#and fandom very naturally would shift at least one to fit that tone more

[transpanda-1]

"Why are you idiots changing aspects of this main character to be more inclusive, when instead you can be focusing on [secondary character with minimal screentime/plot importance], [character not even named in canon], [literally unnamed background characters]!"

[fandom-collective-writers]

Flames of Jealousy (Diluc Ragnvindr x MC)

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Diluc Ragnvindr x MC(F)

Warnings: NSFW, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Penetration, Orgasm Denial

Written by: @voltage-vixen Prompt: Jealous Sex​

Notes: The MC featured in this story is a former traveler that is of age.

“Diluc, is everything alright? You’re not acting like yourself.”

Ignoring MC’s expressed concern, Diluc snaked his fingers tighter around her own, and proceeded to storm through the village at an increasing pace as he dragged her along for the ride. 

They had attended (unwilling on Diluc’s behalf) a gathering hosted by none other than the Knights of Favonius. Often one to avoid these types of shindigs where civilities were long forgone as the liquor poured throughout the eve, Diluc had exhausted all options of excuses for not attending when the former traveler he was presently dragging away had insisted upon making an appearance. The woman who had chosen to remain in Mondstadt in the stead of pursuing the journey her brother ventured on with after reuniting with one another; she had chosen to reside stationary in the great nation of freedom to remain by his side.  The least he could offer up was to stand by her side as the proud partner of the honorary knight.

That was until that bastard entered the scene. More specifically, that cryo bastard. Kaeya naturally was the object of the affection of many suitors; in which made Diluc question why the Captain of the Calvary had chosen to stand so closely next to his suitor. The two were exchanging what seemed to be innocent enough pleasantries-but it wasn’t until Kaeya flashed that panty dropping smirk in MC’s direction did Diluc find himself storming across the foyer.  

“Pardon. Allow me to extend my deepest apologies, but I’m afraid we must be taking our leave now. An urgent matter has come up at the guild,” Diluc explained to the nearby guests loitering in the grand hall. Latching onto her wrist, Diluc yanked MC towards the large doors to make an exit without allowing any sort of refutes. MC blinked in confusion at Kaeya’s perceptive wink, and waved a swift goodbye to Lisa and Amber before being dragged fully out of the castle. 

Damn, him. Damn, him all to hell! Who the hell does he think he is putting his hands on my woman?!

Furious thoughts of jealousy raged throughout Diluc’s mind, swirling around like the fury of a violent storm. Wanting to wipe Kaeya from his mind, the animosity shifted onto MC instead. Why in the name of the archons was she allowing other men (least of all one that drove him loony) to position themselves in such a close vicinity to her? Gods, did he love this woman more than his own life itself, but she was due for a lesson. He was going to instill a sweet punishment upon MC that she would never forget. Turning the corner, they soon reached the front of Angel’s Share. Throwing the door open to the closed pub, Diluc slammed it shut behind them before his hands were drawn to her body.

The wielder of pyro’s hands descended the trace of MC’s hips until they cupped the curve of her rear end. She breathed a wistful sigh as he fondled the sensitive mound of flesh. Flames of passion scorched through her veins, igniting her body in a burning desire so fierce, her knees trembled in duress at the grazing heat of the tycoon’s caresses. MC swayed into the embrace of Diluc’s chest, crashing into him as she fervently grasped onto his shirt to brace herself.

“Please,” a breathy whisper slipped from the purse of her lips. “Please, Diluc. I can’t wait any longer. Make me burn for you even more.”

Chuckling, Diluc drank in the sounds of MC’s moans amid lifting her up and settling her onto the counter of the bar. Yearning for more, MC’s hands were drawn to the back of his head. Tugging him closer, their lips collided with such a fierceness, her breath lingered, and a pleasurable tingling consumed the greedy inclination between her legs. 

Diluc longed to satisfy his dear MC. Gazing down at the woman in question, she was a sheer exquisite mess of beauty. Her dress was hitched above her hips, sweat trickling down her thighs. The pupils of MC’s eyes were coated in a desirous lust, and her tongue traced the crease of lips in anticipation of what she was aching for. Oh, great archons did he want to worship MC. Both in body and soul, the nobleman wanted to take her here and now, drowning her in all the whims his affections had to offer. 

Alas, his ravishing of MC would have to take pause. For flashbacks of Kaeya’s smug stupid face as he purposely taunted the owner of Dawn Winery danced into his mind. The way MC unsuspectingly smiled at the flirting ministrations the captain tossed her way infuriated Diluc. Never did he question her loyalty to him, but still….a tiny reminder of who MC belonged to wouldn’t harm anyone. In fact, it could even prove to be an enjoyable experience for the two of them. Slipping underneath the disheveled fabric of dress, Diluc caressed her thighs affectionately as he ascended higher until-

“Already, my ember? The real fun hasn’t even begun yet,” Diluc crooned, pressing two of his fingers against the wet fabric of the thin undergarment serving as a bothersome barrier for the woman writhing beneath him.  

Diluc’s grasp around her waist tightened while he nonchalantly guided his fingers up against her lingerie, rubbing circles of friction against the wetness of her slit. MC’s nails clawed into his chest as the digits on his hands pressed proactively onto her core, occasionally flicking the bud of her womanhood. Diluc nudged his forehead against hers and leaned in to lick the bead of sweat trickling down the side of her face.

“Your eyes are practically begging me to indulge you even more,” Diluc huffed. 

Making haste with his own trousers, his pants fell to the floor of the deserted pub. The pads of his fingers gripped firmly onto the trace of her silhouette. His clasp on MC was so tense, he could already make sight of the light bruises forging vividly, staining the surface of her skin. Concerned his jealousy consumed him with an out of line rashness, Diluc was about to withdraw until MC threw her arms around the base of his neck. Refusing to let her man pull away, she cradled him closer to dimiss the distance between them.

“Hold me tighter,” MC solicited, alluring to his carnal desire by batting her long lashes. “Remind me who I belong to.” 

 “Take care you heed not forget those words. Remember, you are mine, and mine alone,” his honeyed response melodiously rang into her ears as Diluc’s hips snapped forward to enjoin the pair as one.

Sensuous whimpers echoed yonder into the abyss of the tavern whilst MC entrusted herself to Diluc’s spoils. Reaching out to clutch the mound of her ass to brace her from the force of his thrusts, Diluc grunted in between the slaps of her breasts heaving down against her chest from the vigorous momentum of each gratifying movement. Diluc entwined his fingers in between MC’s, as her hitched breathing increased in volume. This response of hers was a telltale sign that approaching the final destination was within sight. He leaned in to pepper her fine skin in kisses, occasionally licking away at the beads of perspiration coating her. 

“Diluc,” she breathed, desperate to catch the breaths he stole, yet unable to deny the pining fueling her tantalizing lust.

“I know,” he murmured, lifting her leg to enfold it around the cut of his toned waist to allow him a more accessible angle of entry. 

“MC, everything about you is captivating,” he whispered. “Your very essence exhilarates the fibers of my very being. Never forget that.”

“Ah, stop torturing me, Diluc,” she moaned during the course of each of his lavish pecks that were assaulting the nape of MC’s neck.

“I shall cease the vexing of this punishment if you surrender and concede yourself over to me,” Diluc demanded, his tone raspy as he pined to bear witness to the scene of MC immersing herself while he drove her to climax. “Say my name-no, scratch that. Scream my name. Scream my name until that lovely voice of yours goes hoarse. Shout high and loud to the mighty archons that I’m the only one that will ever be able to please you.”

Halting the snapping motions of his hips, Diluc held firm and reached out to cradle MC’s chin. Tilting her gaze to lock into his own, he etched the part of her lower lip with his thumb. Tauntingly slow, Diluc slightly shifted the angle of his lower body, further inflicting torment on his squirming companion. Instead of bestowing the release MC was anticipating, the vision holder held her desire hostage by denying any additional penetration.

“Pledge yourself in a vow that your flames shall only ever be ignited by I. Do it. Do it now, and I will set you free from this heat.”

“Diluc, I-DILUC!!!!!”

An extravagant wanton scream escaped from MC, since despite Diluc’s request, he simply couldn’t bear to waste another moment and plunged deeper back into her core. The lewd sounds of her wetness resounded in the air as he pounded into MC, bucking madly, eager to remind her that it was him and him alone that would always be there to fulfill each and every one of her fantasies. It would be him, and him alone, that would allow MC to use him emotionally and physically as she sought fit to indulge in her heart’s content. 

Wrapped around each other, the lines of where he began and she ended were lost in the swirl of pleasure trickling down to the curl of their toes. The heat consuming them was greater than it had ever been prior to this rough lovemaking session, and Diluc chewed on his lip to will himself to hold on for just a while longer.

Come on, hang in there.. Not until MC is satisfied. I can feel her tightening around me, so surely she should be finishing any moment.

Diluc’s prayers were answered, because he felt the familiar tightening of her encompassing around him. A wistful sigh accompanied MC’s relieved one as her body quivered from the aftermath of her coils fluttering from reaching her ograsm. Her body heaved and her back arched down onto the counter of the bar. Heavy and dropping from the aftermath of pleasure, MC was ready for a post-sex slumber and cuddles with Diluc. Placing her hands on the wood counter, MC was about to drop down onto the floor when the grip of her man encircled her suddenly.

“Bold of you to assume we were finished with your punishment,” Diluc coaxed, ignoring the squeal when he flipped MC over. Her bountiful chest was pressed flat up against the hard finished wood of the counter. “You were quite the naughty little vixen today, my ember. Perhaps another round should help you more clearly understand the error of your ways.”

Flinching out of reaction, the tension faded away and MC relaxed onto the counter while Diluc sprinkled kisses on her bare back. She whimpered when his arousal pressed once again at her opening, but then groaned when he pulled back. 

“Fear not, my darling,” Diluc crooned, running his hand to tenderly stroke her back. “I plan on pleasuring you in all of our favorite positions until I’m satisfied that the fact that you are mine is engraved in your heart.” 

His fingers twined through her hair, and Diluc gave a slight tug to bring MC closer to him. She wiggled her bum in the air impatiently, and groaned when his lips touched the responsive spot.

“Diluc,” MC swooned, her words as wet as the happy tears trickling down the side of her face. “I’m yours, my hero. Only yours, for now until forever separates us.”

“Until forever…..,” Diluc mimicked her promise, and willed his body for another round. Those were the final words uttered as they were eventually replaced with incoherent babblings, moans, and whimpers from the delight of losing themselves in each other. 

The fates would ensure that Diluc and MC would live a prosperous future together. That much Diluc was sure of. Despite his perceptions, Diluc abided into a vow that for the rest of their days together, he would spend any amount of time reminding MC of just that fact.

[estrel]

Saving Grace (And Staying Put)

destiel december 2020 prompt: presents | wc: ~1.3k

russian translation available thanks to @hereigoagain !!

[READ ON AO3] [RUSSIAN]

"What'd you think?"

Dean's staring at Cas, a glass full of eggnog resting against his lips. Behind the rim of it he’s hiding a smile at Cas' thoughtful squint, as Cas watches the end credits roll on the television.

"I think...I still don't understand. Are you meant to be my George Bailey?"

Dean splutters into his drink at that, sitting up to wipe eggnog from his mouth and set the cup on the coffee table. He shoots Cas a look, but Cas is still frowning, head tilted in question and maybe a little bit of concern at Dean's reaction.

After watching a myriad of Christmas movies that included Gremlins (a classic), Home Alone (another classic) and Krampus (Jack was not a fan), Sam and Jack had disappeared off to bed and Dean had stuck It's A Wonderful Life into the DVD player. His hope had been that Cas would get his Clarence references after watching it, but instead Cas was comparing Dean to the suicidal businessman that the angel saves in the movie.

What had made Dean choke was that he wasn't exactly wrong.

"I—I guess I am, man, yeah. I mean, I'd like to think I'm a little less pathetic, and I'm probably not as nice as he is, but it's...you're not too far off."

Their eyes meet, and Dean reaches between them for the remote.

"But I'm," Cas says, in a tone that makes Dean pause. "I'm not an angel anymore."

Dean sits back on the couch again, shifting once to get comfortable. "So?"

"So..."

He waits for Cas to continue, rubbing a thumb over the buttons on the remote as the silence stretches. The credits on the TV come to a stop. 

"So, I'm not...’Clarence’ anymore."

"And...what? Is that supposed to faze me, or something?" Dean looks at him again, and Cas' face expresses his apparent uncertainty. 

Dean smooths out his frown, opting instead to get across some of his own sincerity by dropping the deflections for a second.

"Cursed or not, Cas," he says gently, "Angel or not. Doesn't matter, we're...I—I'm better with you. So none of that leeriness, okay? Because you're more than just a set of fluffy wings and a halo."

He thinks Cas might take a crack at him again, indulge him that angels don’t have halos or harps or whatever Dean had said, but he doesn’t. He watches Dean for a long moment, all the while Dean pointedly tries not to notice, flipping channels for something else to watch. The Grinch might be good. 

“I have something for you.”

Cas reaches into a pocket, keeping his hand there while he thinks of how to proceed.

“I know it’s Christmas Eve, and that’s not typically when gifts are given... I also know that there’s probably a whole ritual that has rules and I’m sure you’re very picky about them, but I still...I don’t know if this will count as a present. But I still want to give it to you, if you’ll accept it,” Cas says. 

Dean feels his heart racing, thrumming against his chest so fast it makes him lightheaded. He simply nods, not trusting himself to speak, and watches as Cas pulls out the chain of a necklace until it reveals a small glowing vial that hangs off of it. 

On instinct, Dean reaches out to touch it, hovering his fingers just over the glass. He lifts his gaze to look at Cas. 

“Cas...what is this?”

The essence inside the vial swirls, a bright blue almost the shade of Cas’ eyes. Dean’s entranced, watching as it rhythmically shifts and moves against the glass. 

“It’s me,” Cas replies. “Well, more accurately...it’s my Grace.” 

Dean freezes. 

“Come again?”

Cas sighs softly. “My Grace.”

“You—you saved it?” Dean means to ask ‘How?’ next, but his mouth says, “And you’re giving it to me?”

Cas nods. 

“Why?”

Cas lets his arm relax, lowering it so that the necklace rests between them on the seat cushion of the couch. “You...gave me my humanity, Dean. You showed me how to care about...about everyone. I know I can never repay you for that, but I thought...I thought the least I could do was give a part of myself in return. I—” he hesitates, biting his bottom lip in thought.

“What?”

“No, nothing. I just...hope that you’ll accept it.”

Cas lifts it again in offering, and Dean moves his hand to fit the vial against his palm. It's warm to the touch. Dean wraps his fingers around it, and Cas lets go of the chain. It falls limply against Dean's knuckles.

"Thank you, Cas," He says, bringing it close to his heart. Cas smiles.

"Actually, I uh...I have something for you, too," Dean adds. With his free hand, he digs into his jean pocket and pulls it out, suddenly feeling that it’s a little dumb in comparison to the gift Cas just gave him.

"It's, ah, not exactly angel Grace, but," he holds out the flat of his palm, showing Cas.

Cas takes it from Dean's hand, holding it as if it’s as precious as the necklace Dean is clutching onto for dear life. He levels Dean with a serious stare.

"Are these...?"

"Keys," Dean says, "One's for Baby, and the other's for the Bunker."

Cas is quiet, so Dean keeps going. "I figured, y'know, without your Grace, you'll be needing to get places and, well, keys...open doors." He mentally curses himself. Keys open doors? He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head a little to reset himself. 

"What I mean to say is, now it'll be easier to get home. You can come and go when you'd like, and you don't have to wait for one of us to let you in."

Cas' eyebrows twitch at that. "Home," he repeats, but it’s said like a question.

Dean nods, smiling softly. “Yeah, Cas. Home.” He looks away, startled a little by Cas’ sincere eyes that search his face. “If—If you’ll accept it.”

“Yes,” Cas says quickly. “I accept.”

“Good,” Dean responds. He tries to ignore how the racing of his heart makes his hands shake. He looks down at the necklace. It swings a little, gently touching his chest.

“Um,” Dean holds it out to Cas. He waits a moment too long, though, because he can see Cas’ smile beginning to falter. “Do you think you could help me with this?”

Stunned, Cas takes the necklace and Dean bows his head, feeling his ears go red. It’s a sign of trust, Dean knows, to let your guard down like this in their line of work. It’s like baring your neck to a vampire, or falling asleep next to a djinn.

Cas moves closer on the couch, and their knees touch just barely. Dean watches Cas’ Grace dip underneath his chin as Cas pulls the chain around his neck. He can feel Cas’ arms raised on either side of him as he fastens it, can smell Cas’ scent from how close they are. 

Then Cas is done, fingertips brushing the back of Dean’s neck as he rests the cold chain there. His touch lingers, and Dean’s breath catches, and then Dean is lifting his head up. 

They’re closer than he thought. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. Cas gives a small nod, eyes a little wide. His hands are still at the back of Dean’s neck, fingers brushing gently at the hair on Dean’s nape. Dean shivers, unable to contain it. He brings a hand up to Cas’ tie, holding it a moment, before deciding it could use some adjustment. 

Then both hands are fixing the knot, and when Dean is done, he uses the tie as leverage to pull Cas closer. There’s a pause, when both of their noses bump against each other, where Dean gives Cas an out. 

He doesn’t take it.

Dean presses forward, fitting their lips together. It’s the satisfaction of two missing puzzle pieces finally sliding into place, after years of being lost and collecting dirt under a couch. It’s clean, and it’s warm, and it feels like Purgatory all over again—like purity.

When they pull away, Dean’s a little out of breath. He places a hand on Cas’ face, running a thumb over his cheek.

“Stay,” Dean says. “Don’t leave my side again. I want—I want you to stay.”

Cas’ eyes glisten. “I will,” he says. “I will.”

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[the-insomniac-emporium]

Crimson Ties (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 4

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language Warnings: None for this chap Genre: Hurt + comfort Summary: Sure, your soulmate may be a vampire (of sorts), but there's nothing that love can't conquer, right?... Maybe it's time you learn a little more about the odd circumstances of your soulmate's existence- and the fear that lies beneath the surface. Notes: If the last chapter was "hurt" followed by comfort, this is "comfort" followed by hurt, also known as the part where the story's central conflict comes into play. Features an appearance from Daniela, who reminds us that Cassandra's not the only one with a sharp tongue around here. Previous Chapters: 1: Stem the Flow, 2: Tangled Strands, 3: Rumbling Thunder

4: That Which Burns

“Of all the stars, the fairest,” Bela murmurs in your ear, keeping her arms wrapped loosely around your waist, before giving you a gentle kiss on the cheek. If you hadn’t already been blushing, you certainly would have now done so. You’re leaning into her touch, face flushed as can be, loving every moment of this. For a while now you’ve been curled up with her, while she reads excerpts from her favorite works. Although both of you would have preferred to do this outside, enjoying the view of the stars, you figured it would be best not to push your health too much. After all, you had lost a huge percentage of your blood. Well, temporarily, but it was still better to be safe than sorry.

“That’s probably my favorite line from Sappho,” you chimed, fondly remembering some of your schooling. “Though the one about being remembered always stands out to me. I’m not sure I remember it correctly, and I’m sure it’s been translated a few different ways over the years… but I think it’s ‘someone, I tell you, will remember us in another time’. Might have gotten that backwards, actually.” Giving an awkward little smile, you sheepishly rub the back of your head with one hand. “Either way it feels so romantic. To think of a love so strong that it echoes throughout time, fondly remembered for generations… it warms the heart.”

“Mhmm, most definitely, my dear. Many aren’t as lucky, however,” Bela laments, an odd expression crawling onto her face. There’s the slightest waver to her lower lip as she speaks. Concerned, you turn in place to get a better look, gently reaching out to caress her cheek. Is there something I’m missing? You think, wondering what you should say. “I’m alright, I promise. Merely distracted by a fleeting thought. Let’s read another, yes?” Before you can protest, she’s already turned to another page, starting to read as if she already knew which one was next (which would not, at all, surprise you).

Love shook my heart, Like the wind on the mountain, Troubling the oak-trees

“Oh, if only I could speak Aeolic Greek, so that I could serenade you with tender prose, all the days of your life… just as it was originally written. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” Bela offers, once again smiling wide, as if nothing in the world was wrong, at least not when you were by her side. Though you are not keen to ignore her earlier stroke of misery, you are equally reluctant to put a damper on her current upswing. Now what were you to do? Little comes to mind, other than the simplicity of human warmth, and so you lean once more into her embrace, head held aloft on the strength of her shoulder.

“Here, as I am now, is more than lovely enough. Your voice is soothing in any language, sweet as sugar, relaxing as can be,” you reassure her in your softest tone. Heart fluttering, she finds herself easing back into the comfort of the moment, forgetting all about her earlier woes. “Shall we read another?” Nodding, Bela again turns the page and begins to read:

He’s equal with the gods, that man Who sits across from you, Face to face, close enough to sip Your voice’s sweetness

And what excites my mind, Your laughter, glittering. So, When I see you, for a moment, My voice goes,

My tongue freezes. Fire, Delicate fire, in the flesh. Blind, stunned, the sound Of thunder, in my ears.

Shivering with sweat, cold Tremors over the skin, I turn the colour of dead grass, And I’m an inch from dying.

“Does that make me equal to the gods, then?” You ask, as soon as the last line is given its moment to shine. A small hum comes from your soulmate, who seems equal parts intrigued and confused. “I look in your eyes and my lungs light on fire, my heart ricochets around my chest, and I hear the chorus of angels singing your holy praises. The fact that I can manage to speak at all is confounding. Maybe the muses have seen fit to lend me their artistry, so that I might make conversation worthy of your existence, my dear.” With that said, you find yourself being squeezed gently, Bela placing another kiss against the top of your head. Now, it seems she is the one without the ability to speak. “The divine witnessing the divine, yes?... Let me read the next one, and we’ll see if my voice could ever compare to your own.”

It’s innocent enough, your choice. A turn of the page, just another poem, selected for nothing more than respect for chronology. Yet something drains from the space around you as you begin to read, so subtly slow that you hardly notice.

Girls, you be ardent for the fragrant-blossomed Muses’ lovely gifts, for the clear melodious lyre: But now old age has seized my tender body, Now my hair is white, and no longer dark

How were you to realize that the great shadow of fear loomed over your soulmate, when she had refused to name it mere minutes ago? How were you to know to halt your reciting, when the aching of her heart rendered her throat dry, and she could not bring herself to call out to you? Words poured like poisoned wine from your lips… your soulmate having no choice but to drink up every last drop.

My heart’s heavy, my legs won’t support me, That once were fleet as fawns, in the dance I grieve often for my state; what can I do? Being human, there’s no way not to grow old

A shaky breath from age-old lungs, exhaled into tense air, forced out past a trembling jaw. Say something, Bela tells herself, any poem but this. For a split second you pause, and she wonders if her thoughts have found new light in your own mind. But you break the momentary silence without much care, simply having been unsure of your pending pronunciation of an old name, perfectly unaware of your partner’s panic.

Rosy-armed Dawn, they say, love-smitten Once carried Tithonus off to the world’s end: Handsome and young he was then, yet at last Grey age caught that spouse of an immortal wife

At last her ordeal was over. The final words hang heavy in the air, weighing down her shoulders, but they are done. Her fears had been dragged out from the pit in her stomach, now waving about like dirty laundry. There was only one way for her to avoid this happening another time: Tell you the truth. By now her silence had earned your attention, with you turning in her lap again, concerned gaze meeting her hollow one. Gently, she gives you a reassuring squeeze.

“I… am not one to balk at the nature of things, however painful the truth. Yet I hesitate now, with the very person I am bound to with crimson ties… How cowardly of me,” Bela all but snarls, anger clearly not directed at you. It’s clear in the way that she holds herself that she has more to say. There’s not much you can do other than wait, though you do tuck an arm around her waist, beginning to rub soft circles against her back. “Allow me to drop the pretenses. You are not immortal, but I am. We’ve only been together for a day and a half, and already I’m worrying about your lifespan. It’s safe to say that this particular poem was an unfriendly reminder of our situation.”

Oh. How exactly were you supposed to respond to that?... Your girlfriend- your soulmate- was immortal. Hmph, as if her essentially being a vampire hadn’t already been enough to freak you out. Now this? Well, maybe it wasn’t too much farther of a stretch from the last revelation, even if you were still recovering from that one. Even then, something told you that this was equally hard for Bela- both to say, and to simply feel. As if she needed more stress surrounding her partnership with you…

“Of all the ways for us to mimic legends… I don’t even know what to say, my dear. I… I suppose that I can only reassure you that we will make the most of every moment we have. However much time we are destined to get, we’ll make sure it is filled with bliss,” you reply, slowly, making it up as you go. An ache builds in the center of your chest as you talk, an internal yearning for greater confidence. Although words were your “weapon” of choice, you were not always a master in your use of them, too human to be infallible. “Maybe we should set aside the poetry for now, shift our focus to something, ah, less meaningful?”

“That would be for the best,” Bela agrees, already shifting like she was going to stand up, before you even had a chance to get off of her lap. Something strange had fallen over her expression, an invisible veil, putting an uncomfortable distance between the two of you. Inside your chest, a thundering heart threatens to go still. Had you done something wrong? Did you commit some unspoken sin? Together the two of you rise, in sync yet more separate than before, a thousand questions and anxieties rendering both of you silent...

—————————

Across the room from you, a pair of bright eyes watch your every movement, peering out from over an open book. If you didn’t know better, you might have thought that the “ruse” was intentionally poor. But for all the five hours you had known her, Daniela Dimitrescu had done nothing other than prove herself odd, clumsy, and quite possibly… overconfident. Admittedly, that still made her undeniably more pleasant than Cassandra. If you had to be stuck alongside someone other than your soulmate, well, ‘twas best that it was this strange redheaded gremlin. Even if she had expressed an unfortunate interest in eating you.

Gods, what is wrong with this family? You think, frowning a tad, unable to stop yourself from making eye contact with Daniela. Instantly she’s looking away, pretending to be engrossed within her book. The very same book that had remained open to the same page for half an hour now. I do hope Bela is having more fun right now, with whatever “business” called her away so unexpectedly. She hadn’t seemed happy to have to leave your side, earlier tension notwithstanding. Coming here to the library had been her suggestion, though you doubted she knew that Daniela was there, or at least hadn’t anticipated her sister’s unnerving behavior. Already the redhead was looking back at you, even less subtly than before.

Sighing, you decided that you could only put up with so much of this tomfoolery.

“Are you in need of something? Or is there something on my face?” You ask, setting your own book aside as you do. There’s a few moments of silence, as Daniela glances around the room, as if you might actually be speaking to someone else. When no scapegoats teleport to her rescue, she very awkwardly clears her throat, then moves to sit at your table. Though you are loath to admit it, your heart starts beating faster as she approaches. Not out of attraction, hell no, rather fear. Perhaps getting her attention hadn’t been the wisest choice after all…

“I just think it’s funny,” Daniela chimes, trailing off just long enough to run a finger down the length of your arm, “that Bela abandoned you so quickly. You’re so… fragile. Cassandra told me about the fun little introduction you had to our family- the blood loss, being chained up, the fear you felt when you got caught in our territory.” Suddenly she’s devolving into a fit of giggles, hand resting not-so-gently on your wrist. When you try to pull away, her nails dig in, and her gaze snaps back to your own. “But you don’t remember that part, do you? If you did… oh, we’d have to lock you up, like the little pet you are, to keep you from running away. I’m sure Bela wouldn’t mind seeing you in chains.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You snap, uncharacteristically furious. While it was true that you couldn’t recall exactly how you made it into the castle’s dungeons, you refuse to accept Daniela’s implications about your soulmate, or her assessment of your dedication. A brief second passes where you think she’s about to lunge towards you. Instead, she withdraws her hand, moving it to prop up her chin instead. Then, her lips slowly drag upwards into a wicked grin, wide eyes filled with dangerous amusement.

“So you’re more than a wannabe Shakespeare, after all? A bit more teeth, a touch more vulgarity, maybe a twinge of bloodlust, and you might actually fit in around here. Not enough to get our family’s ‘gift’- our secret to a long, happy life- but enough that Bela won’t grow bored of your sappy poems,” she teases with another string of laughter. Before you can question her about this ‘gift’, she’s all but jumping to her feet, stretching out her arms as she does. “I can’t wait to update Cassandra about you. We’ll be betting on how entertaining you’ll end up being. Try to keep from bailing on my dear sister too soon, alright?”

Just like that she’s disappearing into a swarm of flies, leaving you more confused (and angry) than ever. Taking a deep breath, you try to focus on what you need to do next: Find Bela. Talk to her. Get some goddamn answers.

[parvuls]

* adapted from @librajiminn on twitter

a fun game to celebrate 2020 ending! the rules are simple: recommend your favorite omgcp fics so everyone can enjoy them, while trying to fill in enough slots to get a bingo! i ordered my recs starting from top left; my filled bingo card is at the end ✨

most recent fic you bookmarked don't tell your mother by seeingrightly [rating: unrated, probably t | words: 1k] essentially: jack is in madison, and things aren’t easy but at least they’re together. i have an unhealthy obsession with madison/4th of july fics, and every new one i discover brings me joy. i liked this one in particular because of the lovely, clean flow of the writing, and for its attention to the problematic environment: the (assumed) homophobic nature of georgia, and bitty's tension when he’s home as a result.

a fic that made you cry Your heart hurts, mine does too by the_p_in_raspberry (@thepinraspberry) [rating: t | words: 19k] essentially: this fic fills the prompt ‘what if bitty hadn’t come out to shitty?’ the fic deals with exactly the subject material implied, and is inherently painful. this what if version of bitty’s journey with his sexuality was so, so raw, but it was the good kind of pain. i’ll say that while this fic is jack/bitty at its core, i really think its real strength is the team dynamics. they are so there for each other, and it was a beautiful read.

a fic you’ve re-read multiple times Prove To Me You Got Some Coordination by amalnahurriyeh [rating: explicit | words: 17k; the series is 24.5k] “In which Jack Zimmermann has a favorite stripper, some very strong feelings about labour relations, and a good heart.“ when i prepared myself for reading a stripper au, this is not what i expected. this fic is one of my all-time favorites. i adored the politics angle, jack's awkward Helpless Good Guy gestures, and bitty being a complete badass. their soft flirting, the realistic (but positive!) take on sex work, and the careful handling of a potential unequal power dynamic. i don’t think i can count on one hand the amount of times i read this fic.

a fic from your to-read list Never Will You Ever by thefiveboxingwizards (@thefiveboxingwizards) [rating: explicit | words: ~25k (WIP)] essentially: during fall semester of Y2 the team plays never have i ever, which results in jack coming out to bitty. bitty decides to move on, just as jack starts to realize his own feelings. this is the first time i’m reccing a fic i haven’t actually read. i have a strict rule against reading wips for my own mental health (although i have great appreciation for all writers who decide to post them; kudos to you). the premise of this fic sounds so alluring, however, that i couldn’t help but marking it for later and then checking if it’s updated every few days. can’t wait to read it when it’s finished!

FREE SLOT and now what words do I have? by MyCupOfTea (@marchingatmidnight) [rating: m | words: 10k] essentially: jack and bitty love each other. bitty moves to france. jack and bitty continue to love each other, even when it’s hard. this fic could’ve fit several of my slots, but eventually i decided to just rec it on its own. it’s one of my absolute favorites in this fandom. i love it for the writing, the pacing, the decision to tackle a real obstacle in a relationship without unnecessary dramatization. i love the softness the pining trope is painted with; how the distance is awful but they deal with it so well, so healthily. i love when angst is used to build and show the strengths of a relationship, not just to hurt.

a pwp With New Eyes by luckie_dee (@luckiedee) [rating: m | words: 3.5k] essentially: mirror sex with a flavor of intercrural. this fic is set during bitty’s first visit to providence, which shifts the entire tone of the fic accordingly. everything is so tentative and new, and i just really liked how gentle jack and bitty are with each other, how they savor new things. the setting and bitty's thoughts and the whole thing was perfect, and so in character.

a fic that is pure fluff Over Heels by anonymous [rating: gen | words: 2.5k] essentially: jack and bitty and marriage. this is such a soft portrayal that it made my chest ache. it isn’t Y4-compliant, but it is so goddamn cute it doesn’t matter. i especially loved the communication between them, the choice of rings (plus the subtle mentions of jack stimming), and this sort of low key, understated proposal. the last scene with jack kissing the ring clinched it for me: i could picture it so clearly my heart flipped.

a fic with your favorite trope How to Blow a Fuck Ton of Meal Points in 1.5 Semesters. by YourPalYourBuddy (@ivecarvedawoodenheart) [rating: t | words: 5k] essentially: jack finds himself with more meal points than he could ever need, and proceeds to spend them on his team (read: bitty) - which leads to some realizations. the trope this fits is ‘year 2 canon-divergence getting together’, and it’s one trope i will never tire of. i absolutely loved the set up of this because it's so college. i loved jack's characterization, and also their conversations, how well bitty's feelings are translated through jack's eyes even when jack's not completely aware of them, and the ending.

a fic with a trope you don’t usually read Tipping the Scales by akaparalian (@floralegia) [rating: t | words : 7.5k] “Prince Eric, training for a tournament to prove his worth as a knight, goes for a ride in the woods. He accidentally finds a dragon, who accidentally became a dragon because he pissed off the wrong witch.” i’m not normally a fan of fantasy or royalty AUs, but something drew me to this fic anyway. i was not disappointed. i laughed out loud several times during this fic. i adored the translations of their personalities into a knight and a dragon (for example, jack's reaction to training - dying, dead, oh my god).

a drabble that made you want more Picture Us Together by RabbitRunnah (@doggernaut) [rating: t | words: 800] essentially: bitty sets a picture of his boyfriend as his lock screen during the madison visit, and jack finds out. it seems only fitting that i put more than one rec taking place during 4th of july on this list. the prompt was so simple, but the execution was so lovely i wished it would go on and on. things between them at this time were so new and fragile and sweet that i just never want it to end.

a fic with domestic fluff I'll settle in and dream by Stultiloquentia [rating: t | words: 9k] essentially: a future fic with emphasis on jack’s and bitty’s adult life. the realistic domesticity in this killed me dead. it is so, so lovely and soft. i enjoyed every detail, from the dog to the scenery descriptions to jack's hockey arc. every setting was so easy to imagine, and i really enjoyed the journey this fic takes the reader on.

[argent-vulpine]

Where are we Going?

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Rating: M

Characters: Seteth/Byleth

Read it on AO3!

It was her prerogative as Archbishop of the Church of Seiros to make decisions regarding the church, its function in society, and its functions within its own halls.

This was what he had to keep telling himself, staring at her open-mouthed as she delivered the news to him. It took him a long moment before her words really caught up with him, and he finally snapped his mouth closed, teeth clicking together. “You cannot possibly be serious,” he finally mustered, staring at her as if to see whether it was still her.

Byleth smiled at him, sly and scheming. He didn’t trust that smile on the best of days - it meant she was up to something. And no doubt that smile had been learned and copied from her good friend Claude… or Khalid, now, King of Almyra. Those two could get into so much trouble when they were together, even now.

“I assure you, Seteth, I am quite serious. Who better to perform the ceremony for Saint Cichol day than you?” she added with a knowing look.

Who better, indeed, than Cichol himself. He could almost hear her thinking the words.

Seteth would not win this argument. It wasn’t even worth trying to argue.

So he simply sighed, and nodded, and went to prepare for the service.

————

Archbishop Byleth did not get out of attending the service. She had to be there, after all, and she sat upon the seat meant for her, presiding over all who’d come to Garreg Mach for this.

But true to her word, she did not lead it, and instead watched as Seteth performed in her stead. And though he felt immensely uncomfortable, he had to admit some small part of him enjoyed it. They were making corrections to the story that Fódlan had been given, a little bit at a time.

Who the saints really were. Who the elites were, and how Nemesis had not been the king that people had thought him to be. It was taking time, but they had agreed early on that the church would be moving forward in truth.

There was a lot to correct, after a thousand years of Rhea and her machinations, keeping Fódlan at bay, stifled, in an uneasy peace of her own design, and locked away from the rest of the world.

Things were already changing for the better, or at least they thought.

Still, he was relieved when the service was over, and he was able to step away from the forefront, accepting the quiet compliments paid him by those of their friends who had been able to attend.

He waited with the congregation as Byleth made her way out of the cathedral, leaving through the doors and no doubt heading across the bridge and back to their suite. When he was certain that his own duties were fulfilled, he followed at a leisurely pace, for once taking time to enjoy the clear skies, the crisp chill in the wind.

By the time he returned to their suite, she had already changed out of her regalia and into something simpler and - she claimed - infinitely more comfortable. She looked up from her book when he entered, giving him a faint smirk.

“I knew you would do well,” she said simply, setting the book down after carefully marking her place. “But now you really know how I feel, in front of all those people.”

Neither of them had been made for the kinds of crowds that they had found themselves dealing with. Mercenary turned professor turned archbishop least of all. He knew it was difficult for her; he had never really appreciated how much until today.

“I hope you do not intend for me to take over all of these services,” he finally replied, moving to join her on the sofa and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “But perhaps it is not such a terrible idea, to find others who can be trusted to give services appropriately.”

“Of course not. We have others for other purposes. I just thought it would be fitting, having you give a service in honor of yourself.” She tilted her head up, pressing a teasing kiss to his lips. “But now that’s over with, we can celebrate your birthday properly.”

They hadn’t discussed doing anything special. In fact, she’d very pointedly avoided talking about it at all, and he knew the day itself had a great deal of things church-related surrounding it. So mention of any celebration now was something of a surprise, and he told her as much.

“I wouldn’t leave you to do such an important service on your birthday and not have something to reward you with, Seteth,” she said plainly, shaking her head. “But first, Flayn sent you a letter. It’s on the desk.”

His eyes lit up and he had to force himself to calmly stand and walk over so that he could read the letter from his daughter. She wrote to tell him that she was doing well, and still traveling; that the world outside of Fódlan was quite interesting, and she was learning a great deal. She remarked that her speech pattern had begun to catch up to the times, thanks in some ways to her time as a student, but especially from her travels and listening to all sorts of people.

He was glad to hear from her, to know that she was doing well. And she wished him a happy birthday, and called him Father in her letters.

The day was already perfect from the letter alone. He struggled to find his voice for a long moment. “She told us where to send a letter to for a response. It seems she will be there for some time, so proper correspondence will be much easier for a while,” he finally said, smiling fondly at the letter in his hands.

“We’ll have to write something suitable in reply. I received one from her as well, but I haven’t read it yet. I wanted you to have the first opportunity.”

Seteth returned to where Byleth sat, settling down and pulling her into his lap, holding her close. “Thank you, my love,” he said, voice soft and thick with emotion. “It means so much to me that you did so.”

She leaned back against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Of course, now I feel like anything else I do today will be greatly overshadowed by Flayn’s letter,” she teased.

His arms tightened around her. “That is very much untrue.” She had his heart, after all, and though he loved his daughter and missed her greatly, Byleth was here with him now. Sharing her life with him, as much as they were able to do for the time being.

“Well, in that case, you should definitely change into something less… stuffy.” She tilted her head slightly, pressing a series of quick, soft kisses to his jaw. “There’s somewhere I want to take you.”

She managed to wriggle out of his grasp, giving him a knowing look when he made a sound of protest, but of course he caved to her request, going and changing into a simple shirt and pants, comfortable and… less ‘stuffy’. Byleth gave him an appraising look, one eyebrow raising slightly before she gave him a sharp nod of acceptance.

Bemused, he followed her as she led him out of the suite, down the stairs and out into the monastery. It took him a moment, but he eventually recognized that she was leading him to Abyss, and he couldn’t stop the look of confusion from creeping onto his face.

Byleth almost laughed at him. Almost. But since he was following willingly, she took him down into the underground town, greeting those they came across as they wound through the tunnels. It looked… brighter, happier, and much more well-kept than it had all those years ago when he’d first followed her into the darkness.

He wondered, briefly, if she missed her former students, those who had been known as the Ashen Wolves. If perhaps she’d had a hand in the restoration of these catacombs. Judging from the warm reception they were receiving, he imagined it must be so.

So lost in thought was he that he almost hadn’t realized they’d left the normal paths and were now in darker corridors winding through the ground. It was oddly warmer here, the stones damp and moss-covered, more and more the further they went, until finally she pulled him through a small tunnel which opened into a large cavern, steam rising in idle wisps from the thermal springs that they housed. Sunlight filtered in from far above.

Byleth had clearly done some preparation, though, as she sent out a stream of magic, lighting small lamps that littered the cave: lounging on natural ledges, resting on the ground, even a few hanging from what he could see were stakes driven into the rock itself. The light cast a cozy, comfortable glow around the cavern, allowing them to see more clearly.

There was no one around but the two of them, not another living soul in sight.

“I thought you might like to relax away from prying eyes for once,” she finally said, oddly shy. “I knew of this place from… before.” Before the war, he heard.

“A certain underground lord told you about it, no doubt,” he remarked, though there was no jealousy in his tone. He knew they were close friends, even to this day.

She laughed, the sound echoing oddly in the cavern, skittering across the water and warping. Still, he loved her laugh, on the rare occasions she gave in to the impulse. “Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.” She grinned at him then, mischievous and bright. “So what say you, Seteth? Care to take some time to yourself for once?”

“Not for myself, no,” he replied, leaning down to kiss her softly. “But for us, yes, I would do that.”

There was heat in her gaze as she nodded understanding, her fingers moving to help him out of his clothes, fingertips grazing his skin, mapping the planes of his body, the smooth muscle cording along his arms, his chest, his stomach. She allowed him to perform the same treatment of her, carefully removing clothing, folding them, setting them on a rock ledge away from the water.

They entered the thermal pool together, hands on each other, touching and grasping, exploring. She led him to a submerged ledge that could act as a seat, and he sank onto it, pulling her down to straddle him, letting the warm water swirl around them.

For a time all they did was sit, and touch, and kiss, until he grew hard beneath her, his breath coming in gasps at the deluge of sensation. Smirking, she shifted her position just slightly, guiding him into her and causing a sharp groan to spill from his lips.

She teased him with agonizing slowness, rocking her hips and grinding against him, driving him deep into her at a leisurely pace. Her lips found his neck, licking, sucking, nipping at the skin, drawing out pleasured moans from him.

It was sweet torture, and he allowed it to go until it was too much. When he could stand no more, he lifted her, standing and turning, setting her on a higher ledge and thrusting into her, watching as her nipples turned into hard peaks from the chill of air. They were enticing, and he leaned forward to draw one into his mouth, tongue flicking as he pushed into her.

He moved a hand to cover her other breast, massaging, thumb rubbing until she was melting beneath him, her own moans joining his and filling the cavern.

She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him against her as he pumped, picking up speed as her walls tightened around him in increasing pleasure. He felt her hand reach down, fingers rubbing her clit while his hands were otherwise occupied, and knowing that she was pleasuring herself with himself sheathed so deeply inside her only made him harder, made him want to push faster.

Faster, harder, deeper until she was coming apart beneath him, her cries of ecstasy bouncing around the rock walls, the splashing of water as he thrust into her and his groans the only other sounds in the cavern, until finally he too climaxed, throbbing inside her as her walls clamped around him, as her legs tightened and held him close, so close he found it difficult to discern where his own body ended and hers began.

He continued to thrust into her, drawing out her orgasm until she passed the peak and hit a new one, her body shaking with aftershocks of pleasure. Seteth held her through them, waiting until their breath stopped coming in ragged gasps, until his own heart had slowed to a more reasonable pace, before he finally withdrew, helping her back into the water and carefully helping to clean her as her shuddering slowed.

When they were finally recovered from their quick and intense lovemaking, she gave him another sly smile, pulling him to her for a slow, deep kiss. “Happy birthday, Cichol,” she murmured against his lips.

Something about the way she said it, her tone of voice, had him aroused all over again.

It was quite a long time before they finally returned aboveground, but he had to admit… it had turned out to be quite an enjoyable birthday after all.

[blackjack-15]

Avenge My Twistery Depth — Thoughts on: Trail of the Twister (TOT)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: TOT, WAC, mentions of GTH.

The Intro:

Let’s talk about Trail of the Twister, shall we? No clever intro, no pun, no sassy statement on the quality (whether lacking or overflowing) of the game…let’s just Talk.

Like I said at the beginning of my WAC meta, TOT is one of two games that doesn’t really fit into a category besides it and WAC demonstrating HER’s growing pains. The world opens (kinda), the characters get a little deeper (kinda) and a few new things are tried with plots and character (to varying degrees of success). Both WAC and TOT — but especially TOT — represent a shift in the tone of the games and their approach. You can ascribe this to a lot of reasons — an aging fanbase, technology marching on, a new writer in the mix — but you really can’t ignore it, no matter if you’re a Classic Games Elitist or a Newer Games Snob (or neither one).

To paraphrase a fabulous song, there’s something there that wasn’t there before.

This is not me saying in any way that TOT is a fabulous — or even moderately successful — game. In fact, it whiffs a lot where WAC hit solidly, which makes playing them one after the other a sort of chore; WAC is weighed down by the knowledge of what comes next (after such a brief respite from games like ICE, HAU, and RAN), and TOT’s repetitive chore list seems even bleaker after the snack shop and secret societies of WAC.

Which is truly unfortunate, because hiding behind the rat traps and the car chases (or drives, if you drive like a normal person in this game) and the endless moon chunk offerings is one heck of a story. Unfinished and beleaguered and (to my suspicions) censored as it is, there is a definite, multilayered, morally ambiguous, honest-to-moon-chunk story in TOT.

Like I said, something there that wasn’t there before.

Playing through the games in order, it seems like the reason WAC is so solid is, in part, because the games before it have so little cohesive story as to be laughable. Playing them out of order will show you that though WAC does come off a little better than it actually is due to the games that came before it, it’s also actually a step-up from a lot of games in the complexity of its plot and characters. At this point in the series that’s about to happen a lot, but WAC is the first real instance where you get it. Like I said, these two games mark a tonal and approach-based shift in the games.

So let’s turn our attention to TOT.

There are a lot of things that bog down this game — it feels sometimes as if you’re simply going through Farmville-esque tasks to get from Point A to Point B — but its plot and characters (save in one large instance) aren’t actually the culprits. Surprisingly enough, we have a mystery here with enough twists, turns, small crimes, and red herrings to make for a perfectly serviceable plot with relatively well-developed (for the length of the game) characters (whom I’ll go into more below).

A huge difference from a lot of the games is that we have a prominent unseen character who isn’t the one who hired Nancy or who is part of the historical background. Brooke’s actions actively move the plot along no matter what Nancy does, and I do like that the world of TOT goes on spinning (as it were) without Nancy driving everything.

You get the sense that Nancy truly was just dropped into the middle of this without having any control over the situation, and that she spends the entire game (or most of it) playing catch-up, rather than being on the scene for the crime(s) or arriving shortly thereafter.

In TOT, this sabotage has been going on for a while — the competition is nearly over, in fact — and Nancy has to actually do some detective work to even get caught up, let alone to try to step a few feet in front of the guilty party.

One interesting thing is what TOT and WAC share: they both feature casts who are only a few years off of Nancy’s age; in WAC, they’re a tiny bit younger, while in TOT, they’re a tiny bit older. Nancy, being Nancy, is much more in her element with the ages of her suspects in TOT than she is with high schoolers — with how much time Nancy spends around people significantly older than her, I’d be shocked if she got along well with high schoolers when she was in high school herself.

As a side note, I know it’s sort of a fandom thing that Nancy gets along well with children, but honestly outside of Lucas, it’s not something we really see (no, I’m not counting pelting Freddie with snow 10 times sans mercy as getting along with children) — and honestly Lucas is just charming, so I see no reason why Nancy wouldn’t get along with him. Generally speaking, kids who grow up the way Nancy has [especially as an only child] are far more comfortable with ‘adults’ — well established, 35/40+ adults, who make up the majority of her suspect pools — than they are with peers or children.

There’s also a great deal of care taken with making all the suspects (mostly) equally likely for a large portion of the game; it’s not until past the halfway point that a suspect (Chase) is cleared due to his confession of a different crime, and even then, he doesn’t really become Nancy’s helper, as is the usual case with cleared suspects. This is actually one of the few games where Nancy doesn’t really have a helper; she relies on herself, the Hardy Boys, and (questionably) P. G. Krolmeister to get the job done.

And speaking of the Hardy Boys…you knew an intro wouldn’t be complete without my mentioning them, hush.

The Hardy Boys are arguably the set piece that benefit most from Nik’s writing (and yes, I’m going to ascribe it to him; he’s the most prominent variable). Don’t get me wrong, the Hardy Boys were great before, but the Nik games are where they start attaining a place of more prominence and solidify their distinct personalities other than “focused killjoy and playful scamp”. In this game, you get more of Frank’s protectiveness (directed towards Nancy) and Joe’s actual sleuthing abilities — not the least of which because this game coincides with that DS Masterpiece “Treasure on the Tracks”.

Oh yeah, we’re going there. It’s relevant.

Treasure on the Tracks, as mentioned, was a game for the Nintendo DS (and the only one, mind you) focusing on the Hardy Boys. In the game (as in TOT), they’re tracking down the Romanov treasure with the help of a surprising ally — Samantha Quick herself. Samantha is under orders (from who, she never says, but a future game makes it obvious) to help the boys find the treasure aboard the royal train that the Romanovs used to own.

And yes, I would have loved that to be a joint Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys PC game, but I’ll push the bitterness aside for the facts. Which are that this game has a rad premise and would have been a very cool addition to the ND series…but I digress. Regardless, that’s what the boys are doing during TOT, so we get little hints to their investigation as well as having them help Nancy out.

I love that the Hardy Boys have an actual mystery that they’re investigating, as beginning with this game we see a lot more of their ‘agent’ side being brought out. It’s nice to feel that Nancy isn’t alone out there fighting against the forces of evil, and gives excuses to have the Hardy Boys in the games more, so I’m a big fan in general. It also helps build them up as investigators; while they offer hints to Nancy a lot, we don’t get to see them doing a lot of spy/detective work, and it’s lovely to be able to see it here.

And I love their sibling banter. It’s obvious that JVS and Rob Jones have a lot of fun with their roles, and it really lightens and enhances any Nancy Drew game that they’re in.

The last interesting thing that I’ll point out before diving into the game itself is what TOT does for the world of Nancy Drew. Beginning with this game, we start the tradition of each game leading directly into the next one; for her help in TOT, Krolmeister sends her to his favorite ryokan in Japan, which leads to her being hired for CAP; her absence and fight with Ned in CAP lead her back home for the Clues Challenge in ASH, and so on and so forth.

It really makes the world feel solid and cohesive, and lets our characters grow and shift and change without making it feel episodic or sudden. The Nancy of SPY is quite different from the Nancy of TOT in how she behaves and tackles mysteries, but her character growth throughout the games in between make it feel right and natural — like actual character growth.

The Title:

As a title, “Trail of the Twister” isn’t bad — it’s got that alliteration that ND books tend to like doing, and makes it feel a little classic. It also gets a play with words in there — you’re tracing the actual trail of the actual twister, and you’re also walking through the evidence left behind (aka a trail) of a twisting plot. Solid, if not exceptional, with its only real detriment being the hilarious acronym (TOT).

The book it’s (loosely) based off of is called “The Mystery of Tornado Alley” which, obvious to anyone with eyes, is a much worse title while telling us the same thing. It also doesn’t apply to the game as much – you’re not figuring out a mystery as much as unwinding the tangled threads of character motivations — and is supremely clunky to boot.

The Mystery:

Called in by P.G. Krolmeister to go undercover, Nancy joins a team of storm-chasers bent on winning a grant for their research — and beating the opposing team that wants the same thing. Nancy begins the mystery by finding a tin box full of cash (payment for an as-of-yet unspecified action) and it spirals from there, putting the not-so-amateur teen sleuth through her paces learning about tornados and storms, taking pictures, and trying her best to keep everyone happy and working towards the money.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, however. There are competing forces at work outside (and sometimes within) the two teams, and the personalities of the storm-chasers that Nancy must investigate mean that no one trusts anyone else. Things continue to go wrong and Nancy chases down the clues until the mother of all tornados hits town, and our culprit takes advantage of the distraction…

I mentioned above some censorship that I suspect went on in this game, and I’ll talk about it here. Given the darker themes of this game and the mentions of death and serious injury (more than most other games in the series at this point), I would say part of the reason why our story is a little more…displeasing, especially by the end, is that HER was really intent on the 10 part of the 10+ rating.

There’s lots to explore — the Ma storyline that goes nowhere, the collateral damage of these tornadoes, the fact that our cast is filled with genuinely unpleasant criminals — and yet it gets glanced over while feeling like the game is building up to it. Like CRE and ICE where I postulated a lot of the attention went to the new engine, I’m going to postulate here that the reason why we have hanging plot threads and injustice at the end (which I’ll talk about later) is that the game was censored by the HER bigwigs to ensure it still fit in a 10+ rating.

As a mystery, like I said above, there’s absolutely nothing wrong here. We’ve got plenty of means/motive/opportunity spread out in our cast (and in the periphery cast, just to keep things interesting), the threads and smaller crimes/wrongdoings/etc. are realistic in scope and in motive to keep them hidden, and it’s the personalities of the suspects that give us our conflict and tension, rather than random “interferences” by the writers. And speaking of our suspects, let’s go to the other area that TOT does (almost) nothing wrong.

The Suspects:

First off is Chase Releford, a junior who took Scott’s class for a science credit who got super interested in the actual work. The team’s handyman, Chase has noticed (and fixed, and fixed again) the equipment acting up, and is being stretched pretty thin in order to keep it all shipshape and in working order.

He’s also one of Nancy’s sources of Pa Pennies, if you wanna spend hours doing circuit boards.

As a culprit, Chase is a great option (which is a sentiment you’ll hear repeated for all of our suspects, never fear). He’s secretly spending his time looking for oil with Pa’s divining rods, which puts two crimes on his conscience (stealing the rods and not working on company time) and helps the team fall even further behind. It’s important to note that for a large chunk of this game, the likelihood of the suspect also hinges on how much they want Scott to fail, and Chase is pretty much the only one without any real anger towards Scott.

The owner of the local general store, Pa Ochs might be a surprising option to put ahead of Chase in order of culprit likelihood/suitability, but I stand by it. Having lost his wife (Betsy “Ma” Ochs) to a tornado (the warning sirens, which were Scott’s responsibility, didn’t go off), Pa alone mans the counter, helping Nancy find everything she needs — for a price, of course.

The price being annoyingly hard to get Pa Pennies. Unless you exploit a glitch.

Here’s where we start with the culprit possibilities that have an actual grudge against Scott. Though not as angry as he could be, Pa is deeply hurt by the loss of his wife Betsy, and has grounds for an axe to grind with Scott. As much as I would have loved to have the ‘friendly general store owner’ be the culprit, it would have been like a mix of DOG’s Emily and FIN’s Joseph (minus the Crazy), and it’s (sadly) best to leave that ground alone without re-treading it.

Frosty Harlow is next up; a second-year grad student in digital media, Frosty got his nickname (his real name is Tobias) from his storm photography and is, well, trying to re-capture that lightning in a bottle.

He also screams like a little girl. So that’s fun.

Like Chase and Pa, Frosty is a wonderful option for a culprit. His crime is selling university property (the video of the storm he and Nancy shot) to an aspiring photographer (who happens to be on the rival team) to help them get a toehold into the business, along with working with Debbie to try to stress Scott into quitting.

What really makes Frosty stand out is that, unlike Chase, Frosty doesn’t feel bad about what he did at all. He also holds far more animosity towards Scott than Pa does, and has a little more…innate anger as a person.

If you haven’t noticed by now, we’re going in order of “worst” culprit option to “best” (and then the actual culprit), and it really says something about how fleshed out these characters already are that we start with people who are solid options to begin with.

Though only appearing vocally and for a few minutes total of the game’s runtime, I’m going to list Brooke Tavanah as our next most likely culprit — in part because, well, she kind of is our culprit. The leader of the rival storm-chasing team, Brooke offered Scott money to sabotage his own team to let her team win the grant — an offer that he takes her up on.

Of course, Brooke isn’t the only one sleeping with the enemy (so to speak) to ensure her team’s victory; her videographer, Erin, is apparently so talentless as to need to buy footage from Scott’s team as well.

Things don’t exactly look great for the Kingston University team — as they can’t really get ahead even through sabotage and skullduggery, and one does wonder if they’d even be able to put the grant to good use. That, of course, is not the point; Brooke wants her team to win, come hell or high…wind…and a little thing like scientific ability isn’t going to stop her.

(Interestingly enough, this is the first of three times we’ll see Kingston University pop up; we meet their alumni again in TMB and DED).

I love that Brooke is guilty, because so often in Nancy Drew games the tendency is to implicate an unseen character and then to have that implication be a poorly done red herring. Instead, Brooke isn’t a distraction, nor a smoke screen — she’s just another piece of the puzzle.

Our last non-Culprit (by the games’ common definition) suspect is Debbie Kircum, a recent PhD graduate who is on her fifth time working with Scott in chase season, and who has gotten a lucrative offer to teach at a university in New York.

Worrying that Scott would let his resentment towards the college hurt their chances in the competition, Debbie leads the conspiracy to stress him out so much that he just quits. I’ll talk more about this later, but it is both one of my favorite and least favorite things about this game. For now, I’ll say that her plan works…but not the way that she planned; for her and lots of other suspects in this and upcoming games, the quote “the price for getting what you want is getting what you once wanted” works perfectly to describe their arcs.

As a culprit, (as Debbie fully qualifies as a culprit), Debbie certainly has the shortsightedness and nastiness that Nancy Drew culprits tend to have. She’s extremely good at getting what she wants…but see the quote in the previous paragraph.

She also over-contours her cheeks so much that it looks like someone slapped her with an open compact of bronzer.

That takes us to our final culprit and character, Scott Varnell, genius professor of meteorology and the leader of the Canute team. Scott is my personal favorite character not just because he’s the most interesting, but because he’s a tragic figure who isn’t historical/dead, and those are a bit of a rarity in Nancy Drew games, especially at this point.

Being an expert on tornadoes yet denied tenure based on his personality, rather than his academic prowess (a gripe I share as it applies to jobs/academia), Scott holds a grudge against those who don’t recognize his contributions to meteorology and to the study of tornadoes specifically. Unbeknownst to him, two members of his four-man team have been conspiring to stress him out so badly that he’ll just quit, as they think he’ll be a hindrance (again, due to his personality) in winning the competition.

Scott is in some ways the obvious option, and yet the game never turns into a howdunnit. Throughout the mystery he tends to be the prime suspect, but is also the prime victim — a dichotomy we’ve never seen before in the Nancy Drew Games. I’ll talk more about Scott below (a sentence increasingly common in this meta), but I both love and hate him as the culprit, and that’s something new (and interesting) that TOT brings as well.

The Favorite:

Don’t worry, we’ll get into TOT’s myriad flaws soon enough, but for now I want to focus on what it does right.

The first thing the game nails is the Hardy Boys. Their inclusion, their plot, their characterization, the voice acting — all of it is nigh-flawless, and is by far the most enjoyable part of the game. Don’t get me wrong, the Hardy Boys are usually quite far up there on the list of things I love about a game with them in it, but they really start to shine more in TOT, gaining some character development, plot relevance, and just overall depth.

Oddly (or perhaps not oddly at all) I don’t have a favorite moment nor a favorite puzzle in this game; barring that, I’ll talk about some of the great threads to the game, rather than any particular moment/puzzle that stands out.

I love that we get new and interesting layers to our story and characters. As I mentioned briefly above, there’s a real sense of the world existing before Nancy’s arrival, which works wonders for the world of the games, and our characters here are more layered, more distinct, and more ‘realistic’ (for the value of ‘realism’ in stories) than they ever have been before.

This is a game unafraid to deal with the topics of death and mistakes, and that accounts for part of the depth to the game as well. No, not the whole “Where’s Ma” thing — which I fully believe to just be a script that didn’t fire/didn’t stop firing in the game’s code after finding the newspaper that says exactly what happened to Ma — I’m talking about Scott’s mistake in the tornado warning system, Debbie and Frosty’s mistakes in dealing with Scott (which I’ll talk more about), and even Brooke’s miscalculations that lead to the ending of the game. Everyone here deals with the fallout of their mistakes, and it’s how they handle it that forms the basis for our plot.

It’s a seemingly small thing, but I love the sheer level of detail in this game. You can click on everything, read everything, explore everywhere — there’s a lot of information crammed into the game that sometimes you won’t get until the second or third replay (that is, if you have the stomach to play through this game repeatedly).

The use of our tertiary NPCs (Brooke, Krolmeister, Erin) is also inspired; they help the world feel whole and varied rather than existing simply for the benefit of the game, and show that Nancy doesn’t have control over everything when she’s investigating — and that she can be wrong in her focus of investigating (whether because she pays too much or not enough attention to the ‘minor’ characters).

Speaking of characters, I also love that our characters in this game – our suspects — are able to be fully formed without (on purpose, I feel) being particularly likable. It’s always fun to get a cast of characters that are hostile to Nancy, but TOT’s characters are slightly different from that: they just don’t care about her. She’s another intern to them, nigh-invisible except when they need a chore done. Nancy also doesn’t really try to befriend anyone because of it, and I like that too. Sometimes, a game should just be 1 vs 4, with some backup in the wings courtesy of phone friends.

The last facet of the game that I love is Scott himself as a character. Sure he’s cantankerous, blunt, egotistical, and a thousand other things, but the game is very clear that these ‘faults’ don’t make him anything other than what he is — a brilliant meteorologist and the foremost mind when it comes to tornadoes and tornadogenesis. The university undervalues him, but the team really can’t function without him, sabotage or no sabotage.

His motive for the sabotage isn’t the money nor fame — it’s simple tit-for-tat. For such a complex game (note, I’m still not saying it’s a fun or good game), our ultimate motive is deceptively simple: do unto others what they have done unto you. Tired of being devalued and having his worth judged on his personality rather than his work, he decides that if the university doesn’t care enough to keep him around (and for his worth as a professor, look at how accomplished and passionate his team of former students is), then they don’t care to keep up their program either.

It’s hard not to sympathize with that, especially if you’re the kind of person who’s been valued based on any defects in your personality — rather than your ability to do a job and do it well — and been found wanting. Whether you’re too serious (or not serious enough), too flighty (or too inflexible), or any other stupid “personality defect” that the workforce loves to throw around, we’ve all heard it before. Scott’s thrown into an unfair situation and — wrongly or not — decides that his troubles are going to have trouble with him.

The last thing I’ll add on the topic of Scott for this section is that I do love that Debbie and Frosty create their own villain. In figuring that Scott’s personality is going to prevent them from getting the grant (never mind the 4 other years that Debbie’s been on this team with him where it hasn’t been a problem), they decide to screw him over presumptively — and thus create a Scott who actually does want to prevent them from getting the grant. It’s usually a mark of a solid story (and solid writing in general) where the villain is created not from some problem inherent in them, but because they’re perceived to be a problem in the future — and thus live down to the expectation.

The Un-Favorite:

The problem with everything TOT does right — and that’s nearly a thousand words about what it does right above — is that it never combines to make a game that’s enjoyable to play. Before I go into the specifics, I do want to make that clear; TOT is a fascinating game to think and write about, but it’s honestly nigh-unplayable. The puzzles and chores are laborious (and repeated ad nauseum), pieces of the plot don’t make sense, and the ending is the bleakest in the series until GTH’s multiple endings took the cake.

A game should be well-written, complex, and interesting, but it just has to be fun to play as well. It has to. And that seems to have been forgotten during the course of making TOT. My least favorite moment is the ending of the game (more on that below), but I don’t have a least favorite puzzle — on the basis that most of the puzzles are equally bad. There’s no real standout…but that’s not a good thing.

Now let’s get into some of the bits and parts of the game that I really despise.

The handling of Scott is one of my favorite parts of the game, but it’s also my least favorite part of the game as well. They’ve set up a character who firmly believes that everything ends poorly, that he’ll never profit no matter what, and that, ultimately, no matter how hard he tries, nothing will go the way it should. And then the game confirms that worldview to the end. There’s no other option; no matter what Scott does or doesn’t do, no matter if he tries his best or blows it off, the end result is the same, and that’s a tragedy. Sure, you can argue it’s his actions that led him to a bad ending, but he only took those actions because he was heading to a bad ending anyway.

The feeling you get at the end of the game isn’t a feeling of justice served, nor success — it’s pity in a way that’s never been cultivated for any criminal up to this point in the series. And it’s not cathartic — it’s just more misery.

The other huge thing that I hate about this game ties into it — there really is no justice. The supposed ‘happy ending’ is Debbie getting people from both teams to ‘win’ the grant (where does it ultimately go — Canute or Kingston? Can it count as winning if there’s only one team? HER certainly didn’t bother to think about these things)…but Debbie’s hands are just as filthy — and I think more so — than Scott’s are.

Debbie leads Frosty in conspiring to make Scott quit and actually created their own monster — does she even know Scott at all? He’s lead a team through at least the last 4 years, probably more, and not had a problem; why now? Power? Greed? Pride? Whichever way you spin it, she and Frosty are guilty.

Frosty and Erin (of the Kingston Team) are also guilty on a separate charge; Erin for buying the footage and Frosty for selling it. If Brooke and Scott are kicked off, Frosty and Erin (at least) should also go for the same conspiracy charge. Everyone on the team (excepting possibly Chase) knowingly sabotaged their team; why is Scott the only one punished? Why does Debbie (and Frosty, and Erin) get off scot-free (pun intended) to win the prize, despite everything?

When I say that there’s no justice nor success here, this is what I mean. The whole thing stinks from top to bottom, and any way you look at it, a culprit walks.

Honestly, the ending should have just been “Chase, guilty only of petty theft, led the team (of himself and Pa) and was given the grant, which they donated to a charity for tornado victims”. Kingston actively cheated and Canute doesn’t deserve it either. In a game where everyone deserves to lose, declaring a winner just leaves a bad taste in my mouth — and a black mark on the game.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Trail of the Twister?

My feeling is that if you’re going to go with a downer ending — which TOT is — then go for a full one. Have Nancy discover everyone’s crimes — and I do mean everyone’s — and report to Krolmeister, asking what he wants her to do. Don’t forget, Nancy’s got an actual client in this game, and can’t go off half-cocked like she tends to in her more informal mysteries.

In the end, as nearly everyone would be disqualified, the competition should go to a third party — a storm chasing team that’s not Kingston nor Canute — and create chances for less corrupt institutions to study tornadoes at a level they haven’t been able to before. Sure, our suspects would lose, but, honestly, outside Chase…does anyone deserve to win?

I’d also be a fan of Scott getting a second chance due to outside sabotage (directed solely at him) with a job opportunity to consult for storm chasers. It’d be an arena where he’d be seen as the expert he is, without having to deal with the namby-pamby bureaucracy that infects universities (and that he hates anyway). He’d get the name recognition and the ability to actually do work in his field that he needs without being put in situations where he can’t help but fail. Honestly, I’d prefer that P. G. Krolmeister offered it (while saying he’s going to be keeping an eye on him), but really anything would do.

Exposing the crimes of everyone – and focusing on more than just Scott’s — would be the quickest way to improve the story of the game. The puzzles, on the other hand, need to be completely redone; a mix of ostensibly tornado-related intern-type chores (like the circuit boards) and more detective-type puzzles (fingerprinting suspects for a match on the tin bribe box, tracking everyone’s movements, solving codes used for communication) would be a big help in making TOT not just feel like a list of chores with a bad ending.

Oh, and fix the broken code leading Nancy to ask about a man’s dead wife over and over again. She lacks tact as it is.

[sir-huffman]

tagged by: @songzhong​ (hello, here’s a wall of text, and I enjoyed reading about you Mao!) tagging: @you on the dash - aka you see this you’re tagged.

———  BASICS!​

Name: Duke ( any pronouns, but most use masculine  )

Face Claims:       - Itsuki Kamiyama from GOTH (professional like above)       - Suga from Night of Drizzling Rain (general)

———  THREE  FACTS!

1) I am an ISTJ and a Taurus...so take that what you will. I’d like to say I’m friendly, but tend to put a very large wall (of text) up so people know what they’re getting into with me and to give an explanation for my actions...as such I am very introverted and only have so much energy for interaction. This leaves me seldom to contact people in the RPC unless I have a specific idea in mind for our muses...which honestly I never do. The best is for me to just chuck a meme at people and see how our muses vibe. After that, well uh...yeah. I’m one of those RPers who have more people I interact IC than OOC cuz OOC interaction takes a lot out of me unless we somehow vibe well.

And by vibe well, I mean our muses generally interact well and aren’t apathetic towards each other. There are so many muns that I respect and consider friends and admire from afar, but we’re not close due to just our muses just not vibing as well as others (which is totes fine it’s just how things sometimes go, ya know?).

( you’ll find that I write a lot hence the read more )

2) I am very stubborn and have a little bit of tunnel vision in my own HCs and world crafting. My muses tend to be people who hold an authoritative and demanding presence where their opinions are stated as truth...which is the complete opposite of my own personality. But I’ve learned that I have to kinda draw my lines and I feel like I can probably give people whiplash between my timid and nervous nature and when it comes to defining my muses. Honestly I’m just very flexible with molding my muses to help fit for interaction, but I do have hard lines and like to make it clear if I’m bending my characters vs how they would naturally act...I tend to make my muses push overs unless I’m like 100% comfy...and even them I make them push overs...hence the amount of my crack threads because I have no sense control and just wanna have fun...with my tight assed muses.

3) That said...I’m just a meme. My main reputation is just being that one mun who RPs a Team Rocket OC with 6 Magikarps. But I truly just have two sides. The very crackish side where (1) I’ll just throw our muses in ridiculous situations and (2) the very angst heavy side that usually only talked about due to my muses handling trauma and very apathetic and nonchalant towards breaking hearts. And as I write this out I feel like I’m giving people whiplash on whoever is reading this since they see Huffman here and is like “oh, how cute what a soft boy” and then I bring up Morax who is just a monstrosity of a muse where I’m toning him down 99% of the time because...well...(*looks at hands*) he’ll end up killing a muse 99% of the time if I don’t stop him and that isn’t fun to RP.

———  EXPERIENCE!

My first experience in RPing in general was on an old website called TinierMe and also a mobile app called VampiresLIVE (lol). However I officially started RPing on Tumblr in 2014 as a Gijinka!Groudon blog originally known as theruleroftheland. After that I’ve slowly branched out of the Pokemon RPC but hold a strong connection with the friends I’ve made there (or kinda, I’m horrible at keeping contact with others since I disappear for months/years at a time). But I’ve found I’m most comfortable writing on tumblr due to the amount of formatting and organization that comes with RPing on here.

I’m slowly branching out to Discord (thank you to my dear RP partners over there who are patient with me because I’m slow) and becoming more accustom with being social over there.

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE!

Gender: 100% male to RP as. I find that I gravitate towards males since I have disconnection with male muses from myself and I like having that wall. Writing females get a little too personal for my own comfort so having that extra layer of distance really helps. Also it helps me look at things differently.

Multi or Single: 

I prefer single-muse blogs to run as I like keeping things strictly relating to my muse on one blog and another muse on another. Over the years I’ve been interested in throwing my old muses onto a multi-muse blog but honestly I can never bring myself making a multi-fandom multi-muse blog due to my own heavy need for organization.

As for shipping, I work under what I call a Quasi-Single shipping (aka multi- and single- ship). I operate under the impression that my muses are in an overarching timeline of their life that is heavily affected by their relationships. As such the MULTISHIP aspect is prone to have cheating and relationship overlap. I’m into having muses naturally engage in threesomes, foursomes, lying, cheating, misunderstandings, fights, break ups, get back togethers, etc. with all muses and muns participating together in the joy of it all. Jealousy and questioning of my muses’ relationships and actions are welcomed as I like having the sense that my muses are human and things aren’t so cookie cutter.

That said I am also SINGLESHIP in the sense that most of my muses are not polyamorous and are very much interested in having an end goal relationship where they settle down and marry. With who and how that happens really depends on both my muse and my partner’s muse. So whoever my muse is really shooting to get married to and actively advances will be my main single ship partner...or really whoever is going to influence my muse the most and I can see my muse actually yearning for (which honestly isn’t that many muses *cries*).

That said...Huffman in particular is going to be really hard to single-ship with as he is 100% dedicated his entire life to his lord and savior Lord Barbatos and this is the thanks he gets to Mondstadt and he will betray his own lover and such for Mondstadt.

He is also a(ego)romantic so he has a huge disconnection with serious relationships as he will honestly treat them just like he treats every other citizen in Mondstadt and it can slowly get to any of his partners since he just thinks is just apart of his job as a partner...which is the same job he has with the people of Mondstadt.

fluff/angst/smut:

Fluff: Generally I don’t find myself interested in fluff, but I realized that is only because of my previous muses couldn’t handle fluff at all. For this particular blog (Huffman) fluff is honestly the only thing that I can offer due to the nature of his character. Fluff with the undertone of angst is going to happen a lot, it’s not going to be sugary sweet fluff but just a result of Huffman’s very grounded and relaxed nature. He is calm and level headed, very rational (a little too rational) and very determined to make sure everyone is happy...and as such angst won’t really happen because Huffman tries to avoid such things naturally.

Angst: I enjoy angst, I’m that person who loves crying and my favorite tropes (especially in shipping) is unrequited love especially when it’s with a character who has so much love and dedication to one person. As such, I find that I’m more inclined to talk about angst than actually RPing it. I’m very slow (really really slow) when it comes to RPing unless it’s crack or relaxed banter. So when it comes to angst, I like to set time aside and fully write it out...making me having to respond weeks to months later...haha sorry. Also I naturally have muses who are apathetic towards angst and other muses feelings that is hard for me to write because I’m the opposite and I get heavily invested...it takes a lot out of me.

That said...most of my angst comes from very slow burns rather than actually writing it out. It’s more of the anticipation of the heartache, breakup, betrayal, cheating, etc. that I’m more inclined to talk about than actually RP...as stated above my muses are generally cold hearted and very accepting of any consequence to their actions...they tend to be planners and expect karma to creep up on them someday.

Smut: I am very particular about smut. I personally like talking about it but actually writing it takes a lot more time for me to do. There are some words that I refuse to write (which happens to be a lot of the smutty words lol) due to how I read them in my head irks me and doesn’t flow right (my worst subject in school was English so I don’t know many words okay). As such, it takes time for me to fully write smut and even then the way I tackle it is very action oriented rather than immersive (I like to think) so uh...RIP my rp partners who want to write smut since I usually respond when I’m half asleep and have no filter and probably stare at me like “wtf did I just read?”. I’m sorry my smut partners who have to deal with me.

plot/ memes:

Memes: I’m more inclined to send memes than actually get around to responding to them. I like keeping my thread count low because I’m slow and usually memes require immediate interaction (something that I may or may not have the time for). However, most of my threads come from memes that will fizzle out over time and I eventually drop without warning- it just how it goes.

Plots: I like plotting and defining pre-established relationships. Having to start everyone off with a blank slate isn’t something I like unless it just seems natural for our muses (ie. for Huffman he probs doesn’t know many Liyue characters, but he definitely is close to Mondstadt characters at least on a name basis). As such, I tend to like establishing relationships and then going from there so I know how Huffman will interact with them.

Plotted threads, however, take a lot out of me as I like coining an idea and then having a starter be written and then go from there. If there are checkpoints to happen, I get awkward because my muses are 95% certain to shift the narrative based on what is being written and the situation that arises. So heavily plotted threads isn’t good, but defining the trajectory of a relationship is something I’m down for...mostly because I’m a quasi-single ship and 99% of my muses relationships are going to fail naturally - which is something hard to bring up when there is ship talking happen.

[suntumarchive]

A commission for @belly-flu ! Thank you so much~!

Fandom/s: Hercules Character/s: Phil (Whumpee), Hercules (Caretaker) Kink/s: Upset stomach, vertigo, sneezing, burping, emeto

Plot: During their daily training, Hercules notices that Phil is acting odd... it’s pretty obvious that he’s not doing well, and yet, he tries too hard to hide it. But it affects the quality of his lesson...

___

"A bit higher! You won’t make it like this!", Phil demanded. His voice had this natural, harsh undertone to it that could make a person instantly feel subordinate – perfectly fitting for his authoritarian personality, in Hercules’ opinion. He respected him quite a lot, and tried to follow his orders as best as he could, despite his occasional clumsiness. Other people probably wouldn't take Phil half as seriously, due to his tiny size and strangely cute appearance, but that’s a thought the young man barely allowed himself to have.

"Like this?", Hercules asked, and raised his bow and arrow a few centimeters. As he got ready to shoot, his eyes focused on the target; A bright red apple, high up in a tree. He was merely waiting for Phil's cue. But a few seconds passed, and there was still no response…

"… Like this??", he repeated a little louder.

"... Oh! Yes, yes...", Phil finally replied and cleared his throat. For some reason, he sounded kind of… hoarse.

Shoot! The arrow went flying, and... missed the apple by far. It didn’t even get close. Oops. This arrow will probably not be found again anytime soon...

Disappointed and confused, Hercules straightened his back and looked over to Phil with a frown. Had he even been watching him? He just stood there, quietly, with his eyes closed and propped up against a tree trunk. Soft sighs and grunts came out of his mouth, and Hercules could have sworn he saw sweat glistening on his forehead. The demigod didn't really know what to do or say, but it was obvious to him that something must be wrong with him. Phil simply didn't look well at all.

"Are you... uhm.. alright?", he asked, sounding concerned as he walked up closer to Phil.

"Uh, what…?", Phil seemed startled for a second, and quickly tried to regain his composure.

"… Well done! You get better with every time you try!", he frantically looked back and forth, as if he’d passed out a few seconds and didn't know what date or time it was. Now Hercules frowned again, rubbing the back of his head a bit awkwardly.

"You seem a bit… weak today", he dared to comment.

"Weak? Me!?", Phil’s eyes flared up, their usual intensity coming back for a moment.

"I'm fine! I’ve never felt better in my-", before he could even finish his sentence, he suddenly began to squint. The itch from his sore throat had begun to wander upwards, into his nose, and he grimaced as he inhaled forcefully. The sensation was all too familiar-

HERRKCHOO!!

An intense sneeze exploded out of him - and was quickly followed by a second one. Even though they both sounded dangerously wet, nothing seemed to come down… In fact, his sinuses seemed to be even more clogged than before, making breathing awfully difficult.

"Bless you, um… Do you need to sit down?", Hercules asked, noticeably worried, which only caused Phil to blush from how awkward he felt.

"No! We have to continue with your training! Don't you get lazy now!", he was quick to reply, and cleared his throat once again in an attempt to pull himself together. Fine, if he said so… Hercules went back in his position, but there was still that expression of concern on his face. Phil stood up straight and tried his best to act as if everything were alright, but with every passing second, he looked sicker and sicker to the young man...

It was getting increasingly harder for the Satyr to keep control over his body, let alone concentrate on his surroundings. He almost seemed like a newborn foal, stumbling around as if none of his four legs wanted to carry him any longer. And yet, he attempted to force himself to carry on regardless, since he'd feel way too embarrassed to admit how much he was struggling. He was the authority figure here after all, the teacher with a task of high importance, and being seen as 'weak', as Hercules had called it before… that hurt his ego.

"Alright", Hercules gave in, even though he raised an eyebrow at his stumbling.

"Can you show me how to aim it the right way?"

"What do you mean…”, there was an intense ringing in Phil’s head… it suddenly felt like he was being lifted off the ground…

"Uh… the bow? The arrow?", Hercules tilted his head.

"Ohhh, right…! Of course, you mean the arrow!", Phil nervously laughed it off.

"Of course, I know what you're talking about!"

What unusual behavior for him… He swallowed down the wave of nausea that had begun to build in his middle. The embarrassment was written all over his face, but poor Phil tried to hide it with a strict expression.

"Give them to me! I’ll show you how it’s done!", he demanded and pulled the bow and remaining two arrows out of Hercules' hands. The goat man got into the right position, despite his shaky legs, and took another deep breath to try and keep his body from crumbling.

"I'll show you one last time. Now watch carefully!", Phil drew the bow violently, almost threatening to snatch the arrow in half. His anger was honestly directed towards himself, or rather his own state… when he wasn’t acting strangely, he came across as especially rude. Hercules couldn't help but feel flabbergasted due to Phils odd behavior. Just how was he supposed to react?

"Look, you hold it in this angle. Never too low. You have to stretch it far enough. Alright?"

Hercules nodded quickly, but all he could focus on was how much his hands were trembling.

"Good! All you need to do now is to let go and don't move a muscle!!", however, he did not shoot the arrow, instead he handed the bow back to Hercules.

"Try again", Phil prompted, and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He started to feel nauseous all over again... Probably because he’d moved too quickly, and because the world around him began to spin. For a short moment, he held his breath in order to prevent the nausea from building any further, but sadly it didn’t seem to help. Right as the demigod was about to shoot, a loud, painful sounding gurgle erupted from Phil’s chubby belly, making him gasp audibly… Especially as an airy belch forced its way up his throat, Hercules’ attention was on him again. No… he simply couldn’t focus on his training when he knew that Phil was so sick.

“Maybe we should-“

“No…! Mrrp… Stop-”, Phil’s voice broke without him realizing it… his hind legs suddenly gave in, and he sank down, plopping onto the ground. White and purple dots were dancing in front of his eyes, and he began to whimper as his stomach seemingly moved in circles inside him… at least that’s what it felt like…

“Phil-“, Hercules widened his eyes in shock, and he bent down to reach for his arm.

“Don’t touch me!!”, the Satyr hissed, roughly slapping his hand away, but in all honesty, he feared he could throw up all over him… that would be awful. That would be the only way for this situation to get any more humiliating than it already was. The confused demigod could only stand there and watch as Phil pressed his eyes shut, trying so hard to somehow calm his agitated insides, and stop his head from spinning…

As much as Phil had hoped for the pain and dizziness to slowly fade away, instead, more and more sour tasting saliva began to pool underneath his tongue. The fear of what was about to happen made him whimper again… and before he knew what was happening to him, it began with a wet belch, and suddenly, he expelled the contents of his stomach right in front of him. There went his breakfast… it didn’t taste half as delicious coming back up. Hercules stumbled backwards in shock, and simply watched… it was a horrifying and concerning sight to see his teacher throw up like this.

“Phil…!”, he gasped… No, this time he wouldn’t let him turn him away. The young man approached him, and slowly knelt down next to him so he could rub his back.

“Kid… get away from me…”, even  though the Satyr said that, he sounded like he wanted the opposite really… he couldn’t keep his façade up a second longer. Now it was all over anyway… What he’d wanted to avoid so badly had already happened. Hercules had seen him vomit. And worst of all, he was trying to comfort him, too…!

“Shh… hey, it’s alright…! I also get sick sometimes…”, Hercules smiled a bit shyly.

“Do you want to know what helps me a lot then?”

“What…”

The demigod gently reached over to Phil’s big belly… because he was such a tiny creature, his student could easily rub both his back and his middle at once. Surprised, Phil shifted a little, his small goat body quivering… His face was so red, he almost looked like a squished tomato.

“H-hey…”

Hercules hushed him softly… for now, it might be better if Phil simply didn’t speak at all. It was unusual to see him so… quiet. So stiff in Hercules’ embrace. The warmth of the man’s touch felt very nice to the creature, but it was also incredibly awkward and strange… even more so when it coaxed several small, wet belches out of him. He feared he could have to throw up again, but it seemed like there was simply nothing left inside… which was good, in a way. But admittedly, Phil was pretty upset about letting his breakfast go to waste. No matter how much he’d fought it, there was just no way he could keep his body going a second longer…

“… Sorry about that…”

“Please don’t apologize… You can’t control how you feel…”

Phil turned his head away… His nose was starting to itch again, and he felt a sneeze coming up. Why? Why did this have to happen? Why now? Why in front of Hercules? He was so frustrated… after another deafeningly loud sneeze that made his ears pop, he began to whine. It almost looked like tears shot into his eyes for a moment.

“Maybe you should lie down”, Hercules suggested, with a soft tone in his voice.

“It’s no use to push yourself even more…”

“And what about you?”, Phil mumbled. He was slurring his words, it was like his tongue didn’t want to listen to him anymore. A thick tear rolled down his cheek – no, he wasn’t crying! It’s from the itch in his nose.

“Who’s gonna teach you how to shoot that arrow?”

“I can practice alone”, Hercules insisted.

“The things you already taught me! Revision is good, isn’t it? And if I learn it on my own, it’ll stick better.”

“I suppose…”

Finally, Phil allowed Hercules to help him back onto his feet. Even though his knees were still shaky, he somehow managed to stand on his own again now. Admittedly, getting everything out of his system made him feel a little bit better, but still – far from well enough to continue teaching. The Satyr sniffled, trying to get some air into his nose… but his sinuses were still so clogged, all it did was make his throat and ears tickle. As much as it annoyed him, he had to continue breathing through his mouth, which only further agitated his sore throat.

“Come on, take it easy for today… I’ll get you to bed”, Hercules offered.

“NO. … No, thanks. I’m fine on my own.”

There was his pride again… Hercules was honestly pretty happy to see it, for once. That could only mean he’d be fine, right?

“If you’d like any tea or-“

“I’m sick, not a baby”, Phil hissed, and almost stumbled over his own feet. He hated that Hercules had to catch him again… His hooves felt like they were too big for his body somehow. Maybe still from the dizziness… he really had to get some sleep…

“… Thanks.”

The demigod chuckled softly as he watched him stagger off… well, hopefully he’d feel better by tomorrow. He already knew it would get pretty lonely without his nagging. Once again, Hercules took the bow and arrow – and shot. This time, he managed to hit the apple.

“Phil! I did it!”, he grinned proudly.

“Do you want the apple??”

“HURK” – well, that loud gagging noise was enough of a response for Hercules…

[damienthepious]

Going Through Changes, Ripping Out Pages (chapter 4)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ao3] [ch 5] [ch 6] [ch 7] [ch 8] [ch 9] [ch 10] [???]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, (uhhhhh sorta), Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, (WE WILL GET THERE…… EVENTUALLY)

Summary: Lord Arum wakes to discover that some things have changed while he slept. Namely, there is a human in his bed.

Chapter Summary: Two conversations, and a little investigation.

~

Damien isn't far, when Rilla finds him again. He’s standing out in the hall near the kitchen, and-

And the Keep has wrapped steady vines around his shoulders, clinging lightly and blooming in soft yellows and blues. Damien has his eyes closed, his expression motionless but tense, his lips tight together as Rilla comes close.

"Damien," she says gently. He probably hears her coming, but she knows how deeply he can get caught up in his own head. He sighs at her voice, clinging to the Keep's vines in turn, but he doesn't open his eyes just yet. "Are you-"

She doesn't quite finish the thought. Are you alright? Stupid question, obviously. Neither of them are. None of them. Damien's lip pulls to the side, a weak sort of grimace, and she steps closer. The Keep makes room, shifting some vines to brush her shoulders as well, a gentle curtain around the both of them as she pulls Damien into a tight hug.

"Rilla," he murmurs. He presses his face into her neck, inhaling sharply and holding her in return. "I… I am sorry I left in such a state. It was- I should not have-I shouldn't have faltered. I couldn't-"

"It's okay, Damien. I know. He- he was being cruel on purpose but you know he doesn't really think that. He couldn't have known it would hurt you like-"

"I know," Damien murmurs, drooping further to rest his forehead against her shoulder. "Of course he doesn't know that those particular cruelties would affect me. A rather cold comfort, I'm afraid, considering that his lack of knowledge is entirely the issue."

Rilla sighs, because obviously Damien is right. The fact that he could hurt them like that by accident- it almost stings worse than if the cut were deliberate. "I sent him to cool off in his workshop," she says softly, and Damien's lip curls into something wry, something that isn't quite a smile.

"I'm sure he was quite amenable to instruction, hm?" he drawls.

Rilla bites back a bitter laugh. "Obviously. I-" she pauses. "I don't know what to do now," she says, only recognizing the feeling as she voices it. "Shit."

It's Damien's turn to tighten his arms, holding her more securely with a quiet, sympathetic noise. The Keep shifts around both of them, humming low and brushing soft leaves over their shoulders, and Rilla looks up, raising an eyebrow.

"What, do you have an idea?" she asks, and she has less than zero clue how the Keep could answer her in a way she can understand, but- "I'm not willing to rule out anything at this point."

The Keep pauses, and then it sings, unsure but hopeful, and pulls open a portal.

Damien and Rilla meet each other's eyes, concern and hope and doubt and pain passing quick and quiet between them, and then Damien takes a steadying breath, takes Rilla's hand, and they both step through.

~

Arum steps into his workshop, the portal disappears behind him, and then he simply closes his eyes and clenches his hands and breathes, until he begins to feel less panicked, less uncertain.

He is too agitated to realize, for quite a few minutes, that he should have been much less agreeable to allowing the little knight to bolt off into his Keep unsupervised, and that doctor as well. When he barks out an irritated question regarding their whereabouts, however, the Keep calmly informs him that the herbalist has just now found the knight, that they are currently in a corridor near the kitchen, simply- talking.

Plotting, he thinks darkly, and then he scowls.

"If you say so," he mutters, and then after a long moment he sighs. "If they will be remaining here until this little mystery is unraveled… well. See that their biological needs are met, at least. Wouldn't do to have them starving before I entirely understand their part in this."

The Keep hums lightly, pointedly, and Arum growls.

"I do not care what sorts of meals they prefer."

The Keep hums again.

"No, I do not."

The Keep says nothing for a moment, and then it gives a very, very gentle trill.

"Well I do not currently, then!" he snarls, throwing two hands in the air emphatically. "What have they done? What did they do to pull you to their side above mine? Are we not two parts of the same whole? I exist to protect you- you are my sole reason for existing- why should either of us care about a pair of interloping humans?"

The Keep pauses, and then sings one short, gentle phrase.

Arum's frill presses tight to his neck, and then he attempts to scoff, folding his arms over his chest in a way that feels unfortunately uncertain.

"... ridiculous," he breathes. "Why should that matter? And- and it is absurd to suggest that they would have enough of a grip on me to effect- to make me- ridiculous."

It sings again, the same short phrase.

"I am-" he snaps his teeth together. "I am already-" he hisses low, feeling his tail thrashing uncomfortably. "It does not matter. What is the value of happiness, Keep? In what way does it serve to ensure your safety?"

The Keep does not sing in response, this time, but Arum can feel the sorrow that pulses through it in its silence.

"See?" he says after a moment, his voice stilted. "You can provide no answer to that, can you? Ridiculous. All of this is absurd. The only thing that matters- the only thing that matters is our survival. These humans are nothing but a threat to that."

The Keep remains silent, and Arum can feel that it is pulling its attention back, retreating from the conversation.

Arum attempts to consider this a victory. Arum resists the impulse to call the Keep's attention back. Arum pretends that the idea of being left entirely alone at this moment does not fill him with-

It does not matter. He sighs, turning his body away, ending the conversation on his own terms, despite the fact that the Keep surrounds him, despite the fact that the Keep chose to fade from attention first.

At last Arum brings his focus to his surroundings, observing his workshop, and he narrows his eyes in confusion as he does.

The experiments he has been working on are gone. Every one of them has disappeared from the space, replaced by newer creatures and tools that he does not recognize. Not only that, but the space- it has been widened slightly as his bedroom was, grown outward to accommodate wider workspaces, more tools.

Arum narrows his eyes even further, realizing that this space, as it currently exists, is meant to have room for two.

Some of the projects appear to be the ordinary fare, new traps and creatures with modifications to help protect themselves and the swamp, but beside them appear to be experiments of decidedly medical intent, and others besides those he cannot seem to determine a reason for in the least. They are magical in nature, of course, but he can see little else from which to glean their purpose.

There is a third pair of fireproof gloves beside his own set of four, now. Slimmer, smaller, carefully stitched. He stares at them for a long moment, an uncomfortable ticking in his throat.

Everything is out of place. Everything.

… He would not even have noticed the scraps of torn parchment shoved unceremoniously into the fireplace, if the colorful splash of the wax seal did not catch his eye. Catch his eye, and then stick there.

Even torn in half, Arum knows the seal of the Senate by sight.

It takes perhaps a half an hour to pull together enough of the scraps that he can reconstruct the letter, at least to the point where it is mostly legible, and his hands are utterly ruined with ash by the time he achieves his goal.

Some is still fragmented. If there were a greeting or a signature they have burned or been torn away, and though Arum can see frequent scatterings of words like Universe and Will and bits and pieces of aggressive posturing, the one paragraph he has managed to restore is edifying enough that he does not feel the need to continue scrabbling through the hearth.

It is the Will of the Universe that the monster collective does as it pleases. The Senate does our utmost to uphold this Will, and it is to our pleasure that the human infection be eradicated. By failing to destroy a growing number of humans - chief among them a healer of their kind, and a monster-killer - you defy the Will of the Senate, and by extension the Will of the Universe itself. You are going destroy them. The Senate assures you, Lord Arum, that it will be your Will to do so. A monster may only defy its nature for so long, and the human infection will destroy you, if you do not destroy your own small infection first.

Arum can see the holes on either side of the parchment, where his own claws must have dug in before he tore the page entirely asunder. His own claws fit neatly in those spaces, and part of him wishes to tear it all asunder yet again, if only for the letter's smug, self-important tone.

Evidence, he thinks vaguely, and the word comes in the little human's confident voice. Mention of a healer and a monster-killer, the doctor and the knight- the letter shredded and half-burned in the hearth- barely legible even after wasting half an hour in the effort-

If this is part of some enormous lie… it would be a nearly impossibly elaborate one.

Arum looks at the small pair of gloves again. He smooths over the torn edges of the letter from the Senate.

The growth within his greenhouse corroborates the timeline the Keep and the humans claim, the year he has lost. A year of making room in his home for these creatures. A year of dulling the sharpness of his claws, a year of experiments he no longer knows, a year of, apparently, deceiving and defying the Senate.

You are going to destroy them.

Arum feels his frill shiver at his neck.

it will be your Will to do so.

Arum's mind churns, confusion and frustration and fear, and he digs his claw into the wax of the Senate's seal. Their words certainly sound like the threat of a curse, to Arum's ears. And if it truly was the Senate who stole a year from him-

(The memory is gone. Utter blankness. Did he truly, honestly risk the safety of his Keep? Did he truly dig his heels in to earn the Senate's ire?)

He needs to speak with the humans again.

[->]

[autisticstarseed]

if u could, perhaps, bless us with all the applicable symbols from that fic ask for hvh 👀

ooOoOOOoOO Rub s gay hands togehter omg ty friend 😍;;;;;;

💡 - What was the motivation behind the story?

hHH i hadnt written in 10+ years so when i latched onto this plot idea i just thought itd be a good time to jump the shark and try it again !! i just wanted smth really edgy and depthful bc im emo and the rest kind of snowballed

💎- What was your favorite part?

osdlfksd;lf it’s hard to pick a fav but the drunk scene was definitely the most fun to write at least

⛰️-  What was the hardest part?

THE SCENE WHERE THE GANG IS KIDNAPPED BY ENKI,,,, i debated toning down the violence but in the end i knew where the story was going (and where its still going) and that its gonNA be kinda dark so why hold back now ig

🎭- What was the feeling or mood you were going for?

BITTERSWEET AF,,, sort of just treading the line of ‘hopeful’ and ‘hopeless’ at all times to fully portray the feeling of being at your lowest, but with that classic tss ‘silver linings just around the corner’ kind of undertone

🏟️- Who was your intended audience?

mostly all the adults that watched tss as a kid and felt like spirituaLLY MOVED BY IT cuz i really tried to tap into that Emotion Tee Em we all felt when we found out that zak was [redacted]

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?

hHH theres actually a LOT of scenes like that and i think a lot of my general motivation to keep going comes from that ‘WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT’ vibe slkdf:SDF but the Plot Twist tm in the latest chapter was definitely a big’n, and theres a few more of those still to come :^)

🗝️ - What were you thinking when you wrote it?

kjdjFSDs:DF tbh whenever i start really writing, [’im shifting into soup mode’ seinfeld meme voice] im shifting into maladaptive daydreaming mode

🎥- Were there any tv shows, books, or movies that influenced this verse, if any?

:^) devilman crybaby pls forgive me for everytHing

📈- Was there a clear character arch you wanted____ character to go on?

i actually have a short list of what i somewhat consider to be the story arcs in my notes !! mostly just for organization and obvs i wont list the future ones but so far we’ve seen the kushtaka arc, the enki arc, and now we’re in what i call ‘the annunaki’ arc.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

ALL OF IT JSHDJSKD, but again a lot of the enki scenes i was worried would be too edgy TM, and the whole annunaki plot as well i was worried might be too ‘out there’ for ppl, but it takes the story exactly where i always wanted it and lines everything up perfectly so i went for it lol. i was also ofc worried if people would like ila or not bc oc but most ppl love her actually which is so 😭❤️

☠️- Did you consider killing off any of the characters? Did you?

8^) [mickey mouse voice] this is a surprise tool that will help us later ,

✉️- Did you title your chapters? What title do you like best?

yes! the next one actually has my favorite chapter title yet, but so far i like ‘so strikes the harpoon’ since its a throwback to the first couple chapters

☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?

o every single paragraph is an overly thought out middle school poem im entering in the talent show actually

🎵- Did you have a playlist/piece of music that went with this story?

Yes !! i have HVH insp part 1, Part 2, and an extra one for all those songs that have the vibes but just dont fit enough to make sense in a playlist

📜-Do you want to write something like this again in the future?

probably ! ive learned i definitely like the edgy/darker and emotionally driven stories with ongoing plot, so that trend will almost definitely continue. idk if ill write a dystopia again anytime soon, but i think my future stuff will at least retain that long and heavy vibe

💁- Did readers influence/change any part of this story?

oh yEA like basically i was ready to quit after the very first chapter before it was even written and kinda just got it all out on a whim of motivation but was expecting to flake on it like i tend to do with projects, but the invested response to it was just so uplifting that its what ive been riding on all ten chapters and im so grateful for it :’)))

✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?

hHHHHHHH yes and ok this is terrible but i actually tend to avoid re-reading my older chapters until i hAVe to bc i suffer from that sO much ,,, , its just little things like tiny words i wanna change or bits i wanna take out/put in and once or twice ive even caught a mistake or plot hole/smth i forgot to add that i rly do have to go back and edit and i just turn to dust every tim e

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?

i really liked the northern lights scene!! it was meant to be a pivotal moment of that ‘bittersweetness’ vibe i was talking abt and it was another one of those scenes i had been planning for a while;;;

“ I think of how much the rest of the family would love this. This isn’t like the moon and the sun, where I can see it and know that even if it looks different, they’ll see the same one soon enough, wherever they are. This reminds me only that I am not with them. It stings. It seems unnatural for something so gentle and natural to appear before us as if we aren’t in complete, total fucking chaos. After all we’ve been through, and the sky still dances. “

📣-What was the best piece of encouragement you got?

AVERY ALL OF UR LIVEBL OGS AND COMMENTS GIV ME SUCH L I FE, ,, ,, CRYIGN CAT FA ce

🔦-Did you learn anything while writing it? About yourself? Writing?

isdfhSDF YEs, part of my hesitation to write came from this thing where i always just assumed there was a wildly high standard of writing in fandom spaces like in original literature spaces, where you had to have like 10+ sentences to a paragraph and you had to describe every tiny detail of a setting and you had to follow every single grammar rule or it was unreadable but like. genuinely its like sculpting with words as long as you have a shape ppl get the idea which is such a weight off my shoulders lol, its still a lot of work but so much fun to know i can to an extent do what i want and ppl actually like it like that. i also learned that like most other writers i have to cause my favs emotional and physical pain,

🎁- Any writing advice for people who want to write something like this?

hhHHHH 1. please do it its so fun just give in to the edge my guy , 2. try to get comfortable re-reading your chapters, for me its like when ppl listen to themselves sing/act but im trying to do better bc its so much more consistent when i keep it fresh in my mind and it also boosts confidence when u can pick out the things u like instead of the things u dont, 3. trying to have at least one scene in mind for each chapter that ur excited to write so u can have motivation to update faster! for me it doesnt have to be smth i think would excite the audience either like it could be the most basic thing but just having an idea of it and knowing i want to see it come to life rly helps me stay on top of it all

TY SM FRIEND THIS WAS SO FUN x x )

[lostbutterflyutau]

Sunset Carla (Part 3)

With the premiere of Not Without My Magic and Naomi Knows Best we’ve learned a lot about Carla, her parents, their dynamic and the effect that this dynamic has on Carla.

In Not Without My Magic it’s revealed that Ash had been gone at least seven years, meaning that she’s been absent from Carla’s life since she was about nine or ten-years-old -- possibly earlier since in Naomi Knows Best she said she studied dark magic for ten years. And this depends on when Carla’s birthday is. I personally headcanon Carla as being 17 at this point with a November birthday. (She’s a Scorpio.) But, I digress.

Shifting back to canon, since even their first appearance in King of the Carnaval, Victor and Carla are shown to have a really close relationship, which is to be expected after he raised her alone for so long. It’s very subtle at first, but as time goes on, we can see more and more of just how much he really cares for his daughter.

 Yes, they do clash sometimes because they’re both strong personalities. And, of course, he does get frustrated with and scold her from time to time – after all, he is her father – but even with the little hiccups they’re shown to genuinely care for one another. They look after each other and never leave the other behind. Ever.

 Until recently…

 Ever since Ash came into the picture in Not Without My Magic, there’s been a lot of tension within the Delgado family that was only recently confirmed. Victor, understandably, holds some resentment against Ash for leaving them and not saying a word for years. As he says, they waited five years and searched for two more. They believed she was dead until Snow Place Like Home. He’s aggravated that she has the nerve to be annoyed with him and rightfully so. Ash snaps that, “I didn’t get to see my little girl grow up. You took that from me!” Despite the fact that she is the one who left for years without sending so much as a letter.

On top of that, she seems to not respect Victor as an equal in general. When she defends the amount of time she spent away training, she tells him that, “Unlike some people I never gave up!” And insists that he should have waited for her to teach him dark magic. This tells us two things. One is that she wants to have the control. She wanted to be the one to have control over his (and by proxy, Carla’s) magical development. Wants them to know what she wants them to know and be able to do things her way. The second, is that along with control, she wants all the power for herself, something that is confirmed by her claims that Jewel of Night will make her, “The most powerful Malvago who ever lived.” When she says this, Victor cuts in, saying in Not Without My Magic, “You mean, ‘we?’” And later pointing out in Naomi Knows Best, “What about us?’

Both times he is brushed aside – kind of. The first time, she gives him a look and hesitates before answering. In that look, it can be seen that she is simply appeasing him. She doesn’t actually intend to share any of the power with him and whether or not she intends to share with Carla is another question. Because when Victor asks about “us” – as in him and Carla, Ash simply replies, “Yes, yes. All of us” in a dismissive tone.

 Speaking of the Precious Smol, Carla clearly looks up to and idolizes her mother, something that was suspected since her comment in The Race for the Realm when, after first being turned into a Malvaga, she says, “If only Mama could see us now!” Knowing what we do now, it can be inferred that Victor and Carla wanted to become Malvagos because of Ash. And, now that she’s back with them, Carla strives to please her. She wants so much for her mother to be proud of and praise her. Any time Ash acknowledges her skills and compliments her, her face lights up and her voice gets this happy, eager tone.

 However, while her mother’s praise is important to Carla, so is her Papa. She’s a total Daddy’s Girl, something that was only subtly hinted at until Snow Place Like Home. In that episode, both Victor and Carla gave the most obvious show of love and affection for each other up until that point. There’d always been a bond between them, it had just been presented through small hints before, mainly in the way Victor and Carla display physical affection. She grasps his arm, he sets hands on her shoulders, even once pulls her into him when they’re talking with Shuriki. When she reaches for the Jewel of Maru in the episode of the same name, he calls out to her when he thinks she’s in danger due to the spell Amalay cast to protect it. He doesn’t want to lose her, especially since, at that point, he believed Ash to be dead. He already lost his wife. He didn’t want to lose his daughter too.

As for Carla, she’s often terrible with her feelings and doesn’t appear to have a lot of trust for other people. She covers up a lot of her emotions with anger or annoyance – which is blatantly shown when she shifts from being upset to being annoyed when Ash confirms that, no, they’re not going back for Victor who is the one person Carla does seem to trust fully. The look of adoration and trust she gives him when he’s carrying her through the blizzard says everything. She loves him more than anything, in part because he’s the one who’s always been there for her.

Now, I’m not saying that Ash was ever a bad mother. It’s not known how things were before she left all those years ago. But, I will say that as much as Carla idolizes her, there also seems to be some tension growing between them. Carla is no dummy. And she appears to be picking up on the underlying tension between her parents. It’s subtle, but the confused look and awkward smile she gives after Ash comments about Victor holding Carla back and him saying that, of course he wouldn’t do that, followed by an awkwardly forced show of affection, says that she’s maybe…not so sure about everything. She’s thrilled to have her mother back. To be learning powerful magic and be told that she’s the “more powerful Malvago” with natural talent, but at the same time, she doesn’t like seeing her mother put her father down. Especially not when he’s done so much in raising her as a single parent. Granted, he doesn’t win the award for “Best Dad Ever.” He is raising a criminal, after all. But he does take care of her and it’s clear that they have a strong bond between them. One that Ash is trying to break apart, which leads me into how this fits in with and changes the Sunset Carla narrative.

I still believe that at her core, Carla isn’t evil. Something she’s shown more recently in the latest episodes as different sides of her personality are displayed. She clearly loves her family and revels in the attention she’s getting from her parents. More than anything, she has always wanted to be loved and wanted and respected.

Now, there’s no doubt in my mind that Ash loves and cares for Carla. Why else would she be upset over missing her daughter grow up? But, she doesn’t seem to be very good at expressing it and doesn’t like the idea of being second to Victor in anything. Her ego is the reason she won’t apologise for being gone for so long without so much as a word or acknowledge the fact that Victor did a decent job of taking care of their daughter alone for years. And it’s this attitude that has her purposefully driving a wedge between father and daughter by putting Victor down, pointing out his flaws and trying to make him look incompetent in front of Carla. When he dares acknowledge that she is, in fact, his wife, she cuts her eyes at him. She declares Carla the more powerful one, (which, in her defense, is true. Carla does have more of a natural affinity for magic) and wants her help in casting the spell with the Jewel of Night. To get rid of him, she orders Victor to take Gabe to the dungeon – “If you can handle that.”

She wants to be the favoured parent and show her superiority any way she can, even if doing so means that she has to manipulate her own daughter. In this case, she’s manipulating her against Victor. And possibly to use her in order to gain more power for herself. Like I stated above, it’s unclear if Ash intends to share any sort of power with Carla, considering the dismissive way she brushes them off when Victor asks. And if that turns out to be the case, Carla is not going to be pleased. She’s a master manipulator herself, but, as pointed out by one of my fandom friends, she knows where the line is. She doesn’t manipulate people she actually likes, and especially not her family.

 Carla has always been genuinely herself around both of her parents. Venting and whining her feelings to Victor in private, squealing and acting like a happy little girl when her parents are finally together again (seriously, that happy clap is everything!), showing pure excitement whenever her mother praises her…She’s not afraid to show them her true feelings. Finding out that her mother is possibly manipulating her and very likely keeping secrets would devastate her.

She’s already picking up on and showing displeasure the tension between her parents – the face she makes when Ash says that they’ll come back for Victor later says a lot. She doesn’t want to leave him behind. She’s never left him behind and he’s never left her. The idea of doing so confuses and upsets her. And she’s annoyed with her mother for not listening to her feelings. Their relationship is already likely strained from Ash being gone for so long and therefore, knowing virtually nothing about her daughter. This, I feel, is only going to worsen and is likely being set up as the catalyst needed to make Sunset Carla happen, just in a different way from how I initially predicted. While I still believe that Carla could benefit from friends her own age and being shown a better way to live, I also think that this isn’t going to be the path the canon story will take. Not completely. And I’m here for it.

 I’m starting to think that someway, somehow, she’s going to be put in a place where she’s going to be forced to choose between her parents. Because Victor isn’t going to stand to be pushed around for long, especially with Carla in the middle of it all. He cares too much for her to let her be caught in whatever problems he and his wife have with each other. In fact, I doubt that he opposes them having or reforming a relationship. He wants his daughter to be happy and if it makes Carla happy to bond with her mother, I don’t think he would mind them spending time together. His attitude comes from the fact that Ash is trying to put a wedge between his and Carla’s own relationship in order to form that bond.

 Though we’ve seen hints of it already, she’s going to realise that her mother is not who she always thought she was and is likely to end up heartbroken as a result. I can’t say when this will happen, but if the prediction that Ash is going to bring the ultimate darkness is true, it’s likely to be in the midst of her making plans and perhaps even being corrupted by dark magic herself. Carla will be put in a position where she’ll have to make a major decision about her future, her family and who she wants to be. She’s always been directed to one path by both of her parents, and I still hold to the idea that she doesn’t know there’s another way, but I also think that, rather than her breaking off on her own like I initially predicted, she’s instead going to be privy to the way power can corrupt and overtake people, which while already seen with Shruki, is going to hit harder when it’s someone she actually cares about being subject to it.

[zerefserigala]

Gray x Natsu + Profile

NOTP | meh | it’s ok | i can live with it | BROTP | cute | i love this ship | adorable | OTP

If you had to change the pairing’s very first meeting, how would you change it? - I don’t think I would change it, it was a very believable meeting, especially considering how young they were, but I also love the idea of them starting off as close friends and the fighting becoming a later addition to their relationship (e.g. ‘The Change’ by Mnemosyne’s Elegy)

What song fits your pairing the most? - I think a song like Right Here by Ashes Remain would fit them the best, I think the tone and message of the song fits my vision of the pairing and it works in both a romantic and platonic way.

What is your favourite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing? - SOFT!!! These boys being soft and wholesome with each other is my everything and my jam! Just soft gays being soft for each other! I also really like the idea of modern AUs where they go on roadtrips or only have each other to rely on.

Do you prefer canon ideas or do you have your own headcanons for them? - What’s canon? Jk, I prefer headcanons, stuff like Gray being a Mum friend, or Natsu being really good with medicine, they’d still bicker in every incarnation, but it would be soft bickering.

Favourite canon moment of them? - Chapter 523: Will Fate Burn? I am 100% unashamed to admit that I cried right along with Natsu in this chapter. (I also really like what you could do with the implications of this, because I can’t imagine their rivalry recovering, but I can imagine their friendship recovering and that shift would be really interesting to explore).

Least favourite canon moment of them? - Chapters 503 - 507, it just hurt to watch them fight and try to kill each other, I knew it was coming but that didn’t stop me from dreading it, because there was so much betrayal and grief in that fight, THEY COLLAPSED OUT OF RELIEF when it was resolved, these boys aren’t your typical rivals, they wholeheartedly care about each other and things outside of their need for vengeance.

Favourite headcanon trope/idea? - For Natsu, my favourite headcanon is the aforementioned one about him being really good with medicine, specifically natural remedies. For Gray, one of my favourites is that he code-switches a lot between Fioran and Isvanian and that language is a form of self-expression for him, and that Isvanian is incredibly precious to him and his identity. For them as a couple, I love the headcanon of them still communicating through non-verbal means, different kisses meaning different things, soft little touches and looks that tell them everything they need to know.

Least favourite headcanon trope/idea? - For Natsu, the headcanon that he is noticeably younger than Gray is a pet peeve of mine (in my Wattpad days, a lot of the time Gray was 18 and Natsu was 17 and that always bugged me). For Gray, I don’t like the idea of him being the always dominant one, since it kind of takes away from Natsu’s character in my opinion. Between both of these headcanons, you can probably see the pattern, but I tend to avoid content where they aren’t equal in some form or another (this is also a minor pet peeve of mine in canon).

Favourite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? - Their goofy but loving friendship, and how they kind of band together to stay safe from Erza and continue to protect each other. There is so much love between these two, I can’t!

Least favourite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? (Can be headcanon) - Going back to the inequality, Natsu is noticeably stronger than Gray in canon, but I really hate when Gray is either put down because of that or is actively treated as weaker than Natsu. They are rivals and are meant to be equal, Gray is smarter and his abilities are more versatile than Natsu, whilst Natsu has a lot of raw strength. Ideally, they’d both be strong and considered equal not because they’re the same, but because they have different skill sets that compliment each other’s weaknesses, allowing them to grow as people and as fighters.

If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together? - I can’t imagine these two getting together in anything less than some dramatic near death moment. One of them is about to do something stupid, promptly scaring the other so their emotions are going crazy, the three words are spoke, the one doing something stupid probably does it anyway, and there’s probably some tears, more than a couple fists thrown and a kiss.

If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why? - Pokemon, because I know the Pokemon fandom best after Fairy Tail

How hard is it write/draw your pairing? Scale of 1-10. - 7 for me, they’re very emotive in my mind, and it’s all dramatic, but I don’t have many interesting ideas or angles that I’d like to explore. I love the softness, but that doesn’t have a lot of substance, I can throw angst and hurt/comfort at them, but it can get quite generic.

Is there a pairing that you think rivals them? - Not for me, they’re my OTP, TECHINICALLY, though I play it by ear because I change my mood so often.

Which character of the pairing do you like more? (Would you ever pair yourself with them?) - I prefer Gray and no one is surprised, he’s an incredibly deep character who gives so much and gets so little. He’s graceful and kind and sweet, and I would die for him. And I did once pair himself with me when I was younger, but not anymore, now I just admire him.

Which character of your pairing would be the one to break up with the other? Why? - They probably both would, I don’t see their relationship being smooth whatsoever and they’d probably break up over relatively small things only to get back together. They aren’t conventional or clean, but I find it undeniable that they do love each other, and I don’t think that would ever quite fade even if they did break.

Are they relatable as characters or as a pairing? - As characters, I think Gray is more relatable than Natsu because Natsu is so powerful and over the top, whereas Gray feels more grounded, but I think that in a relationship, their connection would be very unique.

Did you once/ever dislike one/both of them? - They can both annoy me, Natsu has been annoying me in Fairy Tail: 100 Year Quest because he’s gotten so much focus and squeezed everyone else out, and Gray annoyed me back when I first read Avatar, but I’ve never disliked them. The closest I’ve come is when I was simply uninterested in Gray when I first found the series (but HOOOO boy did that change when Galuna Island attacked).

On an estimate, how many posts have you made about them? - I’d say that 15 posts are up right now, between Tumblr and AO3, but across my 4 years of being a fan? There’s probably 50+ things I’ve made for them.

What made you decide to ship them? - There was never a particular moment that made me ship them, it gradually happened for me, I slowly began to notice them more in the anime, and then woops, I searched up fanfiction and fanart.

Favorite genre for them? (Angst, fluff, etc.) - Fluff and hurt/comfort.

[rydain]

Yuletide 2019 Letter

Dear Yuletide author,

Thank you so much for writing for me! For friends and readers unfamiliar with this rare fanfiction exchange, check it out and please consider signing up if you catch this post before the November 4 deadline. For anyone unfamiliar with a requested fandom, here there be spoilers - please do be warned. For anyone curious about my own writing, I’m over on AO3 under my usual handle.

General Preferences

Yes Please

Canon tone and setting, or a fitting interpretation thereof for a particular bobblehead murder house of 1920s glamour and modern memetic humor. A strong sense of optimism if said tone allows for it, earned as it might be through its share of angst. Drama stemming from the pressures of setting and conflicts of personal goals and life paths. Emphasis on the sweet within any bitterness. Competent characters trying to do better for themselves, futile as it might be at times. Sex if it fits and is comfortable to write, fade to black otherwise.

Hell No

Nonconsensual sex - coercion or rape. Graphic descriptions of illness, violence, or injuries. Non-canon character death. Non-canon abusive interpretations of characters. Lives effectively being ruined, except in one noted request. Emphasis on bigotry - excessive slurs or a focus of the narrative rather than a natural influence on how characters are seen or required to live their lives. Stupidity, immaturity, and general facilitation of petty drama from characters thoughtful enough to damn well know better. Humiliation and embarrassment humor. Focus on non-canon pregnancy or parenthood.

Canon-Specific Requests

Deadwood

I fell in love with Calamity Jane's sensitive badassery, eloquent foul mouth, fragility showing through her hardnosed shell, and natural talent for nurturing. Any exploration of her history or inner struggles would be fabulous. I would especially love more development of her romance with Joanie, either during or after the events of the show. Feel free to build up to the movie or diverge from it - either keeping them together or parting on less heartbreaking circumstances, or exploring Jane's reason and circumstances for running away.

Dirty Dancing

This is my admittedly vague wish for More of These Character(s), Please. I'd love to read about Johnny and Penny's friendship as it evolved from their youthful romance, perhaps with some of that tension remaining, or upbeat or bittersweet emotional continuity of the characters going on with their lives. How do Frances and Johnny get on as a couple - or not? What sort of friendship did Frances and Penny share? Those who do go their separate ways can perhaps catch up some years later, either by coincidence or deliberately getting back in touch. Detail of dancing career would be especially cool to see for whoever continues with that.

The Prestige

I'm fascinated by the dichotomy of Alfred Borden and would love to see it explored. How did the brothers decide to share an identity and go about developing it? How did they keep it secret - or at least well enough to get by, perhaps with some bribery in the bargain? What currents of rivalry may have challenged this bond, especially over the events of the movie?

I'd also enjoy seeing Borden's experience after the events of the movie - an ostensibly happy ending that must have its share of struggles, from the sacrifice of his brother to any avoidance of further prosecution, and hiding certain truths from his daughter throughout the years. Given the desperation and darkness of canon, this new life of his might very well be doomed to fail. I would be interested in such a take, but please leave the metaphoric guillotine offscreen even if it casts a long shadow.

The Sexy Brutale

I love this game and its potential for interpretation of character and setting. It's a tip of the iceberg to be sailed most anywhere you see fit - apart from that depressing canonical matter of all the guests being dead forever and ever, amen. Please keep the house standing or let everyone escape, or have them carry on as ghosts to allow for future shenanigans. Please also keep the end game couples happy, including Greyson/Redd and Tequila/Willow - both of whom I very much ship, but are fine to have portrayed as friends - if they happen to fit within the story.

Some possible inspiration -

Eleanor and Trinity bond as artists, perhaps collaborating on some particularly humorous and disturbing piece in the Brutale's studio.

Eleanor tells stories, ever more building on their own creative liberties, of the parties at her old manor.

Trinity's troublesome habits, at the Brutale or otherwise. Aside from the cheating that introduced her to Clay, what other good-natured wickedness was she known for?

Lafcadio and Willow discuss spirituality, salvation, ghosts of the manor - metaphoric or literal, and lasciviously so if that - bonding over the similarities and contrasts of Christianity and voodoo.

Straight up ghost busting, perhaps if that library spirit bothers Willow while she’s trying to research.

“It’s a good thing you shared your secrets with me, Lucas.” In the game, this was Grinmaw. In the world behind the game, outside the nightmare scenario, what is Willow privy to and trying to work behind the scenes to resolve?

Lafcadio's transition from casino owner to priest. How did he decide on this? Did he get religion, or rather rediscover it? This can get into matters of guilt over the vice he facilitated, and of shifting the mindset of a gambling man into that of a moral authority. It can follow the origin comic’s plot of Lafcadio losing the Brutale to Lucas in a bet - which perhaps he threw somehow to rid himself of the place - or involve a lower key transfer of property.

[narwhallove]

Behind the Curtain: Interview with Romy Writer Ludi-Ling

House of Cards actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more.

@ludi-ling goes meta in our final interview about her writing process; how the Romy fandom’s changed over the years; alternate universes (AU); and the role of smut for Romy fans. (Spoiler alert, our heroes are hot.)

No surprise that it’s a pleasure interviewing Ludi. I kept sending her more questions (25 total!) because her responses fascinated me and inspired me to ask more. It’s a rare person who writes visceral, startling prose and can also talk about her work with clarity, intelligence, and an affection for her characters that doesn’t occlude good writerly judgment.

The superlatives don’t end there. Anyone who knows the community knows that Ludi is a friend to her readers and to her fellow writers. As we all enter a heady 2019, reading Mr. and Mrs. X together, Ludi is someone to cherish.

If you haven’t read our other interviews, please check out: Part 1 of interviews: X-men Origins Part 2 of interviews: Going Dark

As a scholar of fan studies, do you believe Romy fanfiction fulfills needs that Marvel never can? What needs might those be, for Romy fans?

Certainly I think that fanfic is built on the premise of filling in the gaps, scribbling in the margins (to quote the seminal fan studies scholar, Henry Jenkins!) and fixing perceived wrongs. Comics are unique in that regard because the characters and stories within them continue for years and even decades. Comics continuities are convoluted and complicated, and there is a constant churn of writers working on them. Many fans have followed characters for far longer than the writers, and may know the characters more intimately than the professionals. Comics are full of retcons and contradictory takes on the characters. And I think fanfic is an important medium for allowing fans to “fix” that, to negotiate it. Because of the ongoing nature of comics, and because the futures of the characters are always going to be nebulous and subject to the whims of Marvel and the writers indefinitely, I think it’s going to continue to be important. Romy may be married in the comics, but there will still be plenty to write about—kids, divorce, a reconciliation . . . who knows? ;) 

What do you think Romy readers seek out when they read fanfiction? If it’s wish fulfillment, what kinds of wishes are being fulfilled? If it’s looking for “gaps” that the comics skip over, what have you found to be the most common sorts of gaps?

I think Romy is a very interesting example of the “wish fulfillment” function of fanfiction. Because part of the mystique of that ship (no pun intended) is that they can’t touch, they can’t consummate their relationship . . . And fanfic is a way that fans can get them to touch, to work out that angst. I think that one of the staples of Romy fic is the sexual tension between the two, and how they resolve that; the push and pull between them. Sometimes these take place in epic, superheroic backdrops, sometimes in AUs, where they have no mutant powers and where the tension between them is born from other factors (such as already having significant others, or being enemies, or in illicit lines of work).

What draws you to AUs? Your stories aren’t a case of fanfiction filling what’s “between panels”; you tend to shift characters and relationships to entirely different settings, whether it’s a Strange Days–like world or another genre, like a Southern gothic procedural. Can you talk about AUs and how they play out in your imagination?

What I’ve always liked is world-building. One of my first large-scale writing projects was a fantasy trilogy called The Legend of Elu. Most of the fun I got from that was actually building the world, the kingdoms, the mythology, the theology, the languages, the history of that story. That definitely bled into my fanfic.

Now I tend to write canon stuff as one-shots, and novel-length stuff as AUs, because they give me more space to play with world-building. That was something I realised I enjoyed more when I wrote Threads. Writing all those little worlds in a series of one-shots felt too “small.” HoC was originally an expansion of the Threads tale Touch and Go, but it grew into something else, and since then, I’ve preferred to go the AU route for the longer-form stories. :)

We’re living in peak Romy times—I think we’re still reeling from the wedding! Let’s say you had the power to go back in time and drop a pin into an earlier moment in the Romy timeline that you felt truly represents what Romy means to you (which isn’t the same as when they’re happiest!). When and in what universe? Why this choice?

There are so many iconic moments from Romy’s past, but, for me personally, I always go back to their time in Valle Soleada (in X-Treme X-Men). That’s not because they’re happy per se, but because I think that that period was the perfect example of how great they worked together on every level, and was proof positive that they were a good match. I often say it, but I will say it again here, because it’s the truth, and y’all can fight me to the death over it—if there was a time they would’ve got married and I would’ve bought it 100%, it would’ve been in Valle Soleada.

On Tumblr, it seems a large contingent of Romy fans are women in their 30s who discovered Romy at a tender age, thanks to the animated series. This includes you and me! There are exceptions, of course. What’s it like for you to have been in the fandom from the early aughts? What changes in the fandom have you noticed between 2003 and 2018?

I really joined the fandom at an exciting time for Romy—they’d just got back together properly after all the turmoil of the Trial of Gambit. X-Treme X-Men was a treat for Romy fans, and Claremont wrote such a great dynamic between them. As fans we were all excited and happy and well-fed on all that Romy goodness.

So it was weird (not to mention disappointing) when the 2004 reboot happened, and Marvel did everything they could to tank Romy. Which is one thing, and I can stomach it if [it were] logically and well written, but it was just so terribly done that I think many of us just tapped out of the fandom completely. I’d say 2005–2018 were fallow years for the Romy fandom. Most (if not all) of the fan friends I made at that time completely left the fandom. For myself, as someone who enjoys writing AUs, it was the perfect time to branch out from writing in canon and fitting Romy into my own world.

Who are your influences? What writers do you feel a particular affinity for? Are there writers whom we might be surprised to discover informed your work, but you feel have, despite appearances?

I was heavily influenced by the dark, modern fairytales of Angela Carter about the time that I was writing Queen of Diamonds and Threads. She had a really magical way with words—her prose was lyrical, sensual, and unbelievably rich. She was a huge inspiration, but later I moved away from her tone, firstly because I felt I was doing a poor imitation of her, secondly because it wasn’t really appropriate for the direction I wanted to move my fics in, and lastly because I was becoming self-conscious of my insane verbosity and wanted to pare down my prose. That’s something I’m still working on!

At some point during the writing of House of Cards, I finally got round to reading Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I think it was Douglas Adams who convinced me to move away from Carter’s beautiful but too-flowery prose. I loved the way his narrative just sizzled. I’m bad at capturing that energy—but I do think that from HoC onwards, I’ve tried to learn to be more economical with my words—which is hard for a florid soul like mine. 

Threads—structurally at least—was influenced by Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller, and later, by David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. 

Let’s say you can pair your fiction with other works of art—of all forms, films, paintings, music, etc.—as if you were pairing wines to foods. What other pieces of art might you say go along with yours?

Wow! OK—that’s hard. Threads I’d probably pair with Cloud Atlas (the book, not the film, which I haven’t yet watched). HoC—I don’t know that there’s any one thing I would pair it with, but you can bet a load of post-apocalyptic stuff was thrown into that stew, along with a bit of The Matrix and probably some Inception.

52 Pickup was influenced a lot by Asmus’s Gambit run, cos I really wanted to write a heist fic with Remy and Rogue rather than Remy and Joelle (who I freely admit kicked ass). But if I had to pair it with a piece of media, it’d be with the video game Remember Me, which dealt a lot with themes of how memories inform our identities, and the ethical concerns of having memories essentially become “documents” that are uploaded and shared digitally through the cloud.

This is a good segue to talk about high-low culture. We may not want to believe in a hierarchy of culture, but we can certainly talk about the differences between fanfiction and “regular fiction.” When you read fanfiction, do you approach it differently than you would regular fiction? Are your expectations for form, reading pleasure, or anything else different? If so, how so?

Interesting question! I don’t know whether I approach it differently per se, but I think that readers have different expectations of fanfic. Hopefully we all read “regular fiction” for the same reason we read fanfic—for pleasure. But I don’t think there’s really a binary between regular and fanfiction. I think both exist on a continuum. There is a lot of “regular fiction” (I prefer to call it “profic” or “professional fiction,” because I think that’s where the binary between the two exists) that is actually very close to fanfic, and vice versa. By that I mean that there is plenty of fanfic that is epic in scope, deals with serious themes, and might be considered “classics” if they weren’t fanfiction.

And there is also profic, like romance, that is more similar to fanfic in terms of the kind of functions that it serves. There is an illicit pleasure to reading romance—for example, it’s not the kind of thing you’d openly read in public! There’s a similarity between that and fanfic, and I think, as readers of fanfic, we anticipate some level of illicitness when we approach it—even if the illicitness is only in the format (i.e., it’s fanfiction!), not in the content.

Fun question: What role do you think explicit smut functions in a fic? How do you deal with smut in your work? There’s an interesting moment that’s not in HoC, in which you write about Gambit and Rogue’s first time having sex in his point of view. It’s a separate chapter that exists as its own entity on your fanfiction.net page. Notably, it is much more explicit than the scene in Rogue’s perspective. Can you talk a little bit about this decision?

Well, I do think that fanfic is a safe space for writers to explore their sexuality (and I think that’s a huge part of the reason why fic is looked down upon), and smut plays a significant role in that. And smut certainly plays a part in my own fics. HoC actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more. Generally, I do try to make the sex scenes have a purpose in the plot (’cos I’m kind of anal about plot structure!), but in the particular case of Slow Burn and the other HoC vignettes, those are more self-contained one-shots where I could explore things that I couldn’t explore in the main story. So I could indulge in the smut a bit more! And let’s be honest—Gambit’s dark sexuality makes it thrilling to write smut from his perspective—of course his “thoughts” are going to be more explicit! ;)

But I also think that it’s interesting to write their individual perspectives on their sexual encounters, because of that tension between their characters. Rogue is the quintessential virginal Southern Baptist gal who’s inexperienced; whereas Gambit is the sexually aggressive alpha male who’s probably never had a woman turn him down in his life. That makes for a very combustive love affair between the two, and makes it fun to write that love affair (and all the smut in-between) from both their points of view.

[birdiethebibliophile]

I’d like to talk about how Fjord’s arc can be read as a spiraling, self-fulfilling prophecy, for just a moment. (Kudos to @losebetter for inspiring this. Your tweets keep sending me down deep paths of Fjord meta.) Readmore provided because this got pretty dang long.

 Let’s start back in episode 31. Fjord’s still recovering from being kidnapped and tortured by slavers; he’s still dealing with losing Molly. During their time off, Fjord did not relax (“The previous events have rocked Fjord a little bit”) and instead attempted to get his story out of the way without bothering the others. Did anyone ever talk to him about how he was gone for two weeks? As far as I can tell from the transcript, aside from Matt’s comment that the others were “generally worried” that Fjord disappeared and a brief, skipped-over question from Caleb where he said “You were off on your own. Are you okay?” left unanswered, they did not. One of the most painful moments for me, if it comes to that, is during a conversation where everyone’s getting caught up on what they did during this time off, where Fjord asked everyone about their experiences and didn’t speak at all about his own, he has this line [bolded part mine]:

TRAVIS: Yeah. There’s no telling that they’re going to share any information with me, anyway. I’m fucking absorbing things and shit just appears and I’m getting stronger by the day and it has nothing to do with the things that I’m learning. There’s no books or knowledge, it’s just happening. What if they look at me like you guys look at me sometimes? What if they don’t let me go? Maybe that’s not where I need to be.

More on that - especially the bolded sentence - in a minute.

The other important thing about episode 31 was that Fjord was the one to go to Cree and talk to her about Molly, leading to the following conversation.

MATT: I wasn’t expecting to see him this last time. I feel like whatever grace brought him back to us, maybe it was your carelessness that took him from us again.

TRAVIS: Indeed, maybe it was. You have my apologies and my condolences.

MATT: It is all right. I have started a new life here, and it has been serving me well.

TRAVIS: I hate to leave you with such sour news, but I must be going.

MATT: Such are these days. Thank you for your candor. She turns around and walks away.

TRAVIS: Fuck. Then I’ll head back to The Leaky Tap.

We already know that Fjord is someone who tends to take on a lot of guilt, blame himself for things – Travis has said as much. Fjord blames himself for Molly’s death, and Cree outright blamed him, which I’m sure didn’t help. But this is just the setup. Just an example of Fjord, well, conforming to other people’s opinions of him. This is a well-established fact about his character. It’s even symbolic, with his use of the Mask of Many Faces. Fjord can be who people want or expect him to be, shifting and changing to fit their expectations. Cree blamed him for Molly’s death, and I think in that, Fjord took on the persona of someone who was responsible for it.

Moving on to the current arc.

For a while now, Fjord has been pushed into this leadership position, into someone who makes decisions. He played a role for Avantika – the role of eager acolyte. He played a role for the Mighty Nein – someone who was fine with all this, whose only goal was to get them through it, who was fine with receiving the consequences of their entanglement with Avantika. This included sleeping with her twice – and the second time at least with dubious consent (Beau outright said that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter). The overall tone of Fjord’s actions in that section can be summed up with this exchange from episode 41:

TRAVIS: Thank you and thank you for talking with me.

LIAM: I cough very hard into my hands and cast Message to him and briefly, quietly say: I think that woman is going to try to kill you, I really do.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Just so. I’ll turn and walk off.

In both sections here, I see a… resignation in Fjord’s attitude. An acceptance of this is who he is now. But even here, things aren’t too bad. He sees himself as a doomed man, but they make it out. Avantika is killed. All is well.

Except… it isn’t.

In fact, Fjord’s actions have taken a sharp turn ever since then – away from the kind, caring man we’ve come to expect and into someone who seems to be making reckless decisions, hungers for power, doesn’t care about his friends’ feelings.

And my argument is that this is happening because they’ve already decided that’s how he is, now.

“What if they look at me like you guys look at me sometimes?”

When was the last time someone asked Fjord how he was feeling? When was the last time someone had a conversation with him that wasn’t centered around Avantika or Uk’otoa? When was the last time someone interacted with him, one-on-one, without asking Fjord if he’s power-hungry, asking him what his goals are, wondering if he’s going to release a monster bent on destroying the world? A brief, one or two sentence conversation with Jester post-Darktow, maybe, when she mentioned how he uses Vandren’s voice (I would quote that but the transcript hasn’t been completed yet). Other than that, and the conversation with Caleb quoted above, no one’s talked to Fjord in a long, long time. And the last thing he said about how he was feeling – also from that conversation with Caleb?

“Because I feel like I am swimming in the deep end and I don’t quite know what I’m doing.”

Fjord finds it so easy to take on whatever persona he needs to – whatever’s expected of him. And his friends, consistently and constantly for weeks now, have been on the lookout for him turning dark, or power-hungry, or cruel. Simultaneously, they’ve expected leadership and initiative. They’ve expected him to be the one who knows what he’s doing. Even Caleb – the only person to really talk to him in so long – now expects Fjord to help him in the future, a pact sealed with blood and elemental magic. Everyone has come to expect Fjord to take foolhardy risks, to be thinking about releasing Uk’otoa, to be the Ship’s Captain.

And, as we see, that’s what Fjord’s becoming.

He finds it so easy to take up a new character, a new accent, a new face. For a long time, his friends expected him to be a kind and loving man, and he was. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think that Fjord has a true nature of his own, and it is, at its core, good.  But for a character who takes on so much of other people’s expectations, weeks – months, even, now – of taking on blame for things that are (for the most part) not his fault has got to have an effect. This is why I say it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not that Fjord’s actively thinking “well, as long as they think this of me, I might as well act like they expect”; I doubt it’s conscious at all. With his friends withdrawing from him, though, and them (and the fandom, by the way) acting as if he’s already  given into his curiosity or his hunger for power or anything of that nature, he acts as he’s expected to. Fjord likes fulfilling people’s expectations, doesn’t he?

No one really seems to trust him anymore. No one bothers to ask him how he feels – hasn’t since he said he felt like he was swimming in the deep end, didn’t know what he was doing. Since he responded to a suggestion that he might be murdered with just so.

I don’t know if this is an accurate read; I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I’m concerned that it’s a spiral feeding into itself. His friends expect the worst of him, so he fulfills their expectations (Fjord, the people-pleaser; Fjord, desperate for people to like him), so they expect worse things of him, and he unconsciously fills that space as well, until he’s recklessly plunging into dangerous situations and trying desperately to do what people expect of him and snapping at Jester and –

– well.

If someone doesn’t talk to him soon – really  talk to him about himself, not about their expectations of him; if someone doesn’t believe he’s better than this; if everyone continues to assume the worst and usher him through the doorway marked Fjord is a reckless, unlovable man responsible for Molly’s death, along with everything that’s happened since they left Nicodranas…

The mask he’s been wearing, trying so hard to be what he needs to be – what he’s expected to be – may not be able to come off without taking a layer of his own face with it.

To put it another way: he’ll write his own tragedy.