leaned back cocking her head and looking at the man in front of her curiously.

“Why do you put up with this? Don't you see this guy’s a duchebag?” he asked frustrated “And don't try to tell me you love him, you said it’s not true”

“I don't. But he has to put up with me, it's a fair deal” she shrugged noticing him grow even more angry at the situation

“Well, I don't know?” he groaned “Maybe find someone who doesn't have to put up with you”

“Look, I-”

“Found it!” Charlotte came back holding her phone with a random phone number opened up on the screen

“Oh thank you a lot! Let me save it on the phone” soon she was done with the whole process “I won't hold you much longer, I'm sure you have work to do”

“Dont worry about it, a little break is always needed. Speaking of which want to go out with us after work? It's going to be Sylvia and Bill, me, Melissa and Ted. It's just for coffee, you know”

“I...” on Fridays she always hung out with Adam, even before things got messy. Looking back at Charlotte to give her phone back she paused. Maybe one day off wouldn't be so bad? “I will, it’s right after work?”

The woman nodded.

“Count me in then” opening the door she paused again, feeling much calmer and lighter after confiding in her coworkers “Oh and you’re finished, right Ted? I need to get you some papers, so stop by my desk, alright?”

“Seriously? Fuck Sylvia, I wash my hands! And besides it’s my office and my right to-”

She didn't hear what was that exactly that he had the right to do, closing the door and laughing to herself. And yes, maybe her love life was a mess but it didn't matter because it seemed that along with her new job she also found friends.

#f/o #self shipping #selfshipping #self ship #selfship #💛

[aquaburst3]

Fic asks: 2, 5, 8, 11, 13 and 14.

Undercut, because long and spoilers...

2. What character(s) do you find the most difficult to write for? Why?

So far, I guess Grim (Twisted Wonderland). While he’s a fun character and I love how he’s one of the few mascot characters in anime who gets character development, he’s a bit of a handful. That’s an understatement. I have to try constantly think about how he would act in certain points in the story, and how my OC would react to him.  

 I also find it’s hard to incorporate Grim into scenes. Sometimes I want my OC to be alone talking with someone or be by herself. Since the MC dragged around Grim in the game so much, I have to think of a way to include him in or think of a reason for him to stay out of it. 

Jamil and Kalim (Twisted Wonderland) are also hard to write for that similar reason. I want to make the Pomefiore arc happen earlier in the fic, so I have to constantly think of how to write them pre-character development in an arc that takes place after they grew as characters in the canon. But unlike with Grim, it’s in a fun challenge sort of way. Because it has a bit of a butterfly effect on the story. 

(If you don’t play the game, the Pomefiore arc is the 5th one. But I decided for a few different reasons, which I don’t want to get into, that I want to make it the 3rd, make Octavinelle 4th that happens during December finals season and Sacrabia the 5th, which happens over Spring Break. So because it’s bumped up in the timeline, my OC knows those two a lot better compared to the canon, and spent a lot of time with them in the Pomefiore dorm over the month and half leading up to the competition. Their arc is gonna hurt a fuckton more.)  

5. Do you listen to music when writing?

I enjoy listening to lyricless movie soundtracks or nothing at all. I find it’s easier to concentrate that way. Music with lyrics are way to distracting to me, since my mind latches onto them and I’m much slower at writing. 

11. How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)

Honestly, it depends on the story. Some of my fics can be fluffy while others have dark aspects to them and others are character driven. 

How I would describe my writing in a general sense, both fics and original stories? I guess I would describe it as character driven with plot driven elements. I tend to focus on character first and foremost, because I think it’s important for readers to have a compelling character to get attached to push the story forward.  (I had several people say that my biggest strength as a writer is character). But I have a lot of fun and engaging plots, mostly action/adventure, to have these character engage with. I also enjoy doing world building a lot as well. 

The voice for my OCs (both in my TWST fic and in my OG works) is down to earth and witty. A lot of my characters tend to have a sense of snark to them as they try to process the insanity around them, but they still can still feel a wide range of emotions like fear, anger, etc. Though, there are some characters that go against that (like the MC in my reverse isekai original story). 

13. When did you start writing fanfic?

Right in the middle of high school. I got into it, because one of my friends at the time had a FF.net account, and I thought it would be fun to write stories on there. Here I am almost a decade later. 

It’s also how my love of creative writing started, too. My elementary, middle and high schools never taught creative writing in class, and I never took any for my diploma. So, yeah. I’m a self taught writer. 

14. How do you feel about your older work?

Depends on how far back we’re talking as well. If it’s my stuff made during high school, I don’t like most of it outside of a couple expectations. But if we’re talking about my stuff from college and after, it depends on the story. There are some stories I’m pretty proud of years later, expect for how I phrased sentences (before I began learning how to start some sentences with things other than “I” or “Insert Character Name Here”) and odd word choices. Others I think are just weird or outright suck. I think regretting some choices in your past work is normal for any writer. I’m always trying to improve as a writer to create better stories in the future. 

Bonus...since I really want to answer this one...

1. What’s your favorite character(s) to write for?

I love writing for Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls), Pacifica Northwest (Gravity Falls), Vil (Twisted Wonderland), Jamil (Twisted Wonderland) and Ace (Twisted Wonderland). 

Bill Cipher is a chaotic ball of shit. Writing his wit and sass is a lot fun for me. Back in the day, I loved writing him interact with different fictional characters. Though, I only did it for Atem (Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters) and Judai (Yu-Gi-Oh GX) back when I was still into that franchise. (Because I’m certainly not as an adult in my mid 20s.) Might do it for other characters in other franchises if the idea strikes me. 

Pacifica is a complex and interesting character. She started off as the stereotypical mean girl. But with the NWMM episode, we got to see a whole different side of her, which added a lot of layers to her character. I love writing characters who add more complexity to the popular mean girl trope, because I always found them a lot more interesting than the dull MC in bad rom coms. 

Vil never showed up in any of my fics yet, but I’m writing parts with him in it thanks to writing some parts ahead of time. Vil is in a similar vein as Pacifica. In any other story, he would’ve been the one dimensional, vain pretty boy. But instead, he’s a hardworking guy, who wants everyone around him to shine their brightest. He hates lazy people. In that sense, he breaks a lot of tropes. Though, he has his fair share of faults as well, like his control freak tendencies, too harsh with his words and the way he treats Epel isn’t right. As a bi woman, I also love how he’s a guy who wears heels and makeup, but is never once mocked in the game for it. I do the same in my writing. Go, dude. Fuck those gender norms! 

Jamil is a blast to write, because he seems like a layered character to me. He’s a calm guy and collected guy, who he loves wearing hoodies way too much. But he’s also an intelligent, sly, cunning and manipulative guy. He seems loyal at first, but in actuality, he has a trick up his sleeve and wants to take Kalim down. His reasoning for as to why he’s doing this, while doesn’t excuse his actions, are understandable due to his family being in servants to his and him taking out his anger for his situation at the one thing he possibly could. He also has a lot of elements that humanize him as well, like the fact that he enjoys dancing, basketball and watching parrot videos. Tackling a character like him is a lot of fun for me as a writer, just due to how complex and interesting he is. 

Ace is probably the easiest character for me to write. He’s funny, mischievous and cheerful, but yet abrasive, bold, blunt, temperamental, willing to call out other’s bs and a bit of an ass. It’s pretty easy for me to get a handle on him, and understand how he would react in different situations. (As a side note, Ace reminds me of how I used to write Atem and Malik back in my YGO fics that I wrote in high school in that regard. Unlike those stories, he’s actually in character here, instead of extremely OOC like the YGO ones.)  

#aqua answers #krazy-ky-sta-hatter

[talldren]

Steven's Mental Descent

So, basically I'm going to go through all the episodes we have so far in Future and see how we started in the THERAPY-needing department and where we are now.

Little Homeschool, we get a quick look at how things are going, Steven is making jokes about his identity crises, so that's a thing. He seems very chill, but as we saw with his chat with Amethyst, he has a small insecurity issue with Jasper. He goes to see her, they fight, and two things happen.

His powers emerge

She calls him out

Now, when she calls him out it clearly distresses Steven to the point his gem brings out the heavy weaponry, and I think it's safe to say that's what sparked this whole issue, really. So now, by the end of the episode, Steven has two big issues: he's now in unfamiliar new power territory, and he's insecure.

Next up, Guidance. Steven is mostly fine, but now since he's a bit insecure he's feeling a bit off, so when Amethyst presents her new idea (which is awesome) to him, he decides to improve it to boost self esteem (tho that's probably not how he sees it). Well, he broke the perfectly fine thing and now has to fix it with Amethyst. So with the help of super speed they save the day. Now, Steven has much biggy issues.

He's really insecure

His powers apparently affect fusions too (unfamiliar territory, again)

He has no plans for his future.

Rose buds. Oh, boooooy. He has no idea where to put his mom's portrait (how to view her) and then The Zoomans show up to show off their intergalactic cruise ship. Steven has that whole Rose Quartz hellstorm I'd rather not type out and ends up putting the portrait in lion's mane (shoving his complicated emotions to the back of his mind). So he's still insecure, he's repressing his emotions, he has no plans for his future and his new powers are still a problem. Great.

Volleyball, my trademark sport. Steven can't fix Volleyball's scar (insert insecurity). He goes to pearl, they go to the reef and everything goes to heck. The two pearls form mega pearl and bust out of that overgrown oyster. So after it all, Steven's powers are causing him too much trouble, he's repressing his emotions which are getting far too complicated, he has no plan for his future, and he's super insecure. Damn.

Bluebird. Fuck her. Steven is getting "pranked" and finds the prime suspect and obvious fusion of Team Rocket- *cough* sorry, Eyeball and Aquamarine. They do seemingly innocent stuff that doesn't seem too innocent to start with until Steven finally calms down. Then they threaten Greg. Greg makes the ultimate sacrifice for his son, losing the thing he cherished more than anything else (even you, Rose) and Steven drops the father bomb. Steven kicks ass, then those two get their shit together and fight well. The trio of mothers return and Alexandrite that bish nice and good. They blast off again and Greg mourns his hair (like most middle aged men with retreating hairlines). So now he's repressing emotions, his outbursts are getting more frequent, he has no plans for his future, and his insecurity is mixing with that good teen angst. Joy.

We are skipping that tease of an episode because nothing happens, just chalk it up to our boi is tired.

Snow day consists of Steven talking to his family about wanting them to view him as an adult, him hetting the break he needs, and far too much relatability for us teens. So, not much changes, good and fluffy.

Why So Blue is an uneventful ep in the stress spectrum.

Little Graduation. This. This is where it gets real. Steven is realizing that his friends are leading private lives he knows nothing about, that they're spending time doing their own things. And that they're slowly leaving him. His insecurities are doubled, his powers are more than troubling, he's repressing his thoughts and feelings hardcore after the incident, and now everyone has a future planned but him.

Prickly Pair. Steven finds a venting outlet in a cactus he brought to life. It grows up a troubled soul and a tattle tail. He is now repressing everything because he doesn't want the gems to freak, his insecurities are overwhelming, he has no control over himself, and he's being left behind.

In Dreams. Steven is getting desperate, he pushes himself out of his comfort zone to get peridot to stay, and luckily it's something as light-hearted as a reboot betrayl he doesn't think he likes. They end up hanging out normally after hugs and find it's all calmed down. A calm before the storm if I ever saw one.

Bismuth Casual, they go out, Steven can't human, and they work it out via awesome fusion skating. It's cute, but Steven's feelings aren't truly addressed by anyone but Bismuth, who provides a short pep-talk. Also, Connie, your boyfriend jokes about a vital part of his body being rippef out, obviously uncomfortable, and you smile and ignore him. WHY.

Together Forever. It all hits the fan, okay? It's too recent to recount the details. Steven's insecurities are sky rocketing, he feels more left behind than ever, Garnet's being high and mighty, and he probs just lost the love of his life. The man has hit a low.

Growing Pains. So now he's being left behind, he's so very insecure, he's already lost Connie (so he thinks, anyway), his powers destroyed a hospital (maybe full of patients, he doesn't know), and he's ruined his dad's tour. Well, at least Greg is supportive and kind.

But the next episode might be when the "van crushing" that audio leak mentions happens so, maybe that'll be a short lived comfort.

#steven universe #steven universe future #su #this has been me over analyzing

[thefloatingstone]

overlordraax replied to your post: Not feeling much better after waking up. Somebody...

List your top fave fanfics. List your top fave tropes in fanfic.

Oh noooooo this is a really good one too sdjkjdhfsh

I was actually thinking of doing a fanfic Rec list tbh!! I hope you don’t mind that they’re all Undertale fics! I think I’ve read more fanfiction for this fandom than I’ve read for any other fandom I’ve ever been in. (Including MLP which is a friggen miracle if you stop to think about it)

BUT ANYWAY! Please check out these fics by some incredibly talented individuals (some of these I’ve put in lists before but w/e here it is again!)

(in literally no particular order at all)

Postcards from Waterfall

Rating: Explicit (Fic as a whole is T but occasionally has specific smut scenes which are marked for easy skipping)

Ship?: Sansby

Setting: Classic timeline

Word Count: 353 763

Ongoing

After an unremembered Genocide timeline, Sans is struggling with lingering feelings of dread. On top of this, coming to terms with his own childhood, and dealing with a lifelong recovery from a massive accident in his youth. However, things seem to slowly improve as he unexpectedly grows closer to Grillby, and feelings turn towards the romantic. But there are still things lurking in the Underground that would do them harm.

(the fic mostly focuses on Sans’ childhood trauma dealing with a apathetic Gaster, an mysterious “Accident” he can barely remember in his near-childhood, his developing feeling for Grillby, and their awkward relationship developing and reacting to situations around them. the plot is paced slowly, but I wouldn’t call it a slice-of-life story as there are larger things at play and get slowly revealed as things move forward)

Thunderstruck

Rating: T

Ship?: Reader / Underfell Papyrus

Setting: Classic Timeline with Underfell Sans and Papyrus

Word Count: 263 284

Ongoing

It’s the classic timeline, and monsters have been on the surface for almost 2 years already. In the Skeleton household though, Sans and Papyrus have acquired two tag-alongs in the form of Underfell Sans (Red) and Underfell Papyrus (Edge) who have come from a much more violent and desperate timeline with no way of going back. This wouldn’t be so bad, but a lifetime of being on constant alert and being intimidating and scary to everyone, where it once had Edge be the most respected of monsters as Captain of the Royal Guard, now sees him severely emotionally and socially crippled. Unable to make friends due to his learned behaviour of being scary and permanently angry, unable to find work because most monsters AND humans find him too hard to handle, and struggling to find his place in his own family unit, with his relationship with his own brother awkward after so many years of pretending to be “boss and henchman”, a strained relationship with Sans who does not trust him (for admittedly good reason) and with the only person he seems on good terms with being Papyrus (who also represents everything Edge could have been but have no hope of achieving).

Things change when caught in a pretty bad thunderstorm, Reader (you) finds him hiding in an alley outside your apartment. And lucky for him, you’re crazy enough to let a terrified stranger into your home until the weather improves, and even crazier, as you decide once he starts yelling, that you’d like to stay in contact with him.

The story is a slowburn Reader-insert romance, but it’s almost much more than that. Told from Edge’s perspective, it’s a recovery fic more than anything. Recovering from a lifetime of trauma, violence, learned survival behaviours, mending relationships with family, learning to fit into a world that at first seems completely incompatible with you, and finding a place in life. Lots of self reflection, sometimes self loathing, pining, confusion, frustration, brief arguments over stupid petty things, arguments over really IMPORTANT things, and a lot of tenderness, even if you’re not someone to go for Reader-insert stories, I highly recommend this one if only for the characterisation and emotional and psychological exploration, especially for Edge and his relationship to to his brother and the world at large. It definitely sold me on his character in a way I’ve never really considered.

Panic Room

Rating: M (note cw on fic)

Ship?: Nothing yet but working towards Reader/Papyrus Reader/Sans (no f//ntcest)

Setting: Swapfell

Word Count: 150 548

Ongoing

It’s been years since monsters broke the barrier, stormed into Ebott, and forcefully took over, place Toriel as the monarch and cutting the city off from the outside world. Ebott has become a dystopian dictatorship, where humans are second class citizens who can have incredible luxury depending on how useful and accommodating they are to their new monster rules, or simply be exterminated if stepping out of line. Reader (you) have been imprisoned for almost a year, living in torturous conditions, scarred from beatings and with no hope or future to even think of. But due to your spirit of Perseverance, you continue to live, to not give in to despair. One day, Swapfell Papyrus (Rus) wanders into the prison, looking to “buy” himself a human (for reasons unknown to you) and, for whatever reason, picks you.

He brings you home, has you cleaned up, healed up to the best of his ability, and then has the hurdle of trying to present you to Swapfell Sans; the Lieutenant of the Royal Guard and Alphys’ right hand man. On the verge of throwing you out, Sans allows you to stay and work as the maid in his meticulous home. A hard job, but you accept, unwilling to try your luck on the streets of Ebott. And so your new life begins with the brothers, and the longer you work there, the more you learn. You learn more about the very touchy but at his core good-hearted Rus, you learn more about the terrifying and ruthless Sans, and the sadness and desire to show kindness behind his mask, and you learn more about Ebott. About the constant servailence, the propaganda machine, the injustice, the violence, the broken system ruled by the blind and terrible queen.

You don’t know what sort of life or future is in store for you now, but it’s better than the prison (ANYTHING is better than the prison) and just at the edges of reality, where you can’t even see or notice them yet, a change is coming. Invisible and far in the distance, but slowly approaching.

Dirty Laundry

Rating: T

Ship?: Reader/Papyrus Reader/Sans (poly relationship, no f//ntcest)

Setting: Swapfell

Word Count: 49 369

Ongoing

Reader (you) have recently moved to Ebott for a change in life (it being monster central may or may not have something to do with that). It’s been a few months since monsters were freed, and many are integrating with society slowly but surely. One day, while at the laundromat, you find yourself watched by a scary but ultimately nervous and “I don’t know how to laundry!” Swapfell Papyrus.

In time, a friendship forms. He’s a really sweet guy, anxious but eager to please. It would all be very cute if not for the fact that his asshole brother doesn’t seem very pleased with you (or anybody?) “worming their way” into his baby brother’s life. Nevermind that their therapist said they needed time apart! Nevermind that Papyrus has asked him for some space! He’s going to make sure his little brother is safe! Just as he always had.

Besides... if he doesn’t, what else is there for him to do? Leave Papyrus alone? Leave both of you alone? Accept that Papyrus doesn’t need him any more? May not even want him any more?

...would that make him happier?

Fired Up and Bone Weary (Series)

Rating: G - T

Ship?: Sansby

Setting: Classic Timeline

Word Count: various

Complete

A collection of short stories and oneshots, documenting the everyday life and events in Sans, Grillby and Papyrus’ lives, starting underground and early dating, and working its way to surface life and marriage. Mostly just fluffy, slice of life settings, only now and then undercut by misfortune or drama. Dealing with Grillby’s complicated family, trying to manage Sans’ fluctuating depression, and Papyrus’ role and desire for a family. Most of it is just small, everyday happiness though. And the fear that at any moment all of it could disappear with a reset is (most of the time) not thought about.

(I haven’t finished the series myself just yet. I got stuck on the third last story in the series, the one with the most chapters, due to personal reasons. I do plan to finish it at a later date, but at this point in time it hit a little too close to home. I still recommend all of it whole-heartedly, as I doubt other people will react to it the way I did.)

There are also a few oneshots as well as fics I’ve mentioned before (like SSLL for instance which I STILL love and you guys should STILL read!!) but these are the main ones I’m reading/have read at the moment!

If you guys want I can make a list of oneshots too. Just let me know 8′D I also didn’t include people’s tumblr names just in case they didn’t want it spread around for any particular reason, and I didn’t include more than one fanfic per author, I may add some of their other work in another post at some point. But I wanted to give each author equal exposure in this post.

Anyway! Hopefully you guys consider any (although you really should read ALL) of these fics! And give the authors comments and kudos!

#fanfic rec #Fanfic #Fanfiction #recommendations #C-Puff replies #overlordraax

[quicksilversquared]

Keeping Up With the Ladyblog Pt. 2

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It’s an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can’t skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

It was much harder to get Ladybug and Chat Noir alone than Alya would have thought. Now that she had important information- super important information, crazy important information- she never seemed to be able to catch them on their own at the end of a fight. They were always surrounded by adoring fans, reporters, and too many cameras for Alya to be comfortable with when they had a little bit of time left at the end of a fight, and when they didn't, well...

They just took off far too quickly for Alya to catch them.

Alya was just starting to get frustrated when Nino suggested that she just tell Ladybug or Chat Noir that she needed to talk to them privately and soon. That way, she didn't need to get them all on their own or risk other people overhearing and breaking the story before she could.

That was a much better idea. Nino got a kiss for that.

After that, it was a piece of cake for Alya to get to Ladybug before she and Chat Noir could run off at the end of a fight. Ladybug seemed a bit distracted, trying to smile for the cameras and answer the questions being thrown at her like usual, but Alya persisted.

"Ladybug!" Alya called, weaving closer to the superhero. She ducked under Madam Chamack's cameraman's arm to get past them. There was a "Hey!" as she disrupted the video, but Alya didn't care. She rushed up to Ladybug, tugging lightly on the superhero's arm.

Maybe she wasn't going to tell Ladybug exactly what her scoop was right now, but she still didn't need any other reporters sticking their noses in and messing everything up.

"I need to talk to you and Chat Noir privately," she told Ladybug in a hushed whisper, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening in. "I have a scoop- it's about Hawkmoth."

She saw Chat Noir glance back at them, his cat ears flicking backwards briefly. He and Ladybug exchanged a look, wordlessly communicating something that Alya couldn't decipher.

"We can swing by tonight," Ladybug told Alya, one eye still on Chat Noir. "It'll probably be late, though."

"Understandable." Alya flashed Ladybug a quick smile. "And I'll try to be fast about it. Thanks!"

Ladybug nodded, and seconds later she and Chat Noir bounded out of the crowd, back to the rooftops to go back home. Alya watched them go for a second, then beat it before Madam Chamack could catch up to her and start scolding her for messing up her shot or something.

Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at ten thirty on the dot, landing just outside of Alya's window. She let them in right away, pointing them towards her computer. Onscreen, she had the edited Heroes Day footage up, paused right near the end.

"So you might have noticed that I've been going through security camera footage to edit it into a cohesive video of the fight for the Ladyblog," Alya started, settling into her chair in front of the computer. She was feeling a little nervous now, probably because Adrien was going to end up losing his father because of this. And while it wasn't her fault- it was his asshat supervillain of a father's- she couldn't help but feel a little bad. "And this is Heroes Day. I was going through the footage from the Eiffel Tower, and I saw- well, this."

She hit Play. Onscreen, the superheroes were blown away by the giant moth's wing blasts. Hawkmoth made a hasty exit, swinging off the side of the tower and out of sight. Seamlessly (thank you, Nino- he was definitely getting a lot of video editing practice in while helping her), the view switched to the iced-over camera from the lower level. The purple blur that was Hawkmoth appeared and landed, heading unsteadily away across the platform. Another angle switch showed him heading past a camera, then slumping against the wall, fully within the camera's view. There was a flash, and the distortion effect made the view even worse.

"That's what happens when you guys transform and detransform," Alya explained to the superheroes. "It's to help keep your identity safe, I guess."

Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded. Neither looked surprised. Alya had to wonder if maybe their kwamis had already told them that, so that they wouldn't have to scramble to make sure that there were no cameras nearby when they transformed or detransformed. She wouldn't be surprised.

The ice was cleared away in a flash of red, and the three of them watched as the pixilated, staticky Hawkmoth sat on the ground for a bit before getting up. The screen split in two as he walked away, showing the clear feed of the stairs.

"I'm positive that this is Hawkmoth," Alya told them, briefly pausing the video before Hawkmoth could exit the first feed. "Look at what he's wearing there, and then in the next screen. And there shouldn't have been that many people on the Eiffel Tower in the first place. It got evacuated pretty quickly."

"There were a couple employees that got trapped up top, that Volpina girl, and then Hawkmoth," Ladybug agreed. "And those red pants and white top are pretty distinctive. Let's see it, then."

Alya nodded, starting up the feed again. She could feel the tension mount in the room as Hawkmoth headed down the stairs unsteadily, more and more of him coming into view. They hadn't even gotten to his shoulders when Ladybug gasped, a couple words that Alya had never expected to hear from Ladybug slipping out. Less than a second later, when they had gotten as far as Hawkmoth's neck, Chat Noir hissed.

Okay, so apparently the two of them were familiar with Mr. Agreste, then?

"I knew it!" Ladybug half-snarled when Mr. Agreste's face came into view. "He threw me off when he got akumatized- when he akumatized himself- but we have him now."

Chat Noir nodded, strangely pale under his black mask.

"I wanted to show you first, since I'm sure that the police would bungle the whole thing somehow," Alya said, moving over so that Ladybug and Chat Noir could see the screen better. The video had been paused again, with Mr. Agreste in frame. "I don't think that they're entirely able to deal with magic powers."

"Right, right." Ladybug's glare was practically burning through Alya's computer as she stared down the image of Mr. Agreste. She gave herself a good shake and refocused on Alya, all business again. "That's great that you found this, Alya. We probably won't act on it right away-"

Alya nodded eagerly. "You have to plan the final boss battle, right?"

"Well, we have to do a bit of planning, yeah. We want to be safe as possible." Ladybug smiled at Alya, then pulled her yo-yo off of her hip. After tapping away on her screen, a USB stick popped out of the side of her yo-yo. "Do you think you could give me a copy of that video? We might need it in the future, if we do end up using the police to help us."

"Of course!" Alya accepted the Ladybug-patterned USB and plugged it in. She paused as her computer worked to recognize it. "Uh, you'll tell people that I was the one to do this, right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't deny you your credit, Alya," Ladybug assured her. "Actually, have you added the Ladyblog watermark to it yet? We can wait if you want to do that first."

Alya startled because oh, yeah, that was definitely something she should have done and then preened. "You noticed that?" It was something that most people didn't even register when they were watching, but it had taken Alya several tries to get the watermark to work on uploaded videos and several weeks of testing to get it to automatically show up on livestreams. Max had helped her a bit with that, but it had mostly been Alya's trial and error that finally had them figuring it out.

"Yeah. It's smart, since there's a ton of knock-off blogs now." Ladybug watched as Alya quickly clicked through her settings, inserting her new and improved (thank you, Marinette) Ladyblog logo into the corner of the whole video. She saved it, then made a copy for Ladybug. It took a minute to transfer. "How much of the fight does that include?"

"The last five minutes, maybe? And then a couple minutes of Hawkmoth at the end." The file finished loading and Alya ejected Ladybug's USB, handing it back to her. "My boyfriend and I are still working on getting the rest of the footage from the fight put together. When I post it, I'll post the version without Hawkmoth detransforming and his real identity, at least until he's been defeated."

"I think it warrants its own post, honestly." Ladybug tucked the USB back into her yo-yo. "Thank you so much, Alya. I'm sure we'll be in touch."

Alya looked up sharply at that. Ladybug winked, and for a second Alya was confused. Then it dawned on her.

Oh my GOD I'm gonna get the Fox back! I'm gonna be part of the boss battle!

Oh gosh. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that. She had only been out for a handful of battles and saying that it had gone well was probably an overstatement. She was still very much in the middle of a very steep learning curve. But if Ladybug had faith in her, then she wasn't going to let Ladybug down.

Chat Noir nodded in agreement, looking far more serious than Alya had ever seen him before. With a start, she realized that he hadn't said anything after seeing the video. That was pretty strange, but maybe seeing Hawkmoth's secret identity onscreen had really made the possibility of a final battle possible, and Alya knew how final battles went in the comics. Not everyone always made it out in one piece, and as Ladybug's self-appointed shield, Chat Noir was more likely to end up hurt.

...yeah, okay, there were definitely some scary parts to this whole superhero business. Maybe Alya could ask that they do some training sessions before jumping right into the final battle bit.

Ladybug and Chat Noir said their good-byes after that, waving to Alya as they headed out. Just as Ladybug had one leg out the window, something she had said earlier finally caught up with Alya and she reached out, the reporter in her practically begging for answers. "Wait! Ladybug, you said something earlier-"

Ladybug paused, glancing back. "Yeah?"

"You- you said that 'that Volpina girl' was on the Eiffel Tower," Alya started, frowning. "Don't you know her name?"

That got a frown on Ladybug's face. "No, why should I remember her name?"

"Lila said- Lila said that you were best friends!" Alya said, reaching for her computer again. "I have a whole interview on the Ladyblog-"

"I remember seeing part of that," Ladybug said once the page loaded on the Ladyblog. "I had never even met her before that. I did go and tell her to stop trying to use me as a way to get popular after that, but I'm going to guess that she didn't do that. Even though she definitely hates me now for calling her out like that."

Alya spluttered. "But- but she said-"

Ladybug shrugged. "Some people lie to try to get what they want. I'm going to guess that she's lied about a lot of things. She seems the type."

Alya nodded slowly. She- she was starting to get that impression, too. After all, there was the whole issue of Lila being in Paris when she was meant to be traveling. Ladybug's comments shouldn't have surprised her, really, but somehow they still had. It also meant that maybe Alya should do a bit of investigation about that, now that she had let Ladybug and Chat Noir know about Mr. Agreste.

"I certainly wouldn't trust anything that she says," Ladybug added. "But that's just me, of course."

Alya nodded as the superheroes swung off into the night. She watched them go, then turned back to her computer.

If she focused, maybe she could make some progress on what promised to be her second scoop of the summer.

  Alya couldn't deny that she was a bit disappointed when two more weeks went by like normal, akuma attacks happening nearly every day and running just like usual. But it did give her more content for her blog, and that was good, so…

Maybe planning was taking longer than she had thought. Maybe they had a mentor who was on vacation at the moment. Maybe they were staking out the Agreste house to try to figure out where Mr. Agreste transformed.

Alya would have volunteered to go in and do a little poking around to try to find whatever secret entrance Mr. Agreste no doubt had to enter his lair, but she was sort of banned from the house after she had been caught doing a bit of unapproved exploring. At the moment, she was pretty sure that Marinette was the only one of Adrien's close friends who was allowed to actually hang out with him in his house. And there was no way that Alya was going to put Marinette in danger by asking her to poke around, so that was a dead end, at least for now.

So Alya decided to turn to her other scoop: figuring out what, exactly, was going on with Lila's stories.

She knew that Lila was lying about some things, at least: being on a trip abroad for several months, and about being friends with Ladybug. Those were pretty big things, so it was pretty logical to assume that a lot of the other things that she had told them were probably also lies. Still, Alya wanted to do a little digging.

And that little bit of digging turned up a lot.

"Disproving the Jagged Stone's kitten thing was easy," Alya told Nino the next time they met up. "When he was at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, they asked him about pets and he's only ever had Fang. And there aren't any of his songs that could possibly be about her, it's obvious now that I'm looking. But I don't have Prince Ali's number, Rose does, and it's not like I could just call up a bunch of movie directors and ask them- well, I could, but why would they bother replying?"

"Do you really need to find and disprove every last one of her lies?" Nino asked, waving at Adrien and Marinette as they approached from across the park. "I mean, we know. Once we tell everyone else, they'll know, too. But isn't the obvious solution right there?"

Alya gave him a puzzled look. The obvious solution? What did he mean by that? It was obvious that this was another test of her reporting skills, seeing how much information she could seek out. What else was there to it?

"The teachers?" Nino prompted after a few seconds. "If she was just telling a few lies to try to fit in and make kids fast because of new student syndrome, that would be one thing. The teachers wouldn't really care about that. But Lila was trying to get out of things and get favors because of her connections and for her 'illnesses', and she was skipping school. I think that's the kind of thing that would be important for them to know."

Groaning, Alya slouched down on the bench. "Great. Another scoop, and I have to just turn it over to an authority and wait. I hate waiting."

"It's probably an important part of reporting, knowing when to let go and let someone else take over." Nino nudged her shoulder. "Hey, cheer up. It's not like you have to stop digging once you tell Ms. Bustier or Mr. Damocles. Or you could always take the time that you've been using to research Lila's stories and go back to getting the security footage all ready to go up on the Ladyblog. Don't you still have a ton of that to do? And it'll probably get more interest before the final battle is over and Hawkmoth is defeated."

Alya had to give him that. Besides, she was getting more footage every day, and if she waited for too long then school would start again and she would never catch up.

"And if that gets old, we can always hang out with Adrien and Marinette more," Nino added quietly. "We haven't gotten to spend that much time with them this summer- especially you- because we've been busy and they've been busy. And we need to enjoy this while it lasts."

She could only nod in agreement.

As always, it was hard to hang out with Adrien and Marinette without updating them on the biggest scoop of her life. She would have updated them about her Lila research instead, but, well, Marinette clearly had suspected all of the lies already (and Alya had scoffed at her suspicions at the time, whoops) and somehow Alya got the feeling that Adrien had, too. It was all old news to them, and she felt a bit ridiculous that it had taken her so much longer to catch on. On top of that, Alya rather belatedly remembered once telling Marinette that a good reporter always checked her sources when they were discussing Lila. She hadn't done any research or fact-checking of her own then, and now Alya was feeling rather sheepish about how easy it was to disprove the lies that she had once fallen for.

So instead she said nothing. The four of them just hung out and Marinette showed off some of her designs and Nino played a couple of his mixes as they ate their picnic and wandered around the city, enjoying a relatively mild day.

It was normal, and Alya…Alya knew that it was going to end soon. Adrien's father would be arrested and what would happen after that, she didn't knew. Hopefully Adrien would be able to stay in Paris with all of them at the very least.

"It's so hard acting natural with him," Alya told Nino as they headed back to her apartment after their gathering broke up. "Like, I know that his life is going to change a ton soon- well, whenever Ladybug and Chat Noir act- and he's just oblivious. And it's awful."

"He'll be safer once his father is in jail," Nino told her. "Just focus on that. Him and all of Paris."

  Tracking down a teacher in the summer wasn't anywhere near as hard as snagging Ladybug after a fight. As it turned out, Ms. Bustier was teaching summer school and all Alya had to do was get up a little earlier than usual and go in before the summer school students arrived.

And as it turned out, Alya got to see a bit of the fallout. Ms. Bustier was so taken aback by the video footage of Lila clearly in Paris on Heroes Day that she had immediately gone to the computer, looked up the phone number for Lila's mom, and called her up right then and there. It went through, and Alya listened in, trying not to look too interested. She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to leave the room and miss hearing everything.

"Yes, I was Lila's teacher this past year," Ms. Bustier was saying. "And just this morning, we had some concerns arise about the trip that Lila was on during the school year- no, not before she arrived. She was here for a day and then said that she went on a trip around Europe for several months- you say she didn't leave Paris at all? And-" Ms. Bustier listened and then frowned. "No, we didn't close the school for akuma attacks, at least not for any extended period of time. We occasionally have had to evacuate and closed the school for the remainder of the afternoon or the morning, but we never even closed for an entire day, let alone any longer period of time. The akumas don't disrupt us that much."

Alya's eyebrows shot up. Another scoop! Lila must have told her mom that they were doing online learning in place of going in to the classroom, and somehow her mom had never checked on that. Kind of like how the school had clearly never verified Lila's claim of being out of the country.

….that seemed like a fairly large breakdown in communication, honestly.

"Lila must have lied to both of us, then," Ms. Buster was saying. "She will face consequences for that when school resumes in the fall. And- yes, consequences at home would be a good idea, too. Ah- if you have time, I wanted to ask about some of Lila's other claims?"

Alya listened raptly as Ms. Bustier listed off as many of Lila's stories as she could remember, with occasional help from Alya chiming in. On the other end of the line, Lila's mom was clearly denying that any of those things had ever happened. When she heard Lila's claims about tinnitus and arthritis, she exploded on the other end of the line, loud enough for Alya to hear halfway across the room.

Clearly someone was going to be getting in a lot of trouble tonight. Alya wasn't going to be surprised if Volpina made another appearance.

"Well, that was….something," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh once she had hung up several minutes later. "Some of Lila's stories had seemed far-fetched when she was telling them, but there were so many that I thought that there would be no way that she would lie that much. I didn't see any reason for her to. But clearly I was wrong."

Alya nodded. She had kind of taken the same approach, honestly. One out-of-place story would have been suspicious. Dozens of them? There had to be some truth there.

Apparently not.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Alya," Ms. Bustier told her. She looked tired. "I'm sure Lila's mom and I will be in contact to keep a situation like this from happening again. And… while I would normally ask you to not share this with other people, since you overheard a phone call I had about another student and normally we don't do that, this time it's fine. Normally everyone would know all of that already. And I might send out an email tonight to the families, since Lila was trying to manipulate people with her 'connections' and we need to cut that off." She sighed, massaging her temples. "I'll add it to my list of things to do. And- oh, my students are coming in now. Was there anything else, Alya?"

Alya shook her head. "No. That's it. Well-" she hesitated, thinking up one last question, something that had been bugging her ever since she shared her video with Ladybug and Chat Noir. She hadn't wanted to ask her parents (and they weren't likely to know anyway), but Ms. Bustier might be able to put her mind at rest. "I had a hypothetical question."

A hint of a smile showed up on Ms. Bustier's face. "Ah, yes, the famous hypothetical question. What were you wondering, Alya?"

"If- hypothetically- if someone were to only have one parent and that parent got arrested, what would happen to them?" Alya asked, hoping that Ms. Bustier would know. "Hypothetically!"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Does this have something to do with Lila? She still has both parents, Alya, even if they aren't together."

"No, nothing to do with that whole mess," Alya said quickly. "And it's hypothetical."

That got a smile on Ms. Bustier's face. "Alya, in my experience, the more hypotheticals someone adds to a question, the less hypothetical it is." The smile vanished as she grew serious again. "As for your question…. well, if they have relatives around who are able and willing to take them, then they would likely go there. Otherwise, a trusted family friend might take custody….though if one parent was arrested, the family friends would be very closely examined to make sure they were innocent."

Alya nodded. She still didn't know where that would leave Adrien. Were Nathalie and the Gorilla innocent in all of this?

"Is there…" Ms. Bustier glanced at the door, then back at Alya. She lowered her voice. "Alya, can I ask who you're asking for? So I can be on the lookout to help?"

"It…" Alya hesitated. She didn't want to go and spoil Ladybug and Chat Noir's work, but it wouldn't hurt to have an adult looking after them, too. "I don't know how much I can say, because it's an ongoing investigation…"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Alya, what have you gotten involved with?"

"It's a Ladybug and Chat Noir thing! I'm not getting tangled up with normal criminals," Alya assured her teacher. Ms. Bustier didn't look any more happy with that.

"Magical criminals aren't any better. That might be worse, actually. Alya…"

"I just did some research for them," Alya assured her. "There was no legwork involved."

Ms. Bustier didn't look convinced.

"And I promise I'll let you know more as soon as I can." Alya shifted from foot to foot, glancing towards the door as the noise level outside got a little louder. "And I'll try to stay safe."

"Coming from the girl that goes charging towards akuma fights, I'm not sure how reassuring that is," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh. "But- Alya, let me give you my phone number and my email. Contact me when you're allowed to. Promise me."

"I will," Alya vowed.

  Finally, finally, Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at Alya's window again, only an hour after she got back from the school. Much to her excitement, they were carrying her Miraculous.

"There's no boss battle today, but we think that we'll need the Fox's powers," Ladybug told her. "So we thought of you, of course."

Alya grinned as she accepted the box and opened it up, beaming as her kwami popped into view. "Hi, Trixx!"

"Hiya, Alya!"

"So what are we going to be doing?" Alya asked eagerly as she hooked her Miraculous around her neck. "Training?"

Ladybug laughed. "Not quite. Your comment about the police gave us an idea, that we might be able to use them to set a trap. So we told them about Mr. Agreste and showed them your evidence, on the condition that they'll follow our lead and not try to take him on on their own. They're going to get him to come in to the station, where he'll have a harder time transforming."

"We didn't want to try to attack him in his lair," Chat Noir chimed in. "We scoped it out a little- well, my kwami did- and what we found was…. well, disturbing. And we have our suspicious about Mayura, and we don't want them nearby, either. One at a time is easier."

Alya frowned. "So… what are we doing today?"

"Well, the police are going to call Mr. Agreste today to claim that they have a lead about where Mrs. Agreste is," Chat Noir said, glancing at Ladybug. "And that he has to come in- in person, not via Skype- to look over some things. We want to see his reaction to the call."

Alya was still officially lost as to why they needed her.

"But we want to hear it, too," Ladybug continued, seamlessly picking up where Chat Noir picked off. "And- we asked Trixx about this- if you do a small illusion, maybe something not very big or noticeable- then you can use it as basically a- what do you call it, Chat Noir? Those spy things?"

"Why do you assume that I would know what they're called?" Chat Noir pouted at Ladybug, and honestly, Alya regretted ever thinking that the two of them were cool. "They're like the Extendable Ears things in Harry Potter, I guess?"

"It's essentially like setting a bug," Alya corrected them dryly. Then she perked up. "Oh! I'll be doing the listening! That's cool!"

"Do you have the time?" Ladybug asked her. "Like, you don't have to babysit today, do you?"

Alya laughed as she shook her head. "Nah, Nora's taking Ella and Etta for the week. It's about time, too, since I did most of the babysitting during the school year."

"Good." Ladybug headed towards the window. "Ready? Or do you need to let someone know that you're going out?"

"I'll tell my mom that I'm going out with my boyfriend," Alya decided after a moment's thought. "And then I'll transform in the alleyway. Meet me down there?" she added.

"Of course," Ladybug agreed easily. Chat Noir nodded.

Alya made to move towards her door again, then paused and glanced back at the superheroes. "Do you two have to tell your parents when you're going out, too? What excuse do you use?"

"Oh, I told them I was going out with my boyfriend," Ladybug said breezily, grinning at Alya cheekily. "They were fine with it, of course."

"It's not like she was lying ," Chat Noir added in, his grin twice as cheeky. "After all, she's hanging out with me."

Ten minutes into their stakeout, Rena Rouge still hadn't managed to get a straight answer out of Ladybug and Chat Noir about whether they were kidding about the dating thing or not. She wanted to think so, of course- three big scoops in one summer would be amazing, and confirming Ladynoir would actually be a positive scoop- but they weren't giving her anything.

"Okay, they're going to call in the next couple minutes," Ladybug said, checking her yo-yo. "Rena, send in the mini-illusion. And then we're going to have to focus."

"This won't set off my timer?" Rena Rouge checked one more time. "Because that would stink to miss anything."

"No, it only uses a fraction of your power. Trixx said you would have half an hour at the least before the timer might start counting down." Ladybug glanced at her yo-yo again, then hunkered down on the rooftop. "And we have to make sure that we're not seen. If we are…"

Rena Rouge nodded. Mr. Agreste might just start acting instead of actually reacting realistically, and they didn't want that. That would completely defeat the purpose of coming out at all. It was a basic rule of stake-outs, really.

Bringing her flute to her lips, Rena played a short tune, envisioning a small white butterfly as she flicked the light off of the end. It formed and fluttered away, headed right for the house. Rena Rouge bit her lip as she watched it go, hoping that she had done it right. They wouldn't know right away, but hopefully they had a couple minutes for her to check the butterfly's hearing abilities first.

"A little lower- to the side- yes, hover it right there," Chat Noir urged, peeping over the side of the rampart. "Or maybe have it land against the house."

"Done and done." Rena held down her ears and peeped over for a moment as well before flattening herself to the rooftop. "Okay, and now I listen, I guess…?"

On top of her head, her fox ears twitched back and forth as she tried to focus on her connection with the butterfly illusion. Slowly, she started picking up voices. As Rena strained to listen, they got louder.

"-this zipper isn't the right shade to go with this fabric, what was the sewing room thinking? It's too bright, it'll catch the light if even a hint of the zipper isn't covered. Must I really specify every single bit of the design? What's next, telling the sewing room that the right side of the fabric is meant to face out?"

Great. Fashion talk. Nothing interesting yet.

Nathalie's voice joined Gabriel's. "I'll look into it at once and see who was responsible. I'll let them know that this will be a dark mark on their record and further mistakes will put their job in jeopardy."

"See that you do. I won't stand for employees that can't use their brain when sewing."

"Anything?" Ladybug whispered, making Rena Rouge startle. "Does it work?"

"It works. They're just talking fashion. Something about the wrong finish on a zipper."

Oddly enough, Ladybug looked interested. "Wait, what-"

"Not the time, Bug," Chat Noir murmured, and Ladybug settled down with a bit of a pout.

The banal fashion talk continued for another minute, and Rena tried not to groan as it turned to the business side of the fashion house. She was saved, though, by the ringing of a phone.

"It's happening!" Rena Rouge told Ladybug and Chat Noir, pulling their attention back from whatever whispered conversation they were having. "The police are calling, and Nathalie is headed over to get it!"

The other superheroes froze, then scrambled into position. Rena Rouge returned her attention to the conversation, though there wasn't really much to it. Nathalie was listening more than talking, and her tone gave nothing away.

"She's impossible to read," she faintly heard Ladybug complain. "C'mon, give something away."

"She's thanking them now," Rena Rouge relayed. "And hanging up- now shush so I can listen!"

The other superheroes shushed.

Rena Rouge held still as a statue, listening closely as Nathalie relayed the police's message to Mr. Agreste. Next to her, Ladybug and Chat Noir huddled around her yo-yo, watching Mr. Agreste's expression on the zoomed-in feed.

"He looks super annoyed," Ladybug whispered. "There's- there's something not right there. Why would he look annoyed?"

"If he knows that they can't have a lead, maybe," Chat Noir suggested after a second. "Or can't have a correct lead, at least." He was pale. "He's a supervillain. Do you think-"

"Shh! I'm trying to listen!" Rena hissed at them. "I don't want to miss anything!"

Ladybug and Chat Noir promptly shut up.

"They would come here if they suspected anything about us," Gabriel was telling Nathalie. Down below, Rena could see him pacing, going back and forth in front of the window. "If they suspected that we know what happened, or that we know where Emilie is, they would come here and take us into custody. No, they've found some false lead. But I'm still going to have to go in, just to keep up appearances."

Rena Rouge gasped. Adrien's father knew where his wife was? That was awful. Had he done something to her?

"What did they say?" Chat Noir wanted to know. "What-"

"Shh, I'm listening!"

"I said that I would call them back once I had talked with you about when we could go in. Unless you just want me to go?"

"No, they would consider that strange. I'm going to need to go in myself." Gabriel scowled. "And they're going to expect me to be rushing in right away. It's what anyone else would do. When…?"

"They said that the detective would be in all day tomorrow, just choose a time. You have meetings throughout the morning, then a break from eleven fifteen to two forty-five, then again after five."

Rena Rouge reached blindly for the notepad that she had brought along, scribbling that down. Just in case.

"I'll meet with them at twelve-thirty. That gives me some time if anything runs over." Gabriel sounded irritated. "I hope it doesn't run for long. I need to get some designing done."

"Of course, sir."

"And I'm going to go check on Emilie now. I want you to keep an eye on her tomorrow, while I'm at the meeting. Just in case."

Nathalie was frowning, and it was clear in her voice. "You think they might be up to something?"

"Something doesn't feel right. Why would they even think that they might have any leads on Emilie? It's impossible." Gabriel headed over to the portrait of his wife. "I don't like it."

"Wishful thinking, perhaps. Or they've actually got a lead on some other missing person, but they just misidentified them."

"He said he was going to check on Emilie," Rena Rouge hissed. "Keep an eye on him. Watch what he does."

The dual curse that she got from Ladybug and Chat Noir wasn't unexpected this time.

"I'm switching this to video mode," Ladybug announced. "Chat Noir-"

Chat Noir already had his baton out. "I'll take a backup video, so we don't miss anything."

"One would hope that Paris's esteemed police department would be more careful than that." Mr. Agreste didn't sound impressed as he addressed Nathalie. "But I agree, that's the most likely explanation. You can take care of calling the police back?"

"Of course."

They fell quiet, and Rena Rouge glanced over at Ladybug and Chat Noir. They both had intense looks of concentration on their faces as they manipulated their screens. Within a minute, both let out an exclamation and sat back.

"He's got some sort of elevator built into the floor," Ladybug explained to Rena Rouge. "And the buttons are built into the painting. We're going to have to look at the recording more closely to figure out exactly what they are. Hopefully that goes straight to- to wherever Mrs. Agreste is."

"Are you going to try to find her?" Rena Rouge asked excitedly, visions of a stealth mission already dancing through her head. "Are you going to break in in the middle of the night and push the buttons and-"

"We're going to go in once both Hawkmoth and Mayura have had their Miraculous removed and are in police custody," Ladybug said firmly. "We don't want to make Mr. Agreste any more suspicious than he already is."

…Rena supposed that that made sense.

They didn't stick around for long after that. Nathalie called the police back and when Mr. Agreste hadn't reappeared by the time the call ended, they decided that that was about as much information as they were going to get today.

"Are you going to need me tomorrow?" Alya asked once they were back in her room. She didn't want to give up her Miraculous, not yet. "For the confrontation?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a glance, then Ladybug rolled up on her tiptoes to whisper something into his ear. After a quick discussion, they seemed to reach a consensus.

"There's not going to be much of a battle, hopefully," Ladybug said slowly. "I mean, I'm going to restrain him as soon as he gets into the room- or as soon as I get into the room, I don't think we've decided which way we're doing it yet."

"I'd say have the detective give him a made-up story first," Chat Noir suggested. "Then he'll be more relaxed."

"Right. But Mayura is still a wild card. So maybe keep the Miraculous and Trixx will let you know if we need help. If things go smoothly, we'll let you know when you can make your post about Hawkmoth's identity," Ladybug told her. "You might want to have that ready to go as soon as we contact you. I'd be surprised if the police don't make the announcement as soon as they can, so you'll want to beat them."

Alya nodded. "Already written and formatted. I just have it in my drafts and set on private posting right now, just to be safe."

"Good." Ladybug smiled. "We'll be in touch, Alya! Have a good rest of your evening."

"I'll try," Alya said wryly, trying not to think about how Adrien's life was soon going to be uprooted. "I'll try."

  "I can't believe we're hanging out this morning. This morning, of all times!"

"Well, it's our last chance to do it normally." Nino squeezed her hand. "D'you think you can manage to act normal for a bit?"

Alya winced. Honestly, after hearing what she had the previous day about Adrien's mom? She might have to refrain from talking to Adrien too much until after everything came out.

"And speaking of normal- or not so much," Nino murmured all of a sudden, shaking Alya's arm. "I know Adrien and Marinette were getting closer- well, you've missed most of that, actually, since you've been so busy- but look at them!"

Alya's head shot up. Her two other friends were headed down the street together, Marinette's arm wrapped around Adrien's. Their heads were close together as they talked, and Alya couldn't deny it- they looked a lot closer than they had been even only a couple weeks before. She wanted to squeal with glee- if they weren't dating now, they were definitely close- but at the same time, she couldn't deny the tendril of dread that curled around her heart.

She wanted Adrien and Marinette to be together, of course. Marinette had had a crush on him for so long, and they would be adorable together. But now?

Adrien would be going through the hardest part of his life soon, and there was no way that he'd actually be in a state of mind to be a good boyfriend during that time. They might be able to weather it if they were in an established relationship, but with a barely-started one?

Alya didn't want their relationship to crash and burn before it had even gotten a proper chance.

"Okay, but at least Marinette will be amazing at supporting him," Nino pointed out, almost as though he were reading Alya's mind. "And if they aren't dating this morning, what are the chances that they'll be able to start before everything? I mean, there's two hours before he goes in to the station. There'll only be, what? Thirty minutes max before he gets arrested?"

"I wish we could warn him somehow before the news breaks, but there's no way." Alya frowned. "D'you suppose I should try to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir and ask...?"

"They're pretty compassionate, Alya. I'd be super surprised if they haven't already come up with a plan." Nino squeezed her arm reassuringly. "I bet that the police are planning to send someone to talk to Adrien before they let you know that you can post the video."

"I hope so."

"Someone sure looks serious today," Marinette called, and Nino and Alya hastily broke apart."Did someone rain on your parade?"

It certainly felt like a dark stormcloud was overhead, just waiting to burst, but Alya couldn't say that. Instead, she forced a smile. "We were just discussing having to babysit the twins and Chris later this week. They don't exactly get along well."

Marinette made a face at that. "Ugh. Yeah, I can see where they might clash a little. But- oh! Do you know who Chris would probably love? Max! He's big on all of the 'big kid stuff', as Chris calls it."

Nino grinned. "Oh, you are absolutely right. I'll text Max about that and see if he's even interested in spending a bit of time with Chris."

Alya had thought that the anticipation would make the morning absolutely creep by. She wasn't wrong- but anticipation wasn't the only thing making it go so slowly.

It was worry, it was concern, it was the nagging feeling that maybe she should say something to Marinette and suggest that she and Adrien hold off on dating, if they hadn't already started.

Surely they would have said something if they had decided to start dating in the world's absolute worse sense of timing? Alya thought they would, but then again Adrien and Marinette were clearly super close now, far more than they had been even a week earlier. Right now, Adrien was sitting with his head pillowed in Marinette's lap, looking thoroughly content as Marinette ran her fingers through his hair. Earlier, they had seemed practically glued together at the hip. It was clear couple behavior, and it was making Alya nervous.

And then at the end of their little friend get-together, the two of them left together. Alya peered after them and spotted their interlaced hands.

That was not good.

"Don't worry too much about it, babe," Nino told her. "Marinette's smart, she'll understand that Adrien won't be feeling his normal self for a bit and she won't judge him for it. And maybe they'll even be together when the police find him. It'll be good for him to have someone actually supportive around when he gets the news."

Alya couldn't help but worry about it. She worried about it while she ate lunch (read: played with her food). She worried about it while she washed up their dishes (read: ran the dishes absently under water and waved the sponge vaguely in their direction). And she especially worried about it as she got everything set up in her room, ready for Ladybug's message.

The clock ticked forward. Alya watched as it reached twelve-thirty, then twelve thirty-five, twelve forty, twelve forty-five...

Surely the superheroes had taken Hawkmoth's Miraculous by now. Alya pulled up a news feed from Paris, nervous that something had gone wrong.

Ugh. She would have much preferred being there herself.

Twelve forty-seven. Twelve forty-eight.

"They likely have to find and inform Adrien first," Trixx reminded her. "I'm not feeling any signs of distress from Plagg or Tikki."

Twelve forty-nine. Twelve fifty-

Alya's phone dinged with a message. She grabbed for it.

Ladybug: Hawkmoth and Mayura in custody. Go ahead and post, then come down to the police station ASAP. They'll be making an official announcement at 1:15.

Alya grinned, reaching for her computer. After one last check- the post time would be correct, the post would be public, not private, and it would sent out an alert to all of her subscribers just like the live akuma streams always did- Alya hit post. The page refreshed and there it was, right at the top of the page.

Hawkmoth's Identity Revealed!

  Ladyblog Live Stream: Paris police announce the capture of Hawkmoth and Mayura; Ladybug and Chat Noir victorious!

"Today, at twelve thirty, Paris police called Gabriel Agreste in for questioning. At twelve forty-one, we made an arrest, and his Miraculous was confiscated. At twelve forty-five, we determined Mayura's identity to be Nathalie Sancoeur and arrested her several minutes later. At this moment, Ladybug and Chat Noir are searching the mansion, trying to locate the Peacock Miraculous."

"How did you discover his identity?"

"We were presented with a video put together by the Ladyblog that showed Hawkmoth detransforming on Heroes Day. Without the Ladyblogger's efforts to go through all of the footage from the akuma attacks, we would have been unable to make this breakthrough. She presented the video to the superheroes a couple weeks ago and then they brought it to us so that we could collaborate on our strategy to take him down. We wanted to avoid a battle as to avoid unnecessarily endangering our superheroes and the citizens of Paris, so we called him in using a cover story that we had found a lead on his wife, Emilie Agreste's, disappearance. It was an effective strategy, and there was very little struggle."

"And Mayura? How did you find out who she was?"

"Gabriel Agreste told us, though not intentionally. He called out her names while caught off guard when Ladybug restrained him. Police waiting close to the house had no trouble getting in and arresting her as well."

"Are there more suspected collaborators?"

"Not at the moment, though we are keeping the possibility in mind."

"How did Mr. Agreste get his hands on the Miraculous?"

"We don't know that. It will certainly be part of our investigation. That is all the information that we have at this time."

  Three Months Later

Alya couldn't help but grin as she looked around her room. Clipped articles hung from her walls, chronicling the crazy, crazy journey that she had been on ever since she discovered Hawkmoth's identity. Her classmates had helped her collect every article that had been written about the arrests and all of the subsequent investigations, and now they papered her walls.

Ladyblog Breaks the Case! read one, featured predominantly. Below was a still from her famous video, with Gabriel Agreste headed down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. The article was one that she had memorized, and in particular the section with the interview that Ladybug and Chat Noir had given the city's reporters. They had given her full credit for figuring out who Hawkmoth was, and even for giving them the idea to collaborate with the police.

Her blog had gotten a huge spike in attention when she posted the video unveiling Hawkmoth. It had gotten an even bigger spike after that, with everyone who heard the interview curious about what other work Alya had done. She had had to resist the urge to go back and edit all of her early articles, the ones that had included a whole lot of inaccurate speculation and fangirling. Those hadn't been great reporting at all, but in the end Alya let them be, as an example of how much her work had improved over the past months.

She had, however, gone back and switched the page with Lila's "interview" to private, keeping the footage as a just-in-case but not wanting to keep that train wreck of lies up.

(That particular investigation of hers had ended up having a newspaper article of its own, since the news that a collège student had skipped several months of school by lying to both school and her mom about her whereabouts was pretty insane. Mylène was the one who had spotted the article, which didn't mention the student by name but did say that the student would be attending a school for troubled youth in the fall rather than going back to their previous school. That was probably for the better, because, well, none of Lila's former classmates had been particularly thrilled about being duped for so long.)

Alya moved her attention on to the next section of wall. There had been a whole slew of discoveries right after the arrests- a book about the Miraculous, a cursed Miraculous pin, scrolls in some strange code, Hawkmoth's lair (armed with a crazy amount of weapons), and notes about combining the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous. And then, right after that-

EMILIE AGRESTE FOUND- ALIVE, CURSED, ASLEEP

-Adrien's mother had been found under the mansion, sealed away in a glass coffin. Ladybug and Chat Noir had taken her, the cursed Miraculous (and Hawkmoth's Miraculous), the book, and all of the scrolls to an undisclosed location. Two weeks later, Emilie Agreste had showed up in the hospital, tired and weak but awake and alive. Adrien had been thrilled, and doubly so when the superheroes and the police announced that Mrs. Agreste wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing and was free to resume her life. Mrs. Agreste had largely kept to herself after her return, preferring to stay in the mansion rather than going out, but Adrien had said that that was because she was still recovering from being in a coma for so long- she got tired very easily- and she didn't want to be harassed by reporters searching for an interview.

Alya had only met her once, and briefly. Marinette, who spent a ton of time in the Agreste manor (even though she claimed that she and Adrien weren't dating yet), said that Mrs. Agreste was a perfectly lovely if perhaps very nervous woman.

(Once, Alya had asked if she was good mother-in-law material. Marinette had turned bright red and said nothing, which- well, Alya could tease, but she wasn't going to push. Not yet, anyway.)

Smiling at the memory, Alya continued running her finger down the wall. Under the batch of articles about Mrs. Agreste's discovery, recovery, and innocence from the Hawkmoth mess was another headline, this one smaller.

No Further Suspects in Hawkmoth Case

According to Adrien, absolutely everyone in the household had been questioned, including him. He had been pretty quiet for several days after that, and Alya suspected that he had been shaken by whatever interrogation that the police put him through. He had been taken out of the mansion by child services during the questioning and subsequent searches, which hadn't helped at all. Thankfully Ms. Bustier had stepped in at once, taking Adrien in until his mom was released from the hospital.

All the questioning ended up producing was false leads that petered out, and a few small charges against the people who had created the system to get up to the lair and down to Mrs. Agreste's cavern but hadn't mentioned it as anything out of the ordinary and worth looking into at any point, but no one else who had worked directly with Hawkmoth or known about his secret identity. Adrien's bodyguard came up clean, which both Adrien and his mom seemed relieved about.

Thankfully Adrien didn't seem to hold any hard feelings towards Alya for being the one to find out about his father. She had worried about that after he was questioned, since she had seen him talking to Marinette but not her, but Nino had assured her that Adrien wasn't really talking to anyone else, either. After a few days, though, he was mostly back to normal.

Trial for Gabriel Agreste Starting Today: What to Expect

The trial went on for several weeks, and as the person who had found the video evidence, Alya had to go in. Much to Alya's delight, Rena Rouge had been called in as well for one last hurrah, testifying in front of the jury about what she had overheard when the police called the manor. Saying good-bye to Trixx after that had been hard, because she really, really doubted that she would get the Miraculous back again. There wasn't a need for it to be out and, as they had just seen, it was dangerous for too many Miraculous to be out and about in case someone was trying to find them.

She would be fine, though. Being a superhero had been cool, but she was being taken seriously as a reporter now, and that was super-cool, too.

GUILTY! Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur Both Sentenced

Hawkmoth and Mayura Behind Bars For Good

The End of Terror in Paris: Hawkmoth Trial Ends with Guilty on All Counts

There had been celebrations in the streets that night, and the balloons for all of the city's superheroes had flown again. Alya rather suspected that the mayor had something to do with that, since only Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Rena Rouge had been directly involved with Hawkmoth's defeat, but she wasn't going to complain. After all, her boyfriend's balloon got to be part of the parade, too. Alya and Nino had been in the thick of the celebrations, and so many people had gone up to her to thank her for her role in discovering Hawkmoth's identity and get a photo with her.

Alya was pretty certain that she had blushed for the entire evening. It had been a bit overwhelming for sure, but hardly in a bad way. The superheroes had dropped in partway through to pose for pictures with her, and the photos had ended up on the front page of the newspaper the next day.

And now...

"Alya, are you coming? We need to leave soon!"

"I'm almost ready!" Alya called back, smoothing down her dress for the awards ceremony. She checked her reflection in the mirror- the dress fit her to perfection, thanks to Marinette's tailoring skills- before returning her attention to the final clipping, one that she had only just put up that morning.

Paris's Ladyblogger to Receive Young Journalist of the Year Award

"Alya!"

"Coming!" Alya called back. With one last look at her wall, she headed out the door, smiling to herself. The past few months had been pretty crazy, but honestly?

She wouldn't change it for anything.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Keeping up with the Ladyblog #alya cesaire

[babyitsacrime]

1, 22, 23, and 43 for the OC asks.

First off, I apologize for my absolutely atrocious grammar here and also the fact that I just can’t seem to put things into words.

Secondly I wrote this in a different app and then copy pasted so the formatting is a little whack.

1. Your first OC ever?

Oh gosh this one is a little hard to answer. I think Natalia’s my first OC that I ever fully wrote well but me and my friends used to write a lot of stories/fanfiction in middle school so I have some characters from there too that might be older than Nat. Also there’s like three different versions of Nat (Quizup, Next Gen, and the Nat I have now) , and again the one I have right now is by far the most developed/closest to a whole character.

Okay but I talk about Nat a lot so even though I’m not sure which one actually came first I’ll talk about a character I had in the Homestuck fanfiction my friends and I wrote in middle school. (before you ask, yes it’s the 100 page one I’m pretty sure) (also I’m ignoring the self inserts me n my friends made for our other stories bc those don’t count as ocs and I refuse to accept them as characters dhdksjdjs) But basically she’s a troll named Ninmah Aurora. She was heavily based off of Kanaya Maryam, the iconic Homestuck vampire fashion designer lesbian character so that was interesting. And even though I didn’t actually write that much for her she’s one of my favorite characters because I had so much fun writing her with my friends. Anyways can’t believe I just exposed myself as a Homestuck stan on main but you know what it’s fine.

22. Is there any OC of yours that people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how?

Okay there’s a couple and most of them are small things so I’ll just go by character.

Natalia -

let me just start by saying this: it still baffles me why y’all think she’s cool cshdjsj. She’s kinda a dumb bitch if I’m being honest. Like, don’t get me wrong, she’s super smart and could easily outwit me and honestly any of us, but she’s also plain stupid sometimes in other ways. But like, on the other side of the coin I feel like she almost doesn’t get taken seriously sometimes? I feel like that’s a little on me for usually making jokes at her expense but while she is clueless as to how people function she’s also not plain dumb. A lot of what she says and does is well calculated and even when she does something in the spur of the moment it’s always something logical to her. Hn I don’t know if I’m explaining this right but 🤷♀️. But basically she’s not really cool but also she’s not stupid. (Okay ig being good at Quidditch is pretty cool but that’s not my point)

Also I don’t know why but some people (very few people but it’s still annoying to me) seem to think that her being bi is a huge part of her personality when it’s really not. While she is bi, not everything she does is motivated by that fact if that makes any sense. Like for example, if she’s wearing be a rainbow dress it’s not because she’s (and I quote) "team gay" it’s because she liked the damn dress. Okay I’m rambling now but all I’m saying is that it kinda annoys me when people see her being bi as a hugely defining personality trait. Also she isn’t the only character I notice this happens to.

Ishaan -

Similarly to Nat, whole he does enjoy pranking and such, he’s actually a serious person most of the time. Think of him as more of like a serious and skeptical person who also has a good sense of humor. Although I will say that he does sometimes go out of his way to make a joke sometimes, that’s only sometimes and mostly just to annoy Priya.

Lysander -

Another case of the being gay isn’t his personality. Also??? He’s not gay??? I don’t really know where that came from (like I know who mentioned it to me but I have no clue where she got that from aside from just assuming?) for the record, he is also bi and has a slight preference for girls (mostly bc he likes having an s/o shorter than him but we won’t go into that rn). *slams fists on table* jUST BECAUSE HES FUNNY DOESNT MEAN HES THE TOKEN GAY FRIEND OKAY (okay okay I’m done ranting time to continue)

I also feel like his joking nature is often seen as a sign of him not being as a lack of intellect, but that is in no way true. While he isn’t a genius or anything, he’s a little smarter than average, yet still prone to making dumb decisions because he is still a child. But with more life experience he’ll make smarter decisions while still retaining a joking demeanor.

Priya -

I’m going to keep this one short, but she isn’t as cold and cruel as I sometimes make her seem when I talk about her. I feel like this one’s mostly on me but yeah, she’s a caring person for the most part, just a little misguided and/or dramatic at times.

~I think that’s all of them but I might be wrong? Also none of those explanations make a lot of sense I’m sorry 😔~

23. Introduce an OC that has changed from what your first idea considering what the character would be like.

*drags Nat out again* Here you go.

So I mentioned earlier that there’s like three different versions of her, but in all reality they almost feel like different characters with the same name. However I will say that Next Gen Nat and the Nat I have now (I like to call it her final form bc I think I’m finally happy with her) are similar in many many aspects. But I’ll talk about this Nat because I like her the best and she’s the only Nat I actively use. She was originally intended to be a lot colder/closed off than she is. (Think a lot closer to Aster, but I think pep also had a similar thing with him.) She just ended up becoming a lot softer and a little friendlier than I intended her to be. I’m not exactly unhappy with that though, I feel like this actually added a bit more dimension to her character and it actually gave me a little more room to improve her. It was also bound to happen anyways, especially with the characters she’s friends with/will be friends with. So yeah, it’s interesting and honestly I feel like I’m happy with the changes from what I originally intended her to be.

Hm while I’m here I guess I should also talk about Taemoon.

I don’t know that his personality changed much from my original intent, but his story and intent definitely did. He started as a character that exuded a lack of hope. I don’t know if that sentence makes a lot of sense, but he was originally going to have no chance at happiness in the end. He was supposed to let all of his anger and hurt consume him, making him hell bent on revenge, which would only push him further from anything that could make him happy, but I feel like the end of his story is a lot more hopeful now. I don’t know exactly what it is, but ever since pep asked if Jae Hong could adopt him Taemoon’s life story has become something a lot less disheartening. Now I’ve given him a lot more to live for, and a lot more to make him happy. First off, instead of being alone he now has a family that he quickly grows to trust, and a group of friends with similar experiences that basically become family as well. While he is still very revenge driven, he has a lot more to his life than just that; most importantly he has people he trusts that will keep him from becoming consumed by all of his anger. But yeah, he has become a much more hopeful character as a whole and honestly. I feel like that’s what I really needed. Idk about everyone else but I feel like changing his story to the way it is now really has helped me to feel a lot better in general.

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favor certain traits or looks?

Oh god it’s time to confess 😔🤙

So, as most of you have figured out, most of my ocs tend to be very attractive and very capable (and willing) to step on me. If they’re not that then they’re in the minority.

Aside from being physically attractive as a whole, I’d say that in regards to looks, the more they look like they haven’t slept in weeks and are ready to kill a man, the better. If not that, then it’s an oc that looks like I could cuddle with them for hours on end. There’s no in between.

As for traits I tend to favor, probably the most popular is a bad attitude. If you take a look at some of my most used and/or favorite characters, you’ll find that in most cases the snarkier the better. Honestly this is true of characters that aren’t even mine, I just really have a type. At the same time though, I like these characters to have a secret soft side even if it’s only for one other character they care about. On the flip side, I also like writing characters that are genuinely the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I don’t know why but I just love them so much they are truly my children.

Also. Characters that grin in the face of danger? *chefs kiss* I like characters where you question if what they’re doing is out of courage or a death wish. For this reason so many of my characters play some kind of dangerous sport or enjoy dueling, you get what I mean. This goes for both my Edgy™️ characters as well as my soft characters.

Additionally, I do have a lot of characters that are wealthy. Uh. I think that mostly speaks for itself so I’m not going to comment on it any further than this.

Also. Flowers. For some reason I go for faceclaims that eat flowers. It’s not even something I actively seek out??? Like I’ll find someone cute and I’ll be scrolling through pictures and there they are. Eating a flower. This mostly goes for my guy fcs but yeah. Idk how it happens but it just does and I’ve come to accept it.

#aaaaaa thanks kelly!!!! #also shdjshshsh thats a lot longer than i intended it to be oh boy #natalia #ishaan #priya #lysander #taemoon #bitch boy #answered #writing rambles

[vorefluff]

if anyone is curious

This is legit how I come up with new storylines and things. This is just a copy/paste of something I sent my girlfriend when I was in the middle of Figuring A Thing Out.

Featuring a new character, Hue and a drawing of him! Mostly this is about Blaze tho, and some stuff about John too. It sorta goes all over the place - the moment it seems like ‘oh this is what this post is about’ it switches on you.

Warnings: Lots of “so anyway”, no proofreading, completely filled with lowercase sentence starters, fragments, cussing, a couple vague s*xual references. It’s a brain barf. 

[day 1]

This is Hue. He's a werewolf boi-o and one of the shortest characters i've made so far, clocking in at 4'10". you can just barely see his bite scars under the arm hair I decided that John shouldn't be entirely partner-less because Blaze decided to be stubborn and not embrace the gay. Cause that's just unfair to john. Like, Blaze said no, John respects that, so John moves on. 

No matter how much I rlly rlly want the two to be together. 

so anyway is seems that John has a Type. smol grumpy and easy to fluster I mean, in terms of potential romantic partners. in terms of Hotness and potential one-night-stands and such he's more physically attracted to guys in snappy suits and confidence like raknu but also not raknu himself because it'd be weird to bang your boss.

[day 2]

[insert some Spoilery Things about Alchemy Brothers from my World Of Glass And Bone and my character I’m basing Hue off of. This is also a first - usually I don’t base one character off of another. I did it in this case to absolutely make 100% sure that Hue’s personality doesn’t end up being like a Blaze2.0.]

[....] cause like, yeah, I made him with the intent of finding an Actual Partner for John, but I don't want that to be his Entire Personality. I don't want him to just be off-brand discount walmart version of Blaze. I've never done this before k. Like, usually I make characters, and then decide relationships to other people, not the other way around. And now I'm just Worried and low-key Freaking Out that he won't be seen as anything more than a Blaze-wannabe.

[day 3]

so THIS is how love triangles get started, huh - throwing in Hue threw a wrench into things. so like we got John and Blaze, right? they're like. bestest buds. John is like, the only person that Blaze really actually feels completely comfortable around. and like, a big part of the reason why Blaze doesn't want to be in an Actual Official Relationship is a lot of smaller very valid reasons. 

 1) he's in denial that it's even a thing he wants at all. All relationships end in Bad Things - either death as Blaze outlives them, or breakups, or deception and misunderstanding, or other Fun Things like that. So why the fuck would he want to put himself through that again? 

2) he still gets nightmares about Alex and not over that 3) all past relationships have been either abusive or at least a little bit Toxic - including alex (just as the nature of the culture, and the social power difference between people and vampires, toxic masculinity, just straight up assholes with a pretty face, ect) and that's just sorta the standard, normal thing that Blaze expects to happen with relationships in general. So it's showing a little bit of growth on Blazes part by saying no to the perceived toxicity, but still misunderstanding what a normal relationship is. 

 4) he's still not sure he's part gay. Like, he was Trying Out A Thing with Alex and he didn't get enough time to process it or really tell if that's something for him.

5) Blaze is asexual and sex-repulsed, and John is Horny. Not that John would do anything that Blaze is uncomfortable with - just the idea that Blaze is holding John back from something that he really wants to do while simultaneously being really stuck on the idea of monogamy and being uncomfortable with the idea ofo John being with anyone else sexually if they're in a relationship. 

 6) and fear that if he says yes then He's Stuck. can't back out, can't break off, without losing John completely as a friend (which is not something John would do even if they did break off for whatever reason). but it's still intense fear, and strongly supported by the idea of 'history repeats itself'. 

 7) he's also still low-key weirded out by the thought that John was assigned female at birth and while he's Getting Better at that and normalizing it. Being closer than friends before he's finished sorting things out in his head properly only brings up those weirded out feelings more intensely and more frequently until it becomes a potential point of conflict. If they were to ever be a thing, it'd take a lot of time before it started up, for Blaze to be 100% okay and Chill and properly sort through his head around John being trans. Not that Blaze would ever insult or weaponize that against john or anything, just personally working through centuries of stigma/sterotypes/ect and trying to get to a point where that thought isn't weird or bad anymore.

and a few other little reasons here and there but those are the big main ones in the way between a Blaze and John relationship. and I've been trying to keep that in mind when writing stories between them, cause John would totally go out with Blaze, and if Blaze didn't have those blocks, then he'd totally be open to a relationship with John too. 

Like, blaze low-key has a crush on John too. And I ship is so hard. And I want it to be a thing but I feel it's unfair to Blaze's character and all the stuff he has to work through himself before he's mentally stable enough to be able to have a healthy relationship with anyone. 

 and like maybe if no one else existed, yeah, sure, they'd get together at some point but like John isn't going to wait years for the possibility of a relationship with a person who already said 'no'.

So anyway, Hue comes on scene, right? 

John is spending more time with Hue and due to the nature of time being limited and the fact that often John operates seperately in Hero Team Missions (he's a spellcaster where the others aren't - he can do a lot of behind the scenes things that the others can't) 

Blaze finds himself really really wanting John's company more which makes him question why the fuck and therefore come to the realization that yeah okay fuck fine he's part gay but what the fuck ever John's with someone else already so.

so he's trying to shove down those annoyin' fckn feelings of jealousy, and also starting to distance himself from John and also throwing in some self-hate for missing his chance because Everything Blaze Does has to be low-key toxic (bad blaze stop it-) 

and once there's something you Want that's out of reach, suddenly you start forgetting about the reasons why you didn't go for it in the first place when it was available which means at least some of the other barriers are temporarily forgotten - at least, until John is available again, then they'd re-surface with vengeance and more self-hate because now-is-you're-chance-what-are-you-waiting-for - 

so anyway Blaze is a (valid) Dramatic Bitch who can't make up his goddamn mind

And right now I'm trying to figure out the new dynamic, and how things end there. 

 I'm like maybe 20% sure that they might end up turning it into a poly relationship instead of a love triangle 

John would be down for that Hue would be down for that 

it all just depends on Blaze and his dumb stupid (meant lovingly, they're still valid) limitations and quirks and trauma and shit.

there's nothing solid yet but the idea of it being turned into a poly relationship is rlly appealing to me

also 

blaze needs a therapist

I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've said that and I don't know why I haven't said it sooner but Blaze needs a therapist.

vampires getting therapists isn't something that ever happens for lots of stupid and dumb (not valid) reasons but maybe maaaayyyyybeeeeeee Raknu can pull some strings, talk to some people, ya know. Maybe try and find a therapist who's willing to come in and try and talk to a vampire with hundreds of years of Shit.

raknu can claim it's for the good of the team, and teamwork, and shiz. I mean, having a vampire on a hero team at all is a New Thing, Blaze was one of the first. So obviously, there'll the other New Things that arise from this, that can bypass stupid rules

well I guess for Blaze to see a therapist Blaze would have to actually be willing to ya know. 

see the therapist 

that's more unlikely than raknu being able to call one in that's open to it 

Blaze does not have a very good opinion on therapists. Blaze thinks they're all quacks and wishy-washy idiots 

siiiiiiigh 

blaze why why do you have to be this way like, you've got a whole bunch of Good Things that you could've had why do you have to be stubborn 

all of these good things literally just hinge on you.

it's okay though 

blaze is just taking the scenic route the long way around to Good Times.

I think what would be required for Blaze to see a therapist would be for someone he sees as similar to him - not wishy-washy, negativity and toxic central, similar opinion of therapists in general - to go in and see one first, and actually be helped and have their life improved. 

then maybe blaze would give it a try and-  

ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

heheheheheheh 

AHAHAHAHAHAHA 

this is where it comes full circle!!! 

This is perfect!!!! 

Hue! 

it all comes back to HUE! 

Hue goes to therapy which then convinces Blaze to accept therapy which means Blaze can actually Work Through Some Of His Shit 

and then we can have a valid Poly Relationship with John and Blaze and Hue and it wouldn't have been possible without Hue which low-key starts them off in a positive relationship, which is bolstered by John really liking Hue, and therefor Blaze has someone else he can Really Actually Enjoy And Feel Comfortable Around instead of being stuck on just John 

Bonus Little Story Thing For Making It This Far:

Blaze tentatively kisses the top of Smol John’s head, giving a hesitant little smile. John blushes and grins, leaning against the vampire. 

Glancing up though, Blaze sees Hue with a raised eyebrow and a an amused smirk.

A very intense possessiveness washes over Blaze. Blaze makes direct eye contact with Hue. 

“aAURG!! wHAt the HECK!!!” John exclaims as Blaze’s teeth firmly rest on his back, pressing him into the tongue protecting him from the vampire’s bottom teeth. 

Blaze lifts John up from his hand like that, pulling his tongue in and bringing John with it. John fumbles for an oxygen tank from his pockets. 

Blaze maintains eye contact with Hue the entire time, swallowing the small form. 

Hue is amused, a little disturbed, but mostly confused. 

Finally Hue breaks the silence. “Couldn’t resist such a snacc, huh?” 

#doodles #my art #my writing #there's a little bit of a Vore #I mean there's not much vore at all here but the little bit that is here is safe #safe vore #also damn hue what happened to your hair jeeze #The little thing at the end takes place a couple years after my Current Vore Blog Stories #so blaze has longer floppier hair #the tips are dyed blue too but you can't see that in the doodle wup #long post #mouths #and unexpected #brain barf #If blaze is ever questioned about it he'll deny it ever happened #Blaze lancher #John polarid #hue clines #Blaze #John #Hue #I'm going to start using first and last names when I tag things #smol john #the little story is Cannon by the way #Assert dominance by eating his boyfriend #Prolly one of the only times Blaze has ever initiated the vorening

[salamanderergfanfictions]

MHA, Villain Izuku, AU, drabble

This is a little drabble that I wrote about what I think Villain!Izuku would be like.  I usually see a bad-ass version going around, and that’s cool, but...a nerdy/obsessive/slightly psychotic dork is more my style.

Several other parts of this are written as well, but none are as put together as this one is.  Let me know what you think, if anything!

--

It was freezing, and if the cold weren’t so imperative to his plan, Izuku would have preferred to have done this someplace with a little more comfort to it.  Maybe a café, or the park, he had always loved playing around the park, spending the hours after school running around the woods. But, given the way his life was now, Izuku had to make do with what he had to work with.

Izuku hopped up on the table they had secured Bakugou to, using padded cuffs to clamp his arms, legs, and head down because Izuku didn’t want to hurt him, would never want to hurt Kacchan.  He shivered as his legs touched the cold metal, only his thin uniform trousers for protection, and felt goosebumps break out all over his skin as he settled down.

He let out one long, relieved laugh at finally being this close to Kacchan after almost a year of nothing.  It felt good to be in his company again, but he regretted that the use of restraints and a gag and a refrigerated meat locker and, of course, the whole kidnapping plot in general that was needed to make it possible.

The League Of Villains wanted Bakugou Katsuki because they thought they could turn him, use all that fearsome drive that they had misinterpreted as anger and resentment to turn him into one of them. Catch him in a moment of weakness, like they had with Deku, so long ago after that afternoon behind the school. That had been a coincidence, a thrown notebook that had gotten picked up by the wrong hands and returned to a boy that had been starved for a pleasant word and running on what little fumes his self esteem had been reduced to. Shigaraki-san had gently turned a few pages of his notebook, impressed with the details written down there, intrigued by Izuku’s hypothetical plans for improvement on some Pro Heroes’ weak spots. Some of the pages had been burnt beyond recognition, the whole thing was waterlogged and Izuku had stuttered out disagreements, but Shigaraki-san had treated the notebook that was essentially Izuku’s life work with reverence.  Shigaraki-san had complimented him on it, listened to his goals, his worries, and finally, offered him a place.  Offered him a way to get what he wanted, a deal of sorts.

It had all seemed very strange at the time to Izuku, and from that day on, there had been a prevailing sense of wrongness, a shift in every facet of his life, including his own brain.  Thoughts were coming to him that never occurred to him before, things seemed skewed in his memory, off-kilter, drugged, hazy, any and all other synonyms for Not Right.  But, Izuku worked around it, changed his thinking so he could get rid of the pounding headaches and constant vertigo and once that had happened, everything got Much Better.

The League of Villains wasn’t…quite what Izuku had in mind for his future, but it was better than what he could have achieved on his own.  Barring an act of extreme providence, Izuku was never going to be able to get into UA, not if he was Quirk-less, not if he wanted to go into the Hero course.

Kacchan would be in the Hero course, no doubt about it.  Kacchan was awesome.

Izuku mostly kept quiet when they were talking during their meetings, just sitting in the corner of the saloon they used as headquarters, sipping soda while swinging his feet from the tall bar stool feeling every bit the little kid they treated him as. It didn’t help that he jumped whenever they addressed him, startling like he had only just realized where he was and the company he was keeping. They were bad guys, their group name had the word ‘villains’ in it—Izuku knew that, he wasn’t under any other impression. He just knew that he wasn’t a bad guy. All he wanted from them was a way to be by Kacchan, to be able to see his friend again, the one he had always admired and had never wished anything but death for.

Izuku blinked, shaking his head to knock that curious little voice that liked to pop up every once a while to the back of his head where it belonged.

But the best for, he corrected with a small smile once the voice had settled down, We like Kacchan he told it firmly, ignoring the curious side glances a few members shot him as he chuckled in the back of his throat.

“Anything to share, Midoriya-san?”

Izuku sat up straight, blurting out, “Nope!”

A couple of nights before the kidnapping plot, he sat at the bar like he had so many times before, shifting his feet with every mistaken thing they had said as they discussed Kacchan. He tried to keep the frown off his face, bite back his objections and defend Kacchan, but if he did that, then he wouldn’t get to see Kacchan. Not to mention his own safety would be in peril should he decide to speak out against the League. Izuku was praised and valued for his insight, was trusted to gather information and listened to when he mustered up the courage to add to their plans, but he was still Quirk-less, still the weakest member.  Anyone of them could have been great Heroes, if that had been the path they’d chosen. With the right psychological help, Izuku conceded.

The League had made up their minds about Bakugou, felt they could successfully turn him once captured and were excited about the prospect.  Izuku wanted Kacchan, because he just wanted.  So he had helped them, had told them all about Kacchan’s Quirk and how it worked, how it could be countered.  He had already spent so much time doing reconnaissance around UA during the Sports Festival and its students while they were on break that he already had a good idea of when it was best to strike.  And he had been right, and it had gotten him that much closer to Kacchan, closer than he could have gotten on his own.

So, he supposed, taking that into account, the League of Villains wasn’t all bad.

“You’ve gotten so much stronger, Kacchan,” Izuku brought a trembling hand up to Bakugou’s bicep, not quite working up the courage to place anything more than just his fingertips against the other boy’s skin.  Bakugou could always casually insert himself into Izuku’s personal space, always to intimidate or threaten, but now he was having a hard time doing it himself.

“You’ve always been...” Izuku trailed off, the words big, fit, muscular drifted through his mind, each one igniting a spark of heat that swirled through his chest, “But I guess going through all that training at UA has really paid off. I can only imagine how much you’ve improved. I saw you fight in the Sports Festival tournament, I was supposed to only be taking notes and analyzing everyone else’s Quirks, but I, I know everything about yours already, so I just got to enjoy watching you. It was the best! That huge explosion you let off in the fight against Uraraka-san was amazing! Her plan was so clever, but you countered it just the same.  I could feel the heat on my face from all the way at the top of the stands!” He smiled and let his hand drop to his side, a flurry of mist leaving his mouth as he laughed, “Kacchan is really amazing.”

Izuku spared a glance at Bakugou’s face, ignoring the restraints and the angry growls that were surely threats and curses muffled by the gag in his mouth.  Izuku imagined that he had already heard variations of them over the years.

“I, uh, told them about your Quirk,” Izuku scratched at his cheek, “So that’s why...sorry, it’s probably really uncomfortable.”

“It’s not very villain-like to apologize to the one you’ve captured, Midoriya.”

The other boy winced, turning toward the door, “Oh, uh, sorry, Kurogiri-san, I didn’t see you there. Force of habit, I guess. And I...really do feel bad,” Izuku squirmed uncomfortably before turning to the other with a hopeful smile, “Kacchan and I are childhood friends.”

“You know, we didn’t bring Bakugou all the way here just to be a playmate for you.”

Izuku hunched in on himself, his nose and cheeks turning red as he nodded, a curious sensation in the cold room, “I, I know that, I was just...catching up.”

“Hm,” Kurogiri sounded unconvinced, “Has his Quirk been suitably destabilized?”

“Oh, um,” Izuku blew a long breath into the air, watching with a small smile as it turned to mist and slowly dissipated, “Yeah, it should be cold enough, as long as he doesn’t sweat. Because, his Quirk comes from the mixture of nitro—”

“Yes, you’ve told us. Many times.”

“Yeah, I guess I have,” Izuku laughed, letting the sound taper off unnaturally when he realized his current company wasn’t sharing his amusement.

“Midoriya, it’s time for you to leave the room.”

“Oh, okay,” Izuku sighed sadly and swung his leg over, getting off of Bakugou’s lap, “Maybe I’ll see you later, Kacchan, and then we can catch up some more. Bye!”

#my hero academia #mha #midoriya izuku #bakugou #kurogiri #villain #villain izuku #villain deku #psycho #obsessive #split personality #canon AU #drabble #one sided love #fanfic #salamandererg

[coffee-for-himchan]

you’re so annoying | jongup

Word count: 2.7 k+

Genre/warnings: fluff with bits of angst

Summary: It was you versus your work that you had to be done with as soon as possible.. Versus Jongup who was just trying to get you to be in a good mood, but somehow ended up doing the opposite. Good thing he always somehow knew how to fix it all up.

"You're in the way."

"I don't exactly agree with that," Jongup mumbled while still in a sleep-riddled state, clumsily flopping down on the couch beside you and trying to wiggle himself into some sort of comfortable position, "Maybe the keyboard is in the way, not me."

"Weren't you sleeping?"

The yawn that escaped his mouth spoke for itself, and no further questions were needed. His back hit the couch, and his head found it's way to your lap where you immediately failed to resist the urge to fix some loose strands of his bedhead hair. His head was in your lap way too often, on the most different of occasions - when he was tired or upset, or when he was trying to relax and so on - and you'd learned not to mind him by now... Mostly.

Having him around always set you at peace, but he was also a major distraction.

"I was sleeping, but then I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, and voila, now I'm here," he mumbled a quick re-cap of the last hour and carelessly tugged a blanket over his frame, less for warmth purposes and more because it just seemed like a self-explanatory thing to do, "And besides, the real question is why aren't you sleeping yet? It's past 2 AM already."

Of course he would ask, but by the way he'd made himself comfortable, it didn't look like he was about to tug you to bed anytime soon. It rather seemed like he'd just asked because of genuine curiosity.

It would be nice to just take a break and talk to him. He definitely had a lot to tell about today, and you were ready to listen to it all... Just cuddled up on the couch.. Running your fingers through his soft, freshly dyed hair.. God, his hair always looked so good, and felt so pleasant to the touch. You could never decide which hair color suited him best, as every time he re-dyed it, you said it was your favorite, until the next change, and then the next one, and then...

See? This is exactly what you were afraid of. He would distract you by just innocently being there, because no matter what you were doing, your thoughts always subconsciously drifted to him anyways.

"This is why I can't get anything done when you're home," you mumbled, looking back at the keyboard ahead of you. His chuckle made you less grudgy, simply because it was adorable, and so did the way in which he nuzzled his face into your sweatshirt and let out a sigh.

"I won't intervene, I'll just silently lay here, promised," he reassured, and though you knew that he probably would indeed just lie like a log, you also knew that your glance would way too often travel from the black and white keys over to inspecting his picture perfect features. But it was an urge you could try to fight. It's not like you had the heart to shoo him away anyways.

"You better," you mumbled, to which he chuckled again and fluttered his eyes shut. His face was pressed against your sweater and his only movements were from his light breathing. Up close he was even more beautiful, not that you didn't know already, you just got to silently appreciate again. For a moment at least, after which you reminded yourself to get back to working.

With another quiet huff, you went back to looking at the sheet music in front of you. Music could be both - extremely easy and extremely hard to write. Sometimes it came about on it's own, without you having to try and force it out of yourself, just having to scribble it down on paper while you still remembered all of these things that had rather randomly assembled themselves in your mind and imagination. But sometimes, especially when there were deadlines.. Sometimes it turned out like this. A total mess of lines, chords and melodies that refused to stick together. A bunch of.. Something, but not exactly something you were proud of. Rather something that you just wanted to scrap and start all over.

But you had to get it done soon. And you were extremely mad at yourself for not being able to do anything about the fact that you were extremely tired and extremely uninspired. It would be a miracle not to start crying, but you just took another deep breath and quietly mumbled for yourself to calm down. You could do it. You've always done it. This time wasn't any different. You just needed to calm down a whole bit and keep going on.

Time kept passing, and the page slowly started filling with more sheet music. Most "du-ba-du-bas" were starting to get replaced by lyrics that you finally started inserting in all the right places, though the atmosphere of writing made you rather scoff at the lines than be happy with them. Something didn't click. Something sounded too generic. There was still so much room for improvement, too much for you to feel proud about your work. And it was late already.. So damn late. You couldn't help but keep yawning endlessly.

Jongup being curled up on the couch with his head in your lap was the only source of comfort right now.

You glanced down at him quietly, humming a melody you knew you had to still work tons on to yourself. He really didn't intervene, as promised. What an honest man.

Another ten minutes later you were done with another section of the song, finally feeling like something came about. But even this little victory couldn't help the sour feeling in your chest. You could feel anxiety levels drifting up again.

You glanced down at Jongup, wondering if he was asleep or not. Before you could fall asleep yourself, you quietly sung that section again, and silently asked.

"How is this?"

One of his eyes creaked open, his lips curling into a little sideways smirk. You felt him shifting a little, and could sense that his response wouldn't be one to be taken seriously.

"Didn't you want me to stay quiet and not intervene?~" he asked mischievously, rising his brow.

Sure, he was trying to lighten the mood, and any other day of the week you would've found the innocent way he voiced it in cute. But you were really in need for an opinion, and this wasn't helping you much. You scoffed a little and turned away form him.

"You know, this is always the problem with you.. You're not exactly helping me with anything when I need it a lot."

The hum he let out in response showed his disagreement regarding your accusation. You yourself knew that this definitely wasn't the case, but oh well, maybe it would bring him to show some compassion.

"That's not true."

Your lack of reply seemed inevitable to him, and he simply continued to look up at your face, his eyes trying to find yours. You could feel his stare - it's warmth and comfort. The adoration he could never express in his words, not because he was bad with words but because he didn't think there was an appropriate way to describe what he felt. You knew that if you'd look back at him, you'd probably give in and melt. But you had to get your work done here, and he wasn't helping. Hence why you decided ignoring him for a bit would be more efficient.

"I bring you takeout when you're busy in the studio and make sure you get lunch~"

Left without reply again, he didn't really expect go get one in return right away anyways. The small smile from before stayed present on his lips.

"I'm your source of big comfy hoodies and sweaters~"

"Yeah, food and clothes.. Two things I could get on my own if I really needed them," you mumbled back at him, though your tone didn't quite match the sentence. He knew you didn't really mean it. By the tired look on your face, he also knew why you were so easily irritable.

Why he decided to poke your cheek, he didn't know - maybe just to gain back your attention. But the sudden and unexpected contact made you jump a little.

"You're so annoying," you swatted his hand away immediately, but at least he'd accomplished what he wanted, because for a second you glanced down at him to give him a disapproving glance. He got an idea just then and there.

“It's so annoying, don't interfere, just leave me alone~"

His use of his own song was quite clever and witty, but even that couldn't put a smile on your face. Your stare landed back on the sheet music and you exhaled loudly. You couldn't even take a joke anymore. This was rock bottom, it couldn't get any worse.

"Sometimes I feel like I subconsciously wrote this song about you," he quietly chuckled, and as he looked back up to your face, he hoped to see at least the smallest bit of joy or amusement sparkling in your eyes.

What he saw instead was your eyes getting watery.

"Hey, (Y/N).."

You felt him moving again and sitting up rather quickly, and your first instinct was to turn away from him. Yeah, as if that would hide anything at this point. There was a reason why he was suddenly jumping up like this, that reason probably being the fact that he saw the tears that threatened to make their way out of your eyes.

"Did I really upset you that much?" he asked quietly, trying to look at you, which you still weren't really allowing him to do, giving him no reply either. His hand quietly placed itself on your arm, and he gave it a reassuring squeeze before it traveled all the way up to your cheek and stayed there.

"I didn't mean to, you know that.."

"I'm just tired, that's it," you tried to reassure him, though heard how quiet and drained your own voice sounded, "And I can't get anything done, as you may have noticed.. And I’m so damn tired. Tired of having a blank mind and tired of just constantly being tired."

The stress was too much. It had been for a while already, but you always told yourself that crying yourself to sleep and putting yourself down was normal. You would simply try to live through it, although it seemed to be harder and harder to do so every day. There were so many responsibilities and only so much time. You weren't capable of doing it all on your own, not like this.

But Jongup's silent strokes against your cheek were reassuring, his silence that gave you time and space and at the same time didn't request you to explain yourself to him being comforting. He understood how it was getting no rest and feeling like you were failing, even if you weren't. You hated yourself a little bit more for being salty to him previously. He was just trying to make you smile and what did you do? Throw snarky replies. And now you were bothering him with being irrelevantly upset.

"Jongup, I-"

"Shh," before you could object, he simply silenced you, his arms enveloping you in a warm embrace and letting your face bury in his shoulder while his own pressed against your hair tightly, "It's okay. Take a breath."

Being tucked under his chin like this felt safe. He wouldn't judge you. He wouldn't feel disappointed by you if you didn't deliver high enough results. He understood that sometimes you just wanted to chill, not meet up everybody's expectations and such. He knew how being overworked felt, and that made you hold onto him tightly and take some time to just breathe in his scent. He's been there too. He knew it all too well.

"You're more than you give yourself credit for, do you know that?" he quietly asked you, pressing a kiss onto your hair as he rocked the two of you from side to side ever so lightly, "It's alright. You don't have to do everything on your own, you don't have to race to every deadline to make it there on time. It's alright to be tired. It's not alright to push yourself even further down that path though."

"Yah, don't make me feel guilty now," through you still had a mild knot in your throat, you managed to chuckle and ever so lightly smack his shoulder. You could hear his own little chuckle right next to your ear, followed by a small kiss pressed against your temple.

"My goal isn't to make you feel guilty," he pulled away just enough to look into your eyes, his thumb tracing under your eye to wipe away any access tears that might've slipped, "It is to make you respect yourself as much as you respect others. To give yourself breaks when you need them, to not worry so much. The pre-chorus was amazing, I would fiddle around on the verses a little more. Who cares when the deadline is? We'll work on it tomorrow, together, and I'll try to pick up wherever you feel like you're completely lost. If someone in the company tries to hurry you, I'll call them out for it. You're human too. You need time to sleep and breathe, and be happy."

You giggled a little at the idea of Jongup trying to fiercely give a piece of his mind to somebody, simply because it was so unlikely. You rather imagined him awkwardly standing there and talking in a calm voice.. But his words would matter, not the tone or fashion he said them in. Something told you that he would get it sorted for you, even if he himself felt uncomfortable in the situation.

"And you should also realize that you shouldn't get upset about me calling you out for stuff~ Like the fact that you're so wrong when you're trying to tell me you could do just fine without me~"

"Yah, Moon Jongup," you called out and poked him, seeking how that made him chuckle. His nose scrunched up, his eyes became little crescents.. It was a typical Jongup laugh, one of those that made you fall in love with him.

"I mean, you could do without me," he admitted in a serious tone, "But you don't have to. I don't want you to."

The previous feelings long forgotten, you sat in silence and simply looked at each other. This is why you loved him. Everyone always made him out to be the silent guy, the bundle of awkwardness with lack of conversation-holding skills and tons of good looks and talents. But he was also a sincere, charming sweetheart who knew how to motivate and how to calm down. He was so much more than most people saw, and you were glad that you were someone who got to see him how he was.

"Are we just going to sit here in silence now?"

"It's your turn to speak," he reminded you of how the previous conversation had went, his eyes slowly trailing down to your lips, "Or can we end this conversation, agree that I'm right this time around and head to bed right after I kiss you?"

Sneakily played. You wrapped an arm around his neck and tugged him closer. Another fact that not many may knew about him was that he was a great kisser.. But maybe it was better for this knowledge to stay solely with you.

"We can definitely arrange that."

You chuckled as he accidentally pressed a few keys on the keyboard when moving, and quietly smiled at his lips found yours and locked with them effortlessly. The feeling was sweet and bubbly, and addictive to say the least. His arms scooped you up to his lap and you gladly moved there, light huffs and chuckles slipping back and forth through parted lips. His lap was your favorite place to be too, and you wrapped your arms around his neck gladly, letting the moment drag out for longer than first anticipated, just because why not? There was nothing inevitably stressful about the situation anymore, and maybe if there was, you tried not to think of it. For a short moment you could just allow yourself to taste his lips and once again be reminded of the fact that you weren’t alone in your troubles. There was exactly one person who would always hang around and make sure you weren’t going entirely insane.

"I mean, how can you live without that~"

He wiggled his eyebrows, making you roll your eyes at him. For proof, he went in for another quick kiss.

"I was taking about this, if you wondered~"

"You're so annoying," you repeated the phrase from before, putting a finger to his lips before he could make another singing reference to his song. The gesture made his eyes widen in surprise a little, making you look at him with a content smile gracing your lips.

"And I get it, you wrote the song of the century.. I'm proud of you too, my adorable fool."

He only smiled, and tried to withstand you squeaking and squirming as he lifted you off of the couch, leaving everything else behind as he carried you into the direction of the bedroom. Finally heading to get some well-deserved rest.

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