#hey guess who just wrote a fanfic for the first time in over a decade

[dragonmuse]

How to be a Dirtbag Fic Writer

I got to do some talking about writing today and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so here are my full thoughts on the matter of being a dirtbag fic writer.

Being the disorganized thoughts of someone two and a half decades into the beautiful mess that is writing fanfic (and a few non-fanfic things too).

What is a dirtbag fic writer? 

 I am talking about someone who is not cleaning up anything. We show up filthy, fresh out of rooting around in the garden of our imaginations. We probably smell a little from work. We will hand you our hard grown fruits, but we have not washed them and we carried them in the bottom upturned parts of our t-shirts. The fruit is a little bruised. It’s not cut up or put in a bowl yet. But we got it in the house! It’s here. Someone can eat it.  

Why dirtbag it? Because the fruit gets in the house. If you’re hemming and hawing, if the idea you want to do seems to be big or you want it perfect and shiny. If you’re imagining a ten thousand step process, so you’re not taking the first step? Dirtbag it. 

How do I dirtbag? 

That’s the best part. You just write. Sit down. One word after the other. No outline, no plan, no destination. No thought of editing. Just word vomit. Every word is a good word. It’a word that wasn’t there before. Grammar sucks? Who cares. Can’t think of the perfect word? Fuck it, put in the simplest version of what you mean. 

Write the idea that you love. The one thing you want to say. Has it been done 3000000 times? WHO CARES human history is long, every idea has been done, probably more than twice. YOU have never written it before. It’s your grubby potato that you clawed out of the ground and guess what someone can still make it into delicious french fries. 

Now here’s the critical part. Write as much as you can squeeze out of your brain. One word in front of the other. 

And then I challenge you this: at most, read it over once and then put it into the world. Just as it is. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT: DO IT WITHOUT APOLOGY OR CAVEAT.  I challenge you, beautiful dirtbag to not pre-emptively apologize. Do not make your work lesser. THAT IS YOUR POTATO! It has eyes and roots and dirt clinging to it because that is what happens.  We are dirtbagging it today. Hell really confused people at do #dirtbagwriter on it.  

Dirtbag writes id, base, lizard brain. Dig in the fertile garden of your imagination. What is the story you tell yourself before you fall asleep? What’s your anxiety this week? Your fantasy? What is going well? What do you wish things looked like? Who is the feral imaginary character you’ve been crafting to take your frustrations and joys out on? 

But, VEE, I wish to have an editor and an outline, use a cool software like scrivener instead of retching up onto a google doc and making it look NICE and PRETTY!

COOL! DO THAT THEN! IF YOU’RE ACTUALLY DOING IT! You should have a process! That’s cool and healthy and necessary for sustainable writing. But if you’re not writing because all of that seems too much? THEN DON’T. 

Did you know fic is free? That we do this from love? From sheer desire? For the love of the game? If you have a process, and the words are flowing, amazing, I love that for you, you don’t need this essay.  If you don’t, let us continue. 

What does dirtbag writing look like? 

It’s messy. It’s a little raw and tatty around the edges sometimes. It’s weird.  It’s someone else’s first draft. Maybe it winds up being your first draft, Idek, that’s your business. 

It’s jokes that make YOU laugh. It’s drama that would make YOU cry if you read it. You are your first commenter. You are your first audience (and possibly continuing pleasure! If you don’t go back and reread your own work sometimes, you might be missing out on one of your favorite authors cause you wrote it for you! Wait until you’re not so close to it. Years sometimes. Then hey, maybe some of this is pretty dang good actually.) 

It has mistakes. 

Dirtbags make mistakes, but dirtbags have published pieces. They have things other people can read out there. 

What if I don’t get good feedback? 

Look, the most likely outcome of any new, untried fic writer (and even established writers trying something new-ish)  is that you get no feedback. That’s real. Silence. It’s eerie, it’s terrible, it sucks. I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t. But nothing is not negative. It’s a big fic-y ocean out there and we are all wee itty-bitty-sometimes-with-titty fishes.  

You should still do it all over again. And again. And again. You get better at writing by writing. You just do. Nothing else replaces it. If your well is dry? Fill it with new things. Go do something new, read a new kind of book, watch a new film,  (libraries have so much good shit, you don’t even have to spend money for so many things if you have a library card), just go for a walk in a new direction. Stimulate yourself. Got a cup of something hot and eavesdrop on conversations. Refill yourself with newness. 

And hey, speaking of, do you leave comments? Because you get what you give. You can build relationships with people by commenting and that builds community and community means places to get feedback in the end. Comments are gold. They are all we are paid in. Tip your writers with ‘extra kudos’ or ‘this made me laugh’. And hey, when you go back for a re-read so you can tell them your favorite part? Ask yourself how they made that favorite part? What do you like about it?  Tone? Metaphor? The structure? Reading teaches us how to write too! 

BUT, okay. Sometimes. Sometimes there is actual bad feedback and people suck. 

You know the best part about being a dirtbag? Unrepentant block, delete, goodbye. You don’t own anyone with a shitty opinion any of your precious time on this earth. You did it for free, you gave them your dirty, but still delicious fruit and they went ‘ew, this is a dirty strawberry, how could you not make a clean tomato?”  Because you didn’t plant fucking tomatoes, did you? Don’t fight, don’t engage. Block. Delete. Goodbye. 

If someone in person, looked you in the eye when you brought them a plate of food to share at a party and they said “Why didn’t you bring me MY favorite? This isn’t cooked well at all.” You would probably write up a Reddit AiTA question about it just to hear five thousand people say they were an asshole.   Fic is no different 

And hey, when you dirtbag it? You know you did. It’s not your most cleaned up perfect version. So who cares what they think? You might make it more shiny and polished next time! You might NOT. 

Ok, but what if I don’t finish it? 

Fuck it, post it anyway. 

What if it’s bad? 

Fuck it, post it anyway. 

What if it doesn’t make sense? 

That’s ART, baby. Fuck it, post it anyway. 

What if what I want to write doesn’t work with current fandom norms? 

Then someone out there probably needs it!  And what the hell is this? The western canon? FUCK IT POST IT ANYWAY* 

*Basic human decency is not a ‘fandom norm’. Don’t be racist, sexist, ableist, fat shaming, classist or shitty about anyone's identity on main, okay? Dirtbag writers are KIND first and foremost. Someone saying you are stepping into shit about their identity is not the same as unsolicited crappy feedback about pairings. In the immortal words of Kurt Vonnegut: "God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

You’re being very flippant about something that’s scary. 

I know. I know I am. I know it can be scary. But no risk, no reward and hell, you aren’t using your goddamn legal name on the internet are you? (please for the love of fuck do not be using your legal name to write fic) You’ve got on a mask. You’re a superhero. With dirt on your cape. 

That niche thing that you think no one cares about? Guaranteed you will find someone else in the world who wants it. Maybe they won’t find it right away. Maybe they will be too shy to comment or even hit a button. But your dirty potato will stick with them. They will make french fries in their head.

You have an audience. But they can’t find you if you have nothing out there. 

Go forth. Make. 

You have some errors in this essay. 

PROBABLY CAUSE I DIRTBAGGED IT.  But I picked this strawberry for you out of my brain, so I hope you run it under some cold water and find the good bits and have a nice snack. Or throw it away. Or use it to plant more strawberries (I know that’s not how strawberries work, metaphors break when stretched).  

#dirtbagwriter 

Go forth and MAKE

#writing #i'm not an expert #I just have been doing this a long time #and these are my feels #please feel free to throw away this strawberry

[ladymordecai]

I have been reading DC comics fic again for the first time in like . . . a decade-ish? because I'm a masochist, apparently. Finding new stuff and reading old favorites and being reminded of canon and all my thinky thoughts about superheroes and specifically Tim Drake, because he's my Robin and I imprinted (much like he did).

canon has put that boy through the wringer in the last decade, including smushing like, all his tragedies from 15 years of comics into like, ten seconds of comics time. I was reminded of the storyline where his dad found out he was robin and threatened batman into making him give it up, which at the time pissed me off because it was both a clear illustration of what a terrible parent jack drake was (in a way the narrative itself didn't seem to get??), and also because everything about it was so obviously For The Plot.

There was like, nothing in that storyline that I remember that actually came from the characters. It read like the writer or editors or whatever TPTB* decided they wanted to write a story about robin's dad finding out about robin and making him stop**. it's an obvious story for the only robin at the time who wasn't an orphan, and one of few kid heroes whose parents didn't know about them, and also it was Batman and Robin! The Drama! it so clearly had nothing to do with TIM when he should've been the main character, and it made me so angry, and then that anger was compounded because TPTB used it as an excuse to screw over Steph and then make the only non-orphan robin into an orphan, i guess just because. I hated it then, I hate it now.

BUT

I have a lot more perspective now, and have read a lot more (both published work and fanfic), and I have had a thought that I cannot believe I didn't have back then and that I've never heard before anywhere. (which doesn't mean somebody else hasn't had it, i just haven't found it)

One of my core objections about the storyline is that Tim's dad didn't figure out his ID, he just found the Robin uniform in Tim's room. Which is so out of character that it should invalidate the entire storyline.

This is the kid who wore another mask under his mask to prevent his other superhero friends from SEEING HIS FACE--not knowing his ID, just seeing his face. The kid who kept his identity from goddamn ORACLE for a while there. The kid who was able to sneak out and photo-stalk BATMAN AND ROBIN for literal years as a preteen and never get caught. Nobody ever knew anything about Robin III unless Tim made a deliberate decision to reveal the information. This had been a cornerstone of his character for 20+ years. Robin III's secret identity was arguably second only to Oracle's in-universe.

Yet that entire story rested on the idea that Jack Drake, inattentive parent maybe-kinda-misguidedly-authoritarianly trying to connect with his son for the first time ever, snoops in Tim's room and finds proof that Tim is Robin?? AND that Bruce Wayne is Batman?!?? Tim, whose best friends still call him "Rob," left proof of his identity and Batman's somewhere his civilian father could find it??!??!

There is NO WAY THAT MAKES SENSE. There is no version of canon in which that makes sense.

Things that would make sense: Is that old poster of the Flying Graysons how you met the Waynes? or Hey So I Noticed You Have Three Half-Empty First Aid Kits, Talk To Me? or Dad! Did you read my freaking diary and find whatever normal-teenager angst I wrote as a cover and possibly also some real civvie-ID angst mixed in?! Not cool!

OR

Somebody set that up.

That was a freaking supervillain plot.

There's like. No other explanation for what Tim's dad found. Either a supervillain figured out Tim's ID and took him off the playing board in the way most likely to disrupt as many other superheroes as possible, or a supervillain who didn't know Robin's ID mind-controlled him into revealing it for nefarious reasons.

So uh. I really don't want to get into writing DC fic, because I have shit to do that is not that, but SOMEBODY NEEDS TO TELL THAT STORY. Like, either all the characters involved don't contract plot stupidity and thus realize there's something hinky going on, or at some point after that in canon new evidence comes to light or an existing rogue says something suspicious or . . . there's just so many possibilities.

AND THEY'RE ALL MORE INTERESTING AND MORE IN-CHARACTER THAN CANON, DC!!!

(the creators involved in that storyline should feel very very lucky i don't remember who they are and am too lazy to look them up. because i would bring up how bad they are at storytelling every chance i got, forever)

--translations for fandom young'uns and some snark:

*TPTB: the powers that be, shorthand for the vast array of people in charge of multi-creator stories run by companies, such as tv shows, movies, and comics

**Buffy did it better

#tim drake #dc comics #meta #dc comics meta #fic bunny

[zadien]

For the writer meme ask

✨⛔💝❌🏆🎯😬

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

This is my penance for sending this to all the others. Um, okay, second compliment. I write good character dynamics - at least I think that when I write characters as friends it feels believable, like you could see them being friends even if they’ve never interacted in canon.

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

Mmhmm, my profile is full of them from various fandoms. I just momentum or I didn’t have a proper ending in mind. While some are just resting and simmering, not scrapped, just not ready. A lot of my original stuff is like that, sitting in limbo and waiting for when I’m good enough.

💖 What made you start writing?

Short answer: I ran out of books.

Long Answer: When I was a kid, I did not have a lot of books, and I lived miles from other kids my age and just had my brothers for company — and they only ever wanted to play farms. My family were not readers. There were maybe three books my mother had from when she was a child. So I read those. And then I read them again. And I got to an age where I knew the next scene and so that was boring. But I couldn’t get new books. Needed actual things like food and clothes. So I decided, eh, can’t be that hard to write my own stories. So I was like 8 or 9 and writing my own famous five style mystery books with my classmates - who read them and then started to tell me how the story would go, so I deleted them and created a host of new characters who were all friends living on this one street and had these fun adventures. The writing kind of came along with me, I dabbled here and there, but around 16 or so I got even more books, could actually buy my own books, and so I wrote another story that I shared with friends, and then I found the internet and fanfiction and read fanfics and thought, hey I can totally do this too. And here we are.

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

BDSM AU is another I won’t write because I definitely would never want to misrepresent that. It would require a lot of research and I don’t have a lot of time - and I don’t have the characters to place into that dynamic either. I just… actually I’m not even going to try to think because then someone’s gonna want it and like I said, I would never do it justice. I can barely do vanilla. Leave it to the professionals.

🏆 What’s your most popular fic?

Smells Like Team Spirit - at least I think so. Back in the day it was fairly popular. Though what actually makes a fic popular? Like reviews? There’s so much spam bots out there that’s not always a great indicator and comments could be an entire thread of back and forth between two people. Hits don’t mean much and faves could be from decades ago but people haven’t cleaned out their profile, and kudos could be from people who liked the first chapter and can’t remove it. But it’s my personal popular fic in that it’s brought me into contact with so many amazing people and I made some of my best friends though this, people I interact with every day (i bet they regret that now 😆)

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?`

Over the past many many years, probably yeah - do I remember them? Not really. I know from reviews that while reading the recent SLTS chapter that people said they could guess where the plot was going but I’m also hoping that’s because I was sowing little seeds and that they know these characters as well as I do and that’s how these characters would act. Such as the flash mob confession to the prank - clearly the team weren’t going to let one of their own hang for that prank, and I knew that they’d do it, what I didn’t know what that Hilary could come up with the idea. Which I hope surprised people.

I think Saving will be the one where people will guess major plot points - because for SLTS, we all know how it’s going to end, it’s more about the journey. Saving, no one knows how it will go. That’s also scary though because then you worry, will people then think you stole the idea from them rather than it being the natural progression of the plot being laid out. So I’m trying to prewrite as much Saving as I can.

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

Oh the Phoenix and Ember reunion for sure. It’s vanilla smut but even just the idea of makes my skin cold. It’s weird writing it and knowing people I talk to will read it. I’m so weak.

#zadien replies #fanfic asks #luxahheart #This was a lot of fun #also realised the lonely child syndrome worked out okay for me #got a good few years of writing out of it XD.

[onewomancitadel]

Hey, your fanfiction/oneshots are amazing! I’m constantly rereading them because they’re so good lol. i mean, if you want another prompt, here’s one that’s been circling my head recently. Cinder plays videogames for the first time with Jaune. (I’m just saying, she does seem competitive. ;) Imagine how competitive she’ll be playing video games)

Nooo omg thank you T_T sorry I am such a baby about my fanfic, I take it far too seriously. I think sometimes I get sad I don't get many comments but I appreciate people just reading my fic at all, and I think I'm a bit stressed at the moment with uni and I'm projecting it everywhere else. You’re very kind and thank you for your message. I hope you enjoy the fic I ended up writing.

So, er, I took your prompt, didn't know how to write it, then remembered the obsesssion I've had with competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee for a good decade and a bit, and decided to put that to use. Sorrynotsorry. Not intending to represent or portray IRL people who compete, because that would be weird, I just love Melee lol.

I remember there was this extremely popular e-sports Over/watch fic in a fandom I was in, complete juggernaut, and for a long time I’ve always been like wow wish somebody wrote a MELEE fic, why doesn’t someone write a MELEE FIC so that person is me, I’m the one who has to do it. I have also always wished the vagaries of the comp scene were represented properly XDDD

So for some context:

Stock – like a life, you play with four stocks in tournament. Four stocking is beating somebody without losing a life, or dying. Puff is a slightly controversial character, and for a couple of years a very popular player dominated with her (contrary to popular belief Fox is the best and only good character in Melee). I don’t know if there’s anything else to clear up, because the rest is window dressing. Oh, CRTs are those old televisions which are really heavy, but they have no input lag so at in-person events they’re used. I reference some vague type of pandemic cuz it works for the setup of Crimson (OOH WHO IS THAT I WONDER), but just pretend it was Salem’s fault and everything is better now.

Fic title: The strange and intricate dating rituals of the nerd

Tags: author is a loser, author is a nerd, identity porn, finding excuses to make my dollies kiss, otherwise no content warnings. Vague modern AU set in Remnant, around 4,000 words (like a 10 or 20 minute read), oneshot, of course this is Cinder/Jaune, it goes without saying.

Fic summary for this would be:

Completely stupid, nonsensical Melee fan writes a fanfic, using the setting as window-dressing for her two favourite characters to kiss. The elusive Crimson challenges Juniper, or rather, Pyrrha, to a moneymatch.

“Is that legal?” Ren asked. “You can’t have a person as a prize, right?”

“I’m not moneymatching them. It’s alright.” Then Pyrrha looked at her notifications. She had so many Jaune wondered if her phone were hot to the touch. “It must be a joke!” Pyrrha tried.

Fic begins under the cut. This isn’t going on AO3 lol. Hope you enjoy it iressent, I think this fic appeals to only us two.

“How do you even make money off video games?” said Nora. She was dabbing at ketchup on her chin, oddly reminiscent of Weiss.

“I think you stream?” Ren offered.

“Well, yeah, that’s what you do now,” Jaune said. “But like, tournament winnings can sometimes be enough, or at least they used to be, with sponsorships, but yeah, I guess you have to stream now or whatever. I don’t really care though.”

Not like he was ever going to tell his parents he wanted to play Melee for a living. That was never going to happen.

“I think it doesn’t matter if you make money or not, Jaune. I’m sure we’ll both have fun anyway,” Pyrrha said. “This is the biggest tournament in Vale. There’s people coming all over. We might even make friends.”

“What are you gonna do with your tournament winnings, Pyrrha?” said Nora. Pyrrha giggled and shook her head.

“Don’t jinx it, Nora.”

“We’ll come cheer for you both anyway.” Nora and Ren shared a look. They didn’t play, but Jaune and Pyrrha both did, and Pyrrha wasn’t embarrassed about it the way Jaune was. It was like, video games. Taken seriously.

But it was just a weekend tournament, so it was alright. Online was good now, but nothing compared to it in person. Well, maybe not carrying all those heavy CRTs.

“Besides, it’s the first tournament that Crimson’s attending,” Pyrrha said. “Though I think they spelt it with a zero?”

“A zero and an underscore,” Jaune added.

“Very… creative. Though I suppose their Twitter is also… very…”

“Ooh? Gossip?” said Nora. “Show me their Twitter!”

Crimson was not exactly the most popular figure. They had only attended online tournaments, and nobody knew yet how those results compared to in-person tournaments. Rollback was good, but it wasn’t 1:1. Crimson also had made themselves somewhat of an outspoken figure.

“Crimson isn’t Pyrrha’s biggest fan,” Jaune said. Pyrrha was probably the best of them. Easily the best. She’d had tournament wins in Atlas, when Jaune and Pyrrha had accompanied Weiss for that one awful trip home, and as soon as it had been over they’d funnelled Weiss back with them, and then there wins back in Argus, her hometown. Jaune played doubles with her, and he was good support, but he hadn’t won a tournament before.

“I play a character which makes some people upset,” Pyrrha said.

CRIMS0N_ @-crims0n

Anybody who plays puff is cheap lol

errant tim @Hamburgerhelper69

just say you’re jealous of juniper and go

CRIMS0N_ @-crims0n

Sure jealous of that chick who stalls. I’ll moneymatch her idc

querantian @querantrrrrrrrrr

like she’ll moneymatch u,u only play online,even then u only play fox. fox is broken,andu abuse waveshine

CRIMS0N_ @-crims0n

I use Falco sometimes and at least waveshine actually takes effort

Nora looked up from her phone where Pyrrha had linked Crimson’s account. Jaune had never seen Nora look so put off, confused, but also close to losing it.

“Does Crimson just argue with people online all day? And a moneymatch?”

“Pyrrha’s not moneymatching Crimson. That would be a match… for money,” Jaune added.

“About that,” Pyrrha said, and nervously laughed.

A new Tweet had come in just then:

CRIMS0N_ @crims0n

@JNPRoz moneymatch, you win i never use fox again, i win i get your doubles partner jaune

Jaune had been sipping his drink when he read that and choked on it. Ren thumped him on the back.

“Is that legal?” Ren asked. “You can’t have a person as a prize, right?”

“I’m not moneymatching them. It’s alright.” Then Pyrrha looked at her notifications. She had so many Jaune wondered if her phone were hot to the touch. “It must be a joke!” Pyrrha tried.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they’d want me. I’m not even good,” he said, and laughed. “They must just be messing with you.”

Of course, that was when Crimson said they were resolutely not messing around. Pyrrha turned her phone up for Jaune to read it.

“I think you should do it,” he said.

“But you can’t be a human prize.”

“They might not even really mean it. Maybe they just want people to be hyped. Or controversy. All press is good press?”

Crimson’s Twitter was really a testament to that.

“I mean, Vale’s best player versus Mistral’s newcomer who everybody thinks is kind of a troll, it would be cool,” Jaune said.

Pyrrha was considering it. He could see. He felt like the devil on her shoulder. Of course, he could see all the ongoing drama on her phone, but he loathed to check his. They were a good doubles team, but he wasn’t that good, and he didn’t know why Crimson had decided to troll Pyrrha like this. Other than the fact people speculated Jaune and Pyrrha were dating.

Of course, in that case, he would’ve thought Crimson would want Pyrrha, whoever they were. Jaune wasn’t a catch.

It was good drama, anyway. He watched Pyrrha start to type a Twat.

Juniper | Oz @-JNPRoz

I’ll do it. If it’s legal.

-

CRTs really were way too heavy. Like, he understood they had no input lag, but sometimes he missed playing online, because on weekends he could roll out of bed for a tournament with no fuss. Then again, since in-person events had returned, he realised he missed being around people too. He made idle chatter and helped avert a disaster with getting one of the televisions up a narrow staircase to the playing hall.

They had hired out an event centre in the middle of the city, which meant carrying televisions that far for the tournament was one thing, but there was also expensive parking. He and Pyrrha had driven in with their equipment, and now she’d gone to find somewhere cheaper to park.

“Mr. Muscles over here!” Cardin thumped Jaune on the back. Jaune scoffed.

“Yeah, I’m no Mr. Muscles, there are four CRTs at the bottom of the stairs you could help with.”

“Oh, no, I can’t, I’m interviewing people for my channel. Pre-event stuff.”

Jaune noticed the camera guy beside him. Dove? Lark? Jaune couldn’t remember his name. He put his hands on his hips and said, “Well, for documentation purposes, Cardin hasn’t helped bring in a single CRT—”

“And that’s Pyrrha’s doubles partner, everybody!” Cardin cut in and stood in front of him.

“You can just edit me out later anyway.”

“I’m not great at editing,” said the camera guy. “And Cardin doesn’t pay me.”

“You get exposure,” said Cardin.

Jaune didn’t miss people anymore. It had lasted for about ten minutes. It was the height of summer, and the hall was already starting to stink up with heat. Unfortunately, he also knew Cardin didn’t wear deodorant. He could also smell the absence of it, his pungent body odour like the opposite of a pheromone. Maybe it was for the best Cardin wasn’t helping.

Jaune rolled his eyes. He hoped Cardin would go away, but instead he found a new victim lurking by the backdoor entryway.

“Well, hello there!”

Jaune followed him. There was a girl standing by the doorway, too nicely dressed for a Melee event, her black hair wavy and thick. She wore an eyepatch over her right eye, and she was, in want of a better word, maybe something more specific to capture her, beautiful.

He immediately felt pity for her. Cardin was bad enough around him.

“Cardin, can you go annoy somebody else? Or make yourself useful?” he said from behind Cardin, but Cardin ignored him.

“And who might you be? Are you someone’s girlfriend? Did you get lost?”

“He doesn’t represent us,” Jaune said to her. “I mean that literally, I don’t think anybody watches his videos. Cardin, go away.”

Jaune slipped past her to go fetch more of the CRTs. When he did, she felt hot, hotter than summer. He was not, in Cardin’s words, here ‘to pick up chicks’. He was here to win. Well, watch Pyrrha win. These events were about the game. Plus it was the one time he didn’t feel like a complete loser.

What he was also here doing was picking up CRTs. Not a date. Which he was currently struggling with. He was about to start crying for help, until the girl appeared again and took the other end wordlessly. They lifted it up at once, and went up the stairs, her first.

“You’ve got it?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m good, just minding the stairs.” They went carefully, because if it dropped, it would be a complete nightmare. “Cardin leave you alone?” he puffed out.

“You should watch his video when he uploads it.”

They made it to the top and navigated their way to where it was supposed to go for the pools. Jaune laughed. “I don’t think even Cardin’s mom watches his videos.”

She made a pitying noise. “Aw, but he works so hard. What with paying his friends so well.”’

He couldn’t help laughing again.

Jaune let the others setting up take over and went back to grab the next one. Only a few left.

She was funny. He didn’t feel so bad about having to carry the televisions in the heat, now. The event hall was starting to fill up with people trickling in the front, probably hoping to play exhibition matches before the event proper started. Jaune had got up way too early for this day. At least it hadn’t been so hot then.

“So you’re here for the tournament?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and smiled, like she had a secret. He tried really hard not to check her out. He was here for the game. But she had a curvy waist, and a sundress on like she had just walked in from a spring picnic, not a sweltering summer day. She was lovely, in that type of way he wasn’t used to: a pair of glittering earrings on, a smear of lip-gloss, slightly flushed cheeks, the floral print of her dress matching her eye, a dusty blue to complement the oddly sweet, fiery orange.

“Well, good luck. But most of all have fun,” he said. “I just like being around everybody here. Not that I’m any good at the game! Well, I’m no tournament winner.” Then he awkwardly laughed and ran his hand through his hair.

He expected her to turn and go, but she tilted her head at him. “Aren’t you Juniper’s doubles partner? You won the Atlas tournament before everything went online, and before that, all of Vale’s.”

“Well, yeah, but that was mostly Pyrrha,” he said. “I don’t place as well in singles.”

“But you did. You came second in Atlas.”

“I don’t think they’re that great over in Atlas, to tell you the truth. Metagame is so different here. But with online I think they’re getting better.”

“Yes, online,” she said. “You don’t think it’s corrupting the game?”

“If you can’t carry a heavy CRT, can you really call yourself a Melee player?”

She seemed to like that. Her smile was pretty. It was sort of mean, and almost a smirk, but it was pretty. “I can’t imagine Cardin would like that. But you and I managed well enough with them. Let’s say we take the rest?”

Jaune liked the sound of that. Tournaments were cool, but nobody liked the set-up, or the expensive food, or the hotel prices. Or Cardin interviewing people for his shitty channel. Or, for that matter, Cardin swindling them out of a dinner fare. It was nice to think about being near everybody again, but it was all about the game.

Of course, Jaune was a fucking idiot and had a crush now.

“I didn’t get your name,” he said. “I feel like if I drop a television on you, I should at least know your name.”

“Cinder,” she said. “You’re Jaune.”

“Just Jaune,” he said and shrugged.

-

Jaune played pools, since the transition back from online events meant they wanted everybody to qualify again, previous wins or no. His Marth was pretty good, and it’s not like he had picked Marth to start with because he was the pretty swordsman— he liked the way he played— but it’s not like it had nothing to do with it. Marth felt smoother to him than Fox, but even the vanguard of Foxes, Crimson, seemed to have a thing for defending him and the matchup.

He found it kind of obtusely funny.

The tournament went on and he mostly focussed on the sets, ignoring Cardin between games and keeping to himself. He didn’t end up talking to anybody much, and he progressed through the Losers' bracket after one loss to a slippy Fox. He had the poor luck of facing Cardin, who threw his controller when he lost, and refused to fist-bump at the end of the match.

Jaune’s fist remained in the air just for a second or two longer than he should have. He went to the next match. By the time Jaune tuned in, the Winners’ Bracket final was taking place. Whoever won this he would face next.

It was Crimson versus Juniper.

And it was Cinder, the girl with whom he’d spoken earlier. She was lazily stretching in her chair, ignoring Pyrrha talking to her, until she blankly nodded at whatever she had said. Cinder was Crimson. Crimson, who thought Pyrrha was cheap, and spent too much time on Twitter, the Mistrali troll, who entirely been anonymous until Cinder had flounced in wearing a sundress and lip-gloss and helped him carry the stupidly heavy CRTs.

He had to hide his laugh, because nobody else would understand. Crimson, who wanted to win him in a moneymatch.

Which meant either she had an interest in him, or she really, really wanted to mess with Pyrrha. It was probably the latter. It had to be the latter. That must have been why she was coy and sweet with him, and fluffed up his Smash skills. He was glad he hadn’t preened before her. He didn’t fall for that type of sweet talk. But she was pretty, and funny, and he had liked talking to her when he had been hot and annoyed.

It’s not like he and Pyrrha were dating anyway, though. Crimson wasn’t going to manipulate or upset Pyrrha the way she thought she could. They were good friends, sure, but it’s not like Pyrrha had feelings for him or anything, and it’s not like Jaune was her doubles partner to worm his way into dating her. They liked playing together.

And Crimson had taken messing with Pyrrha too far.

He sat down in the audience to watch the match. He didn’t know what he expected. Crimson went Fox, Juniper went Puff, and then it was match, set and ready. The commentators were annoying and kept going on about Crimson’s playstyle, which was so aggressive they couldn’t keep up with her movement, and then they were bringing up how surprising it was she managed at all to be good offline, and then they brought up the moneymatch. Everybody knew about the moneymatch.

“Like, it’s obviously to fuck with Juniper,” said one of the commentators.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah but like, is it even allowed?”

“I think it’s just to— whoa, Crimson just suicided, did she do that just to avoid Juniper taking a stock? Oh man— yeah I think it’s allowed in the spirit of him playing doubles with her but does Juniper even have a back-up? She could probably play doubles by herself—”

“Just her going whomp on everybody—”

“Uh, did Juniper just lose?”

“I think she did, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Pyrrha did lose. It was close. Their last set, Crimson had nearly four-stocked Pyrrha— she didn’t die, not once, and then on Pyrrha’s last stock she suicided. Three times. So they were even.

“Wow, that is so unsportsmanlike,” said the second commentator. She was really, sincerely, trying to mess with Pyrrha. Jaune didn’t have any doubts then. When Crimson won, nobody even cheered, but there was a lot of yelling. Crimson, or Cinder, he supposed, fist-bumped Pyrrha, and looked happy, despite all the drama.

It was good drama, he gave her that.

“So wait, is Finals— wait is the Grand Finals Jaune against Crimson? Juniper’s knocked out? That’s it?”

“Holy shit. Jaune? He came second in Atlas, right? In singles? But Crimson just beat Vale’s best player. This is crazy, man. Is the moneymatch after this?”

“I don’t wanna be the guy taking bets on that.”

Jaune now had Vale’s hopes pinned on him, and the fan-favourite was out. He put his head in his hands. Before he could grow too maudlin, he decided he would catch Crimson. He pushed past sweaty fans and navigated through throngs of people complaining about Pyrrha’s loss, and ignored the ones who tried to talk to him, as he searched for that head of black hair and pretty, tight waist. The troll from Mistral.

“Hey, whoa, hey,” he called ahead to her, both of them now in the quiet hallway out from the main hall. There was a place for drinks nearby, which was where she was probably heading.

“Good matches?” she asked, as if she had not just won hers.

“Cardin had a tantrum when he lost. What about you, though?” he said, barely containing the confusing swell of interest and annoyance he felt. “I hear you beat Juniper, Crimson.”

She crossed her arms, and then kept walking. She didn’t go for the drinks, but instead there was a small, rickety door which opened out to an unstable set of stairs into an alleyway. He could hear the sounds of the city, and felt the heat not having let up yet, only just getting started. She went down and he followed her.

“You are not doing the moneymatch! Or at least change the terms!” he burst out.

“But it’s funny,” she said.

“Okay, sure, it’s funny, but Pyrrha and I are real people, not circus entertainment. You could’ve at least just made it about money and not winning me. People would’ve still enjoyed it, if that’s what you wanted.”

She was watching him, bored. “I don’t want money.”

“I know you want to embarrass Pyrrha, but we’re not dating, and I’m pretty sure everybody on Twitter is now convinced we’re dating. Pyrrha only took the moneymatch because of my persuasion, but this is out of hand,” he said. “Especially because— I talked to you for a bit before— I knew who you were. You were…”

But she was confused now, and her one-eyed gaze was hard. “What? I was what?”

He said, kind of pathetically and kind of miserably, “You were nice. I always thought Crimson was funny, and they always defended Marth, and I wondered if Crimson were really that mean. And then I met you, and you were pretty, and it was so hot carrying in all of those TV’s, and you made me laugh. And then I find out you were just probably talking to me like that because you were messing with Pyrrha, with your weird one-sided rivalry. Pyrrha doesn’t even think Crimson is a bad person!”

Cinder was quiet, her mouth pouted. “You think I’m pretty?”

“That’s not the takeaway I wanted there!”

She laughed, but it was short. “I thought it would spice things up a little. It’s just talking smack. And I think you’re cute, anyway.”

“No, you don’t,” he snapped. “You’re messing with Pyrrha.”

“Oh, come on. I wouldn’t go that far. I just wanted people to see you were a good player, and somebody wanted you. I could have just asked for her as a doubles partner instead.”

“I’m not that good.” Now he was blushing. Why did she make him blush? It wasn’t fair. It was already so hot. The wind blew, and it didn’t cool him down at all, but he caught the smell of her perfume: bright, like violets, without being too sharp.

“I like the way you play. It’s understated, yet elegant. I played for a long time before I turned up on the scene, and it takes a longer than people think to get good. But you just play. And you play well. You always seem like you have fun,” she said. Then she shrugged one shoulder, coy.

“I never wanted to use the tournaments to hook up with someone, you know. That was like, my one rule going in, not to be a loser who immediately hits on the nearest girl.”

“If it makes you feel better, I did it first. If challenging Juniper for you in a moneymatch counts.”

It was sort of horrible, but he laughed anyway. “Like what, you’re some sort of knight fighting for my hand?”

“In a video game,” she said, and then he couldn’t help laughing again, and he watched her sweet little laugh too. She talked smack online and could be kind of mean for no reason at all, but he liked her. Then she added, “And besides. Pyrrha needs somebody around to challenge her.”

“Pyrrha just wants to play the game, too, you know.”

“I know,” she said. “But would people have anything to talk about if I weren’t causing trouble? Besides, I don’t think Pyrrha likes the fame much.”

“Being Internet famous was not her idea of a good time, no.”

“So why don’t we put on a show for her,” said Cinder. “And tell her she played well. She didn’t even camp once.”

Jaune shook his head. “Do you actually not like Pyrrha?”

“She’s something different. The only problem for a long time is that nobody had practice against her, because nobody else played Puff. But now we do. So who knows.”

Their matches were good. Jaune wanted to make Pyrrha happy more than anything, and in the end, he had fun. Cinder won. It was close.

When he fist-bumped her, her smile was that same half-smirk, but she seemed delighted. Cardin came over to interview her for her win, and said, “So Crimson’s a chick! Can you confirm, are you trying to steal Jaune from Juniper?”

“Yes,” she said, which must have been to fuck with him.

Cardin hooted, “Moneymatch! Moneymatch! Moneymatch!” but Jaune wanted to tell him Cinder probably already had won him, moneymatch or no.

Pyrrha came over to him and said, “I think you played very well, Jaune. I know you had a lot of pressure riding on that.”

“It’s okay, at least it wasn’t on you. By the way, about that moneymatch… Crimson, or, well, Cinder, said she wants to change the terms. If you win, she won’t say any stupid stuff on Twitter for a whole month, and if she wins, you have to give yourself a break for a week.”

Pyrrha scrutinised him. “What did you do?”

“I did a little investigation work. And, well, I met her before I figured out she was Crimson.” Jaune rolled up his controller and went to make his way out for the post-game talks.

“I thought your rule was no hitting on girls at tournaments?”

“She started it,” he said.

“She did, didn’t she?” Then she laughed. “Wait, she wasn’t trying to be horrible to me? She was just…”

“Extremely awkwardly and weirdly trying to ask me out, yes.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“I know,” he said, dreamy. He had been checking Cinder out when he shouldn’t have, though, so they were even. He didn’t say that part aloud.

By the time it had grown dark, he searched for Cinder. “We need to pack up and go,” he said to her, “but do you need a lift to your hotel or something?”

“It’s not far from here,” she said.

“Do you want me to walk you back?”

She tilted her head at him. “Don’t you think it’s a bad look, going back to the hotel room of your doubles partner’s virtual enemy?”

“What, because you talked shit online or because people will think we’re sleeping together?”

“Oh, think we’re sleeping together,” and then she smiled meanly.

“Depends how long you’re in Vale for.”

Cinder was, in fact, in Vale for longer than the tournament. They were able to catch Cardin’s video uploaded together, which didn’t have any cuts and ran for twenty minutes.

Cinder hummed to herself. “You looked exceptionally handsome carrying all of those heavy TVs. I’m sure that’s gender regressive of me.”

“Yeah, but you helped, so I think it’s alright.”

They got to the part where Cardin was buzzing Cinder, and she was in an argument with the camera guy about the moneymatch and Pyrrha definitely winning, before Cinder said, “I intend to fuck him, if you really want to know. Not play doubles with him,” and then Cardin had gasped and told his editor to cut the profanity, which he had failed to do so.

Jaune tried to be subtle, but where his hand was on Cinder’s waist was not so, he knew. “I didn’t know that.”

“I came to the conclusion once I got there at the tournament, in case you’re worried.”

“Yeah, that’s fair, it was the same for me.” He hid his laugh into her smooth shoulder, then he kissed her, and up her neck, to kiss her on her full mouth.

-

CRIMS0N_ @-crims0n

sorry I talked so much smack at you @JNPRoz that was a fun moneymatch. promise I wont say anything mean even tho you lost lol. enjoy your break

Seagull @seagul2222

Its ‘you’re’

Juniper | Oz @-JNPRoz

Thanks Crimson. It was fun! I look forward to you coming to Vale again, though I think Jaune might too… I’ll beat you next time! <3 (:

#my bad fanfic #ask #user: iressent #cinder/jaune #I don't want people in the main tag reading this lolololol #please dont judge me.

[alexlabhont]

I didn’t mean to fall in love with you

Chapter ten

Book: Queen B - Choices (Universe)

Pairing:  Poppy Min-Sinclair x Trans!Male MC (Beck Hughes)

Genre: Canon re-write (Because I can)

Rating: Anyone can read it, really

Tags: @dopeyouth @theymakemegayer @save-me-the-last-dance @poppysmc (If anyone want to be tagged in or removed, just tell me)

This is me trying to write by and for the Trans community, specially FTM community, meaning, trans guys, but I actually took the liberty to use They/them pronouns for everyone out there who´s interested (Also, the name Beck was the most neutral one I could find, trying to use the cannon Bea Hughes)

If you have any comment, PLEASE BE RESPECTFULL and patient with me. This is also my first english fanfic and english is not my mother language, so… i’m sorry fo the grammar errors. I also installed recently Grammary, so… hope its worth it.

CHAPTERS

Chapter nine

ONE-SHOTS

Just a dance (Zoey x MC)

——————————————————————

Poppy:

See you then, tushi face 😉

She wrote on her phone, knowing very well what It meant: She succeeded. Again.

That was the very first time Beck had actually asked her out, which was a sign that every single move worked just right; nothing to be surprised though, she was pretty damn fabulous and she wouldn't pretend otherwise. 

"It took you a while, actually." Veronica said later that day when Poppy reached out to their friends at the fraternity house. "Nor even Carter gave you so much trouble."

"Carter is just an immature boy who thought a pretty girl plus a gigantic football player were just meant to be." The blonde responded with a snap. "Beck's slightly different, they didn't care for a face. The trick is to be yourself, but not too much. It took me a while to figure that out, but now that I get it, that one is mine to be borrowed." A strange feeling of satisfaction filled her, making her smile at that thought.

"But... have you guys fuck?" Chloe asked suddenly with a confused gaze, Poppy couldn't help but roll her eyes as hard as she could while she felt how both of her friends were watching her, gosh, even Veronica left the phone aside just for that question.

"What the hell, Chloe? Not everything's about sex, you whore." 

"Are you serious?" She heard her brunette friend said, intrigued. Poppy could smell the problems that what she just said was about to bring. There it was one simple rule: If Poppy wants it, Poppy has it, and it has been like this since ever. So yeah, that matter was definitely weird. "Why? Don't you tell me you're too afraid to do it."

"Of course not!" She said angrily. "I did my research, and fucking Beck’s no different from any other experience I've had. I think it is them who's not ready..." A tiny hint of concern showed up in Poppy's voice without helping it. Of course she noticed it! The relief coming from their eyes when Zoey walked into both of them, as if they were scared, and being caught in the middle was a much better option than to actually do it. She was so offended by it that she told them she had something to do and disappeared from there.

"I think it might have something to do with their life back at Farmsville. I don't know what it is, but if I get to sleep with them, I know I'd have won. That's the next step." Poppy said, taking a ballpen from her desk to write down her new goal, she was that kind of girl who loved to put her ideas on paper to think them through. 

"So… You're counting on gain their trust enough to fuck them to finally control them?" Veronica pointed out, looking at Poppy as if she was a mad.

"Exactly… And all I need is tomorrow morning. It needs to be perfect and I have just the thing for it." a smirk showed off on her face, the determination of winning was written down on every single muscle of her body.

“Don’t you think you’re putting a lot more effort into it than it’s needed?” Chloe asked again.

“Mind your own business and let me do the planning, Chloe. After all, we know you forgot to pay your brain bill.” 

The bitch-y mode was on. She hated when she was being questioned about her actions especially when Poppy knew that everything she has been doing was necessary to achieve a goal; her enemy was powerful, she just had to see the rankings to realize it, Beck climbed as easy as the wind, doing things in this short time than a lot of people couldn’t do in years being here and they didn’t seem as trying. She needed to have them next to her for control.

Or at least, that's what she was telling herself. Something deep down her core murmured something else, something that might be too scary to admit, so she won’t. Never. However, that went down to the trash when she saw Beck the next day. It wasn’t their looks at all, actually, it was on point as always even though it was casual; the problem was her. Poppy could feel her heart becoming warm to the sight of that stupid lamb look of theirs with that sexy yet cute fucking smile they gave her. A little red alarm sounded in her head, but it wasn’t that big of a deal, so she shoved it down.

"Hey" Beck greeted her. "You made it."

"Of course I did, I have a driver for my needs. What are we doing here?" 

Beck asked her to meet them at Whitehall street at nine sharp, but they didn't tell her what to expect, so Poppy was rather curious. Beck put his hands in his pockets, raising an eyebrow playfully.

"Yeah, sure… You have money and stuff, but… have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty from a helicopter?" Poppy's eyes went wide open, she was frankly surprised, how did they manage to get that? Wasn't Beck poor? It had to do with their YouTube account?

"No." She managed to say, trying not to sound so amazed; that was a pretty impressive idea, not going to lie.

"Well— Today is not the day you'd get to do it, because we're taking the ferry." Gosh, she should have seen this coming.

"You're such an idiot." She pointed, irritated by having been fooled like that. "Wait, what ferry are we taking?"

"That one." The strawberry blond could have sworn a mischievous spark lighted up Beck's eyes as they pointed at an awful orange ship coming to shore, that ferry looked so old that maybe it saw her grandmother born and grow.

"What?! There is no way in hell I'll be onto that thing."

"Oh, come on, Popps. Don't talk about it like that. The Staten Island Ferry is full of a butch of history on its own. It's the door to new experiences!"

"Like death?"

"It's totally safe." Beck replied chuckling. "And free."

"Whatever you say, I'm going home." She tried to go, but Beck's hand took her by the arm with a delicate touch.

"Give us a chance, just one chance —well, maybe two actually— but I promise you won't regret it."

Poppy turned to see them, still not sure about any of it. She had never been on that ferry, and she didn't care too much about it anyway when the destination was Staten Island. She didn't know what was their motivation to go to the most boring part of all New York, but that fucking face of theirs! Sometimes she wished they weren't that good-looking.

"I swear to God, Beck if something happens to me or my outfit I'll kill you and your entire music career."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Cruella."

They waited for a few minutes to get on the ferry, but once both were there, Poppy couldn't help but cling herself to Beck's arm. Truth be told, she hated boats. A lot. Once when she was a kid she fell from one of those little keels into the lake, and when she tried to come out, Poppy discovered that the boat was right above her head. She literally had nightmares about that day, especially on rainy days. With the time Poppy got to overcome that fear and now she loved to be invited to yacht parties —with the rightful security system, clearly—, but that ferry was ancient for god knows how many decades, and it being free was a bad forerunner to her, how many drowned people were behind all its story?

She jumped when the ferry started to move into the waters, the surprise was so much that her nails dug their way into Beck's clothes, reaching for the skin.

"Ouch! That fucking hurts!" 

"Good." 

Beck didn't say a thing after that, they were more focused on the shore as if they were waiting for something to happen back there. Then, after a while they smiled.

"Now that's a view." They said with a wide grin on their face. "Turn around." Poppy, who was too busy looking at the Upper Bay and thinking how awful would be to fall from there, suddenly found herself being turned over by Beck to the other side of the ship. 

And what she saw was spectacular.

Maybe it wasn't from a helicopter at all, but getting to see that part of the Statue of Liberty going far and far away from them both was incredible, a breathtaking picture that she had never appreciated until that day. Unexpectedly that made her think about how much she was missing even after living in New York a while now: The smell of the ocean, the sea breeze hitting softly in her face, the sun illuminated the statue and the clouds behind it. It was like a painting coming out alive.

"It's beautiful…" she whispered without her noticing it until it was outside her mouth.

"Definitely it is…" Poppy heard Beck mumbled, so she looked at them almost immediately. Maybe it was one of those moments in movies where Beck would talk about her and not exactly the panorama, but no. Beck's eyes were glued to the sculpture. For a moment she felt disappointed, but then she caught a glimpse of blush into their cheeks and tension in their lips proving her that she wasn't wrong. Yes, definitely they were talking about her.

"I know it doesn't look as fancy as the other ferries, but… this is why it's worth the while. And I have to admit that watching it with you was so much better than doing it alone, so... thank you."

“Why?"

"For trusting in me." They said. Poppy stopped a little, thinking through those words. 

"I guess I like you more than I thought." She then replied. The weird thing? The blonde actually meant what she said. But that didn’t mean anything, Beck was not as lame as she thought, no big deal, right?

Both spent a while like that, quiet but freely relaxed, looking at what the ocean had to offer. She didn't recall the exact moment when she started to do it, but at one point she laid down her head, resting it on Beck's shoulder while they hugged by the waist, it was as if in that exact moment nothing else mattered; she didn’t have to think about her obligations, about popularity, about pretending . The ride was about twenty-five minutes long but for some reason, they went very fast. She almost was disappointed when it came to an end until she remembered there was only one way back.

“So now what? We wait for the next ferry?”

Beck raised an eyebrow.

"Do you really think we came all the way here because of one ride?"

"Beck, is Staten Island. What else could you do?" 

"Damn, Poppy. I'm starting to think you're too boring on your own." Beck teased

" What if you stop saying bullshit and tell me what do you have planned from now on instead?" Beck smiled as if they were waiting for that question.

"Come with and find out." That cursed smirk of theirs came as a challenge, while Beck started to walk towards the bus stop.

God, this was going to be terrible.

________

Next

#poppy min sinclair #queen b choices #poppy x mc #choices stories you play #choices #choices poppy #bea hughes #mc x poppy #beck hughes #choices queen b mc #trans #ftm

[catsafarithewriter]

Hey there! Can you recommend some good Haru/Baron fics? Btw, I've been reading yours and its awesome 💕

Sure thing, I’m always up for spreading the fandom love! I’ll be recommending between both AO3 and FFnet - our fandom is older than AO3, the fandom originated mostly on FFnet - actually, here’s a rundown of the writers who shaped the early fandom: 

YarningChick: The Big Name Writer. Over 50 TCR stories. Her stories are actually what made me realise fanfic could be hella decent, and the reason I started writing TCR fanfic. Most older fans will be familiar with her work, and her influence is pretty wide-reaching across the fandom. Her earlier stories are predominantly fluffy fairytale stories, but her more recent stories are darker and longer in comparison. 

Grignard: Was in the fandom about a decade ago, has mostly branched out into others now, but I still remember being hella excited when they wrote a new fanfic in 2013. 7 TCR fanfics, mostly fairytales. 

fringeperson: Also was in the fandom over a decade ago, wrote 30 TCR fics. Their stories are mostly oneshots and short multichaptered fics - the latter either fairytale AUs or sequels. 

There’s a big skew towards fairytale AUs, thanks to the influence of the early fandom writers, so that gets its own category, but most of the authors I mention below have written multiple stories for the fandom and/or are active members of the fandom. Please support them and leave reviews!

More recommendations of my personal favourites below the cut!

[EDIT: Tumblr hates my read mores, so just imagine there’s a “read more now” option here and not stuck in the ask.] 

FAIRYTALE AUs:

Falling From Grace? by fringeperson. Summary: The simple fact of the matter was that to be the only ex-human in the court of the Cat King was not a safe position. Especially when His Majesty's mental capacities are deteriorating. Chapters: 11. Words: 12K

The Reluctant Royal by Grignard. Summary: Haru  must complete three impossible tasks given by her Uncle, the King, while assisted by the mysterious Baron. Chapters: 5. Words: 13K

Till Next We Meet by ArtsyChick. Summary: Two men compete in a race against time to discover where four lovely princesses disappear in the night. The prize: one lovely princess bride. Chapters: 20. Words: 29K

Shades of Green by YarningChick. Summary: Life can be really tough when you're a witch, green, and happen to be despised by everyone that even hears of you. Chapters: 39. Words: 50K

MULTICHAPTERED FICS:

A Cat’s Repayment by Elz Durden. Summary: It began with a cursed candy. Don't the best stories? (Cat’s Note: basically a Ghibli cameo story, light-hearted and feels like reading Stardust. Go read!) Chapters: 15. Words: 33K

Engel’s Zimmer by Pashleyy. Summary: Haru, a senior in high school, bumbles upon the memory of her dearly beloved friend and visits him years after they last met. But what she finds is a nightmare beyond any warm and cozy Bureau. Chapters: 10. Words: 18K

Soul Searching by Ana the Romantic. Summary: It seems like it's always another day, another adventure for the bureau. Now that Haru has become a member and joining the adventures she and Baron only grow closer. But what happens when a new kingdom comes into play? Not to mention a new princess? (Cat’s Note: This was the first TCR fanfic I ever read, and it has a special place in my heart for it.) Chapters: 14. Words: 40K

Chaos & Change by QueenHeadphones Summary: It's Haru's first day working alongside The Cat Bureau, serving a very important role that has them depending on her. Although she's taken every precaution to prepare as much as she can, she'll find that some things can't be planned for. Chapters: 5. Words: 18K

To Know Oneself by YarningChick Summary: Sometimes, in order to find out who you truly are, you need to break a few rules. Or as many as possible; whichever works. (Gotta fit a YC story in here somewhere!) Chapters: 29. Words: 156K

ONESHOTS:

Groundhogs and Russian Dolls by deedeeflowers Summary: Russian Doll AU. For the 2019 Birthday Bash. Haru is stuck in a time loop which keeps ending in her death and has to find out why. Far less dark than it sounds, seriously just go check out all deedeeflowers’ Birthday Bash work. Words: 7K.

Bittersweet Cinnamon by Sindy Sugar. Summary: Haru didn't know what to expect when she moved into her family's old home by herself. She had hoped for some peace from recent events. The last thing Haru expected was to be revisited by two familiar cats she thought she long forgotten. One-Shot AU. Horror. Words: 14K

One Last Cup of Tea by thedrunkenwerewolf Summary: Her adventure with the Bureau in the Cat Kingdom over, Baron has to let Haru go back to her own life in her own world. The only problem is, as soon as she does, she'll forget. Shortfic. AU. Angst. Words: 500

One Hit Wonders by YarningChick. Summary: The new home for my Cat Returns one-shots, two-shots, deleted scenes, and ideas that never evolved into a full-fledged story.

So, You Summoned the Ghost of Your Ancestors by Rowena Bensel Summary: [Written for the TCR Secret Santa 2019] Hiromi's best friend is a paranormal investigator, but she never really believed in ghosts and such. When she and her fiance find a ritual to summon their ancestors, they figure it wouldn't hurt to try it out. After all, there's no such thing as ghosts, right? Words: 2K

the happiness i’ve found with you by BookRookie12 Summary: He doesn't know how long this will last. He doesn't know if, when it ends, he'll ever see her again. But they've made sure he'll remember her forever, and isn't that kind of love enough by itself? Borrower AU. One-shot. Words: 2K

The Incident by Chaos Valkyrie. Summary: The Incident. That would go down in Feline Infamy forever. And will never be spoken of again. EVER. A humor fic. Words: 900

Cinderella by Nanenna Summary: When the king decides to hold a royal ball in his son's honor to which every eligible young lady in the kingdom is invited, it's not hard to guess just what his aim really is. Not that such things matter to Haru, she just wants to have a night off for once. Words: 6K

Haru at the Theater by Casandravus Summary: A regular member of her local theater troupe, Haru's been cast as the beautiful Christine Daaé - but on opening night, there's not a Phantom (or his understudy) to be seen... Words: 2K

New Eyes and Extra Color by Kangoo Summary: Hiromi has known Haru for so long, it's easy to notice all the little ways she's changed lately.

The Lady or the Tiger by StripedSunhat Summary: By the time Hiromi realizes the truth she’s already been gone for more than a year. Haru is gone. Hiromi is left picking up the pieces, sorting through them for the truth. Haru is gone. Hiromi is left, trying figure out what the truth is worth. Haru is gone. 7K

#Anon #replies #yes fairytales get their own category #cause fairytale aus are a big thing in this fandom #also uh I kinda got carried away and listed a lot XD #fanfic rec #fanfic recommendations #also there's apparently a lot of oneshots I love #the cat returns #let me knovv your fav stories folks!

[itsnina-bitch]

The podcast part 1

Summary: Bucky and Nat start a podcast on murder mysteries

Warnings: mentions of murder, I don’t even know if this is considered angst, fluff, the f word once or twice, this is my first fanfic so I hope you enjoy it!

(R/P)= random person

It started when Steve and Bucky started listening to a podcast on the 2000s and everything they missed

Not only did they listen to them EVERYWHERE it was about literally everything

Like EVERYTHING

Including murder mysteries

Which weren’t always correct

And that annoyed Bucky, mostly because he knew that HYDRA was the one to blame, not some brainwashed person

Sometimes Natasha would join them, mostly to point out the many mistakes

To quote Steve “Why don’t you two create your own podcast?”

He was mostly kidding

But they thought it was a pretty good idea

So the two most dangerous ex-assassins decided to correct them

That’s how “Murders explained” was born

They’re first episode was a bit awkward

Who am I kidding

It was extremely awkward

But after a few episodes and a few coffees together they started to understand each other better

Their past with the red room and HYDRA, stories of their past and script writing

Though Bucky didn’t remember his past with her, there was something really familiar about her

But Nat couldn’t say her memory of him is crystal clear either

It became blurry, and she was ok with him not remembering

She wasn’t sure if she even wanted him to

But “Murders explained” was still going strong

Nat wrote most the scripts with some advice from him and Bucky tried to find people who could give them the extra information

Once, they got Clint to help them

It didn’t go very well

He spent half the episode saying that he shipped them and the other half asking questions

Though once they got a HYDRA fugitive to give them and the audience information of how HYDRA goes unnoticed when they commit crimes

It was one of their most successful episodes

But the number one most viewed was a 12 second one

“So today we’ll talk about (R/P)’s murder. We think it was-“

“It was me”

And then the end music started playing after Bucky

The next episode was Bucky and Nat clearing up their past and how they were trained to be a living weapon and how HYDRA and the red room where involved

It was a pretty emotional episode, but their voices kept the same tone and you couldn’t tell they where traumatized by the experiences

After they finished recording, they just stared at each other without saying a word

It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence

They just stayed still grateful that somebody understood them

Eventually Tony called them to eat

Most of the avengers where talking about missions, ideas, projects and all of that kind of stuff

But they remained quiet

Until they just stared at each other

As if they were having a mental conversation

Clint was the first to notice something was happening; he made a mental note to ask what had happened

Steve eventually caught up, and tried to include them in the conversation, which didn’t really help

After what felt like hours the dinner was over

Clint immediately ask what was going on

He didn’t know of the past she and Bucky shared together

Clint thought it was just a one-time thing

She responded with “We where just thinking of ideas for the next episode”

“How, telepathy?”

He didn’t believe her for one second, but he didn’t push it

Steve also asked his best friend if he was ok

“Do I know her? She just looks so familiar...”

Bucky asked, but he didn’t have an answer

Later that night, Nat could sleep

It wasn’t too big of a deal, so she decided to go to the kitchen to eat something

When she got there, she was sure she was alone

“Tea?”

Said a voice behind her

Bucky and Clint where the only avengers that could sneak up on her without her noticing

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer my question”

She turned to him and nodded

He felt her stare on him as he prepared tea, but he didn’t mind

“So you’re just gonna keep starring at me?”

Natasha couldn’t deny he wasn’t hot and a complete sweetheart

“Shut up Barnes” she said turning to the frige

Both of them weren’t sleepy, so they decided on watching a movie in the living room while drinking their camomile tea

Through out the movie she realized he was staring at her

“So are you liking the movie?”

Without looking away from her, he asked “why does it feel like I’ve met you before?”

Natasha knew one day this would happen, especially now that they were really close friends

She stiffend up at the questions, but she tried to sound casual

“We’ve met in a mission before”

“No, something else. You look so familiar”

“James, are you sure?”

Now it was his turn to freeze

Nobody called him James, not even Steve; he was sure nobody knew his full name

Now a familiar looking girl who has a similar past to his called him his real name

Once she realized what she’d done, it was too late

“Natalia?” Bucky asked shocked

Nat got up immediately but he grabbed her arm, not allowing her to move

“My name is Natasha, now if you will excuse me I have to go”

And she left

The next morning they didn’t talk to each other

They continued their normal life

Since a new episode launched every Monday and Nat had a 3 day mission Bucky would have to record an episode alone

To make matters worse he also had to record it live, like they usually did

He talked as naturally, as if she was there, until he was rudely interrupted by Steve and Sam who didn’t know he was recording

“Hey buck, what happened with you and Nat? You two have drifted apart since last week”

He wanted to scream for the to shut up, but he was live

“Steve’s right. You two lovebirds aren’t together as much as before”

“Sam, me and Natasha weren’t in a relationship, and I am live.”

Sam and Steve left the room after the death glare Bucky shot at them

Meanwhile, Natasha was in a quinjet with Tony and Clint, who were listening to Bucky’s live podcast

She was still mad at him, but he was still curious to what he’d be talking about

Nat watched in horror as the comments started theorizing what had happened to them

And the grin on Clint’s face

“Soooooo, you and Barnes?”

“Shut up Stark”

When they arrived at their destination, she couldn’t focus.

It was an easy mission, but because of the many locations all over the globe it would take long

“What’s going on Nat? Did something actually happen between you and Barnes? Because I can kill him for you”

Clint knew something was going on, but this time he’d find out

3 days later, they still weren’t talking

Bucky wanted to talk to Nat and apologize, but every time he was around she’d disappear

Until one day he caught her in the kitchen at 2:00 am

Luckily, she didn’t run away, but when she realized he was there she asked what was he doing

“Nat, please tell me what’s going on”

She looked at him blankly

“Look, I’m sorry but I am starting to remember you. I don’t know why but I feel like I’ve known you for decades. I am sorry if this is to much to ask Natalia, but did we know each other?”

So she told him

How they went from teacher & student to lover & lover

How his punishment was to forget and hers was to remember

She only didn’t tell him about the night they spent together making love to each other in dead silence

He wasn’t surprised but he definitely had a growing admiration for her, of how she still remembered him but didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to ruin their friendship

As she was about to leave, they heard a sound from the vents

“Fuck you Barton”

Clint obviously heard that

“Gee, thanks Nat”

Even after the explanation, Bucky still couldn’t sleep

He kept remembering scenes from his past

Natalia

He knew that he had a relationship with a redheaded girl, identical to Natasha, but it didn’t hit him that they were the same person

Until now

Now even if he attempted to have a relationship she would think it is because of the relationship they had in the past

Not because of his actual feelings towards her

The next morning Nat was prepared to start writing the script for the next podcast

And murder Clint

Well both

Bucky wanted to help her write the script

“So... how do we clear up that we weren’t in a relationship?”

“Well, we kinda were”

“Yeah I know Nat, I remember a few parts of it”

“So why did you ask?”

“To make sure”

“What if you don’t” Clint rudely interrupted “keep the audience guessing”

“First thing James and I know what to do, and secondly just because you heard our conversation last night doesn’t mean you get an opinion on our relationship”

After that Clint left, but his idea was kind of good

A few hours and cups of coffee later they finally finished their script, not mentioning anything about their relationship

Friendly or romantic

It was their secret, not the internet’s

During dinner at the compound, they were more in a conversation mood than a week back

But Tony wouldn’t leave them alone about their most recent podcast

The one where Steve and Sam interrupted

Until Thor suddenly appeared with hundreds of people, a rip-off of the avengers called the “revengers”, no eye, no family (except for Loki) and short hair

Tony ended up buying a smal village and send the Asgardians there whilst Loki and this girl named Valkyrie stayed in the guest room

The avengers where hesitant towards letting Loki in

But Thor said he was good now

He and Bruce have their own rooms

Anyway, the next day they had to finish the podcast so Nat and Bucky left dinner early and went to bed

The following day they where going to edit and add the final touches to their script

Except that that wasn’t what they did all day

Normally Nat worked on a few S.H.I.E.L.D files, trained and sometimes she had missions

She had just finished a meeting and was on her way to spar with whoever was currently at the gym

Usually she did so with Clint because of their similar fighting style but she tried to train with everyone

Bucky was currently was doing cardio

He was alone there since most avengers where either on a mission or helping Thor out with his people

“Wanna train?

Hey guys (or person who’s gender is unknown what ever makes you comfortable)! I already mentioned this but again this is my first fic so please give me suggestions. And a few questions; is this writing format good? Is it too long or too short? Any idea for the next part? Btw this will be a 2-3 part mini-series, but I could always write another of these but longer

#winterwidow fanfic #bucky barnes #buckynat #natasha romanoff #mcu #headcanon #mcu headcanons #im not good at tags #fanfic #avengers #nobody asked but #here we are

[officaljnes]

Day 4: Vacation

Just to give a quick warning, this is a chapter from a fanfic I already wrote called Beneath the Surface. I can’t come up with anything besides the beach (which is the generic option), so I figured it would be better to use this for today. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

FLOOOSH!

A group of regulars plus an irregular appeared on an open plain via teleportation.

After adjusting, Khun gazed around to assess the environment, ‘there’s got to be a trap from all these repeated floor designs recently.’

Now that the situation had been assessed, Khun turned around to also assess his group.

Boro, Sachi, Bero Bero, Cherry La, and Yiwha seem to be alright, but there are a few people missing.

Baam and Rak sneaked out again. Khun sighed, ‘at least they could have said something.’ Old habits do die hard.

A pink light appeared in the sky and was headed in the direction of the town.

‘What’s gotten Androssi all excited now?’ The thought entered Khun’s mind, but it wasn’t worth dwelling on for too long. She’s just the next person on the list after Baam, Rak, and Hwa Ryun to disappear on him without him knowing most of the time.

Ran and Anak are missing as well. They either gone training on their own, or Androssi must have taken them to tour the town.

“Look at the time, I got to go talk to Miseng. She’s calling me pretty soon. You know how it is with teammates.” Wangnan clapped before walking to the town as well.

As a matter of routine, the group dispersed to the town up ahead to do their own thing.

‘A town as small as this should have a few places open for us’ Khun started to walk towards the town as well out of his own volition

“Hey, do you mind if I spend some time with you?” a voice rang out besides Khun.

He turned to the side and saw Yiwha as the source of the question. Khun considered it for a moment. Isn’t it odd that someone who probably could find as much entertainment in a town as Androssi, would want to spend that time with someone who wouldn’t be much fun in the first place.

“Aren’t you going to go along with Wangnan?” Khun asked.

Yiwha shook her head, smiling as well.

“I already talked to her earlier. From what I heard, she’s going well in her training. Though, I don’t know if she’s ready enough to catch up to us at the rate we’re passing these floors” Yiwha expressed herself openly.

“If she wants it this badly, we might meet her soon. Though, I expect a delay once we get up to more floors. Based on my experience, usually when you’re experiencing an easier time compared to normal, there’s something bad about to happen” Yiwha hummed thoughtfully to Khun’s provoking statement.

“I suppose. But still, wouldn’t it be better to worry about the future under a roof and dinner in your stomach” Yiwha suggested.

Kuhn gave out an amusing smile. “When you say it like that, it looks like renting a house is going to be much easier this time.”

“They’re all rented out….” Khun mumbled, walking alongside Yiwha in the outskirts of the town.

It was no good, every single house and apartment had been rented out due to a local festival. You wouldn’t think this was the case if you looked at the town from the distance. Androssi must have known if she was in a rush all of a sudden.

“It’s ok, these things happen sometimes.” Yiwha said out of assurance.

“It’s not good enough. What am I supposed to say to the team?” Khun turned to Yiwha, confused on what to do next.

“Well, I wouldn’t be the first person to go for it, but we could do some camping” Yiwha suggested.

“You and I don’t seem like the type of people to go camping.” Khun rebutted, pointing out the obvious.

“Well for someone who spent over a decade climbing the tower, how come you never camped!” Yiwha responded.

“I never needed to camp. What’s your excuse?” Khun asked.

“There wasn’t any dire circumstances that would force me to camp in the outdoors, besides I’m a fire hazard anyway, who knows what natural ecosystems I could destroy.” Yiwha said.

‘That’s a bit of exaggeration.’ Khun was dumbfounded. How can one regular be that dangerous?

“I suppose I’ll look for a campsite, how about-“

“Khun, it’s ok, I’m fine with helping you.” Yiwha put a hand on Khun’s shoulder as a sign of reassurance.

“If you say so.” Khun mumbled, which Yiwha took as a sign to take her hand off his shoulder. “However, there might be a few campsites scattered in that nearby forest.” Khun said.

Yiwha resisted the urge to let her body shiver at the possibility of encountering any creepy crawlies in the undergrowth of that forest.

Everybody’s going to have to make sacrifices every now and again.

Hwa Ryun walked through the countryside, the night lighting her way as her light footsteps thud against the ground.

‘It seems the night sky looks good tonight. Shame that there’s no stars here. I’m wondering how Rachel is currently doing, how close is she to making my god complete his transition. This must be done for the good of the tower.’ Hwa Ryun thought as she continued her merry stroll.

“Hey! Mrs Hwa Ryun” Baam called out from up ahead.

Hwa Ryun stopped in her tracks at the sight of Baam coming up to meet her.

“Viole, what’s the manner?” Hwa Ryun asked, alert but from the looks on Viole’s face, it didn’t seem all that urgent.

“Oh, nothing. I thought you could use some company.” Baam said.

‘First Khun, then Wangnan, and now Baam. Are they seriously afraid of their futures that they would try to befriend me in the attempts of not having to listen to me anymore. I honestly don’t blame them.’ Hwa Ryun thought in her mind.

Only a guide like her can comprehend how the tower changes someone. Besides, it’s not like Viole is going to be attached to his friendly personality forever, so it’s best to enjoy it before it disappears forever.

“You do me more then the honours. I suppose training isn’t enough for you?” Hwa Ryun asked.

“It’s not that, Rak prefers his time for solitary training. I’ve been worrying Mr Khun for more then I would have liked. So, I want to make amends for it.” Viole said.

“That’s nice, but if you don’t keep training, how else are you going to protect them from Zahard” Hwa Ryun suggested to Viole.

Hwa Ryun’s statement threw Viole off but it didn’t stop him from offering his response.

“I don’t know, that’s what I been thinking about recently. I want to help my friends in the best possible light, but is this actually working out…” Baam said, downtrodden.

“Hmmm… That is unfortunate, but I can at least assure you when you achieve your divine ship, perhaps a few will survive to see a new era in the tower.” Hwa Ryun said.

“I want to least change that few to many. But I don’t think Mr Khun will like me as a god” the dreaded topic slowed Viole’s enthusiasm enough to match Hwa Ryun’s melancholic

“He’s someone worth listening to, but again, so am I.” Hwa Ryun said.

Viole’s inquisitive look reminds her that he does have a hard time comprehending her, as it goes for most people she talks to.

“Regardless of whether you listened to him or me, I would still believe you will arrive at the same conclusion. It’s a matter of choosing a path at a crossroads, that doesn’t really offer you any differences.” Hwa Ryun said.

“So it’s all subjective…” Baam mumbled. “Enough about me already, I’m glad to see you…” Baam fumbled for a bit. “Taking care of your health.”

Hwa Ryun shrugged. “That’s the least anyone would do, definitely such a long way up into the tower. I’m interested to see how long your friends can keep their heads above the water.”

“I believe they’re pulled their own weight already.” Viole responded, his confidence made no room for rebuttal.

“If you say so, Viole.” Hwa Ryun sighed, continuing to walk alongside Viole.

They came across a vacant space that hosts several small ovals, surrounding a small circle.

“Oh, this must be one of the empty campsites I saw on the brochure.” Baam said. “Look there’s even a fire pit.”

“Viole, it’s good we still have time to train you in this aspect. You see this taking place the more we get up, the less floors we’ll come across that has a lesser quantity of settlements” Hwa Ryun explained in depth as she entered the vacant campsite.

Viole followed her. “Huh, I thought since Zahard conquered what he could of the tower, that there would be towns and cities on every floor of the tower.”

“There’s not enough population for all of the floors of the tower. Even back before the king invaded, there were some floors that had fewer settlements then the other floors. It’s a matter of which resources could sustain them the most.” Hwa Ryun elaborated. “That’s why guides have an easier time travelling between floors. We can live on relatively nothing, and be satisfied with what blessings we can get.”

Viole’s eyes opened a bit more then usual.

“That’s actually fascinating, I would like to learn how to do that. It’ll help with me not being a burden on the team.” Viole looked around eagerly, his joy lighting up the atmosphere around him.

Hwa Ryun composed herself to not smile at the sight of her god being happy discovering something which people take for granted. ‘Does Khun get that same feeling?’

“That kind of lifestyle is for me, not someone who needs his energy to eventually fight high rankers.” Hwa Ryun responded, standing besides Viole at the fire pit. “But I suppose, a few tips wouldn’t hurt when you get in a rough spot.”

Before Hwa Ryun can think about what she can teach Baam first, they heard a rustling in the bushes.

Thankfully, they saw blue lighthouses floating above the bushes, they have a pretty good guess on who it is.

Khun and Yiwha emerged from the bushes.

Baam and Hwa Ryun was tensed as it could have been anyone with blue lighthouses, but relaxed their stances when they saw Khun and Yiwha.

“You two are already here. Perfect timing, we could use some help setting up the tents.” Khun reached into his lighthouses to remove the tent setups and dropped them onto the ground.

“Sure!” Baam’s face lights up, now he can definitely be off immediate help to his best friend.

“Aren’t you going to help as well?” Khun asked of Hwa Ryun.

A gust of wind blew through the campsite; Hwa Ryun saw Viole setting up the first tent with Yiwha.

“I don’t see why not. It’ll be good to help my god with how to set up a tent probably” Hwa Ryun squinted at Khun as she walked back, the sight of Khun smirking tempted her to hit him with her staff, but it’s not worth risking getting on her god’s bad side.

“Ok, so for our camping setup, we’ll have Androssi and Anak sleeping together. Boro and Sachi can sleep as well, Bero Bero and Cherry La as well. Rak will have to decompress, so he’ll be able to squeeze in with me and Baam. I was also thinking of putting you, Hwa Ryun, with Yiwha, do you mind?” Khun asked.

“I suppose not.” Hwa Ryun shrugged,

Yiwha casted a wary stare at Hwa Ryun. In the effort of establishing a cheerily atmosphere, Yiwha motioned to Khun to get something else out of his lighthouse.

Baam caught sign of this sign language, waited eagerly for what’s coming up next, only to be disappointed by the sight of marshmallow bags being taken out of Khun’s lighthouse.

“Ahh, Mrs Yiwha, I don’t think this is the right time for sweets?” Baam asked.

“Oh no, we won’t be eating them as raw. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Yiwha gave the marshmallow bags on the ground, and then she lights the fire pit with her shinsu.

Such control seemed impossible to her at the 20th floor, imagine how far she had improved.

Baam sat on a nearby log and sticked a marshmallow at the end of his stick and rolled it close to the fire.

“Baam, not so close!” Before Yiwha could give out any further warnings, the marshmallow melted and felled out of Baam’s stick into the fire.

“Oh, guess I need to be more careful” Baam chuckled as he got a new marshmallow out.

“Indeed, I don’t often care for these rituals, so I suppose a live demonstration” Hwa Ryun said as she picked out her own marshmallow on the other side of the fire pit.

‘Every time I got to interact with Hwa Ryun, it always ends up with new questions about her.’ Khun thought.

Khun stared at Hwa Ryun and before he could think of looking at something else, Hwa Ryun caught him staring.

“Is something the matter?” Hwa Ryun asked while putting the marshmallow on the end of her stick.

“Nothing.” Khun looked away, then he pushed a marshmallow on the end of his stick and sticked it out in front of the campfire.

“Say, Yiwha, I see you have been able to control your flames quite nicely” Khun smiled unevenly. How does Baam and Wangnan encourage others so easily?

“Yeah! That was pretty cool” Baam said, congratulating Yiwha on a simple task.

“It was nothing… It’s quite simple once you learn how to limit it in size” Yiwha fumbled around, sitting down on a nearby log next to Khun.

“Hmm, perhaps your goal is not so far fleshed, we’ll have to see what your diplomatic skills are like in the future” Hwa Ryun said.

“That’ll be a bit of a problem” Yiwha concentrated on the now blooming fire.

“It won’t be easy getting a big family like the Yeon to change their ways. But, I would like to help you out in the future.” Yiwha looked at Khun in surprise.

“I know a thing or two about family relations. It’ll be easier once we become rankers. Then, once I become the head of the Khun family, the Yeon family won’t have no choice but to rely on its head to deal with us.” Khun rambled on as Yiwha became flustered by his statement.

“Won’t that make your ascension more difficult for you?” Yeon asked. “The high rankers will most likely to resist you at every turn. I wouldn’t bear it if you get killed because of it.” Yiwha was back to looking at the fire, it was at a downward angle this time.

Baam was torn about seeing Yiwha concerned, yet could relate to her in that moment.

“That’s the risks we have to take if we are going to change things in the tower. If I wanted my climb to go more smoothly, I wouldn’t have become friends with Baam in the first place.” Khun said.

“That’s right, I know Hwa Ryun speaks of dark times up ahead, but I believe in your dream. I want the tower to be a place where you can legitimately get your wish granted if you work hard for it.” Baam rambled on. “So please, don’t give up for Khun’s sake or my sake.”

“I…” Yiwha was stunned, and sure to be blushing as well.

“Careful, Baam. You don’t want your second marshmallow to melt off, do you?” Hwa Ryun asked already on her third marshmallow.

“Right!” Baam said as he ate the cooked marshmallow. His face light up, his eyes wide open.

“Whoa! It’s… I can’t believe you can have something so simple yet delicious” Baam chewed a bit to get every last bit of nourishment out of the marshmallow he previously chewed.

“Ha-ha, I’m glad you liked it” Yiwha laughed, now pleased with yourself.

“Heh, still there are things that surprised you. I wonder what’s that like” Khun said, a bit nostalgic for his early youth before he was forced to compete in his family.

“It’s alright, though maybe I don’t enjoy convenience food as much” Hwa Ryun shrugged, already on her fifth marshmallow.

‘Speak for yourself’ Khun and Yiwha thought at the same time.

“I hope the others can experience this. If you want to have an early night, you can go right ahead.” Baam said.

“I think I’ll have to do that, tomorrow’s the big day for figuring out what the floor test is and how we can prepare for that” Khun said.

“If you say so, I’ll stay up a bit late. This just feels so right to stay up” Yiwha said, smiling.

“I’ve nothing better to do, though don’t expect me to say much” Hwa Ryun said, finished with her marshmallow, she rested her hand on her leg, holding her head up with her palm.

“Ok. Feel free to pipe in when you have something interesting to say” Baam said. “So Yiwha, how’s Miseng goin-“

As Khun walked away from the fireplace, he looked back and locked eyes with Hwa Ryun for that one moment.

A line of thought occurred to both of them at the same time. ‘How long can we enjoy these moments.’

#togweek2020 #Khun Aguero Agnis #Hwa Ryun #Baam #Yeon Yiwha #Day 4 Vacation

[perpetuallyfive]

some thoughts on Endgame

I always find it a lot easier to write very long rants about things I dislike than praise about things that I like. It just feels like the good things are obvious, you know? So compiling them in lists feels a little pointless.

It’s why I haven’t written anything about Endgame yet. I honestly thought Infinity War was pretty average at best, so the fact that I fucking loved practically every single minute of Endgame kind of caught me by surprise. It checked so many of my boxes that it’s almost hard to even articulate. 

So much of what was good about it honestly felt almost inevitable.

Mark me down as pretty confused then as I read some of the negative responses. Like... obviously, I’m just being dense. Nothing exists, especially on the internet, without some negative response. And I don’t even mean that in a pithy way. People are really different and what works for one person doesn’t work for everyone.

Which brings me back to my earlier point.

Just because I thought some of this stuff was obvious or amazing doesn’t mean everyone did, so here are a few observations, in an unordered list:

The way that time travel works in the movie is deliberately left a little vague, in my opinion, to allow wiggle room for the multiverse moving forward, especially as they expand into streaming services.

They do however clearly say that you cannot change your own past. Bruce says it. This means that Steve absolutely is not in our timeline, whatever the writers might say about it now. He’s not. In our timeline, he knew Peggy married someone else. That’s in his past. He cannot change his past in his own timeline. Therefor he cannot change who Peggy marries in his own timeline.

Seriously, he’s not in our timeline. They’re just wrong.

This means you have a million possibilities in fanfic for all the things Steve did that sent out ripples in his own new timeline or the many multiverses he could have created. It’s a fucking candy shop.

Try not to be too hard on the writers for having no idea what they’re talking about, I guess; it’s hard writing characters that are way smarter than you.

Am I less than charitable toward the writers because of their dumb takes on Natasha in defending why she’s not a part of the funeral at the end? Yes.

Just put a fucking second wreath there, god damn, would it have been so hard.

Framing Nebula’s storyline as a bad thing, which I’ve seen a few times now, is frankly insane to me. She isn’t, as the daily dot put it, killing herself. She missed her chance to save her sister five years ago and has regretted it every since. The second Gamora is at stake this time, she makes it clear that she would sacrifice anything (even someone who looked like her), to prevent losing her sister again. That’s great shit!

I am bummed we don’t get original Gamora back, but I’m also intrigued by the soft reset this does on her relationship with everyone in the Guardians. I wonder what their plans are with that in Vol 3. In many ways, her healing process away from Thanos was sidelined in the first two films and this allows the possibility of reframing that as more central to the focus in the third. Fingers crossed.

More Gamora and Nebula in general but especially in Guardians 3 please; I might threaten to retroactively like this movie less if this is the last we get of this much attention on their relationship, please and thank you.

The problem with the MCU crossover movies is they have to exist as two things at once. They have to be a movie that works as its own thing with good timing, pacing, structure, and an end that feels conclusive. They also have to pay off minor characters that mainstream audiences might not care about, as part of larger world building and the stories shared across an entire universe. Endgame, in my opinion, did a much better job of it than Infinity War or Ultron. (it’s hard to compare it with Avengers, when the scale was much more intimate.) 

No but really, I don’t think a lot of us in fandom have an appreciation for how many people don’t know any of this shit we take for granted. A shocking number of the people I have spoken to IRL who are entirely apart from fandom didn’t even know what “on your left” was a reference to and were actually a little confused by that moment. 

Just think about that and understand the levels this movie has to operate on at all times. It’s almost enough to make me feel bad for the writers, except they still said dumb shit about Nat, so I’m good.

I did actually love all the more subtle callbacks, like Natasha’s necklace and T’Challa knowing Clint’s name, but the direct quotes were pretty great too, especially Steve’s reaction to “I could do this all day.” Super charming.

Another awkward thing about the crossovers is they have to try to level the playing field slightly and there are some Avengers who are just way more powerful than others. Carol was disappointingly absent, but she’s also insanely OP. It’s why Thor got depressed and it’s why the Russos now say that Hulk will have limited use of one arm. They nerfed some of the classic Avengers, but kept Carol full powered just off in space. That’s preferable, so long as she gets more screen time later and jesus please fix the wig. Or just do the actual haircut now that it doesn’t have to be a secret.

Please dear god the hair is great in concept but seriously if there’s anything about the straight agenda ruining Endgame it’s how borderline soccer mom they managed to make that hair look.

Natasha deserved better and I think we can all agree on that, but here’s hoping that her prequel is deliberately designed to echo the destination we know she’s headed toward and to give her a better resolution more in line with what she deserved. I want to believe that they didn’t give her a full ending entirely because they knew she still had a movie coming up and didn’t want to create that sense of finality that might keep audiences from seeing it. Here’s hoping they can make it work. 

Like specifically with very different writers, please. Hopefully a woman. You’ve maybe heard of them before, one of them wrote Guardians, the movie that nobody thought could work and fucking made it work. Yeah.

Tony and Steve were always headed in opposing directions at the end of their arc. This has been covered. Tony went from living selfishly to living selflessly. He went from a playboy bachelor, to a husband, to a father. His one priority when he decided he had to save the world wasn’t even himself, it was specifically keeping his daughter in existence. He went from a selfish dick with daddy issues to someone whose only priority was being a dad.

it was perfect. Like people can say otherwise... but they’re wrong.

 I’m an expert on this, clearly. Tony’s death was perfect. 

THEY FINALLY GAVE ME RESCUE. I loved everything about it, from Tony planning it carefully for a long time -- like obviously I think it’s because he was customizing the design to be more in line with Pepper’s wants and values, like it is in the comics -- to the fact that it actually does look more defensively focused but still super capable in battle. I want to watch this movie a billion times, honestly, but this scene in particular. I need to know everything about what her suit can do.

Steve was always going to end up settling down. We don’t actually know what he did in his own timeline -- again, IT’S NOT OURS -- so there’s a chance he was still a bit of a troublemaker, but honestly the five years seemed to take a lot out of him. He doesn’t always need a war, and that actually is forward momentum and growth. I get that some people are against the idea and think that getting to be with Peggy was somehow a step back, but I’m not sure I buy that.

Tony taking out the arc reaction at the end of IM3 wasn’t actually about him erasing his trauma or leaving it behind, and Steve getting to be with Peggy doesn’t erase his growth. It was part of it.

Theoretically Sharon was always an option, except the audience (and fandom) response to her was pretty terrible, so actually she wasn’t.

And not to just keep harping on points made in an article that I think is frankly pretty terrible, but Steve going back to the past instead of settling in the present wasn’t about compulsory heterosexuality so much as it was about a franchise that is going to keep making movies needing to keep the next decade of films in mind. 

If Steve is still around in the now, that will always linger as a nagging question. The same way that people can’t shut up about where Carol was for the last decade, Steve hanging around in retirement refusing to help would hang over the next phases of movies like a cloud. Putting him in the past lets him live (which he deserves) and clears the slate.

Let Steve rest but, more than that, dear god won’t you please let Chris Evans rest too.

This goes back to how these movies, especially the crossovers, have to work on almost too many levels and it’s frankly shocking that they manage to do it and still have moments of sincere humanity and sweetness. 

Like I’m not going to try to oversell it, but seriously fucking think about the fact that one of the most successful blockbuster movies of all time actually has quiet moments where people talk about trauma, loss, parental abuse or neglect, failure, and depression. 

Hey remember when the movie gave us acknowledgement of Rhodey and Nebula’s disabilities? In the possibly going to be most successful movie of all time, they had characters with disabilities say how they’re different now but it’s okay, they work with what they got, and they bonded over that and it was so fucking shocking for me and BEAUTIFUL. Just a reminder for us all that THAT happened in the movie that may actually pass Avatar to become the MOST SUCCESSFUL FILM OF ALL TIME.

Just allowing another moment to let that sink in while I try to wrap this up (for now).

ps I can’t believe this movie made me have nice thoughts on Ultron, which I fucking despise with most of my being. 

Actually I might have to take back every nice thing I said, just because of the Ultron thing. How dare you, film.

But still lol at the fact that even talking about Ultron for a few seconds was enough to make Tony Stark pass the fuck out. Hard same, Tony. 

LOOK OBVIOUSLY I LOVED MORGAN STARK. I AM EXCITED ABOUT MORGAN STARK. SHE IS A PRECIOUS PERFECT ANGEL AND I LOVE HER.

SHIT.

So this is a totally incomplete list but here you go. Some of my thoughts on Endgame.

#avengers 4 spoilers #avengers endgame #avengers endgame spoilers #marvel

[traccigaryn]

2019 Fanfiction Retrospective

@mia-cooper posted some questions for fanfic authors, and I couldn't resist. 

1. Best fic(s) you read all year, and why?

There are so many good fics out there, and we are so lucky to have this thing that enhances our fan experience. The one that really stood out for me this year was if you came this way by tree. It's just *fistclench* SO GOOD. I've lost track of the number of times I've read it. It's a modern AU you think is just going to be a smut fest (no complaints), but the tension and the introspection and the dialogue just take it to this whole new level. It was the first story in a long time that I felt like I'd truly gotten lost in, and you look up when it's over, and you can't even properly focus on the real world again right away.

2. Best fic(s) you published all year, and why?

I'm not sure I would say any of them are better than others, only because I think they were each trying to accomplish something different. But I would say the one I'm most proud of is A Year in the Faculty Senate. It's the one I worked the hardest on, and the one I learned the most from. It's certainly the longest, but I also tried out several new things with it including alternating narrators, a strict timing device (showing one day a month), and translating the characters into a modern AU setting. Some of it came very easily, but I did a lot of circling, trying to chip away, chip away at the parts that were giving me trouble. I mean, I wrote a whole other story along the way (Beneath the Surface) because I'd gotten stalled out and needed to think about something else for awhile. So, yeah. That's the one I'm most proud of. 

3. Favourite opening line(s) in a fic you published in 2019:

From The Side Effects of Time Travel:

The second bottle of cider was doing its job.

4. Favourite closing line(s):

From The Captains' Tour:

He had always believed there was power in auspicious days. And in this moment, with all the future laid out before them, he impulsively added, "And more to come."

Her smile lit up the room. "And more to come."

5. The fic that was best received, and your favourite comment(s) on it:

Sex on the Beach was definitely the most well-received, in terms of hits, kudos, etc. I think the combination of being a feel-good story in a tropical setting that also happened to contain some smut just hit all the right notes for people.

My favorite comments were from people just as excited about Tuvok playing matchmaker as I was. (But it totally makes sense, right? I 100% believe if we'd had decent writers who'd actually leaned into this pairing, Tuvok's approval would have been the thing that finally persuaded KJ this was okay.)

6. The fic you wish had gotten more love:

I think this is just my sentimental attachment to it, but A Year in the Faculty Senate. It was very well-received by those who read it, but it's definitely on the lower end in terms of reads overall. My most recent one, The Captains' Tour, seems to be going the same way.

The fun/frustrating/fascinating thing about being a new author is trying to figure out what resonates with people and what doesn't. I don't think you can ever predict it, and I don't think authors should choose what they write because they're trying to chase the kudos, but I still spend far too much time overthinking this aspect of the process.

7. How many fandoms you wrote for in 2019, and which inspired you most:

I'm a new author, so I've only written for Star Trek: Voyager so far. To be honest, I'm still at a loss to explain what it was that brought me back to this fandom or caused me to start writing for it after two decades away. It was absolutely the first show I was ragingly fannish about, and the first one I wrote fic for way back when, so I guess something just triggered all those feels to come back. It's been a lot of fun, taking baby steps into active participation in a fandom. I lucked out finding a tight-knit and supportive one too.

8. Your favourite pairing(s) to write for:

"Two people who respect the hell out of each other" is my catnip. Add in elements like them being total opposites or starting out as enemies or not being afraid to show their respect and affection in front of others, and I'm lost. Janeway/Chakotay fits that to a T for me, so hey, here we are.

9. What you’re writing now/next:

I'm actually not actively working on anything at the moment, which is weird after nearly 6 months of this being a pretty regular part of my life. I have a couple plot bunnies, and I have a half-finished Nancy Drew/Frank Hardy fic I started like 18 months ago sitting on my Drive, but nothing really in process. Huh. 

10. Writing goals for 2020 (word count? new fandoms/pairings? anything?):

I think I'd like to focus more on introspection for awhile. I tend to be a sparcer writer, in terms of showing thoughts and feelings through dialogue, but digging deeper into characters' thought processes and motivations would be a useful exercise. 

And, as I learned answering earlier questions, my openings/closings tend to be pretty bland, so I should work on that too. 

#fanfic #fan fiction #writing #janeway x chakotay

[laurasauras]

so, i think the main thing that bothers me about crimes of grindelwald is that it reinforces this idea that’s been bothering me for a while and that’s my growing disillusionment with jk rowling. this is a loooong post, so i’m chucking it under a cut. tl;dr, i've fallen out of love with the series and much like falling out of love with a person makes you realise that they were always kind of annoying, that’s what’s happening to me with her.

everyone and their dog (with the exception of jk herself) has realised that her inability to leave the books she wrote alone has stifled a fandom space that was one of the first wide spread communities that was outright encouraged to create and this is objectively a bad thing. the fact that her fans are being told the “correct” and “canon” answers to their big questions in the series is objectively a bad thing. fandom as a concept is a collection of people dedicated to consuming media in a deeper way; we reject the notion of passive viewing and search for meaning in the way that our high school teachers would be delighted in. i think enough people have talked about that that i don’t particularly need to.

here’s the thing that’s just hit me though: the saying “don’t meet your heroes” used to feel like a far off concept, because i wasn’t doing anything special enough to justify ever meeting my favourite author, and for over a decade if you asked me the “who would you have dinner with if it could be anyone in the world?” my answer was probably her. except now that has happened.

to clarify, i haven’t had dinner with jk rowling. but thanks to twitter, it kind of feels like i have. and the story goes the same way the cautionary “don’t meet your heroes” story always goes in sit coms. for the first half hour of dinner i was delighted to hear more about her thoughts when writing the harry potter series and learn tid bits that she never included. she mentioned the charity work she does, said she supported me no matter what and highlighted enough issues that gave me the impression that not only was my favourite author just as engaging in “real life”, she was also a good person. for the next little bit she showed me what else she was working on and i have always loved her writing style, so i enjoyed that too. i looked forward to seeing where she was going from there, to what new stories i could enjoy as i grew older.

and then she started talking about harry potter again. i was glad, at first. i thought i could never hear enough about it. but cursed child was bad. i like reading plays, i knew that wasn’t the issue. i decided that she had put her name on it but she had delegated the story to other people because i couldn’t quite connect the baby’s first fanfiction storyline with the woman i had grown to know over the rest of the dinner. and fantastic beasts was ... good? but so wholly unnecessary. i decided that she just wanted to keep giving to charity and this was how she was doing it. 

and then, just when i was starting to hint that the dinner party was over and she could leave now, five minutes ago (really i just wanted to go to bed and pretend like the only things i’d ever heard for her were the words written in her books), it all clicked into place.

they’re all the same story.

harry potter was so successful because children connected deeply with the idea that one day a giant would knock on the door and take them away from the bullies and the boredom and into a world of magic. harry was an average boy who made mistakes and yet did remarkable things. and harry potter is, really, a very long, very detailed fairy tale. once upon a time there was a boy who lived with his wicked aunt and uncle. this is how he saved the world.

(i could easily make this argument for the casual vacancy and the cormoran strike books as well, but i’m going to stick with the newly franchised “wizarding world” for clarity.)

spoilers below for cursed child, fantastic beasts and crimes of grindelwald.

in cursed child, there were a lot of minor problems that niggled at me that are very similar to the things that niggle me about the twitter feed of jk rowling, she seemed intent on retconning her novels to have more meaning, in name dropping this, that and the other as if providing her fans with the ability to go “oh! it’s the trolley lady! i remember her! how cool that she’s significant and also a horrifying monster!” but my major grievance was with the “twist” that voldemort had had a daughter with bellatrix lestrange (in what time, seriously, when did she have the 9 months to spare) and she was going to bring her daddy back to wreak havoc. and this to me seemed like yet another “the ordinary person is more significant than you thought!” story, which seemed lazy. why did delphini have to be related to the two biggest villains in order to want to bring voldemort back? could she think of no other reason for someone to want that? (no, she couldn’t, she couldn’t think of any reason to siding with him in the first place other than “they’re the bad guys, the slytherins”.)

(another grievance i have is that jk rowling has no idea how to write a realistic villain. or rather, when she does succeed in empathising with why someone would hurt another person, she refuses to see them as a villain. snape and dumbledore would make very interesting antagonists, but she’d much rather have “he was conceived under a love potion and therefore is incapable of love” be a reason for doing great harm than “people have been telling him he was a fantastic person since he got top of his class in transfiguration and he is sure that he could make the world better if only people would do as he says without questioning him ever”. side note: jude law absolutely nailed the manipulative dumbledore vibe in crimes of grindelwald, that was literally the only good part of the film, that and the jangly cat toy thing.)

and okay, that was fine, i was just going to pretend that cursed child never existed. i think i am not alone in that camp. and the first fantastic beasts story was pretty good, nothing to write home about or like, remember after you’ve watched it, but a fine way to spend a couple of hours. and then she pulled the same move with crimes of grindelwald!

oh, guess what, this boy who was the main character in the first movie and now has no personality in the second movie, yeah, him, the one who was abused and who tried to hide his magic but it came out in explosive ways, yeah, he was dumbledore’s little brother the whole time.

because he couldn’t just be any abused kid. because again, the fact that it doesn’t make sense and the timeline does not fit is irrelevant. it’s punchy, it’s another name drop, it’s gonna make the audience gasp. i mean, it made me and the friend i saw the movie with laugh out loud, but the intention was there.

how could the perfect dumbledore family abandon a child like that? hey, this is starting to sound exactly like the tragic and complicated backstory we already got in deathly hallows! and hey, wasn’t that already kind of a reference to the way harry himself was treated?

i’m just tired. i’m tired of this new laziness making me re-examine the original series and realise just how shallow that was too. i’m tired of liking fanfiction more than any of the things she’s written. i’m tired of well meaning family and friends buying me harry potter mugs and slippers and whatever else for christmas because i was in love with this franchise from the age of 7 and i don’t have the heart to explain that the increasing consumerism of it is one of the many reasons that my love is firmly in the past tense now.

so, i don’t think i’ll be touching my harry potter fanfics for a while. it sucks to officially abandon projects i spent so many hours on but i went to try and reread so i could continue one and i’m tired of that world. i hope it isn’t forever. the books were such a huge part of my childhood and have absolutely influenced me as a writer. but for now, we’re on a break.

#harry potter #jk rowling #long post #crimes of grindelwald #fantastic beasts #cursed child #fandom

[kristallioness]

A get-well card

Summary: Lance goes to see Allura for the first time after their battle to save Earth.

Word count: 1,972

Author's note: This story began writing itself in my head when I imagined these scenes happening. Based on these three posts (X,X,X) because those shots of them recovering in their wards warmed my heart. There's also a tiny reference to my only other VLD-related fanfic, "The cold". I had to get this off my chest because I treasure everything these two characters have (be it romantic/platonic love, respect, admiration..). I just really love Allura and Lance so much! Whether they end up together or not, I'm still weak for this (friend)ship, do you hear me? W E A K.

----------x----------

"Do you think she'll like it?" the little girl wondered, holding out the folded piece of paper. She let her tall aunt carefully lift her into her uncle's lap.

"I'm sure she'll love it," Lance said with a loving smile, wrapping his protective arms around his niece. He rubbed his nose into her hair and gave her a kiss on her temple, making her giggle.

"Are we ready to go?" he turned to his big sister, who grabbed the handles of his wheelchair.

"Yes, I think so."

Veronica pushed Lance, together with their little niece, out of his ward and into the long corridor. Their nephew hopped alongside the trio as they slowly made their way to Allura's private ward. The kids had drawn the princess a get-well card and they wanted to present it to her together with their uncle, who knew her a lot better.

Lance's tiny blue eyes grew wide when he could spot two familiar figures standing outside of the ward at the other end of the corridor. They met both Coran, who was twirling his moustache around his finger, and Romelle, sitting on one of the chairs, waiting in silence. Thankfully their expressions weren't full of concern, much rather boredom.

"Hey, Coran! Is everything okay?"

"Oh, good day, Lance! Yes, everything's perfectly alright with the princess. She just fell asleep earlier, so we came out here to give her some peace and quiet. One of the medical workers went in there to check on her progress. I also asked him to reconfigure the machines to consider the normal vital signs of an Altean."

Lance frowned a little bit, staring at the card in his niece's hands.

"Oh.. Can we go in right now? My niece and nephew made something they wanna give to her. Show uncle Coran what you made!" he leaned closer and whispered into her ear. The little girl held the card out to the orange moustache guy. Coran knelt down on one knee to have a closer look.

"Hmm.. and who is this supposed to be?" he wondered curiously, pointing a finger at the round stick figure.

"That's uncle Lance! He's the bravest Blue Paladin out there," the girl declared proudly, making her uncle chuckle for a moment.

"Actually, your uncle Lance is the Red Paladin now. The princess is the new Blue Paladin," Coran corrected her.

"They saw my blue armour, Coran, so they wanted to use the blue crayon. Show him what's inside!" Lance added in a whisper. His niece opened the card and let Coran read the text. When he claimed that he didn't understand the letters they'd used, she read it out loud. His purple eyes began to glisten and they could tell that he was wearing a warm smile underneath that moustache.

"Well, if that isn't sweet.. Okay, you four can go in. Just be sure to keep really quiet. The princess needs her rest."

"Thanks, Coran! We promise.. C'mon, you two! You heard what uncle Coran said!" Lance said in a hushed tone, patting his nephew's back as Veronica pushed his wheelchair closer to the door.

The door opened automatically and the quartet entered quietly. A doctor was busy reconfiguring the monitors, exactly like Coran had said. Lance's nephew scampered to the other side of the bed and grabbed the side rail, staring at the sleeping princess.

"She's so pretty!" he whispered to the rest of his family. Lance noticed how the mice squeaked a little and hopped up on the empty table that served as a nursing trolley, where medical supplies were usually scattered. They were keeping an eye on Allura so that nobody would hurt her.

Veronica pushed the wheelchair to the same side of the bed, then stooped to whisper into her little brother's ear.

"I'll be right outside if you need me. Call me when you're ready to go back to your ward."

"Will do, sis!" Lance answered in a hush, then averted his gaze towards the princess, a warm smile decorating his lips.

"I'll leave you to it, lover boy!"

He gritted his teeth and glared at her for a moment. She stifled her giggling by holding a hand in front of her mouth as she exited the ward.

Lance forgot about his big sister's teasing and focused on the doctor who was examining Allura instead. He ran a scanner over her forehead to take her temperature. He wrote the reading onto the tablet in his hands, which had replaced the old clipboards decades ago. Lance saw how the information immediately appeared on screen on the wall above her bed, right beside her other vital signs.

Next, the doctor softly pressed a modern stethoscope on her bare chest to listen to her heartbeat, reaching up a hand to reconfigure the settings of the machine so it'd consider her thrice as fast rate normal. Lance grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, feeling her "normal" pulse near her wrist thumping against his fingertips. Three beats in a tick, he remembered Pidge telling him once. Despite the rapid pace her heart was beating in, her breathing was calm like a human being's. She seemed so tranquil when she was asleep.

Soon the doctor finished the examination and left them alone with the princess, updating her advisor and fellow Altean about her progress on his way out. At least that's what Lance guessed they were talking about, judging by the voices he heard outside of the ward.

"Is she your girlfriend?" his niece asked. He blushed a little and scratched the back of his head. Even he wasn't sure at this point.

"Well, she is a girl and she's also my friend.."

"Is she gonna be okay?" his niece asked again.

"Of course she is, just like the rest of us.. Oh, shh!" Lance hushed his niece and nephew when he heard the princess mumble. He saw how she wiggled her pointy ears, as if she was trying to listen to the noises around her, and then, her sparkling blue eyes trembled open. A small smile formed on her lips when she met the eyes of the familiar figure.

"Lance.. you're here," she murmured, her voice still a bit hoarse. She felt how his thumb tenderly caressed her fingers. Her pretty blue eyes grew wider and she smiled fondly when she noticed the two little ones by his side.

"And you brought your family."

"Uncle Lance told us so much about you. Here, we made you this!" his nephew said, grabbing the card from his baby sister and handing it to the princess. Allura released Lance's hand and took the card in her own, propping herself up a bit higher. First she checked out the cute sketch on the cover, glancing at Lance when she figured out that it was him, and then opened the card to read it. She grimaced a little bit.

"I'm so sorry, but it seems that I can't read these words. I simply haven't had enough time learn the Earth language. Would you be a dear and read this to me?" Allura asked and handed the card back to Lance's niece, who did as she requested.

"Feel better soon, Allura!" the little girl read the biggest sentence out loud. Then her eyes trailed over the list of names in the lower right corner, who were wishing her a speedy recovery.

Lance's name was in red and the first one, followed by the authors of the card, namely his niece and nephew, as well as the rest of his family. The Paladins' signatures were right below theirs. The little girl showed that they'd written their names using crayons that represented their respective colours - dark purple for both Shiro and Keith, golden yellow for Hunk, forest green for Pidge. She'd written the princess's name in pink, according to her armour.

Allura didn't know what to say. She simply gazed at Lance and his siblings and grinned at the three of them.

"This is really sweet of you all. Thank you!"

She reached out her hand to pat his nephew's head. She called the mice on her bed and let them place the card on the empty table. The kids hadn't noticed the tiny critters before.

"Aww, what cute little mice!" the girl squealed and held out a hand to touch them, but she couldn't reach them. Lance helped his niece out by nudging his wheelchair closer and laying his own hand on the table so Chuchule can climb on.

"Yes, they're Altean mice. We have a special bond that allows me to communicate with them," Allura clarified, watching how Lance's niece softly petted the pink mouse.

"Cool! How does it work?" his nephew wondered. The princess merely giggled, then closed her eyes and thought of something to do. Plachu and Chulatt jumped onto the bed, climbed on her left shoulder and began braiding a thick lock of her long white hair. The boy's mouth fell wide open.

"Wow! How'd you do that?"

Allura opened her eyes and looked at him.

"I telepathically asked them to come and braid my hair."

"It means that she thought of what she'd like the mice to do, and since they could hear her thoughts, they started doing exactly what she asked them to do," Lance explained using simpler words. The kids were in awe. His nephew watched how the two blue mice continued styling the princess's hair whilst his niece tickled the pink mouse's tummy, making it squeak with joy. The sensation that carried over to Allura thanks to her mental link with Chuchule made her giggle, too.

"I didn't get to ask before, but.. How are you feeling?"

Lance furrowed his brows, a smile remaining on his lips as he slid his hand on top of Allura's and gave it another squeeze. She looked at it whilst lacing their fingers together.

"A bit tired, but otherwise I feel good. Blue really saved me from the worst."

"Of course she did. Just like Red saved me.."

There was a moment of silence before Lance spoke again.

"I was afraid that this was going to be her.. err, your.. our last battle together. But Shiro was right. The Lions really are stronger than we thought. Thanks for taking such good care of her."

"Anything for you, Lance."

Allura's smile turned upside down when she saw Lance looking at the door like he wanted to leave already. She held onto their entwined hands as she sat upright to stop him from calling Veronica.

"Wait! Come here.."

He looked at her questioningly, but pushed his wheelchair a bit closer to her bed. She leaned forward, her eyes half-lidded, hesitating for a second before she cupped his chin with her free hand and pressed a tender kiss on his cheek. When Allura pulled away to lie back down in bed, they were both blushing.

"Thank you, for inspiring all of us to continue fighting. When I saw you charge Red at one of the six Zaiforge Cannons after the reflectors broke, I knew Blue and I had to follow your lead and do the same to save your home planet."

Lance rubbed at his flushed cheek and grinned.

"Uhh, thanks, Allura!"

"So she is your girlfriend!" his nephew exclaimed happily, bouncing around the hospital bed whilst his niece began giggling.

Lance averted his gaze to the floor and attempted to hide his embarrassment. He lightened up when Chuchule started squeaking as she ran out of his niece's hand and onto his palm. He lifted the pink mouse to his face and let her rub her soft furry cheek against his own, making him laugh in return. He gazed into Allura's sparkling blue eyes and returned her smile when she grabbed his free hand and gave it a squeeze.

#Allurance #Allura #Lance #Coran #Veronica #Voltron #Voltron Legendary Defender #my fanfiction #mine #shards of Kristal

[inlimmerence]

Origin of Tragedy

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Fluff and Angst

Summary: Kim Namjoon, a barista at the coffeehouse located at the corner of the block is used to seeing it so crowded and loud. On quiet days, though, he sees her. She’s always sitting in her regular spot with her coffee quietly writing. However, it all changes after September 22nd. 

Warnings: Mild cursing. 

A/N: I apologize in advance for the grammar mistakes. I also think Namjoon wouldn’t be this shy like this fanfic but whatever. BTW, I used a couple lines from ‘LOVE YOURSELF Highlight Reel’. 

Sunday, September 10th

As Namjoon poured the customer’s coffee, he was keeping an eye on the glass door with the CLOSED sign facing him. He never knew why he kept watching it, it was just a habit of his. If anything, he hoped it would reveal someone, someone he always sees when it was less crowded.

Perhaps you could say he’s waiting for her.

He gave the customer their coffee, nodding as they thanked him and moved on to the next one. It wasn’t rare for him to trip and spill coffee on the wooden floor nor was it common. He tried to remain careful but sometimes failed miserably. So far, it has been 2 weeks without an accident.

“Back from break?” He asked his coworker, Seokjin who was doing cashier duty. He just nodded at him and gave the customer change, smiling at them softly as they walked away to pick up their order.

“Doesn’t yours start soon?” Seokjin was right. His break starts in 10 minutes to be exact. Suddenly, multiple cups fell to the ground behind him, making him sigh and kneel to pick them up.

“Why does this happen to me?” He muttered under his breath, getting up and putting them back where they should be. He looked around for a brief minute and noticed Hoseok fixing the chalkboard menu re-writing prices and such.

He decided to go back to work, making multiple customers orders as fast as possible and giving it to them. It was an absolute miracle none of the orders were destroyed by him.

“Hey, Namjoon.”

He turned and saw the person he has secretly been expecting. The person who has always been the highlight of his day, someone he would think about more often than he should. He didn’t want to admit it but he sometimes hoped he would run into her on his days off.

You.

You smiled softly at him and leaned over the counter slightly to examine what he was doing. He instantly smiled at her, showing off his dimples which she would tease him about constantly.

“Hey Y/N. Did you order yet?” She nodded and he instantly went to make her regular, a macchiato. She waited patiently, looking at him with an amused smile and giggled when he dropped something.

“Here you go.” He handed her the drink and she thanked him. In less than five minutes, his break will start. He hoped he could fast forward time, he desperately wanted to talk to her. You sat in your usual spot which was at the corner of the coffeehouse.

It was under the photo of the coffee house when it first opened decades ago. You always leaned against the brick wall and either wrote on your notebook or read another one of your books. It was a new book every week, he always wanted to ask your opinion on the book so he could read it too.

That would’ve been a good conversation starter.

“Namjoon, your break starts now so quit standing there.” He heard Seokjin’s voice so he obliged. This time, however, he didn’t go to the break room like usual. He approached you with his lunch in hand. You instantly looked up at him in confusion.

“Mind if I join you? I’m on break now.” He managed to get those words out, it took all his courage. You smiled at him in amusement and let him sit in front of you.

“What are you writing?” He asked curiously, looking at the dozens of written papers in messy handwriting. He wondered if it would be considered rude to grab one to read it.

“I’m working on a story. A mystery novel to be exact.” She answered, he nodded and became even more curious about your story and what the plot was.

“I hope I get to read it soon then.” She nodded and kept writing, ignoring his gaze. He stopped after a while, not wanting to creep her out. She occasionally stopped writing to take a sip of her macchiato.

“What happened to the book you were reading yesterday?” She shrugged, looking at him in the eye and he swore he was turning red which was a bit embarrassing in his opinion. If only she could hear his thoughts.

“I’m half way through. Why? Want to read it after I’m done? It’s a good book, trust me.” Of course, he’ll read it. He’ll read anything she reads if we’re going, to be honest.

“Ok. Make sure to give it to me after you’re done.” She nodded and continued writing. She doesn’t even realize what she does to him.

If only she knew.

Tuesday, September 12th

“I’m surprised you’re still working here even after all those accidents. Do you even realize how damn lucky you are?” Seokjin said for the 5th time, making Namjoon sigh and run his hand through his hair. Today was those rare days where it was quiet.

Hoseok sat on the counter, watching the only customers that decided to stay to drink their coffee. Namjoon set the coffee brewer on the counter and joined him on the counter, watching the glass door as usual and waiting for a certain someone to enter.

“Didn’t you say you were going to put up fairy lights?” He asked Hoseok who looked at him for a brief moment before hopping off from the counter, stretching his arms.

“I did say that...I guess I’ll start working on that.” He mumbled, going to get the boxes that were full of fairy lights. Apparently, fairy lights are meant to attract the customers and make a warm atmosphere. Namjoon didn’t believe it but he didn’t oppose it. It was nice to decorate the coffee house once in a while.

“Did Yoongi even allow you to decorate?” Seokjin questioned as Hoseok dragged a step ladder to the first place.

“No, but he probably will say yes either way so it doesn’t matter.” Namjoon let out a sigh. They should’ve closed before decorating but it was too late.

“Any progress on ‘operation ask Y/N out’?” Namjoon shook his head at Seokjin’s question, making him frown. Seokjin gave him advice on how to ask you out but he forgot the main problem: he was too shy to do it,

“Just get it over with and ask her out.”

“You make it sound like it’s the easiest thing in the world.” He muttered.

“Because it is the easiest thing in the world, Namjoon. Trust me, she’s probably waiting for you to get it over with.” He insisted.

“How do you know?”

“You make it very obvious.” He frowned at that. Was he that obvious? He never stared at you for more than 5 minutes. How would you figure it out?

“Oh! Are you talking about Y/N?” Hoseok joined in on the conversation, finishing two rows. He didn’t wait for either one of you to answer.

“I ran into her today on my way here! She was in the rain without an umbrella. I gave her my own and told her to not worry about giving it back. She looked like she wasn’t paying attention or something.” He knew it wasn’t right but something in him began to boil. How come Hoseok gets to run into you on his way here?

It wasn’t fair in his opinion.

“Huh. Wonder why she didn’t bring an umbrella. It always rains here.” Seokjin commented, watching the customers leave. It rang the familiar bell and as soon as the bell stopped, there were no customers in the coffeehouse. The three of them were the only ones.

“Heard she’s moving back to her hometown. I was about to ask her about it but she told me she’s in a hurry so I never got the chance.” Namjoon froze, feeling like someone stabbed an icicle into his chest. Why would you leave? Was there a good reason?

“See? You should ask her out before she leaves. You’ll regret it if you never do.” Seokjin insisted once again. He was right. He had to do it before you leave. He wouldn’t be able to live with the regret and pain if he never does.

It’s final.

He’s going to ask you out the next time he sees you.

Thursday, September 14th

“Now’s your chance,” Seokjin mumbled, nudging Namjoon slightly. He looked up and found you entering the coffee house with a book in hand. It was the one Namjoon told you to give once you were done with it. Did she remember? He hoped you did.

“Good luck.” Seokjin took a customers order, leaving him on his own. This was his chance. His mission is to ask you out. His heart was racing with anticipation, wanting to get it over with.

“Hey, Namjoon. I already ordered if that’s what you were about to ask.” He smiled at you and began working on your drink, pouring the milk into the cup and noticed you were watching him with a soft smile on your face. If he wasn’t as determined as he was now, he would’ve dropped the cup and burned himself.

Just not this time.

He gave you the drink and the usual routine happened. This time, however, you handed him the book he wanted to read.

“It’s an amazing book, trust me. I’m sure you’ll love it.” He nodded and smiled at you, saying thanks which you responded with a nod and went to your usual spot in the coffeehouse.

He looked at Seokjin for a moment who in return looked at him too and mouthed words which were most likely ‘Don’t be a coward, Kim Namjoon.’ He was right. He has to man up and ask you out. Why does it feel too difficult? Out of all the girls, he asked out (which were only 3 but that doesn’t matter), you were the most difficult one.

If only Yoongi was here.

He probably would’ve given him good advice.

“Mind if I join you again?” You nodded without looking at him.

He didn’t know what to say. What was he going to say? Surprisingly, you weren’t writing or reading. He has your full attention. He can’t let it go to waste. After all, if he failed, Seokjin and Hoseok would’ve yelled at him and probably smack him too.

“Heard you’re moving...is it true?” You nodded and sipped your drink for a minute, setting it down on the wooden table.

“Mind if I ask why?” He was desperate to know why. Was it for work?

“I don’t know...I just miss my hometown, that’s all.” You replied nonchalantly, looking at him in the eye.

“I guess it’s too late to ask you out then.” You furrowed your brows at him in confusion.

“Ask me out? Were you trying to ask me out this whole time?” You asked before laughing softly.

“Maybe. I just get too nervous but I finally got the guts after hearing you’re moving.” You frowned at that, turning mute for a brief moment. Were you even interested in him? Were you going to reject him?

“Tell you what, we’ll go on a date on one condition.” He raised his eyebrow at that, eager over the fact that he’ll finally go on a date with you.

“Take me somewhere based on your interests, alright?” He immediately nodded. She handed him her number written on a napkin. He did it. He finally got a date with you. It was like a dream.

As he got up to go back to work, he saw something written on another napkin in your usual messy handwriting. Was it for your story? It looked like it was meant to be a title.

Origin of Tragedy.

Friday, September 15th

Seokjin reminded him for the 8th time to not dress fancy since it was not a fancy date. He was right, obviously. He just put on a hoodie with jeans, would that be presentable? It’s not like he’s wearing his pajamas.

He looked at the mirror one more time before turning to leave the apartment, grabbing his phone and wallet in the process. The two of you decided to meet in the park that was close to the coffeehouse. At first, he was thinking of taking you to the movie theater but Hoseok completely shut him down, saying that there wouldn’t be time for the two of you to talk.

He was right.

He remembered the moment he told him.

“Are you stupid? Where’s that IQ 148 Kim Namjoon we know and love with a bit of hate?” Hoseok smacked the top of his head lightly. He sighed and tried to not roll his eyes but it was becoming difficult.

“What’s so bad about watching a movie?”

“You won’t be able to talk while the movie is playing!” He yelled, dramatically flailing his arms in the air to make his point.

“Alright, alright. Fine. Then where should I take her?” Suddenly, Seokjin joined the two of you.

“Why not the park?” For once, he was actually good at giving ideas.

“By the way, Yoongi told me he’ll be returning by the 16th. I think it’s too soon to be returning especially after surgery but of course, he doesn’t give a shit.” Seokjin shook his head at that, rubbing his forehead.

“We technically need him or else this coffeehouse will be destroyed by Namjoon,” Hoseok said, laughing as Namjoon furrowed his brows at him.

He left the apartment and went to the park. It wasn’t a long walk, considering that the park was only two blocks away from his apartment. He already texted you that he was on his way to the park. Unlike the coffeehouse, the neighborhood was usually quiet.

Was it the right choice to go on a date at 7 pm? Maybe it wasn’t but he couldn’t care less. After all those encounters he’s had with you, he finally asked you out. Unfortunately, you’ll be moving soon and it made him frown at the thought of working at the coffeehouse without your presence.

He wished he could convince you to stay.

As he crossed the street, he noticed you were right on time, sitting on the bench that desperately needed to be repainted. It made him smile, knowing that he’s finally going on a date with you. You looked up and waved at him with a smile.

Remember to compliment her as soon as you see her, Seokjin’s voice rang in his head.

“You look really beautiful.” He breathed out, smiling as you blush at his words, attempting to cover your cheeks with your sleeves. He wished you didn’t. He thought it was cute in his opinion.

He wanted you to stay.

Sunday, September 17th

“Are you trying to tell me Namjoon broke 4 of our coffee brewers, Hoseok?” Yoongi asked with furrowed brows, staring into Hoseok’s soul. Hoseok barely managed to nod, terrified over what his reaction would be. Namjoon attempted to stay away from Yoongi as far as he possibly can for the rest of week to escape his wrath.

“Namjoon, I’m going to kill the living shit out of you,” Yoongi said calmly, sending shivers down his spine. Perhaps this would be his last day of working at the coffeehouse and maybe even living.

As Yoongi was walking over to him, Seokjin stepped in and complained that they were running low on supplies. Yoongi immediately followed him to check on the supplies, sparing Namjoon from his fate.

“You’re lucky I didn’t tell him about the espresso machine,” Hoseok whispered, going back to take customers orders. Namjoon let out a sigh, running his hand through his hair. He should prepare to call the police in case Yoongi decides to kill him.

“By the way, how did the date go? You didn’t even talk about Y/N yesterday.” Hoseok asked while giving the customer their change.

“It went well. We’re planning another one.” He answered. It did go well, really. He just didn’t want to talk about it with the rest.

“So are you guys official?”

“Of course.” Now that he thought about it, were you? He hasn’t even attempted to kiss you yet. He thought it was too soon or that will make you uncomfortable. Sure, there were moments that could’ve led to that but he didn’t do it. He was too scared to do it.

“You guys are talking about Y/N?” Yoongi appeared out of nowhere, scaring Namjoon. Was he going to kill him?

“She’s my neighbor. I always hear her arguing with someone. I tried to ask her about it but she just avoids the topic.” He mumbled nonchalantly, sipping his coffee. Namjoon furrowed his brows. Arguing? With who?

“Y/N is a mystery in my opinion.”

“How come?”

“It’s like she’s wearing a mask whenever she comes by. Even I can’t seem to figure her out fully.” Wearing a mask?

“I heard you also broke the espresso machine...is that true?” Yoongi raised an eyebrow at Namjoon suspiciously. He slowly nodded, terrified over his reaction but instead, Yoongi just sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“I’m trying to decide whether to strangle you right here or to just let it go.” He mumbled.

“I suggest to just let it go,” Namjoon suggested.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re off the hook for now.” Yoongi walked away, leaving Namjoon and Hoseok on their own while Seokjin was busy updating Yoongi on the changes they’ve made while he was gone.

“Did he even notice the fairy lights?” Hoseok shook his head, smiling brightly at the fact that Yoongi hasn’t noticed.

“Isn’t Y/N supposed to come by today?” He nodded and as if on cue, you entered the coffee house but this time, you looked troubled. Namjoon watched as Seokjin took your order, looking at him for a minute and mouthing words that were most likely ‘Ask if she’s ok’. He nodded and waited for you to follow your routine.

You didn’t talk to him.

Maybe you just weren’t in the mood to talk. Yeah, that was probably it. He shook his head and prepared your drink. This time, you didn’t watch him with deep interest. Your eyes were glued to your phone, frowning at the screen and letting out a sigh.

Was there something wrong?

He gave you your drink and you quickly thanked him. Instead of going to your regular spot in the coffeehouse, you left. You didn’t stay. Namjoon frowned and furrowed his brows. Something was wrong. Sure, it shouldn’t be something he should be concerned about since it was only one time but maybe something was wrong.

He could tell Hoseok and Seokjin were staring at him, realizing you left instead of staying. Instead of looking at them, he kept working, trying to bury it with work. If anything, he was probably jumping to conclusions. You’ll return and you’ll stay.

He believed that.

Wednesday, September 20th

“Namjoon, do the world a favor and take out the trash.” Before Namjoon could protest, Yoongi already handed him the trash bag and went back to help Seokjin with cashier duty. Namjoon sighed and went outside, noticing the day was close to ending. Has it been that long?

It’s been three days since he’s seen you.

He wondered why you’ve gone mute, why you decided to cancel the second date and why you’ve just...vanished. He asked Yoongi to check up on you and he did, informing him that you’re fine. However, he told him that the arguing in your apartment wouldn’t stop.

‘She argues with that person for so long, they keep me up at night’

The sound of cars honking brought him back to reality, making him sigh and open the trash can, dumping it in there and closing it. As he walked back to the coffeehouse, he bumped into someone. He looked down and noticed it was someone he has been waiting for.

You.

“Sorry.”  You mumbled before running down the street, your figure becoming smaller every second. He didn’t even get the chance to ask you about your disappearance. For a moment, he was debating whether to chase after you or not. Chasing after you would’ve given him a couple of answers.

However, he decided not to.

“What took you so long?” Yoongi asked as he saw Namjoon enter the coffeehouse with a dazed expression. He simply shrugged and went back to work, making drinks and handing it out to the customers.

He wondered where you went, why you were in a rush and why you avoided the coffee house for three days. He wanted to ask you those questions but never got the chance. He mentally slapped himself for not chasing after you. It was a perfect opportunity.

“Hey, careful! You’re going to spil-”

Too late.

He nearly dropped the coffee carafe as the heated water touched his hand. He quickly set it to the counter and hissed in pain, heading to the sink to cool his hand, soothing the pain. Seokjin held back a laugh as he finished the customer's order.

He sighed as the cool water touched his hand, avoiding eye contact with everyone, especially Seokjin who witnessed the whole thing. Namjoon wondered what your reaction would’ve been if you witnessed it. You probably would’ve laughed at him, teasing him about it for the rest of the day.

Yeah, that was probably accurate.

“How’s the burn?” Hoseok pointed at his hand, holding back another one of his smiles that could make people believe he’s the sun. He shrugged, eating his dinner with his other hand while he listened to another one of Hoseok’s stories.

Instead of joining you, he went to the break room with Hoseok. He felt bad for leaving Hoseok alone in the break room after all. It wasn’t really time for his break but Yoongi gave them permission, especially after his whole ‘burned my hand’ fiasco and even gave Hoseok permission to join him.

“Can you even write their names with your left hand?” He shrugged. Sure, he tried it once on a previous accident but his handwriting on his left hand wasn’t the best. After he was done cooling his hand from the burn, he asked Seokjin to write the names on the cups. After a couple hours from the accident, he could write their names without feeling pain.

“My right hand is fine now so I don’t need to write with my left hand.” He mumbled, finishing his dinner and waited for Hoseok to finish his own.

“You know...Yoongi finally noticed the fairy lights.” Hoseok informed, making Namjoon raise an eyebrow.

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing. I thought he was going to tell me to take it down but he didn’t, he just ignored it and went back to work.” Namjoon frowned at that. If it was Namjoon’s idea, Yoongi would’ve taken it down immediately. Of course, he has a soft spot for Hoseok.

“You’re lucky. If it was me, he would’ve shut it down.” Hoseok nodded with a smile, laughs escaping from his mouth.

“At least I don’t break shit, unlike you.”

“That’s different. It was an accident.”

“Which one are you referring to?” Namjoon scoffed, ignoring Hoseok’s laugh.

“Do you even know how much money we had to pay for the damages?” He didn’t wait for him to answer.

“Over 100 dollars! I betted with Seokjin to see if Yoongi would fire you this month but he didn’t. I had to pay him 50 dollars!” He complained, making Namjoon frown.

“You guys made a bet to see if I would get fired this month?” Hoseok nodded with a sheepish shrug.

“If it makes you feel better, you’ve been working here for 2 years already and Yoongi still hasn’t fired you.” Hoseok attempted to comfort him but it didn’t work. 

“Anyway, any news on Y/N?” He shook his head, making Hoseok frown. 

“She’s probably stressed out over work or moving.” He suggested. That also didn’t help. It just made him more concerned. 

“Didn’t Yoongi say she’s always arguing with someone at night or something?” Hoseok nodded. Was it because of that? Was the person hurting her? That was most likely it. He wanted to stop it. 

No, his brain whispered. 

You’re jumping to conclusions, he thought. 

He didn’t have time to think deeper about it as it was time to go back to work. The two of them got up and went to assist customers while Seokjin said goodbye to them, leaving for the day. He informed them that he won’t be able to work tomorrow to attend his friend’s wedding. 

“Do you have a date then?” Seokjin shook his head at Namjoon’s question. 

“It doesn’t matter. Knowing Taehyung, he’ll keep me company.” He frowned at that. 

“Isn’t Taehyung getting married?” Once again, Seokjin shook his head. 

“No. Jimin is the groom and since he’s friends with Taehyung, he invited him as well.” Namjoon mouthed an ‘oh’ and went back to work. He remembered he used to tease Seokjin over the fact that his friends are getting married or dating while he’s still single. Hoseok always joined in whenever it started. 

It always ended with Seokjin yelling at them. 

“I don’t get why we have to stay behind when it’s 11 pm. Who would buy coffee at this time?” Hoseok complained, sitting on the counter and watching the door as if a billion customers are going to appear. 

“I’m not Google, Hoseok.” He replied. 

“Why does Yoongi get to go home? He has no life after all! That’s not fair.” It was going to be a long shift if Hoseok continued to complain. Scratch that, he’s always like this at night whenever it’s just the two of them. 

“Don’t question things that aren’t meant to be questioned.” He mumbled. 

“Wait a minute...shouldn’t the coffee house be closed by now? Why is this one still open? Normal coffee houses shouldn’t be open by this time!” He continued complaining. 

“Can you just be quiet and at least clean or something?” He snapped, making Hoseok finally quiet down and clean. Hoseok grumbled something inaudible but he couldn’t care less. 

“Excuse me?” The two of them look at the source of the voice. 

“Are you still open?” The man asked, closing his umbrella and staring at the two of them. 

“Sadly, we are,” Hoseok mumbled, going to take the customer’s order. Why is he buying coffee at this time? It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask but that question still lingered in his mind. 

Namjoon began working on the drink, noticing the man was staring at him as he worked. It was normal to be stared at while working, especially by you. However, his stare felt a bit intimidating. 

He wrote the name down on the cup even if he didn’t have to since he was the only customer. 

Jungkook. 

“Here you go.” He handed the man his cup of coffee which he replied with a ‘thanks’. Namjoon simply nodded, watching as the customer sipped his coffee and turned to leave the coffee house before suddenly...

His phone rang. 

He sighed and put his coffee down on a table before answering, looking at the screen and frowning. He answered it either way. Namjoon wasn’t interested in the conversation before the words that came out of Jungkook’s mouth made him freeze. 

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” He spoke. 

Hoseok also froze, staring straight at Namjoon with a confused expression. Could it be? No. There’s a billion Y/N’s in the world. It can’t be you. There’s probably another Y/N in the neighborhood. Yeah, that’s got to be it. 

“Are you crying? Wh-” He was stopped by the person. The person was speaking loudly that Namjoon could hear from his spot. It did sound like you but he didn’t want to believe it. 

“Ok, ok. I’ll come over. Want me to bring something over?” Jungkook nodded and seemed nervous. Was something wrong? He tried to believe it isn’t you. It can’t be. 

“Ok. I'll see you there, bye.” He hung up, grabbing his coffee and umbrella before leaving, leaving the two of them in silence. Hoseok stared at Namjoon, making it difficult to believe that wasn’t you. 

“You think that was Y/N?” He finally asked. 

“I don’t know.” Namjoon quietly replied, cleaning the counter. 

He hoped not. 

Thursday, September 21st

Seokjin didn’t arrive as told by him yesterday. 

He still remembers Jungkook, the man that came by last night. The one who talked to Y/N, was it you? He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about that possibility all day. That made Yoongi frustrated with him, scolding him to get back to work and to quit being a pain in the ass. 

He felt someone tap him on the shoulder, turning and finding Hoseok giving him a wrapped gift. 

For him? 

Hoseok smiled sheepishly and when Namjoon took the gift, he showed him a cupcake with a lit candle. He frowned as he tried to think of a reason why he was doing this. 

Suddenly, he knew the reason why. 

“Your birthday is on the 12th, right? Sorry I didn’t do anything. How come you didn’t tell anyone?” He shrugged. He was right. His birthday was last week and he didn’t bother to tell anyone. Why would he tell anyone anyway? It’s not like they’ll care except for Hoseok.  

“It wasn’t a big deal anyway. It’s not like no one will care.” Hoseok frowned at that. 

“I care. Seokjin and Yoongi will probably care too. Y/N too.” He stiffened at the mention of you. 

“Just blow the damn candle and celebrate,” Hoseok demanded, making Namjoon sigh and blow on the candle, it immediately turned off. 

“Where’s Yoongi anyway?” He asked as he ate the cupcake. Hoseok took a quick picture of the scene and this time, Namjoon didn’t protest. 

“He said he’s going to be late and should be here any minute.” As if on cue, Yoongi appeared but this time, holding a wrapped gift. Since when did Yoongi give gifts to his workers on their birthday? 

“Happy late birthday, Namjoon.” He mumbled, putting it on top of Hoseok’s gift. 

“Seokjin told me he’ll give you his gift tomorrow,” Yoongi informed, watching as Namjoon opened his gift. Super glue. He was disappointed but not surprised at his gift, looking at Yoongi and laughing. 

“Now you can actually fix the stuff you destroy,” Yoongi explained, making him laugh again. Next was Hoseok’s gift. It was a book. 

“You’ve always complained about wanting one of his books so I finally got you one.” He explained. 

“Wow...I don’t know what to say. Thank you guys.” They nodded. 

“Clearly, my gift is better since he keeps breaking stuff.” Yoongi declared, making Hoseok scoff. 

“Actually, my gift is better because it will never run out, unlike yours.” He retorted. 

He blurred out the rest of the argument and focused on the candle that was long forgotten by them. 

For a moment there, he almost forgot about you. 

Almost. 

Friday, September 22nd

“How was the wedding?” Hoseok asked as soon as Seokjin arrived at the coffee house. 

“It was pleasant. Taehyung clung to me like I said. I’m not quite fond of Jimin’s wife though.” Hoseok frowned at that. Namjoon didn’t want to hear the rest of the conversation but was forced since the coffee house wasn’t that busy today. 

“Why? Was she mean?” Seokjin shook his head.

“No. She just...I don’t know. I just can’t explain it but if you see them together, you’ll agree.” Namjoon frowned at that. What did he mean by that? 

“Besides that, one of Taehyung and Jimin’s friends joined along. He was mostly with me and Taehyung. I forgot his name...I think his name was...Jungkook?” Namjoon froze and stared at them. 

“Jungkook?” He repeated and Seokjin nodded. 

“Why? You know him?” Namjoon and Hoseok exchanged uneasy looks, remembering the events that happened two days ago. 

“Sort of. He came into the coffeehouse late at night and was talking to someone on the phone named Y/N.” Hoseok explained, making Seokjin frown. 

“He never mentioned a Y/N when I was with him. Overall, he was interesting to talk to. “ It was strange how it all connected. Y/N was involved somehow. At least, someone named Y/N. Maybe the Y/N Jungkook was talking to, wasn’t you? It can’t be. 

“Oh by the way, here’s my gift, Namjoon.” Seokjin gave him his wrapped gift. Namjoon stared at it blankly for a second before taking it and thanking him which he replied with a ‘you’re welcome.’ As soon as he opened it, he already knew what it was. 

A Ryan phone case. 

Hoseok laughed as soon as he saw it, commenting that it was meant for Namjoon this whole time. It truly was. Namjoon thanked him once more and immediately changed his phone case, looking at his new phone case and admiring it. 

He wished you were here, celebrating his late birthday with him. Was it selfish of him to wish that you would stay just for him instead of moving back to your hometown? It probably was but he couldn’t care less. He wants to see you and start a conversation with you. 

Origin of Tragedy, the title for your story appeared in his flashbacks. 

He wondered if you will ever finish it. 

He wants to see it in his local bookstore, waiting for him to read it. He wants to open it and find a way to get you to sign it. Maybe he could ask Yoongi to help him. He wished he took the opportunity to kiss y-

His phone rang. 

He immediately answered it. 

“Hello?” He waited for the caller to answer but all he heard was unstable breathing and sobs. It instantly made him feel uneasy. 

“Is this Kim Namjoon?” 

The voice sounded like they were going to break down and cry any minute now. After all, he could already hear them sobbing. Namjoon furrowed his brows and ignored Seokjin’s worried gaze, turning away from him. 

“Yes, this is Kim Namjoon. Who is this?” He once again heard sobs and uneasy breathing. He was trying to speak but failed miserably. 

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that again?” He was getting even more nervous every time the person sobbed. 

“I- It’s about... Y-Y/N.” He furrowed his brows at that. Why was he crying then? Something told him this was going to end badly. The person took a deep breath and finally let the words spill from his mouth. 

“S-she...” He paused for a minute. 

“She’s dead.” He managed to get it out, barely a whisper. 

More sobs erupted after that. 

He stayed dead silent for what seemed like hours, his heart throbbing in pain and he didn’t even care about the fact that he dropped his phone in utter shock, muting Seokjin and Hoseok’s voices. 

Was this just a cruel joke? 

A nightmare? 

He stormed out of the coffee house, going to the back and kicking the trash cans down, yelling out in anger and pain. Was he getting punished? What did he possibly do to deserve this? After some time, he leaned against the wall and slowly slid down, not aware that people were watching. He clenched his fists, looking at the scenery. Why was the scenery so beautiful when a person just died? 

He needed a drink. 

Yoongi appeared with a can of beer in his hand and offered it to him. Namjoon looked at it for a second before taking it, finishing it in one go. 

“I know it probably won’t get you drunk but..might as well.” He mumbled, joining him on the ground. 

“Want to go to the bar?” He offered. 

He has never said yes so fast in his entire life. 

Wednesday, September 27th

“How did she die?” Seokjin whispered, watching as Namjoon put flowers on the ground in front of her grave with a solemn expression. 

“Suicide. Her brother, Jungkook discovered her hanging from the bathroom doorway with a note on the ground. That’s how he contacted me.” He explained, emotion nonexistent whatsoever. 

“She never finished her novel..” He muttered, watching the grave with such intensity. Was it full of regret? Seokjin wasn’t sure. 

They weren’t invited to the funeral. Namjoon wasn’t even hurt by that fact. As soon as the funeral was over, he visited you with the rest of the members. 

“She really was wearing a mask...” Yoongi whispered under his breath but loud enough for Namjoon to hear. 

“What did the note say?” Namjoon looked at Hoseok with teary eyes and pulled out the note from his jacket. He’s surprised Jungkook let him keep the note, the last thing his sister has ever written before she hanged herself. 

Hoseok didn’t read it aloud for his sake. 

They gave Namjoon privacy after that, waiting for him to finish. 

He stared at your grave, reading the words engraved on it. He should have known. He mentally beat himself up over the fact that he was too late. He could’ve prevented it. 

He could’ve saved you. 

‘If we could turn back the clock...

Where should we go back to?

Once we reach that place,

Will happiness be ours to stay?’

If Namjoon looked past your mask, would you still have been alive today? 

Questions like this will keep him awake at night, haunting him and bothering him. Sometimes he feels like this is his punishment, your ghost will follow him until his last breath. He looked at the letter, noticing every curve and corner of your words. 

Did you even care about him in the first place? 

It drives him insane knowing that you’re probably looking at him with an emotionless expression, waiting for him to pay for his sins. September is close to ending, everything feels colder without your presence, nothing feels normal without you. 

“Hey, Namjoon.” 

He turned and rubbed his eyes to see if he was dreaming, staring at it in confusion. He was dreaming, he had to be. 

You. 

“Are you going to make my drink or just stand there?” You giggled, looking at his expression. Namjoon frowned and furrowed his brows at you. This had to be a dream. It isn’t possible. He’s seeing things. 

He looked at the thing you were holding and frowned as soon as he saw it. It was like that was following him, becoming his shadow and driving him to the edge of his sanity. Was it a coincidence? 

Origin of Tragedy.

#rap monster x reader #rap monster x you #rap monster x oc #kim namjoon x reader #kim namjoon x you #kim namjoon x oc #bts scenarios #bts x you #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bangtan fanfic #bangtan fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bangtan sonyeondan #bts alternative universe

[sitabethel]

I just wrote a fanfic and it is the worst fanfic ever

I am sending to you the Bakura/Weevil fanfic that I wrote because of boredom and a very bad sense of humor. It is postcanon and Teen rated for references to sexual situations but no sexual situations happening.

This is the easiest way I could think of to send this much text. Feel free to share it with the world I guess. If I could put a read more I would do that here to make it less jarringly long but I can’t.

(Sita Note: I am putting this under the cut to protect the innocents out there that would cry if they had to read a story with Bakura and Weevil together.

But honestly? I thought this was going to be like the time you troll-posted a “finfic” into my message box, but no, this is a proper story. I was impressed! And grossed out, but still impressed. I hope Malik barfed on his bike at the end)

Bakura paced the small distance of Ryou’s washroom again. When he caught his reflection out of the corner of his eye, he turned on it and growled.

He twirled a fat eyeliner pencil in his hand. Normally he didn’t bother with any sort of upkeep on Ryou’s features, and when he did it was a simple matter of adding ‘evil twin’ kohl lines, but this was a special occasion.

Not only was it a date, it was a blind date. His host had set it up for him after he had spent a week and a half drinking wine and eating ice cream because Malik had gotten mad and wouldn’t call him back. Ryou had set up an account for him on the new Kaibacorp Duel Monsters Dating App, complete with selfies with astonishingly convincing scowls. Bakura assumed Yugi had helped Ryou get his hair to stand up properly.

 The hair was a problem. He was never good at convincing it to cooperate. It was bad enough that Ryou’s hair was so unruly on its own, but something about his dark aura made it impossible to wrestle into anything but a spiky vertical mess. Malik had thought his ‘bunny ears’ were cute- No. No thoughts of Malik, this was a new start.

His host interrupted before he could go back to pulling at their hair and pacing. “I don’t see what the problem is. You look like you belong in a Visual Kei band.”

“That’s the problem. I wanted to look like we’re a normal person, and not a goth weirdo with a brain parasite trying desperately to look normal while renting headspace.”

“But we look like a hot weirdo. You’re still trying to live up to Malik’s standards. Just borrow the stuff I go to concerts with Yugi in. If he doesn’t like it, I’ll let you go shopping for something better next time.”

He only had fifteen minutes until his date showed up anyways. Bakura gave in and dug out the least garish stuff he could find in Ryou’s concertwear. It was better than jeans and a tshirt. Or jeans and a neon flannel. Or jeans and an ugly sweater…

 The doorbell rang, and Bakura hurried to answer it. When he opened the door, he saw nothing-

Until he looked down.

His first instinct was to kick anything that short, because he didn’t know any children, but he knew one heck of a short pharaoh.

But this wasn’t the pharaoh.

“Are you even old enough to drink?”

His date looked like an idiot schoolboy. Green blazer, giant bowtie, thick glasses bowl cut. Bakura was honestly a little concerned.

The gremlin snorted out a laugh. “I thought you would recognize me, since we dueled at the same level when you placed in Battle City. What was that, a decade ago?”

It had in fact been eight years. Bakura knew this because he’d been planning a special date with Malik to celebrate. He didn’t correct the gremlin.

Bakura decided to go for huffy and aloof. He didn’t like bringing up the past, and he didn’t particularly like Duel Monsters either. Better to cut that conversation off before it got started. “I didn’t pay much attention to the other competitors, I was busy.”

“I’m Weevil Underwood.” Ryou was laughing now, and Bakura assumed it had something to do with the fact that his date was a gremlin manchild. “Hey spirit, I hardly met this guy, but he hates Yugi too. He’s the guy who threw Yugi’s cards into the ocean. You’re gonna get along great.”

Weevil looked uncomfortable under Bakura’s scrutiny, and attempted more small talk. “So on your profile you said you like to use an Occult Deck? It would be fun to d-“

“No dueling.” Bakura pushed past Weevil and locked his apartment door behind him. He was still getting dinner out of this.

–

Weevil insisted on burgers. Bakura didn’t mind burgers, because at least he wouldn’t have to stand around while his gremlin date got carded for a bar.

Bakura found that he hated this man. So much.

Weevil didn’t seem to like silence. Bakura refused to talk. So Weevil filled the silence. First with Duel Monsters strategies. Then with insect facts. Then back to Duel Monsters to talk about insect themed monsters and how they related to real insects.

Bakura chewed very slowly, and glared.

Weevil seemed to be picking up on the fact that things were not going well. “Are you okay? Sick or something?”

“Fantastic.”

“You don’t seem fantastic.”

What was the quickest way out of this mess? Deadpan, “I’m going through a breakup and I’m too distraught to be out in the real world right now.”

“A breakup? Me too.”

Bakura snorted into his burger. “I can’t imagine why anyone would break up with you.”

He regretted it, because Weevil looked like he was about to start crying. “H-his name was. Was Rex. W-we were semifinalists together. I thought it was all going to be perfect, b-but he said I d-DIDN’T CARE ENOUGH ABOUT DINOSAURS.”

Weevil proceeded to weep openly at their table.

It was a pathetic display, and Bakura wished he were not currently sitting in the same booth. He wanted to be as unassociated with this display as possible.

With a sigh, Bakura grabbed several napkins from the dispenser and shoved them at Weevil. Then he threw the guy over his shoulder and carried him out of the burger joint.

 –

Twenty minutes later, he had him on Ryou’s couch with a nature documentary playing.

Bakura sat stiffly next to him, feeling very intrusive, and also missing his annoying ex very much. He was halfway through a bottle of moscato.  

“B-bakura?” Weevil addressed him for the first time since the burger meltdown had started.

“Yes?”

“D-do you know what would be really good revenge?”

This piqued his interest. Bakura loved revenge.

“Let’s just fuck right now on this sofa to get back at our exes.”

His vengeance boner receded immediately. “That won’t affect them at all.”

“What if we record it and email it to them?”

Bakura took a moment to finish the bottle. “Sure.”

 –

Malik, who had been busy repairing his bike Entirely Too Many Times, heard his phone blip with an email alert.

He walked over and scowled when he saw that it was from Bakura. He had been trying very hard not to text Bakura. Life without Bakura was surprisingly boring, but Malik had initiated the breakup and it would be lame to give up on that this soon.

Despite his reservations, he opened the video attachment. Bakura had probably gotten himself too drunk to write an email and sobbed a speech into a webcam instead.

What greeted him when the video had loaded was decidedly not Bakura sobbing into a webcam.

#fanfiction #Bakura x Weevil #there better fucking not be a name for that on the Shipper's list because I will be pissed off if it's a real thing #holy shit my dude #humor/angst #this is actually a funny story #submission

[katzoo12]

Sick Beats (WARNING POP AND POSH AHEAD!)

A.N. okay, so this was a little something I wrote back near the end of January for those who ship Pop and Posh…yes I ship it. The end may be a BIT cringy, fair warning.

DISCLAIMER: DREAMWORKS OWNS TROLLS AND I’M ONLY USING THE CHARACTERS FOR ENTERTAINMENT! ENOUGH SAID! ROLL FANFIC!

------------------------

DJ Suki opened her eyes-and immediately closed them again.

Now, being a troll, she would usually jump out of bed feeling energized and dancing to the latest pop song her alarm played.

But today, she was dully noticing that her head was throbbing with pain, she felt a bit cold and shiver-y, and looking at her skin, her usual hot pink was slightly faded.

But this wasn’t like when she turned gray in the cooking pot, no, no.

It’s a little known fact that whenever trolls are sick, besides the usual malaise, their colors turn a shade or two duller.

Suki groaned.

Today was the first big party that the trolls were having since the bergens found their true happiness, and Poppy-QUEEN Poppy, she remembered-as always, asked her to DJ.

Don’t worry, there was also a substitute, a green haired troll named Glimmer, so that wasn’t what Suki was worried about.

It was the idea of letting down her girlfriend, the blue half of the Fashion Twins-Chenille.

That’s right, she was dating a GIRL.

The hot pink troll wasn’t EXACTLY sure what drew her to Chenille, be it her lips or her eyes.

Or her hips.

Whatever the case, when she eventually decided to confess, the blue troll accepted her and reciprocated her feelings.

Poppy knew, of course, but the couple wasn’t sure about how the rest of the Snack Pack would react, so as of now, the troll queen was the only one they confided in.

Back to the present, Suki, even though she REALLY wasn’t feeling up to it, drove herself to get out of bed by picturing the disappointed face of Chenille.

Mustering up a smile, the DJ got dressed wearing her usual clothes and went to join the morning song time…

…which by now was already over.

The hot pink troll groaned again, though this time, it was more out of sadness than of discomfort.

“Hey Suki! What’s up?” called a familiar voice.

Suki tried to look happy and, while hoping she wouldn’t notice her faded pink, turned to see-

“Poppy! Nothing much. Just trying to get inspiration for my newest party playlist!”

“Well, whatever it’ll be, I’m sure it’ll be AMAZING! Which reminds me, you missed the morning song time, which you NEVER do. Is something wrong?” asked the concerned queen.

“No, no, everything’s perf-”

It was here, that Suki’s lungs decided to eject the bad stuff out, forcing her to cover her mouth and turn away from her friend in a bout of coughs…at the worst possible time.

Poppy patted the DJ’s back until she stopped hacking.

When the coughs finally died down, Poppy said gently, “I knew your colors looked faded…you know, I can always have Glimmer DJ instead. You should go back home and get some rest. Don’t want to get worse.”

The queen started guiding her ill friend back home when Suki pulled away.

“It’s not the party I’m worried about…”

The bright pink troll’s eyes widened in understanding.

“It’s Chenille…” Poppy finished.

“Well, I’m sure your girlfriend would want you to get better, which means you need to rest.”

“I don’t need to rest!”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Too.”

“Not.”

“What’s wrong?”

Poppy and Suki were in a tense glaring battle when a new voice appeared.

They turned around and the DJ paled even more.

It was Chenille.

Another little known fact is that rare conjoined troll twins, like Satin and Chenille, could separate whenever they wanted, as long as they both willed it.

Chenille, sensing something was wrong with her significant other, practically begged her twin to let her go.

Satin, the more logical one, was a bit doubtful that something bad had happened, but after seeing how upset Chenille was, she finally complied.

Seeing how her sister took off like a rocket as soon as the hair was separated, the pink half only hoped she did the right thing.

Again, back to the present, Chenille took one look at her love and immediately noticed her faded pink.

She always had a sharp eye, due to at least a decade of designing clothes.

Poppy stuck her tongue out at Suki playfully and dashed away after saying “Maybe she can talk some sense into you!”

Having a feeling what was going on, the blue twin decided to interrogate the DJ, knowing that she would NEVER lie to her…right?

“Okay, spill.”

“Spill what? I’m fine!”

“Listen, love, I know faded colors when I see ‘em. What’s. Wrong?”

Still trying to convince her girlfriend and herself (but mostly her girlfriend) that she was fine, Suki denied again.

“Nothing. I’ve never felt better.”

Chenille looked hurt, quickly composed herself, and decided to give the hot pink troll one last chance.

“I’m only going to ask you once more. Are you sick?”

“…No.”

The blue Fashion Twin shook her head in disbelief, and walked away.

Suki was shocked, but forced herself to bury her feelings and try to hang on to the delusion that she was fine.

----------------------

No, I’m not fine…thought the DJ miserably.

It was later that night at the party, and Suki felt worse than ever.

Her head was trying to fight off a migraine, her nose was stuffed, and the cold and shiver-y feeling was nearly unbearable.

Add in the waves of dizziness, the nearly white skin color, and the rawness of her throat from her coughing, and you have a very sick troll.

She didn’t even realize her DJing was WAY off until everyone stopped dancing and was staring at her.

Poppy stepped forward.

“Suki, PLEASE, you’re pushing yourself way too far! YOU NEED. REST.”

Suki was about to shake her head violently and protest when it happened.

A particularly strong shiver hit her, her vision started going black at the edges, and the next thing she knew she was looking at the sky.

The last thing she heard before blacking out was a voice yelling, “SOMEONE GET CHENILLE AND DR. PLIMSY!”

-------------------

Five minutes earlier, the said-twin was sitting on her bed with a despondent look on her face.

Satin had TRIED to get her to open up and tell her what was wrong, but gave up when Chenille didn’t even acknowledge her.

I can’t believe she didn’t trust me enough to have me take care of her! Why did I even agree to be her girlfriend? she mused.

The blue twin was jolted out of her thoughts when the door slammed open.

“Sis, come quick! It’s Suki!” gasped out Satin,

“And I’m guessing she wants me to forgive her?” said Chenille bitterly.

“What?! NO! SHE PASSED OUT AT THE PARTY!”

“She should’ve told me what was wrong!”

The pink twin stared in disbelief.

“CHENILLE! She’s your BEST FRIEND, and if you don’t get that you should go to her, you’re better off turning gray!”

Chenille gasped.

Telling a troll that they were better off turning gray was one of the WORST POSSIBLE insults one could give, and it jolted the blue troll out of her self pity.

“You’re…you’re right. I was such a jerk to her! WHERE IS SHE?!”

“She’s at Plum Plimsy’s pod! Hurry!”

Not needing to be told twice, Chenille dashed out, dead set on her destination.

------------------

Suki groaned and opened her eyes.

“Ugh…where am I?” she croaked and began coughing.

A figure rushed to her bedside and started helping her drink some water slowly.

“That’s it…easy now…” it said encouragingly.

The voice, distinctly female, sounded very caring.

When Suki was able to focus, she looked at where the voice was coming from.

“Dr. Plum? Wha…What am I doing here?” she asked confusedly.

“You don’t remember? Well, I’m not surprised, considering your fever last night…anyway, you lost consciousness due to a very bad case of the flu at the party,” explained the resident doctor.

The DJ tried to remember, but her fuzzy memory only managed bits and pieces.

“Where’s Chenille?” she asked.

“The Fashion Twin? She’s camped out in the lobby. She was begging to see you all night,” Dr. Plum said.

“Will you get her?”

The doctor hesitated.

“Well…you still need lots of rest if you want to recover…are you sure?”

Suki nodded as best she could with her throbbing head.

“Alright then…but ten minutes only!”

Dr. Plum walked out and soon returned with Suki’s girlfriend.

“I’ll give you some privacy…”

When both lovers were sure the doctor was gone, Chenille dashed over to the hot pink troll’s bedside and began weeping and apologizing profusely.

“I’m sorry…I’m so, so, sorry…” she said between sobs.

The DJ opened her arms and Chenille collapsed into them, while the blue troll’s colors slowly faded to gray.

When the tears died down and her colors were beginning to return, Suki told the former, “No…I’m sorry…It was my fault I passed out…”

Chenille had disbelief written all over her face.

“That’s beside the point. I was such a jerk to you when you lied to me. Heck, when I heard you passed out, I didn’t even want to go to you until Satin told me I would be better off gray…”

Suki gasped.

“THAT? But that’s-”

“I know. But I now realize…that she was right…”

The fashionable twin started crying again, and the colors she slightly regained faded once more.

The DJ started singing as best she could with her raspy voice to calm her lover down…

“I see your true colors shining through…I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you. So don’t be afraid, to let them show…your true colors, true colors, are beautiful…like a rainbow, whoa, like a rainbow…”

Soon after, Chenille’s sobs subsided.

Suki took her chin in her hand.

“Chenille…it’s not your fault. I should have trusted you. The truth is…I didn’t want to disappoint you when you noticed I wasn’t at the party. We both made mistakes, and I forgive you for yours.”

The blue twin was silent, until…

“I forgive you too…let’s promise to never keep secrets from each other again…”

“Agreed.”

Their lips inched closer and closer until-

“It’s about time you made up!”

The couple jumped startled, to see Dr. Plum Plimsy standing there.

“I had a sneaking suspicion you were lovers, but you shouldn’t be kissing until Suki here is well. Plus, time’s been up for the past five minutes,” said the doctor.

“You…” started Suki.

“Knew…?” finished Chenille.

Plum smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Though I wouldn’t complain about the Snack Pack knowing,” she hinted.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” said Suki.

“Ahem, well. You should probably be going, Chenille. This DJ needs all the rest she can get.” advised Plum.

Chenille nodded, and walked out after blowing her girlfriend a quick kiss.

Suki happily reciprocated, yawned, and laid down, barely registering the doctor tucking her back in.

The last thing she thought before slipping into the land of dreams was how lucky she was to have Chenille…

The End.

------------------

A.N. Wow, I managed to write this in one evening! That’s DEFINITELY a new record! What do you think? It’s probably not that good, but maybe just leave constructive criticism? I don’t like flames…

#dw trolls #dj suki #satin and chenille #plum plimsy trolls #suki x chenille #princess poppy #fanfic