#‘I wanna study you the way you want to study monsters’ most romantic/weird thing to say to a mf

[xeemaee]

“I do think ‘guy who wants to study some other guy like a zoo animal’ and ‘guy who wants to become a creature so so bad’ is primo stuff” wow BEAUTIFUL stuff happening on twitter dot com

[a-simple-imagine]

The Smarter Witch

Synopsis: You like to consider Hermione your academic rival but things begin to fall apart between the two of you when Malfoy and friends start asking questions. The reader is in Slytherin sorry.

Pairing: Hermione Granger x fem!reader (can be read as romantic or platonic)

Words: 3.5+

A/N - I’ve been rewatching all the Harry Potter Movies at the cinema recently and I think i like it more now than I ever did before. This is my first HP story so go easy on me, okay? Comments are appreciated and requests are open!!

Warnings - Swearing, excessive use of the word mudblood... i think that’s it. 

"Granger," You call out, shoving your things into your bag as quick as humanly possible before charging after her. The crowd of other students growing the distance between you as you slip between them but not without almost crashing into people a bunch of times along the way. "Granger- wait." You try but she continues to walk away with Potter and Weasley beside her. You eventually manage to push your way through until you're walking in step with the trio. The girl stands in the middle, guarded by her two best friends.

"Hey," You offer them a smile, "Guess who got a perfect?"

"How?" It's instinctive to turn your nose up when it comes to Ronald Weasley. Not because of his social status like Malfoy suggests but you just found him rather... irritating. You completely ignore his question; breaking formation, you get ahead of the group and begin to carefully walk backwards so you can focus on the girl. She looked anywhere but at you, however, she had a smirk on her lips. Small but visible.

"Only because Snape favours you," The brunette proclaimed. This was routine for the two of you as of late. Always making excuses as to why the other came out on top. Only because of this. Only because of that. It was never as simple as just studying and doing well.

"You're just jealous that I'm a genius." You insist, your smile growing as you teased your own brilliance. Her head shakes a little.

"Since when were you, two friends?"

"Nobody said anything about friends Weasley-" You growl, your once happy expression morphing into one of pure distaste as you look at him. Spinning gracefully on your heel, you begin to walk normally again. "Since I'm so much smarter than you, I can help you study if you need it."

"I don't need any help from the likes of you, thank you," The likes of you? Did she mean a Slytherin? Or just someone who was smarter than her? Although you didn't actually believe you were smarter... well, not entirely anyway. Hermione Granger was often proclaimed as the smartest in your grade, didn't matter how hard you worked; you'd never quite be the promising young witch everyone seemed to think she was. Which is why you find yourself constantly competing. If you can prove to her you were smart then maybe everyone would see you as more than just a Malfoy crony.

You slap your hand against your chest just above your heart; stumbling backwards as if she just shot an arrow straight through. "Oh, how you wound me, Miss Granger. Care to share how well you did? One hundred percent?" She wouldn't have done badly at least not by everyone else's standard of bad. "Ninety maybe?" You turn back to them, coming to halt directly in front of the girl. "Merlin's beard Hermione, don't tell me you got less than eighty? That would be a travesty."

"if you don't mind, we're a little busy." She hadn't answered the question and as she walked around you, you expected she wasn't going to. "Come along Harry," she took his hand. "Ronald." And his before marching away. You watch them as they go, a smirk lingering before slipping off in search of your friends.

Come Friday afternoon and you found yourself in the great hall. The busy castle was beginning to calm and few people sat in the tables alongside the two of you. You take a sip of some water as you watch the gears in her head turn, debated her next move. At this point you already knew you would win; you always did. While everything else was more of a competition; Hermione Granger surprisingly wasn't all too hard to beat at Wizard's chess. Your Fridays together we're brilliant times to chat though, you'd often sum up any achievements from the week just to see who's doing better.

"I can't believe you beat me in history of magic again- I spent hours on that stupid essay. I basically lived in the library."

"I can help you study if you like," she offered, her eyes not leaving the board as she ordered her bishop forward. You watch as the chess piece moves along the board.

"You're not funny Granger," you tease, ordering your knight forward to take down her bishop. "Check,"

A paper ball hit the back of your head, drawing your attention away. Pansy stood with a wide grin on display, you ignored her and returned to your game but Hermione was also focused on your friend. "I think she wants your attention."

Another paper ball collides against your head. You sigh loudly before turning and mouthing 'what?'

"We're going down to the black lake? You coming?" She asked. "Or are you too busy with the Gryffindor?"

"just give me a sec." You wave her away, turning back to the other girl. "Have you moved?" She nods a little, her hair bouncing with the movements. You examine the board trying to figure out who she had moved but it didn't really matter. With a final move of your queen, the king was knocked off the board. "I do believe that is checkmate."

"I'm beginning to think you're cheating."

"Me?" You ask, pretending to be offended by the notion. "Never. How little faith you have me in, Granger."

"Slytherins are known for being cunning."

"We're not all cheating monsters, my dear sweet Gryffindor. Some of us actually have a conscience."

"I find that hard to believe," Her lips were curled into a cheeky smile. You'd never quite noticed the way her eyes crinkle when her smile is so big or how teethy it was. It was adorable. 

"I gotta go- same time next week? Maybe I'll even let you win."

"I don't need you to let me win,"

"You sure?" Nothing more than a harmless joke as you stand. "How many times in a row have I won now?"

"Slither away," Hermione smiles as you back away towards Pansy. You had to admit, you did firm Hermione to be intriguing.

Being in the same year, meant you actually saw Hermione rather frequently, however, your actual interactions were limited. Yes, you played Wizard's chess together every Friday but other than that, you basically only had very short conversations. It was like being in two completely different worlds simply because you were put in different houses. This school had a weird obsession with separation by houses. You were a proud Slytherin as were you friends but your ambition to branch out was often looked at as beneath some of the others. It was dinner time and you sat at the Slytherin table but your focus was pulled towards a certain familiar Gryffindor student. She just happened to be sat in your eye line, so you couldn't help but amuse her from afar. With funny faces and playful winks. Her most common reactions were shakes of the head or rolling her eyes but you knew secretly she enjoyed the teasing.

"Are you even listening?" A sharp elbow slams into your side. You bite back a groan as you shove the boy gently.

"The hell Draco,"

"What are you staring at?" There was a particularly bite behind his words but you'd grown used to how aggressive he could come across. He was always trying to be the alpha and frankly, everyone let him be. You simply shrug at his question; grabbing an apple and taking a bite.

"What did you want?"

The grey of his eyes flickers in curiosity as he tries to figure out what had you so distracted. When you look across at Granger, she's chatting to Ginny Weasley about something.

"Sometimes I wonder if the sorting hat got it wrong with you," He muses. "Should have put you in Gryffindor since you're so obsessed with Potter."

"Says the boy who never shuts up about him." You fight back. You couldn't care less about Harry Potter or his chosen one status. You knew Malfoy hated him though; it was a little weird just how much.

"You gravely misunderstand my interest in potter."

"I don't care if you have a crush on him Malfoy," There are a few snickers around the table but he's definitely not laughing.

"Don't be ridiculous." He growled, leaving the table. It was only a joke. You follow after him along with the others.

After dinner, you're lounging in the common room. One leg hooked over the arm of the couch as you read a book all about dragons. Fascinating creatures.

"So are you and the Gryffindor friends?"

"Who?" You question. Not even looking at the blonde as he sits down beside you.

"Granger." He confirms. "Pansy thinks you have a crush or something?"

"Pansy is a liar." The joke isn't as funny when it's against you. Your feelings towards Granger was nobody else's business but your own. You were often left conflicted when it came to her. You roll your eyes, sitting up straight. "I just like proving that I'm better than her."

"You spend a lot of time with her," Goyle adds.

"So?" You finally lower your book. Your brows knitted together in a clear frown as you scan the room. A few people had invited themselves into the conversation. "I spend a lot of time with you but doesn't mean I wanna get into your pants,"

"I don't know why you associate with any of them." This was beginning to feel like a lecture. Why do they even care who you hang out with? You didn't care much for the boys but you liked Hermione. She was kind, funny and really smart. You enjoyed the little time you ultimately spent together but if you admitted that, they would crucify you.

"They'd probably say the same about you lot," you state. Bringing the large book back up to cover your face. "Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to read here,"

"You can tell us if you like her," Pansy contributes. "I mean we all know you have a soft spot for the weak."

"Are you taking pity on her?"

"Maybe she wants to start hanging out with Potter. Can you imagine?"

You grit your teeth, not at all reading the words on the page in front of you. They're just trying to get a rise out of you.

"I can't imagine anything more pathetic," Malfoy chuckles followed by a few of the others. "They're an embarrassment to the wizarding world if you ask me. Parading around like they own the place-"

"We're nothing okay?" You slap your book shut. "Not friends or secret lovers or anything, I would never date someone so.... dirty." The word slipped out before you had a chance to stop. You didn't see her that way; she was much too grand to be considered dirty. And you couldn't care less about pure bloodlines. It didn't make her any less of a fantastic witch. "I'm not joining Potter's Merry band of monkeys, so just drop it okay." Ignoring the snickers and hushed whispers, you march off to bed.

It's the Friday following your little session in the common room. You forgave them all of course; you always did. There was no point in being angry at them over some harmless teasing. You had the chessboard set up and even brought along a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans but she was running late. Normally it was you showing up late; very unusual behaviour from someone known for punctuality. But as time ticked on and you were still left alone, you began to realise she wasn't going to turn up. Packing everything up, you decide it'll be best to search for her; something bad must have happened for her to not show at all.

"Weasley," you shout, jogging up to Harry and Ron who seemed to be missing their third arm. "You seen granger?"

"Why?" Asks the redhead. Harry presents you with a smile.

"None of your business," you spit at Ron. "Have you seen her or not?"

"Last we saw her she said she was heading to the library," Harry answered. You offer a grateful smile but you can't help but wonder why she's decided to head to the library. Was there a test you didn't know about? Was she trying to get the upper hand? Surely she could have just told you that instead of having you wait.

"Thanks, Harry," You skip along to the library but the journey proves pointless when you discover she isn't there either. You would be lying if you said you had searched particularly hard before giving up though. There was always next week. With a defeated sigh, you head back towards the common room. Luck must have been on your side because you spot her on the way back. Perched on a ledge with her head in a book. Typical Hermione Granger.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," you announce as you walk towards her. "I thought we were gonna play wizards chess so I could annihilate you again." The faintest sniffle hit your ears and you froze. Was she... crying? Shit. You don't do well with criers; you never know how to handle situations when people cry. It's always so... awkward. "What's wrong?"

"Go away." Her voice is quiet but echoes through the empty corridor.

"Granger?" You closer to her now, leaning against one of the stone columns.

"I said go away," Her words are harsh; she shoves her face further into the book. Was she trying to hide the fact she had been crying? It was pretty obvious at this point.

"What's up with you?" You wonder, folding your arms over your chest.

"I don't want to talk to you,"

"What did I do?" The confusion is very clear in your voice. You'd hardly even spoken to the girl recently so how could you have possibly upset her.

"You're as bad as the rest of them, now leave me alone," Sharp words as she grabbed her things and stormed off. As bad as the rest of them? What did that even mean? Pushing yourself upright, you follow after her.

"What's gotten into you?"

"Just some filthy mudblood am I?" Venomous words spat at you with the speed of a viper. You stumble back a little; she's never been so angry with you. Tears spill down her rosy cheeks."Malfoy told me what you said- Guess I should have known better considering your so-called friends. You're just as cruel as the rest of them."

"Hermione..." you sigh softly. You couldn't exactly defend your fellow Slytherin friends. "Why do you believe him anyway?"

"So you didn't say it then."

"No, I did," you shrug a little. "Well I said you were dirty, I didn't say... that word."

"Mudblood- Same thing though right? You think you're so much better just because you're of Pure blood."

"I didn't say that, I-"

"Just stay away from me." Her tone has you backing down from the fight. You consider following her as she charges off down the hall but instead, you go back to the dorms.

"You're a right git," you exclaim, storming into the room, grip tight on the book you launch at his head. Platinum blonde hair darts of the way.

"What the hell."

"You told her?" All eyes are on you as you confront him.

"What are you on about?"

"Hermione- you told her I thought she was dirty."

"Your words, not mine." Draco shrugged a little. A huff of a laugh passing his lips which pissed you off even more. 

"I-," you look around, picking up a pillow and tossing it at him. "You are such a pain in the ass."

"Why do you care about that filthy mudblood, you said you don't even like her?"

"I don't even like you and yet we're best friends," You shout, looking at the coffee table you grab a mug and aim at the boy. Draco's hand shoots up in defense.

"Don't you dare throw that at me or I swear-" He fought back. You lower your hand and so does he then you throw it anyway, hearing it break as you collapse on the couch. "You don't need someone like that." He muses as he cautiously approaches the couch.

"We can't all be insufferable snobs Malfoy," you grumble, rather casually considering what just happened. "You mess up everything for no bloody reason"

"Probably shouldn't go around calling her dirty then," He argues. "I didn't make you say that..."

The boy hovers over the back of the couch and you shove him away. "I hate you."

You realise you have to be the one because Malfoy's not about to admit he did anything wrong. And you know at the end of the day it was your fault for saying it in the first place. You retire to your bed, no longer watching to deal with other people.

For the next week or so Hermione avoids you like the plague. You'd obviously see her in some of your classes but when you'd try to speak to her after, she'd rush out before you had a chance to so much as saying hi. If you managed to catch her gaze, she'd stare daggers; if looks could kill you'd be six feet under by now. You'd sometimes find her in the library, it was the one place she could cause a scene but neither could you. When you tried to whisper to her, she'd completely ignore you. You were beginning to miss the limited interaction you hard; Half the fun of studying was ultimately doing better than her in the end.

The girl was alone today, searching the shelves. The library was fairly empty and it was getting late. You take the opportunity to make some paper birds and send them fluttering over to her. One by one until she whispers yells at you to stop. You chuckle. Doing it again. This develops into a habit throughout the next couple of days. You'll send paper birds her way, just to get a reacting out of her. You start writing little messages on them too but you don't think she ever reads them before setting them on fire.

It becomes abundantly clear she's not giving in and therefore one day during breakfast you abandon your table and enter what Malfoy would consider enemy territory. Pushing Neville aside to sit next to Hermione. A bunch of lions look to you like you'd just entered their den without permission; in their defense, you never sit here. Hermione gets up to leave but not before you can grab her wrist.

"Can you please stop ignoring me," she yanks out of your grip, walking away to leave you surrounded by kids you've only ever spoken to in passing. You groan loudly.

"What happened between you two?" Ron asked.

"Do you ever keep out of other people's business Weasley or do you have some obsessive need to weasel your way into everything."

"Just tryna help, jeez."

"If you must know, Malfoy told her that I referred to her as a... y'know."

"Mudblood?" Harry continues for you.

"I called her dirty but I didn't mean it."

"Thought you weren't friends anyway," Ron wore a smirk like he caught you out or something so you just ignore him.

"Now she's ignoring me. I just want her to talk to me."

"Have you apologised?"

"How can I apologise if she won't bloody talk to me, Harry? I thought you were supposed to be smart." You comment, dropping your head against the table. "I've tried writing notes but she burns all of them. I'm running out of ideas, I can only be so charming."

"Can't really help you there," Ron replies.

"All the boys in this school are so bloody useless," you sigh dramatically, slamming your hands on the table to push yourself up. "You’re her best friends and you can't help? Pathetic."

You debate joining the others but you decide against it and leave the great hall. You're not hungry anymore.

"You really should stop sending paper birds," The voice catches you off guard, whipping your wand out before realising it's her.

"I'll stop if you talk to me again," You counter, lowering your wand.

"I'm not ashamed of my parents."

"And you shouldn't be." Your head falls, "I really am sorry for what I said, it was definitely a peer pressure thing and I was stupid." You blurt out. "Malfoy can just be a lot sometimes and I was trying to study so... I don't think you're less than just because your parents are muggles Hermione. Not even a little." You take a deep breath. "I just want my friend back."

She hesitates. "Oh, so we're friends now huh?"

"Only if you want to be," You shrug. There was part of you that wanted to say maybe you like her as more than that but you kept it to yourself; at least for now. "I understand if you don't like... I was really shitty."

"So Friday then?"

"What?"

"Wizards chess? I think I may be able to beat you now, I've been practising."

"Pfft not likely," You tease, your smile growing. "Friday sounds good."

// NEXT

[clansayeed]

Hey Jack! I wanted to know what your thoughts are on Rheya. Was she really a villain to you? Were her motives justifiable? Was she a good villain? Did you think she deserved to have a redemption arc in chapter 16? What could have been written to make her have a better character story? Any thoughts at all about Rheya!

FOREWARNING: Anon... I accidentally wrote you a 2500 word essay. I shit you not this thing is 2,528 words long. So... I don’t know whether to say you’re welcome or I’m sorry. Just letting you know in advance.

ADD-ON POST-POSTING: I’m fully aware this is an app game. A three book series written with sexying vampires in mind. Where the medium is limited both size and content-wise, where you can’t go into much detail because they can only have so many panels in a chapter, etc. Still thinking what I think though. And if you get paid to create content professionally the least you can do for your own paycheck is go back and double-check your work.

Actually this ask came at a good time since I have to work on some character motivations for her for my series... and I always break down the in-canon versions before working on my own. So anon, let’s talk... are you a mind reader?

Kidding! mostly

So. Rheya.

I actually just finished my first replay of book 2 and at the moment I’ve only ever played book 3 the once. I played it as it was releasing so there were some memory gaps in some places and needed-refreshers in others. But on a whole I have similar thoughts about Rheya as I do Xenocrates, and you can find those thoughts here.

Overall she was a solid setup, good design and potential, and PB pretty much wasted her execution.

I wanna start with a genuine question to the fandom since I’ve never actually been able to ask this... but y’all like... totally saw the Bloodkeeper being related to her coming, right? Like I was so convinced of it that when it was revealed in some big dramatic point at the end I was like “yeah... they told us this...?” and it turns out they fuckin didn’t??? Like I could not understand the people who were like super into her sprite like yes she looks good but here I was thinking she was our ancestor from the get-go so I was... confused to say the least.

Not gonna lie when they started pushing in snippets of Rheya’s past trauma in book 2 (things like her yelling “you know what they did to me/took from me” which is paraphrased but you know what I mean) I really hoped they weren’t gonna do what they did. So of course they did it.

But I wish they’d like... just given her the kid. Just give her Iola and leave the weird suddenly random husband out of it. At this point we know Gaius has an unhealthy idolatry for her, we know Xenocrates adored her in his own way in his youth... but we know fuckall about Demetrius up to and including his existence until literally book 3. Sloppy, IMO. They took something not being mentioned and used it to put in a plot device when the omission should have been strategical.

TBH I thought the whole “you know what they did to me” was gonna get hella dark RE: Rheya and King Kaelisus’ obsession with her. That’s as far as I’ll go there.

But you have a Priestess, a known Priestess, who was definitely faithful enough not to stray even when she thought she was walking to her own death. It’s pretty easy to assume (as I did ngl) that she would be completely devoted to Phampira, including romantically/sexually. It would have been a good setup to explain why she never gave Gaius the goods if anything.

And there’s nothing wrong with having said Priestess have her own family while still being devoted. I just wish PB would have used some fucking forethought and hinted at that earlier on than they did. Because they didn’t hint. They dropped this random fisherman-something husband on us and told us she cared enough about his opinion to make him part of her advisory board but not... to like... mention him in any of her conversations in any of the flashbacks... including those in which he would have been alive.

On that note the whole timeline there is really messy, they obviously threw him and Iola in later on after some things were established/couldn’t be taken back. I’ve studied this shit extensively and it’s really muddled exactly how long Rheya ruled, when shit went down with her family, how much time had passed when Xenocrates staked her, etc.

I would have loved for Iola’s father not to have been there. Give me a strong woman, a strong single mother, who would burn the world for the loss of her daughter. Doesn’t matter who did the deed, Iola was hers and the Sons/Order took that from her and the world would have to pay the price.

If I had been given that I would end all of my complaints right here. I would, genuinely. Because then her descent into madness, her paranoia, her megalomania would all have been explained. And they still technically are but -- maybe it’s just me -- there’s something about her having to factor in Demetrius that just... takes me out of it. IDK.

I didn’t mind the guy... though him being a talking tree of doom was a little much for me... though by that point I had accepted the plot was off the goddamn rails and just kept nodding and going with it. But his presence made the story okay when his absence could have made the story impactful and powerful and emotional. That’s just my thoughts. Which you asked for. You did this.

No takesies-backsies.

Was she a villain? Hells to the yes.

It’s a classic case of obtaining ultimate power and abusing it; of crossing the line between justice and vengeance. Not that she wasn’t justified in her freak-out over the death of her family. But everything after up to and including her fatal feeding schedule was totally unnecessary. For a villain, yes necessary. 

For a vampire goddess who could have easily used Gaius’ influence over the vampires of the modern world to form a cult following around herself with an open dialogue about her big ass appetite and probably would have ended up with swaths of willing adorers ready to lend their blood to her cause thus eliminating the need for secrecy and subsequent feeling of betrayal...

You tell me.

I feel like she was definitely more than a little hyped up though. Not even going into my whole-ass issue with the entire Unchained plot and thus the first like 4-5 chapters of book 3, she was hyped up in myth and kind of a let down in person. She could FLY. Walk in the SUN. Heal the DYING. She’s vampire JESUS.

*ADDED IN LATER: She took out THE ENTIRE ORDER OF THE DAWN, WHO HAVE RAVAGED THE VAMPIRE POPULATION FOR LITERALLY 3000 YEARS since they were around in her time after all IN LIKE A THREE-MOVE COMBO BREAK. ALL THIS SHIT THEY HYPED WITH THE ORDER and their entire ERADICATION isn’t even an ON-SCREEN THING. Unless you pay.

Dude if they had kept Xenocrates and the Order and used the two of them against each other; the Order’s long-standing influence on the modern world versus the new world Rheya wanted to create with the human populations not knowing the history behind their hatred, where like the first half of the book is Rheya and MC and gang taking out the Order and Xenocrates only to find out in the middle point that she’s been doing it for selfish reasons and they were on the wrong team the whole time and THEN Rheya becomes the big bad... I would have enjoyed the shit out of that.

Anyway. “She’s vampire JESUS...” and her big evil plan is to... suck face on national television? IDK. It didn’t play the mood right for me. I can see from a writer’s perspective how they kind of played out all of their options and went with a quick and easy solution... but it didn’t work for me. That’s a no from me dawg.

Do I think she deserved a redemption arc? I don’t think anybody deserved a god damn redemption arc, unless they are done with extreme care and attention to detail before/during/after said arc they go horribly, and overall tend to be the plot device pick of lazy writers.

And I take nothing back. No like I think I might have gone into how much I fucking hated Gaius’ “reDEmPtiON aRc” before or at least I have somewhere and to someone. Probably Sofia... no most definitely Sofia. But anyway. They spend TWO GOD DAMN BOOKS hyping Gaius as this ultimately irredeemable bad guy. 

OMG I was literally playing the book 2 finale and got a quote hold on... HERE. Adrian literally says about Gaius in 2.16 “It’s like there’s no humanity left.” And that’s just one actual example of the tons of times they make him out to be devoted to Rheya of his own volition, the ultimate example of the line between believing in something and being blinded to everything by it, etc. Like a huge chunk of Kamilah’s and Adrian’s arcs RE: Gaius are about how he was definitely a monster, he turns the people around him into monsters, and while they have worked their asses off to be good and right their wrongs he has not, will not, and would not ever do such a thing.

Then suddenly he’s brainwashed, tried to turn Rheya down and was made into a loony toon because of it, and everything he made MC’s loved ones do that they blamed themselves for but needed to blame him for is suddenly Rheya’s fault and now we should blame her for.

Mmmmmkay sweetie. I’m good, thanks.

But really -- that was the last straw for me when it came to both Gaius and Rheya. There’s a difference between giving the villain something they see as a just cause (ex. Rheya avenging her family) and giving the villain a cop-out that absolves them of guilt (ex. Gaius and... everything about him). Like yes I know MC didn’t have to forgive him, I know Kamilah didn’t really forgive him, but it’s pretty fuckin obvious from how it was put out into the world story that the writers were trying to lean you towards blaming Rheya and letting Gaius off the hook.

I mean... making him save Lula for real when Rheya saved her for fake earlier on in the book, using Lula as a stand-in metaphor for her own child daughter that she finds out she was the cause of her death for, etc? That symbolism is so transparent I could put it in the asset database.

And I’ll only briefly touch on this since I could write a whole other essay on the matter RE: PB and their fucking constant repetition of this, but “let’s give both bad guys similar moral quandaries but suddenly reveal it was a consent issue and the woman is wholly to blame and now gets the man’s crimes piled on with her own” is super common in fiction and hella. fucking. sexist.

But that isn’t to say all of this is necessarily bad.

When done right, everything I’ve complained about above can be a part of a really good story. What “done right” means is different for everyone, everyone has a different example and different thoughts on it. These are mine. I think the better term would be done well. It was not done WELL.

But given things like PB’s weird obsession with redeeming the attractive (apparently) bad guy, PB’s history with narrowing a woman down to one trait or part of her (ex. Rheya’s power corruption centered around her role as a wife and mother and not... a super all powerful vampire goddess...), their obvious lack of attention to detail and overall lack of vision when it comes to the big picture* and more, I personally don’t think they knew what the fuck they wanted by book 3 and were already well into transitioning into whatever adultery-obsessed lingerie shenanery they’re fixated on now; so much so that it’s almost a disservice to the writing done in earlier book 1 and a decent chunk of book 2 when calling it a whole series.

*I keep bringing this up only because it means I can back up stuff like this with real examples of theirs: these guys did not write the plot of this series as a cohesive story. I get that, as a writer writing a big series myself I get the fuck out of that. But you have to solidify some things early on in the development process in order to avoid writing yourself into a hole or, like with this, having to result in trope-y plot devices that work in theory but on paper don’t give the story the full-circle fulfillment it deserves. 

Their timelines are out of whack, they contradict themselves in quite a few places, constantly wishy-washy their own lore, and definitely didn’t go back and double check if they’d said something already... and that’s not including where they focused on the details of one unimportant thing and left another more important thing to just be “and this is the way it is moving on.”

I literally have no way/idea how to summarize any of this bullshittery going on in this ask. Did I like Rheya? The character personality, design, and overall idea as this big ass badass power/hungry goddess demanding fealty was pretty cool. Did I like Rheya when they narrowed her story down to her grief over her family (which, again, is valid, but just seemed really disjointed and rushed when compared to everything else they had given about her/shown of her by the beginning of book 3)? Not... as much.

I think they wanted her to seem like she could be redeemed. I mean FFS in the “big battle” she literally just stands there and lets you do the thing. 3000 years imprisoned and however many centuries before that spent taking the power that she was denied all because some bad dudes in masks killed the mortal husband and daughter you would have eventually lost to old age anyway...? And she just stands there??? 

Even knowing she was really behind Iola’s death they could have stuck with the “madness consumed” plotline and had her be like well... what’s done is done back to taking over now thank you.

But sometimes a bad guy just has to be a bad guy. Rourke from ES, mister capitalism -- can’t remember them trying to redeem him. If they had I don’t think I would have liked it so much. Who else... UGH. Thomas in NB. Crazy zombie man wants all monsters dead because one killed his family (can we stop using dead families for grief porn please and thanks...) another example of a useless villain. Hence why I removed him from my NB rewrite don’t even get me going...

What’s his face in TCATF! Luther! You join up with him and he still tries to kill you in the end! Now that was fucking classic. Hex, who suddenly is forgiven for the literal enslavement of a race of people and the thoughtless murder of a civilization that didn’t agree with her.. and all because she was ‘like a mother’ to the kid genius? Not so much.

I could go on and on and go search out tons of examples but in the end the one thing you can say PB does well is that they stay consistent in their ideas of redemption, of who deserves it and who isn’t, and just how far they’re willing to stretch the fucking story to forgive a character if 1. the sprite is hot or 2. the sprite had a little sprite family somewhere in there.

legit just talk to me about bb/nb

[calebfm]

❝ i’m just saying — there’s no way someone can keep up with a schedule like that and not be popping something ❞ CALEB GARDNER, who resembles JORDAN FISHER and is the SOCIAL CHAIR of BETA TAU RHO , is TWENTY-TWO years old and responds to HE / HIM .𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢 ; 𝘴𝘩𝘦/𝘩𝘦𝘳

hello hello one and all, tis mira coming to you unfashionably late from the gmt+1 timezone 🌻 i overuse emojis & underuse my common sense and that’s all you need to know about me tbh ... so let’s move right along to telling you about my boy caleb !

so cal is a lil’ type A monster, between classes, basketball, his various jobs & his frat position it’s a miracle he gets 6-8 hours of sleep every night ( actually that’s a lie, he often doesn’t )

which is partially just who he is as a person, but also comes from having major imposter syndrome :/ he comes from a family who struggled to make ends meet + as the youngest kid of his family with four older brothers it was easy for him to fade into the background and not really get much attention or praise . ( he has a very loving family though, he was just a bit of a shy kid and his parents didn’t really have the time to make him come out of his shell ) all of this to say, when he got the acceptance letter + full ride to this fancy school it was all a bit overwhelming & he still has a hard time believing the administration didn’t make a mistake . he often feels super out of place & has even talked to his guidance counselor about dropping out a few times, but in his heart he knows that it would be a dumb decision and he’s nothing if not rational

he studies finance which is about as exciting as it sounds ( sorry to the finance nerds out there, couldn’t be me but i respect it ), he picked it to have job security more than anything else . he’s not a straight A student by any means but he does as well as could be expected from someone who has very little time to study

he loves photography ! he started a lil’ side gig for event photography his first year at kingshill which got pretty big through word of mouth, so he’s often in the shadows at the parties and events his classmate’s parents throw to take pics ( but when he practices it as a hobby he mostly just walks around in nature a lot and takes pics there, those are the rare quiet moments in his life )

some more about his personality: he’s a lil’ more on the introverted side, a great listener though & just a very warm kind of guy all around. the type of guy that rarely starts a conversation first, but once you get to talking you end up having a weirdly deep conversation even though you barely know the dude

also usually puts other’s needs in front of his own and has a hard time saying no to things, even if they’re a major inconvenience

however ! holding his own in a big family with annoying & loud older brothers has made it pretty easy for him to fake a more extroverted personality . people often have a hard time believing that the quiet kid diligently taking notes in their stats course & the frat guy handing out shots and smooth talking people into staying a bit longer at the biggest party of the year are the same person

which is to say that he’s a super effective social chair tbh … since he’s able to keep up with both the boring administration & organization side of things, but he can also liven up a party that’s growing stale

the constant social interaction required of him in his role ( together with his busy ass schedule ) definitely takes a toll though & you’ll often find him hiding out in quiet corners at parties to take a breather or napping in weird places during the day

hmm those are the most important things for now i think, my wanted tag is here but it’s super bare bones atm so i’m mostly putting it here for future reference ! i want so so many plots but a few i’d kill for:

a dumb lil’ social chair rivalry about who throws the best parties where they outdo each other in more and more ridiculous ways every time & try to sabotage each other, can be serious if your muse is very competitive, but most likely it’d just be lighthearted dumbassery

exes... good terms or bad terms, cal honestly doesn’t have a whole lot of them since he doesn’t prioritize romantic relationships in his life at all (*cal vc* i can squeeze in a movie night from 9-11 on thursday in three weeks, does that work?), maybe the two had different expectations of how serious it’d be?

on that note, caleb always thought he was straight but has tentatively started to experiment in college, so uh . cute boys hit him up 😌

someone who met him at party while he was drunk & in some kind of a rare bad mood, he was rude to them and/or embarrassed them in some public way, because of this bad first impression they think he’s the stereotypical obnoxious frat dude & want nothing to do with him . he’s usually more than fine with people leaving him alone but this is about the principle of the thing, y’know? so he’s determined to prove them wrong & does nice things for them to get them to like him, because caleb realizing that some people just don’t like you is simply unrealistic

rich kid who is condescending & rude since they found out cal is here on scholarship (either they’re just anti poor people or there’s a deeper reason for their dislike) … all i want is for some punches to be thrown 🙏

drinking buddies who can only stand to be around each other when they’re intoxicated

a sorority girl who he has a mutual agreement with that they’re other’s +1 at frat/srat functions, it’s probably all platonic but they have a good time & it stops randos from hitting on them

and so so much more ! i have a lot of ideas but i mostly just like making my plots personal to the characters themselves, so let’s vibe & figure something out together

i’m not gonna ask y’all to like this to plot because i am the Worst Person ™ and i will forget to check the notes, so please just im me or hit me up on discord if you wanna plot 🥺 and if you’re shy don’t worry, i’ll come bother you soon enough 💖 that would be all, thank you for reading !

[theworldsoul]

Uhh warning VENT!!! Talks about self harm and shit... also religious bullshit and gender bullshit??? Like I'm really trans and also Catholicism really fucked me up so if ur uncomfy with that just... skip this post. Also if ur Christian and can't handle seeing ur shit defaced then skip this post. Also if ur gonna clown on this post as "cringe atheism" then fuck you because I'm literally coping with pain lol

:readmore:

Anways now that the disclaimer is over... here comes the real shit.

I... have been going through a LOT lately, jesus christ. I was HAPPY today, yknow? I thought I was gonna be happy the whole day.

I was dancing today. That's how happy I was. For the first time in like... a whole year... I was really so happy. I thought I was gonna cry. But then I got home. And well,,,, I did cry. But not from happiness. I just got my math grade back. A fucking 49 percent. MY AVERAGE RIGHT NOW IS A 57 PERCENT. I MIGHT FAIL MATH 20. I MIGHT HAVE TO RETAKE IT. oh my god I'm such a failure I cant do anything ever i try SO fucking hard but honestly??? I cant fucking do this. I can't, I'm not mentally capable. "Just work harder"... BITCH I AM WORKING AS HARD AS I CAN. I AM SPENDING HOURS AND HOURS OF MY LIFE STUDYING AND PRACTICING. I'm starting to think that how hard i try doesn't even fucking matter because I'm STUPID and all i know how to do is PAINT SHIT!!!! NOBODY CARES ABOUT ART!!!! IF I FAIL THIS CLASS I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE A HOUSE IN THE FUTURE!!!! A HOUSE!!!!!

I dont even want to be a fucking orthodontist. Okay??? I wanna do what I love: painting. But NOOOO. I have to get a "respectable" job that will "pay me enough money to live". WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO MAKE MONEY TO LIVE??? WTF??? THATS LITERALLY SO FUCKED UP. everyone deserves to live (unless they like murdered someone? I guess? Idk) BUT LIKE I DIDNT KILL NO ONE SO WHATS ALL THIS BS ABOUT WORKING TO LIVE???? WTF??? I rly gotta do all this shit I hate, all this shit I'm mentally incapable of doing... so i can have a house. Fuck this. Yknow with my average at a 57... I might fail this class even if I get a really good grade on my next quiz. Can you fucking believe it??? I'm literally so fucking stupid I cant even pass a dumb fucking math class god i hate myself. I cant fail this class. I've NEVER failed a class. Almost failed... but never HAD TO RETAKE A CLASS. that's the ultimate failure. I think my parents would hate me if I failed this.

And on top of that... I'm really struggling with uhhh, dysphoria and body image... and it's so fucking horrible man I want to rip all my skin off I want to suffocate god I want to KILL him I want to MAKE HIM SUFFER. I want to gouge his eyes out and force him to eat them. WHY WOULD HE MAKE ME LIKE THIS????? WHY????? WHATS THE POINT IN MAKING A CHILD SUFFER SO MUCH???

What did I ever do that was so wrong I deserved all this punishment???

Well FUCK YOU and fuck your stupid book and FUCK THESE STUPID FUCKING SAINTS. WASNT THERE SUPPOSED TO BE A WHOLEASS ANGEL WATCHING OVER ME?? PROTECTING ME??? WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT BITCH NOW?? WHERE WAS THAT BITCH WHEN... when I was being bullied? When I literally wanted to kill myself?

Where was that guardian angel when I kept making THE SAME MISTAKE over and over again and I KNEW it was wrong but I kept doing it anyways because it was the only way I could feel like soemone cared about me????

I bet that angel motherufcker KNEW they didnt care. DID THE ANGEL EVER ONCE HELP ME??? NOOOO. all those times I was bruised and broken... all those times...

Man, I was just a kid. I was SO fucking young. And I would come like a lamb to the slaughter and kneel. I would pray... ask for guidance. I would pray the rosary too, I would read the bible and try my very best to understand it, I would go to church and volunteer at church and do my best to be a Good Boy and never sin. I did EVERYTHING right. I literally fasted at some point, like a religious fast. I was devoted...

Honestly though? I think it was the same mistake I make over and over again, except not with a real person.

And you have me NOTHING. GO GIRL, GIVE US NOTHING!!!!!!! I literally used to self-punish for the sins I couldnt bring myself to confess. At my communion, there was one sin I didn't tell because I knew it was unforgivable. I still hate myself for that. But man, I used to try and do all sorts of things to somehow cleanse myself of it. I figured THAT whole ordeal was why I was constantly being tortured.

But I was stupid and I am stupid and that makes NO SENSE because if the thing I'm being punished for happened when I was a child, WHY DID THE PUNISHMENT BEGIN AT MY BIRTH????

They used to tell me that god handcrafted every part of me specifically for some sort of grand reason.

Why.

Really? This bitch really "handcrafted" me just so I could cry and cut myself nearly every night??? Fuck that. Like why would you make me this way. It hurts more than you can IMAGINE. The only reason I'm not dead yet is because of ME, MY strength, not any of the bullshit YOU gave me. I hate when people say "oh, god made u so hardworking" or "oh, god made you so passionate/hopeful/full of love/fiery/whatever" LIKE STFU BITCH THAT WAS NOT SKYDADDY THAT WAS ME!!!

you wanna know what he made me?

dysphoric, ugly af, yeah.... but the worst part?

He made me feel.

That doesn't sound bad, right? Well it's the worst thing on the list. It is my downfall, my Achilles heel or whatever. This emotions shit??? It RUINED my life. My whole life I was cursed with a fucking monster inside me. I kept trying to tell everyone that it wasnt me!!! I kept telling them that it felt like I was being possessed. But adults are SHIT. I hate adults. I want to kill them all. They failed me and their god failed me. None of them every listened to me. All they knew how to do was punish, punish, punish.

It's like giving an allergic kid some peanuts and then getting angry at them for going into anaphylactic shock or whatever. Nobody ever thought "hey, why don't we stop giving the kid peanuts?"

ALL THE ADULTS AROUND ME ACT LIKE CHILDREN AND THEY ALWAYS HAVE ACTED LIKE CHILDREN FUCK ADULTS

Anwyays that's how I ended up with all these unresolved issues,.... emotion is a tough one, like I literally dont have the ability to control my emotions at all, I can try and like, repress them but I cant make myself actually feel less.

My emotion hurts more than anyone else's and nobody ever understood that. I would tell them that it hurts, it PHYSICALLY HURTS, and they would say I just wanted attention. I would tell them I literally couldnt control what my body said and did, I would tell them I felt like A PUPPET ON STRINGS and no one believed me. Fuck them.

Healthy coping mechanisms? I literally self ship with Snape to cope. I literally self ship with characters my brain made up and put in my dreams to cope. I used to hurt myself so much trying to feel loved and cared about irl. Fiction is so much better. I sound like a loser but its TRUE. The sort of thing I need, the sort of love I need is like... a parent. You can't go looking for a parent in a romantic partner, it fucks everything up and you end up... well, let's just say it proabbly wasnt the most legal thing, but I wasnt thinking strisght at all I mean dude I was So fucked in my head when I did all that...whatever...anyways so thank u for fiction!!! I love fiction. Want to kill someone? Draw it. Then you'll feel much better!!! And you dont go to jail!!!

Well the pics here... idk, it was really calming to do this. It's new, painting over religious shit. I was gonna do the whole bible but I already burnt that shit so.... and I was going to cut but I'm trying really hard to stay clean... like really hard. It's so weird and like, addicting, once I hit styro I don't want to stop, but also it kinda transfers the emotional pain to physical pain, making it way easier to deal with. I just can't keep doing that because I KNOW it's bad and look I thoguht I was clean for a whole year but then I fucked up and WOW, GUESS WHAT MADE ME RELAPSE??? MATH CLASS!!!!

Whatever anyways here are my wonderful works of art I made while crying and cursing god (like I'm so pissed at all this catholic bs I believed in him again just to swear at him lol)

.... but imagine for a moment, a better world. One in whcih these saints whose images I've defaced are actually good people... a world in which they SEE ME AND THEY HEAR ME... and I go unpunished.... and I am embraced by someone who UNDERSTANDS.

I think I would cry.

Too bad that world doesnt exist and I just made it up to try and feel a bit better. Whatever, whatever. I painted the things, they're gonna dry. I work hard, I'm gonna do good on my quiz, I hope. I just have to be making it through, that's all it is, work work work without a break but I can proabbly do it. I'm really slipping I admit like the mental health is slipping it's getting worse like I havent had a "fuck I am afab" moment in such a long time so yeah...

Anwyays I feel so much better now that I did my little art project yknow???

[palmett-hoes]

since the first step in achieving your goals is to state them aloud, here's a list of aftg fics/ au s that i'd like to write some day

- pre-canon fic from aaron's perspective spanning the twins' first meeting till they're drafted by the foxes and graduate high school. i'm increasingly enamored with aaron as a character as well as with an outside perspective of andrew's actions and i think it would be very interesting to look at the foundation on which their fraught relationship is built and first developed

- even more pre-canon fic. andrew's early life in foster care. yes, we all know about the most... gruesome things that were done to him, but i believe that there is plenty more that has affected and shaped him, especially in relation to my interpretation of andrew as an autistic poc. this would not be a happy fic.

- anastasia au. neil as anya, andrew as dimitri. possibly a plot amalgamation from both the animated movie and the stage show, with changes as i see fit. (no, neil is not the prince of russia). what i find most compelling about this au is the story of neil and andrew as childhood friends and then the angst of having andrew, as an adult, teaching an amnesiac neil how to act like a noble while being convinced that neil is an imposter. good shit

- art school/dance club au. the foxes attend the palmetto school of art at prestigious edgar allen university. they're considered the school's charity cases, and they are NOT friends. andrew is a studio arts major with a concentration in sculpture who works in the campus coffee shop in the mornings and frequents night clubs that employ pretty boys in the evenings. neil is attending college completely on his father's dime, PROVIDED he study what his father wants, despite his desire to study dance and music. going crazy without an outlet, neil takes a secret job as a go-go dancer. look. this may slightly possibly be a result of me having planned to party hardy this summer, then having my plans ruined by the virus :c

- 1950s High School au. the 1950s aesthetics fucking rock even though the 1950s fucking sucked. kinda wanna tackle both. plus, andrew already has that james dean bad boy fast car appeal

- an exploration of mary and nathan's relationship and history. i get that neil's parents are both super taboo and both really really awful people, but i have questions and i want to answer them

- neil never returns from baltimore. in order to keep his deals, permanently, andrew kills riko and tetsugi, and gets over 20 years in prison. when he gets out, he just wants to be alone, but it seems there's a ghost haunting him. this was conceived for MAXIMUM angst, no getting around it. i got the idea from a badacts fic and it has haunted me ever since

- post-canon sexuality exploration fic. i have a real passion for quality sex education and healthy experimentation, and neil very clearly didn't get the chance for either. yet at the end of the books he finds himself in a very intense sexual relationship. i just really want to give him the opportunity to find out how desire works for him and what he likes, on his own terms. i read a lot of fics where neil's desires seem to be completely dependent on andrew's initiaton, and while i do believe that andrew is the only person neil is attracted to and will ever be attracted to, i also want to explore how his sexuality manifests on its own. the vibe i'm going for is, uh, HornySweet (tm), but also with a lot of genuine eductional material. i want this is to be something that offers real information to its readers that may have been inaccessible for a lot of people, on topics like like sexual hygiene, maturbation, and sex toys in a non-fetishy way. this will be very very E rated, but like,, in a very earnest and goofy way because sex and sexuality is neat and cool but it's also not all serious perfect fucking. it's just,, a topic that deserves to be DISCUSSED

- mobster au. andrew, having never met aaron, takes a job for the moriyamas to track down a runaway asset. Neil. upon completion, they make andrew the butcher's apprentice, and pull neil back into the fold as a commodity rather than a person. lots of violence, lots of shady underground dealings, lots of plotting, lots of secrets.

i'm gonna put some more under the cut, ones that i don't feel as strong a drive towards right now or that i haven't thought as much about. if you (yes, YOU) like any of these, or are interested in any of these, or wanna hear more about any of these, or are even inspired to write something yourself by any of these please, PLEASE, say something in the notes, or send me a message, or an ask or anything. ANYTHING. i am stuck inside, all the time, and i am so, so lonely. i answer from hoob-gooblin

- princess bride au. come ON. princess bride is one of the most romantic AND most snarky movies of all time, and andreil literally invented love and devotion sooooooo it's a perfect match. "yes or no" vs "as you wish" kings of consent and communication and unconventional love declarations. also,, he may not be how I imagine andrew, but a young cary elwes in dramatic black pirate getup is DEFINITELY a valid andrew

- hozier au. sometimes,, i listen to an album, and imagine a fic that encompases the whole thing. nothing speaks louder to me than hozier's discography. (also, yes, i am gay). maybe a little bit inside llewyn davis. neil wanders through a small town and takes up some small jobs, but sings his heart out through twisted metaphors once a week in a hole in the wall bar staffed by a very short, dead eyed veteran

- prince and the pauper au. on a stealth recon mission in enemy territory, andrew encounters a local lord who happens to have his face. in a moment of desperation to save himself from arrest, andrew knocks the lord out and assumes his identity. he returns to the castle just in time for prince moriyama to arrive with a shifty-eyed, red-headed handservant in tow. lord aaron of columbia, meanwhile, wakes up on a ship manned by crown traitor and fugitive kevin day, calling him by a name he's never heard before, and then he's in the hands of the guerilla rebel forces that have been attacking the kingdom. i watched barbie princess and the pauper as a child and that movie fucking slaps

- little mermaid/beauty and the beast/bride of the rose beast/ladyhawke au. in a last ditch attempt to escape his father, neil trades his voice and his tail for legs and washes ashore on a small kingdom with horrible secrets. because he cannot speak, read or write, prince aaron employs neil to serve the monster in the catacombs, the prince's twin brother. the twins are under a curse that turns them into terrifying monsters, andrew by day and aaron by night. aaron's affliction is a secret, as is andrew's humanity. this is such a hodgepodge idea lol. did neil also have to be a mermaid for this to work? no. is he? hell yeah

- new york private school/twin swap au. aaron wins a scholarship to a prestigious school that will guarantee him a future, but then he relapses. convinced he just needs a little more time to get clean, he makes a deal with his volatile new brother, andrew, to stand in for him at the school just until he can his shit together. neil and ichirou moriyama have been raised together their entire lives, always under the knowledge that ichirou will inherit the family empire with nathaniel as his right hand. they hate the idea, but they have no way to escape, and now neil is being harassed by ichirou's bitchass estranged brother at their stupid, fancy private school. LISTEN, we as a fandom do NOT take enough advantage of the twin swap possibilities presented to us. pathetic

- post-canon fic where ichirou, realizing that the life of a mob boss is a lonely one, decides that he needs... a friend. however, because of the nature of his work, he can't just make friends with anyone, so he decides to make friends with neil. without consulting neil first. cue a lot of very weird, very awkward coffee dates where neil is convinced he's about to be disposed of, and ichirou just wants to know about his cats. the thing i like about ichirou is he’s a complete blank slate. i can make him a good guy, a bad guy, an ally, the Big Bad

- Kill Bill au. mary survives a bullet to the head and wakes up from a coma over a year later. with nothing left to lose, she sets out to single-handedly dismantle the wesninski circle. good thing she used to be its top assassin

- single dad andrew au. except look, look, stay with me here, okay, aaron is his son, and he's adopted nicky and kevin. LISTEN. STAY WITH ME. JUST THINK ABOUT IT. tbh the idea comes from my interpretation of the andrew/neil/kevin dynamic as distincly parental, then extending that interpretation to andrew's protection over the rest of his family.

- fashion au. andrew is a fashion designer and photographer who frequently works with allison reynolds. one day she brings around a short, twitchy assistant who looks like she just plucked him out of an alley. somehow, he becomes andrew's muse. i watch a lot of fashion competition shows

- ghibli. either howl's moving castle (andrew as sophie, neil as howl) or spirited away (?). maybe both idk

- legally blonde au. legally blonde is so good guys

[iam-kenough]

Will  you ever notice me? Arthur Morgan x Original Female Character

Summary:  During they wandering in deep snowstorm, man from van  der Linde gang found odd looking girl and Dutch decides to take her to  camp to see if she can be any use, leading life of outlaw with them.  Quickly, new girl develops feelings towards Arthur, but he sees her just  as a kid...and she won't take that! It's an original character story  that starts in the place where Arthur, Dutch and Micah were supposed to  first meet with Sadie. Instead she's already with them.  

Authors notes: In this chapter I placed big/small (it’s you to decide) crossover, it doesn’t change the plot but I felt like it would be a good wink to others from Witcher’s fandom. If I could give my OC voice it would be this one from quoted song. It’s another chapter and you can find the rest of chapter on my blog if you want to read more of my fanfiction. I decided to post all parts I have at once so the fic could catch more attention. Words count: 2238 Chapter 7 At first he thought Iris is really gonna wait for him. He was telling himself that she just wanted some space and she moved to let himself think. But then, once, when he was lying in his bed it hit him. She told you that just to make it dumping her easier for you, you old fool. She won't wait for you and you let her go. And this realisation made him cry for brief moment. He just hurt another woman in his life. You stole her first kiss, Arthur Morgan. No, he couldn't sleep now. He was the worst. He walked down the stairs and went to the garden to smoke a cigarette and clean his head. And then he noticed that  under his favourite tree Iris is drawing something in her journal. She was singing too, something that sounded like a lullaby. He decided to listen to her before walking at her like that.

Wolves asleep amidst the trees Bats all a swaying in the breeze But one soul lies anxious wide awake Fearing no manner of ghouls, hags and wraiths For your dolly Polly sleep has flown Don't dare let her tremble alone For the witcher, heartless, cold Paid in coin of gold He comes he'll go leave naught behind But heartache and woe Deep, deep woe

- Nice song - he cleared his throat - but who is ��a witcher? Iris's heart jumped right to her throat and so did her arms. She looked at him with the coldest manner she had. - It's a bad guy from a tale about himself. He lives in kings and queens times and he slaughters monsters, like...Ghosts and things like that. No one likes witcher's though. They are scary. - Never heard of it. Sounds interesting. - I can borrow you a book. He's in love with a witch with violet eyes and black hair. Really pretty one. - I am not much of a person who likes books - he laughed and then dragged from cigarette - too stupid for that. - If you say so, Mr Morgan - she closed her journal and got up, cleaning her dress from any grass and sand - Anyway, it's you seat. Sorry for taking it, it's free now. - Wait - he grabbed her wrist. He just didn't know what to do next - you have something in your hair - was all he said, using the most awkward manner to pick ''something'' from her hair and throw it away. - Thank you? - she looked at him rather startled. - I-I actually wanted to talk to you? If you have time. - There isn't much to talk about these days. Only Dutch has a lot to say to me, he keeps talking about Tahiti and mangoes. He's crazy, he doesn't even know where freakin' Tahiti is. - Neither do I, sweetheart. - You don't wanna go there without even bare skills of finding it on world's map, Mr Morgan. - I feel like you change the subject and I really need to talk to you, Iris. She sighed and nodded her head. It was just normal courtesy but he couldn't read thru it and started talking. -  I feel like you avoiding me. - Really now? I'm sorry. - You said you are gonna wait to let me think but then ya don't talk much to me. It's not like I am thinking about it constantly and I'm gonna overheat talking to you at the same time - he rambled. That was bad choice of words. - I am not thinking about you, I-I mean I think about you a lot, b-but not this way...- was all he babbled. It was even worse! - I see you could use some sleep, Mr Morgan. You don't make much sense - Iris patted his arm with the friendlier manner she could force herself to and  she left Arthur faster than the light. He was a fool meant to die alone. Arthur started to write a lot in his journal. Whole pages were covered  with words. If he could only speak so swiftly he would win Iris back already but all he could do was watching her from afar. She stopped taking any jobs that meant being with him, she hunted alone and when she needed help with anything she was asking Dutch straight away, even when Arthur was next to her and Dutch sat in his tent. Iris and Arthur were good friends but now they wasn't even strangers. She actually talked more to Micah than to him. And it hurt but he didn't know what to do when he could speak with Iris. It was his lack of communication. All he could think about was Iris's birthday happening today and he decided to go to the city to buy her a gift. But what would she liked? He had actually this much money that if she liked a boat, he could buy one. But boat didn't seem right. She was strong, yet femine. And smart, she knew a lot. Maybe perfumes? Nah, she smelled good enough for him. Then maybe a book? Arthur gulped while thinking how hard it's gonna be to buy a book for Iris. - Good morning, my birthday girl! - Mary- Beth chirped, trying to wake Iris up - I have something what you gonna like! - More hours of sleep and something to eat? - Yes! Kind of. I bought you cookies. But it's not what I really have. She handed Iris small tissue and girl unfolded it. There was silver pendant inside, with small emerald blinking in sunlight. - It's beautiful! You totally stole it, Mary - Beth! - I totally diid - she sang and cuddled her friend - Isn't that romantic? I steal for you, I mend your heart, soon and we gonna be married. - It actually is quite romantic. And to be honest we are free people. I would marry you. - I know you would, I am sweetest one. Ain't I? Tell me I am! - You are dearest to me, Mary-Beth. And this is absolutely the greatest thing I ever got for birthday. - It matches your eyes~!Arthur was gone for the whole day. He was running from shop to shop. After few hours he choosed one dress, but he also saw a beautiful haircomb, with carved elements and subtle. He wasn't sure for what he should settle and decided it's not gonna be a dress when lady in shop looked at him weirdly because when she asked Arthur for size, he told that he could embrace Iris's waist with his arm. He decided to be braver than usually and decided to enter book shop. - Er, g'day sir -Arthur scratched his chin - Do you have some books for person who likes to study...biology? - Biology, sir? - Well, my wife - he quickly noticed how sweet if would sound if was reall - she enrolled to university and she's gonna be a doctor, she's really smart you know and I wanted buy something...proper. - I think I have something just right for you, sir. It was indeed right.-Mary-Beth! - Iris jumped quickly in her direction and dragged her to nearest bush she saw. Her breath was heavy. - What, what? - Look what I had found - she spoken in with deadly serious manner. And the case was serious. She just noticed Arthur's journal left in his room. - Is it...? - Yes and I know we shouldn't but I don't have any decency - she straightened up proudly - so we gonna read it. And so they opened journal and was searching thru it for any appearance of Iri's name. At first it wasn't anything harmful and Arthur wrote about her as ''kid'' or ''new kid'' but right after what happened between them few days ago they could read something very disturbing. It was almost the worst Iris could imagine. In this note Arthur more or less compared her to Eliza and Marry. - ''She seems so similar to Eliza. She is just more nervous and frivolous. I think that maybe there isn't any more woman with Eliza's calm temper. I keep telling myself it's Eliza's ghost'' - quoted Iris and Mary-Beth squeaked with shock. - Look there ''I kissed her today and it was weird feeling. She doesn't seem to know what to do and with Mary it was easier'' son of a bitch, that's harsh. - He's right, you know. I can't kiss. I've got another one - Iris seemed not to be bothered. Yet. She just was in this adrenaline rush that made her laugh at it - ''She moved away from our room. I thought about it a lot, she's just a liar and she won't be back''. - Aren't you sad, Iris? - Mary-Beth looked at her with worry. She didn't know what she would do if she would read her lovers journal and found things like that. -Sad? Never. I expected him to say things like that. More mad...I feel used. Kind of like he tried me but didn't likt the taste after all. In early evening Arthur got back to camp with a gift covered in some fancy paper and heavy heart pounding in chest like bird in cage. He noticed that everyone is gathered. - Ladies and gentelman - Mary-Beth was standing on the log like she was giving a speech, with beer in her hand and Iris under her arm - Can I talk to all of you for a minute? - I guess you can - Micah said grumpily. - Thank you. As you all probably know it's my girlfriend's birtday today - she cuddled Iris to herself. Girl had big flower crown on her head. It was another gift to cheer her up after what they discovered and Arthur had to say he looked like a pixie or like elve from fairy tale - and thank's to Dutch we have a lot of beer... - Thanks, Dutch - Iris chimed in and sent man a kiss. -...and Mr Pearson cooked today something that doesn't taste awful, I think it was a gift for our birthday girl... Everyone bursted into laugh. Except Pearson. - Ya will starve, missy - he snarled. - ...and I totally stole this necklace for her and don't you think it's romantic? Laughs again. - ...and since I think he can, Dutch will gave us marriage today and we gonna be first married couple here... - I don't think I can - Dutch said humorously and dragged from his cigarette. - I think you will have to, she really wants that - Iris said pretending she's whispering. Mary-Beth cuddled her closer. - And I hope everyone is gonna have fun, thank you very much, woohoo! - She said as she kissed Iris in front of everybody, then their bottles clicked and the fun begin. At first it was mainly girls but later almost everyone joined the party. Beer was cold, night was warm and Iris danced a lot, around the campfire, making pirouettes and laughing sweetely. Beer and fun made her forget. And she couldn't care less.But after few hours man 'round there were too drunk, their hands becoming jazzy and she dissapeared under her favourite tree with journal and pencil. - I was thinking you gonna be there - Arthur appeared from god knows where. He seemed in weirdly good mood and she was drunk enough to handle this conversation with class. - And I am. Not many people are loosers enough to sit and watch how other people party. What's wrong? - I-I have something for you. Really broke my back to find something good enough for you. Happy birthday - he said. She unpacked this heavy something from the paper and she was speechless. It was a botanic atlas with drawings drawed by hand. It was mainly about herbs and how to heal with them. It was piece of art to her. But she had her pride. - Thank you, Mr Morgan - she said and he smiled. But only for a second. - I can't accept this gift - she said briefly, placing the book back in Arthur's hands. - Jesus, what? What is that about? I bought if for you to have it. -It's nothing, really. I just...can't have it. Lost interests in all that - she lied quickly. - You lie - it was first time he actually saw thru her fasade - You love things like that, I heard you speaking to Mary-Beth about it few days ago - his voice was harsh. - I am big fat liar, Mr Morgan and you are more than right! - Why you lie to me, then? You were telling all those things but now I think you didn't mean them- - Oh, did you? I know you didn't either. - Y-ya kidding me, kid? There is no day without me thinking about you. - I don't want you to think about me! Know what you really think about me and I am surprised with myself I was stupid enough to think you are normal. You are a weirdo who baths with dogs 'cause they are the only creatures that want to be around you! It was  the worst anybody said to him. Probably because no one was closer to him than her so far, but he didn't saw it that way. He couldn't think straight now, normally he was cold-headed and he would tell himself it's just anger talking through her. But now he decided to believe she hated him. He was glad that at least Iris took a book. 

[ckret2]

Hey guys wanna watch me talk about fanfic as an excuse to talk about my romantic orientation as an excuse to talk about fanfic?

In canon sources, Alastor has only thus far been identified as “ace”—not where he is on the ace spectrum, and not anything at all about his romantic orientation. I headcanon him as fully ace/aro (“fully” as opposed to “demi” or “gray,” since to my knowledge there isn’t a specific term for that). Except of course when I want to ship him, which, y’know, is fun, in which case I’ll make an exception and briefly shuffle him over to ace/demiromantic.

I should mention that I myself am ace/aro.

So here I am writing a romance fic with Alastor that I’ve planned from the start to be a tragedy, with the traditional definition of “tragedy” in which the terrible & otherwise avoidable events are driven by the character’s flaws (Alastor’s flaw is that he’s being an entire dumbass), and as I’m writing this fic I’m realizing... what I’m writing is basically an aromantic horror story. I don’t know a better phrase to describe it.

I’ve seen other aros over the years express that they felt disappointed/afraid as they realized they were aromantic—because they wanted to be “normal,” because they were afraid not having the mental wiring for romantic love made them “broken,” because they thought love looks lovely and wish they could have that too, because they’re afraid they’ll be rejected by family/friends, because they’re afraid they’ll end up alone if they don’t have a romantic partner, etc etc etc.

I’ve never felt any of that.

I learned what aromanticism is—from neutral, factual sources—narrowly before figuring out that oh hey, I don’t feel like, any romantic attraction for anyone ever. Until then I didn’t notice I didn’t feel attraction, or didn’t feel like it was odd. I thought my lack of interest in surrounding people was due to a lack of sufficiently interesting people. I didn’t yearn to fall in love, I didn’t long for a relationship; I was given a firm You Are A Strong Independent Young Lady And You Don’t Need A Man (Or A Woman, Whatever You’re Into) To Complete You upbringing, so I went all right, cool, no pressure to pair up, it’s not necessary. I figured they were things that would happen when they happened, and then they didn’t happen. And then I figured out that was probably because I’m just not designed for them to happen to me. All right, cool.

I’m proud of my orientation. Not “proud” in some weird “ah yes my orientation is SUPERIOR” way, but “proud” as in “I like who I am, I see the ways that my orientation is woven into the person that I am, and I like those patterns.” And I have been ever since I picked out the words to describe it; it wasn’t something I had to grow used to or make peace with or slowly learn to love. I know that’s rare with queer folks in general, and that's no exception in the ace & aro communities I’ve seen, where it often seems to me that self-pride is something people have to fight for and coax themselves into.

Not only have I never been in love, but I don’t want to be in love, in the same way that I don’t want to go scuba diving or learn to play the saxophone: they’re all fine activities for the people who are into them, I’m sure, and I support the interests of anyone who’s into them, but they hold no appeal to me.

So I think very few things would shake up my sense of self more than suddenly falling in love, when I don’t want to and have never found in me any capacity to be able to. It would be like waking up and realizing I fluently speak a language I’ve never studied. Oh and also I’m handcuffed to an airplane seat in the middle of an international flight to the country where that language is spoken with all my worldly possessions packed in the luggage. I don’t want to move there! It might be a lovely country, but I’ve already got a life in the one I’m currently in! How do I move myself and all my stuff back home??

It’s not that I’ve got anything against romance. In fact, I very much enjoy it—in fiction. I just know that it’s not for me.

And so—look, we’ve looped back around to the fanfic—and so, this is what I mean by “aromantic horror story.”

In so, so many stories, lovelessness is presented as the horror. “The monster is incapable of love.” “The poor protagonist fears being doomed to a life without love.” Sure, oftentimes in these stories “love” includes platonic love, familial love—but romantic love is typically centralized. The Beast can’t be cured until Belle falls in love with him.

I’ve never seen love itself presented as the horror. Not even “love that’s been twisted into obsession,” not even “abuse masquerading as love,” just plain old love all by itself. Not because there’s something wrong with the love, but just because it is—and because, in its being, it’s antithetical to everything the person feeling it knows about their own identity. Because it rings discordant with everything else in that person’s soul. Because they feel like they were built whole and complete without the spot that most people have in their hearts for the “romantic love” puzzle piece to fit in, and so trying to shove something into that spot anyway shoves everything else in their heart into disarray. If you can feel that something doesn’t have a place inside of you where it fits, would it be terrifying to find it in you anyway? Even if the “something” is love?

“But there’s nothing horrific about plain old love, nothing at all,” you scoff. And I agree with you—but there’s nothing horrific about lovelessness, either. But nevertheless, a storyteller can twist lovelessness into a monster. I don’t see why love can’t be twisted around that way, too. Just to spice things up. Particularly for those of us who get a “can’t relate” grimace every time we see a character talking about how empty and hollow their life is without (romantic) love.

Now, I don’t think I’d actually go full-blown "terrified protagonist in a psychological horror movie” if by some freak twist I somehow fell in love with somebody someday. I’d probably do what most people do in similar situations: hold hands a lot and file taxes together. Because I’m a normal person rather than an emotionally isolated cannibalistic misanthrope in a fanfic. I don’t think falling in love IRL would actually be a horror story.

But I’m certain enough that I can’t fall in love that it would sure be jarring if it happened.

And there’s room for me to play around with that in fiction.

[marshmarrowsans]

Sans/Reader: Wedding Vows

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS PROMPT THE WHOLE TIME.  You can tell because I went wayyy over 500 words. AO3 link :)

You stared at your soon-to-be husband as if in a trance, Asgore’s voice droning on by your ear as he read off the customary lines.  You knew you were supposed to be listening to him, but you couldn’t.  And besides, you and Sans had gone over the whole ceremony over and over again.  You would catch your cue.  For now, you just smiled at Sans.  He smiled back at you, skeletal thumbs rubbing comfortingly over the backs of your hands.

 Despite dating him for a long, long time, this was your first time seeing him dressed fancy, and you were eating it up.  Sure, the lazy, cozy style was his aesthetic, and it was a good one on him.  But in your opinion, every man looked good in a sharp suit like that, and Sans was no exception.  No, he was a prime example.

 “And so,” boomed Asgore’s voice, introducing the cue you’d been waiting for, “let us all bear witness to the closest thing to their love for each other that words can express, spoken directly from what cannot lie: the soul.” This was the one part of the ceremony that you had still been nervous about when it began today, for a myriad of reasons. First, you were worried that you would be unable to produce your soul… Sans squeezed your hands a little.  The blue glow of his soul was prominent, easily visible through the white fabric of his dress shirt.  He was ready to present it to you whenever the moment came, but he was waiting for you to present yours first.  That was harder for a human than a monster.  But you could do it…  You could. “let me help,” he whispered to you, and pressed his body against yours in a hug.  It was a simple show of affection, of course, but also a way of placing his own soul closer to yours.  Coaxing it out.  Telling it that it was alright, and that his soul would be with it for every moment it was exposed.

 In a few moments, your soul was convinced.  You let out a soft sigh of relief as the luminous heart-shaped essence slipped from your chest, he took a step back, and your soul joined his in the space between you.

 That was step one. Now for the next part you were worried about, and the one you were worried about much more than just being able to produce your soul in front of the crowd.

 Now you had to let Sans hold it, see and feel every emotion and memory of yours like never before, and not only that.  You had to give him access to every part of your being, and then you had to let him read out what he found there to the audience.

 Even now, minutes away from calling him your husband, you were still terrified that he was going to find something there, something in the depths of your soul, something you’d never even meant to hide from him, that he wouldn’t like.  Something that would give him doubts, make him turn his back on you like everyone else in your life—

 As soon as Sans’ soul was in your hands, and yours was in his, you knew that wasn’t true.  You felt his love for you before you felt anything else, and you felt it in your own body, as if it was yours, but it was still somehow so distinctly his. Even if you could feel that incredible duality of emotion inside you, the smile he gave you while holding your soul in his hands was enough to tell you that he was deliriously happy from whatever it was making him see and feel and remember.

 Why had you ever worried? This was about your feelings for him, and if there was anything you could ever believe in with total certainty, it was that you loved Sans from the bottom of your heart.  Now, he could feel that.  And you could feel that he felt the same way about you.  Unwavering, undying, unconditional love, continuous like a thread of time from the moment he met you until now and forevermore.

 “lemme go first,” Sans offered, grin as wide as it had been all day.  “show the human how it’s done.  let’s see…  first thing they thought about me was that i was weird.  so i’m pretty sure that’s the same as everyone who’s ever met me.  now how the heck did we get from that to you wanting to marry me?” he teased you, earning a laugh from the audience, and a bashful shrug from you. It really was true.  He could remember your thoughts, your feelings, just as clearly as you could.  And you remembered all the days spent with him like they were just yesterday, all the way back to your first impressions of him.  As people say, time flies when you’re having fun, and your relationship with Sans was the most fun you’d had in your entire life.

 “i guess it all started when we started spending more time together.  it’s hard for them to tell the difference between us becoming good friends and the beginning of their crush on me.  in fact, they’re not even totally sure the distinction was ever there. something about our friendship always felt… different to them.  something they couldn’t quite put their finger on.  they got a real happy, funny feeling inside ‘em whenever we were around each other.  and it’s like… one day it meant nothing.  and the next day it meant everything.  even when they admitted to themself that they had feelings for me, they still kinda thought i looked…”  He looked at you like a kicked puppy and lowered his voice.  “you still thought i looked kinda ugly?”

 “Oof.  Well when you put it like that…” “BUT now, through some sorta wide-scale brain changes neuroscientists are gonna be studying for years to come, they think i’m the sexiest man alive, so it’s all good.”  His face lit right back up, and yours did, too.  Clearly, that was what mattered to him.  “in any case.  if i’m looking at this and remembering right, they had feelings for me wayyy before they ever showed any signs of it.” “…  I was scared,” you whispered to him, only for him to nod solemnly at the soul he was holding in his hands and whisper back, “i know.”

 “to this day, they still see me as their best friend.  that’s a big part of why they’re so confident in this marriage.  they think that being married to your best friend is the best thing in the world, because you already know you wanna spend every moment of every day together.  and that’s what they wanna do with me.  they wanna laugh at my dumb jokes even when i’m old and forgetful and i keep telling ‘em the same ones over and over again.  have a family together.  get me away from all the bad things that have happened to me.  i…  they love so much.  so much more than they show, so much more than words can express.”  He looked to the people watching, many of whom had their hands over their hearts (or souls) right about now.  “i wish you all could feel it.  that’s the only way to really understand it.  they love me in each and every way it’s possible to love someone.  they love the life we already have together, and the life we have ahead of us.  they love all our friends, both human and monster. they love their life like never before.” After such eloquence, it was kind of comical and jarring when he left it off with an awkward, “that’s about it. well, it’s not.  but if i tried to talk about everything, we’d be here all week and she’d probably immediately divorce me for spilling all her secrets.” Sans got laughter and applause from the onlookers for his part, and from you, a kiss on his forehead and a promise of, “Never.”

 After that example, you felt a lot better about expressing the feelings and memories flowing throughout you right now.  Once the welcoming silence fell once again, you took a deep breath and spoke, letting words fall that, in the best way possible, didn’t feel like they were entirely your own. “Before Sans met me, there were two aspects of himself that lived in tandem with each other.  There was a part of himself that distrusted humans.  Didn’t hate them.  But distrusted them, certainly.  Examples in his life of humans being good were few and far between, even when monsterkind went free.  People…  people were assholes.” You could see it now, in his memory.  The judgmental stares, the sneers.  Even physical confrontations. “And then there was a part of himself that longed for a soulmate.  Not necessarily a romantic one, in fact, he was never looking for romance at all.  He just wanted someone to be his very best friend, to put him before anything else as long as he did the same for them. Like Papyrus, but different from a brother.  He always felt like so many people knew him, but at the end of the day, nobody really… knew him. And he knew that was partially his fault, for…  for not really being open with people.  I guess… what he was looking for was somebody who would make him feel like he wanted to open up.  Somebody who made him feel like he wanted to talk about it all without it feeling like twisting knives in old wounds.” You could imagine that even Sans was confused about those feelings at that time in his life.  Feeling them directly from his soul, it was still hard to put them into words for him.  You looked to him for guidance and confirmation, and he gave you a small, approving nod.

“And those two parts of himself never existed in conflict, until he met me.”  The way that came out made the corner of your lip turn up in a smirk, like you were reading a script he wrote, and that line cracked you up.  “When I laughed at his jokes—even the bad ones—and understood his distrust, and his closed-off nature.  Respected his boundaries, but endlessly offered my help and compassion. Treated him like he was no different from myself, except for the body he existed in…  that need for a companion in life won out.  He realized that the person he’d been waiting for all this time was here, and they were a human.  A kind human, with an open mind and a loving heart.  And luckily, by that time, I considered him a close friend of mine, too. “I think it goes without saying that the story doesn’t end there.  The first odd thing he noticed was that he never wanted to pull away from me when I touched him.  In fact, he found himself craving my physical attention.  Oh, yeah,” you laughed, slipping from his memories to your own for a moment.  “We hugged a lot.  And here I was, always worried I was pushing it with those extended hugs.  Turns out neither one of us wanted to let go.” “nope,” Sans confirmed.  “if i had it my way, we would’ve walked around like a couple of conjoined twins.” “Jesus, Sans.”  You continued without further ado, “Well I won’t get into the details, but there were a lot of confused, awkward feelings here.  I tell you all, Sans keeps it cool on the outside like nobody else, but on the inside?  You would not believe.”  You leaned down and whispered to him, “Dude, can I tell them about the pillow?” “can you tell them about the—no you cannot tell them about the pillow!” he shouted a whisper back to you with his cheeks blue with embarrassment, making you giggle wildly.  “there are children present!” “Okay.  Sorry, everyone.  He doesn’t want me to tell you about it.”  You balanced his soul in one hand, using the other for just a moment to wipe happy tears from your eyes, before returning it.  “The important thing is, this was the first time he ever felt like this. He knew the concept of romantic love, but never felt it or went looking for it.  So he wasn’t expecting it to one day just…  hit him.  But it did.” Your voice softened, his soul seeming to warm in your hands at the memories you were exploring.  “It’s corny, but.  He really did know that he loved me when I first kissed him. “And it’s more than just love I gave him. I gave him a sense of hope for the future that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.  He stopped worrying about the day things would all be taken away from him, and started dreaming about what would happen if that day never came.  He learned to hope again.  And he thanks me for that.  Even though I would personally like to remind him that he should give himself a lot more credit for his own recovery…” you smiled down at him lovingly, “I’m glad that I was a part of that.  A big part.  He has so many things he wants to do now.  But all of them involve me.  And being with me.  And always having my support, and supporting me in return.  He understands love now, even more than he did just before this wedding ceremony.  He understands how mutual and selfless it is now.  He’s not confused about anything anymore, he knows exactly what he wants.” It all came out so quickly, so naturally, you almost forgot to breathe between your words.  “His soul has already been irreversibly bound to mine for a long, long time.  Today is just to show that to everyone and make it official.  But it’s still the happiest day of his life.  His love for me is one thing about himself that he wants everybody to know.” “i considered getting us a couple of big, honkin’ wedding rings,” Sans jested, half to you and half to the audience. “like the size of a ring pop.  so that people can see that we’re married from a mile away.  turns out they don’t sell ‘em that big.” More laughter, more applause.  You let out a deep breath, and Sans pulled you into his arms, whispering to you about what a good job you did, and how incredible it was to feel your soul, and how he never could’ve imagined what that would be like.  Slowly, tenderly, you returned each other’s soul to one another, and after lingering between you for a long moment, they disappeared back into your chests.  With the removal of your connection to his soul, it felt like a void opened up in you.  You hugged him closer, already yearning to connect with his soul again. On your honeymoon, you promised yourself.  On your honeymoon, you would have all the time in the world to explore that deep, intimate connection… “… Given all you have found about one another and told us here today…” Asgore continued the ceremony, wiping a tear from his twinkling eyes, “Do you, Sans Gaster, take this human to be your lifelong partner, your greatest companion and soulmate, as long as your soul may sing its love for theirs as it has today?”

 “i do.”  Sans didn’t even lift his head from your chest.  He didn’t want to stop hugging you.  He didn’t ever want to let go. “And do you,” Asgore addressed you, “take this monster to be your lifelong partner, your greatest companion and soulmate, as long as your soul may sing its love for his as it has today?” “I do.” “Then with the blessing of the king and all of monsterkind, may your souls be bound to one another in marriage forevermore. For the first time in all of recorded history…” Asgore emphasized, “the human may now kiss their new monster husband.” “as much as they can without me having lips, anyways,” Sans added, before tangling his fingers in your hair. “c’mere, my sunshine.”

 The kiss you shared made you feel blind and deaf to anything other than him.  And for a moment, nothing else mattered.  Not anyone’s approval or disapproval, not your exact plans, not the backlash you might face, not even the fact that you were making history.

 All that mattered was that neither of you ever wanted this happiness to end.

[wordsaremybestfriends]

Didn’t Ask For This: Chapter 4

Hey friends! We’re BACK with another chapter of this little shindig, and it’s just about to start picking up again… 

If you’d like to be tagged in this, don’t hesitate to ask! ALSO, if you want to talk about the story or talk in general, shoot me a message anytime!! :) 

Warnings: Cursing, child abuse, vocal abuse, violence, *TELL ME IF YOU FIND ANYTHING ELSE*

“I don’t see why Steve couldn’t have come with us,” Dustin murmured as he hopped off the back of her parked scooter in their garage, tossing his helmet onto a hook beside it. “He helped us last time.”

“That good-for-nothing manwhore got lucky last time,” Emma growled as she walked towards a supply cabinet with different gardening tools inside. Even though a hockey stick and old guitar were helpful, they needed some steel and hard weapons against the monster downstairs. “He got in at the right time. I’m not letting him get another chance to play hero.”

“Didn’t you have a crush on him, though, like, in middle school?”

The girl froze, a blush climbing up the back of her neck to her cheeks as she faltered pushing through random gardening shears and shovels. A knot in her throat had made speaking harder than it looked, as she fought to come up with a response. “W-Well, you know, he’s just kind of like, um, a major dick at school.”

Dustin’s face broke into a grin from across the garage, eyes wide. He couldn’t hold in the giggle as he wiggled his eyebrows at his sister’s back, the secret he had almost forgotten until now suddenly the only thing he could think about. “You do still like him!”

“Shut up, Dustin,” She grumbled, pushing past some potting soil. “I do not.”

“I bet you still think about his hair like you used to,” He said, as he suddenly sunk his voice into a romanticized daze. “Oh Steve,” He said with his voice in a high pitched squeal, hand over his heart and knuckles at his temple to try to embody a pink-cheeked princess with hearts for eyes, swooning over a romantic prince. “How I wish to play with your hair, to braid, to comb-”

“Shut up!” She shouted, trying to fight the bashful smile on her face.

The memory of her telling her brother about her silly crush on the boy in the back of Mr. Kipler’s seventh grade class was almost as embarrassing as the fact her feelings for the boy hadn’t faded. She loved the way his hair bounced atop her head, and how it almost looked weightless in everything he did. Basketball, running, taking notes, nothing changed it’s physics-defying attention grabber. There was a single moment that she had told him in particular, of when she had forgotten her colored pencils for a group project, and the young boy had come to her rescue, sharing politely as they worked together quietly. Even though it was five years ago, Emma still hoped that thoughtful, respectful boy was deep underneath the popular, neglectful teenager he had grown into.

But then again, she knew that boy she once fell in love with was gone. It was no use to pine over him and his soft, homey eyes. 

“We could carve our initials into a tree,” Dustin sighed, and Emma turned to face him, finally, the shit-eating grin on her face impossible to hide. “And talk about how much we love each other together!”

“You’re a real pill, you know that?” Emma said with a giggle as she tossed an old gardening glove at him, the two laughing brightly with one another.

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, still searching the garage for supplies. So far, nothing was good enough to fight off a blood-thirsty monster, unless it was immune to poppy seeds and various empty clay pots.

“I think I might need to make a trip to the hardware store,” Emma admitted, wiping off the grainy dirt that had collected on her hands on her jeans. “You wanna head there with me, or stay and wait?”

“I think I’m gonna try to call Will’s house again,” Dustin said as he made his way to the door. “Don’t forget to grab some lighter fluid and flares. Remember?”

“Sure, because I might forget burning a seven foot monster to bits,” Emma deadpanned as she started her scooter, and slowly pulled out of the garage. She yelled a ‘be safe!’ to her brother before turning onto the street and out of sight.

Dustin barely heard Steve’s car pull into the empty lot beside his house as he stepped inside to grab a handful of halloween candy that had gotten forgotten on the front table. He almost let the door click behind him before he heard his name, a foot jamming into the doorway before it closed. “Hey, man, where did your sis go?”

The boy rolled his eyes as he turned to face the teen nonchalantly. The bomber jacket that Steve had been wearing was torn off, as if he was ready for a battle instead of ready to go study for a stupid class. “She went to go get supplies so we could kill that son of a bitch. Why do you need to know?”

Steve shrugged as he ran his hand through his hair. His fingers fiddled with the hem of the long sleeve shirt he wore, drawing up the sleeves to his elbows as he folded his arms against his chest. “If you guys have another… You know, monster problem…”

“Emma doesn’t want your help,” Dustin smirked. “And it’s not that big of a deal. It’s already locked up, we just have to burn it and we win.”

The taller boy rolled his eyes as he sighed. Dustin turned away, interest quickly fading as he turned to start browsing the fridge instead. “Why does your sister hate me so much? I swear, I leave her alone at school, I try to make sure that no one talks about her behind her back, but every time she looks at me, she looks like she wants to skin me alive, you know?”

Dustin fought to hide his growing smile as he thought back to his and his sister’s most recent conversation. His eyes grew wide with the priceless opportunity he had at the moment to fuck with the most popular guy in Hawkins. “Maybe it’s because of your hair.”

“My… hair?” Steve repeated, the words slow and ultimately more confusing than the fact that there might be a killing machine below him. “She doesn’t like me… Because of my hair?”

“It’s the way it looks,” Dustin continued as he pulled a cup down for some water. It was almost terrible how good he was at lying sometimes, with a nonchalant voice and a bored look in his eyes. “It defies gravity or physics, or whatever, and it pisses her off that she doesn’t know how it works, you know?”

Even though the words out of Dustin’s lips weren’t a complete lie, the look on the boy’s face was priceless as he stood in absolute shock and wonder. His mouth gaped wide enough to stuff a golf ball into it as he stood in the Henderson living room, mind trying to work out exactly how she managed to hate him for the longest time.

“You’re kidding me,” Steve said breathlessly as he fell onto the couch. His head went into his hands, as he tried to process this absolutely stupid and mostly insane information. “You’re saying the reason that the reason Emma hates me is because of my damn hair?”

The younger boy shrugged. “I don’t know, she’s a girl. She thinks weird.”

“You’re shitting me, Henderson.”

“I most definitely am not, Harrington.”

Dustin scowled at the teen, hellbent on selling his act. “You asked the question and I answered it!”

Steve’s voice was quiet, almost escaping Dustin’s ears as he spoke. “Emma Henderson, intelligent, beautiful, confident Emma Henderson… Hates me because how how my hair looks? Insane…”

Now it was Dustin’s turn to look at Steve as if he had two heads. His lips were pursed as he let out a mist of water, trying to cough out the gulps that had gotten stuck in his throat. His face went red while he tripped over his words, trying to reply to Steve’s almost insignificant comment.

“Y-You just called my sister attractive,” Dustin said. Steve’s eyes flicked up to stare back at the boy as the color in his face began to turn pink instead of a pale tan.

“N-No, I didn’t.”

“But… you just said that Emma Henderson was intelligent, beautiful, and confident.”

“I did not!” Steve said indignantly back at the boy, on his feet as he glared at the younger boy. “I said… I said she was the most adaptive! The… the most adaptive girl in school!”

“Holy shit… Steve Harrington just said that!” Dustin said with a giant smile breaking over his face. He couldn’t contain the laughter in his chest at the general situation, the irony more entertaining than the actual words said. “You just called my sister attractive! Do you like her?”

“What’s it to you?” He grumbled, rolling his eyes. He’d only mentioned that to the NBA Lakers poster in his room once or twice or thirty times. And he threw that notebook filled with their initials and random ramblings about her  

Dustin shrugged once more with arms crossed. “Curious. And you never know when that knowledge will come to use, you know?”

“And if you tell anyone that I just told you that,” Steve said as he crossed the living room in two long strided, only a few feet from Dustin’s face, finger pointed down at his chest. “Your ass is grass. You’re dead, Henderson.”

He smirked up at the taller boy, a thought beginning to grow in the back of his mind as he held Steve’s gaze. “One condition, Harrington.”

TAG LIST: @luv2reade16 @lillie-writes @kararanae23 @harringtonwife @tiarrasmith @sarahmariedesserts

[didsomeonesayventus]

idk no one really liked my previous story ideas post but IM MAKING ANOTHER LEMME TELL U ABOUT NEXT GEN FIC IDEAS:

this is about 18 years after a rly fuckin weird KH3 just gonna establish that

SO WHO ARE THE PARENTS AND WHAT OF PEOPLE WHO AREN’T u ask

where Ven and Riku became boyfriends because tfw your sources of hurt and pain are similar and all u wanna do is sleep. Namine was surrogate mom (Ven was biological dad) of their kiddo Alba who’s 15 and a half (Ven is papa and Riku is dad for those concerned)

lil nort got to have a redemption arc and to stay thru MAGIC~* and hooked up with kairi and has two kids, Dysmas is the eldest at 15 followed by Eiru at 14

Terra and Aqua had Shiva shortly after the events of KH3 (like a year or so) and she’s 17.

Roxas and Namine had Rose (or Rosie if u want) quite late compared to the others and she’s 10

Sora’s single because he doesn’t feel a particular need for intimate, romantic love yet

Vanitas and Xion have hooked up but both kinda go “ew” at the prospect of children

Isa and Lea are doing really gay shit as far away from Keyblade shenanigans as possible

tho besides the above four everyone generally keeps in touch as possible and as for ILVX they check in every now and then (Van continues to be a loner but Rox and the other members of team “done with universal responsibility” hang out for ice cream like every two weeks or so)

every year there’s a “MAN FUCKING REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE KIDS WHO DEFEATED A MADMAN” anniversary party and it’s been a great time to catch up 100% and just reflect on oldness

Sora loves bringing paopu wine to it each year when/after they all become legal drinkers just to make sure everyone stays in touch and there’s always a toast to see each other next year

it’s a big fun party y’all it lit

King Mickey and Queen Minnie and Donald and Goofy have all become the official, if honorary, best grandparents ever to all the kids.

King Mickey made a playground in the garden and added a playroom to the castle for rainy days okay he loves the new kids and is always very sad when they grow taller than him but all the kids develop a habit of kneeling around him almost instantly after they get too tall

but anyways all the kids are acquainted with each other thru frequent playdates with each other

playdates because the grown ups frequently have “hey this is a weird thing” reports to share so there’s no “oh yeah this person was being evil we just lost track of him I mean whatever”

Shiva and Alba already have Keyblades and training with them, and Alba has Keyblade Armor while Shiva is en route to taking a Mark of Mastery exam from her parents Masters

Sora likes to take the kids on rides with the Highwind despite the fact it’s growing very vintage over time and he hopes to teach them how to pilot gummi ships with it

Dysmas is a glory-seeker if only because he’s heard so many stories about his family that he feels really inadequate and takes after his mom. No Keyblade and it sucks(tm)

Alba is a very silent kid he’s very much like Riku at first but when he warms up to you he’s very Ventus. Keyblade and it breaks papa’s heart </3

Shiva has the grace and composure of her mom until challenged then she goes 0 to 1000 real fast. Also is a total Mom Friend(tm)

Rose is a sweetie pie and the youngest and thus the most naive and also tends to follow the older kids blindly. Eiru has an affinity for her especially. No keyblade

Eiru is silent sassmaster who takes after her dad and while she don’t have a Keyblade Xeha tutors her in magic and is a smart enough kid to do independent study

Something that really kickstarts the plot is the five taking a joyride while the parents are having a meeting and it’s great until their hearts- incredibly strong and in Alba and Shiva’s cases Keyblade wielding -draw in Heartless that they can’t handle

parents to rescue ofc but there is anger and grounding also

ENTERING PLOT POINTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

though this is yet to be fully decided Eiru may become the main antagonist for two motives:

a) Eiru feels she can do better than her parents and save the worlds by smashing them back together into one World but this kinda means a lot of things going badly that she doesn’t realize nor cares about because if she can make a New Age of Fairytales it’s what’ll be good for the worlds

b) Eiru basically becomes a serial killer because she feels the Keyblade causes too much strife and pain to let exist any longer and ends up trying to off everyone she knows with a Keyblade to stop the suffering and maybe eventually end up with a Heirs of Fate situation where only the kids are around to put a stop to things

I can’t exactly pinpoint how a lil girl like her would be able to kill keyblade masters but maybe she gets her mitts on Marluxia’s Doom/Death spell

vote now on ur phones what should happen

either way there is Pressure(tm) and she doesn’t deal w/ it well

Xeha in particular takes it hard because he saw “making a me 2.0″ from a mile away and it really delayed his decision to have kids and it hurts him a lot to see it happened even if he tried to avoid it

he basically just up and leaves eventually and becomes Disappeared Dad Classic(tm)

may or may not be caused by Ven being the sacrificial lion to establish things are going bad again and everything just kinda collapsing (but then again implications of killin ur gays and how much angst is too much angst #givevenabreak2k17)

before they know it’s Eiru there’s a lot of side-eyeing Xeha anyways cuz “gee who do we know who’s dangerous and knows where we are and is good at predicting where we are aND USED TO BE EVIL” to which Kairi is Offended(tm)

but when they do find out it’s Eiru there’s a lot of quiet and unsettledness because everyone just kinda goes “shit we made our own monster here” and have Bad Feelings(tm) about killing a minor and Alba REFUSES to hang out with the brother of the girl who killed papa

like IDK I want this fic to explore legacy and the impacts having parents like the KH crew would be like and what a new generation would behave like what ideas they would bring that’s the most I got going on

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: I got 99 problems and Medusa is all of them

This weekend, @adulterclavis (Bones) and @eisschirmchen dropped by to talk about their 2016 Resbang, I got 99 problems and Medusa is all of them. Here's some of what went down:

Q: Was this the ending you planned or was it just a result of 'omg I need to finish'?

Bones: Kind of both. The epilogue thing was the result of everyone on my server yelling at me. Also I forgot to include "who here has felt personally victimized by Medusa Gorgon," so I took that opportunity.

Q: I think you said that originally this was just a Mean Girls inspired AU right? Please explain where the other aspect came from!

Bones: The other aspect came from the fact that I watched Jennifer's Body and went: THAT is what my Resbang needs to jazz it up. It definitely was originally just Mean Girls.

Q: Wanna talk about your creative process a little, Bones? How you work, maybe how music is involved?

Bones: Ha.. hahaha. Hold on, let me try to find my outline. There was a lot of stuff like this:

Bones: I had a more detailed outline, but the last chunk got mostly ignored. I had a lot of this preplanned just for the sake of sanity. You can't wing 45k over the course of a few weeks and not hate everything in the universe.

Q: Eis, what was your artistic process like?

Eis: Lots of sweating and crying to be honest. To stress whenever I can because I know my butt needs a lot of kicks lol.

Q: What was your favourite piece, Eis?

Eis: My favorite piece... hmmmmm. Certainly this. This is my favorite drawing:

Q for Eis: I've always been curious what program you use!

Eis: I use Paint Tool SAI. :)

Q: Dark Eis, could you maybe show us Wes?

Eis: I CAN. Here is the super fancy, super secret Wes I drew after posting date:

Bones: Wes Evans: vampire hunter.

Q for Bones: My fave scene is when Medusa is singing Monster while eating Noah... did that just happen or were you listening to Monster one day and thought "ya know this is how Medusa eats a guy I swear"?

Bones: Oh THAT SHIT. That shit is the only reason I wrote this Resbang I think. Somehow early on I started talking about Medusa and Nicki's Monster verse and, unimportantly, realized that it's in meter, but the point is: there was no way I wasn't writing that in. Then the opportunity presented itself and I was like well, this is how I include it. Poor Noah.

Q: I just rememebr staring at my phone screen, unsure whether to laugh or be like ewww XD.

Bones: That was the goal. Writing it I was like 'wow this is horrible' but I neither stopped writing or stopped laughing.

Eis: Bones sitting in her chair, a birb on each shoulder and top of her head and laughing like a maniac while typing.

Q: Do you want to talk about the metal covers segment of your process? Or the tacky houses?

Bones: The metal covers portion of my life sure was a time. Please enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmzz516cAnw.

Q: Tell us about your late night bode epiphany.

Bones: I can't even freaking remember it. Let's be real about this. I needed there to be a slang term that B* was trying to make happen. I'd actually been lowkey trying to figure it out for months, and then bode... happened, and I was like THAT. THAT IS THE THING.

Q: Bones, what was the hardest scene to write and Eis, what was the hardest thing to draw?

Bones: I want to say probably the last bit there, where Medusa rolls back up. I may have been a little delirious.

Eis: Drawing the car was the hardest part, made me legit cry.

Bones: Poor Eis and the car. I gave her a reference.

Eis: YES AND I'M FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR SAID REFERENCE. Bones has like a reference or link for everything. It's awesome.

Bones: For some reason I always sit around and pick out cars for people, so thankfully I had something ready for her.

Q: Okay so question re: something that was NOT in the Resbang but that I felt was implied. Was Arachne doing some hokey pokey shit to Giriko's dad?

Bones: Yeah, that was something I didn't have a chance to elaborate on. She was definitely slowly poisoning him to get his money. Or eat his soul. Maybe both. Oh right, I should show them Chainsaw. For your listening pleasure, Giriko's theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdJicpjitMM. I make playlists for everything and they are a travesty.

Q: You're a master at making us feel things for characters who, in canon, are dicks. Wanna talk a little about how you characterize people when you write? Or your approach to it?

Bones: You may have noticed I write AUs like it is my job. So the deal is, I have this basic idea of the characteristics of a given character, like how they are at base level, and then I just take that and go okay, how would this mix with or be affected by a life in x world, or by x set of experiences? And that's how you get Fire and Light Maka, or 99 problems Giriko and/or Justin. Like Giriko is still a dick but... Reasons. Giriko just wanted to run away with Justin and save him from his shitty home life.

Q for Eis: Do you listen to any mood-setting music as well?

Eis: My music taste is pretty much all over the place... but I did try to pick some music that would fit the situation. It didn't work all the time, so I was listening to some love songs while drawing everyone in the car. :D Needed some love songs to not completely lose it with drawing the freaking car!

Q: Eis, I love your Maka with a topbun.

Eisdorable: Thank you! Maka with the topbun is the best, but she rocks all hair styles tbh.

Q for the both of you: LET'S GET MUSHY, what was your fav part about working with the other?

Bones: Eis is the most cinnamon bun to ever cinnamon bun.

Eis: lfgkjdölfhjfglhkjflghkjskfj

Bones: Also, that. Umlaut keysmashes.

Eis: AHAHAHAHHA here for you öäü

Bones: But on a slightly more serious note, Eis worked super hard even if she didn't think she did. I spent the whole time going 'I have to not do all this at the last minute so I'm not a dick to Eis.'

Eis: I really feel like I slacked a lot, but maybe this was just because I had school and was away for two weeks during the time. ;n; Or four weeks in total? idk.

Bones: Yeah okay so like Eis went to school and worked and then came home and drew me stuff. Consistently.

Q: Same question for you Eis, what was your fav part about working with Bones?

Bones: Eis is probably trying to think of a polite way to tell you all that I'm insane.

Eis: I enjoyed everything to be honest, I loved the talking that wasn't about Resbang, then enjoyed talking about Resbang, loved to show Bones my art and get approval, and read her fic and cry laughing. And ask her all of the questions and have everything answered, most times even with a link. HAHAHAHAH YOU'RE NOT INSANE. Or not much more than me. :)

Bones: Oh wait my other favorite thing was Eis, the ultimate cinnamon bun, being like 'I can't wait to draw some blood."

Eis: AND THEN I NEVER DID DRAW BLOOD WHAAT. Or not as much as I wanted. :c

Bones: No one is stopping you, Eis.

Eis: *wiggles eyebrows*

Q: What was the most fun to write, Bones? And the most fun to draw, Eis?

Bones: Most fun to write had to be the archive bit - not JUST Medusa quoting Monster, but the setup. I liked having an opportunity to truthfully indicate how weird archives are. The tar coming up from the cracks in the floor thing was not a fabrication, but something I have personally experienced. Plus then they got to play Assassin's Creed for a minute there, creeping around.

Eisdorable: The most fun to draw were certainly the chibis. :)

Q: Eis did you learn anything new about drawing during this Resbang?

Eis: YES! Yes I got to know how to make gifs with Photoshop! To create the little cheerleader Soul lol. And I learned that I hopefully never have to draw a car again :)

Q: Can there be a 99 problems SoMa art in the future?????

Eis: I could try, because I would love to draw them in a romantic set up, even though romantic would be handholding in this case :) But I would love to do the thing. I'm currently studying for my final exams in May, have one art trade and a big commission due the end of next month, so I have to push that romantic drawing towards the future sadly.

Q: Do you have a couple fav beta comments?

Bones: Maybe this chain re: warblr:

Bones: Okay so, story time. One day fab tried to type 'warbler' as in a bird but typed 'warblr' instead, and that's how that happened.

Bones:

Eis: Marsh is the best. Her comments made me laugh ugly.

Bones: This... entire thing:

Eis: "This outfit is Gucci" still makes me crack up so much. IT'S THE FREAKING BEST.

Bones: Remember all the Gucci shoes I looked up, that all had snakes on them?

Bones:

Bones: I knew they were all at the end. When things got SUPER CRAZY was when the comment game got fun. By the end I had pretty much lost my mind.

Eis: I was with you Bones. Freaked out of having too little art. I was young and stupid.

Bones: I did better this year, in terms of not writing everything at the last second. My main goal is not to have a repeat of Bad Romance.

Eis: *proud pat on shoulder*

Bones: Do not write 22k in two days guys. Don't. The last two thirds of Bad Romance I wrote in two days.

Q: If you could be friends with anyone in the fic, who would you wanna befriend?

Bones: Kid.

Eis: I would love to be befriend Soul to be honest, most times he was the poor little cinnamon roll and I love him forever.

Q: What advice would you give to new Resbang participants now that both of you have done many Resbangs?

Bones: Oh my god, you monster. "Don't be me" is my advice. To elaborate: make yourself an outline ASAP, and a daily writing goal. And stick to it, so you don't have to do what I did. It's MUCH EASIER to write like 500 words or 1k a day for a month or two. And as a bonus you don't end up wanting to throw youself out a window. It's also a lot easier to get that 1k a day down if you have at least a partial plan. Plus, when you're in the middle of writing something it's much more difficult to set up a convincing plot, i.e. be objective. Though that problem is much more pronounced when you're 75k through a 120k novel.

Eis: Yeah, I agree with Bones. Time management is super important. Don't underrestimate this. I mean, probably no problem when you do one drawing. It's no competition [for] who gets the most done or something. But if you plan on doing a lot of things, time management/an outline is important to keep your head above water.

Q: What was the latest both of you were up to working on parts of this?

Bones: Idk, probably like 3 a.m.

Eis: I was up until 4:50am that one time. *sweats*

Bones: ...Eis.

Eis: SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK I DONT NEED IT. Except a lot. I need sleep. I love sleep.

Q: Did you guys learn anything from each other during this partnership?

Bones: I learned that Eis is a million times more adorbs than I realized.

Eis: Oh yes, Bones taught me a lot about American politics :) And [I learned] that Bones is the most collected and calmest person I've ever met.

Bones: Also I won't lie, when they told me Eis picked me I felt like I had won the lottery. I was also confused. Did you read my summary?

Eis: Yes and it was love at first sight. I was squeaking and capslocking a lot about how much I wanted your fic Bones.

Q: What are you guys working on next?

Bones: I am working on ten thousand years of worldbuilding for my original stuff, and hopefully Fire and Light. That and sorting out this 950 song playlist that is really out of hand. And getting like 60 pages of handwritten notes sorted out. I wish 60 pages was an exaggeration but sadly it is not.

Eis: [I'm working] on fandom stuff, for an art trade with ahshesgone and a commission for a user next month which I don't want to name yet, I don't want to ruin the surprise ;u; and lots of studies for my final exams orz. Finals are ewww and I'm 100% terrified that I'm gonna mess up :D

Q: What did the process look like to pick and choose which bits you pulled from each movie?

Bones: I don't think I really have a process for that.

Q: Was there anything that you wanted to include that you didn't get to?

Bones: there were a lot of things I kind of meant to address, like the thing with Arachne and Giriko's dad. I just forget them in the process of writing, which is why I advocate lists and outlines. I also kind of meant to go into more detail with a lot of things like Justin's home situation but seriously, it would have been 100k.

Q: What would you have done with the Arachne bit?

Bones: It was a tossup. I think I was gonna have her be slowly poisoning him so she could use him to achieve ultimate power, since she and Medusa were feuding. So I mean if I ever write more of this, it'll probably be about that.

Q: Eis how did you pick what you wanted to draw?

Bones: I think she was a little freaked out that I didn't have a list of stuff I wanted.

Eis: Honestly, I was freaking out. Like whaaaat, you have no certain wishes??? How even??? I'm so used to people telling me their wish and I work with that. :)

Bones: I'm not used to ever getting art. I thought it might be more fun for you to pick stuff you liked.

Eis: So yeah, how did I pick the things.... I usually stick with the things that inspire me, to be honest. So some scenes turned out different than the ones in the story, but it always worked out with no problems. I pick things that inspire me, may it be a fun scene or something that makes me think of it. It was super fun to pick the scenes I liked, gave me lots of room to be creative. :) [I] stick with things that make me linger there longer. There were quite a few, I actually had a lot more scenes I wished to draw but I haven't had the chance yet. It's also scenes that I'm curious about [what] they would look like as a drawing sometimes.

Q: Ooo do you remember what they were?

Eis: Oh yeah! I would have loved to draw the scene with Giriko, Justin and Soul in Giriko's car, in which Justin was all tired and Giriko tried to get school stuff done, because tired Justin seems like the most adorable thing??? And I would have loved to draw the scene in Soul's house, when everyone gathers there to plan what they do, after Soul and Maka saw Medusa eating Noah.

Bones: Soul crying into a pizza box.

Eis: And Giriko, Justin and Soul eating pizza and was it Kid that made tea for them??? And I would love to draw Soul in a lot [of] embarassing old clothes. AND THE HAND HOLDING SCENE BETWEEN MAKA AND SOUL OF COURSE.

---

Thanks to our creators for stopping by! More transcripts coming soon!

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

I guess the “Jaune Issue” is really starting to boil yet again. It’s happened almost every season and I can almost understand the need to want to protect him from people who’re being overly harsh on him, or those who just downright hate him, but at this point, four seasons in, if you can sympathize with Jaune more than the people who’re put off by Jaune, you’re missing something really important- something that people have been arguing is a really big issue with this show in general

I just wanna start off with saying a lot of people feel cheated out of a different anime thanks to Jaune. All of the marketing during the trailers and most marketing today is about RWBY- four girls- and the audience this show gathered back then was obviously an audience who were hungry and starved for more shows that featured girls kicking monster ass. Jaune becoming such a prominent side character that he’s essentially one of the main protagonists now was something not many people wanted, and something the show or Jaune has never really earned.

Jaune started off as an audience surrogate (a trope you can learn more about in the link provided, and I’m gonna be linking back to tropes like this as often as I can). Everyone else in the world that we’d met so far already knew what Hunters were supposed to be doing, what Beacon was for, etc, etc. Ruby or Nora wouldn’t ever need to ask about Aura or Semblances or weapons, because they’ve been training and fighting for years before Beacon. Juane is the character who needed this all explained to him, and through Jaune’s eyes, we were given crucial information about the world. In a show like RWBY, a Jaune is important, as it eases the burden of world-building and allows these really basic conversations that normally wouldn’t be happening with regular characters to happen with Jaune.

Jaune then continued to evolve as a sympathetic character during Jaunedice. “I’m tired of being the lovable idiot stuck in the tree while his friends risk their lives!” That line to this day is still so fucking powerful, and Miles Luna is so fucking good at delivering those heart-wrenching lines with quivering voices about feeling inadequate. During season one of this show, people LOVED Jaune. “My baby” “My son” etc, were common terms of endearment for him because Jaune’s feelings of inadequacy were so powerful and so relatable. Despite the fact that Jaune Arc was basically the “Ordinary High School Student” main protagonist of every shounen anime ever, the FNDM loved him anyway because of his conviction. He desperately wanted to get better and we believed him beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Despite all of this, Jaune took up an unearned amount of screen time during season 1. Jaunedice 1, Jaunedice 2, Forever Fall 1 and Forever Fall 2 was a four episode long arc based almost exclusively around Jaune. 4 episodes and 25 minutes spent on away from RWBY and the rest of the plot of the show just to showcase Arkos’ rocky start, reveal Jaune’s dark secret, and a bullying arc that all could’ve taken less than an episode to tell and ended up resolving itself in a self-defeating way: Pyrrha never told Jaune she helped him kill the Ursa in the forest. Despite the fact that Jaune was ready and willing to allow Pyrrha to teach him how to fight, Pyrrha never took the time out to explain to him how absolutely dead he would’ve been had she not intervened. Because of this, Jaune doesn’t get the growth he needed, he doesn’t actually get to understand just how dangerous this job really is. It spares Jaune’s feelings, but also puts him and everyone he’ll ever fight with in danger until he actually learns that lesson.

Granted, if you’re unwilling to forgive a show for not-so-great pacing and a few loose ends during its first season, you probably shouldn’t have been following a start-up show like RWBY in the first place. The writers were so obviously just beginning to learn how to tell the story, and needed time to get better. So most people held their complaints and waited until season two.

Here’s where shit absolutely hit the goddamn fan.

Jaune had a crush on Weiss since volume 1, while Pyrrha had a crush on him from before he’d even seen Weiss. The same Love Triangle trope we see all the time. It’s a bit tired, and Tumblr hates it for its heteronormative aspects, its potential to create abusive relationships, and for the simple fact that polyamorous relationships are an easy way to end the trope, but most people just shrugged it off because it hadn’t been to intrusive yet.

Then it got really fucking intrusive.

Jaune. Wouldn’t. Leave. Her. Alone. Over and over again she rejected him and he continued to pursue her. Walking to her dorm to harass her and ask her to the dance, harassing her during class, etc, etc. Now considering a lot of the FNDM were women, Jaune alienated the core audience RT had been marketing towards. So many women came forward feeling irked, annoyed, and even triggered by Jaune’s constant harassment. He was every guy that didn’t know how to take “no” for an answer to these women- and if you talk to them, almost all of them have at least one story similar. But for some reason the narrative painted WEISS as the bad guy here. With Yang ruffling Jaune’s hair with “Some day” and Yang again calling Weiss an “ice queen” after slamming their door in his face, the show had somehow made Weiss the antagonist to Jaune’s “lovable and charismatic dope.” Pair that weird framing with younger male members of the FNDM who related even more with Jaune because of this, and it was a disaster. So many posts from guys about how “girls just don’t understand how hard it is to try to flirt” and “if Weiss weren’t so mean to him then maybe he’d get the message” flooded the tag and it was just all around disgusting. Because of how the show had framed Jaune as the guy trying his hardest to earn what he wanted up to that point, “Weiss” just became “something he wanted” instead of an actual person who had no romantic interest in him whatsoever. Then the added conversation with Neptune sealed the deal and people outright despised him for his grandiose, accusatory and entirely hypocritical tone he took with Neptune. Most women were put off almost entirely by a character they used to identify with. Some guys identified with him even harder because they hadn’t yet learned that Jaune’s failures at love weren’t something to sympathize with, but to correct.

So we ended up with this huge divide in the FNDM, and people on the left didn’t want anything to do with Jaune even if they’d previously liked him, while people on the right would go to any length to defend his actions and keep up the same “he’s just a teenager, he doesn’t know any better” attitude that Jaune himself had asked people to stop using on him.

Two other nitpicks from season 2 were Jaune reading comics while he was supposed to be studying, and Jaune’s reaction to seeing Pyrrha take charge during The Breach when he’d failed to. The first is just a minor character inconsistency- season 1 he’d been so willing to try to learn to be the best Huntsman he could be, why is he slacking off long before his first real test as a Huntsman? The second, though, was a bit more alarming. With RWBY in trouble, Jaune hesitates, unsure of how to rush in to battle. Pyrrha takes charge and rallies JNPR forward into the fight. Jaune- instead of running behind his teammates, instead of being glad Pyrrha helped him out, instead of being thankful- groans at the missed opportunity. Not only was that groan inconsistent with Jaune’s earlier promise to allow Pyrrha to help him, it was just downright childish. People’s lives are on the line and he wastes time from joining the fight to pout that he didn’t get to rush his team into battle? That’s good behavior from a leader at all.

Two seasons in and there’s already a divide about Jaune. He’d taken up so much screen time and people were all around tired of seeing him. People were so tired of Jaune as a character, that he was the only character whose figure didn’t sell out at RTX and ComiCon. Again, here’s where I’m assuming RT got the hint- less Jaune please!

And they followed through! Jaune had so few lines season three and so much less screen time some of the people who’d been feeling alienated by him started to get over it. Jaune was finally being used to further Pyrrha’s plot- a plot with actual relevance to the overall plot of RWBY- instead of his own. He said all the right things, his characterization stayed consistent, and people genuinely felt bad for him when Pyrrha shoved him in the locker and blasted him off. The one thing Jaune hated the most, and Pyrrha did it to him to save his life. Granted, a lot of people took issue with the fact that Jaune never actually tried to get a hold of any of the professors Ozpin had commanded him to, and instead called Weiss before breaking his phone, but not everyone’s perfect. 

Season one Jaune was back during season three. Someone the original targeted audience could and wanted to relate to.

Unfortunately the plot is bending yet again to Jaune Arc’s shenanigans. Most people can agree the pacing for this season is god awful, but somehow the efficiency of Jaune’s alienation of the original FNDM has increased.

“We hit it, harder” was an absolutely terrible explanation to his actually somewhat decent plan, that required further explanation and precious time the others could’ve gotten seriously hurt during.

Melting down Pyrrha’s shield and tiara into his armor seemed like an entirely inappropriate gesture- instead of being laid to rest, they’re being used to strengthen Jaune? The gesture would seem less inappropriate if Jaune actually managed to start becoming a better fighter, but no... no he doesn’t.

Jaune getting all of the character development the loss of Pyrrha allotted the team is just bad writing. ALL of RNJR (as well as RWBY) lost a friend in Pyrrha. So far Jaune’s been the only person to have gotten any sort of growth from her loss (the recordings she left behind). Jaune wasn’t supposed to be a main character, why has he taken up growth that could’ve been spread evenly across RNJR or delegated to Ruby- the main protagonist of the story.

Calling Jaune the “strategist” of the team always seemed so out of place. Even more so considering how quick-thinking and resourceful Ruby always has been, from opening Neo’s umbrella, to shooting Nora with lightning Dust during the Tyrian fight in such a way Tyrian entirely thought the shot had been meant for him and gave Nora a clear shot for what would’ve been a fantastic OHKO. A couple of ill-described plans does not a strategist make.

Tyrian’s insinuation at being interested in Jaune for some unknown reason was- at least for me- the straw that broke the camel’s back. What exactly is so interesting about Jaune Arc? Well, we the audience don’t know- nor do most of us really care at this point- but RT will be sure to tell us eventually anyway. This pattern of giving Jaune unearned and undeserved attention stretches all the way to people who’re actively plotting the world’s demise. We’re tired of him, stop making him even more important without having him earn it!

Jaune closing his eyes, entirely unimpeded and unencumbered while holding the melted down remains of someone who died to protect her friends as the first person to ever show him an ounce of kindness at Beacon was about to die was so absolutely terribly bad. Ren and Nora at least were trying to recover from Tyrian’s assault. Jaune closed his eyes and grit his teeth and didn’t even bother trying.

And after watching Qrow save Ruby’s life and suffer a pretty bad injury at the hands of Tyrian, begins to demean Qrow for the adverse effects of his Semblance. “Some load of help you’ve been.” Jaune’s talking down to a man who’s not only a father figure to Ruby, but a man who saved all of RNJR’s lives and who stepped in to save Ruby when Jaune was too busy trying not to watch.

Last episode left off with Jaune being a huge dick to Ruby, who was only trying to comfort him. “They’ll be okay. “You don’t know that.” Jaune. Buddy. Pal. You’re kinda holding the comatose body of Ruby’s uncle, desperately trying to find medical help before he dies. “Our two friends who just split up probably won’t be okay” is not what she needs to hear right now. But for some reason, framing Jaune as more pragmatic was more important than giving Ruby and growth or emotion about the whole situation? Okay...

Now- for the reason I’m writing this in the first place- the Great War WoR. People are already assuming Jaune’s weapon, Crocea Mors was the sword the King of Vale had used during the final battle. Whether or not it is, whether or not Jaune is a relative of the King and through that, royalty. Whether or not all of these theories are unfounded, I can say this. Through my observation of the FNDM, most people are tired of Jaune Arc. Making him an heir of the king or placing any more unearned importance on him is going to drain people.

Let him fight. Let him earn his title. Let us see Jaune grow into the warrior Pyrrha saw in him. Quit pulling McGuffins to show us more of Jaune’s “untapped potential” and actually show us him trying to use it. I think that’s what most people want from him- what most people were expecting.

Tbh, I wrote this to try to explain all of the trends I’ve seen throughout the history of the FNDM as well as my own personal issues with the show, but I already feel that people are gonna take this as me targeting and hating on Jaune and not like, pointing out actual inconsistencies with characterization and storytelling the show has created on a consistent basis like I’ve been trying to do. If anyone who reads this feels similarly about Jaune, I’d be glad to hear what exactly puts you off about him to confirm or alter my theories about why the FNDM is so tired of him. If anyone who reads this thinks “Jaune is a great character, stop hating, it’s just a story, if you don’t like it don’t watch uwu” then like, please don’t bother commenting because I don’t feel like turning this post into another explanation as to why RT are failing Jaune as a character. Shoot me an ask instead, I’ll be glad to answer it there, but I wanna keep this post just for discussion for people who already have negative feelings towards Jaune.

[fey-and-sudden-and-unholy]

Random Survey 1.

1. Do you have a nice yard? If so, do you spend a lot of time outside in it? If not, where do you go when you want to relax outdoors on nice days?

The new house did come with a yard, yes.  I don’t think the previous owners really knew what to do with it, though, as it’s pretty bare.  I’ve got plans for it, this spring, though!  We’re getting rid of the evergreen that had been planted right next to the garage, because that’s a dumb place to put a tree.  We have a huge side yard, so I want to plant a new one, there.  Maybe a cedar.  I dig cedars. I also want to plant lavender in the back yard, and maybe fox gloves, and put a smol gazebo-thing for a place to sit.  The roomies will have to clean it out a bit, though, as it’s currently full of their puppy’s poo, and I don’t fancy kneeling and digging around in it, when the time comes. 

2. Is there a group of friends that you used to hang out with but no longer do? Why don’t you hang out anymore and how do you feel about them now?

Sure, I’m sure everyone does.  There are friends I knew in school, who just faded away after I was no longer in school.  There were friends who proved toxic, who simply no longer exist to me.  There were friends who came with my husband and predictably (and thus painlessly) disappeared the moment he became my ex-husband.  A lot of people in life are temporary.  Most, in fact. 

3. Do your parents enjoy any of the things that you enjoy? Do you bond over these things?

I inherited about half my taste in music from my dad (classic rock, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, etc.), so we bond over that.  Any time I discover a video of someone doing something awesome with a guitar, I’ll share it with him, and he was really impressed with 2Cellos.  Things like that.  When I was a kid, I bonded with my mom over hiking. We used to go to state parks and pick a creek and follow it back into the wilderness for hours, come back wet to the knees and muddy and sometimes vaguely hypothermic.  (Fuck ur namby pamby trails, ok?  City Folk...)  We don’t really bond over anything any more, though.  She’s turned too toxic for me to do anything but keep her at a safe distance.

4. Did you ever say or ask something that you assumed was a neutral subject, but the person you were talking to became offended and you had no idea why?

... Honey, you know what site this is, right..?  

5. What is the movie that you have waited the longest for/which film do you remember anticipating the most/are still anticipating?

I waited with bated breath for both Only Lovers Left Alive and Crimson Peak.  I’m really fond of Tom Hiddleston, so when I heard he was gonna a.) star in a vampire movie with Tilda Fucking Swinton, and b.) do a Gothic Romance directed by Guillermo del Toro, I was completely ecstatic on both counts.  I always get a little “oh yay!” moment when I pick up on the actors/directors I like doing something new, but in those instances in particular I was glued to the screen for any news until they came out.

6. Do you have any ideas for a story or movie you’re planning to write or you’d write if you got the time/had the talent? Please share a synopsis!

Oh dear lord...  So far as stories, there are so many, and I feel protective enough of the ones I’m actually working on to not wanna share a lot.  There’s an Epic Steampunk Fantasy I’ve been working on for like ten years (AKA The Goddamn Novel).  Since I’m giving that one a break until the ideas feel fresh again, I’m also working on one involving The Magic of Writing and a girl inheriting an outrageous fortune and being haunted by her awesome great great aunt, and there’s also faeries.  There’s about a thousand interconnected short stories I wanna do modernizing Changeling legends.  There’s a gothic fantasy about a pair of incestuous half-demon half-siblings who usurp their actually-worse father’s kingdom.  There’s... there’s just a lot I wanna do, ok?

If you want movie ideas, let me show you my book shelf, but god help you if you don’t respect the source material, okok.

7. Do you ever feel like anyone is “out of your league” or does that concept not make any sense to you? What do you do when you’re attracted to someone but find them out of your league?

I don’t think leagues exist.  I mean there are people who are Very Not Suited for one another, and sometimes it’s really obvious they’re not, but...   When I’m interested in someone, all I care about is whether the interest’s mutual.  If it is, then yay!  If it’s not, you lick your wounds and move on, or maybe you at least get a shiny new friend of out of it, which is pretty great, too.  You’ve just gotta talk to them and find out.

8. What is something that an interested guy/girl could comment about you, that would make you instantly open to them (e.g., “That book you’re reading is from my favorite author”)?

Instantly open... eeehhhhnnn *vague hand-wiggle*  I think I’ve got too many trust issues for that, really.  But similar tastes/interests/viewpoints is a big plus.  

9. Do you refer to yourself by any sort of fan nickname (Belieber, Little Monster, etc.)?

I’d classify myself as a phan. (Phantom of the Opera fan)  I don’t think any of my other fandoms actually have cutesy names.  Or, if they do I’m not involved enough with the social aspects of it to know.

10. Do you ever just get lazy and give up on your friendships?

When that’s possible, I think it probably shouldn’t actually be classified as a friendship.  Sounds more like an acquaintance, to me.  At which point, yeah.  

11. Is there a person in your life (maybe barely) that you feel in constant competition with (even just in your imagination)? Maybe you feel they are consistently outshining you.

No.  There are people I admire, and consider sort of role models.  But, as twee as it sounds, the only person I’m ever working to outshine is past!me.

12. If you are single, even if you are normally happily single, are there certain specific things you witness that make you wish you were in a relationship (e.g., people getting engaged)?

I am mostly happy single, but I miss having someone to cuddle with sometimes. So, little intimacies, I guess?  Romantic gestures just for their own sake, especially if the person has paid enough attention to their partner for it to be actually personal and not generic.  Or, people having intimate conversations, where they really obviously click and they’re just excited about each other.  I don’t feel jealous of people who get to do these things, but they do make me feel a little lonely.

13. What sort of situations make you feel most self-conscious or inadequate? Are there any people or places that just make you want to crawl into a hole? If you can’t think of anything specific, can you remember the last time (or any time) you felt this way?

Wasn’t our school system designed around creating instances like this...?

14. Out of all your usernames for websites, which one is your favorite? Do you use it for more than one site?

I like the one I have here.  It’s from a Dorothy Parker poem (one of the ones where she isn’t just trying to be flippant and clever, though I like those, too.)  Over on the only other site I really do much on, I go by sister_midnight, because David Bowie is one of those celebrities who I always kind of felt like was a beloved weird uncle I never actually got to meet. Also I like that song.

15. Are there any cities near you that you’re afraid to go to because of the crime rate or its other bad reputations?

I don’t think I’d want to be in parts of Indy after dark.  But honestly there are plenty of rural places and smaller towns around here I’d say that about, too.

16. If you went to camp as a kid, was it a pleasant experience? Do you think that all kids should be able to go to camp? If you didn’t go to camp, do you feel like you kind of missed out on something?

I got hustled off to Bible Camp, once.  I mostly didn’t bother protesting because it was something to do away from home, and my step-mother never respected me not wanting to go to church, so church-camp was the same sort of thing. It was kind of an alien situation, seeing as I hadn’t actually been Christian for about five years, by that point, but I was also used to it.  Plus, sometimes it’s just interesting what you can learn by letting people think what they want and just standing back and... watching them go.  I learned way more about what they were really like by doing that than by reading the Bible, that’s for certain.

17. Do you grandparents ever judge you or stick their heads in your business? If not, is there someone else in your life you dread seeing because of their unwanted input?

I was half raised by my grandparents after my parents divorced and my Dad moved back home, with me in tow.  They were never Catholic enough to do the church thing often, but by god they were Catholic enough to wanna use judgement and shame as a means of trying to browbeat you into who they thought you should be.  According to my father, the judgement started at conception, actually.  I was an accidental pregnancy, you see, and Grandma only stopped abusing him over it after he pointed out that abortion was always an option.

18. Have you ever spent the whole day (or multiple days) just looking up one thing on the internet (e.g., videos of your favorite band, how-to videos, quizzes, etc.)?

I studied faerie lore pretty much non-stop for like five years when I was a teen.

19. Would you ever go on a media fast (i.e., avoiding tv, movies, the internet, and magazines for a certain amount of time, in an attempt to become aware of how media makes you feel)? Do you think that sort of thing would benefit you?

Yeah, and actually I have found it beneficial in the past.  It’s good to take a break and unplug sometimes.

20. Are you happy with where you currently live? If not, what don’t you like about the area and do you plan on leaving?

I love the actual land, where I live.  We have some beautiful countryside, here.  But I don’t like the people, and would love to eventually move someplace more liberal.  I love New England, especially around Boston, and my best friend lives there. (Though I don’t think I’d want to live in the city.)  I’d like to poke at the West Coast, especially around Washington and see how that suits me.  And I adored Ireland, when I visited, so I wouldn’t write that off as an option either.  For now, though, here will do. I’m in a good situation to save up money and plot a permanent escape.

21. If someone told you that we live in a society that hates women, how would you respond?

Seems obvious to me.  Though, I do hold out a certain amount of hope for things to change for the better. We just need to build enough guillotines and put them to good use.

22. When was the last time you were on a boat? Whose boat was it, and what were you doing?

... I honestly can’t remember that last specific time.  o_0  Clearly I should fix this.

23. Have you ever been completely blindsided by a break-up or have you sort of felt all of your relationships deteriorating before they ended? If you would prefer not to answer, what is the last instance you can remember being totally blindsided by news you heard?

No, not really. Generally you can feel things starting to unravel.   

24. Can you remember the last thing you thought and subsequently thought, “wow, I really shouldn’t be thinking that”?

No.  Like Shakespeare said, thought is free.

25. If you ever think about getting married, what are some aspects of the wedding that you would like to see in a non-traditional manner (e.g., a different color dress or “partners” over “husband” and “wife”)?

I don’t do white clothes, wedding dress or otherwise.  As for the rest, if I bothered with a second wedding it would actually be for me, this time, so you can bet it wouldn’t be traditional.  Given that I couldn’t see myself choosing a traditional partner, I don’t imagine they’d mind.