#(this actually wasn't even on purpose on either count lol but I guess if the shoe fits)

[ai-the-broccoli]

honestly I was quite obviously doomed to become a Luka fan from day one in many ways, but it was when I saw that deciphered information (from a livestream iirc?) for the first time that I knew he was certainly going to be a serious personal favourite (like. the type I'll project on)

(see alt text for transcription if the image is hard to read)

which...

Luka lived [ifitought] had low self-esteem and only won the Alien Stage proved my worth.

I am but a simple person with absurdly predictable taste, you give me that sentence about any character and I'm automatically sold. Everything else about Luka doesn't help so. Here I am lol

[aihoshiino]

chapter 159 thoughts!

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 16

Aqua Hoshigan Status: White

Surprise! As predicted by literally everyone in the fandom, the stab was a fakeout! To the shock of perhaps three people, no, one of the titular Kos of Oshi No fame was not, in fact, dying in an unceremonious cliffhanger stabbing - the only real question was exactly what sort of fakeout it was going to be. I did see quite a few folks suggest 'Akane in a wig and a stabproof vest' even in jest so congrats on calling it! Admittedly this is kind of silly but I would take 'silly' over the character assassination massacre that last chapter's apparent twist would've been any day of the week.

I guess if anything about this reveal surprised me it's that Kana wasn't involved at all…? Unless this is a double fakeout and something's going to happen at her graduation (which is not impossible for reasons we'll get into). Whereas all the buildup for Ruby (seemingly) getting stabbed basically only came in the same chapter it happened in, we've been getting some pretty heavy handed hints that something might happen to Kana for over 60 chapters now if my mental math is right - her parallels to not just Ai and Yura (i.e, our two on-screen victims), language associating her with the "type" we see targeted and that huge "Kana Arima will always protect Ruby Hoshino" red flag dropped by Gotanda, among other things. Kana is also the character who has the most actual direct parallels with Ai, where Ruby is defined mostly in how she differs from Ai… Or at least she does when the story makes sense lol. But I guess we'll see.

Either way, I personally have mixed feelings on Akane's involvement here, in this moment. On the one hand, I like what it represents about Aqua's development - the reason he and Akane broke up was over her 'endangering herself' but really it was because of Aqua's mortal terror over the people he loves being hurt in association with him. Letting Akane get involved here is an expression of growth and trust on his part and I do like that.

On the other… this is super Akane just being treated like a convenient device for the plot, as has happened to her before. It really feels like Akasaka has realized he made her way too competent as a character so he only busts her out to use as a blunt force tool to patch up his story. Hate that shit! Akane deserves better.

THAT SAID… Ichigo's involvement here is something I do straightforwardly like even if the execution isn't perfect. Now we're past the fakeout, I can say that my worst case scenario for The Stabbening was the "Aqua uses his 1337 surg30n ski11z to save the stabbing victim and make up for not saving Ai" because people have been predicting that Literally since volume 2 and I'm gonna be real with you, I've fucking hated it no matter the configuration of characters or events involved lol. It would, even if only subtextually, frame Aqua's self-loathing and suicidal ideation in relation to the incident as justified and that he somehow needs to 'redeem' himself for his failure of not stopping a grown man with a knife from stabbing his mother to death when he was literally four years old.

Ichigo, by contrast, actually is at least partially responsible for Ai's death. He is a literal agent of the system that abused and exploited her, he failed to support her properly as both her manager and her father and it's ultimately his commodification of Ai and B-Komachi as a whole that created the kind of fan attitude that gives birth to a person like Ryosuke. He's the person who actually needs to make up for failing Ai, so having him literally reenact that failing and getting able to do it right this time for the purposes of protecting Ai's beloved children is a direction for his character that I really like.

^_^ However! I do not feel anywhere near as positively about this retcon to Ryosuke and Nino's characters!!!!

like. come on, man. do i even need to explain why this is bad. even outside of how utterly transparent a retcon this is, these kinds of 'everyone is connected!!!' surprise twists are really not suited to a story like Oshi no Ko. They make the world of the story feel much smaller

In addition… it really feels like lately, Akasaka has this problem where he tries to make things more dramatic and complex by adding twists and reveals about Secret Additional Context like this to a character's behaviour but ends up just flattening them by way of making them more cartoonish as a result. Ironically, Nino and Ryosuke are both victims of this with this new retconned in connection and it cheapens not only their own arcs but their relationships with Ai (and how her own arc is informed by her relationship with them in turn) as a result. It's a cascade failure that wrenches everything else down along with it.

The other big reason this retcon frustrates me as much as it does is not just because it entirely shatters the logic of Ryosuke as a character but because one additional picrosecond of thought put into his could not only have prevented it, but even added to the story in some really meaningful and interesting ways. As other people are surely going to point out, this is an insane level of hypocrisy, so - lean into it! Make that hypocrisy explicit and textual!

Parasociality is already inherently illogical and the types of misogynistic hostile masculinity Ryosuke expresses towards Ai are already internally contradictory ideologies. Idol fan culture, too, is built on hypocrisy, especially in a gachikoi group like gen 1 B-Komachi. The girls are expected to roleplay as being romantically (and implicitly, sexually) available to their fans while also being pure and virginal to the point of farce. None of this shit makes sense! So leaning into that by explicitly acknowledging Ryosuke as a hypocrite and acknowledging these contradictory expectations could only have done the story well.

As it stands, this retcon just doesn't work. Like, look at the Ryosuke we see in those flashbacks - happy, healthy and functional enough to be close to at least two B-Komachi members. Are we really expected to believe that Ai rizzed him so hard she mindbroke him into being a Phantom of the Opera tier basement dwelling incel? Or are we supposed to believe Ryosuke was Like That simultaneously with him dating Nino? Literally no direction you come at this from makes any sense whatsoever lol

Ichigo supposedly knowing about them dating at the time also raises approximately one hundred billion questions. Primarily: DID NO ONE THINK TO TELL THE COPS AT THE TIME??? The guy who brutally murdered Ai in her own home just happened to be banging one of her coworkers who was known to have a bad relationship with her and this just… never came up?? Even though the news report on the incident explicitly says the police were investigating the possibility of an accomplice being involved?? AGAIN, NO MATTER HOW YOU APPROACH THIS TWIST IT JUST DOESN'T WORK…

I will say. For all my complaints, that final exchange between Akane and Nino, about how badly Ai and Nino ultimately just wanted to be regular friends… that really hit. It felt like a little flash of the messed up but deeply, achingly human Nino from 45510 I'd been missing so much every since she was turned into this weird caricature of herself. I'm still incredibly dissatisfied with the majority of her handling after the Movie Arc but if this is the note she gets to go out on, I'll take that W.

Concert time! Congrats to AkaMengo for creating a concert scene that annoyed me even more than the last one!

This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about the ways in which the narrative has excessively favoured Ruby makes her come off as excessively self-centered in a way that is clearly not intentional. Not only does the story frame her as seemingly taking over the concert but she's also portrayed as the center every time she's on panel - even though that's Kana's position, that she only took in the first place because Ruby pressured her into it. This isn't something that happens by accident - in-universe, this can only have happened because the Strawberry Productions staff pushed Ruby into the center AT KANA'S GRADUATION CONCERT and instead of saying "hey, this is KANA'S GRADUATION CONCERT maybe she should be center", Ruby just went along with it. This is not my girl!!! This is not the Ruby of the First Concert arc!!!

No wonder there are in-universe fans getting pissed off. B-Komachi isn't even real and I'm getting pissed off. Like, can you imagine going to your favourite idol's graduation and her nepo baby coworker who's already constantly upstaging her is hogging the spotlight at her last ever idol performance? I would be physically incapable of not starting to throw rocks.

To make matters worse, the story is continuing to try and push what it flopped out last chapter of Ruby supposedly surpassing Ai as an idol. Like I said last chapter, I didn't buy it then and I extra don't buy it now!

Not only is the story still failing to do the work necessary to believably sell this, but the only way it seems to be able to try is to lean so heavily on Ai associated imagery that the whole thing is at risk of buckling under the weight - the double hoshigans, her outfit and even her popping Ai's iconic volume 1 pose. Not only does this feel generally unearned, it also falls flat as a moment where Ruby is supposed to be strutting her stuff as an idol because she is literally, explicitly, just imitating her mom.

Like… Remember when Aqua and Ruby had that big moment of Aqua telling Ruby not to try and be like Ai anymore and to get out of her shadow? Remember when Ruby and Kana had that heart to heart where Ruby said she'd be a star in her own way and she wouldn't be like Ai? How does that remotely cohere with the story relying so heavily on these callbacks? How am I supposed to believe Ruby has surpassed Ai and is shining in her own way when the seemingly only measure of success in this regard is how much she resembles Ai in the process of doing so?

Ruby has been catching strays left and right pretty much the entire time I've been doing these chapter reviews so let me be clear: I think this sucks because I think this sucks for Ruby. It completely undermines everything the story has previously set up regarding Ruby finding her own way of being an idol and it also cheapens the relationship she previously had with Ai's memory. Instead of the love and reverence she once had for her mother's legacy and efforts, now it feels like Ai has been used as a stepping stone to prop up Ruby's success story. The narrative is fighting for its fucking life to sell us on the idea that Ruby has surpassed Ai, but the execution is so ham-fisted that it ends up doing the opposite. By relying so heavily the imagery of Ai's radiance and her idolhood, it’s clear that the story doesn’t trust Ruby to stand on her own merits.

Like… fuck, man. Maybe this is a lot to read into four splash pages with no dialogue and maybe there's more to come from this concert - Kamiki is watching a live broadcast, after all, so the show is still ongoing. Maybe there'll be something in the concert to come that resolves some of my frustrations here. But this is all so consistent with the way the story has framed B-Komachi for almost 100 chapters now that it's hard for me to imagine it even recognizing that this is an issue, let alone taking the steps necessary to fix it.

And speaking of Hikaru………. man, what even is there to say about that ending lol

Much like last chapter, anything I could say about it necessarily relies on context and info we don't have yet. This is such an obviously deliberately provocative cliffhanger like last chapters that I don't see the point in trying to speculate too much about what it could all mean when Aka has historically gone hard on fakeouts. All I'll say is that like with last chapter's apparent twist, if the story is straightforwardly going to follow through on what is being presented right now with no additional twist, it will be much worse off for it.

At leas we'll find out next week whether or not that's the case. I ain't gonna lie I fully expected us to be on break again…

[moldwood]

CoS ask: 1, 3, 5, 7 (any or all :3)

oh goodie goodie all of them of course. gabbing incoming

How much of your campaign is RAW, how much is other people's homebrew, how much is your own homebrew?

it's actually almost all raw! i changed a few things for sensitivity issues (i can't dm the incest and racism in the module, and my players didn't want to have to play through it either so it worked out) but it was mostly just taken out. the exception are the belviews who can't just be taken out, so i made them be the survivors of the berez flood with their own reason for wanting body mods that my players don't know yet. still not the most normal folk, but the abbot does treat them kinder than in the module lol. the biggest thing i homebrewed was putting escher in vallaki because a player wanted a slowburn romance with a vampire who wasn't strahd, but don't worry he had a bad reason to be there and it hasn't been easy for them. other than that, it's almost all RAW, but not just what the module says, if that makes any sense? i did some extrapolating and connecting things to characters' backstories, but it's nothing that isn't at least implied in the text or that you can't connect some dots for (and. getting rid of the something blue. sergei's still there, ireena just doesn't do that. just because the module doesn't understand her narrative purpose frfr)

i use three homebrew things: the lunchbreak heroes VR's tower, as well as their idea of doing quests for the revenants to set them free (just tweaked to fit our storyline a bit more), and the interactive tome of strahd but i don't remember who made that one (but again changed to my liking)

OH lastly i also made arik talk. not much, and not saying anything of value, but it led to an iconic conversation where they were taking notes so i went "it's arik. with an a." and they nodded and were like "right a-r-i-c :) thank you" so i had to go "it's also spelt. with a k."

3. What did your players do with Doru?

it's a bit of a mystery to them exactly what happened after they left. one player convinced the party to leave him alive, and the vampire in the party gave donovan a little written note on how often he'll probably need to be fed. she had good intentions but it certainly changed how things are in barovia the village right now

5. What's the biggest curveball your players threw at you? Or just something wild/funny they did?

i was surprised by just how much they try to have minimal impact. i don't mean it in a negative way, they just really go through the world trying to keep the status quo exactly where it is with the reasoning that everything will get better when they kill strahd. they do good turns here and there for sidequests (the revenants, the martikovs, arabelle) but when it comes to big actionable things like vargas vs fiona, izek wanting to protect ireena, and the abbot, they try really hard to get everyone to just put everything on pause until strahd is dead

but for an actual curveball, they went back to the abbot to get lydia's dress at one point, and they pulled a rules lawyer move on him. "we didn't say how long we would let you borrow the dress for." the abbot as i play him could only just

and return the dress. he doesn't like them any more. they're bringing the dress back to him though after realizing it's probably a good idea to have someone who can cure all diseases and raise the dead on a whim on your side.

7. What's your named character death count so far? (Players, friendly NPCs, villains.)

surprisingly low! 5 iirc. one pc, one npc related to that pc (rue and mikael respectively), father lucien, lady wachter, and kiril. related to the previous answer i guess, my players really try to navigate as quietly as they can through the world, and those were just these situations that were unable to be dealt with without death. they didn't even kill the hags! (strahd was the one to kill lucien, to clarify. my players liked him)

[karlachismylife]

I'm absolutely obsessed with your writing dude and I'm really excited to see all those ideas you talked about, your writing is so detailed and accurate to character, I struggle to stay in character. Like learning how a character acts so I can make what I'm writing about believable lol, I'm not sure how to practice either, do you have any tips?

You comrades really decided to blow up my brain with positive validation today, I'm literally feeling like an overly excited pup who got all the treats and bellyrubs and praise. Or maybe it's all that chocolate I ate, not sure. In other words THANK YOU??? *cue me crying every time I see someone on tumblr complain about people making characters OOC cuz I think it's about me*

So, as you can see, I am most definitely not someone who's confident in my capabilities of staying in character. Also, I have never, NEVER studied writing in any shape or form - I enjoyed my literature classes a lot, sure, but there is zero grams of purposeful theory studying in my gorilla head and I'm pretty damn sure it shows. Everything I write is super intuitive, and I can count on one hand how many times I made conscious desicions to adopt something for my writing style or smth. And it still was just "oh hey I like that thingy, want that in my text", no theory behind it.

So here are some

Juju's Tips on How To Maybe Stay In Character (Based On Guesses And Prayers To Gorilla Totem)

Simplify. Before everyone starts rightfully throwing rotten tomatoes at me, lemme explain: of course you won't go far if you actually take a character and shrink him down to a single trait. This is actually a very dangerous advice if applied half-assed, because this is how we get Bucky Barnes and those fucking plums (I hope this wasn't a Russian-fandom thing only). While it is good for memes and fandom to take one such thing and exaggerate, it's hurtful to the overall character image in fandom and your writing. Characters, while not fully-fledged people, are still multidimensional!

Why would I give such a shitty tip then, you ask? Well because it's a tip for your start. Take your character and try to put him in a few main boxes. Is he an unapologetically Scottish ADHD puppy with a sprinkle of violent tendencies? Is she a ruthless Mexican mastermind with ambitions that are worth more than any loyalty or morals to her? Or maybe a kind-hearted slightly shy talented tiefling blacksmith with a huge nerdy streak? An awkward Liverpool drummer guy who gets teased for his big nose and constantly gets in some kind of trouble? I bet you recognized at least some of them. This is the wrapper of your character (along with their appearance), this is what will almost always signal people that it's this lil guy. If you can at least keep inside that broad border, then you're already doing not that bad. Some stories don't even require more! Especially if it's comedy: comedy will want you to push into these things (as well as some smaller traits you can exaggerate to an absurd size), use them to paint a caricature or maybe play off of them with something opposite. But then again, maybe don't ask how to write comedy a person who cackles from pee jokes.

Next step is: know your character factually. As in, research their backstory, read their wiki, try to get and memorize as much information from their mother media as possible. Information can come from miscellaneous sources too! For example, I still beat myself up about the fact that in one of my earlier posts about domestic fluffy headcanons on Karlach x Soap I managed to make TWO factual mistakes just because I didn't check out Neil's tiktok first. If I did, I would've never said that Soap prefers showers and tea to baths and coffee. Luckily, I fixed it quickly, but yeah, it does help to see maybe what the actor/director/writer/creator mentioned in interviews or something. Fan pages are good too, but they might get flooded with popular headcanons (Soap's ADHD as an example) or lean too hard into that simplified image from previous step.

THEN is one of my favourite parts: learn your character like an artist would. Note their little mannerisms (Price's little hip movement? Iconic. Price is honestly STUFFED with Nik's cock these little mannerisms, courtesy one bery talented and well-versed in his craft actor. this shit makes characters alive, immediately recognizable, easy to parody. Or - Karlach's nose wrinkle that I love so much. Or - Bradd Pitt's character constant snacking on fastfood in Ocean's Eleven.), their habits, their quirks. If it's a character without visual, from a book, it might be even easier cuz such things would be brought up at least several times by the author. Sorry for a self plug, but my head is too empty for any other thing, but one of my characters in a biopunk story was constantly scratching her head.

This leads up to a thing you can finally write yourself: change them. Not just willy-nilly of course, but once you gather these three supporting beams (simplified wrapper, trivia knowledge and personal mannerisms/quirks), you can change them purposefully. That constant head scratching? Actually used it to show that woman's transition from hostile environment where she was oppressed to somewhere she felt accepted (people were forcing her to stop it and it worsened the habit VS no one chastised her for it and it became tame and unharmful to her). If Price constantly shoulder slaps his found family, what would it mean if he doesn't? Karlach wrinkling her nose out of anger in battle VS because she's laughing her tail off with friends? More obvious would be of course putting the characters against something like their important biography things (anything from the LONG list of abuse and torture Ghost went through, Karlach's past in Zariel army, Nikolai's Soviet upbringing etc). This is how you use already ready to go information to make a character look organic in any situation you put them in, be it bubble bath fluff or sci-fi porn au with snail tentacle aliens or fandom crossover or the most glass-chewing angst ever. Take something recognizable in hat character and either double down on it or change it - depending on whether you wanna show that they're in their element or the opposite.

Another very important thing (some might say it's actually more important than previous) is to build up off what we know. Since there's only so much a piece of media and even the creator themselve can tell us about a character, we should be ready to guess. It's rare that we're given some direct and extensive motivation for any character deeds unless we're in their head constantly (like in Dostoyevskiy's "Crime and Punishment" f.e.), and the less we're given, the more blank space we should try to fill in. If we know character's biography, we should try and draw conclusions on how their past influenced them. Ghost's trauma is the brightest example. OR the ADHD headcanon on Soap: we're given his actions, explosiveness and impulsiveness, his mannerisms and more or less type, and from that we build up that headcanon. It's not stated anywhere, but this is one of possible reasons behind him being portrayed the way he is.

In other ways, use logic, common sense and honestly - personal experience, I think it's one of the easiest things to make characters to feel alive, and alive characters always read as more "staying in character" than maybe very factually correct, but lifeless depictions - that's my lifehack btw (might be controversial). Try to deduct what lies underneath those mannerisms, think what consquencess would have character's past, simply imagine what reactions to a situation you could deem possible - one of them will be suitable for the character, I promise.

And it's already very loosely tied into all this, but since I mentioned personal experience and general believability - go do people watching. Notice their mannerisms, habits, quirks, reactions, experiences. Watch how shit's portrayed in movies, if anything; this will also help you to learn how to convey something deeper through small details (using allegories, metaphors, colour language and all that impressive shit).

Okay that's a whole load of yapping (probably more than you needed), but that's not all! Cuz there's also practice! And the only way to practice any writing is to write. Lemme give you homework :)

Grab those prompt/reactions lists and write away. What's their reaction to seeing a fat ol' spider right there on the toilet seat when they go for a midnight piss? Favourite dessert? Fill out the NSFW alphabet for them (dunno about y'all, but I always end up with some deep psychological portrait instead of masturbating material with those).

A little more advanced excersise in my opinion: try to write down a certain number of headcanons with no given theme. The trick is, you would have to justify them more or less (no, it's not oblgatory for headcanons in general, you can just have them for fun, but for this excersise you should). I say - Soap is SHIT at buying groceries. Why? Because he's easily distracted by flashy wrappers and shit. Why? Because he has ADHD. Why? Because [yada yada all the things I see in him from my own ADHD experience]. Unravel that chain, it doesn't have to be two-step thing, see, here I have sseveral steps between what we have (some of his traits like fidgeting, impatience, impulsiveness etc) and the headcanon (he's shit at buying groceries).

A couple more miscellaneous tips cuz I remembered them too late to build into the whole structure I have here (you can't see it but it's there):

The way characters speak is important, and it's not just accents. How much does this character swear? Do they mix languages? Do they prefer long or short sentences? Do they have a rich vocabulary, do they use slang, do they stutter, take long pauses, switch themes every five seconds? This is one of the "quirks" you should look into a lot.

Their relationships with other characters, the way your character views others and the way others view them are important. It might tell you a lot about how the character behaves with different people and in different situations.

All the other means of characterisation, including even the environment we see them, also will help to understand, dissect and thus adopt the character.

Use music, mate! I struggle with assigning exact songs to characters, I'm more of a "one song - one text" gorilla, but a lot of people have no such problems and you might very much benefit from it. Maybe the actor that plays the character has a playlist somewhere available?

Empathy and acting. These are my actual main instruments, but I put them in the very end, because I have no idea how to explain them or how to practise them. But the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes is everything. I am zero logic 100% emotions in my art, I will feel shit first, try to justify it second. I bet there are actually analyzing and logical processes going on inside my head when I do this, but it happens without my awareness. I just think "what if their partner gets horrible withdrawal after climax?" and then I'm like "well shit Ghost would freeze, and Soap would panic like a puppy, and SoapGaz would use humor, and Price would take extremely patronizing role on, and..." and then I'm like yeah that tracks cuz yada yada, good job Juju.

And my final advice is: you don't have to always stay in character. AND you don't always have to justify going OOC. It's art, it's fun, it's for your own enjoyment. These characters aren't real people, they cannot and never will have full-fledged personalities, that's not how media works, at some point complexity of a character stops making them deep and interesting and makes them bland and overly complicated. If you really wanna write Soap screaming like a girl at the sight of a caterpillar, or make all four of thesse guys into wearing frilly lacy panties, or say that Karlach is addicted to eucalyptus gum, or- I really don't know what to say here cuz all these don't seem too out there for me... OH OH HERE; if you wanna make Ghost bang a punk anarchist (and I do), you can. No one's gonna arrest you for going OOC and I promise, there still will be people who enjoy it. Some people won't care you went out of character, some people won't think you did. Some people will yell at you regardless (I think. luckily, I haven't been yelled at once yet, and I am very very happy about it. but I still take general and vague fandom-yelling posts personally so yeah).

Have fun. Do art. Enjoy yourself. Put love into it. Put strong emotions into it. But mainly love.

I have never encountered a fanfic that would be so horribly OOC that I couldn't read it. But I have seen works with so little love in them that nothing felt genuine and authentic, no matter how accurate it seemed. So yeah, love is all you need ✌🏼❤️🦍

[staringatthesky11]

Yeah hi this is me.

For what it's worth 'canon' to me for the purposes of my fandom experience is the original four books. They're what SM dreamed and wrote and published and what I read as the immutable and unchangeable.

The leaked chapters of Midnight Sun actually come pretty close for me. She wrote those before the movies came out, so before she was influenced by the film version, and that leaked beginning always felt as though it matched quite seamlessly with Twilight.

The Illustrated Guide and Bree Tanner I always view as 'canon-lite'. Because yes, SM wrote them, but she wrote it some time after the original series and it doesn't always quite match. There are things that contradict canon. The Guide especially feels like she sat down well after she'd written her original books and (in the same way we've all done with fanfic) took what she had in canon and either expanded on basic ideas or made up a backstory that fit.

I've obviously used heaps of the storylines and background info from the guide in what I've written and I'll stick to it where it makes sense and I can, but I've still labelled my fanfic 'canon-compliant' even if it doesn't exactly match up with the Guide. As an example, in my original Rosalie POV canon rewrites she was an only child - I didn't have the guide when I started, and her having brothers is never mentioned in the main series. So nothing huge, but it's something.

Anything SM said on the Lexicon or that's written in the wiki from some interview or panel she did I don't count at all. If it's not in black and white in the books, it's fun additional info and that's about it. I barely knew about any of it anyway - I read all four books at once in 2009 and wrote my first fanfic in 2012 (???) purely to entertain myself, without ever actually looking Twilight up online at all. It wasn't until after I'd written that one that I searched it out.

Published Midnight Sun is a weird one for me and my feelings about it are a little more muddled. The biggest thing about it for me is that it was written so long afterwards (or rewritten) that it feels like huge portions of it are not actually reflective of her original Twilight vision but are a response to all the discourse there's been about her world and characters since the beginning. All the criticisms about Bella having no personality outside of Edward, about Bella being unkind or dismissive of the human kids, of the Cullens being callous about their killings or selfish with their money, of Edward being an utter control freak were addressed in Midnight Sun in a way that didn't feel entirely organic to me.

None of this says anything about how much I enjoyed the books either! I mean, I consider Life and Death absolute fanfic, but also kind of love it. Midnight Sun was fascinating and there were many parts of it that I thought just added so much to the world.

Also, I freely admit that I'm a Rosalie champion and apologist and that colours a LOT of my feelings here! The first fanfic I wrote came about because I reread the books and this time didn't just take the prevailing narrative of Rosalie as an airheaded bitch. Apart from not liking Bella and immediately embracing her as a sister and prioritising Edward and Bella's relationship to the exclusion of all else, what did she actually do wrong? My whole story was based around the idea of taking every single incident in canon (including every word she said) and rewriting it from her point of view to see if I could give her motivation and a characterisation that gave her a more three dimensional personality. And I guess it worked, because twelve years later I'm still here, still writing her, and still arguing that Edward's not fair to her, lol. But basically I admit that part of my 'it's-not-really-canon' attitude to Midnight Sun in particular is that it throws a lot of what I'd written out, and I just plain didn't want to do that after eight years.

anon please! why wouldn't Midnight Sun be canon??

The question was based on comments I've seen especially from fic writers who struggle with including MS-related content within their own work when some of it was written before MS or when there was only the first 12 chapters of it. I mean there are some fic writers who have their own little universes that go back nearly 20 years at this point! They've written things like Rosalie saving Emmett in their own way, and then we get MS that gives the True Canon story and it's like, well, did/do you change your own version with that new information? How do you fit in the new MS stuff . . . or do you just choose not to?

It's not that MS is not canon in the sense of Official Canon (of course it is), it's more like, is it canon in your personal fandom world or do you have ideas that pre-date it and are so ingrained you can't/won't change them now to accommodate the 'new' (almost four years old!) book? Hence the "is it canon to you" phrasing.

I've definitely seen people, especially fic authors, who basically treat the four original books as "canon" and the other stuff (Bree Tanner, MS, the Guide) as sort of "optional canon" or maybe "opt-in canon." Like yeah it's there and they know it exists but if it's not in the original series it's just extra, optional flavoring. Sort of the "only the parts I like" option on the poll.

It's an interesting conundrum when a new book comes out so many years later.

[orange-waterfalls]

The Deal

Illinois x gender neutral!reader

@lawfluff-evil ty for the prompt

A/N: It got to be way too long so I split it into two parts lol. Rated T for cursing. Second part will be posted soon, probably.

Word Count: 1.9k

Part 2

"Oh hey, sorry if you fell in love with me. They always do…" and just like that, Illinois saunters out of the cave, leaving you with a rock and a banana. Cocky bastard you think. You look at the items in your hands, wondering what the hell you're supposed to do now. Some dust must have made its way to your nose because you sneeze. The rock turns to dust revealing a diamond inside. You gape, inspecting it for a moment before turning to the banana. You did get them from the same place…

You peel it.

Lo and behold, it's not just a banana, it's a golden banana. You ponder leaving and keeping all the treasure for yourself. Well, he didn't do anymore than you. Besides, he's the one who left you. You decide against it because, sadly, deep down, you're a good person. You run towards the exit, where Illinois went, hoping to catch up with him. You're far behind him, it seems, because you don't find him even after you exit the cave, where you find Mark. His suit is tattered and dirty and he's panting like he was just running for his life. Which… he was… technically. He looks up at you and glares.

"Thanks a lot, buddy, where the hell were you while I was getting chased by a sentient Boulder?!" He yells. You hold up the diamond and the gold. He raised his eyebrows.

"Forget everything bad I've ever said about you," he laughs and limps over to you. You wince at the sight and start to feel bad. "Where'd you find this?" You point to the cave. He laughs.

"We'll be rich! At least something good came out of the heist!" You furrow your eyebrows. Mark notices this and his smile falters a bit. "What's wrong?"

"I want to find someone," you say.

"You met them in there?" He asks. You nod. "Did he come out this way?" You nod again. Mark sighs. "Well… you brought this back… I guess it's the least I can do." You smile and throw your arms around him. He laughs and hugs you back. "Alright, don't get all mushy on me, now." He pulls back. "What does he look like?" You stare at Mark for a minute. He looks behind him, not knowing exactly what's happening. You bring your hand up and point to him. He points to himself. "He looks like me?" You nod. Mark crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Well, if he looks like me, how is he so special?" You tap your leg for a moment before answering.

"You know Indiana Jones?" You ask. Mark nods. You raise your eyebrows, expecting him to connect what you were saying. Mark laughs.

"He's Indiana Jones? Aw, are you a fan? Is that why you wanna see him again?" He teases. You glare at him and punch his arm. "Ah! Sorry sorry!" He stops laughing. "So, what's his name?" You pause, knowing what he's going to say as soon as you tell him, and he waits for your answer. You mumble incoherently. "Sorry?" He cups a hand around his ear and leans towards you. You take a deep breath.

"His name's Illinois…" you say. There's silence for a moment before Mark bursts out laughing. You almost start laughing too, but keep your composure.

"Illinois? Really?! Did he pick it himself?" He asks. You break and laugh as well. You both stand and laugh like idiots for a minute before stopping.

"So, uh… where exactly are we?" You ask. Mark shrugs.

"Something happened at the car… I think we teleported… somehow…" you punch the bridge of your nose.

"What even is today…" you sigh, annoyed. Mark chuckles and pats your shoulder.

"I know, I know," He consoles, Well, we should try to find society. Maybe we'll find your new boyfriend on the way" he teases. You scoff.

"One thing that I'm absolutely sure of is that he is not into me," you cross your arms.

"How do you know?" Mark asks. You clear your throat as you mimic Illinois' accent.

"Oh, and uh, sorry if you fell in love with me. Heh, they always do," you roll your eyes after you finish. Mark giggles.

"Oh no! He said that to you?" He asks sympathetically. You nod and sigh. He grabs your arm. "I am so sorry. But, if he doesn't like you, why do you what to find him?"

"Well, I wanted to return this diamond since he's the one who found the rock it was in," you explain. Mark stares at you like you're a crazy person. He takes a deep breath.

"That is uncharacteristically noble of you and I think we shouldn't," he says quickly. You gape at him.

"Mark!" You say accusingly.

"Well, he's the one who left before he found out! And he seems like a dick!" Mark sets his hands on his hips.

"He is a dick," you mumble angrily.

"Exactly! So… we can just… keep them! And sell them! And then we can be rich! Right? Wasn't that the purpose of robbing a museum in the first place?" He tries to convince you to keep the treasure. You sigh.

"No, Mark, we are good people…" you pause and Mark stares at you blankly. You start again. "We are… relatively fair people," he raised an eyebrow at you. You groan. "Ok we fucking suck. But this feels right! It's the right thing to do! Please, buddy? Pal? Friend?" You beg.

"Ugh, fine," Mark groans, "but I will use this against you at a later time." You smile and hug him. He tries not to, but grins and hugs you back. "So, which way should we go?" He asks.

"Oh, no, no, no," you chuckle, "you're not throwing this one onto me. You decide this time, sir."

"Oh. Uh… alright…" he rubs the back of his neck and looks around for a minute. "Uh… this way!" He points to the right of you, where there's a forest. You look at him weirdly, but follow him anyway. You two walk through the forest until you find a trail that leads you to a small village. You go up to a person.

"Excuse me, but, where are we?"

"Tijuana," the woman says. You feel like you've heard that before, but…

"Let me rephrase, what country are we in?"

"Mèxico," she answers. You turn to Mark.

"Mexico, Mark. We're in Mexico." You say.

"That's awesome. That's wonderful. That's great." He laughs, an angry tone in his voice. How the hell are we in Mexico?!" He yells. A couple people turn their heads, looking at him strangely. You set a hand on his shoulder.

"Easy, buddy. It's alright." You see a flash of red and look to the side of you. You see wheels as well. Your eyes widen. You walk to the car and see that it's the same one you used to escape from the museum. "Mark." You call.

"What?" He snaps.

"I found the car," You state. His eyes widen as he runs over to you.

"Holy shit, thank God" he sighs.

"So, I think it'd be about a two hour drive back to L.A., but we would need more gas…" you comment. You turn to the people that have gathered to see what you're doing. "Hi, um, is there… is there a gas station around?" A boy goes inside one of the houses and brings back a can of gas. You raise your eyebrows. "Oh, no, we couldn't-" He pushes it towards you.

"Tomas! Tomas*!" He pressures. You turn to Mark, who shrugs his shoulders. You hesitantly take the can from the boy.

"Gracias**," you thank. The boy nods and smiles.

"Oh, uh have you guys seen a guy? Looks kinda like me but with a hat?" Mark asks the people.

"Sí***, he went to the bar," A man explains and points to said bar. You and Mark walk over. You go inside and see that the only people inside are Illinois and the bartender. It makes sense, it's still pretty early. Illinois notices you and smirks.

"Well, look who came back?" He teases. "Miss me too much?" You stare at him, unamused.

"No." You say angrily.

"Sure you didn't." He chuckles. "Look, bud, i already said I was sorry if you fell in love with me. I also already said I was married to the adventure." He explains. Mark leans over to you.

"I'm not gonna lie, he is suave," Mark admits. You punch his arm. "Ow!" He whines.

"I didn't come back because I love you." You say, which is… partially true… but mostly false. "I can back because that rock you left me turned into this," Mark holds up the large diamond. Illinois' smile falls a bit. "And that banana I got wasn't a banana," you hold up your gold. Illinois looks at you two before regaining his composure standing up from the bar stool.

"Well, since that rock was found by me, you can hand it over here, partner," he holds his hand out for the diamond. Mark doesn't move. Illinois looks at his hand and back at Mark.

"Well… they were the one who actually found out it was a diamond… you, you cocky bitch, left. I feel like they deserve to keep it." He states. You look at him, smiling. He could be a dick, but he was still your best friend. Illinois blinks and scoffs.

"Oh, is that so? And who might you be?" He asks, putting his hands on his hips.

"I'm their best friend," he claims, "and I think they deserve this more than you do." You look at Illinois, worried. You didn't know if he was violent or not. He didn't seem like it, but you can't just assume. He squints at Mark, and then laughs.

"Ain't you a lucky one?" He turns and says to you, "That's some friend you got here. Tell you what, we'll go on another adventure. We'll split whatever treasure we find, but whoever finds treasure first gets to keep the diamond as well." He suggests. You look at him. He's arrogant. He knows he's gonna win. So do you. You could just walk away and keep the diamond, but you do want to spend time with him. Get to know him better. You're already in love, might as well ride the train till it stops. You take a deep breath.

"Alright," you agree, "let's do it." You reach out to shake hands. Mark stops you.

"You sure about this?" He asks, "We can just… go home. Head back to base. We don't even have to keep the treasure, we can just leave." You knit your eyebrows. He turns fully towards you and puts his hands on your shoulders. "I don't want you to get hurt. Please." Your eyes soften and you smile at him. You put your hands on his shoulders.

"I'm pretty smart, Mark, and I can take care of myself. I'll be fine." You try to convince him. He still looks worried. You hand him the golden banana. "Either way, we'll still have this." He smiles.

"Yeah… alright. Sure," he finally gives in, "but you better not die on me." He warns. You nod. You turn to Illinois, who still has his hand out for you to take. You shake it.

"Deal." You agree. He smirks.

"Let's get going."

---

*Take it! Take it!

**Thank you

***Yes

Pardon my Spanish, I'm on my second year lol

[ziracona]

I know you mentioned that Bill wasn't included in ILM because you didn't know much about his personality. Out of curiosity though, if you had included him in the fic, how would you have integrated his history of being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that couldn't have happened for the other characters? Or like, what approach would you have gone with?

Oh this is kind of a tough one! I don’t know Bill well, because I haven’t played Left 4 Dead, but that actually wasn’t why he isn’t in the fic. I stopped including survivors after Jane Romero, because DbD updates so much that I hit a point it was either add more characters but know you won’t have time to develop them and give them the character arcs they deserve because you’re nearing the end, or stop adding people, and it’s always better to whole-ass less then half-ass more—especially with characters that are awesome and really deserve some due diligence. While Bill is actually one of the earliest survivors released for DbD (he was...siiixth or something? Like right after Ace? Or Nea?), that’s only for PC. On PS4 and Xbox, he wasn’t added until much later, and I play DbD on PS4. So, for me as a player, Bill wasn’t actually released until after Ash was. When I started writing, I was kind of vaguely aware he existed on PC? But I had 0 personal experience with him, and so I went with my own/console experience when it came to writing.

As for what I’d have done, that’s a dang good question, and I’m not entirely sure— I’d definitely have thought about it longer if I had included him, but I’ll give you what I think I would have done? Obviously, Bill’s not from the world the rest of the survivors are. While almost any of the stories can coexist with minimal changes (NOES 2010, Halloween, Stranger Things, even Ash are more or less fairly easily compatible), zombie apocalypse—couple things I know they’re bound to notice, ya know? Still, I stand by multiverse being both unnecessary and not the best decision for the story I want to tell, so what I think I’d have done is this: (under the cut bc it’s gonna be long af--get ready for some quantum theory lol)

Okay, so the Entity canonically can operate outside of natural time. Meaning it can take survivors from earlier or later, and isn’t on the same space-time fixed relationship the world is. Now, time travel is tricky. Or anything with a complex portrayal of time. But there are three basic setups for time travel potential that actually make sense. They are as follows:

Anything that will happen, has happened (or the Artemis Fowl timetheory). This one is pretty straightforward. Sure, you can travel through time, but the universe you live in right now where you are choosing to go back is the result of the past you caused. The change you’re causing is past-tense already, and the only real agency you have is in causing the circumstances leading up to where you already are. This still allows for some fancy manuvering (for example: want to save a friend’s life? No problem. You can’t remove the motivation to go back, so you in the past still have to believe they die, but so long as you didn’t like, hold their severed head—if it’s a situation like say, you saw them blow up, you can save that person—you just have to make sure your past self still sees them “die” in the explosion and thus chooses, as you did/are, to go back.) This is my personal least favorite theory of space-time, but it’s a solid one.

The second is the The Future is not Set (or the Back to the Future timetheory). This one says time is flexible. You can go back and kill your father before you’re born, and the future will change. How ripple effects happen are varried—for example in strict timeline variations of this theory such as those in Frequency or Back to the Future, if you cause yourself not to be born, time will catch up with you, and while the impact you left on the world remains, you, as you no longer are born, will vanish from existence as the time stream corrects itself. However, more lenient time streams such as the versions in Continuum or Futurama exist as well, where even if your effects on the world prevent you from being born, the version of you currently alive continues to exist as an anomaly. This is by far, in my opinion, the most enjoyable solid timetheory.

And last (unless you count Time Travel is Impossible as a solid theory which I guess technically you can??), theory three (or the Doctor Who timetheory). This theory portrays time as possible to change and allowing for alternatives to be taken, but not in all places and ways. It presents very hard limits on what can change, and offers a much more inflexible time continuum than theory 2, as well as much higher consequences for causing alterations. Rather than direct cause-effect consequences, like vanishing because you caused yourself not to be born, usually the result of tampering and causing a change of large size is that you will create time paradoxes, which the time stream itself desperately will try to destroy/fix, usually horribly and with massive and brutal force. Things like Life is Strange fall into this theory as well, with Dr. Who being on the lenient end of this spectrum and LIS the strict. It offers the technicality of a changeable future, but none of the true and almost wild freedom offered by variations of theory 2. Basically, any large scale or personal change you cause will rip holes in the universe, and either you will give in to fate and re-allow the loved one you saved to die, or you push on through and accept massive time-space damage and casualties for the choice. I’ve got mixed feelings on this one myself, as I’ve seen it handled super well and made a thing that can be fun, but it also is the theory that pisses me off the most when written poorly haha.

Anyway, massive time theory talk over, in Dead by Daylight, the Entity can traverse time canonically. In ILM, the survivors only talk briefly, after meeting Jane, about theories for how that works, but here is what I would say if ILM had included Bill. To preface, there are two timelines that each follow the same set of basic rules, but have a little freedom in how they effect each other (not so much in how they effect themselves): the Survivor’s world/reality timeline, and the Entity’s pocket dimension timeline. Neither timeline can contradict itself and create paradoxes within its own space. So. Bill is from the same universe as anyone else. At one point, the early 2000s followed the narrative of Left 4 Dead, and the Entity grabbed Bill where & when he “dies” in canon. Only, some time after grabbing Bill, the Entity took another person which (completely unintentionally on the Entity’s part) triggered a massive Buttery Effect on the world, and greatly altered reality, causing not only the Left 4 Dead apocalypse to no longer occur, but causing Bill himself to never be born. Bill however was already outside of the world and in the Entity’s pocket dimension at the time, and thus was not there to be “erased” and exists as an anomaly. While he is paradoxical in his own world, he does not at all contradict the Entity’s established timeline—he adheres to it. While the memory of survivors is effected and updated by changes made in reality by the Entity, because there is no version of “Bill” in the world anymore, he did not have his memories altered (there was no “Bill” for the timestream to update at all, as he is entirely an anomaly now, so it would have no reason to try). The world they exist in has a time continuum that operates off a variation somewhere between theory 3 and theory 2 (the future is not set, but also there are fix points—however, these almost exclusively exist in regard to one’s own past. The big rule is that personally making the act of altering your own past intentionally by nature also alters your motivations for acting in the first place, and thus negates the possibility of you doing so. While you can change other people’s pasts, or accidentally effect your own, you physically cannot change your own intentionally, because you’d create either a paradox or a time loop, and it would rip you apart).

Dwight is more or less correct when he hypothesizes that they might have all remembered a world with Jane Romero still in it until an hour ago. However, all of ILM itself is that version of time/reality (ie the “last” or “final” version, as it were/the version that came into being when Jane was taken). Her loss butterfly affect updated people, and so they remember her being missing. While the Entity could hypothetically someday accidentally do things that make it so survivors aren’t born in the external reality, it cannot do so intentionally or accidentally-on-purpose, because it is bound by the rules of its own personal history/timeline, and it can neither intentionally nor accidentally do a damn thing to prevent what has transpired inside itself from happening. Similarly, since the survivors are established as existing inside it, even if they were erased at birth, they would still exit it intact in November of 2019 with all their memories. The Entity thus has no real way to hurt them even in revenge, unless it is willing to risk taking them again from a later point in time. Most small decisions do not have buttery effects that are very large at all, and in general time attempts to smooth out with the least possible changes. What happened to Bill was a one in a billion fortunate/unfortunate chance thing, and was such an unlikely thing to happen in the first place, the chances of a thing like it happening again are astronomically small, and almost completely certainly would not to occur. In some ways it would be nice for him though, because he could escape back to a peaceful reality where many people he lost are still happy & living. While they don’t remember him, people would still have the echos of their past inside them (feelings of deja vu, memories in dreams, attachment and familiarity with people you never “met”) and he could reconnect with them if he wanted and live happily with old Left 4 Dead crew and his new survivor family. : )

[gretavanfleetlife]

Only Time Will Tell:

Chapter 8

AN: Hey guys, it’s sooo good to be back!😊Sorry for such a long wait for this chapter, I was on vacation. Anyway y’all are gonna need to pace yourself with this one, it’s double the usual chapter length and so much is happening!!! Love you all, thank you so much for your support, enjoy!💛🌻

Warnings: swearing

Word count: 4,700 words (lol oops)

Officially, it's been exactly one month since your best friends left Frankenmuth. You steadily raise a thick black pen up to your calendar and mark an 'X' through today's date. Your eyes skim through the rest of the month, landing on a date with a large red circle around it. You stare at it for a moment before gazing back at today's date and lifting your finger to count the number of days between today and the circled date. 12. You count again, hoping you counted one more than you should have. Still 12.

You toss the pen onto your desk and turn to skim through your record collection. Your fingers land on Bob Dylan, and you give a loose smile at the esteemed man on the album cover, who smiles back. Placing the needle carefully onto the record, you then cross your bedroom and collapse into a comfy, blue beanbag chair. You close your eyes and listen to the record spin. You remain perfectly still throughout the entire record, humming along to the dreamlike tune. You only open your eyes when you hear the record stop, the needle lifting itself upwards and returning to its resting place. You let out a heavy sigh.

"God bless Bob Dylan, a true legend," you smile, repeating Josh's timeless saying. You miss him terribly. You begin to wonder if he's been thinking about you as much as you've been thinking about him.

You lean your head back and stare mindlessly out the window. You consider sending Sam a text but quickly decide against it. Since he's left, you've been texting Sam almost every day, earning a harsh wave of guilt every time that you did.

The only other person you wanted to talk to more than Sam was Josh, but that wasn't going very smoothly either. You've tried calling Josh multiple times throughout the month, but each time the phone would loudly ring until you were eventually sent to voicemail.

You shift uncomfortably on the beanbag chair beneath you, feeling complete boredom rain over you. You've been bored all month without them, you just didn't know what to do. Only two weeks to go, less than that even. You know you'll survive for 12 more days, but their arrival seems to be taking an eternity.

You decide to try and call Josh again, dialing his number effortlessly. You listen eagerly to the phone ring against your ear. With each ring, your hope of an answer increasingly fades. The last ring chimes brightly as the phone gives a final effort to reach Josh before you're sent to his voicemail. You listen to you and Josh recite his voicemail that you recorded together years ago. A faint smile tugs at your lips, hearing Josh's joyful voice as well as your own encouraging you to leave a message at the tone. You sink further back into the chair with a sigh. He probably just doesn't have his phone with him again, as usual. Josh never likes to carry his phone with him, you recall optimistically.

You decide to try calling again in a few days, tossing your phone lazily onto the bed across your room. You try to remember a time before now that you've gone this long without talking to Josh, but you can't seem to think of one.

You miss him terribly. You miss watching the adorable pair of dimples appear on his face when you make him smile, how his eyebrows furrow when he concentrates on something, and how he always looks after you and puts you before himself.

You close your eyes, hoping with your entire heart that he's not ignoring you on purpose as you drift slowly out of consciousness.

-Sam's POV-

It's been a month since the last time I saw y/n, the last time I talked to her in person, and the last time I touched her. I'm certain that I would have gone crazy by now if it hadn't have been for our consistent texting. The one thing that keeps me from wanting to give up on the tour entirely and go back home is the promise she made me. She said she's gonna wait for me, and as long as that's true I'm willing to wait a little longer. I've been waiting for her for years, and although it still hurts, another couple weeks won't kill me.

I raise the bottle to my lips and take another long sip of beer, gazing up at my brother seated across from me. I need to know what's going on with Josh. The way he speaks to me is different now, although I can barely even explain it. He doesn't look me in the eyes as much when he talks to me, and our conversations are often much shorter than normal. When we're not recording or performing, he makes up excuses to be away from me, and they're fairly easy to see through. I've brought it up to Jake, and he seems to know much more about what's going on with Josh than I do. It's possible that Josh may have told him all about whatever's got him in this mood, although I have a pretty strong gut feeling it's just their twin telepathy thing. Either way, Jake hasn't told me why Josh is acting so weird, he's only told me not to bother him about it.

The four of us sit in our new trailer in peaceful silence. Josh and Danny share one couch while Jake and I lounge on the one opposite them. Josh is seemingly very busy writing music, scribbling down lyrics while he concentrates on the notebook gripped tightly in his hands. Jake downs the last of his beer with one swift raise of his arm. He stands up rather unsteadily from his seat beside me and announces that he's going to bed. Danny seconds Jake's actions, saying a quick goodnight and following him to the bedroom in the back of the cramped trailer. Calling it a bedroom is a stretch by any means, though, since its really only four pullout couches divided from the rest of the trailer by a thin curtain. Danny slides the curtain closed behind him and soon you hear both boys flop heavily onto their beds.

I steal a glance at my brother. Josh doesn't seem to notice that he's alone with me, or if he does he doesn't care. His focus doesn't break as he thoughtfully pours lyrics onto the busy page, his eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. I relax backward into the soft couch, quietly taking another long sip of my beverage.

Another ten minutes go by and there hasn't been a single word exchanged between Josh and I. Normally, this is a scenario I have only ever dreamed of, causing me to feel slightly uneasy in the somewhat tense silence. I decide to let him finish writing without interruption, not wanting to distract him from writing a potential masterpiece.

Gentle snoring cuts through the silence of the trailer, coming from behind the far curtain. I can tell with complete certainty that the noise is coming from both Danny and Jake.

Looking up at Josh, I watch as he gently closes his notebook and places it on the coffee table along with his dull pencil. He leans back and sinks into the couch, lifting a hand to his mouth and softly tracing his lips in a steady contemplation. Josh's phone suddenly begins to vibrate on the small wooden table in front of him. His face falls into a frown as he leans forward to read the name of who is calling him this late at night. I watch his face fall as he reaches out, grabbing the phone and staring at it. Josh hesitates for a moment, and then slowly taps the screen. The vibrating stops and he shoves the phone quickly into his pocket. He leans further back into the couch and crosses his arms.

"Who was that?" I ask quietly, breaking through his dazed thoughts as he raises his head in attention.

"Mm?” he grunts, keeping his arms crossed while his fingers continue to gently trace over his lips.

"Who was that calling you," I repeat. Josh shakes his head and looks downwards.

"Oh just y/n, I'll call her back later," he says unconvincingly. He begins to stand up but I cut him off.

"Josh, can I talk to you for a minute?" I ask hopefully. Josh slowly descends back into his seat.

"Uh, sure I guess. What about?" he shrugs. I place my beer bottle on the coffee table next to the tattered notebook and lean forward, resting my arms on my knees.

"Well, first I wanted to know why you've been ignoring all of y/n's calls," I wonder, noticing Josh's shoulders tense in anticipation, "It's been, what, a month now? Have you talked to her once since we left home?" Josh stares steadily into my eyes, seemingly hesitant on how to answer.

"N-no, I haven't," Josh stumbles, glancing at the floor. His eyebrows furrow as his gaze returns to meet mine, "but that's really not any of your business, Sam. I strongly advise you to leave this alone." I give a small laugh, unable to prevent it from escaping my lips.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure whatever's going on is my business too. Listen, Josh, I just want to help you get over whatever this is," I say, motioning to him, "that's all."

"Get over what?" he prods, crossing his arms and leaning back.

"Well for starters, you're ignoring your best friend, avoiding your brothers, including Danny, and for a month you haven't held a conversation with me that's lasted more than five minutes. Should I keep going? Or do you have an idea of what's going on now," I ask sarcastically, frustrated at how difficult Josh is being. He knows damn well how different he's been acting. God, Josh can be so fucking annoying sometimes.

"You have no fucking clue what you're talking about Sam," Josh spits, pointing at me angrily.

"Oh yeah? Enlighten me," I respond crossing my arms and trying my best to appear relaxed. Growing up with Josh has taught me exactly how to get under his skin just enough to make him confess anything.

"Alright fine Sam, if this is what you want, then here it is," he begins, his eyes narrowing and the muscles in his jaw clenching. My tactics seem to have worked, as I notice Josh speaking faster, concentrating less on what is actually coming out of his mouth. However, what I hear next disrupts my relaxed facade.

"Before we left, y/n told me all about how she feels towards you. Obviously, she's had a rough past dating experience so I didn't want her to get hurt again. Especially by some ignorant prick who's about to leave on tour for a month and a half," Josh says firmly, his voice raising the more he proceeds. I sit unable to move, shocked at the words that come flying out his mouth. "So I told her," Josh pauses dramatically. The way Josh edges me on makes me furious, but I manage to hold back my raging emotions.

"Told her what?" I ask, knowing it's what he wanted to hear, but feeling too eager to refrain from asking.

"I told her not go after you," he admits. I feel my face turn hot with anger, "in fact I asked her to promise me that she wouldn't go near y-"

"And what did she say?" I cut him off. His face visibly saddens.

"She agreed to the promise," he remembers quietly, as my heart sinks low into my chest. Everything makes so much more sense now, but Josh isn't finished. "And she broke that promise, but you already knew that," he says, shaking his head as I lower my gaze to the floor. Josh was talking much more quietly now, the former anger replaced by sadness as he recalled what had happened. "And that isn't even the worst part," he continues, seemingly lost in the memory to care whether he was telling me too much, "what hurt the most was when she told me nothing happened with you, again, and again, and again, right to my face. It hurt me. It really did," he stares across the room at me, "is that what you wanted to hear?" I swallow hard, not wanting to meet his gaze. He runs his hands across his face with a heavy sigh. Josh attempts to stand up but I cut him off again.

"Josh wait, hear me out," he pauses briefly before returning to his seat across from me. I meet his sad eyes with my own, "listen, you know me, better than most people. Do you really think that I would treat y/n like shit?" I ask, silently hoping that he'll say no. Josh opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. He quietly shakes his head, and I know that I've gotten through to him.

"Look, I'm sorry that had to happen. You can hate us both for being together, or try and break us apart," I continue, "but I love her, and that's all I'm really concerned about."

-Time skip: 12 days later-

-Y/N's POV-

You wake up with a start, excitedly checking your phone for the time and reading 10:53 a.m. glare brightly back. You went to bed extremely late last night, unable to fall asleep due to the anticipation of your friends coming home the next day. You throw your comforter off of you and swing your legs around to sit up on the side of your bed. You stretch happily and let out a loud yawn. You decide to make a trip to the record store to buy some 'welcome home' presents for the boys. You change quickly and hurry outside toward the black pickup truck parked in your driveway. You hop in the vehicle and back out of the driveway, turning on the radio to your favorite rock and roll station. You hear the ending of 'Sympathy for the Devil' fill the silence of your car. Once the song finishes, the upbeat voice of the radio announcer fills the car.

"Alright, Frankenmuth, up next is a new song by a local and upcoming rock and roll band, Greta Van Fleet!" You gasp loudly as a familiar guitar riff fills the air. You crank up the volume as loud as the speakers will allow, singing along loudly to 'Highway Tune' as you speed down the gravel road and enter the town. A huge smile graces your face as you pull into the driveway of Siren Records. You park the car but remain seated until the song finishes, giving an excited squeal as the song fades to silence and the radio announcer returns.

You happily hop out of your car and enter the record store with a new skip in your step. Your mind feels extremely crowded with everything that's going on, but you still know exactly what you want to get for each of the boys. You're as familiar with their individual music tastes as you are with the back of your hand. Searching through the endless bins of records, you find your gift for Josh with ease, proudly picking up Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan and tucking it under your armpit. As you continue to skim through the dusty records, you feel a vibration in your pocket. You reach for your phone and see who's calling you.

"Oh my god," you mumble, your eyes wide with anticipation. You fumble with your phone, almost dropping it as you accept the call and raise it quickly to your ear, "hello?"

"Hey y/n, it's me," Josh answers, his voice sounding deep and raspy through the phone. You've missed the sound of his voice the most, his greeting bringing a genuine smile to your face.

"Hey, Josh-" you begin before abruptly cutting yourself off. By habit, you almost called him 'Joshie', which you know would not have gone well judging by the last conversation the two of you had. He clears his throat into the phone, pausing for a moment. You grip the phone tightly as you hear muffled mumbling in the background.

"So I just wanted to ask how it's going, uh, back home," he wonders aloud.

Placing down your record momentarily, you make your way outside of the record store so as not to bother anyone inside with your private conversation.

"Well, it was incredibly boring without you," you smile, "Frankenmuth has never been so quiet." Josh laughs into the phone, and you feel your heart begin to beat faster. The sound is like music to your ears, you've missed making him laugh. You picture familiar dimples gracing his cheeks as his mouth tugs into a wide grin.

"That sounds dreadful," he chuckles.

"It was," you agree, "so when do you think you'll be home?"

"Around another half hour or so, I'd say," he estimates, making your heart flutter at the thought of their arrival.

"Oh that's fantastic, see you then!" you smile, feeling exhilarated and over the moon with joy, "bye Joshie!" You clap a hand over your mouth as you realize what you just called him. You close your eyes, bracing yourself for his response.

"Bye y/n, see you soon," he laughs before hanging up. You let out a huge sigh of relief as you shove your phone back into your pocket, thankful that he didn't scold you for using his nickname again.

A hand taps you on the shoulder, breaking you out of your daze as you turn around to see who it is. Your eyes gaze upward to meet Ethan's, as you force a smile onto your face. You were hoping to avoid him until school started up again, not wanting to interact with him after watching him make out with another girl at Josh's party.

"Hey! It's good to see you," you lie. Being friendly seems to be the quickest way through this conversation.

"Yeah, you look great," he says, visibly checking you out as you cross your arms in front of yourself in a weak attempt to stop his wandering eyes.

"Thanks," you say, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. You go on to talk about what you both have been doing this summer for a while longer, as you patiently wait for your conversation to end.

"So, uh," Ethan proceeds warily, "did you happen to get my text? I sent it to you a while ago, like, a couple of days after Josh's party or something like that." You frown and shake your head.

"No, I must not have seen it. Sorry about that, I'm just never really on my phone that much," you reply apologetically. That was a total lie as well, as you had definitely noticed that you had received a few texts from him a while back, but decided not to answer.

"No worries, I just wanted to tell you that I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," Ethan continues, taking a step towards you. He's standing so close to you now that you can almost feel his breath. You look down at your feet to refrain from rolling your eyes at his comment. You feel his hand lightly lift your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze. He quickly closes the gap between you and leans in to kiss you. Before his lips can meet yours, you swiftly take a step away from him, stumbling backward. You weren't about to break another promise, the last one was bad enough. You look up at him with a look of insincere apology.

"I-I'm in a relationship," you hear yourself say. It seems like the easiest way out of the situation. His eyebrows furrow as he glares at you with confusion.

"Oh," Ethan sighs, "with who?" Your eyes widen and your heart begins to beat faster.

"Sam Kiszka," you blurt, feeling a familiar blush creep onto your cheeks as you realize what you just said out loud. You watch Ethan roll his eyes.

"Come on, really?" You frown and furrow your eyebrows as he shakes his head, "I'm way better looking than that guy." A sharp laugh escapes your lips as you smile up at him.

"Yeah right, have you seen Sam?" you say as Ethan's face falls, "you wish you even came close," you scoff, turning on your heel and walking back towards the record store. You swing open the door with a smirk plastered onto your face, finding where you left your Bob Dylan record and resuming your search.

After a few more minutes of skimming through the dusty bins, you settle on The Beatles' Revolver for Danny, Hot Rocks by the Rolling Stones for Jake, and none other than Van Morrison's Moondance for Sam.

After you pay, you hop back into your truck and check the time. The boys should arrive home any minute now, so you begin to drive back towards the Kiszka house. You want to see them as soon as you can, so you don't waste any time as you quickly speed down the dusty dirt road.

Pulling into their driveway, you park your car and wait for their van to drive in beside you.

Another ten minutes pass, feeling like an eternity before you see their van roll up to the house and park beside you. You jump out of your truck and run over to theirs just as Josh steps out of the passenger seat. In the moment, you forget all about your fight, immersed only in feeling ecstatic that Josh is home. You rush towards him and throw your arms around his neck. He doesn't hesitate to hug you tightly against himself in return.

"I missed you so fucking much," you say into his shirt as he grasps you tighter.

"I missed you too," he replies, pulling back while keeping his hands on your shoulders, "but don't think I'm not still pissed," he says with a smirk.

"I know, talk later, okay?" you ask hopefully. Josh smiles and nods.

"Okay," he agrees.

"What are we, chopped liver?" Jake says, causing you to tear your eyes away from Josh and walk towards him with your arms outstretched. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you in for a hug, rubbing your back gently.

"You didn't forget about me, did you?" he whispers in your ear, hugging you close to him.

"Of course not, are you kidding?" you grin. Suddenly, your hug is disrupted by Danny pushing Jake away from you.

"What the fuck," Jake chuckles, as Danny wraps his muscular arms around you tightly, forcing you into a soft hug.

"Shut up, it's my turn," he answers loudly as you laugh against his chest.

"It's good to see you, y/n," Danny beams as you hug him tighter in response.

He lets go of you and you turn towards Sam. Your heart flutters as you stare at him, admiring his seemingly flawless features. He looks even better than you remember as he closes the distance between you.

"Hey," he says awkwardly as you wrap your arms around his torso. He hugs you back, enveloping his arms around you and nuzzling his face into your neck. You close your eyes and smile into his chest in a state of total serenity.

"I missed this," he mutters quietly into your neck, too muffled for anyone but you to hear it, "I missed you." You feel butterflies swarm in your stomach and your heart skip a beat.

"I missed you too," letting out a content sigh and pulling out of the hug. You gaze at each other for a moment, both of you admiring the other. You hear Jake clear his throat, causing you to tear your eyes away from Sam and look towards the abrupt noise. The three boys were standing a few feet away, smiling at you and Sam. You blush, trying to think of a way to divert their focus from you two.

"Oh, I almost forgot, I have presents!" you say enthusiastically, heading to your car to hide your rosy cheeks. The boys exchange low murmurs of excitement in anticipation of receiving their gifts. You grab the records from your car and skip back to the group. You hand them out and smile as you watch each of their faces light up.

"No way!" Danny says as you hand him his. "Alright I've gotta hear this," he says as he gives you a quick hug and rushes inside to find a record player.

"Me too," Jake and Sam say in unison, hurrying to catch up with Danny.

"Thanks, y/n!" Sam calls while he runs into the house with Jake. You laugh at their reactions as you realize you're left alone Josh. You glance over at him, watching him study the album cover of his new record.

"You like it?" you ask as he quickly looks up at you with a wide grin, soft dimples appearing on his cheeks.

"You know I love it, thank you y/n," he says, but his smile soon fades, "can we go somewhere to talk?" You nervously scratch the back of your head.

"Of course," you reply. You follow him as he leads you to the backyard, each of you taking a seat on the porch steps overlooking the forest beyond their property. At first, neither of you speak, both of you gazing thoughtfully at each other not seeming to know where to begin. You both decide to break the silence and begin to speak at the same time. You apologize and Josh gives a small laugh.

“You can go first,” he speaks gently. You suck in a sharp breath and begin to explain yourself to him, apologizing every now and then. You tell him that although you may not deserve his trust, you are going to be nothing but honest with him from now on. Fiddling with your hands, you go on to say that you still like Sam, but you’re unsure what that would mean for everyone else.

You speak for a long time, words that you longed to say while Josh was gone pouring out of you without restraint. Josh stares attentively at you the whole time, listening to everything you have to say without interrupting. You finish speaking with a sigh and look up at him nervously. He smirks at you.

“Are you done?” he asks gently. You nod, swallowing sharply as he raises a hand to his face, tracing over his lips with his fingers softly. He gives a small sigh and looks to the ground, seemingly deciding where to begin.

“While we were gone, I talked to Sam,” he says steadily. Your heartbeat quickens and you anxiously bite your lip. “I gave it a lot of thought, and I realized that I haven’t been completely fair. I didn’t realize how much you mean to him,” he continues, your heart fluttering in your chest, “and come to think of it, if I loved someone as much as Sam loves you, I might have done the same thing.” He pauses, looking up at you with a small smile.

“And although I don’t think I’ll ever understand how you can find that freak appealing,” he says, causing both of you to laugh, “I do know that he’ll treat you right,” he smiles. You stand and move towards him, reaching down to him and hugging him tightly.

“I love you so much, thank you, Josh,” you grin, your eyes shut tightly as he accepts your embrace. He stands with you as you pull away, turning to walk with him back to the house.

“As long as you’re happy,” he grins at you, throwing his arm loosely over your shoulder. “But if you ever lie to me again-" he laughs, wagging a finger at you as you cut him off.

“I promise I won’t, under one condition,” you smirk, causing him to stop walking and look down at you with confusion.

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“I get to call you Joshie,” you say as he laughs loudly, mimicking your wide smile.

“Deal.”

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