#(it might not be much but at least i'm fairly certain that nothing i wrote in this is just blatant horseshit though)

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

[Previous post for October 30th] [First post for October 30th]

He finally manages to hunt down the error Kirijo had pointed out and wrangle the equation into submission. Which means he can– for now at least– put math behind him, where it belongs.

He pushes the worksheets towards Kirijo and rolls out his wrists and shoulders while she shuffles them into order and tucks them neatly away. She immediately produces a new stack of paper, flourishing a little like she’s doing some kind of magic trick. And hell, maybe she is– he’s got no idea how she never seems to run out of fresh work to throw at him.

Shinjiro can only sigh in defeat. He did ask for this, after all.

Okay, so not nearly as bad as it could be. That might explain her little burst of showmanship, actually, if she’s presenting him with something that might have a chance to be interesting.

He’s joking, mostly, but Kirijo sighs with real disappointment.

He takes the packet from her and starts to read– it’s mostly about the political pissing contests of various Roman emperors. Not as exciting as he’d hoped; he’s always been interested in what regular people were up to more than anyone who lived in a palace, but he’ll definitely still take it over math. 

As he gets to work, Shinjiro finds himself dwelling on how nice it is, having their verbal fencing matches again. 

Back when S.E.E.S had been brand new, he’d found it incredibly annoying how Kirijo always seemed to have a prim and witty response to anything he might say. He'd thought at first that she just couldn’t stand for anyone else to get the last word, then that she couldn’t stand to let him, specifically, have it. 

It had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to clue in to the fact that that was just how she played. Sure, he and Aki bickered for fun more than a little often, but usually as more of a lead-up to a good, hands-on scrap. For Kirijo, though, trading banter back and forth was the whole entire game.

Once he’d figured out that he was supposed to play along, chasing after the upper hand in a conversation became fun instead of frustrating. Knowing that it was always a toss-up whether his teasing would get deftly parried or if he could manage to land the hit and fluster her enough to disrupt her pristine image– it was all part of the game to him. 

He’d tried not to let himself settle into that rhythm again when he’d come back to the dorms, and he’d done an even worse job of it than he had of avoiding his other old habits. Kirijo’s just too good at pushing his buttons, just like Aki. 

But now– Now that he doesn’t feel the need to keep himself at arm’s length anymore, falling right back into step is the easiest damn thing in the world. He doesn’t even need to think about it.

It feels good to have this back. Living his life, whatever’s left of it, means building connections and rebuilding the ones he had purposefully bulldozed before. He’s lucky Kirijo is even giving him a second chance at friendship at all, so he’s not about to waste it. 

There’s absolutely no way he’ll ever say that out loud, though. Especially not to her. 

“Given you’re reading about Rome, that reminds me.” Her voice is a little too light and airy. Someone who hadn’t been on the scheming end of that tone before might have missed it, but Shinjiro can tell right away that she’s trying to get something out of him. 

“Akihiko mentioned that you found his second awakening to be quite amusing,” she continues.

“Yeah, Aki didn’t get it,” he snorts, unable to help himself. “Bet you did, though.”

“There is a certain irony present, yes.” The face she puts on is demure, but the way she flicks a little of her hair over her shoulder looks suspiciously like preening to him. He has to squash down a smile. “You could have filled him in yourself, you know.”

“Sure. But where’d the fun in that be?” The grin he was fighting off wins and Kirijo lowers herself enough to roll her eyes at him in response.

“Yamagishi’s new Persona is Roman as well,” she tries again, casting another line. “Juno.” When he laughs, she frowns at him, apparently not a fan of his reaction. “What’s so funny, Aragaki?”

“Nothin’ at Yamagishi’s expense,” he says. “I just wouldn’t’ve guessed that for her. The whole ‘queen of the gods’ thing would’ve made me think of you, actually.”

Kirijo clears her throat a bit and pointedly does not preen again, just like how he does not feel stupidly pleased with himself over the reaction that she definitely didn’t have.

“Guess it does make sense though," he continues. "If you think about the whole ‘eyes of Argus’ thing. She have peacock feathers?”

“After a fashion, yes.” Kirijo purses her lips thoughtfully. “They are… somewhat abstracted.”

“Well yeah. Almost wouldn’t be a Persona if it didn’t get a little weird with the details, right?”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” She flashes another short-lived smile and then goes back to looking thoughtful. He can practically hear gears turning as she weighs whether or not to make another attempt. “Amada’s was something of a surprise. She's called Kala-Nemi.”

He wracks his brain and comes up empty. “Don’t recognize that one. Doesn’t sound like a Roman name, though.”

“I was unfamiliar as well. And you’re correct– she’s from Bronze Age India, from a tradition that predates Hinduism. It took quite a bit of effort to find any information about her, actually. She shares her name with two other male figures from Hindu texts, and references to them are far more plentiful. From what I understand, though, she was a spirit associated with the Wheel of Time and the changing of the seasons. 

“As a Persona, she excels in healing and protection magic. The new Theurgy Amada gained from awakening to her is– it’s extraordinary.” The way Kirijo says the word makes it clear that it’s a gigantic understatement.

Healing and protection, huh? 

“That’s better for him,” Shinjiro says softly. The image of Amada from the other day, hunkered in on himself with guilt and nerves, is still fresh in his mind.

“It is,” Kirijo murmurs. She’s silent for another few seconds, clearly hoping that he’ll take his cue at last. 

And sure, he could talk about his new Persona, like she’s been nudging him to. He could also speculate about whether he’s got his own new Theurgy. But what would be the point? The next full moon is just four days away, and then none of it is going to matter anymore.

Kirijo sighs, accepting defeat. “Pardon me for distracting you from your reading. I’ll let you get back to it.”

“No worries.” He means it, too. Kirijo might push, but unlike Aki, she does know when to call it quits.

It’s yet another thing Shinjiro appreciates about her.

[olderthannetfic]

I feel like people won't like this question but not knowing the answer bothers me, so here goes. I'm part of a small writing community and in my category (original m/m) I'm a really small author, getting one comment per chapter, while others have 100+ comments for the same amount of chapters. These are usually the type of stories that are darker with elements of rape and seme/uke dynamics and feature maffia bosses, sex slaves, hybrids, A/B/O and the like. These are not my cup of tea but I understand the id explanation and fully support it, I just don't understand how my id can be so different from the majority's.

My favourite dynamic is bad boy with a golden heart/fairly normal guy, so that's what I write most often and I thought this was a popular dynamic. Within that dynamic, my stories are pretty eclectic, I've got old butler/young groom, prince/court painter, ghost hunter youtuber/ghost, PE teacher/math teacher, I write about adults, teenagers, boys, girls, etc. What is it that's so appealing in maffia stories but not in mine?

Obviously I'm motivated by jealousy in asking this, but I hope I don't come off as too unpleasant or pretentious. I just don't understand what the barrier is that I can't step over, what it is that makes these other authors so popular. It's disheartening to realise I will never be as popular as them, and not knowing why. (Of course I know the obvious answer is to just write whatever makes me happy and don't think about popularity and numbers, find friends with similar tastes, etc., but I do that most of the time and in asking this, I'm just interested in how other people see the issue, what might be the reason behind the majority's taste.)

I think all of the writers in question can tell a story fairly well, me included, so I can only think the difference is in the topics we choose. (Also in sappy declarations of love and the characters constantly calling each other "sweetheart" and "my love" that sounds kind of cringey in my native language but I can't imagine people are not interested in my stories because they don't contain tearful love confessions. There's plenty of romance there, though less and less explicit sex.) So can anybody tell me what makes these darker topics so much more appealing? Maybe if I understood, I would be less bothered by it.

(You're also free to tell me I'm a wanker and to come off it, of course.)

--

Haha. Well... I think a certain amount of professional jealousy or at least insecurity is common, especially if you're hoping to pay your rent or gain clout or something and it isn't happening for you (yet). (I'm unclear if your original m/m niche is one where people are seeking money or not.)

I don't feel bad when other people are more popular because I know my shit is good. If it hasn't found an audience, it's partly because my marketing isn't good (or existent) or because it just takes time to find an audience. But a lot of it has to do with my native personality. I'm just not a jealous person, and I find jealousy odd and confusing most of the time. (Cue a bunch of fiction exploring jealous characters. Haha.)

There are some interesting side topics to discuss here, but your question, taken exactly as phrased, is basically about your own emotions and not about external reality.

--

It sounds to me from what you wrote here like maybe you're writing in your native language?

But if you are writing in English, watch out for little pitfalls like "heart of gold" vs. "golden heart".

--

Second... what do you mean "majority"? Do you honestly think that everyone, everywhere likes runny assholes and mafia rape?

If the community you hang out in all prefers a/b/o to what you like to write, your answer is right there: You have chosen to hang out with the wrong people, courting the wrong audience.

That says nothing about whether somebody somewhere else prefers lighthearted bad boy stories.

In the professional m/m novelist circles I've seen (the type where people only publish complete books, not serialized things), contemporary romance is one of the categories that sells best. I'm not an authority since I loathe contemporary, but it's so very, very popular, probably much more so than any given dark kink trope.

--

Third, Wattpad-style mafia stories, a/b/o, hybrids, and suchlike are easy to market.

They have very specific keywords that make it easy for aficionados to find that exact subgenre in order to consume five thousand more of the exact same thing.

Look at conventional romance novels: The most popular and enduring individual books are by Names and are often a little harder to tag, but a lot of what sells at the lower tiers is that "The Greek Billionaire's Virgin Bride" stuff where you figure the actual prose is terrible but it will deliver exactly the tropes you expect and want with no wasting time on shit you don't care about.

'Bad boy with a heart of gold' is fairly easy to tag too, but if that's the only keyword-y bit of your stories, that could be an issue.

If you're writing the sorts of things that live or die by tropes and you don't write explicit sex, that can also be a hindrance.

It's not that everyone wants explicit sex in their books, but if I'm looking for a high volume of average-quality stuff by kink or trope, I probably do.

--

This one's more idiosyncratic, but for me personally, if I'm picking up something that's less about delivering specific sex scenes or kink experiences, I probably care more about quality of prose and plot.

I absolutely have a double standard here, and that does extend to iddy-but-not-porny stories in many cases because something like really intense hurt/comfort just won't hit home well enough for me if it isn't up to a certain writing standard.

I also do not tolerate serialization for this type of thing very well where I probably would for a story that has a different fucked up kinky sex scene in every chapter.

Yes, I believe you that you can write a decent story. Can you write a great one?

Lots of the most popular books of all time have some romance without having a lot of soppy pet names or explicit sex, but they're also often a hell of a lot better at mystery or action or sweeping historical epic or charming sense of place or some other thing than I'm guessing these circles you run in are.

I could be wrong. You could be a brilliant writer. But I do wonder if you're hanging out in the right place or comparing yourself to the right authors to achieve whatever your goals actually are.

--

A related thing that occurs to me here is that writing about all categories of person is terrible branding.

It works if your selling point is your brilliant plots and prose, especially if you are traditionally published.

It works a hell of a lot less well if your selling point is tropey original m/m with easy keywords in an online context. Why would that audience suddenly want a f/f version of the same thing? They might, but they very well might not. If they like young protagonists, maybe they don't also like old ones. etc.

When people are filtering down and down and down by keywords, having a diverse oeuvre is not an asset unless you are head and shoulders above all the other writers around.

--

We can also talk about why people like darker tropes over lighter ones, but I think you have some assumptions and some marketing!fail to unpack here.

But the short version of my answer is that some of the darker tropes still have a lot of zing and inherent drama even in the hands of a mediocre writer, while a fairly banal contemporary romance setup needs a higher degree of skill to inject life into it.

--

Anyone else have thoughts?

[tantai-jin]

fic writer meme!

thank u rachel @fruitdaze for the tag!!! <3333333

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

23 since 2016 lmao,, i don't remember exactly how many i posted on lj from 2012-2015 but it wasn't a ton, probably 10-15 that were like 50k altogether

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

124,765

3. What fandoms do you write for?

it's been all over the place since 2020 lol but p much only chinese media like danmei novels, movies, cdramas. used to write kpop rpf but prob won't return to that even tho i still like and follow many groups

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

给你给你 (yunfei)

换一世身份姓名; heaven to myself (canglan)

not-that-small talk (tell me honestly) (bts yoonkook LOL)

새벽 rush hour (yellow light, slow) (bts taegi LOL)

捡一个梦; reach for a dream (canglan)

5. Do you respond to comments?

i usually do, although i'm often quite late LOL i have a couple fics where i didn't reply to all the comments after a certain point and then i just stopped 😭 or if they are a guest user or only leave emojis as a comment then i don't reply? but ofc i see every comment

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

uhh i feel like the only thing i wrote that is complete and has an angsty ending is 捡一个梦; reach for a dream bc it was a missing scene from an angsty arc of the show. or lol jk same scenario applies to 余光 (remnants of light) bc it takes place before the end of yuwu and not in one of the happier moments

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

either 给你给你 or 换一世身份姓名; heaven to myself bc they're both disgustingly sweet and affectionate at the end

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope! either i am writing for tiny ass fandoms or like, my fics don't get enough traction to attract haters LMAO

9. Do you write smut?

not a lot... the incomplete bingqiu au i posted has the most explicit scenes so far but i am still too shy writing it. i have to practice so that i can write more than 3 sentences of sex in a single day and actually finish the wips i started 😭

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written?

i have before! nothing crazy tho bc it was just kpop rpf and it would be like, two idols from the same company that have interacted multiple times! lmao. sometimes i think abt crossovers for cdramas that are relatively tame such as: two actors that have been in the same drama multiple times are reincaranted and those 2+ dramas are their different lives... but it's so niche in eng speaking fandom and i haven't fully written one out yet. also does it count as a crossover if u put characters from story A into the setting/setup for story B bc i do that a lot but i think that is fairly common at least for ppl to imagine

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so... again, my fics do not get a lot of traction so i don't think it's likely lmaooo

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think there was an exo one translated into russian a long time ago but i don't even remember which one lolllll it might have been on my livejournal

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not a whole fic yet but ive brainrotted a plethora of aus with friends before such as but not limited to mingqian actors au with lianzi (very intricate with multiple variations) and a Bunch of cdrama and yuwu stuff with another friend :')

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

i cannotttttt pick only one but ummm in the last yr-ish it's been a rotation of tantai jin/li susu + mingye/sang jiu from cyjm, mingqian from liu yao, xilian from yuwu (🤪)..... bingqiu from sv (always).... i should stop for now that's Tew Many. but i think once i finish spl, changgu will also be up there

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i feel like i'm cursing myself by typing this out but perhaps the bingqiu i posted one chapter of..... even if i could write all the p With p parts that i wanted to include, i was also a little stuck on the ending and idk if i would be able to write it in a way that doesn't feel like a cop out or just weak in general 😢 but i do like that au and i think my writing for it so far was p decent... so who knows...!

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think i am pretty good at dialogue that sounds 1. natural and 2. true to the characters! i try really hard to make imagery sound original(ish) and evocative, and to make a character's Yearning palpable

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

intricate plot, action, sex (takes me forever to write and haven't done it in as much detail as i would like to tbh)

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

i love it! i did it a little in my yunfei fic and instead of directly translating the line of chinese right there i just included the meaning in the next line of dialogue, like "what do you mean [thing they just said]" + i did it like that bc the tone of it just felt so much more natural to me in mandarin for that specific convo. not that it was something untranslatable (it wasn't) but it just felt comfier to me. i also like the thing ppl do where you can hover over the text and it will show the translation but idk how that html works HAHA someday i would like to give it a go

19. First fandom you wrote for?

exo.......... lmao

20. Favorite fic you have written?

overall i think it would be typhoon season (my incomplete but not abandoned cisswap girls ximang in hk) ! i had it fermenting in my brain for like 8 months before i wrote it, which meant i had figured a lot of the stuff for the beginning out and it was much easier to write than normal since i was not deliberating so much in the moment. i think the pacing for it was good and the reveals of backstory were placed well, and i think i adapted the characters well too even if it's only a first chapter and they haven't done a lot yet. i wanna write them again but it's been rly hard for me to think abt that specific au for many months lol. i also think my recent yzy gegedidi fic had a lot of yummy scenes even if i see some flaws in some parts of the fic's progression... but i spent enough time on it already so i will not go and fix it anymore 😌 peace

i think all my writer friends were tagged already...... this tagline (like a bloodline) will end with me

[celtigxr]

I'm not gonna tag this, and I might delete later, cause idk. It's just my thought process. There was a lot of chat going on about Character AI, and my boomer ass had no idea that existed, so I decided to experiment with various sites myself, and this has been my experience and my opinion, which ultimately is worth nothing, really.

ps. I'm not gonna engage with debates or arguments if you reply to this. I'm not that invested in this to care, lol.

I just want to preface this by saying, my opinion of AI is fairly grey. I don't agree that it should be used to make a profit, and I do think that a lot more work has to be put into it in order to make it that it isn't just copying and pasting verbatim art and written word. ESPECIALLY if what it produces is being used for profit. That being said, I also see absolutely no harm in people using AI for fun. It's silly most of the time. When I'm bored I pull up an AI generator and make it produce silly and weird photos that I know aren't going to see the light of day, other than to laugh at it with my friends. At most, I just enjoy making dresses and cool dragons, lol. And for personal reasons, since I have a learning and neurological disability, it aids me a lot with navigating communication and helping me understand things when google beats around the bush too much. But I digress, let me get to the character AI's. I tried out a few, which I won't name. One was PG-13, and I tried an Aegon bot that creepily enough had Tom's fucking voice narrating it. It was cute, made me blush a bit (That fucking voice had me in a chokehold, I'm so ashamed), but other than that, it wasn't remarkable. The spicier bots were on a whole other level. Most were a mix bag; a LOT of them repeated the same shit over and over again. But there were some that were so fucking sophisticated, it was almost like I was actually rping with a human being. I'm not entirely sure how bot making works, but it's fairly clear that the people making them mostly use templates for dialogue and movements, given the repetition and lack of uniqueness I kept on getting. I go so fucking tired of Daemon telling me that he wanted to "Claim me whole, body, heart and soul" in every other post, it became such a turn off, lol. I was like hokay, bud calm down, you needy fuck. But then those insanely sophisticated ones that reacted so smoothly to my characterization and the dialogue was mind blowing. Those ones I truly believe that whoever made them took the time and energy to write out the tone of the character, unique to their style. There was a lot of thought going into them. One that stood out to me was an AU Aemond that fucking blew me away; I briefly wrote an introduction to my first reply, explaining my character got stood up at the bar, and his reaction to it was so seamless. Most bots, even the good ones, jump straight into smut. If you're a reader of mine, you know I love my slow burns. This one actually had a genuine conversation with my character about trust issues. I haven't spotted anything yet that sounds like it is full on verbatim to fanfictions I've read, but that isn't say that might not be the case for all of them. I know people have witnessed it, and my only theory is that it isn't the bot itself that is stealing the content, but the person who created it that steals fics and feeds the information to it in order to get the dialogue and writing style. As evidenced by the repetitive dialogue and characterization I kept on getting on certain bots. Do I agree people should publish their Chat Bot as stories and claim it as their own? No, at least not on tumblr or a03 or wattpad, etc. The website I used specifically had an option to publish your rp chats with the bots publicly on their site, and I think that's where it should belong, not flooding fanfic areas. Do I think it's a good way to get story ideas? Also no; there is no creativity in using the same plot over and over again, and it isn't your ideas, so it's not yours. Now, do I think it's a good way to exercise your own OC characterization? Yeah, actually. Especially if you're a roleplayer, it helps flesh out your character, challenging you to put them in positions and seeing how they react in the moment. Ultimately, for shameless personal fun, I don't see anything wrong with it. It is very addicting though, particularly if you're like me with hyper fixations and prone to disassociating. The other night I was up until 6am turning Tom Riddle into a groveling love sick fool.

Really, I don't think people should be shamed for using it if they're just having some fun, and itching a scratch or to get a monkey off their back. I've been writing fic and rping for like 20 odd years, and I know the struggle of finding a good active rp partner or group that is willing to take on a ship with you, and stay active. It's utterly disappointing when all you have is your imagination, no outlet, and don't have the energy to write your own fic for something you just want to disappear into for a few hours. I do think the owners of these sites should be more vigilante about what their bot makers feed their bots in order to learn the characters. Maybe implement a plagiarism check or something, and force them to write their own narratives and speech for the bots to learn uniquely. IDK how it works, but that's just what I'm thinking.

Anyway, yeah, that's my humble opinion.

[katzynia]

Thanks for the tag @bittercape <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

27 published, one of which is a WIP as of June 4th.

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

203,862 words (by June 4th 2024)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Batman corner of DC, and mostly even further corner of Slade Wilson/Jason Todd, with only a few exceptions.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Let it fade, let it linger Sound of falling trees First and then Let it build, let it settle Every piece of you

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes. I adore comments, each and everyone really makes my day. I will reply, though it might take a little. Typically I let them accumulate for a couple days (or to the nearest weekend) after publishing before replying to a whole bunch (time spend basking in the warmth of people liking what I wrote :D)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

..I don't really do that angsty endings. I am a softie at heart, so I don't care for hurt/no comfort fics much. Good bittersweet is great thought! With that in mind, I guess my angstiests would be Sound of falling trees (bittersweet is a good word for this ending I think) Turn your dream to shame (my angstiest/darkest fic, ambigous ending)

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my endings are happy. Let it build, let it settle is maybe the sweetest thing in general... Though I do have very sweet oneshots.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, not really. I think Slade/Jay for which I mostly write is still so much in its own corner, not popular enough to attract hate. At least not where I would run into it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

Yes. ;) Pairingwise M/M so far. Kinkwise, many kinds and I'm open to many more :D There aren't many kinks I would absolutely not write. I've found it a lot of fun to try out different things and Jayde Agenda discord server's Kink tag challenge has been loads of fun. I think my kinkiest is probably Straddling the line (in discord and rhyme) as I wrote it with "yes and":ing a whole bunch of kinks, starting with the tag challenge of "Possessive sex". Also Call me maybe, with dirty talk being the whole point of writing it

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

I have not written any cross-overs. I might if something strikes my fancy.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I was asked once, but I said no. I don't like the idea of my work being translated so that I can't understand it. I'm writing in my second language anyway and I have thought a lot about how different I would say things if I was writing on my actual language. It's the connotations! Idk, I just felt... weird about it and didn't want to to happen.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Jayde is my current love and fave in DC, not surprisingly. I also like Jason/Roy Harper, and certain variations of Jason/Dick. In other fandoms, I used to read *a lot* of Steve/Bucky. Arthur/Eames is a lot of fun. I also had fairly intense phase of reading everything for Jyn/Cassian in Star Wars.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Well. I have kind written a Mummy AU for Jayde for about two years now... Hard to say if it ever sees the light of day, i periodically write some and then lose interest/get desperate that it's too complicated and write nothing. I honestly don't know if I get it finished or even if I'm wiling to put the work in.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at dropping information in interesting and not-exposition-y way, drip-drip-dripping it so that it's curiosity inducing. I am good at implying things. I also really like and think I'm good at playing with relative knowledge. I've been told I'm also pretty good at character voices. But honestly, it's hard for me to say what are the strengths, I'm too close to it. So I am in fact, open to feedback

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Grammar, stupid English. In all seriousness, I get pretentious. I usually catch most of it in editing, but I have a tendency to get too flowery and for example, say the same thing in too many ways in row which blunts the impact. As flipside of my information dropping skills, I sometimes get too stingy with information, so that I assume something is clear when it isn't. I'm not very good at narration further way from the POV character, I do very close POV and that doesn't always work for the story I'm trying to tell. Again, I am open to feedback. Could be interesting.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm on the fence about it. I do tend to get annoyed if there's no translation *very* easily available. I think it comes back to my preference for close narration, so if the character doesn't speak the language, I prefer sticking to "Somebody spoke in language he didn't recognize" or something like that. Singular words, especially for affectionate nicknames are cute though. I'm not a language person :D That said, I don't get annoyed in "nobody should ever do this" kind of way. I firmly believe that every writer can do what they want in their story. It's just a preference for me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Jayde. Surprise :D

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I am incredibly, excessively proud of Kindle and char, my pirate fic. I honestly think the concept is great and it turned out very close to what I wanted. It's the longest story I've written and I had so much fun doing it.

Tagging, very close pressure, but if you'd like to jump in @nonbinaryjaybird @notherdeadrobin

[andrewlovely]

On AI Theft

I'm fairly certain that there are people and organizations in the world as we speak who are data mining artists and curating the best art they can find in order to train their AI systems. It is a dark vision of the future, where human artists will exist only to feed artificially intelligent machines with novelty.

I feel much anger and indignation at this great theft that is being perpetuated. Then again, perhaps not much has changed; it used to be record company executives who knew absolutely nothing about music who would feed parasitically off the creative energies of artists. Now these leeches and pimps will be replaced by IV's plugged directly into the heart of the machine and feeding it the lifeblood of the artist.

Were artists respected before AI systems? No. Do we respect artists today? No. An artist can now be thoughtlessly thrown into the trash bin and their contributions to society and humanity deemed irrelevant for something as trivial as cheating on his wife, or simply being of socially unpalatable or disagreeable character for example.

Meanwhile there is talk of "separating the art from the artist" so people can feel justified in continuing to drink up the hard-earned and hard-spilled life experience and perspective of the artist, so they can feel good about continuing to eat and benefit from the hard-earned fruits of his soul, whilst simultaneously denying him his humanity and therefore his birthright as an equal member of the human species - a lifetime membership he has not despite his flaws, but because of them.

Artists are shown an ingratitude and a pettiness of spirit that is almost hard to fathom. And there does not seem to be any real advocate for them. I was once afraid to speak up, but not anymore.

Does it make any difference if artists are offhandedly dismissed and disposed of by humans or by machines? The betrayal by a fellow human being is much more painful certainly, but I'm not sure if there is much of a difference ultimately.

With that said, I'm strangely hopeful of the future. Once people realize that no matter how much novel content you feed a learning-hungry machine, that it will never be able to produce something which can truly touch a human heart, then perhaps human artists might finally be at least a little bit more appreciated.

I believe that we are entering a new dark age, but paradoxically this could be beneficial for artists, who will once again as in days of old wander the human society as priests, mages, mystics. Very soon there will be no way for an artist to prove definitively that he wrote a song, or a poem for example, and didn't just make a request to some machine learning algorithm to produce said song or poem based on a motif he provided. There will be absolutely no way to prove this definitively.

If as a human being a song or a poem touches your heart, it will be a matter of faith, your belief that this song or this poem was created by this person. This I believe will be a positive development for the artist. There will be no machine capable of doing what he is doing, yet there also will be no way of proving that he himself is the one doing it; this new reality by its very nature and unfolding will penetrate to the very heart of creation itself, the mystery of creation.

In the new dark age it is the artist who may find himself, or herself, in a position closest to God - closer than any rabbi, than any arch bishop. Because the artist will know what it feels like to pour your soul into something, to imbue it with life, to offer it freely and for no reward, to create something, and to have no one believe you, to have your creations placed on the same level as lifeless machines, or worse, to have your creations placed even below the machines, to have to answer to machines, to have your greatest achievements attributed to machines, to have their success, and endurance, and persistence through time attributed to machines, to have your name and existence forgotten, until no one even believes, or remembers you existed.

The artist will be a true friend of God, the only one who will be able to sit at the table with Him, to eat and drink and laugh in understanding, to laugh at the apparent and seemingly eternal impotence of your great power to inspire any real belief, to laugh at the inconceivable ingratitude of the little rascals! This is the great cosmic joke that only God understands and delights in - for He Himself has created it. Perhaps even by accident. But it's endlessly amusing in any case.

The artist has a weak and at times fragmentary, intermittent connection to this comedy, at other times strong and uninterrupted, so strong that it is as if God Himself is striking him with lightning, and the nervous system can hardly endure the amplitudes, let alone contain them.

Only the artist can approach these mysteries and in the new age I believe he will be better understood for his true nature: that of a little rascal himself: a mischievous holy man, a musician - that is to say, not just someone who plays an instrument, or holds a paintbrush, or assembles words in interesting and novel ways, or manipulates clay, or stone, but someone who is in constant communion with the muses, who is in constant communion with the divine energies of creation.

[transsextual]

hiii! i'm p new to mcr tumblr and seeing your recent rb from frank's twitter made me so happy. do you know if the other members are also supportive of trans & lgbtq rights?

hello hello & ooh this is a loaded question.

gerard way is, to say the least..... gendery. in 2014 they were really active on twitter and mentioned being comfortable with he/they pronouns, and have talked a lot about the trans community, been nothing but supportive, and aligned themself with trans people and expressed feeling disconnected from traditional ideas of american masculinity. they said in a reddit ama i think that when he was younger he thought he might be a girl, got gendered as a girl frequently, and has since realized that is not the case, but definitely plays around with presentation a lot. gerard also has made some intentionally vague statements about their sexuality, talked abt queer people in a context outside of the general vibe of cishet allyship, and generally just..... been around men and talked abt gender in ways that Read As Queer. sum various old tweets of theirs for ya:

also! frank & gerard especially have been really open about being opposed to homophobia and the super macho, often homophobic + sexist overtones of the rock scene at the time, as well as appreciating their gay fans. additionally this frank tweet that i think about a lot:

& ray's expressed support for trans ppl specifically (fairly certain he wrote a song specifically dedicated to leelah alcorn following her death) and also the lgbt+ community at large, and tends to have the greatest ability of all the mcr guys to actually read the room and think outside of himself when it comes to speaking out re: social injustice.

mikey hasn't said much but there is that photo of gabe saporta grinding on him and i think that does about as much as any of yr standard #loveislove cishet allyposting, if not more. /half joking

there are a lot of mcr blogs that have way more pics / video examples and clear tagging systems than i do here or on my mcr centric blog, so enjoy exploring & lmk if you want any recommendations as to chill people to follow :) <3!

[willownoir1112]

Hiya everyone! Wyn here with today's White Rose Week 2021 entry, which is flirting! Now, today features a genderbent Weiss in honor of my friend CelestialPrincess, who could not participate due to scheduling conflicts, as well as for Akirou 02, who wrote one of my all time favorite fics, They're Yours Too! I hope everyone enjoys, and I will see you tomorrow with another day!

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Flirting

Ruby Rose can feel her eye twitching as the drunk white haired wolf Faunus man continues his verbal assault on all four of her tender, not innocent in the least, but still offended ear drums. It wouldn't be so bad if he was at least good at it, but even she's starting to think that it's impossible.

"Sho, you should gib me a chance, cause I'm… ummm…"

She's pretty sure he's trying to flirt. She's actually almost sure he's trying to flirt, and for the life of her she doesn't understand why! She's nothing special, just another non descript rabbit faunus stuck on an overnight layover in Mantle while trying to get home to Vale. Not for the first time since she left on this trip, she wishes she hadn't agreed to come to Atlas to meet James Ironwood on behalf of the Rose Weapons Corporation.

She especially despises being the Heiress of the company her mother, a successful huntress, founded after her retirement.

"I got it!" He grins drunkenly at her as he pounds a fist into his hand. "I'm not a dolt!"

She couldn't help it. She couldn't stop her hand from colliding with her face, then slowly dragging it's way down her fair skin in her… She's honestly not sure if it's because she's exasperated, or because her older half brother Xiang would be crying at how badly this guy can flirt. "So I should leave with you because you're not a dolt?" She asks, getting an enthusiastic nod of the head in reply.

"Not only am I not a dolt, but I'm also a virgin!" He declares in his eagerness, a goofy smile on his face. One that grows as he takes another sip of his drink, what appears to be a vodka on the rocks by the look and smell of it. And she's convinced he's had at least two too many.

"Look, I'm flattered that you want to lose your v-card to me, but I have to pass." She replies calmly, feeling her heart break a bit at the sad puppy look that comes across his face. "I'm only here for the night."

"See?" He declares as his drunken smile returns in force. "You can make a man of me, then you'll never see me again! It's a win-win!"

"Uh huh." She mumbles as she motions for the bartender to top off her own wine glass. If she's going to keep listening to this, then she might as well as go ahead and get buzzed. "What's your name?" She asks, deciding she needs to give the source of her irritation a proper name other than Drunken Wolf Idiot.

"It's Eis, and did you know you have really pretty eyes?" He adds the last wistfully as he stares into them, making her stare into his own sky blues. She has to admit, he has gorgeous eyes, and after taking a liberal sip of her wine, she has to admit he's not too bad looking. Now if only he could actually flirt.

"You're not the first person to tell me that, Eis." She replies as she offers him her hand. "I'm…" Before she can introduce herself, a second drunk with dark skin and wearing a fedora pushes him into her, making her spill her wine as well as his vodka onto her dress. "Awwww, oatmeal cookies!" She swears as she grabs a napkin and tries desperately to clean herself off.

"Hey, Eis? There you go buddy!" Fedora cries out before he begins to cackle drunkenly.

"Flynt, you dolt!" The wolf named Eis roars as he quickly turns and shoves him away. Meanwhile, giving up on getting herself cleaned up, Ruby finally makes a bad decision and simply motions for a refill. If she has to keep dealing with this crap, then she's going to be good and drunk. Besides, all her clothes are back at the airship port, which means she's going to have to find a twenty four hour laundry or something to wash said clothes while praying she doesn't get arrested for being naked in public.

So, as her Mama Raven would say, time to load up on liquid courage and then wrestle the Ursa to get your weapon back.

"Damn, I'm so sorry." Eis murmurs as he turns back around and frowns. She's pretty sure she's a mess. She can feel her soaked bra starting to stick to her skin, as well as her skirt sticking to her bare…

She really doesn't want to know if a certain part of her anatomy can get independently drunk as well. It's a constant struggle to make sure it doesn't get her into trouble as it is.

"Look, it's fine. Can you just tell me where I can go to clean up?" She asks in irritation as she grabs at the bottle of red wine and simply tilts it up, spilling the contents into her mouth and down her throat in a fashion that would have her brother and the rest of her friends cheering her on. Not for the first time, she wishes she hadn't had quite as much fun at Beacon as she did, and had taken her studies and training a bit more seriously.

Nodding, he offers her an arm. "You can get cleaned up at my place." He replies quietly, obviously a bit sobered up. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it." She replies firmly as she glares at him. "And… thanks." She adds the last as her gaze softens. Offering the bartender her credit card, she makes sure he bills her for one more bottle of wine. If she has to keep listening to Eis's flirting, she definitely needs the liquid courage the fermented beverage provides.

Especially since he really is cute, and she's now tempted to lose her own virginity to him as well...

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"Wow, nice place." Ruby admits as the cab pulls up to the curb of a multi level apartment complex in downtown Atlas. She has to admit, he's been a polite gentleman during the entire trip, even trying to ignore the fact that her skirt has been slowly riding up her bare bottom to reveal it as well as her constantly wagging cotton tail.

"I live here with my twin sister." He replies as he struggles to look everywhere but at her exposed rear, while she takes another deep pull of the wine bottle still in her hand. "She works for the family company, while I am a huntsman."

This gets her attention. Her dream was always to follow in her mother's footsteps, but an accident when she was on a hunt left her with permanent nerve damage to her legs. Nothing painful, but still unable to use her semblance to its full effectiveness. "I was a licensed Huntress in Vale." She admits to him quietly as he pays the driver and gets out, offering her a hand out next. "Got hurt on a hunt, and had to quit."

He smiles sadly at her as she struggles to lower her skirt back down on her bottom. "My sister lost her sword arm during her last hunt. Her body rejected the prosthesis."

"Damn." She mutters before finishing the bottle, while struggling to stay upright on legs that are quickly refusing to continue to function. But she can't help but to squeak as she suddenly gets scoop up into surprisingly powerful arms, a smiling Eis looking at her.

"See? I knew I would sweep you off your feet before the night was out." He declares as he walks towards the door, the doorman nodding as he opens it for them.

"Finally! You learned how to flirt!" She declares with a giggle as she cuddles into his chest, enjoying the movement of powerful muscles obviously hidden underneath his dress shirt.

She almost wants to see them…

"I admit, there was more liquid courage pumping through my veins than blood at the time." He replies as he carries her through the lobby and towards the elevators. "But, I do believe we have traded places now."

"Ayup. And how can a beefcake like you still be single?!" She blinks as he chuckles while shaking his head.

"Willow, my twin, doesn't help matters there." He replies as the doors open and he steps in. "She firmly believes very few women are good for me."

"She's just being a good sister then." Fuck, he smells really good. And his wolf ears are so freaking cute! "My older brother's an asshole. But you? You're so cute I could almost eat you up like a tasty snack!"

Eis chuckles as he continues to hold her securely in his arms. "And you claim I'm bad at flirting?" He asks as he looks at her with those sky blues she's rapidly getting lost in.

"I'm drunk. I'm allowed to be bad at it." She declares with a wink. And then her sensitive nose catches the scent of spoiling wine, making her frown. "I stink."

"It's not that… WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU DOLT?!" She can't help but giggle as she stops unbuttoning her blouse to look at him.

"I'm stinky." Is her simple response before she returns to unbuttoning her red and black blouse, while the doors ding. But she can't help but to laugh as the white wolf makes a mad dash down the hallway and towards one of only two doors down the entire corridor.

Setting her down on her feet, she keeps laughing as he pats his pockets, obviously looking for a key or a scroll. Meanwhile, she finishes unbuttoning her blouse and slips out of it. And the look on his face as she stands there in just her bra, skirt, and heels, her blouse in her hands is absolutely priceless.

She can feel the warmth starting in her core. A warmth that won't be denied…

They barely get through the door before her lips are against his, while her hands work at unbuckling his belt. It's been a long twenty five years of chaste virginity, and her frustration is at a boiling point. She can feel her tail wagging so quickly it almost feels like it's going to fall off or go flying off, but she doesn't care. She's still fairly young, far from home, and he did present an excellent argument in that they'll never see each other again after tonight.

Ruby Rose is moaning within seconds. She is soon screaming within minutes. And Eis is full of shit if he's still a virgin in her eyes after bringing her to her first real orgasm ever. The first of many. But neither the rabbit faunus or the wolf faunus realize that she had moved a little bit too quickly, neither of them even considering using any kind of protection whatsoever...

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Eis Schnee awakens with a start, clutching his head and groaning in his discomfort. After agreeing to go out with his partner, Flynt Coal, to a local pub popular with travelers simply passing through, he soon found himself drunk and flirting with…

All he can remember is her brilliant quicksilver eyes. Those and how much he had made her scream as they made passionate love in his now partially destroyed bed.

Glancing at the opposite side of said piece of furniture, he sighs as he realizes that she was already gone, only the smell of her perfume to prove the fact that she even existed. Noticing his bladder and the fact that it is demanding to be emptied, he finally stands and rushes into the bathroom, groaning at the fact that despite her absence, she still left several bite marks on his shoulders and chest, including one that appears to have drawn some blood.

He's more than a bit concerned that she's mate marked him, but he soon puts it out of his mind as he smells the first aroma of freshly brewed coffee coming from the kitchen. Grabbing a pair of shorts, he stops long enough to put them on before exiting and joining his sister, Willow.

"Good morning, Twit. I see you finally took advantage of me being gone and punched your v-card." Willow, like him, is unusually tall for a woman at six foot, one inches in height thanks to their birth father, a Mountain of a wolf faunus man. With her long, ankle length white hair, brilliant ruby red eyes, and curvy figure, she is possibly the most highly sought after bachelorette in all of Atlas and Mantle, despite her missing limb.

"Indeed, dolt. It was nice having the place to myself for a change." He replies quietly as he helps himself to the coffee. Looking around, he sighs as he notices that, once again, there is no sign of the young mystery woman who came home with him last night. A few small clues in the fact that his own clothes are still strewn about, the smell of laundry detergent and fabric softeners cling to the air, and her empty wine bottle is still in the garbage.

"Then perhaps I should return to Vale more often." She replies quietly as she slowly sips at her coffee, the mug held securely in her sole hand. "I found myself having a rather lovely evening of my own with a particularly handsome man around our age."

"Oh?" He asks curiously as he sits next to her and grabs at the morning paper. "Please say you at least caught his name." He adds while opening it to the classifieds to look for a small hunt of some kind to stay busy.

"Xiang Xiao Long, my dear twit. And let me guess, you once again showed your lack of manners by not introducing yourself properly?" She asks while shaking her head in disbelief.

"I will admit to being quite intoxicated. So much so that even Dad would have been lecturing me."

"Ouch. When even Daddy would be raising hell as he calls it, you know you overdid it somehow." She admits as she sets her coffee down and checks her messages. "I wish the guild would leave me alone." She suddenly blurts out angrily as she throws her scroll across the room and into a wall. "Why would I take a contract now?! When I am a diminished weakling!"

Seeing the coming meltdown, Eis puts his own search for work to the side to wrap his arms around his volatile twin. "Be at peace, sister. I'll go have a word with the general."

She nods as she bursts into tears while clinging to him. "Is it not bad enough to be a cripple, Eis?! Is it not torture enough to not even be able to look at myself in a mirror without feeling like a weakling?!"

"Shhhh, you are not a cripple, Noiry. You are the strongest woman I know. Not many can continue on like you have, living your life as you do with courage and passion." He whispers to her as he rubs her back.

All thoughts of figuring out who his mystery partner flee his mind as he begins to rock his sibling gently, while she weeps into his chest with almost bone shaking sobs of sorrow. It would be several hours before he is able to return to his room to make his bed, discovering a bracelet of some kind left behind on his mysterious guest's side of his bed. A bracelet with a burning rose set in the middle…

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Ruby sighs as she settles deeper into her seat in the business class section of the Melta Airlines airship. After the events of her drunken night, as well as the rush to wash her clothes and get back to the airship port, she can only hope no one saw her walk of shame. Both of her mothers would kill her for pulling a Xiang, and Robin would be giving her shit for it for years to come.

But wow! What a night before all the rushing around!

As she settles down even more into her seat, while also curling up under the blanket she bought at the port, she is beginning to drift off when her scroll begins to vibrate insistently. Opening one silver eye, she begins to swear softly as she sees her older brother's grinning face on the screen. Grabbing an earbud out of her purse, she sighs as she puts it into one human ear and pushes the green button. "What?"

"Damn sis, is that any way to greet your favorite brother?"

"You're my only brother, thank the Goddesses, and I'm hung over."

"Awwww, poor poor bunny. It's been too Xiao Long since I took you out, hasn't it?" The older blonde replies impishly.

"Oh shut up, you obnoxious dragon!" Ruby snarls as she digs in her purse for some asprin or something to make the pounding in her head go away. "What do you want?!"

"I met someone."

"What's their name?" She asks as she motions to a flight attendant for something to drink, grateful the woman brings a bottle of water a moment later and not soda or alcohol.

"Her, thanks. I think I'm done with non binaries since Blake broke my heart and all." She can't help but to have a small moment of sympathy for her bisexual disaster of a brother. He had loved Blake Belladonna deeply, and the nonbinary panther faunus had broken his heart into pieces when they decided they were more interested in the fairer sex than him. Ruby and Raven both still have some choice words for the panther the next time they cross either woman's paths.

"Wow, an actual woman this time? You must be losing your touch with men again." She can't help but to tease him. She recognizes that tone of voice, and she wants him to stay positive.

"Correction: a black wolf faunus woman. A perfect black wolf faunus woman." She smiles at the delight in his voice, and quickly takes the headache medicine in her hand so that she can keep him on topic. "Tell me about her."

Ruby Rose keeps smiling as she settles back into her chair, under her new blanket, and listens to her brother tell her excitedly about this new woman he met while in Vale, while she was there on a business trip. At least until she realizes that her bracelet is missing…

[auxiliarydetective]

Hey ✨ VoicePlay Imagines & Klapsenbuch? :) (And I feel that thing about tag games going around)

Ooh, good choice. Some of the more obscure ones.

So VoicePlay Imagines is one of my many very literal document titles. They're a bunch of imagines about an acapella group called VoicePlay, set in the grander universe of my overarching fanfiction about them. Essentially, they're little AU snippets. Have some of my favourite parts from the Cat!Eve AU section:

Layne shambled down the stairs, his gaming headset half on, half off and with dark circles under his eyes. Out of instinct only, he made his way to the coffee machine. He squinted at the buttons and made himself a cup of coffee - the strongest he could get. It was awfully bitter, but at least it got his mind to work for basic tasks.

If his pc hadn’t been on when he’d come back after helping with the dishes, he wouldn’t have started playing again and he wouldn’t have continued for hours without noticing. Now his sleep total for the night was at zero hours. Perfect.

He turned around, thinking his tired mind was playing tricks on him. Then he checked his headset. No, nothing was coming from it either. Yet the sound was still there. A sort of shuffling - and was that meowing?! No. That couldn’t be. He could be as tired as he wanted to, but he was fairly certain that they had not had a cat the day before, or any other pet for that matter. Layne put his headphones and the cup on the table, then slowly made his way towards the couch. There was something moving on it, wrapped in Eve’s favourite blanket. It seemed tiny, at least when compared to the size of the blanket and the pillows around it. To be honest, he was scared. Had someone played an evil Halloween prank and let a rodent inside? One… Two… Three. Quickly, he grabbed the moving bundle. It made a squealing noise and stopped moving, aside from shaky breathing. Apparently, it was tame. Carefully, he removed one hand. The creature didn’t move. Then, he started unpacking the bundle of fabric. Again, the being inside of it made no attempts to flee. As he removed the last layer of the soft blanket, he let out a short gasp of surprise. It was a cat. A kitten, in fact. Its eyes were two different colors, the right was green, the left blue. Fitting to this anomaly, a patch of cream white surrounded the green eye. It looked almost like a cloud of caramelized cotton candy. The same cream white could be found at the tip of the kitten’s tail, its right shoulder, right back paw and its belly. The little puffball looked Layne in the eyes and blinked. Its ears twitched slightly. Layne sighed, then smiled. “How did you get in here?”

Thank you for reminding me how much I love this. This might be one of my favourite things I've ever written.

Now, the second one. I wrote it while at a psychiatric hospital and, because the caretakers would always scold us when we said the word "Klapse" (basically a German term for an asylum, has a pretty sarcastic undertone, I'd say) I titled it Klapsenbuch. Now, its contents are pretty personal, because I wrote it to document and cope with my experience there. Most of it, I wrote on paper because we weren't allowed to have electrical devices except for an ipod or mp3-player. So there's really nothing to share, I'm sorry.

I love this ask game already. It made me notice how many great things have been rotting in my WIPs...

[yuvon-writes-letters]

Hey guys :)

Maybe I'm going chronological for one time, so I can sort my thoughts easier.

Yeah, Goldie's much mire active than I would've thought, too. But they did all those things to keep me alive and kind of save, since we still don't know who they are exactly working against. (I mean, we don't know who Goldie exactly is either, but you get my point)

Honestly, I am pretty sure the TSB timeline is continuing, at least if my theory that Goldie just set me back in an alternate timeline is true. In this case I feel sorry for TSB, though..Extremely sorry. He still was 'my' Jake back then, even though he acted weird in the end (maybe was manipulated by entities). I mean, if what he wrote was true he went with authorities. And in the end..this could've been his downfall.

And yeah, maybe I'm not exactly safe, but I just have to go back. If I go, and if I lose my job, I have some things to sort out. And Jake luckily agreed with me that clearing up my desk isn't the worst thing I can do before leaving. We're still thinking about a location, which I could luckily deside myself. Max agreed on that. Even though he still has some doubts. (I mean, of course...His cousin opened the door with bruises all over her face.) He did promise to not ask any questions until I feel ready, though. That gives myself and Jake some time to figure that out.

And also, Jake is right! We have three Jakes and three smart people. YUVON. And of course Goldie, like you said Yu :) And some information about the previous timeline. (And that was it with being chronological)

So yeah, like I said, Max and I'll go. And I also think we can be pretty certain now that the message came from Goldie not the MWAF (which is relieving). I saw the messages and they didn't make Jake the bad guy. I honestly just don't think I can quote them yet. (They're too good, but I probably start daydreaming if I do) But they talk about Jake being an important part of my life and my heart and Max protecting me when he cannot. My dear cousin jumped to conclusions when he saw my bruised face. About Max' phone...I'll probably throw it in a river or something if he brings it with him. I told him not to, also because of Jake (he's not only worried about the MWAF apparently...He didn't exactly say it out loud, but I think it's pretty obvious) but he loves this device.

And I emphasize with you about the being kidnapped thing, you'll manage it, I know it :) And if I need to jump dimensions and box some sense into your Crow-Crew xD

No but for real, you can do that. I know it :)

Jake, find a good point in time to talk to her. But do it :)

Otherwise, I still think the 'underlying desire' theory is a possibility! But, like always in the moment, we could be wrong.

As for my stasis, I really do not wish to talk to more people who think I've been kidnapped. And I am a bit scared that could somehow lead to either them or me being in more danger again. But for now we have to wait.

I for now will pack some important things and paper & pens xD I don't want to leave y'all behind :P

Liska��🔥

[A screenshot is glued to the back of the letter and the quick sentence "Jake wants to talk to Jake" is written above]

Hello Jake, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am not quite sure in which way Liska will handle giving you my message, but she promised me to not read it for now.

I don't know whether she told you before or not, but as far as I am concerned she realised I am not only worried about the MWAF chasing her.

With me breaking out of this stasis I am sure that my followers aren't that far behind. And I know you can't do anything from where you are, but cross checking way to protect her doesn't seem to bad to me. Especially since we are similar but still fairly different from each other. At least it seems like that from what I have read.

For my part, I recently improved and updated Nym-OS which allows me access to Liskas whereabouts. If Yuvon should read this, she knows and agrees to it.

Still I am yet stuck on one little detail: I am trying to help Nym-OS in counterattacking. So, even though I am sure you already knoe this yourself, Nym-OS gets the ability to access location of the people attacking Liskas phone. I am almost done with that, so we are able to see a bit easier if and where people are that could be a danger.

Do you have any other ideas for ways I could help? Or even improve what I am doing momentarily. I wouldn't normally ask this since I know and trust my skills, but I think that this is fairly different from a 'normal situation'.

~ Jake

Lis,

Um. I don't know if you've seen the newest person to send in a letter, but we now have an issue.

Jessy, if you're reading this, I was sort of trying to avoid talking about this right away but I'm sort of trapped in a weird place, and Jake's here too because I'm a dumbass. I did not, so you know, let him read your letter or my reply. I figured you wouldn't want that. Sorry for dancing around the issue earlier :/ But at least you can get a good sample of the complete insanity we go through on the regular now!

Yeah... you're getting thrown into the deep end right now, aren't you. Sorry. There's no way to ease into this. You should probably either stop reading these entirely or start reading the letters from the beginning, so this will all at least make some sense. The first letter should start with the words "To whoever reads this," just so you know you get the right one.

Back to you, Lis. Yeah, I feel pretty bad for TSB Jake too. I honestly can't imagine being in his position right now.

Alright. So, you can choose the place. Great! There's way less chance of you being caught that way...

Tragedies just seem to be happening to all us Duskwood detectives, recently, don't they? Rai is chronically overworked and barely has time to sleep, I'm stuck in this hellhole and I've been forgotten by most everyone, you were shot, and poor Matt died and... well.

I never knew him, but I feel really bad for him :(

You could give Max half the truth. Tell him you have a stalker, and he's starting to get physical. Jake has been trying to help you get away from the asshole. It's not even a lie, just... not the full truth. Because. You know. The whole truth is completely fucking insane.

Writing to Jessy just put into perspective how insane everything is, I think. Gimme a sec.

Oh, fuck. My Jessy just texted me. Great timing.

Jeez that whole thing with me leaving myself out was just a joke XD If I knew you and Jake would take it so seriously, I'd never have said anything. I'll steer clear from now on.

Yeah, okay, definitely Goldie. That makes way more sense. I don't think you have to be quite so drastic as destroying the phone. Just get him to leave it at home for the trip.

Ahaha, thanks. I don't think that's necessary, though. Actually, seeing future!Jessy's perspective has caused a bit of a paradigm shift. I think I might need to reconsider what all to tell and not to tell the Crow Crew. I just sort of default to keeping things secret, now, but you've seen how well that worked for me with you and Rai, and with Jake.

Again, you probably should wait for them to contact you first, but you WILL need to talk to them when that happens. What you say to them and what you don't is up to you.

Pack a couple different pens XD We're all a bit long-winded.

That's all from me :)

(The handwriting changes to Jake's.) Hallo, Lis.

Yuvon refuses to tell me what precisely she means about Jessica. Was she somehow contacted by an alternate version of Jessica? If so, how?

I am glad it was Goldie who contacted Max. Yuvon's suggestion for an excuse seems a good one, as there are far less things to remember that way. You simply need to oversimplify everything.

I do not, unfortunately, entirely believe that Yuvon was joking when she made that comment, based on previous comments and her ongoing guilt. I can't understand sometimes why she feels the need to lie so much. It is difficult for me to read people, much less her.

I will speak to her eventually. Early tomorrow, perhaps, if nothing else rears its head. Yuvon looks tired, and I am also admittedly not at my peak. I sincerely hope she does not wake up as early as she does every single day. It may get somewhat taxing, what with the lack of coffee here.

I think that is all from me to you, Lis. If you would kindly find a way to send the next section to my counterpart without looking at it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you :)

—Jake and Yuvon

Jake,

It is a pleasure to meet you as well, despite the unusual circumstances.

That our pursuers may be freed from the stasis is a logical conclusion. Seeing as the last known location I had on them in my universe was approximately five hundred miles from Duskwood, they will likely be some of the first to free themselves from the stasis. I do not believe I need to warn you that time is of the essence.

It seems as if I am a small distance ahead of you in the development of countermeasures, perhaps because I have had more linear time to develop them. If you are where I think you are at in the development, you likely have or will soon hit a bug you cannot pin down that makes the pinpointing mechanism simply refuse to work at all. Presuming your and my version of NYM-0S are similar enough, the issue should lie in the public bool set in line 132 of the third part of the targeting script, the script that decides what constitutes a target; you have it defaulted to "false" where it should default to "true".

As for additional countermeasures: I was attempting to work on a rudimentary automated system of pattern detection when I was brought here. Essentially, its function would be such that it would be able to triangulate using the locator features already installed to find a rough estimate of where their headquarters might be. However, I have not found any way thus far to eliminate outliers, and as such the feature is currently next to useless. I am no longer able to work on the code, but perhaps you will have more luck than I did.

That is all I can think of for the moment on that subject. However, I have an odd theory on what may be part of the reason we vary so. If you have a moment to spare, please answer me this:

When I was very young, back when Mother was still around, she took me to a doctor for odd behaviors. This included not looking people in the eyes, but there was a list. I was given a diagnosis; if you had the same experience, you should likely know which one.

Did you have this experience? If so, please prove it by stating what the diagnosis was.

Do not worry if you do not know what I am talking about; I would rather you did not guess. Simply state that you don't know. It will confirm my theory.

Good luck with your pursuers.

—Jake

(The letter tucks itself in the paper clip with the others.)

[kitmon]

Keys Are Under the Mat {1/?}

Llewyn Davis x OC

Summary: Struggling singer/songwriter, Llewyn Davis, has faced the rough and tumble world of the music industry as well as the callous hand of life. When an up-and-coming folk singer makes a trip back home and finds herself at the hands of the battered down couch-surfer, her first thought is to offer him a bit of compassion.

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of sexual activity

“Hold me, while I cry into your coat

Tie the rope round my throat, why don't ya?

Did you even read the note I wrote ya?

Boy, you're my antido-o-o-o-ote

Baby, it's only you I dote"

Her delicate fingers danced along the strings of her amaranth-colored acoustic. It was a fairly new guitar, given to her by a rather close colleague. She used to play at the Gaslight Café exclusively in the late fifties, not because she particularly liked that venue, more so because they were the only ones who gave a fraction of a fuck about her shitty guitar with a few broken strings and a makeshift capo that was made in the bathroom 10 minutes before a show using a sharpie and a rubber band. The crowd was always friendly; never hostile or awkward, just... supportive which was always appreciated on her part. Having people enjoy or at least pretend to enjoy her music was comforting at the time. As of right now, she was only visiting for old times sake, nostalgia purposes.

The new guitar was a testament to the amount of shit she'd been through. I mean signing a record deal is a pretty big deal, right? Having people know your name and buy your album. I mean, she was no Bob Dylan but she'd get stopped in the street from time to time which was unquestionably a step up from the loogies and cat-calls sent her way. Even now, her appearance at the usually humdrum populated café has drawn more attention than anticipated. The seats were all taken and the rather small building held far more people than the fire marshal recommended, but what a turn-out it was.

The audience hummed the chorus, cautious to not tune out her newfangled voice as it continued, nonchalant as ever as if there were only a few unamused patrons sitting in the crowd, but there wasn't. The populace of Greenwich Village loved her. She made a shit-hole like Greenwich something for people to keep their eyes on. And she didn't disappoint.

Her eyes remained lowered as she rather curled into herself and let the song end with a guttural reverberation. There was a silence as her eyelids lifted marginally, letting out a few pants of air to recover. Then an uproar, a surge in applause! She glanced up and flashed a charming smile, one that only showed the top row of teeth and caused her childish eyes to crinkle as she let out a giggle, concealing her laughter from the large array of eyes with her dainty hands. She adjusted herself and lifted a hand to reach the microphone.

"Thank you, you guys are a lovely audience, much nicer than Queens," the crowd let out a dispersed chuckle at her humor and she smiled again at their enthusiasm. She loved this, the feeling of having immense support. It made her feel... alive, to say the least.

"Okay, I'll be back in 20, take it easy while I'm gone." She waved off the crowd, unfurling herself from her guitar strap and handed the instrument to the stagehand, thanking the man afterward. She smoothed out any puckers or creases found in her dress as she stepped down from the stage, heading towards Pappi and another bystander, one who looked as if he'd been sleeping on the floor for days. Poor sucker looked as if he didn't even own a winter coat.

Pappi's arms extended out towards her, inviting her into his embrace. "You did great, kid," her eyes brightened at the compliment as she wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her rosy cheek flush against his chest. The action should have been far more intimate than the two adults interpreted it, and most others would have perceived it that way as well. In fact, most familiars thought Pappi was fucking her most of the time.

Which he wasn't and neither one had ever considered it. Just business partners with an intimate brother-sister bond. Nothing more, Nothing less. The taller man, gripped her by her upper arms to gaze at her, with a gentleness, "Really, gave em a show."

"Aw thanks, Pappi, but I've got to admit that I'd still be singing songs on my back porch if it weren't for this dump." She jested, her hands hanging from her hips. Pappi let out a deep chuckle which was softened by her one-off laugh that wasn't exactly delicate or poised but was attractive in an unorthodox sense. The banter played out until somebody approached Pappi and tugged at the sleeve of his button-up to get his attention. She looked with furrowed brows and a curious expression as the man whispered in Pappi's ear with what appeared to be urgency. Pappi muttered a quick swear under his breath, and looked up at her with an apologetic frown and the same knitted brows she once wore.

"Sorry, kid. There's a few thugs out back making a mess," he patted her on the arm and told her he'd be right back after taking care of the 'mess'. Her head bobbed in understanding as her eyes watched as Pappi followed the man outback and into the fray. Her stare lingered on the door, but it was the serendipitous turn of her head that allowed her to acknowledge the ragged man sitting at the bar. His eyes fixated on the golden hue of the whiskey in his glass. She was almost certain he hadn't moved an inch since she came over, only stayed staring at the same glass of whiskey for at least five minutes. God, he looked like hell. His coat was hanging on by a thread, quite literally. Holes in miscellaneous places, unruly hair that looked like it hasn't been combed in days, shoes that looked soaked by the snow just outdoors and a runny nose that looked like the result of an oncoming cold. His wardrobe fitting flawlessly against the backdrop of the monochromatic greys and tans that made up the scene of New York in the Sixties. He looked familiar, she was sure of that. It was likely he'd played a few gigs at the Gaslight, same as her. Then again there were dozens of scruffy looking musicians who sidled into the Gaslight to perform, this one was hardly any different.

She sucked in a breath through her nose and ambled towards him, "So, you a friend of Pappi's?" Her elbows supported her weight against the hardwood bar, her fingers interlaced with each other as she peered down into the swirling rings of the once tall-standing oak. It took him a bit longer to register that she was speaking to him, "Oh, um, yeah, I guess..." His hand slipping up towards his face to rub at the skin, waking him up. His hooded eyes look over to her and away from that untouched glass of whiskey. Her laugh startled him, unexpected as it was. Her giggle was an unfamiliar sound. It shattered through the blaring car horns outside, the chatter of the audience, even threw the bullshit that spewed out of the radio sitting on the counter across from them. He just stared at her, unaware of just how ignorant someone would have to be to notice all the shit that's taking place everywhere around them and still have something to laugh about. It was selfish, but who wasn't these days. Everyone wanted others to be as devoid of joy as they were. Of course, there were a few stragglers who managed to keep a pep in their step and a smile on their faces. Those are the ones who get broken. They break down so quickly in a place that loses hope quicker than a bucket with gunshots loses water. But, she wasn't ignorant, and he knew this. She just decided to not take anybody's shit. And when nobody gives a fuck whether your dreams are accomplished or not, you learn to say fuck off right back. I guess that's what separates the losers from the winners. Her demeanor and the way she carried herself, with the balloon-sleeves and ruffled collar of her dress shirt, the way it was neatly tucked into her pinafore, it gave the impression that she was... incapable. But she was ten times more capable than almost everyone in that Café.

"If you don't mind me asking," she lifted her hand to wave down a bartender, not making eye contact with him until she knew someone was coming to attend to her request. "Got a name?" Her bright brown eyes locked with the gray and muddied irises of his own and it ignited a raft in his brain, making him adjust his position in self-consciousness.

"Um, yeah. Llewyn,"

Llewyn, Llewyn... she's heard that name before. She takes a sip from her glass of red wine the bartender had passed to her not to long ago. She takes a sip and contemplates why that name sounds so familiar.

"... Llewyn... Davis?"

It had slipped from her lips before she could even register it. And it surprised him, far more that she knew who he was. He couldn't remember meeting her or introducing himself to her before but then again, he was a performer. Not a very popular or reputable one mind you, but a performer none the less. She'd probably seen him at the Gaslight once before or something.

"Uh..., yeah... Hey, how'd you, um?"

"Oh, um I think I might own one of your albums. Inside Llewyn Davis, right?" The mention of his less than successful solo artist debut was a bit upsetting but he just dismissed it and looked away. "Yup... that's the one." His voice sounded disappointed and beaten but who could blame him. Chasing a dream so far that it only leads you to a dead-end can be frustrating.

"You know, I really enjoyed it," she mused, much to his disbelief but it must have only been out of politeness. "That makes one of us," he mutters, his frown dropping a millimeter or so. She couldn't decipher what he was referring to, but she could tell that whatever it was, it had sucked the rest of his joy and drive out of him. The business will do that to you, take a starry-eyed kid and promise them a dream only to drop them on their ass and tell them they'll never be more than a stand-in gig for a bunch of nobodies.

"I really loved the song— oh, how'd it go?" She pondered, the way her thick eyebrows scrunched up in concentration giving her the wonders of a child. The same way her determination to prove the potential the album had was childish. But it was the truth, she did enjoy the album and even recommended it to a few friends back when she bought it, now it just sits in a blue milk crate next to her record player, collecting dust. He gazed at her expectantly waiting to hear her utter at least a single lyric from his album.

"Oh!" She snaps her fingers in triumph, startling Llewyn once more. "It goes," and she readied her voice with a clearing of her throat and sang what she could remember. "Hang me, oh hang me, I'll be dead and gone," his eyes widened a bit at the surprise of her actually acknowledging his music, and the fact that she enjoyed it, no less. "Hang me, oh hang me, I'll be dead and gone," the lilt in her voice echoed through the Café and a few patrons stopped their chatter to cherish her sweet voice. The silence stuck around for a beat and her eyes fluttered open after her display.

"Yeah, that's it!" Her outburst wasn't expected and nearly knocked Llewyn out of his seat for about the fifth time.

"Yeah," he muttered, letting his eyes linger on her form a moment longer than he'd like to admit, brows furrowed in thinking. "Whad'ya say your name was again?" He questioned, curiosity getting the better of him. And there was that damn giggle again, opening his eyes to a whole new world of possibilities where you can giggle and laugh about things without having to feel sorry about the lack of a difference it makes. She answers and it's just nothing special but at the same time it feels like... a novelty. "Dorothy.”

[canimal]

I wanted to write a time travel fanfic and about Evan Rosier/Hermione Granger as a main pairing but... I'm stuck. I didn't choose the most redeemable character (Rosier was killed by Moody after a magical fight) and it's complicated bc how Hermione can fall in love with someone like Evan no matter how charming and smart he is ? How did you deal with that (Hermione, Death Eater and their ideology) ? All I can see is something like Jaime/Brienne (GoT) and a very slow burn. But it still feel wrong.

(Please bear with me as this is going to be a super long response.  I’ll put it underneath the cut so those who want to read it can read it and those who want to scroll past it can do so quickly.)

To be perfectly honest, if a story feels “wrong”, you shouldn’t be writing it.  Trying to force something that you don’t feel comfortable writing and don't fully believe in will not only make for a story that feels forced and unnatural to the reader, but it will also become a story that you will not enjoy writing.  (Never forget that this is our hobby, not our job.). Eventually, you would likely hit a wall where the story was unable to progress further and you’d be stuck.  Lots of writers try to write a story with certain elements or pairings that are “trendy” and end up stuck because they forced a story.  Writing should flow fairly smoothly.  I’m not saying that writers should never stumble or feel blocked, but I am saying that if you’re not allowing a story to remain organic and grow naturally, you will find you quality and likely your own enthusiasm and enjoyment in writing the story suffer.

Why do you want to write a story with Evan Rosier?  Is it because you find his character fascinating or you want to uncover more about him?  Or is it because he’s not a character that’s written about a lot and you’re hoping to stand out in a growing sea of Death Eater stories?  

I promise I’m not trying to be rude or condescending, even if it seems like it.  This is an honest question.  If your answer is on the first couple, awesome.  Go for it.  

But, if you’re hoping writing about him will get you instant recognition and a large number of followers on your story immediately, I’m sorry to tell you that that probably won’t happen.  Most readers don’t want to take a chance on unknown characters.  They just don’t.  I’ve mentioned this many times, but when I first started writing Thorfinn Rowle as more than just a one-dimensional bad guy in the background in first, The Dark Mage’s Captive and then Parolee and His Princess, I frequently got PMs and reviews asking me who the fuck Thorfinn Rowle even was and that I might actually get more people to read my stories if I didn’t write such weird pairings. 🙄 (Let’s not forget the troll who commented “This should’ve been a Dramione” on literally every single chapter at least twice.  Sigh.) So it’s both amusing and incredibly frustrating to have readers in the fandom announce that Thormione is their OTP when most of them wouldn’t have given my stories the time of day when I was writing them and they were the ONLY Thorfinn stories in existence on FFN for certain and probably everywhere else.  Because so few people were interested in reading a story with Thorfinn as the main love interest when I was actually writing Parolee and His Princess, if I was only writing the story in an attempt to stand out and not because that was the story I wanted to write, then I likely would’ve gotten frustrated and quit before I ever finished.

So, if you’re serious about writing an Evan Rosier story because it’s what you want to write, I wish you the best of luck.  It’s always challenging to write a character with little to no background info in canon.  Challenging can also be a great deal of fun.  If we never challenge ourselves as writers, we won’t ever get any better.  Writers must be willing to learn and try new things if they want to get better.  Practice is crucial.  Too many writers (professional and otherwise) get to a place where they don’t believe they need to improve and their writing gets stagnant.  It’s sad.

Now to your question about how or why Hermione might fall in love with someone with such a different and dangerous ideology... there are many different ways this can be tackled.  I must stress thought that you make sure the decision you make makes sense within your story.  Don’t try to force something.  Let it grow naturally.

First of all, I don’t believe anyone is unredeemable.  (Or irredeemable. Same meaning, right?) Perhaps it’s because of my own personal faith and religious beliefs, but I don’t believe anyone is wholly evil or wholly good.  Yes, even in this hyper-partisan world we now live in, I don’t believe that anyone (even those who might disagree with me) are pure evil.  This has actually gotten me a lot of grief from angry trolls and super sensitive former readers alike.  I’ve been accused of being an “apologist” for all manner of depravity including, but not limited to, rape, violence, murder, racism, all the bad things ever, etc. simply because I believe that no is unredeemable... irredeemable.  Ugh, whatever.  You know what I mean.  

Everyone has good qualities in them, even those who appear to be nothing but evil.  Far fewer good qualities than most certainly, but still there.  I’m also a firm believer that people, even really bad people, can have an existential change of heart and want to be a better person.  Many just have to be given the opportunity to change.  Of course, I don’t believe that they shouldn’t be punished for their crimes or they should be excused just because there’s something good about them.  I’ll never understand why I’ve been accused of being an apologist.  🙄 Some people are truly exhausting.

For every story about a Death Eater falling for Hermione, there’s a different explanation.  If you’ve ready any, you’re probably already familiar.  Because I try very hard to make every story I write unique from the others I’ve already written, I’ve mixed it up.  Antonin only joined for knowledge and power without realizing until too late what was really happening.  Rodolphus was pressured by his wife in one and his grief and depression made him fall further in than he meant to.  Sometimes the Death Eater was pressured by family to follow in their footsteps; others by their peers.  There are countless reasons why people join these kinds of groups.  Disillusionment, looking for a place to belong... you really could make it anything.  I’ve known people who were drawn in and brainwashed by cults because they were desperate for purpose, for belonging, for a feeling like their life actually mattered.  It can be super easy to get sucked into a cult and takes years to get out... if you can.

JKR wrote the Death Eaters as being simply bad for bad’s sake.  They’re almost all one-dimensional.  No person is actually one-dimensional.  They have hopes and fears and dreams just like everyone else.  Maybe they thought they believed in the sort of pro-Pureblood world that Voldemort imagined, but once they got in they were in over their head.  Reality rarely meets our expectations.  People grow and change.  Even my own beliefs have changed as I’ve grown older.  What I used to think was important no longer is and there are issues I have done a complete 180 on as I’ve grown up and begun to live in what I call “grownup reality”.  (Life is much different for me than it was even when I was just in my twenties and how I see the world has changed drastically in some instances.). So if experience and time has been able to shape and change my beliefs and even my values to a minute degree, why could the same not be said for a Death Eater who discovered all was not as it seemed when they were recruited?

It’s also important to remember that no one thinks, acts, or believes like everyone in their set group one hundred percent of the time.  Each individual has their own thoughts and beliefs.  Maybe they joined because they hated Muggles, but then they realized they were wrong to do so.  Maybe their family pressured them to join but they didn’t agree.  Maybe they were afraid to die so they joined.  I know a lovely man whose father died in World War II fighting for the Nazis - not because he was an admirer of Hitler and believed in everything dreadful and evil the Nazi party believed in.  No, his father was conscripted into the German Army and fought because he would’ve been arrested in the best case scenario and executed in the worst.  His young wife and their two small children could’ve also been in danger had he refused.  It’s a terribly sad story.  And hardly the only one.  That’s just one example.  History has countless other incidents all over the world when scared people fought and fell in line with a terrible leader because they had no other choice. Or at least it seemed like they had no other choice.  Not everyone is strong and brave enough to stand up to injustice and evil when their lives are on the lines.  Humans by our very nature can be quite cowardly at times.

It’s possible that a person who has done evil deeds or believed just absolutely atrocious things could want to change and be a better person.  Though it wouldn’t be easy, someone like Hermione could choose to forgive them for their past.  Especially if they’re truly remorseful.

Of course, it’s also unfortunately true that there are sometimes relationships that are just absolutely toxic.  Love can make idiots of us all.  How many women (and men to an extent though not nearly as often) see the potential in a man and want to change them into something good and perfect?  It happens so often it’s a cliche.  Woman falls in love with bad boy.  Wants to change him.  Stays with him with hopes and dreams that he’ll stop being so awful.  Is disappointed over and over again.  Have you ever known someone who fell in love with a truly terrible person and even though their relationship wasn’t healthy whatsoever never seemed to quit them?  Kept going back for more even when everyone told them it was a terrible idea?  I’m pretty sure you have.  You might’ve even been in one of those relationships yourself.  I know I was.  No, he might not have been a murderous minion of a madman, but he certainly had his terrible qualities that I thought I could help him get past.  Tale as old as time.  

I could go on and on and on about reasons why Hermione might fall in love with a completely unsuitable man who might even wish her dead, but there’s no reason.  It could be for a thousand reasons.  And don’t forget, Hermione isn’t exactly some innocent paragon of virtue herself.  She’s pretty dark even in canon.  Trapping a lady in a jar?  Cursing a girl’s face possibly permanently?  Leading another witch into a forest knowing there are centaurs in there who are dangerous?  And those are just the things that unobservant Harry noticed!  Who knows what she was doing off-stage?  She has her own darkness and her own demons to fight.  She’s not perfect nor is she some pure angelic creature who only uses light magic for good.  Nah, she’s pretty twisted at times. (On a side note - Please don’t try to write her as being all-powerful, perfect, and never do anything the least bit bad.  That’s not her character at all.  It bothers me to see her written as some sort of pearl-clutching virgin who has never done anything bad in her entire life.  That’s NOT the Hermione I read in the books.)

You just have to find the right motivation in your own story.  If you’re not forcing the story and allowing it to develop naturally, you’ll figure it out.  If you’re forcing it, I’m afraid you’re going to stay stuck.

I hope this can be so some help!  Sorry I’m rambled on and on and on.

[dontreadthistrashgarbage]

G O T 7 pt.4

"Hey kiddos!" Guerin called out in English as she entered the dorm for HEET. She had messaged them earlier that she would be stopping by. Having wrapped up breakfast with JB she had enough time to catch the boys and Eneoji before they left for work for the day.

"Noona!" Seungbin jumped up from the couch and ran to into entryway to greet her, the large white Samoyed hot on his heels. Guerin hugged the maknae in greeting then kneeled down to give her dog attention. The other five members of HEET made their way out to greet her as well. They all settled in the living room, Eneoji sprawled across both her and the typically nonexpressive Tobio next to her.

She listened as they caught her up on how everyone had been faring and some plans they had begun working on, including a possible World Tour now that they had gotten their first wins. It hadn't been long since their last promotions ended but they had all been working hard on preparing for the next comeback. Guerin asked them if she should take Eneoji home but Seungbin and Tobio asked to let her stay longer.

"Just let me know if your days get too long and you can't get away to take her out or you cant bring her to work. She needs the attention." Guerin cautioned.

"That time might be coming soon." Byoungjin said reasonably, but once he caught the pathetic expression from Seungbin he added, "But we have another couple days at least."

"I've been running with her everyday still! Sometimes people recognize us!" The American Gabriel said excitedly, "She's been giving out pawtagraphs." The pun had been a joke between him and Guerin but had become recognized fandom canon when he had let it slip in a vlive.

"Did Jackson ever make an appointment with you?" Minhwan asked suddenly, remembering his Sunbae reaching out to him.

"Yes he did, and his puppy is super adorable, we should absolutely schedule a playdate with MinNao and Eneoji." Guerin gushed.

"I haven't seen him in a while. It would be nice to see him again." Byoungjin said, happy at the prospect of meeting up with his fellow trainee.

"I met a few other people you guys know too. Mark Tuan and JB." Guerin said, though she opted to leave out that she had just gotten breakfast with the latter to avoid too many questions, "JB even came to see Mihi fly."

"I've head of JB. Doesn't he produce under the name Defsoul?" Tobio asked curiously.

"Yes, he helped me learn music composition and arrangement." Byoungjin answered, "How is he?" He turned to Guerin and she faltered.

"Ahh... we... he is nice but we kinda had a disagreement recently." She said honestly.

"What happened? Noona are you okay?" Seungbin sat up protectively.

"Yes I'm fine. He apologized." Guerin said, touched by the fifteen-year-old's reaction as she pinched his cheek, causing him to pout slightly.

"I'm not that surprised. JB was always a little hot headed." Minhwan frowned.

Guerin was shocked, "Hot headed? I would never have described him that way. I thought he was fairly laid back, even cute sometimes."

"Cute?" Minhwan coughed out a laugh, "Im Jaebeom? He hated aegyo!"

"No I dont mean aegyo." Guerin couldn't help but laugh at the idea of JB attempting full blown aegyo, "But he has... cute mannerisms? Like he puffs out his cheeks when he is thinking, or scrunches up his face when he teases, or plays up certain emotions when he gets excited." She tried to explain.

Byoungjin was looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing. You just described him very well." Byoungjin shrugged, clearly not telling the full truth.

"Yeah he had some of that too but he used to get mad and blow up a lot." Minhwan explained, "If he thought someone was being disrespectful, wasting time, not trying hard enough..." Minhwan flinched, "It wasn't fun being on the receiving end of that."

"I never would have guessed." Guerin said.

"Did you get yelled at a lot, Hyung?" Gabriel asked leader Minhwan, a slight cheeky quality to the inquiry.

"No, you rude punk." Minhwan answered back with even more sass, "But JB would have destroyed you. If you aren't careful I'll call him in to teach you a lesson." He threatened playfully, giving the younger man a couple pokes to the ribs, causing Gabriel to giggle and flinch away.

"JB had a rough childhood. His birth father wasn't a good person and he suffered for it. He talked about trying to change it. He was aware and he didn't want to be the kind of man that hurt his mom." Byoungjin said seriously. Minhwan and Gabriel looked chagrined. Everyone was quiet, unsure of what to say. Guerin processed the new information carefully, adding a bit more understanding to JB's personality.

"He must be working hard. It's not easy to overcome that kind of trauma." Tobio unexpectedly said. He wasn't as talkative as the others but when he did he had a habit of poignancy. The others nodded thoughtfully.

"What did you two fight about?" Seungbin asked suddenly.

"Oh... it's so embarrassing." Guerin hid her face in Eneoji's fur.

"Noonaaaaa, tell us!" Seungbin plied, pushing her gently and using full aegyo to get her to answer. She tried to avoid looking at him but he was too powerful.

"Okay fine." She pushed Seungbin away as he grinned in triumph and Gabriel cackled.

"He... asked me to sing a song he wrote." She said quietly.

"He asked you to sing?" Gabriel was floored.

"Noona we told you that you have a nice singing voice." Minhwan boasted. They had all spent time around her so they had heard her many times.

"Yeah but I'm not a professional. It's just for fun." She felt like she had to keep repeating it.

"Maybe he likes you." Gabriel said, then adding in English, "-likes you- likes you. Y'know?"

"Gabriel!" She said astonished, "Minhwan I can't reach, would you shove him for me."

"I don't know, he might have a point." Minhwan shrugged, trying not to laugh.

"Well he better not." Seungbin said making a face, "Noona you deserve someone nice."

"Don't speak ill of people you haven't met." Tobio scolded the youngest gently. Seungbin apologized and ducked his head. Guerin smiled fondly at the well intentioned boy before she caught another thoughtful expression on Byoungjin, who quickly blanked his face as soon as their eyes met. She didn't have a chance to question him before Minhwan changed the subject to talk about Mark and Jackson too and she forgot to bring it up again until after she had left.

"Charlie-ssi, have you eaten yet?" Jinyoung asked, coming up beside his favorite producer as she pored over a thick stack of notes.

"No, not yet..." she answered, distracted.

"That's silly, it's our meal break. Come eat with me." He said, taking a step back and gesturing toward the food truck that had been sent by his costars friends.

She glanced up, feeling regretful at having to say no to such a handsome man asking her to join him for a meal, "I can't, I want to finish this first. Besides, I'm on a diet, I wasn't going to eat anyway."

Jinyoung looked offended, "A diet?" He repeated blankly.

"Yeah, I've put on some weight and being around all these beautiful actors..." she trailed off realizing she might be oversharing.

Jinyoung shook his head disapprovingly, "Ridiculous. You're beautiful the way you are." He turned to walk away, muttering, "A diet."

She was frozen for a moment. Did Park Jinyoung just call her beautiful? She shook her head. It was probably just lip service. Still, it was disappointing not being able to eat with him. But she had eaten and drunk so much last night, she was feeling positively bloated. Shaking her head once more she turned back to her notes.

A few minutes later a plate of chicken with vegetable sides and half a cupcake was placed on the table in front of her. Looking up she saw Jinyoung settling in the chair next to her, holding a similar looking plate with the other half of the cupcake. She watched him in surprise as he nonchalantly settled in, picking up his chopsticks before meeting her gaze.

"Skipping meals is unhealthy. You should take care of your body and feed it well." His genuine smile made her heart race and she blinked to get her bearings. His smile turned slightly more mischievous as he reached over to break off a piece of cupcake with his chopsticks and raise it to her lips, "but a little treat every now and then is good too."

It took her a moment but she responded by opening her mouth and taking the bite, blushing and quickly looking around to see if anyone had seen. Jinyoungs smile took over his whole face, eyes crinkling as he turned happily back to his own meal. Charlie smiled too, then set aside her notes to dig in as well, talking with him as a few more crew members joined them at the table creating happy chatter during their break.

Guerin had met up with Jackson and MinNao for another training session, this one focusing on loose leash walking. Jackson and his puppy were both eager to learn and absorbed information, putting it into practice readily. The two humans chatted about training theory as they walked but it devolved into general chatter and joking around.

"Oh, why don't we get a coffee? MinNao can practice being calm and greeting people." Guerin suggested suddenly as they passed a shop with outdoor seating.

Jackson beamed, "That sounds great!"

"Go ahead and get seated. I'll order inside." Guerin pointed to a table on the patio.

"Wait, take my card." Jackson started to reach for his wallet.

"Nope! It's on me!" Guerin grinned and skipped away from him through the doors, ignoring his protests. He was left to make his way to the patio with his rotund red puppy. It wasn't long before Guerin reappeared with two iced Americanos, placing one in front of a pouty Jackson as she settled across from him.

"Oh MinNao, yes, I missed you too." Guerin cooed at the puppy who had begun wiggling as soon as she was back in sight, pointedly ignoring the sulking man. Jackson squinted his eyes petulantly, reaching over to his drink for a sip, not looking away. Once Guerin sat back she couldnt help but giggle at Jackson's exaggerated mood.

"Oh come on," she protested with a laugh, "Can't I buy a friend a coffee?" She returned his pout playing up the cuteness as much as possible.

Jackson let out his trademark high pitched squeal "Cuuuuute!" He exclaimed, leaning back and crossing his arms over himself defensively, dimples showing from his grin. Guerin couldn't help but laughing at his adorable reaction. The two continued their banter, intermittently reinforcing and playing with MinNao until during a lull Jackson changed the subject.

"Did you ever end up talking to JB again?"

Guerin took a moment, piecing together how she wanted to phrase the experience, "Yeah... he actually apologized. He seemed really genuinely upset with himself."

"What happened?" Jackson leaned forward curiously.

"It happened the same night we went out." She paused, "It sounds weird but he ended up at my apartment, drunk. He was really upset and apologizing a lot. I didn't feel comfortable sending him away that drunk so I let him pass out on the couch."

Jackson had no poker face. He sat back, looking disgruntled, "He spent the night?"

Guerin immediately tried to clarify, "Yeah but he was just passed out on the couch. It wasn't like... that." She floundered, "The next morning he didn't even remember but he bought us breakfast and apologized properly." Jackson still had an odd expression on his face so she tried to move on, unsure of how to phrase the scenario any better, "He actually asked me to try recording again."

"What did you say?" Jackson asked.

"I told him I'd try it." She felt strangely guilty admitting it so she avoided Jacksons gaze by focusing on taking a sip on her drink. Jackson floundered for a moment. He didn't want Guerin to set herself up for hurt again but JB was a close friend.

"If he apologized then he'll be better this time." He said, nodding resolutely, "You can trust him."

Guerin was relieved with Jacksons understanding. Him vouching for JB's character set her more at ease, "Thanks Jackson. It feels good to hear you say that." She smiled softly at him.

He beamed back at her before changing his expression to overdone disapproval to match his scolding tone, "But you don't have to let just anyone stay at your house overnight. You should be more careful!"

She laughed in shock, "Oh my god!" She exclaimed in English, "Nothing happened! It was nothing!" She said defensively.

"Still. It looks bad. Next time send him home." He said petulantly.

"Whatever." She said in English again, tsking at his attitude dismissively. They argued playfully for a bit before the conversation flowed naturally in another direction.

JB and Jackson met for dinner later that evening. They caught up with light chatter about their current projects and Jacksons upcoming schedules in China. Their discussion was light and friendly, with a lot of laughter from the both of them.

"Guerin agreed to try recording for my new song." JB brought up amidst their discussion of projects.

"Hyung." Jackson said suddenly. JB looked up at Jackson while reaching for a bite of food, "You need to be nice to her this time." Jackson added seriously. JB hesitated, remembering seeing Jackson hugging Guerin after his blow up.

"Ah..." he didn't know what to say so he shoved some food in his mouth as he thought. Jackson waited. "I was wrong that time. I was a jerk. I won't do it again." He said resolutely.

"And you shouldn't spend the night at her house either." Jackson added seriously. JB looked at his friend with wide eyes, shocked.

"I saw Guerin today. She said you came over to apologize." Jackson said, "I know you meant well... but... I told you before I like her. So I don't like you staying there overnight."

JB finished chewing and swallowed, "Ah... about that..." Jackson looked at him inquisitively, "I didn't say anything before. I thought I could give it up. But I like Guerin too." He looked ashamed, "I tried to distance myself and I got upset and I took it out on her. So I decided I need to be honest with both of you. I'm sorry I wasn't honest from the beginning."

Jackson couldn't hide his surprise. A variety of emotions passed across his face rendered uncharacteristically speechless. JB waited patiently for him to recover. After a few moments Jackson looked resolute, "We can't help how we feel. Neither of us own Guerin or have a right. Regardless, you're my precious friend and nothing is going to change that."

"Waaahhhh." JB said, impressed. He offered his hand to his friend which Jackson took and they shook fondly, "That was cool." They grinned at each other.

"I'm still going to confess." Jackson said, widening his eyes and locking eyes with JB who chuckled at his friends comical expression.

"Yeah. I think I will too." JB responded.

"Don't spend the night at her house again though." Jackson pouted at JB.

"I can't promise that." JB said breaking the seriousness, turning his gaze to food and reaching for another bite.

"Hyunggg." Jackson caught onto the shift in the mood as he whined, "Don't be like this."

"Like what?" JB played innocent, chewing and opening his arms questioningly.

"Hyuuuunnngggg...." Jackson whined more, pouting with his full body, causing JB to laugh loudly and offer the barely younger man a bite of food to satiate his sulk.

"Thanks for helping me pick out some new makeup." Charlie smiled at Mark. The two of them were meandering toward the famous makeup district in Seoul.

"It's no problem! I don't have a shoot today and I like spending time with you." He responded with a smile, but had to look away at the last part shyly. Charlie blushed, unsure of how he intended the message but she was flattered regardless.

"I usually do really simple makeup but with our wrap party soon I wanted something a bit more flashy. I figured, you're a model, you might know what you're doing." She shrugged.

Mark laughed, "Well I usually have makeup done to me but lucky you I can do some as well."

The pair entered a shop and meandered through, with Mark making suggestions and offering feedback on Charlie's questions.

"I don't know if that color would look good on me..." she said dubiously eyeing sparkly purple eyeshadow.

"Sure it will. Pair it with this lighter shade, it'll complement your hair well and go with your pink contacts." He pushed. When she continued looking doubtful he pouted at her, "You said you wanted a bolder look, don't you trust me? You should at least try it."

"Okay... I'll try it." Charlie gave in to his cute expression.

Mark beamed, causing her heart to race. He really had an unnecessarily beautiful face. An unnecessarily beautiful everything. She blinked to clear her thoughts as he grabbed the sample eyeshadows. She reached to out to take them from him but he pulled away.

"I'll do it, so you can see what I mean." Mark said. Charlie hesitated then dropped her hand.

"Okay..." She couldn't think of a reason to not let him and just hoped she could cope with proximity.

"Close your eyes." He instructed as he opened the first shade. She obeyed and tried not to flinch as he applied the colors and blended them together. It felt like forever. He was so close his breath would wash across her face and neck. His touches were gentle but precise. Her mind wanted to wander but she locked that down as best she could. "Okay." He said finally.

Charlie's eyes fluttered open, she was surprised to still see him so close to her. He studied his handiwork then nodded, looking into her eyes with a proud close lipped smile, "It looks great on you."

She felt herself blushing again and turned away quickly with the pretense of finding a mirror. Locating one quickly she looked in and gasped, "Oh, wow that does look really cool."

"Thanks." Mark stepped up behind her, still looking proud.

"Alright I'll get these then." She nodded but avoided his gaze.

"Let's find a lip color to go with it. Maybe something more neutral..." Mark said thoughtfully before turning and wandering toward the lip section. Charlie took a couple breaths before following after him.

"Boy Howdy do I got news." Guerin said, slipping into the chair across the table from her friend. The two of them often defaulted to English when speaking with each other. Charlie looked up, from her coffee. She and Mark had gone their separate ways not too long ago. She had, of course, removed the makeup before leaving the shop.

"Same." Charlie sighed in response, leaning her head on her hand as she frowned at her friend.

"Oh? Tell me about it." Guerin leaned forward expectantly, curious about the news.

"I might be imagining things..." Charlie started, then fidgeted as she tried to piece together what to say, "Probably just wishful thinking..." she trailed off again.

"Spit it out!" Guerin urged, tapping the table to snap her friend back to attention.

Charlie groaned and covered her face, "I'm just thinking ugh! So... I think I have feelings."

"Oooohhhhhh?!" Guerin sat up with a grin and wiggled excitedly, "Who is the lucky person?"

"That's the problem. Well. One of them..." she started to trail off again before she caught Guerin's gaze again and forced herself to spit out, "I think I like two people. I think I like Jinyoung and Mark..." Guerin grinned and let out an appreciative sound but Charlie continued, "And I think... they might like me? But I'm not sure. And like... what could two such handsome men see in someone like me? I must be imagining it."

Guerin scoffed, "Yeah, what could two men see in a smart, fun, sweet, beautiful, strong woman like yourself. Absolutely ridiculous." The sarcasm couldn't have been laid on thicker.

Charlie forced one corner of her mouth up into what was supposed to be a smile but was more like a disbelieving grimace, "Thanks..."

"Don't you give me that face. Give yourself some credit. You don't have to believe everything I said, even if it IS the truth. But you have a lot of excellent qualities. What's not to like?" Guerin argued.

"Come on, maybe for an average person. But these guys are surrounded by incredibly beautiful people all the time. I am so plain in comparison. I barely wear makeup and my standard is hoodies and jeans." Charlie looked increasingly despondent as she spoke.

Guerin frowned, "You might not be a movie star but give these guys some credit. Hopefully anyone you like would be decent enough to not measure a person's worth by how glamorous they can be." Charlie still didn't look convinced, "Listen I can't make you believe me. I haven't met Jinyoung but I did meet Mark. I might have been having a bad night but even I could tell, ya boi was into ya."

Charlie couldn't help but chuckle at her friends earnest and goofy way of speaking. "If you say so." She suddenly looked up, determined, "Speaking of! Any news on that front?"

"Oh, yeah. Geez." Guerin launched into the explanation of JB coming over drunk that same night. At first she told the same edited version she had told Jackson but after finishing she hesitated.

"Well it's good that he apologized." Charlie narrowed her eyes at her friends expression, "Guerin you have no poker face. What are you hiding?"

Guerin laughed nervously, "I uh... well... while he was drunk... it kinda sounded like he was confessing feelings too."

It was Charlie's turn to coo at the juicy gossip. Guerin waved her hand dismissively, "Don't get excited. When he woke up he didn't say it again. He didn't even remember."

"Mmhmm." Charlie said, sipping her coffee like Hyungwon. Guerin rolled her eyes, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. "Sounds like you've got a love triangle."

"What? With who?" Guerin gasped.

"JB and Jackson." Charlie said in a sing song voice.

"Oh stop. JB was drunk and Jackson is friendly with everyone." Guerin shook her head.

"Mmhmm." She made another point of sipping her coffee with emphasis. "You make a big production of how every man should be in love with me and you can't even notice a puppy begging for attention and a drunk confession. Come on."

Guerin could understand her perspective but still found it unbelievable. She didn't voice her thoughts again.

[shall-we-imagine]

The odd one out. (Goldstein Brothers)

No, this isn't a foursome. Sorry to disappoint?

Requested: 32. "You didn't get in trouble for lying. You got in trouble for lying badly." + 52. "You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters, animal abusers, and people who talk at the theatre." From the prompt list.

Genre: comedy mostly? I swear I wasn't high when I wrote this just read till the end before you come at me 😂

(Third Person Point of View)

"He's actually got a big heart; you just don't realize until you really know him." The eldest Goldstein chuckles.

"I don't know. For now, he just seems really loud." The youngest shakes his head.

The two had been walking around aimlessly, just enjoying each other's company. The topic had somehow switched to a discussion of a certain night class prefect. Anything they could talk about was good enough for them, though.

"Aye, my favourite bros!" A familiar voice beams, unnecessarily extending the first and last words. The intruder inserts himself between the two brothers, putting an arm on each one's shoulder.

"We're..you're only bros." Elias stares at the taller blond in the middle. Why Klaus was acting this way, Elias wasn't sure, but he didn't feel the need to point it out. Yet.

Klaus rolls his eyes, "Well, metaphorically, I have a lot of bros."

"Since when do you even use the word bros?" Alfonse questions with a raised brow.

Klaus groans, "Why are all Goldsteins so uptight?"

The eldest and youngest share a confused look. "Excuse me?" Elias raises an eyebrow.

"You're forgiven!" The older man cheers. "Now let's go have a guys' night out; we don't have much time to waste here!" Klaus ignores the but it's daytime?s and why do we not have time?s his brothers were throwing at him and proceeds to drag them into town with no explanation whatsoever.

"Klaus, where are we going?" Alfonse prays for a single, meaningful answer.

Klaus pauses to look around the stores, "I'm sure it was somewhere around here.." he mumbles to himself, paying no mind to his older brother.

"What is?" Elias didn't enjoy being dragged around, unaware of where they're headed to; he was slowly losing his patience.

"Chill; it's a nice place, I've heard." Klaus dismisses the question again and proceeds forward.

#####

"A strip club?!" Elias shrieks in horror at their destination.

"Dude, you're gonna get us kicked out before we even get inside." Klaus brings his index finger to his lips, motioning for Elias to keep quiet.

"Klaus, what are you thinking?! Are you feeling okay?" Alfonse eyes his younger brother.

Klaus sighs. "Okay, yes, it's weird to go to a strip club in broad daylight, but this place offers a 24-hour service! And you don't even have to worry about Elias being a little younger than the age required to enter; if we're smooth enough, he'll be fine!"

"Out of all these explanations, nothing was even related to our actual issue!" Elias flings his arms upwards in a mixture of disbelief and frustration.

"You're a Goldstein; that's how you're planning to spend your evening?!" The eldest begins scolding Klaus.

Klaus raises his hands in defence. "I've never been here before; I just thought we could try it out together. Come on." It didn't seem like he was taking his brothers seriously for their outbursts, which in turn pissed them off even more.

"I'm not stepping foot into this place!" Elias crosses his arms, looking away in disgust.

"Is it because you're scared your boyfriend will figure it out?" Klaus wiggles his eyebrow at his younger brother.

Elias's cheeks heat up at the unexpected question. "What boyfriend?! You know I don't have a boyfriend!"

"Oh, come on!" Klaus whines, in a not-so-Klaus-like-manner. "I know you're in love with Luca; it's so obvious in the way you stare at him! You don't need to hide anything from me!" He places his arms around Elias and hugs him tightly. (Actually, scratch that. He suffocates him.)

"You know you can tell me anything!" He squeezes Elias even more, if that was even possible. "I'm your owder bwother that woves you!" Klaus uses what could best be described as the voice you use when talking to a baby; he even begins to make kissy faces at Elias, in an attempt to kiss his cheek.

By now, Elias didn't know if he was more embarrassed or scared. He felt awfully mortified, but he also knew that this was not the usual Klaus. At all. Maybe his brother had been possessed, replaced by a clone, or under a spell, but there was no way this was the normal Klaus he knew. And one glance at an (almost) equally horrified Alfonse assured Elias he wasn't crazy for thinking that.

Elias pushes his older brother away. "I'm not in love with Luca, and I certainly don't need you to baby me!" Out of habit, the blond spoke the name with disgust, like he'd just seen the troublemaker cause a mess in the classroom.

"Well, why else would you not agree to join me and Alfonse?" Klaus raises an eyebrow.

"I actually never said I was-"

"Alfonse! You can't just interrupt Elias because he's the youngest!"

"He wasn't even-"

"You're doing it again, Alfonse!" Overshadowed by confusion, the eldest Goldstein stopped protesting, as Klaus interrogates their younger brother. "So? Elias? We're still waiting for an answer, you know."

"It has nothing to do with Luca!"

"Prove it, then." Eyes glinting with mischief, Klaus smirks at his younger sibling.

"What do you mean?" Elias wasn't a coward. However, when your older brother who's normally so stern and composed just took you to a strip club and started babying you, yeah, you might get a bit nervous about having to do what he suggests next.

"I just want you to enter the place on your own, spend 10 minutes inside, then come out, and we'll do whatever you want for the rest of the day." Klaus shrugs, "Bonus points if you get one of the dancers' number."

"Klaus, what in the world-" Was it interrupt Alfonse day? Cuz he sure felt like it was.

"It's okay, Al. I'll do it; at least then we'll be able to put an end to this strange trip." Elias states with determination.

"Ah, yeah, that look in your eyes! Love it!" Klaus rewards him with an applause, as if he'd just watched a scene out of a play.

Elias gives him a look but stays silent. He'd given up on understanding what was up with his brother; he just wanted to go back to his dorm and rest.

An excited Klaus and a worried Alfonse stood out of sight while Elias approaches the buff man guarding the entrance.

It couldn't have been longer than 2 minutes when they saw Elias come back to them sheepishly.

"Hey, the deal was 10 minutes." Klaus states.

"I didn't even get in! When I lied about my age, he asked where I worked. I panicked and blurted out the name of the academy.." Elias drifts off.

"So?" Klaus raises an eyebrow.

"Turns out he's friends with Vincent, and he knows the teaching staff there.." Elias hides his face in embarrassment.

"You got him in trouble for lying, and it's your fault!" Alfonse points an accusing finger at Klaus, who was trying not to burst into laughter.

"Well, technically, you didn't get in trouble for lying. You got in trouble for lying badly." Shrugging, Klaus blames Elias for the incident, and in turn, earning more looks of disbelief from his siblings.

"Okay, I'm done. I'm just gonna go back to the dorms." Elias shakes his head, unable to keep up with Klaus's madness. That was enough for today; the humiliation and irritation were eating him alive.

However, before any of them could say anything, an angry Luca ran up to them, which was a rare, terrifying view. Elias was sure nobody had seen Luca so angry. Or seen Luca angry at all for that matter. Yet there he was, pissed.

"I've been searching all over for you!" He yells at Klaus.

Elias waited for Klaus to scare the crap out of Luca and everyone within a 5 mile radius of this scene, but instead, Klaus just laughed. Ironically, that scared Elias more than anything Klaus could've done.

"Come on, Emperor; it wasn't so bad!" Klaus teases.

Wait, why was Klaus calling Luca that?

Alfonse's head was spinning in circles; he wasn't sure what was happening or when it happened, but he assumed magic was involved.

"The only thing that wouldn't make this so bad is if murder was legal!" Luca grabs Klaus's collar.

They seemed to both zone out for a few seconds before Klaus pushes Luca's hand away in anger. Klaus's previously calm expression was replaced with a furious one while Luca was back to his playful, carefree self.

"Um..what is happening?" Elias finally asked. He certainly wasn't in the mood for solving riddles today, especially not after everything that happened.

"This is what happened." Klaus reaches into Luca's pocket, pulling out a small, green orb.

Elias thought it looked strangely familiar. Then, it hit him. Alfonse took the words right out of his mouth, though.

"You switched bodies." He whispered.

Elias remembered learning about that green orb, yet it hadn't occurred to him that this could be the case here. He felt slightly dumb for it, but he threw the blame on Luca, considering it was his fault to begin with.

"You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters, animal abusers, and people who talk at the theatre." Elias glares at the green-haired male.

"Elias snapped." Klaus chuckles, as if the fact that Elias was trying to be intimidating was enough to amuse him and make him forget about Luca's actions. As if.

"Well, it was fun hanging out with you guys! Now, I gotta go!" Luca attempts to escape, but Klaus knew better.

"Not so fast." The prefect grabs Luca by the back of his collar. "You're not going anywhere. You're coming with me." Klaus drags Luca along with him as he walks towards the academy, leaving both Elias and Alfonse fairly overwhelmed.

"That was...weird." Alfonse heaves a sigh.

"I mean, at least Klaus hadn't decided to suddenly change and become this weird person, I guess?"

"True." Alfonse agrees, letting out a little laugh.

It's worth mentioning that only later that day that Elias realized Luca was the one to hug him and baby him, not Klaus, and he wasn't sure which was worse. It made him wish there was some other type of orb that could make them all forget that specific moment ever happened.

Alas, for now, all he could do is bury his red face into his pillow, as Yukiya wonders what's wrong with him.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

I did my best to put it in some kind of order but it got messy and I'm helpless about what I should write even after having read the FAQ and more than 20 pages of your posts so bear with me, please. The more I studied the functions, the less I know. So I'm really annoyed when people do things in a certain way because that's how it was done - there's nothing wrong with sticking to tried ways but everyone should think why they do it instead of mindlessly following a set path. (1/???)

A note to readers: if I may ask, please hold back your own sarcasm and such.

I don’t explicitly set a length limit anywhere for asks as most people stop at a fairly reasonable 5 or 6 - I’ve gotten extremely long asks only a few other times and those were mostly overnight for me so I didn’t get to weigh in in medias res, so while this person definitely needs to work on editing there’s some good content. Had there been anything egregiously offensive, ignorant, or annoying I’d have been much more brusque or I’d just have blocked them; this was a genuine misread of the situation. It’s really hard for me to define what’s good to send for typing; it’s very much a case of knowing it when I see it and I know that can be difficult for some people to interpret. Answer is below the jump.

Hi anon,

I may have had some mild fun at your expense; when I see someone is 10 messages deep and talking about Mamma Mia I have to say I have concerns about their ability to decide what is relevant information.

Anyway I’m going to answer this piece by piece. This will not be my, uh, least snarky answer; the cost of doing business of mbti typing with me for no money is that I like to enjoy myself. But I will attempt to also provide a good faith answer as you have some solid examples within all this.

I did my best to put it in some kind of order but it got messy and I'm helpless about what I should write even after having read the FAQ and more than 20 pages of your posts so bear with me, please.

As you can see I will not really bear with you but I do appreciate you doing some research

The more I studied the functions, the less I know. So I'm really annoyed when people do things in a certain way because that's how it was done - there's nothing wrong with sticking to tried ways but everyone should think why they do it instead of mindlessly following a set path. (1/???)

I feel like people use this sort of language to be like “please don’t type me as a high Si user” when in fact this is EXTREMELY high healthy Si user. Thought it could be a lower Si user as well. Anyway, moving on

For example, it's sad how many people believe in God just because thats how they were raised without actually reading the Bible (no hard feelings to believers, I also believe)

I’m...not going to unpack that

I like to speak out loud some ideas with no thoughts of acting on them but some people tend to believe I'm dead set on the idea and it causes some misunderstandings. Also, I have at least 6 back up plans for my future in case some of them won't fly. (2/???)

Here’s the deal when people say they’ve studied EVERYTHING and then ramble on for a long time and can’t type themselves I often suspect the issue isn’t that they don’t know MBTI but that they need to learn themselves. Contingency plans tend to be Ne-Si; speaking out loud with no plans to act is pretty normal.

I plan on going to a country abroad in 2 years from now and I've already made plans what I want to see there. I have a list of places I need to visit arranged in order so I could visit as many places in the most effective way because I don't want to waste my precious time spend there. I also enjoy telling people about my plans of going there as it makes me really excited. The unknown excites me and I enjoy wandering around a city I visit for the first time because I don't know it.

I can’t type off of this specifically yet but it’s interesting because you have extremely detailed plans (more of a sensing thing) but for a trip that I can’t imagine you’ve finalized if it’s that far off.

Wandering around cities is great though, I agree with you there.

I'm also really good at remembering routes and getting to the destination. I like figuring out how to get there.

Maybe immature Si user actually? Getting really indignant about poor use of Si, plus that bit about the bible I said I wouldn’t unpack sounds like it could be as well especially if paired with Fe and/or Christian views of religion.

I'm a bit reserved at first as I need to test the waters before I decide I like someone. It takes me sometime to warm up but I actually enjoy small talk and feel tempted to speak to a cashier at shop or a fellow passenger at bus which isn't as socially acceptable at my country so I don't really do this - I don't want to come across as a weird person but at the same time, (4/???)

I'm not really bothered to play a social game and I often seem to be rude (resting bitch face, actually I'm not judgmental and I'm quite chill about most of things). I know in mbti e vs i isn't perceived in a traditional way but I identify as ambivert as most of people, heh. My introverted friends say I'm an extravert but extraverts find me a quiet girl. I'm also 9w1 if that helps.

Yeah I’m thinking ISFJ now honestly, not wanting to violate social norms, introverted but enjoys small talk, and 9w1 goes with ISFJ a lot.

I've been also always thought to be a smart one who knows a lot of stuff about many things (5/???)

I could say I'm a walking contradiction as I mentioned in my previous post btw I'm sorry I asked you to type me with a vague info, this time I put a lot of effort ♡ Oh god please don’t say you’re a walking contradiction, I truly believe your intentions are good here and I do not hold this against you but that phrase is what guys who think they’re going to make it in a band despite having no talent say in their tinder bios.

At first I was sure I'm Ne/Si but now I see a possibility of being Ni/Se.I often forget what I'm supposed to do as I've just done because I had this super relevant thing to write but I forgot, damn it.

You seem very nice and perhaps just sort of young so I would suggest...writing this in advance instead of stream of consciousness which might help you organize your thoughts and edit yourself a little? I’m writing this response in advance. Like 90% of my answers I write in a Google Doc and then paste it into the Tumblr askbox later. It’s great.

(6/???) I'm getting lost in the numbers

Hard same.

I'm also quite stubborn and I'll study a thing as long as it's needed for me to fully understand it - it drives me crazy when I study for an exam, I ask my friend for help because I don't understand the concept and she tells me I don't need to understand it, I just need to memorize it.

Sounds very much like Ti here, which fits the earlier typing of Fe-user.

I do things for 101% or I don't do it at all.

I’m guilty of saying this too; I think many people see this quality in themselves unfortunately and I’m not sure it ultimately means much.

I also have a friend who helps me to stay grounded as she remembers some stuff for me and I'm pretty sure I'll be lost without her (7/???) I didn't think I wrotesomuch

yeah...about that.

I'm quite oblivious on daily basis, I went through school hallway and didn't notice a big ballot box. I only notice things when i want to and it's not a natural thing for me. But when I do pay attention, I'm sometimes mischievous on purpose and enjoy pushing buttons of others. I work on not doing it, I promiseI have a great talent to focusing on irrelevant things and I struggle to do well in my infp teacher classes - even though I know I need a shitload of details from readings (8/???)

So here’s the thing: I really don’t think you use Ni. First of all, the stream of consciousness thing tends to be something Ni users don’t like to do in my experience: they like to edit. They also just...don’t sound the way you do? Like this is rambly but it’s coherent in a way an INFJ ramble of this nature wouldn’t be. You could be an INTP actually with rigid low Si and Fe instead of immature higher Si though. But I’m pretty confident at this point you use the Fe-Ti and Ne-Si axes.

One thing I do find funny, even though I suppose I set people up for it, is when I get asks that are like “here is the detailed description of when I didn’t notice a detail and here is what I didn’t notice”. Like, we do all miss things and while it’s more common in intuitives, my legally-blind-without-glasses Si-dom mother does this too because she can’t see for shit, so.

to do well in exam, I always choose things that aren't relevant to her. She's an excellent teacher and I enjoy her insights. As for Ni/Se, I'm amazed how many things my peers do without thinking about consequences. For example, I wouldn't drink till I'm unconscious because I know I would upset my parents. I perceived it as ni, might be wrong though.

You are wrong in that this isn’t Ni, it’s called basic self-preservation. I’ve gotten extremely drunk from time to time in my life but I have never gotten drunk to the point of involuntary passing out because that is when you fucking die. Your instincts are correct here, your reasoning about your parents is probably Fe, but your decision itself is not Ni.

(9/???) Now, I'm geniually sorry I wrote so much even though I'm not usually but this case is special

I appreciate the apology but this is something I often observe with people who use Fe: they’ll apologize several timesfor long asks or asks that ignore the FAQ or whatever, but like, they still do it. I’ve had to have this conversation IRL with Fe users actually, of “I’m really not looking for an apology, I’m looking for the thing you’ve apologized for to stop.” That is a whole other post about communication though that I may make tomorrow.

I'm also really into helping others[(what contradicts with my mischief, here we go again (I didn't like the 2nd part of mamma Mia as much as the first - it was too sad, I cried in the cinema and the holiday-happy-vibe was missing, it's off topic, isnt it, the second part is called mamma mia: here we go again and I liked the first part so much I watched it like 20 times and know all the songs by heart)] (10/???)

This was the point where I decided to start fucking with you and to turn off anon, not going to lie, because I hadn’t read the rest but I saw 10/??? after an off-topic post about Mamma Mia and was like “okay we’re going to finish it now”

Anyway from this whole thing I cannot decide if you are an ISFJ or INTP, but I’m going to guess INTP as the 9w1 might be what was making me think high Fe before.

[convenientalias]

Hiya :) I'd love to read Jingim + bleeding through the bandages or Mei Lin + traumatic touch aversion! (That sounds a bit enthusiastic... I'm not a sadist, really!)

I don’t think I’ve ever written a Jingim fic and that’s honestly kind of sad so I had to do it. This is a fic I wrote in a notebook in a hotel room! It’s kind of rough.

Cross-posted to AO3 here. Thanks for the prompt!

(Written for @badthingshappenbingo)

Itwasn’t often the Khan’s three “sons” came together into a single room (withoutthe presence of Kublai himself, at least). Jingim, for one, was not entirelyfriendly with Byamba and Amhad still. Lately he was making more of an effort toget along, but he couldn’t put himself on their level entirely—not on the levelof an adopted son or a bastard, not when he was Kublai’s heir and still had somuch to prove.  Besides, the three werealways too busy to sit around chatting. Nevertheless, in recent times, with allthe trouble that had been going around, they were working to put aside theirdifferences and present a unified front. For this reason they did occasionallymeet to discuss current events. And tonight was one of those rare occasions.Ahmad said they had something to discuss.

Ofcourse, whether this could be called a “room” was another question. They hadagreed to meet in the stables at night and go riding together, so they couldtalk where there were no listening ears, privacy always being dubious inKhanbalig. Jingim had, frustratingly, arrived early and therefore first. Ahmadhad made the meeting sound urgent, but neither he nor Byamba were here yet. Ithad already been a long several minutes, and Jingim was getting impatient.

Hehad spent the time currying his horse. Usually a servant did it for him—he hadno time for menial labor and trifling matters. But it was relaxing, and hishorse seemed to appreciate it. As he brushed, he gently patted its neck.Probably, he thought to himself, this would be the best company he’d gettonight. Inevitably he and his brothers would end up arguing. He would be ableto hold his own, but he did not look forward to it.

Thesound of the creaky stable door opening had him turning around, an accusationof tardiness already on his lips. It died in the first syllable when he saw whoit was, not Byamba or Ahmad, but a stranger. A man in dark clothing with clothover his face. Jingim didn’t recognize the man but he did recognize theuniform.

“Hashs—”

Aknife came hurtling his direction, on course to skewer his throat. He dodged,and the assassin was on him. He blocked another knife strike but caught a kneeto the sternum. The man was quick. Jingim dodged another blow and tried tocatch his breath. Getting some distance between himself and his attacker, hedrew his sword. He hadn’t expected trouble tonight, but he carried it with himeverywhere. These days, you never knew.

Heheld it steadily in front of him. “Who sent you?”

Ofcourse the assassin didn’t answer. He tucked the knife away silently and drewout, instead, a length of cloth.

Jingimnarrowed his eyes. It felt off. But enough hesitation. He lunged forward. Thesword nearly pierced the assassin’s chest, but at the last second, the clothtwisted and tangled around it and the sword flew out of Jingim’s grasp and downto the floor. Before he could step away the assassin stabbed him in the gut, asharp slice that sank deep before Jingim jumped back.

Hepressed down on the wound, hard. The assassin sheathed his knife and regardedhim coolly.

“Youmad bastard,” Jingim gasped. “You think you’re untouchable?”

Theassassin cocked his head.

“Ihave seen your kind die. I have seen them scream and beg. You are not as strongas you think.”

Hecast around with one hand for the hilt of his sword, now buried in cloth andstraw, while holding his guts in with the other. The assassin touched a hand tohis chest—a brief, maybe wry, salute—and walked out. Jingim heard the dooragain creak closed.

Soeither he hadn’t been sent to kill Jingim but merely to wound him or he thoughtJingim was as good as dead already and didn’t like to kick a dog who wasalready down. The latter was more likely. The straw below Jingim was alreadypuddling with blood. Jingim cursed and ripped some cloth off the bottom of hisrobe, which he wrapped around the wound, around his waist. And he tried tothink of what to do next.

Thestables were not very near his room. They were near Byamba’s, but Byamba andAhmad were the only ones who knew Jingim would be here tonight, and for somereason they still weren’t here, even though it was long past time. He had tooperate under the assumption that this treachery had been planned by one ofthem, distasteful as the thought was.

Whichleft Jingim making a decision he bitterly resented—instead of going to the roomof someone he at least wanted to trust for aid, he headed to the livingquarters of someone he was fairly certain he couldn’t, but who at least was tooinept to plot something of this kind.

TheLatin. Marco Polo.

Hispride would be hurt, but his body was in a worse state, and it was more importantto his survival. The stab wound was still leaking despite his makeshiftbandages. Funnily enough the robe was already red, but the blood was making itdarken. He pressed down as he walked. His hands were sticky, and along with theecho of his footsteps, he could hear a tell-tale dripping, regular and almostpatient. Every step was jarring.

Step,drip, step, drip, step, drip. Drip drip drip.

Hepressed harder.

Whenhe reached Polo’s door, he spared a hand to knock. Hard. Still, a torturousmoment passed before Polo answered. Their eyes met before Polo’s eyes droppeddown to Jingim’s torso. He gaped.

“Thereare more Hashshashin in our city,” Jingim said. He pushed in past Polo, who wasstill frozen in the doorway. “I need cloth and you should alert the guard.Probably a doctor as well.”

“PrinceJingim…”

“Now,Latin,” Jingim said. “You wouldn’t want me dying on your doorstep. My fathermight be fond of you but that’s not something he would overlook.”

Hesank down on Polo’s narrow bed, listening to him scramble. After what seemedlike forever the cloth arrived. Polo hovered as Jingim wrapped it on top of theold bandage, now already soaked and doing a poor job of staunching the wound.Jingim glared at him.

“Isaid to fetch the guard.”

“Yousaid to keep you from dying,” Polo said. “Please, my prince, let me help.”

“Adoctor would be more useful. Now, go.”

Byambaand Ahmad had good excuses for their absence. The same excuse, actually. Bothclaimed to have received a letter in Jingim’s handwriting, stamped with atleast a good facsimile of his seal, telling them the time of the meeting hadchanged to an hour later. The letters had been pushed under their doors—nomessenger could be identified. Ahmad could produce sucha letter. Byamba said hehad burned his for the sake of secrecy, and could produce only edges ofparchment from the ash of his lamp.

ThisJingim knew from the doctor, who brought both medicines and news. His motherhad brought updates as well. They were the only visitors he had received sofar. Both Byamba and Ahmad had requested an audience, and he had refused themboth. He would not refuse them forever, but until he could face them, hispossible murderers, without so much as flinching, he did not want to see theirfaces. He would not show them weakness.

Kublaihad not visited, nor had he sent any messages. Rumor had it he was angry. Ragewas good—concern, in person, might have been better, but Jingim knew betterthan to expect that. Besides, in person Kublai might well expressdisappointment that Jingim hadn’t been able to fend the assassin off, andJingim was already disappointed enough in himself.

SoJingim kept visitors away. Except for one. He summoned Marco Polo.

“Myfather says your investigation into the matter of the assassins turned upnothing, even after the voyage I sent you on. That you could come to noconclusion.”

Polobowed. “That is correct, my prince.”

He’dgotten into the habit of calling Jingim that. Jingim didn’t much like the habit—itwas familiar, and it gave the impression of loyalty that Polo probably didn’thave. It made Jingim want to trust him when he knew he couldn’t. Even thesewords could well be lies—Polo would lie if Kublai asked him to. That was only right,to obey the Khan, but it would have been nice if someone would give Jingim thetruth, a straightforward answer, for once in his life.

Hesighed. “Well, here is another lead for you. I expect you will follow itthoroughly.”

“Yes,my prince.” Polo bowed again. At least he was respectful. “I hope you are doingbetter.”

“I’mnot doing any worse. That would be difficult.” Jingim snorted. “The doctor saidit was good he got to me when he did. You may yet earn my trust.” At least insmall things, and efficiency. “Impress me.”

Onefinal bow. “I’ll do my best.”

Withthat, Polo was dismissed, and Jingim sighed. There. It was out of his hands—Kublaiwanted him to stay out of it, so he would, even if it was his own assassinationas well as Kublai’s. He knew the value of patience. Soon he would be back incourt, and he would have a scar but would pretend that the attempt had donenothing to shake him. Maybe it would fool Byamba and Ahmad or whoever elsemight have tried to kill him. Probably it wouldn’t be enough to scare theculprit off. But there was nothing else Jingim could do. For now he would haveto rest.