#I am actually very familiar with a lot of options this year thanks to my new BookTube obsession but still haven't read that many

[televinita]

Goodreads Choice Awards but the nominees are just the books I've personally shelved

I have a lot of thoughts about the options as they exist (mostly not that bad, except when it comes to the total elimination of children's literature, about which I am furious), but per usual I can't really articulate them in a coherent way SO I sorted my shelves by publication date, ignored the GCA requirement of a minimum 3.5 average rating, and am doing this instead.

[update: oops this did not turn out coherent either. but it got typed!]

Important Reminder: These are not all books I consider equal contenders for "best." I simply wanted to highlight every possible option I actually knew about and have read or am interested in reading.

YA

After the Sirens - Sharon Farrell

Begin Again - Emma Lord (forgot to add this one before)

The Brothers Hawthorne - Jennifer Lynn Barnes (actual nominee and I'm gonna vote for it even though it seems like it may be more of a filler book. The Davenports is the only other official nom to intrigue me, and its lower average rating + hideous cartoon cover isn't enough to flip me unread so sorry, we're going Basic Popularity Contest Pick)

Cleaning Up - Leanne Lieberman

Five Survive - Holly Jackson (definitely not a winner)

Gather - Kenneth M. Cadow (edit: National Book Award finalist?? like with the adult fiction??)

Good as Gold -- Candace Buford (definite contender for fave so far)

Holly Horror - Michelle Jabès Corpora

The Island - Natasha Preston (lol. lmao even. but ridiculous fun)

The Lake House - Sarah Beth Durst

A Long Stretch of Bad Days - Mindy McGinnis

The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway - Ashley Schumacher (here on author loyalty only)

Three Rivers - Sarah Stusek (THAT'S RIGHT. HER.)

Summer Rental - Rektok Ross (why am I this aware of brand-new ya horror??) (because I love horror and it's usually better paced and spookier and less shock-gory than the adult brand? fair)

YA FANTASY / SCI FI

Dream to Me - Megan Paasch (I think it would go here, anyway. but maybe it's just regular YA)

The Eternal Ones - Namina Forna (I gotta remember this series exists)

FANTASY

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries -- winner winner pick!! (no like officially)

Starling House - Alix E. Harrow (though this is a close second, and honestly, if they weren't both actual nominees I'd think The Unmaking of June Farrow has some potential intrigue)

ROMANCE

Hazel Fine Sings Along - Katie Wicks (no comment on its Wattpad origin. I didn't notice until just now. have not read it.)

Famous For A Living - Melissa Ferguson (popular enough for Once Upon a Book Club! but not for for an official nom, despite my hopes, in this fiercely competitive category. boooo)

Out On a Limb - Hannah Bonam-Young (damn I actually saw this one making rounds on BookTube, thought it might be here)

Something Wild & Wonderful - Anita Kelly (can't believe there's actually a queer romance I want to see show up and it doesn't)

(Bonus: legit nominees I am considering for validity include Happy Place; Yours Truly - I really need to figure out if Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez are in my wheelhouse or not - and Hello Stranger, though as much as I like Katherine Center this one does not call to me)

FICTION

This Bird Has Flown - Susanna Hoffs (might also have been under romance if picked for the actual GCA? feels more mainstream than that but idk. anyway HATERS 2 THE LEFT.)

^ also my pick for debut

The Lost Manuscript - Mollie Rushmeyer (dunno which category this would officially go in either. probably romance? maybe mystery? but it's got a lot more plot than the average romance)

HISTORICAL FICTION

The Echo of Old Books - Barbara Davis (holy crap this one's actually in the nominations?! Instant vote. Almost disappointing because there are some other candidates I would have felt fine voting for to block the worse ones, but this is the only one on my acute TBR. If I don't give at least 4 stars I will be shocked)

MYSTERY/THRILLER

Forgotten Trail - Claire Kells

The Hike - Lucy Clarke

The Only One Left - Riley Sager

Homecoming - Kate Morton (crisis alert! the latter two are both official nominees and I am equally interested in both/both have equally good track records with me) (probs. gonna vote Kate on the principle of female solidarity. even though this is really stretching the definition of "mystery")

HORROR

A Haunting on the Hill - Elizabeth Hand

(How To Sell a Haunted House is a hard maybe but also the only one I think I'd even consider trying from the official noms)

MEMOIR

Paris: The Memoir - Paris Hilton

The Woman in Me - Britney Spears

Grimoire Girl - Hilarie Burton Morgan

Tell Me Everything - Minka Kelly

If You Would Have Told Me - John Stamos

Goodbye to Clocks Ticking - Joseph Monninger (forgot I just stumbled upon this one recently! it's on my library list but not my GR account)

and one more except GCA put it in a different category hang on

Three of these - not Burton's, alas - are actually nominees. Britney is gonna win but not without a fight from me. Do I go with Paris, whose memoir impressed me even though I still don't care much for her as a person, or Minka, whose memoir I haven't read but whose reviews sound excellent and whom I like more?

HUMOR

Being Henry - Henry Winkler (there is absolutely no reason for this not to be nominated in memoir btw. I hope it wins Humor because nothing else appeals in that category and I have multiple vendettas (SAMANTHA IRBY), but it would be as misplaced a win as the Office Ladies book was last year. fully deserving of an award! actually the best of the given nominees! but also like an adult beating a bunch of children in a footrace.)

MIDDLE GRADE

(no longer a GCA category but it fudgin' should be)

Just Gus - McCall Hoyle

Falling Out of Time - Margaret Peterson Haddix (actually glad I don't have to choose between these two because like. dogs - but also boy MC - or author loyalty ft. sequel to my childhood fave??)

Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen - Geri Halliwell The Spice Girl (no. 😔) (and yet it is still on my shelf)

I have no strong opinions for any categories I skipped.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Prynhawn da Elanor,

I'm a student in the US currently applying to universities for next year, and I have a couple of questions about Welsh universities if you have the time. I'm looking at both schools in the US and one in Wales (I managed to visit over the summer and it seemed great, loved the town and the university, and the degree that I'm interested in is very solid there), and the teaching style/expectations of students are an unknown factor. I've been taking college classes while still in highschool so I'm familiar with college-level instruction in the states, and it's not ideal for what I'm interested in studying. For example, at one of the schools I visited that is supposed to be a decent research university, the faculty were surprised that I had questions about research as an undergrad, and according to current students, the hardest part of their studies were quizzes on botanical taxonomy. So, I'm curious, what are the general academic expectations for students (especially in ecology or wildlife biology-related courses)? It seems like assessments are more practical or long-form and less quiz/multiple choice.

This got long-winded, so my apologies, and thank you for your time!

Shwmae! Happy to answer.

SO, I shall caveat this with saying that I don't really understand how higher education works in the US; it's a very different system to the UK in many ways. I'm therefore not entirely sure how to explain the exact differences. So, I'll just tell you about how it works over here rather than trying to do a comparison, if that makes sense? It means some of this will definitely feel like Water Is Wet stuff, but hopefully there'll be an exact answer in there that you can extract. Also, if you're comfortable doing so (and want to), I'm happy to talk over DM if you want slightly more specific advice involving you revealing details that otherwise might doxx you.

(Also second point, because I have danced this dance before and I know what Some Of You Lot are like when my posts start gaining traction beyond my circle of followers: in places where I do explain something that's different between the two systems, I am not saying one is better or worse than the other. Don't be a cunt about this. Work on your defensiveness and ego in your own time. I'm too busy and important for your feelings.)

Third point: I'm snipping this for length. On with the answer!

So, degrees over here are fairly fixed in terms of content and duration. Some offer a specific, set array of modules that make up the degree; others have essential core modules, and then you can choose from a small number of options until you get the required credits. But part of choosing the course for you over here is looking at the modules that make up the degree to make sure you're getting the exact focus you want; the one I teach on, for example, has a focus on practically applying environmental science, with the result that it has a very high post-graduation employment rate across a variety of environmental disciplines. Others might focus more on human geography, or environmental engineering, or climate science, or whatever else.

The reason for this is the quality assurance system in the UK. Courses have to be validated as being the right quality in terms of content, level of study, assessment practices, etc. Let's say you get a BSc from UWTSD in Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change; that comes with a quality assurance for a future employer that you have learned a specific set of skills, a specific knowledge bank, and are capable of using both in a specific way. There shouldn't be a risk, for example, that they hired someone from the same course the year before who had the same qualification as you, but turned out to not understand the dynamic processes behind sand dunes and couldn't write an official report to save their life, meaning you get passed over for the job the following year because they can't trust that your education actually means anything; if both of you have the same qualification, then the course should be meeting sufficient quality standards to ensure that you both therefore have the same knowledge and skillset.

So that's point one!

Where this works in your favour is point two: assessment. Assessment is also rigidly quality-checked, but it means you can ask a course director and immediately get an outline of what the assessment procedures are (not the precise assessment tasks, obviously; but, report vs exam vs lab practical etc will be known).

But also, yes, assessment in the UK is extremely rarely what I understand to be 'quizzes' in the US, and extremely rarely multiple choice. Rightly or wrongly, there is a definite perception in academic circles over here - even at high school level, much less university - that a multiple choice quiz is too easy to pass by guessing, and they're very looked down on as a method to assess learning.

What you'll have instead varies between modules and courses, but I can give you an idea with a couple of mine:

Level 4: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

No exams: two reports based on practical field/lab work, both worth 50% of the final mark

First: dissect owl pellets in the lab from two sites. Evaluate what the findings mean for the biodiversity on each site, and suggest some future site management prescriptions. 2000 words.

Second: fieldtrip to nearby woods to take allometric tree measurements and calculate carbon sequestration. Evaluate the ecosystem service provided by the woodland, and comment on site management and conservation. 2000 words.

Level 5: Coastal, Marine and Wildlife Conservation

One assignment, one exam, each worth 50% of the final mark

Assignment: Ramsey Island has far less biodiversity than neighbours like Skomer, Grassholm, etc. Research why, what was done to fix it, how well it's recovered, and suggest what should be done in the future to aid further recovery. 2500 words.

Exam: First half is a selection of short form questions to test baseline knowledge. Second half is a 50 mark essay question; choice of two topics to answer.

Level 6: Habitat Management and Building Resilience

No exams: two assignments, one before Christmas worth 30% of the mark, one in May worth 70%

First: choose a species reintroduction project of your choice, and find the habitat feasibility study carried out for it. Critique that habitat feasibility study. Put your findings into an academic poster and present it. 15 mins.

Second: using teachings from across the year, produce a habitat management plan for a site of your choosing. You need to actually visit and assess your site. 3500 words.

(L4, 5 and 6: first, second and final year of undergrad)

The idea in each case is not just to test knowledge; it's to test applied knowledge, and to teach real-world skills needed in the industry after you graduate. If you go into land management, for example, the ability to guess the right answers based on the multiple choice pattern is useless; the ability to assess a site and write up a management plan for it, on the other hand, is literally the job you're hired to do.

So, as far as research is concerned... if you mean carrying out your own research on a topic of your own choosing, the main place that happens is your dissertation in third year. But, you can start that earlier if you want. In our department, we also encourage and support any independent research a student may choose to do, even if they don't end up using it for their degree directly.

If you mean general research skills, though, those are vital to every assignment. If you only repeat back whatever papers or knowledge the lecturers have given you, and don't research independently, you will barely scrape a pass. We actively push you to learn those skills.

And then lastly, expectations for students! In higer ed, you are now an adult, and you are choosing to be here: this means that the expectation is that you're meeting the lecturers halfway, as it were. It's a mistake a lot of new students make, if they've come straight from high school - uni is just The Next Thing to do, but to them it's basically like school, so the teachers have to keep trying to teach them even if the student barely shows up or makes any effort.

But that is not so! They are no longer pupils, and I am not a teacher.

If I say to a class "Look up these papers and be familiar with the arguments before next session because we're going to have a seminar", and then someone doesn't bother because "Whoops I went out drinking and forgot to do my homework teehee", then they can get out. They are adults paying for a particular service. I have offered that service. If they think of it as homework and choose not to do it because they wanted to go out clubbing instead, then... okay. That's the choice they can make. But the consequence is, I'm not chasing after them, because I'm not a teacher, and that's not my job. Now they aren't having that session. This will have a knock-on effect for their understanding of the topic; but that's the choice they made.

(Again, before the Pissing On The Poor crowd arises: I am, very obviously, not talking about students who have other struggles that impact their academic performance. I am, very literally and clearly, talking about the 18-year-old school leavers who are still in the school mindset, and think of missing lectures as 'skiving', and on a lizard brain level think there won't be consequences to that because so far in their life, education systems have not been allowed to fail them for that behaviour.)

So, basically... you're expected to want to learn and improve, and to put the work in to do that. Not to just be there to get the degree, but to be there to learn. Adult education is collaborative between lecturer and student. We guide you, but it's your journey to take.

Anyway! I hope that is at all useful. Let me know if you want clarification on anything, or have any other questions!

[coeluvr]

I'm honestly kinda obsessed with this story. It's so fascinating and I have so many thoughts and theories rolling around in my head, I cant wait to see how things unfold!!

There is one thing I'd really like to see added, if possible, and that's just more uncertain or middle-ground options, you know? I feel like it would make sense for some MCs to be conflicted or have mixed emotions or just not know what to feel or think about certain things.

This stuck out to me the most when we had to choose whether or not we think our sister actually did poison the late consort. I had a hard time choosing an answer because i felt like my MC just wouldn't know. I mean, that's her sister. Nobody wants to believe someone they love is capable of something like that. And from a more logical perspective, if you actually look at the evidence, she easily could have been framed. At the same time, everyone thinks she did it, that is what MC's been told their entire life, and there's no real evidence to suggest she didn't do it. So... 🤷‍♀️

There were a lot of moments like that for me. Like when we had to choose how we felt about Helios coming back. Our relationship with him at that point is kinda complicated and weird no matter what you do. It'd make sense that MC's feelings regarding him/seeing him again would also be complicated and weird. Or returning to Vesphire, being torn between terror and grief from the trauma but also desperately wanting to go back for the chance to feel some semblance of home, to find a familiar face, or at the very least to lay a flower at their family's grave. And I could see some MCs going back and forth on whether they want revenge or not.

I know adding variations can be complicated and cumbersome to do, so I would completely understand if you didn't want to. Regardless I really appreciate all your effort in making and sharing this story!! You're doing incredible and I'm excited for what comes next 💕💕💕

Hello! I am happy to know you like this little story of mine. 🙇‍♀️💗

I can definitely try to add more variations regarding Helios' arrival + for how they feel about their future trip.

And while I can understand that a lot of people can't decide on a firm standpoint regarding Catalina, I can't add a neutral option.

No one is saying that what MC thinks is facts, it's just their opinion. I'm sure MC over the years has leaned toward one or the other and you simply have to pick the one that feels right to your MC. MC's viewpoint doesn't have to be "the correct one", MC doesn't even know the truth of everything, there's no harm in being wrong.

Just in case someone asks for a neutral option regarding the revenge or no revenge aspect of the story, I can't do that either.

Both the Catalina and Revenge choices will be set for at least a while but when MC gets new and more updated view of things, MC will be able to change it so don't stress.

Thank you for your kind words. 💗

[topazadine]

Writerly Questionnaire

Thanks to @the-golden-comet for the tag! I enjoyed reading your answers, especially the part about your characters!

Alright, here goes.

About Me

When did you first start writing?

I wrote my first story at age 7, started my first book at age 12 (no you can't read it, it's terrible) and published my first poem at age 15.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

Despite writing fantasy, I actually don't read much of it myself. My undergrad career focused most on British literature (specializing in Victorian lit) so that's what I'm most familiar with and what I like the most.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I don't really seek to emulate anyone because I have my own unique voice, and I don't really get compared to anyone else either. If you have suggestions of what I might sound like, fire away lmao, because I don't really know who I emulate. However, I take a lot of inspiration from Willa Cather for atmosphere and Emile Zola for realism.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

I exclusively write at my desk. My setup looks like this:

I need my little guys and my Emotional Support Stuffed Cow (her name is Bluebell the Moobell because she has a little bell in her). Note the knitting I'm procrastinating on at the bottom right lmao.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Funnily enough, I often get inspiration from my day job as an SEO writer, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the types of stuff I write. Sometimes I'll just be hammering away at a Construction Accident Personal Injury Lawyer page and it strikes me that I need to kill one of my characters.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Sort of. I have this thing I do where I like to mentally walk through buildings I used to visit as a relaxation activity, like my childhood elementary school, so that's given me a good memory of how places are laid out. As for actual settings? No, most of those are just made up of pictures I've seen of different places that I've never visited.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Some of my recurring themes include: Degradation/transformation of memory Struggling against fate/the unknowability of fate Found family Abusive relationships Moral relativism Satisficing (choosing between multiple suboptimal outcomes to pick the least harmful option) None of them surprise me; I recognize where they come from. For example, my obsession with the degradation and transformation of memory comes from my own struggles with dissociative amnesia, and my interest in satisficing comes from my International Relations degree. My concerns about the unknowability of fate come from the fact that I had a premonition that I'd die of a heart attack at 42. And I'm 32 right now. You can imagine that this influences my process lmao.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

As a lesbian, I am not ashamed to say that I am deeply and passionately horny for Uileac (who you can meet in "Cachaille" or read about in 9 Years Yearning). Like how can you not go crazy for a man who thinks this is the perfect declaration of love?

He's so scary and so devoted, yet also very chill and laid-back? And funny? And athletic? And protective of his lil sis? He's just ... (screams into pillow)

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Ono. He's a Sinan royal guard who is just so sweet but also kinda dumb.

There's a scene where he has to ask Cerie what kind of menstrual products she needs for their trip, which is both mortifying and really adorable. He's just a really gentle and nice guy who I think would get along with damn near everyone.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

I think Mordrek would scare the absolute shit out of me ngl. Like ... bro just ... does this kind of shit on the regular

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

Uileac, Orrinir, and Ono were heavily inspired by Uguisumaru, Ookanehira, and Omokage from Touken Ranbu and I don't apologize for that. Obviously they are a bit different, but their personalities are quite similar. Cerie was developed from a roleplay where I was playing as Uguisumaru's made-up sister, so that's why she's Uileac's sister in Poesyverse. Haniya, Cerie's love interest, was made up by using personality testing and astrology to come up with Cerie's Perfect Match. No one knows where Mordrek came from. He just kinda showed up.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

They all have daddy issues. Every single fucking one of them.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

All the art I have for my characters was made with AI before I realized AI was absolute garbage shit, so I'm not showing it, but I did commission a painting of Cerie from the amazing artist Caleb over on Twitter:

My Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

For me, that's kind of like asking why a bird sings. It's just what I do and what I have always done.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Definitely when someone says that my writing helped them or resonated with them. My writing gives me catharsis and it feels really good when other people say they got that same sense of catharsis.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

As someone who takes risks that pay off.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Depicting trauma without being melodramatic.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

People have told me they like how meticulous and carefully set up my stories are without infodumping or being boring. They appreciate the work that goes into planning things, how it all pays off in the end and comes together nicely without plot holes.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

I think I've come a long way and continue to improve, which is what is most important.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

The last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō still sang until the end. So yes.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

I write whatever the hell I feel like when I feel like it. People tend to like it, but if they don't, I enjoyed making it anyway.

Open tag!

[zeawesomebirdie]

hi !!!! did NOT consider you might like to have the ask again to answer it. if you do:

seeing you post about your old west au is motivating me to at least draft my stuff out for my fic, too!!! so, firstly: good god thank you. secondly, what kind of drafting process do you normally go through? you don't have to answer this but everyone i know is pretty particular about how they write so i'm always curious!!!

Gosh okay I'm still so embarrassed about accidentally posting this before it was ready!! Lesson learned: only work on long posts on desktop (very affectionate). I'm going to copy paste what I had originally said, but there will be added stuff because it wasn't anywhere near ready to go (if you thought it was long before, honey you ain't seen nothing yet!)

Also I still am so proud of you for working on your fic, we are writing buddies now hand in lovable hand I love you thank you for enabling my rambling <33

Buckle in, here we go!

SO! My drafting process is always a moving target. I do what works best for the work in question, and things change depending on my energy and fatigue levels plus my motivation and interest levels

So that said, right now my process usually looks like:

ramble at someone in DMs, copy and paste rambles into a google doc for safekeeping and marinating

zero draft, aka word vomit until a plot forms, block out actions and the occasional dialog, determine chapter and story arcs

first draft, aka Where The Real Writing Happens

optional second draft, but only if the fic is under 10k

line edits

post :)

find a bunch of typos that I somehow missed during line editing, fix those before anyone notices

I will be showing examples because this is a bit hard to explain and Extremely Intense to a lot of people, and yeah that's because it is! I approach writing fanfic the same way I approach writing original fiction, and I find it works best for me as a plotter

If you are metaphorically inclined and familiar with oil painting: I write the way an oil painter paints. First I block in the big shapes, the gestures, and the colours. Then I come back in subsequent drafts and increase the detail until I'm done!

Further information and actual examples of my drafts will be below the cut, because this is gonna be super long and I love talking shop ^.^

And general content warning for non-graphic violence and graphic smut (and shitty early drafts); the examples are from Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson fics

So before we get into the zero draft, I want to point out two things: first, I do full rewrites. This is why writing takes me one million years. I retype each and every word in each and every draft. Second, I'm actually trying something new with the Old West!AU, for reasons I will explain in a moment!

I started doing full rewrites in 2019 after a college writing course, in which we read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott; she encourages the reader to embrace the shitty first draft. I ended up really benefiting from a zero draft too, something I first learned about in 2020 from someone on authortube who I no longer remember the name of. The zero draft is essentially a pre-draft, in which one gets the gist of the story out of their system before the prose clogs up the spigot

For me, zero drafts are something that need to be finished as fast as possible in order to get done at all, so due to the sheer length of the Old West!AU, I'm trying out writing little bullet points instead of my full zero drafting. Right now this fic is at 27 chapters, and this is part 1 of 3 total. I will be going back and filling in the actual blocking once I have all the scenes roughly accounted for

Context for the Old West!AU: Bruce is the Bat, a vigilante gunman who only kills when he needs to but still has the fastest draw on this side of the Mississippi. Now that he's taken care of the man who killed his parents, he's returned home to his Uncle Alfred and gone straight, meaning that he's hung up his guns and gone back to homesteading the family land. He adopts Dick and then a year later Jason as well, when small burglaries start happening in town, so he takes the Bat out of retirement and goes to investigate.

My bullet points started out like this:

Open on comparison between Bruce's first gun and the Bat's guns. Introduce Joe Chill, general drunkard. The Bat calls out Chill, shootout, Chill is killed. Chill drew first. Moment of reflection between Bruce's first gunfight at 15 to this one, at 21. Bruce goes home.

And that's the whole entire first chapter!

However, now they look more like:

The Sheriff runs up and shoots at him. The Bat has him disarmed with his own gun barrel to his throat in an instant. It doesn't take the Bat much time to get info out of him either. The burglar is only going after small change, not enough to be noticeable. That rules out the gambler, easily. The Sheriff can't do shit about it, because no one is willing to start an investigation for such small change. The Bat shoves the Sheriff to his knees and is gone before he notices. Alfred is waiting for him when he gets home, and asks. Bruce tries to deny it, but the clothes are in his hands and he can't. So he sighs and says he may have made a promise, but… there might be more to this than there seems, okay? He just… has a bad feeling about it. Alfred can't accept this, what about his sons? Bruce can't take this, and tells him he doesn't have to. Their yelling wakes up Dick and Jason, who stand in the doorway to their bedroom and look on with the door mostly closed.

Eventually both Alfred and Bruce yell each other out, and they sit down for coffee as dawn breaks. Bruce breaks the silence first, saying Alfred is right. Alfred tells him he understands. Bruce decides to let the Bat go for real now.

This is about half of the chapter, and closer to the blocking I normally do in zero drafts

So far this pre-zero draft seems to be working, given I've already finished part 1, but I also can't wait to come back and do the blocking in because that's when the fic really starts to take shape!

Usually though, I just start with a zero draft. I'm going to show you two different fics for the zero draft examples, because they were done differently, and like I said at the beginning, I try to adjust my process based on what is called for by what I'm writing

This first is from the fic I'm writing for @ful-crum. It's a 5+1, in which it is five times Dick fucks Bruce to distract him from discussing his emotions plus one time they actually discuss their emotions and then fuck about it.

Tim and Jason turn up an hour later, and they're incredibly concerned. Dick waves them off. Tim takes him at his word and heads to bed (he has a meeting with Wayne Tech at 8am tomorrow, ugh), but Jason sits down next to the bed and asks Dick what he thinks Bruce is going to say. Dick tells him he's not sure, I mean, it's B, y'know? Jason just nods, and they lapse into silence. Then Steph and Cass come in, and Bruce is most noticeably not present. Cass signs something about bed, and Steph tells Dick that she's worried about Bruce, to which Jason snorts and says they all are, but she insists that Dick talk to him. Dick doesn't even need to take more than a moment to decide that won't be happening. But Steph goes to bed, and it's nearly 04:00 when Jason heads up too, saying he'd love to help Dick lecture Bruce about staying out late but he's got stuff to do tomorrow. Dick asks if he wants to know what stuff, and Jason gives him a smirk and says ask him no questions and he'll tell him no lies. Dick can live with that.

As you can see, this is just general staging directions and vibes

This second example was supposed to be for BruDick Week 2024, but I accidentally got carried away and ended up deciding to write a longfic for it instead. The prompt was "brudick meet their AU!selves," so I did 66!brudick meets the Gotham Rogues Polycule, an AU in which Bruce, Dick, and Clark are in a very elaborate polycule with half of Gotham's villains.

Batman and Robin were on a normal mission in the middle of the day, on the trail of Catwoman, who's been stealing from the Gotham Museum of Art again. One moment they were walking into the museum, the next they were in a weird swirl of energy. Robin clings to Batman and asks what's going on, and Batman tells him steady Robin, we just have to stay calm and see what happens. The energy clears as someone calls out “incoming! Clear the floor!” and they find themselves in what is clearly the Cave, except it's even more high tech than anything they've ever seen. There's three people in suits like theirs standing in front of a massive screen, and Robin identifies the Riddler immediately, even if he doesn't recognise the other two. Before Batman can stop him, he charges the Riddler, who jumps behind the man in black and blue with a laugh. Batman does call out for him to stop, but he ignores him. The man in black and blue meets his every move, almost like he's fighting himself, and he calls out to the man in red and blue “a little help here, Supes?”

The biggest difference here is how drastically these fics changed from their zero draft to the first draft rendition, and that is entirely because of how fleshed out they ended up being (or not being, lol)

When I zero drafted the 5+1, it was with the intention of that specific part simply being a chapter, whereas my original zero draft of the 66! meeting the polycule! fic was actually intended to be a two shot at most. I unfortunately lost control of the plot during the first draft of that one, and it spiraled into a longfic, which will become more clear in a bit!

Basically though, the goal of the zero draft is to know who's where and why at all times! With longfics, there is often a restructuring that happens after the zero draft is written, where I move scenes and sometimes whole chapters to their best locations. This is where I make the most use out of a beta! Pacing is a big struggle for me and it is easier to fix at this stage, before I have all the prose and have become attached to what I've written

Next up is the first draft, and this is a whole new document. This is where I write The Actual Words. This is more or less the final version of the fic, for longfics, give or take a few paragraphs and a shit ton of line edits. Having said that though, I write in fits and bursts, because y'know disabled and stuff. So I write a paragraph or two at a time, and I am constantly adding and subtracting words and lines and sometimes whole paragraphs while I am actively working on a chapter

I'm going to show the first draft versions of both of the above fics, and due to the length these will be extremely excerpted but they should serve as examples regardless. Generally speaking, my zero drafts are about 1/3 of the length of my finished fics, however the 5+1 is currently proving to be an exception so that number may not be super accurate

First, the 5+1:

“You did take care of them, right?” Dick asked, groaning when Jason’s mouth thinned as he looked away. “Is Steph at least still with him?” “Last I heard, they were—” Jason started, cutting himself off when the Cave’s alarm signaled the arrival of newcomers. A moment later, two muddy bikes roared into the garage, leaving dark tracks behind them as they parked haphazardly together on the far side of the garage. With the return of Black Bat and Spoiler, the only empty place on the garage floor now belonged to Batman himself. Dick tried to catch Jason’s eyes as they waited in the med bay for Cass and Steph to strip off their suits and join them, but Jason turned away from him, though he didn’t rise from the bed. Something must have gone down after he’d fallen unconscious, Dick was sure of it. Why else would Bruce have sent everyone else home early on a patrol night? He could already see it in his mind’s eye, Batman doing God-knew-what out in Gotham alone, Bruce coming home with a busted lip that Dick would have to personally clean up before they went to bed, how that lip would scab over and feel under his tongue when he kissed Bruce the next morning after waking up in their bed—Bruce’s bed—on accident. How that scab would stretch when the ghost of a smile caught Bruce by surprise after one of Dick’s terrible puns. “You okay?” Steph called across the Cave as she and Cass walked toward the med bay. “Never been better,” Dick replied, trying not to be put out at Jason’s eye roll. He put up a hand for Cass to inspect when she came up to his bedside, and after she had nodded her satisfaction of his health he smiled. “I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

And the 66! meets polycule! fic:

“You!” Robin shouted, not waiting for Batman to back him up as he charged toward the Riddler. Riddler didn't move—in fact, none of the three moved—then Robin was on him, punching his face hard enough to hear a distinct crack. That startled all three into action, Riddler swearing up a storm before throwing himself behind the blue masked man, who blocked Robin's next hits without hesitation. “Robin!” Batman called from somewhere behind him, but Robin ignored him, focusing his energy on striking past the masked man's defenses to get at Riddler. “I know you're behind this, you– you scum!” Robin snarled in Riddler's direction, placing a perfectly timed jab toward the masked man's left cheek and then feinting to the right. But the man met him easily, as though they were merely sparring. “I'm not who you think I am!” Riddler exclaimed, his hands cupping his face but doing little to staunch the blood streaming from his nose. “Let's slow down for a minute, okay?” the masked man said, his voice maddeningly level as if Robin wasn't trying every trick he knew to get past him. “We can explain.” “Yeah kid, there's a good explanation here, we promise,” Riddler added. Robin growled and spun around the  masked man's reach only to find him once again directly blocking him from Riddler. How in the dickens did he know exactly where Robin was going to strike before Robin himself knew? And why on earth was he protecting the Riddler? “Supes, we could use a hand here,” the masked man said, still obnoxiously calm, once again blocking Robin's fist and this time circling his hand around Robin's wrist to twist his arm behind his back. In a blink, Robin was lifted into the air by his collar, the blue and red suited man holding him at arm's length. Robin continued to struggle for a moment, but finally Batman came into view, frowning up at him. Seeing Batman's disapproval took every bit of wind from Robin's sails, and he deflated instantly. If Batman didn't think he needed to fight, then he probably didn't need to.

So as you can see, I just kinda fill in the details with each draft!

Which is where we come to the optional second draft. I try, I really do try, to do a full second draft of everything I write. I always am glad to have done one, once it's done. The problem is, I really do have very limited energy, and anything longer than a chapter or two just doesn't get finished if I try to give it a full second draft. I've instead been doing really vigorous line edits, which I don't have an examples of because those are done in the same document as the first draft!

Now, you're probably wondering why on earth I gave a smut content warning at the beginning of this post. WELL.

I am calling myself out as a newbie when it comes to the art of smut writing. My 5+1 fic, the one where literally every single part has extremely explicit smut, has the following in the zero draft:

Yes, that is not one, not two, but three "cue smuts." Clearly I was new at this (affectionate)

Shout out to past!me for this in the last part though, because at least it actually has some semblance of blocking even if it is still extremely lacking:

The kissing escalates (as it often does) to smut over the desk (though Dick does try to move the documents out of the way, even if Bruce is growling at him to leave it alone; he doesn't want to be the reason Tim has another caffeine-induced breakdown).

I didn't figure this out until I was actually writing this fic, but it turns out I not only need to block in regular action scenes, I also need to block in the smut, because otherwise I will be sitting there having no fucking clue what to write (very affectionate)

So I now present what a zero draft of smut looks like! This is from a 5+1 in which there are five times Bruce and Dick fuck because of Poison Ivy's sex pollen and it "doesn't mean anything," plus one time they fuck because they actually want to:

Dick asks if they can take off their suits, it's too hot he's too hot, and Bruce says okay, that's a good idea, and internally he's panicking because oh no. Oh no. But the moment the words are out he sees the relief in Dick's face, and realises Dick needs to be told what to do right now, so he tells him clearly to strip, it'll help. Once Dick is fully naked in the other seat, he turns to Bruce and asks if he needs help with his armor. His hand is tentatively, almost shyly stroking his cock, and Bruce is really struggling to not watch. He tells him no, he doesn't, and takes off the chest plate and arm armor, but leaves what's left of his leg armor on. He decides he can safely put his hand under his boxers, but Dick makes a little noise, and when he looks over he can clearly see Dick watching him stroke himself. Oh fuck. He's cumming before he even realises it, his boxers getting wet and sticky and his cock still so maddeningly hard and he strokes himself through it, unable to stop himself from moaning even as he tries to keep himself in a clinical mindset. Dick asks to see him, and Bruce, despite knowing what a bad, horrible idea this is, pulls down his boxers to reveal his cock. Dick shifts his hand on his own cock to mimic what Bruce is doing, and Bruce has the horrible realisation that he doesn't even really know how to jerk himself off. Dear God, hopefully Alfred stays the fuck out of the Cave tonight.

So it's really just more of the same general blocking directions and vibes!

Another thing of note for zero drafts, I try to use as few words as possible to get what I need across. These are only ever intended to be seen by myself and a beta, assuming anyone else besides me even sees them at all, so I use slang and shorthand and leave notes for myself in the text itself

This can be a bit weird for when I show it to betas (or anyone else, for that matter!) because there are some fics where the tone or the vocabulary in the zero is incredibly modern despite the fic being in a historical or pre-modern setting!

And I have yet to actually write the first draft of that one, so I'm going to give you the first draft of the "Cue more smut (but this time against the batmobile 😌)" scene so that you can see the difference between the blocking and an Actual Scene:

Bruce had turned his back to him, bracing himself against the batmobile, and Dick took hold of Bruce's hip to hold him steady when he slid a finger into his hole. A soft moan was all he got in verbal response, but Bruce pushed against Dick's finger despite Dick's best efforts to do this slowly. Chuckling under his breath, Dick slid in a second finger, relishing in the clench of Bruce's muscle as he began working him open. “Easy, B,” he said softly, leaning over him enough to move his hand from Bruce's hip to his cock. Bruce growled and arched into his touch, taking in Dick's fingers completely. “Someone's in a rush tonight, huh?” He didn't get a verbal response, not that he ever did. Bruce rarely spoke while full, relying instead on nonverbal communication to indicate his needs. It hadn't taken long for Dick to become acquainted with his movements back when they started this; after all, fucking was no different from fighting, not for them, not when they had flown side by side across Gotham for more than half of Dick's life. And Dick knew Bruce would always try to get him to rush just a little, knew he'd give in like he always did, wanting to have his cock inside Bruce as soon as physically possible just as much as Bruce did. He wasted no more time, sliding his fingers out and releasing Bruce's cock just long enough to slick up his own. The small whine from Bruce at the loss of contact ought to be ignored, ought not be acknowledged, and Dick knew that, but he couldn't resist leaning over to kiss the small of Bruce's back. Bruce huffed at him, glaring over his shoulder. Dick met his eyes with a grin. Then Dick gripped Bruce's hip again, holding him steady while Bruce leaned back to meet him, and slipped into his tight heat. There was a soft moan from Bruce the moment he bottomed out; Dick leaned forward again to kiss up his spine, keeping his cock buried deep even while Bruce began to rock back into him.

I do think the fic for @ful-crum would be easier if I had proper blocking for the smut, but also I do love a good challenge and you live and you learn, so I'm not super invested in going back and blocking in the smut at this point in time!

And honestly, once the line edits are done that's pretty much it!

I keep a little "posting info" doc for each and every fic I write, to which I add tags as I come to them in writing, so that I don't have to think about what needs to be tagged at the end after I've already forgotten what I've written. That has saved my butt so many times ngl, especially for longfics!

But really what keeps me from posting more often, despite how much I write, is that I fully finish fics before I post them, even if I'm posting them on a weekly or whatever basis. This is mostly because I can't guarantee when I'll need to randomly take several months off of writing, and I don't want to leave anything unfinished, but also because I don't want to actually end up leaving something unfinished for a few years until I cycle back into the fandom

And that's it!! Thanks for tuning in to this little master class :) If I can clarify anything please let me know; I tried to explain everything that I thought needed it but I can never tell what others will need more clarification on!!

And also, thanks again for asking this!! I don't know many people who do full drafts, or even many people who don't completely pants everything they write, and so I'm always excited to discuss my process!! I also am a firm believer in "take what helps and leave the rest," so if you find something in my process that sounds like something you'd like to do, give it a whirl!! I think it's super important to share the different kinds of processes there can be for writing, because everyone really writes so differently, you know?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my shitty early drafts (very affectionate)!!

[duckingwriting]

Unexplored

Day 2 of @flufftober - "Left! Other Left!"

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Other Fandom: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Relationships: Magmarashi | Quilava/Alligates |Croconaw, Partner Pokemon/Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) Characters: Magmarashi | Quilava, Alligates | Croconaw, Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon), Partner Pokemon (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) Additional Tags: Flufftober2024, POV First Person, Ambiguous/Open Ending, ambiguous/no gender for narrator

Surprising no one it is up on AO3 and bellow the cut!

Spending time as a Pokemon was not exactly how I planned to exist. It was definitely not high on my list of 'things that will happen in my lifetime'. Training them? Yeah. Befriending them? Of course. But being a Pokemon was not on my list. At least I didn't think it was. After all, I had once been human. At least that's what I remember. Not that I remember a lot. Actually I remember very little  so maybe being a Pokemon was on my list. Who knows. Maybe I never was human and it's all some delusion or trauma response. But whatever the case may be, I am a Pokemon. I am-

"Quillava," Croconaw's voice jerks me out of my wandering thoughts and I turn my attention towards him. He's grinning at me, he's always grinning, but this one is the fondly exasperated smile he gets when he realizes I haven't been paying as much attention as I probably should be.

I brush my hands down my chest and sooth my fur down offering a half smile as an apology. "Lost in thought, sorry. What were you saying?"

"You're all good." Croconaw's claws tickle through my fur as he pats my shoulder and I force myself to resist leaning into the touch. I know that no matter what I may feel Pokemon don't form more than friendships outside of species. It's something I've observed over the time I've had my memories since Croconaw found me. So even though I'm still not sure how being formerly human, or imagining I was formerly human, may be affecting me. I can't risk how they may affect him negatively. I can't risk him deciding that rescuing me that day and forming a rescue team with me was a poor decision. 

"I was asking if you thought we should ask someone else to join us today or just us?" Croconaw straightened the bandanna around my neck before smoothing his own out. 

"It's just tiny woods. I think we can handle it just us?" I wanted to give him the option of asking for someone else. In case I had let something slip. In case he didn't want to be alone with me. His grin widened and he gestured for me to lead the way. I moved quickly, pausing only long enough to be sure we had the missions information for anyone that needed something from where we were going in our pack. I left it mostly empty, after so many years the tiny woods were as familiar to us as my flames. Even with the growing disturbances, any fight we got in there we could hold our own. And if we did get in a tight spot there were always things to find to help. Plenty of berries and even items on occasion.

The steady slapping of Craconaw's feet against the soft dirt sent comforting trails through my soul and made everything feel lighter.

There was honestly nothing noticeably different about this trip than any of the hundreds of others we had gone on. We marked our paths as we went, found useful items to collect, and moved  on. We talked and joked and fought when we had to. It was a comfortable trip.

Then I stepped on a trap.

It was a trap unlike any we had encountered before. It somehow transported us out of the tiny woods and left us in an unfamiliar place. With far too much water to be comforting. I had lost consciousness and was woken up to Croconaw shaking me awake. His eyes creased with concern. 

"Oh thank Arceus." Croconaw breathed out when I pushed myself up with a groan.

"Where are we?" I asked, looking around. "Are you okay?"

"Better than you." He answered by looking around. "You broke my fall."

I looked up but didn't see anything above us that would be any kind of escape. 

"A transporting trap?"

"It seems like it. Maybe we activated an orb or something?"

I nodded my head, though I could tell my Croconaw's voice he was not any more confident in that than I was. I let my flames burn a little higher to give us more light to look around the cave we were in. 

"There's some tunnels." I said with a nod. "Do we wait here for rescue or..."

"No one is even going to know where we are. We reported going to Tiny wood." Croconaw sighed and started forward. I pushed myself up and moved to walk next to him, careful not to get close enough to burn him with my flames. We took the right tunnel. We wondered for hours, eating some of the foods we had gathered from the woods. There was often water crossing our path that forced us to go around. Well me. More often than not Croconaw would start swimming in it. We were both on guard as we had yet to find anything to tell us where we were.

Nothing looked familiar and that was unnerving given how much exploring the two of us had done together.

We eventually found a large room with a crumbling statue. We approached carefully and started to examine it. We couldn't figure out what kind of Pokemon were in the carving or if part of it was human. It was far too decayed for that.  But there was a plaque made of some kind of metal with words carved in. We could make out the words 'human', 'Pokemon', 'escape', 'together', and 'return'. 

"An escape rope maybe?" Croconaw looked towards me and I shrugged my shoulders.

"Co-ca-ion?" I said trying to make out more of the words but it was hard to tell where the breaks were. "Co-fe-ion?"

"Maybe ions are important?" Croconaw suggested tapping his claw against one of his fangs in thought.

"I hope that doesn't mean we'll be trapped for eons." I laughed at my own joke even if it was more nervous than not. Croconaw's laugh was even more strained. We turned away from the rubble and started to look around the cavern a bit more to see if we could find anything more that we could use. There was sudden shaking in the ground and worrying cracking sounds from above. I screamed when a rock suddenly landed nearly on me. 

"Quilava!" Crconaw was running in my direction as I bolted towards him.

"It's collapsing! Get to the tunnels!" We both adjusted our directions though he hesitated a moment looking at me worriedly. 

When he made it to the entrance Croconaw did not enter instead turning to look at me as I dodged the falling rocks. Trying to watch where I was going as well as what was coming down on top of me. The groundbreaking beneath my paws at a worrying rate.

"Left! Your other left!" Croconaw shouted when I started to dodge to his left instead of mine. He rolled barely avoiding being crushed. I scrambled to get my feet under me and bolted again as swiftly as I could, my flames hissing when Croconaw shot water at boulders to send them further off course from crushing me.  Then a large gaping crack opened between us.

"Right. NO left. no....no....no." Croconaw was looking both ways trying to see which way I should go to get to him. 

I clenched my jaw and focused all my power on going faster, I could see how long the crack was. It took up the whole room. It was getting larger and larger. If I tried to find a way around there was no guarantee I would be able to get across. If I was going to jump I had to do it now before it became too big. I closed my eyes as I pushed off the ledge not wanting to see myself fall to my death, which seemed to be a likely outcome. 

"Quil!" Croconaw's voice roared in my ears as I felt the edge of the other side. I scrambled for purchase as it crumbled beneath my weight and I started falling. Croconaw's clawed fingers wrapped around one paw while the other hand dug his claws into my shoulder. I cried out in mild pain but scratched at the wall until we managed to pull me up and into the entrance of the tunnel. Croconaw had his arms around me and I made no effort to move as he held me close panting in my ear. My flames nearly died as the adrenaline left me and the shadows wrapped around us.

"Thanks." I panted and rested my head on his shoulder.

"Don't ever do that again." Croconaw growled and I could feel his claws prickling at my shoulders. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

I lifted my head. He had never quite sounded like that before. Before I could question it, light suddenly flooded in and we blinked turning our heads to see Team A.C.T. I felt Alakzam's powers wrap around us and felt as Croconaw's claws were reluctantly pulled from my fur before we were lifted up. We were sitting on the ground and I immediately recognized Tiny Woods.

"Perhaps next time you two want some alone time together," Charizard was smirking at us and I saw Croconaw look away in embarrassment. "You should not go to an unexplored area."

"Yeah. Right. Thanks for the assist." I mumbled as the older team laughed at the two of us. They escorted us back to town. Their teasing about young love made me send looks at Croconaw. I expected him to dispute the statements but he kept his red eyes down and did not look at me. When we made it back to base he was shifting nervously from foot to foot and still not looking at me.

"You know...it's kinda late." I said slowly and his shifting stopped. "If you wanted to spend the night at base...with me...?"

Croconaw looked at me suddenly and blinked. "It'll feed what they all gossip about."

"I'm okay with that." I whisper, I couldn't get my voice any louder. I knew I was possibly crossing a line. But then Croconaw was grinning  again and it no longer mattered what anyone else thought as he rushed to my side.

As we walked into the base, warmed by my flames, I decided I didn't much care one way or the other if I was human at one time or if I was always a Pokemon with delusions. I had Croconaw at my side. And as long as we were together, that was enough for me.

[napo-leo-art]

Hi! From the OC asks: 7, 17 and 23 for Gavin? No pressure though!

Of course! And no worries, I love answering these. Thank you for the questions! (Under the cut for length)

7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

I haven't really changed Gavin all that much, but I do have one bit! TBH, the first time I played him was Book 2, and I hadn't played him in Book 1 (I did one of those "make a new character with summary" things). And then I ended up really liking him and went back and played 1 with him LOL. So, I am very into things like musicals and dancing and singing, so I have the tendency to lump those onto my OCs. Gavin was the most recent one of these! And then I realized that trait combined with his skills and his general attitude was pretty similar to another OC I had*, who I really love and have had for several years, so I thought I should explore some other options. I especially wanted to do stuff that I'm not familiar with, so I fell into frat boy stuff and sports LMAO. I'd love to draw some shit for that, but I'm really not a team sports kinda person.

*Jesse Acevedo, he's my Breach: The Archangel Job oc and I've rped with him quite a bit.

17. What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

That's a great question. I'm gonna avoid anything that happened in the Wayhaven books, since a lot of characters went through that and I'd like to give more info LOL.

Outside of Wayhaven stuff, it would probably be the experience that led him to quit law school. This is a sensitive topic so I don't want to add a ton of details, but in short he (as a defense attorney*) was legally on the side of a defendant who really did commit the crime that was alleged, which was already terrible. Then the defendant physically attacked the plaintiff (accuser) in the trial, between actual court appearances.

Gavin (and myself) would put priority on the victim of this attack, but it still was the sort of experience that was life-altering for him, and a terrible twist of his good intentions. His goal was to provide a good defense to the accused who couldn't afford a good attorney, but the reality of having to defend the people who actually did commit the crimes they were accused of had a much bigger toll on him than he expected, and it felt wrong to keep pursuing pretty unfiltered cases.

*this is not the correct term, but I can't think of the right one at this moment- in the US, the court will provide you a defense attorney if you can't afford one, and that was the job he was going for. District attorney? Point is, they are a defense in criminal cases for people who do not have the resources to defend themselves legally.

23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

I almost said 'vulnerability', but that's not strictly an emotion LOL. It's the most "true" answer, but let me give a bit more.

I think maybe lovesickness? is the hardest for him to process. He's had a lot of shallow relationships and hookups and he gets into them completely willingly, even considering he knows he'll get his feelings hurt. The part where it *actually* hurts is the worst, because he has nobody to blame but himself. Like, let's say Mason didn't have feelings for him. Mason made it completely clear, and he caught feelings anyway. So why is he hurt? He knew what he was getting into.

But really, he can still be hurt by that of course. He made a bad decision, but it still hurts.

As for expressing? Probably sadness, it's one of those emotions where people feel the need to protect or help you in some way, and he always feels very weird not dealing with those things on his own. He's definitely not the gossipy type, and sometimes the kinda sadness you have really needs to be explained to get it all out. It's easier not to express it.

I think anger could very easily be the replacement outlet for him, but he's not an angry person in the least. So he buries it under a lot of other emotions, or just hopes it'll go away on its own.

[firecoloredwater]

For the ask meme: 8, 12, 25, 29

Well! This is phenomenally late. But thank you for asking! I have been slowly picking away at this by which I mostly mean the list in 12 for uhhh Too Long.

8: Do you have any rituals or habits that help you get into the zone?

Hmmm. I tend to have snacks + water with me when I write. That's less an intentional ritual and more so that I can tunnel vision on writing for five hours straight without getting dehydrated, so really it's more about not getting out of the zone, but it's as close as I've got. Music used to be really helpful, but it just sort of randomly stopped working a few years ago and I'm not sure why.

12: Are there any clichés or tropes that you actively avoid in your fics?

Kiiiinda all of them? But not in a "I refuse to write this" way, just like....

Okay so, the thing is, cliches (and tropes, when people are complaining about them in a way equivalent to cliches) are familiar. We've seen them a thousand times. They feel natural. They don't feel like a trope, they just feel like How Things Are. And that's why people end up writing cliches when they don't work well, because they feel like they work. And in a sense they do; nobody's going to be confused, relatively few people will be bothered, we can get to the next bit quickly. You just don't get much of anything out of them other than being able to move on quickly, most of the time.

Buuuuut I am kinda Invested in characters and characterization. (And worldbuilding, especially culture and society, which is basically just characterization at another scale). So whenever something feels too neat/happens too smoothly I go "wait, no, that's just the first thought, that's not the best option, that's not how individuals work" and then like... chew on the characters and the situation a bit more. And almost always I end up with something less cliche.

(If you have noticed me going "Maybe, but maybe (more complicated thing here) instead" in discord that's usually what I'm doing.)

...this might explain why I can write nothing short ever. Hm.

So the point is: I actually do like playing with cliches and standard tropes, but I do that after lots of breaking them down and examining all the pieces and doing some remodeling. And that is how we ended up with things like BSAU and tech AU.

Also technically there are a lot of tropes I avoid but that's like, the queercoded villain, the girl who's supposed to be powerful but is only ever helpless when the boys show up, etc. Cliche is not the reason I avoid them, is what I'm getting at.

Anyway though this question is an invitation to kick the hornet's nest, so a list of things that ping the "wait this is too easy, let me try again but better this time" bells in my head:

Tobirama deliberately endangering himself for enemy children with no hope/plans to gain anything from it

basically anyone falling in love while they're still enemies trying to kill each other (does not apply to HashiMada though because they have the whole river thing to like each other pre-murder attempts)(also to be clear this is about Being In Love not just thinking the other guy's hot)

Izuna is bratty and whiny and dramatic because That's Just How He Is (but if bratty little brother is a role he deliberately leans into around Madara, that's Delicious)

Hashirama being cruel to Tobirama

but also, Hashirama not taking Tobirama at least a little bit for granted

also vice versa for both of those

Butsuma being... hm, pointlessly cruel? Like I think he was absolutely an awful father and abusive, but I don't think he meant to be. I don't think he was looking for opportunities to be cruel for the sake of cruelty, he was just Immensely Fucked Up himself and his best was not very good. Which is a very different flavor of awful than if he just, like, enjoys beating up children or something

Mito having 0 reservations about marrying Hashirama (and in particular the 'go live with the Senju forever' part)

Izuna being just, way more invested in Their Rivalry than Tobirama

being a genius means knowing everything and always being right (not actually very common in this fandom but "how does being really actually very brilliant affect how Tobirama fucks up" is a fun thing to think about)

Hashirama actually being dumb

[insert Uchiha] sees that Tobirama is being abused/neglected/hurt/taken for granted/undervalued generally and deciding that this is Wrong and Must Be Fixed/they need to rescue him/etc. even though they're at war

Tobirama gets taken prisoner/hostage and wow turns out he gets treated so much better as an Uchiha prisoner than he did at home (as a result of the above or otherwise)

both of those would also apply in other configurations but I only recall seeing it as Uchiha rescue and are kind to Tobirama

honestly basically any popular trope will end up here because like. you can make any of these work very well. But once tropes hit a certain level of popularity people start just writing them without putting in the work to set them up properly and that is where I start going 'if I wrote this I would do X and it would be so much better.'

25: Are there any specific writing tools that you find helpful?

I have not had a properly functional laptop for years now and the instant I get one again--

But other than that, no. I guess I use random.org and fantasynamegenerator fairly regularly? Also Wikipedia for names and bare minimum glance at research. But those aren't really what most people mean by this question I think

29: Are there any characters, relationships, or general character dynamics you’ve never written about but would like to try?

...I mean, yes, for sure, but I have immediately forgotten them all. What's a character.

I think basically every possible version of Mito going to marry Hashirama and live with the Senju is fascinating, but I will probably never write it because I do not have the time to do the research I'd need to or to write the fic, much less both.

I'd also like to explore, like... Hashirama and Madara were both really young when they became clan heads, right? We don't get a number but they were in their early 20s at best. And that's kind of expected in that society generally and probably those clans in particular, but still, they were not prepared and I bet a lot of people wouldn't have taken them seriously. And their main backups/supporters were... their little brothers. What was going on there. I know canon assumes they just had automatic full control of their clans because clans are basically just fancy protagonist accessories at that point, but what actually happened. If this has been normal for generations, did the Senju and Uchiha even ever expect their clan heads to have actual power, or have they basically always been figureheads because they never even hit middle age? Were Hashirama and Madara (and Tobirama and Izuna) even aware of the actual political dynamics in their clan, or were they just raised and trained to be generals on the battlefield and someone else handled everything else?

Once again on politics but: yeah yeah protagonist power do we get how big a deal it is that Hashirama restructured an entire continent's whole society by building Konoha. It didn't work out exactly how he wanted (see: war still happening) but he still did it! Entire economies and cultures uprooted! So I like to think that, maybe, actually, society was already going through huge upheavals for... whatever reasons, history is always complicated, and that creating Konoha was about navigating and taking advantage of the changes that were already going on in order to like, shove Konoha in there as well. Maybe the elemental nations were dealing with economic shifts like the rise of the middle class and also a feminist movement and also advancements in farming technology have tripled crop yields and that means societal demographics have changed overnight and society is not prepared to accommodate any of it. Konoha gets built because when Hashirama proposes it society collectively goes "life is already so weird recently, this might as well happen."

[astriiformes]

Hi! I’m a different person asking about applying for herbarium jobs. I actually followed you a little bit ago specifically because I saw you post about working in one, I just hadn’t gotten the courage up to ask about it.

I’m in college now, with plans to go into plant research, and I’m probably going to graduate with a good amount of lab experience. I recently realized though that herbarium work might also be a good fit for me. I’m not quite sure what to ask here, but is there anything that would make that transition difficult? Or anything I should know or focus on before I graduate? I saw you said you had more of a science background so maybe you know what I’m getting at here

Thanks!

So, full disclosure, my herbarium position was a work-study job last year (I have had a.... winding and tenuous path through college and am currently going back to school at 26 to attempt to finish my Bachelor's by doing a weird syncretic individualized degree instead of a standard biology one) and I do not have experience with applying for similar positions as a graduate or more standard professional candidate, which can obviously be quite different for some jobs.

That said, I don't know how long you have left in school, but looking to see if your own university offers any similar options OR if there's a local herbarium or museum where you could volunteer in your (limited, I imagine) free time would probably serve to make you a good candidate for herbarium work. Even working or volunteering in non-herbarium collections may help -- I know one thing that came up as a positive in my interviews was that I already had a lot of collections experience on my resume, even though it was all in zoology and paleontology collections. Any collections job will get you acquainted with basic curatorial duties and procedures, and may even familiarize you with specific methods of data entry or other skills you can namedrop on your resume. Even if it's volunteer work (all of mine was -- my herbarium position was my first ever paid collections job) it's a great thing to be able to show you have experience in.

As far as particular difficulties go... nothing particularly glaring is coming to mind. Working or volunteering in a collections job as a student before you graduate would also probably help you figure out if it's the right field for you, which is always another bonus. If you've largely got lab experience I'm sure you're very familiar with the tedium of data entry even when you're doing cool research (although there is the occasional entertaining error message, haha) and a lot of collections work is pretty data entry-heavy, though with the immense bonus that you are entering data about some pretty fascinating things and may find yourself crying over the human experience while handling lichen specimens that were collected in the mid-19th century (I speak from experience).

Best of luck with whatever route you go down, and I'd love to be able to consider you a collections comrade. Folks who make the jump from research science to museums are sometimes particularly great advocates for the importance of specimen collections, considering how useful they can be to researchers and having the background to explain how collections are used for contemporary science and not simply kept around as relics of the past, which may be an angle for you to consider if you dip your toes into the field.

(And don't be shy if you ever have other questions! I love talking about this stuff.)

[bonesandthebees]

Some random questions xd (optional dw)

do you like hermitcraft? cause im brainrotting abt it lmao

what is your fav color? mines green!

if you could pick any power in the clinic!universe what would you pick and why? personally i would pick Phils powers cause i want to flyyyyy

What DND moral alightment are you? if u dont know what this is dw, im a true neutral

what is your answer to the trolley problem? i think i would move the lever but idk

If you had to pick one persons lore on dsmp whos would you pick and why? i think i would chose quackity's

What is a fic idea you have but dont think would do well/ isnt something you feel like writing?

what is a comfort movie/show/video? mine isnt a movie but its a 3 hour long techno vid haha

given the chance to be in MCC who would you pick for your team?

i just felt like this btw:) you dont have to answer any of them btw^^

-👑 (king)

oooo these are fun questions!!!

no I don't watch hermitcraft, but I hear bits and pieces from the people on my tumblr dash and my twitter tl who do watch it. also, I've watched 3rd life and last life (and part of double life) which have a lot of the hermits in them, so I'm mostly familiar with the hermits through that (I will say that I am not immune to good times)

yellow is my fav color!

oooo I'd probably pick wilbur's power. siren abilities hello?? insanely powerful man. if not his then I'd go with niki's because I always wanted to be a waterbender like katara when i was a little kid

uhh I'm either neutral good or true neutral, not exactly sure which

I have no idea what my answer would be tbh

if you mean pick someone's lore as in my favorite lore, it'd be wilbur's hands down. he created such a complex and fascinating character who was incredibly consistent in his characterization, I brainrot over c!wilbur so often so everything from him is my favorite

oh god most of my google drive is full of fic ideas that either wouldn't do well or I just don't feel like writing lmao. one example is that I love coming up with aus of movies but rarely do I actually wanna write them out entirely. one movie au I think about so often but would never get around to writing is an au of the movie Push. Push is not a very good film. it's fun! but it's not good lmao. the concept was SUPER cool to me though. it's a movie about people who have psychic powers that are hunted down by an evil government organization yknow the drill, but the plot is about a guy in his 20s who is a 'mover' (has telekinesis) that's kind of down on his luck and doesn't have much of a life. he gets dragged into a plot to steal a metal briefcase because a 13 year old 'watcher' (sees the future) shows up on his doorstep and tells him she sees the two of them teaming up to find this case and she's convinced it has a shit ton of money in it. a lot of other stuff happens but the main two characters have such older brother/little sister energy that i literally can't stop thinking about crimeboysing it. it would be so fun but I'll never write it unfortunately.

hmm... one of my favorite self indulgent movies to rewatch just for fun is a super cheesy 90s film called hackers. the fashion is peak bad 90s fashion and the plot is so stupid, it's so much fun I adore it. I love rewatching it to cheer myself up

OOOOO GOOD QUESTION! ok i'm assuming you mean cc's I can pick. now the thing is, I suck at minecraft. so while I'd love to give myself a goated team so i can win, I don't think I'd have much of a chance of winning either way. but I'll give two teams anyway, one for a chance at the win, one just for fun content. so for a chance to win: tommy, phil, and shubble. for content: wilbur, wisp, and jack manifold. it'd be terrifying but also hilarious.

thank you for the questions these were really fun!!

[sweetmage]

Hi I would love to hear more about Celestine and Sebastian’s dynamic 👀👀

Hi hi! I am sorry for the late response. But oh gosh, thank you!!! 🥺I am a chronic over explainer though + the background stuff is long (probably just as long as the actual stuff with him and Celestine, whoops…), so I’m very sorry if this becomes a whole novel! 😅

Edit: I meant for this to just be a brief overview, but it did, in fact, become a whole nove (it’s like… 2k+ words almost, with some of it expanded from an old post. Even with that I skipped over/condensed a lot of things, heh. I am soooo sorry💀) Absolutely no pressure to read all of this!!!😅

I’ll put it under the cut! Also TW for mentions of alcoholism

I suppose I will start at the beginning!

So to begin with, Hawke and Anders become fugitives and Sebastian retakes the throne. This works off of the AU detailed in the thing I drew the other day.

Upon his return, he struggles to reintegrate into a culture that is no longer familiar to him, engage with people who are quite dissimilar to him in nature and priorities, and thrive in a position he was never prepared for.

With wounds fresh from his many losses and betrayals, he struggles to trust and relate to his fellow nobility, leading him to strike up a friendship with one of the palace servants, a Dalish woman whose clan was murdered when she young leading her to step into life she she did not want (serving nobility). Developing a sense of kinship with her, he makes impulsive decision number two and abandons his position without warning after only a few months to live a quiet, simple life.

This goes well for a while (roughly a year and a half), a little chaste romance something something happens, but after some time she begins to question if this is what she truly wants. It is a marked improvement over her prior life, but she feels as though she lost herself somewhere along the way. She tells him this honestly and says that it’s not necessarily permanent goodbye, she just wants to see what else is out there. Of course, he understands and he’d never hold someone hostage so he encourages them to do so, even though he’s kinda torn up about it.

She leaves, he waits, then the letters slow and stop coming all together. After a time, he accepts that she’s found a life outside of him and he has no better option than to return, utterly disgraced, surrounded by scandal, and alone once more. Around this time he also returns to an old vice: Alcohol. Which is… ~quite good~ for a man two for two on poor, impulsive decisions and with his career hanging by a frayed thread. /s

By this point, the events of Inquisition have rolled around. He opens himself up to allyship and, depending on the AU, the Inquisitor either accepts or denies but the later events are always roughly the same. For simplicity, we’ll just go with my canon Inquisitor Kest, a former knight from Starkhaven who, despite his disdain for Sebastian, accepts the offer out of loyalty to his city and his own diplomatic mindset.

More time passes, he’s still a mess of a ruler, struggling with the drink, etc. etc. He then moves on to impulsive decision #3: He has decided to move forward with his plans to annex Kirkwall. Initially, when first returning to the throne post-Chantry explosion, he had cooled down enough to not pursue something so foolish and cruel despite his threats. But now, jaded, bitter, and impaired, he’s brushing off the words of his advisors and going for it.

He requests aid from Skyhold, but the Inquisitor who was once known for throwing soldiers around willy-nilly has just taken a huge blow to his religion during the fade and has changed radically and he flat out refuses to help.

Seb goes along with it anyone, soldiers die, he loses a major ally, the plan is a humiliating failure, and if he wasn’t hated before he certainly is now! The situation is quite dire and he knows his time is limited. He’s essentially a tyrant and everyone wants his head. He kind of just becomes reclusively and silently resigns himself to that fact.

This is when he receives an offer. (Now for the stuff that actually involves Celestine):

Celestine has spent much of her life trying to sink her own image in the hopes of avoiding marriage and bowing to the whims of her family. Though she outwardly portrays herself as impulsive and prone to scandal, she is just fast tracking her way to exile and living a quiet, modest, and unbothered life.

However, after Sebastian’s latest scandal her family proposes that he marry her in exchange for a few boons. They will voice their support to bolster his influence at the risk to themselves and provide other political and trade related things that I am too lazy to explain atm. Since he is essentially the last of his lineage they kind of prey on his sense of loss and the futility of the situation and skew it as a “we want to help you ensure the Vael family continues, this way you can produce more heirs” sort of deal but obviously they just want their family to have claim to the throne in some way before someone finally gets bold enough to chop his head off.

As he has essentially thrown every other one of his vows out the window at this point, what’s one more? He agrees impulsively (#4 now…) but regrets his decision pretty much the moment he meets her. She had been pretty much home free on the whole marriage thing, being 30 at this point with almost as many scandals to her name as he had (though nothing nearly as bad, of course) until the most ineligible bachelor came along and her parents started rubbing their greedy little hands together.

At first she is rightfully terrified, having been handed off to a strange man who reeks of booze and, by all standards, appears to be nothing short of a tyrant. However, the moment they are alone together he immediately regrets his decision, feeling as though this is the most immoral act he has committed (which is… kinda saying something at this point). This is much to her relief, of course, because she would not touch this man with a 10 foot pole. However, this just embitters her further. She is now locked into a commitment that neither of them want with the duty of doing something neither of them want to do, and that infuriates her.

They kind of coexist awkwardly for a few days. He sleeps in an armchair across the room and lets her have the bed, they don’t really talk to or look at each other, and it remains uncomfortably tense. Since she no longer feels threatened by him at this point (he is actually kinda pathetic, she thinks) she reaches her boiling point and finally snaps. She tells him bitterly that this never would have had to happen if he hadn’t made so many foolish mistakes which she is happy to list off in lurid detail, stating the logical solutions as though they were obvious.

To him they hadn’t been though. Like, of course he could see in retrospect why throwing all his eggs in one basket to run off with someone he hardly knew or sending an army on a suicide mission to Kirkwall for more or less no reason were terrible ideas, but he had failed as a ruler in other regards as well and the advisors he had in place currently did not exactly have his success or the nation’s best interest in mind.

I think a little remorseful/overwhelmed breakdown happens here (very unwell atm, as one could imagine), but, much to her surprise and whiplash he actually agrees with her and asks to hear more about his failings. He was fully aware of his incompetence and the fact that he was in way over his head, but this is the first time since he had taken the throne that anyone had been completely blunt and honest with him instead of sugar-coating things or playing yes man to stay in his graces. Aside from that, this was probably the most genuine anyone had been to him in a long time, even if it was unpleasant, and there was something comforting in that.

Now, she was not a leader by any means, but she came from a military family and had lived her life immersed in the politics and culture of both Starkhaven and Val Royeaux and was, for that reason, a little more knowledgeable on such matters.

From there they do a little bit of plotting and scheming and try to work out a compromise for the horrendously sticky situation he’s gotten them in. After all, she doesn’t particularly like the idea of being murdered, but she also does not wish to leave the city to rot under his ruling and live with blood on her hands (<-how she views it). So, In lieu of producing an heir, they begin to explore the possibility of shaping him into a better leader as both a form of image restoration and as atonement for his many egregious scandals and missteps. She offers his assistance to him in exchange for having their marriage annulled and an agreement to no contact when they’re through. He agrees to this readily, grateful beyond words.

She first instructs him to throw out the whole council. They are holdovers from when the Harimanns commanded the throne and are disloyal and corrupt. It’s a risky move, but the new council will handle recourse. She, alongside a handpicked group of advisors, acts as a buffer for his ideas and works to educate him on proper leadership and restoring his image. Some of his first courses of action include compensating the families of soldiers he'd so carelessly sacrificed as well as providing aid to Kirkwall.

Behind closed doors, they keep their relationship to strictly business, a boundary he has no desire to cross. She wishes to smooth things over quickly and rinse her hands of both him and this life she wants no part of.

However, despite themselves, in a few months time they sometimes begin to find their lessons devolving into conversations about their lives, idle gossip, or amusing stories from their pasts, sometimes getting lost for hours before remembering the task in front of them. She comes to realize that the man she once assumed to be an egotistical idiot is, for all of his problems and his traumas, is actually surprisingly humble, charming, and polite. Moreover, he has been working tirelessly to address his grief healthily, make amends for his actions, and prevent any repeats and he seems to take those matters seriously beyond simply restoring his image.

As the months become a year and he is finally coming to competency, she finds herself dreading the end of their time together.

As a result, she begins to find more and more reasons to insist that he still has much to learn, despite him reassuring her that he has it under control now and she is free to leave.

He is not totally oblivious to her intentions to stay, though he believes that she is worried about having nowhere to go or facing backlash from her parents. After all, while her image was improved as a result of his image being restored, if she were to leave she may have to return to a life of scandal and exile. As a result, he offers to take the public blame in their annulment and arrange her stable living conditions so that she won’t suffer further because of his decision.

With this offer in front of her, she has no other reasons to stay. She packs the few belongings she has and prepares herself to leave by the end of the week. On her final evening, however, he joins her on the balcony where she stands overlooking the garden (which she will miss greatly). They speak a bit then, though it is stilted and they both seem to dance around the topic of her departure. At last, he goes quiet, becoming withdrawn so, naturally, she asks him what’s wrong wrong. He is reluctant to tell her, telling her instead not to trouble herself. When she presses, he insists that it is the very sort of selfish thinking he is hoping to overcome, something he doesn't wish to subject her to. And when she presses further, he finally admits that he is sad to see her go.

He reiterates that he never has any intention of keeping her there, but a part of him enjoys her company, especially seeing as she is his only companion.

She responds with the same sentiment, though assures him that she will not remain to burden him longer or distract him from his duties.

To that they are… confused. But when it clicks for them… laughter, tears, dumping everything out of her packed bags, tossing their annulment papers into the fire, kisses, etc. etc. etc.

They later go on to renew their vows, a more genuine and happy affair this time. She receives the quiet, peaceful life she longs for, away from the public eye, and enjoys the safety of knowing she has not lost her autonomy in this relationship. Sebastian also mellows significantly over time, becoming a more competent leader, a healthier person, and he really benefits from having someone he can confide in and who will address him honestly. Two jaded, bitter people who only want peace and stability and are happy to share their precious solitude with each other.

[chloemarievaughan]

Scotland with Grey- Trains, the Highlands, and Whisky! May 1-2

I asked Grey earlier this year if he would be interested in doing a trip with me somewhere… without any hesitation he immediately said, “Scotland!” And so I planned our next adventure! I did the lions share of the planning as I enjoy planning my Europe trips, but to check with grey about my planned itinerary, I texted him “shall I assume your Scotland requests are: trains, the highlands, and whisky haha” And he replied “💯” and so that is much the theme of our trip :)

Grey is living in Denver now, and so I looked for flights for us with the same layover so we would arrive in Edinburgh together. there was only one option; we would meet up in the toronto airport. The downside was that I was planned to have a 5 hour layover which is definitely on the longer end. So I bought our tickets and then not two weeks later my flight was rescheduled to an EIGHT hour layover which was pretty excessive. I got pretty familiar with the international departures terminal at the Toronto airport, spent time walking laps back and forth, sitting in a variety of chairs for about 45 minutes each. I did get one short nap in which I imagine looked odd laying my head on the table where I was sitting 😂

I am currently getting over a nasty sinus infection and will spare you the gory details but I did drink a lot of tea in the airport, and ate some spicy curry soup for lunch in the hopes it would clear my nose. I also brought the 4th Harry Potter book in French that i am STILL trying to finish- but I read French way slower than English so I would probably finish most English books in 8 hours. I did read like 200 pages of the book over the long day and some on the plane!

Grey showed up after I had been in the airport for about 5.5 hours, by which time I knew all of the best places to sit and the variety of dining options and art installations in the terminal, so we found some dinner and then it was time to board the plane! For some reason, my ticket would NOT let me choose a seat but grey was able to: so he elected to sit next to me, even sacrificing to sit in the middle seat. The Toronto to Edinburgh flight is Very short for an international flight, under 7 total hours. This doesn’t leave much time to actually sleep. Grey and I strategized this oppositely; Grey has a two hour longer time difference to Edinburgh than I do, and so he was essentially planning to push through the flight, sleep a bit on the train the next morning, but more or less doing an all nighter. I need my beauty sleep so I planned to close my eyes the instant the meal was served and keep them closed for 4 hours until breakfast was being served. I am not sure how much I actually slept- thanks to two crying babies that seemed to be keeping each other awake all night on and off, and one crying would usually set off the other one. but Grey only slept for about 30 minutes. Getting off the plane in Edinburgh made me glad we weren’t meeting in the Edinburgh airport- lots more to distract you in the Toronto airport. We then took the tram to the Haymarket train station about a 25 minute ride away and had another wait for our train which left at 10:37 to Inverness. The train left at 8:37 or 10:37, but 8:37 seemed like too tight a connection so I booked the later train. We would have made it in plenty of time, so had to kill like 2.5 hours: went to a little Turkish cafe for breakfast- had some excellent avocado toast, grey had a traditional English breakfast, and I had some delicious lemongrass ginger tea. I was testing a theory about the timing of my caffeine consumption on adjusting to the time difference so I didn’t have coffee on the plane, waiting until about 9:30 am. We went to a cafe next to the Turkish place that had cozy armchairs and Delicious filter coffee- usually I don’t like the actual coffee in Europe, preferring to get espressos, but it was very tasty. There were two Giant very friendly dogs wandering the cafe wanting to play fetch and get pet. It was finally time for our train and both grey and I fell immediately asleep the second we sat down. According to our booking, our seats were forward facing, but when we got to the seats they were backward facing and grey was a little motion sick, but surprisingly I was okay with it. Train seats aren’t That comfortable for sleeping but it still was so much better than the plane!

I slept for about the first hour of the four hour train to our first city, Inverness. I woke up and peeked outside and saw spectacular rolling hills and farmland with sheep, horses and cows and I was suddenly full of energy and enjoyed looking out the window and seeing the sights. I bought more tea when the trolley lady went by on the train with her cart. We went into the highlands, seeing the Cairngorms National Park (which we are visiting tomorrow!) past tons of little towns and villages dotting the hills, and there are yellow gorse bushes that are blooming now and dotting the hills. The trees are *just* starting to bud; another week or two it will really be spring.

I sent my friend Bridget a picture of me wearing my trusty sun hat on the plane and she replied “Yay!!!!! :) I love how you have a sun hat for Scotland! Is it supposed to be sunny at all when you’re there??” which the answer is no, it really was not supposed to be sunny. However I would feel incomplete traveling without a sun hat and also this one is a new one I just purchased for $6 on clearance at target because I left my old one on a train in Amsterdam 😂 however, it actually was sunny for our first day here! Not a cloud in the sky sunny! Not usual for Scotland and likely to be rare for the rest of my trip but now my hat is justified :)

We arrived in Inverness and our air bnb was a short walk away. Not obvious from google maps is that it was a short walk straight up a ton of stairs! Though I crammed everything in a carry on, I did not exactly pack lightly; I was definitely out of breath by the top of the stairs!

Our air bnb is a cute tiny apartment on a quiet residential street a few minutes from the city center. There is a bedroom and a pullout couch in the living room, so Grey doesn’t have to endure my snoring from my sinus congestion lol, and a tiny cute kitchen. our air bnb host sent some welcoming messages and left us some treats and small breakfast items and some milk in the fridge for our tea/ cereal which was nice!

After a quick shower- 24 hours of traveling and I felt like a human being again after that shower! And then we went for a walk around Inverness to kill some time before dinner. This was Beautiful- we walked along the river, past churches, parks, flowers, restaurants, and trees, back and forth across some bridges on the river and winding up at some creatively named islands on the River Ness called the Ness Islands. The sun was out and the people of Inverness were all walking their dogs, strolling along the river and out on bikes, but we were walking away from the city so it wasn’t too crowded. Grey is a very brisk walker so we were booking it around the river, a good reason that we have planned to go on separate hikes later in the week haha. The second half of our walk was significantly less scenic; Grey doesn’t like to walk the same way twice, so we tried to walk back along the opposite bank; an unfortunate construction detour meant we walked most of the way back around a large set of soccer fields and past the construction instead of back along the scenic riverwalk. We then made it to our dinner reservation, which was a sort of trendy American restaurant that served interesting cocktails and burgers, and wouldn’t have felt out of place in Columbus. I had my first scotch of the trip in cocktail form, essentially a scotch and soda with apple, and a pretty solid Mac n cheese. The neighboring table ordered a drink that was poured over a cotton candy base to dissolve, and they had a smoked cocktail that looked incredible but I can’t smell out of my nose so I felt it was a waste to buy a fancier drink if I can’t fully taste 😂 grey had a Scottish beer. When we finished there it was only 6:00, so while I didn’t particularly want another drink, we wound up at another bar for a nightcap. The place wasn’t really our style but we were too tired to find someplace better haha, it was kind of frou frou and looked like a great place for happy hour with the girls haha, and all the cocktails were super sweet and fruity. Grey ordered some scotch and I ordered a fruity cocktail that I did NOT enjoy and still could not taste/ smell so grey also drank that one. We made it back to the apartment at 7, got ready for bed, and chatted until we both crashed at about 8 pm, excited for the trip ahead!

[more-than-a-princess]

So, it's already 2023 but I just wanted to send you something anyway!

Getting to develop and build Ryuji and Sonia's bond has been absolute joy - I just love having someone who is as passionate about it as I am and seeing our threads always brings a smile to my face.

You've really given me an appreciation for Sonia and it's mostly because of you - and a few others - that I do want to play the game in the near future so that I have a chance to know and appreciate Sonia, though in my mind, she probably won't ever measure up to the wonderful and dorky and endearing image of Sonia you've crafted through your portrayal and your writing and our interactions together.

Sometimes, it feels like we've only just recently started interacting, other times it feels like we've been writing together for years. I love that we can share dorky things about them and gush and agonize about them from the sidelines. I think you are an incredibly patient, kind and open-minded person and a really good friend who deserves all the best so I hope 2023 gives you just that - all of the happiness and luck and good vibes that you deserve. I hope we'll get to write lots of Ryuji/Sonia stuff together!

Send me your end of year/beginning of year thoughts or just shitpost with me on dash - Accepting

Jassi, thank you so much! You've stuck around since the very beginning, and I'm so happy you're here and we've continued to build our interactions! Even though I don't know much about P5 beyond the anime and you're not familiar with Sonia's game, it's still cool because we just build our own universe that's probably less depressing than our muses' canon verses. And they deserve to have some joy in their lives honestly.

All I can say about playing Danganronpa is:

Lower your expectations in pretty much every way. You'll have a better time. I write a Danganronpa muse but that doesn't mean it's a great game in every aspect.

A lot of the characters are not very fleshed out, thus many of us canon writers in the DR RPC have to make up a lot of headcanons to make them believable. Or at least give us material to work with beyond silly tropes.

The order goes: DR1 (or if you want a perfect run-through with a heck of a lot less character building, the DR anime), SDR2, DR: Ultra Despair Girls (technically optional), DR3 the anime, DRv3. If you find you love the DR1 and SDR2 stories, watch DR3: it concludes the story that was built over both games + UDG. v3 is completely different. I'm very biased and will say SDR2 is the best of the games.

Honestly, I tend to feel like I'm a terribly impatient and snarky/cynical person at times, so it helps to hear from others that I'm not quite as sharp-tongued as I think I am. I hope this is an excellent year for you as well!

I have hope for Ryuji/Sonia finally confessing feels this year. For mutuals, this is probably the most slow-burn ship on this blog: it's probably close to 3 years by now, if not more?

In any case, have this very incorrect quote but actually probably correct, considering Ryuji and Sonia:

Ryuji: I’ve been dropping them the most insanely obvious hints for like a year now. No response. Sonia: Wow. They sound stupid. Ryuji: But they’re not. They’re really smart actually. Just dense. Sonia: Maybe you need to be more obvious? Like, I don’t know… “Hey! I love you!” Ryuji: I guess you’re right. Hey Sonia-san, I love you. Sonia: See! Just say that! Ryuji: Holy fucking shit. Sonia: If that flies over their head then, sorry Ryuji-san, but they're too dumb for you. Ryuji: SONIA.

[wewerebornsextuplets]

@nenchuu i am so happy you said this because i really wanted an excuse to list them but was too nervous. so thank you! this ended up being VERY very long. as such it's under the cut so this post doesnt take 7 years to scroll by, but ill be listing off my assignments here!!

before we jump in id like to preface that when i say "muppet" in this context im referring to the broader umbrella of muppets, not just the disney-owned property of The Muppets and the characters therein. strange distinction to make but its important i swear! so we'll be considering and including Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street here as well :3 also a couple of the brothers have more than one assignment, and some are MUCH better thought out than others. this is because i am nothing if not indecisive! hope this helps <3 OSOMATSU: Rowlf The Dog

this is by far the longest blurb of the bunch that im gonna write. im so sorry

lazy is probably one of the first words to come to mind when i think about either rowlf Or osomatsu. since this is an osomatsu-san blog, im gonna assume anyone here won't need a briefer for him. but in rowlf's case we get a sense for his laziness through his general laid-back, down to earth lifestyle as well as his proclivity for napping as seen in The Muppets (2011) when he all but sleeps through the montage of Kermit getting everyone back together. and speaking of his lifestyle, while rowlf is certainly less outwardly salacious than oso when it comes to women, thats not to say hes without his moments [theres literally an entire song in The Muppet Movie (1979) called "I hope that somethin' better comes along", which is about rowlf and kermit's lady troubles, throughout which they lament that they can't stay away from women no matter how they try]. he's also one of the muppets most commonly seen drinking or otherwise associated with alcohol; in the aforementioned 1979 movie, rowlf mentions that his daily schedule is as follows: "go to work, come home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take [himself] for a walk and go to bed." of course, osomatsu doesnt have a job, and probably hasnt read a full book in years, but im sure we can look past that in favor of the other glaring similarities. In addition to this, in The Muppets ABC show from 2015 [you know, the office-style comedy that got canned after one season?], rowlf runs a tavern. so clearly hes stayed a fan of alcohol throughout the years! their general personalities are also quite similar, being a somewhat stock comedic lazybones with a heart of gold [although both characters have more depth than this, its the general perception they receive]

past all this, though, there are some aspects of each characters' history which causes me to associate them with one another. namely, rowlf's early stardom; he was actually the first muppet to really achieve national stardom [kermit was quite popular on Sam and Friends in the 50's, yes, but that wasn't on the same national scale], being that he was a regular on the Jimmy Dean Show and gained fame for his Purina dog chow commercials in the 60's. he was also one of the first muppets for whom merchandise was made, such as the hand puppet created by Ideal Toys in 1966. and boy, isnt that a familiar year? moving on now, though! KARAMATSU: JOHNNY FIAMA / LINK

i was fairly indecisive with these guys since theyre actually somewhat similar in a lot of ways, but considering the hell i went through in narrowing my options for choromatsu, i figured it would be fine to put both of them down. pepe the king prawn was also up for consideration here but seeing as he actually gets pussy it felt disingenuous.

Johnny Fiama, despite being a comparatively newer character, takes precedence here because I feel that he better encapsulates the reality of kara's situation and attitude as a whole. hes a pastiche of the crooner-style singers of yore, like frank sinatra and tony bennett. while karamatsu's singing isnt quite the same as that of a typical crooner, their inspirations do both occupy a similar time period, hence the association in my head. Johnny also thinks very highly of himself, to the point of hiring a monkey bodyguard [sal minella] and has made many [failed] attempts to woo women throughout his run as a character. He also lives with his mother and has a very particular style of dress, so. yknow.

As for Link, my reasonings for his inclusion are very similar to the ones i have for Johnny, so i won't repeat myself. but i Will mention that his sense of machismo and confidence appears to be much more outwardly false than that of johnny, which seems to coincide with karamatsu's "fake it or make it" personality [though by this point we all know he has, to some extent, made it, much to the collective dismay of those around him]. this is highlighted by link's proclivity to call out for his mommy when scared, as well as the fact that he wears a toupee. while karamatsu isnt quite at toupee levels of faking it yet [although his season 3 promo art would suggest so], we've all seen him call matsuyo mommy multiple times by now. dont worry mr matsuno. i saw your chanel boots.

CHOROMATSU: SCOOTER / KERMIT / BERT

this was hell to me.

there are quite a few characters in the henson repertoire that fill in the tsukkomi niche that choromatsu at least Tries to portray. as such it was very difficult for me to pick out the ones that fit best, but i think i have it here.

scooter is much more a fit for 18!choro specifically, given his people-pleasing attitude and awkwardness, not to mention the glasses. in the early muppet show days, it was actually implied scooter was a teenager, as theres a few references to him being a "kid", as well as a joke about him "selling magazine subscriptions so [he] can win a skateboard at school". he greatly idolizes kermit and does his best to do right by him, but also isnt immune to a bit of smugness now and then; this mostly manifests as him holding his position as the theater owner's nephew over kermit's head to get what he wants. in later interpretations, particularly after richard hunt's passing, hes seen more as an awkward 20-something who happens to be somewhat anxious and has difficulty in social situations, such as him loudly declaring "you are all naked" when performing a speech in order to calm himself down. not to speculate but thats some shit choro would do on accident, i think.

as for kermit, this one seems to be pretty widely agreed upon since kermit is so popular, so i don't think it bears much explaining. i will however add that when i say that choro is a lot like kermit, im referring rather specifically to henson's kermit performances; both steve whitmire and matt vogel have done incredible jobs filling jim henson's shoes, but jim henson's kermit was always written to be a bit more angry and snarky than either whitmire or vogel's kermits have gotten the chance to be. this snarkiness and overall exasperation fit choro's tone pretty well, particularly in season 1.

bert falls into the same sort of space as kermit in that i think his alignment with choro is fairly obvious, so i wont waste much time here, either, but i'd like to point out that their interests in particular are what i find so compelling about this matchup; more specifically, how each interest is treated. choro's otaku tendencies are of course made fun of by his brothers, but are overall accepted to a certain extent being that theres no real fuss put up about him having his figures around the house and such. with bert, hes obviously accepted much more readily [mostly because this is sesame street. the message is to accept people who are different from you], but its still pretty clear his loved ones dont really understand why his interests are so important to him. hell, theres an entire song about it!

ICHIMATSU: BOOBER FRAGGLE / OSCAR THE GROUCH

i admittedly have much more for boober here than i do oscar, but it felt... sacrilegious to not include him. so! we move! boober in particular really encapsulates the more pessimistic, paranoid nature of ichimatsu. where the other fraggles enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle of play and great excitement, having parties any time they can find an excuse to throw one, boober prefers a much quieter lifestyle without as much excitement, to the point where he literally moves to a place called "the caves of boredom" in one episode. he busies himself with menial tasks like laundry and cooking in the meantime, finding them to be his biggest sources of joy; ichi seems to place great care in a sense of normalcy or hygiene in the house, if the "we're brothers, so let's be more considerate from now on" campaign is anything to go by, not to mention his scolding osomatsu over the groceries.

boober also happens to be very superstitious and a hypochondriac, placing great importance in specific objects and beliefs to keep himself calm [i.e the lucky bottlecap, which he says he "fears nothing" when he has with him]. there are hints to ichimatsu's superstitious beliefs throughout the later seasons, such as the balance skit with jyushimatsu and his number betting for the horse races. both characters also find a sense of peace and comradery with people much more lively than them; in ichi's case this is his brothers, and in boober's its the other main fraggles. in addition to this, boober has a second personality/alter ego named "sidebottom", who is a much livelier and social person than the normal boober. the parallels here aren't quite as strong but conceptually it reminds me very strongly of ichi's high school years.

oscar encapsulates the more callous, rude side of ichimatsu, not to mention his less personable attributes. oscar regularly tells people to "scram" and leave them alone, and insults others liberally; there's an entire article on the muppet wiki dedicated to the nicknames he's given other characters throughout sesame street's runtime. and its long as hell. oscar also cursed out big bird that one time, which was kinda fucked up of him, but again, we move.

his callous nature aside he does seem to have a soft spot for a few characters and Is capable of genuine kindness, in particular elmo, one of very few characters he's ever actually referred to as a friend. this, to me, is reminiscent of ichi's push-and-pull nature with those around him, not wanting to admit that he needs people around him or that he enjoys others' company as much as he does JYUSHIMATSU: ANIMAL

by FAR the easiest conclusion to come to. both are complete forces of chaos, driven by their own desires and lust for life more than anything else [except, perhaps, their own stupidity]. they differ only in that jyushimatsu has a baseline of normalcy he can return to when necessary, which animal seems to lack.

theyre both incredibly high-energy and have mantras which they repeat rather frequently [for jyushi, this was the "muscle muscle! hustle hustle!", and for animal its a more simple "bang drums! bang drums!"], and both are very athletic. we all know about jyushimatsu's affinity for baseball! in animal's case, he was actually the mascot for the U.S. snowboarding team in 1998, and is featured as playing various sports throughout promotional material very frequently. ...and, of course, if im to discuss this anime, i would be remiss to not point out that both of them are very horny. in animal's case this has been toned town VERY heavily since the disney purchase in favor of a more infantilized, family-friendly image of him. however, he used to literally chant "woman! woman! woman!" whenever a woman was nearby and is implied to have had quite a few affairs in the past. you all know about jyushimatsu, so i need not elaborate on his side of things here. TODOMATSU: BEAN BUNNY / RED FRAGGLE

i'll admit, i was sorely tempted to put miss piggy here, but seeing as totoko is essentially a 1:1 for miss piggy [and the fact that i've drawn totoko as miss piggy before], it felt markedly Wrong to me. so here we are! bean bunny as a character was quite literally created to be "the cute one" in order to take the onus away from other characters being perceived as cute, both in-universe and just in general. within the Muppets universe, this has usually manifested as other muppets insulting or admonishing him for his "cute" routine, sometimes with physical violence, usually in a very similar style to how the older brothers treat todomatsu when they're present for his attempts to charm the people around him. hes much more of a parallel to the image totty wants to portray than his actual self, but i think it was still worth noting the parallels to red are a bit less apparent, since red is much more outwardly rowdy than todomatsu is. even still, her competitive, hot-headed nature leads to a lot of conflict in her life; this in particular reminds me of the movie, wherein totty was ready to fucking Brawl with atsushi after his smug remark about the brothers during the reunion, as well as a few other moments im honestly too tired to recall specifically here. ive been writing for a while. in addition, red has a particular style of sarcasm which is very reminiscent of totty to me; more specifically, her barely-hidden animosity towards uncle traveling matt, coldly remarking her distaste for his letters whenever one is read aloud [one example of this that i enjoy most + find most relatable to totty as a character, is when she actually goads gobo into reading one of his letters saying "oh, go ahead and read it! i love fiction!", insinuating she doesn't believe a word that traveling matt says]. totty's open distaste for things that annoy him, usually only very thinly veiled with a sweet tone of voice assuming he isn't going full scorched-earth, reminds me of these catty moments that red has when she's agitated.

and thats it! i hope you enjoyed this, or at least tolerated it 👍 again sorry that some comparisons are shakier than others, i did write this all in one go so i lost a bit of steam. some brothers also dont really have very good 1:1 comparisons so it was tough to narrow down TT_TT

the funny thing about being an ososan fan while Also having the muppets as my special interest is that i keep seeing the brothers compared to muppets and, even though ive been a fan since 2015, it still hits me in the face like a frying pan every time

[faioula16]

Fate brough us together again Chap 1

It was an ordinary dark night in a forest area of London. The moon is painted in red, brightly lighting the dark night sky. It wasn't a good time for the world, especially for the people of London, to move safely since the ghouls and vampires were circulating out, hungry for human flesh and blood. Deep inside the forest, you were running as fast as you could, being chased by the hungry ghouls who had now surrounded you, smelling the fresh blood that has leaked from the wound you had acquired on the right side of your waist before you managed to escape and run away from your cruel and distrustful father.

 Your eyes widened, 'This is it, is this my end?' You thought as you saw the monsters encircling you, sprawled by their hungry stomachs. Poor girl, you closed your eyes tightly in fear as one of the ghouls opened its mouth wide and was ready to take a bite out of you...Till a gunshot rang in the night sky, hitting the ghoul between his cold lifeless eyes and killing him instantly by turning him to dust. As all the bodies of the other ghouls fall down to the ground, you could hear a sadistic laugh coming from the shadows.

You used your last strength to stand up due to the pain you were feeling from your wound. "Who's there? Show yourself!" You demanded firmly, looking right into the red eyes that were staring at your own. You could swear that the figure's sinister eyes winded for a short moment before they softened, looking at you in a familiar loving manner. As if someone used to look at you like that a long long time ago.

"Beautiful night, don't you think?" A deep soft male voice echoed in your head as the figure finally reveald itself and came from its hiding spot and stood some meters afar right before you. Silently you looked at him in shock and a bit wary. It was a tall, long-limbed, broad-shouldered adult man of indeterminate but reasonably young age, 

The man has short jet black hair and his bangs fall slightly in his red glowing eyes, with strands on the sides of his bangs framing his face. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, leather riding boots, and an intricately knotted red cravat, covered by a full-length, red frock overcoat with a short cape surrounding a bit his broad shoulders. He also wears a red fedora with a wide, floppy brim and a pair of circular, heavily tinted, wire-framed orange sunglasses with goggle sidings. His gloves, which are engraved with a seal are also thought to be part of this mechanism. 

"Never seen a vampire before?" He placed his gun in his coat and slowly walked closer. "Don't be frightened, I am not hungry for innocent people's blood...not for tonight at least" His grin was wide, revealing his pure white teeth along with his fangs.

"You're...the one people call Alucard, aren't you?" You pointed out as you watched the vampire taking down to his one knee to reach your height level as if he was a knight bowing to his beloved princess. Little did you know this was actually the case. That the vampire king has finally found the very dearest person to him his enemies had killed back in his human years.

His head rise up slowly to look at you as your heads were facing each other, well compare to the much taller form he was forced to lower his head a bit in order to have a better look at you. "So you have heard of me I see. Well, would you like to tell me what your name is then?"

"My name Y\N L\N. A lot of people have spoken of you and that you work in an organization that kills vampire and supernatural creatures"

"Huh, and you find it disgusting that I kill my own kind I assume" His eyes glowing no more however his sunglasses were preventing you from being able to see the way he was looking at you right now.

"I have no option about this matter as long as it has nothing to do with me be certain about that. But thanks to you and your partners' help London is not completely lost. I might even admire such a job"

He hummed in response a bit surprised by your answer. Then a girn appeared across his face once again, but this time was a happy one like a child had the most brilliant idea that had ever crossed its mind. "Do you wish to become my partner then?"

"What?" You stared up at him a shock. "No I don't wish to become a vampire like you, two things I will never abandon as long as I am alive are my humanity and the persons I care about. I see you can sense I am injured but also I have to inform you that am not a virgin so even if you would force yourself on me I would only turn into a ghoul....you are not the one to want such useless minions. Am I right?"

His long arm reached out to cup gently your left cheek to his large palm, making you blush lightly to his touch as a result. "I would never do this to you" His voice sounded so ever soft and honest. You could see it hid so much emotion behind his words that even you weren't able to describe it completely. With his free hand he took off his sunglasses and you were finally able to see his eyes clearly for the first time.

"I know you...but how and from where?" You questioned mostly yourself as you were thinking out loud. His touch itself made you feel pure bliss and that nothing could ever harm you. His eyes...such a beautiful ocean of sunset.

"You're hurt, let me help you" Alucard tried to bring you closer to him in an attempt to lift you off the ground but stopped once his ears perked the sound of your groans of pain. "I know you may suffer right now but you must remain strong and come with me otherwise you're going to bleed to death. you don't wish to die tonight, do you?" He sounded very serious but also the tone of his voice hid real concern too. Alucard stood up straight with you in his arms in bridal style. "And the night has just begun, my princess"

[spilledkauffie]

Game Night

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader Word Count: 2.2k T/W: fluff A/N: Part 2 of Bingo — a few months later

I am SO SORRY this took me way longer to post than it should have!

Bucky Tag List: @anreeixcobra ❤︎ @tsnelf7 ❤︎ @fandom-princess-forevermore​

It was Friday night, which meant one thing: Game Night. Ever since Yori introduced you at Bingo, you made it a tradition in your relationship to play board games on Fridays. For the most part you kept it to fairly modern games, but tonight was going to be a surprise.

Tonight it was your place, 8 o’clock. Bucky showed up with a six pack of root-beer in glass bottles. You added a few to the fridge as he found his usual seat at your apartment table. He waited for you to round the small apartment’s bar and join him. Sliding the glass bottles across the table to Bucky, you smiled, biting in your bottom lip, as he slid your bottle back, now without its top.

Easily he popped the top off his own bottle with his left hand; it was as he was about to take a sip that he caught sight of your look, “what?” he furrowed his eyebrows, questionably. 

“So. . . tonight,” you tried not to giggle.

“What?” Bucky asked again, this time finding himself following your smile despite his will not to.

“Tonight is going to be special,” you clasped your hands together, “because I found some stuff that’s as old as you.”

“Wow, thanks,” Bucky said sarcastically, taking a sip, shaking his head, blinking softly as he saw you rush to convince him it would be fun. Sighing deeply, he gave in, “alright, what is it?”

“I’ll be right back,” you twirled on your heel and left the room.

Returning to shaking his head and the glass bottle, he paused after settling the bottle on the table. It’d been a long time since anyone cared about anything actually as old as him. He’d been pretty good at keeping up with the times, a lot of things he knew just got an upgrade, but the thought of something from his actual childhood felt a little heartwarming. 

“Okay,” you declared, reentering the room with a stack of vintage boxes in your arms that made Bucky lean back in his chair out of shock, “here we are.” 

His jaw dropped a little at what you had brought out as you set the stack on the table. Watching you take a deep breath and exhale with a smirk, he shook his head, this time silently asking “how?” You set your hands atop the stack, rapping your fingers across the top box as you smiled again. 

Smoothing your hands out across the box top, you cleared your throat, “no peeking,”  bringing Bucky’s attention entirely to you. 

“Option number one,” you held up the rectangular shape with severely faded letters across it, “Scrabble, released 1938.” The box very gently met the table, “option number two,” you looked at him attempting not to giggle as you saw him cross his arms over his chest, genuinely listening to you intently, “Sorry! released 1934, Battleship, original pen and paper game,” you clarified, he lifted his eyebrows, impressed, “and last but not least, Monopoly, released 1935.”

“Wow, you uh- you really did your research,” he commented, looking over the stack of authentically vintage boxes.

“Of course,” you shrugged with a smile, “my boyfriend’s 106, if I want to bring back some childhood nostalgia, that requires some research. . . and late hour ebay bidding in our case.”  

He nodded, a faint smile showing, before it faded with his next words, “I hope you didn’t do too much research on me,” he looked up, hand resting on Monopoly.

You calmly slid down into the seat across from him and stared with a kind smile still on your lips, reaching to touch his hand, you stroked your thumb against his knuckles, “I’m more of a first hand account, direct source, kind of girl when it comes to people,” the corner of his mouth tugged into a smile. 

You knew, just not everything, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared to have another living soul know it all quite yet. Luckily, you were someone who seemed to actually understand that.

“Or,” you announced, lifting a pointer finger, as if requesting a pause whilst you went to a nearby drawer, returning with a much smaller box, “we can get really really old school, even for you” the box met the table top, “standard 52 card deck, English edition, circa 1516. . .obviously not original.”

Bucky chuckled, looking to you, tonguing his cheek, before picking up the cards, “I hate to tell you, but that’s just a little before my time,” he squinted at you, teasingly.

Biting your lip, your shoulders shifted with the giggle that came after his comment, “so, come on,” you sat back down, this time with your elbows on the table and hands laced, to support your resting chin on top of them, “what should I beat your butt in?”

“Oh,” Bucky, attempting to appear insulted, began raising his eyebrows, “you think?”

“Yeah,” you laughed your words while looking at his serious face, “I think, better yet, I know.”

“Well, I don’t know where you get your confidence from. You know you are talking to a local senior Bingo night champion,” he shrugged with a head tilt, as if that was supposed to be a big deal.

“Woooow,” you drew out, smiling uncontrollably.

“But,” he sighed, “okay,” he shook his head once, accepting your challenge, “let’s go, you’re on! Monopoly,” he brought the box towards himself as you set the others on the floor next to your chair.

You watched as he picked up the little metal pieces, examining each one individually. There was an expression you’d never seen before, he was remembering something positive from his past. A memory that sparked a smile that you helped bring about. He surveyed the board, with all its bright colours and familiar street names.

“It’s been-” he paused, looking upward, doing the math in his head, “it’s been 85 years since I played this game,” setting each piece he stopped at the boat, laughing to himself, “you know, Steve used to always be the battleship.” 

A soft smile came across your lips, while you watched him remember exactly how to set it up. You picked the Scottie dog and he picked the vintage race car piece.

“Were you always the race car?” you ventured, wanting to know more about his childhood, you knew he didn’t talk about it often.

“Oh,” he glanced to the piece he had just naturally picked up without a thought, “yeah, well, I think,” he gave a quick, but somber smile, before clearing his throat, and actually looking up, “and my sister, whenever she’d actually manage to get mom and dad to let her stay up with us, she’d always be the thimble,” he leaned back in his chair, smiling, “whenever it was her turn to move she’d put it on her finger and hop it down the street names.” He leaned back to the table, “we never made her go to jail, even if she landed on it, Steve would make up some rule that let her skip it.” 

“That’s really sweet of you guys,” you said, looking softly at his smile.

“Yeah,” he swallowed, “but don’t think you can skip jail,” he changed his tone, preferring not to dwell on the past even if it was positive. 

“Don’t think I’ll be visiting,” you smirk confidently, “better watch out for the money man yourself.” 

“Wow, who is this?” he dropped his jaw, “she’s so sarcastic, does Yori know this side of you? Do you sneak jellybeans under the table or something evil like that?”

Laughing, you took your root-beer, “just give me my $1,500 so the smack down can actually begin.”

Two hours later, after a long battle between Boardwalk, control over the railroads, and many, many visits to jail, you sat back, lips quirked, arms across your chest as your little Scottie sat in jail.

“And three thousand, six hundred, and five. . . I’m sorry, but that leaves you,” Bucky set his elbows on the table, wincing at you, “bankrupt.”

“Fine,” you huffed jokingly, giving your best pout,“you win.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Bucky reached out a hand to touch your forearm comfortingly, accompanied by a smile you couldn’t deny.

“You wanna go again?” You offered seriously, resting your hand on top of his tenderly, happy to see him so happy.

“It was really fun, but let’s play something else, this time you pick,” he offered.

Breaking into a smile, you gave a nod, and he asked what you had in mind. It took a moment, you wanted to make this good, and you wanted to see it be a little more of a struggle for him, if you were honest. 

“You know, I know it’s later than your. . .original timeline, but there’s this fantastic game called Twister,” you smirked, perking an eyebrow to ask if he was up for it. 

“Twister?” He repeated you, tilting his head like a confused puppy, “what’s Twister?”

“I’ll show you, but,” you glanced over to your small apartment living room, “we might need to arrange the furniture a little.”

“Don’t worry,” Bucky stood, “I can handle that.” 

Smiling, you stand, “okay, just push it all to one side, I’ll get the game.” 

Ten minutes later, shoeless, you both stood looking over the polka dotted sheet on the floor. Nodding happily to yourself, Bucky shook his head almost in fear. 

“Make sense?” You asked, having just explained the very simple rules, you turned to face him.

“Oh, I’m sorry I asked,” he sighed, shouldering off his jacket and tossing it onto the couch along with his glove, “yeah, it makes sense,” he set his hands on his hips, pondering this new game intently. 

“Okay, you first,” you held up the spinning arrow, and began.

One hand and foot at a time, sometimes struggling to reach the spinner, but you both made it work pretty well. Having kept to one side of the sheet, it came time to get a smidge more twisted.

Bucky managed to keep balanced and spin a green dot with his left arm, conveniently it placed him right over you. As he began to reach for green, he carefully calculated how best to approach the green dot in order to keep his balance. It was a pretty far reach and he’d need to balance himself whilst reaching over you. 

“What’s the matter old man, can’t quite move like you used to?” you shamelessly giggled. 

Raising his eyebrows at your tone, “ohhh, wow,” Bucky said sincerely, finally placing his left arm over you and to a green dot, now above you he tilted his head sassily, “respect your elders.”

His last sentence only made your giggle turn into a genuine laugh. You closed your eyes and threw your head back a little. Admittedly, Bucky thought it was funny too, but he didn’t laugh, he just took in your smile and the sound of your laugh, enjoying every single moment of it.

When you brought your head back up, you were about to respond sassily, but instead you found his lips meeting yours. With a small squeak of surprise, you relaxed into the kiss, glad that he was finally confident enough with you to take a chance now and then. He tasted like vanilla root beer, which mixed wonderfully with the scent of his cologne you were finally close enough to smell. 

It was soft and slow at first, but slowly, with his right hand palming the arch of your back, you eased into his touch, lower back almost meeting the floor as you both sunk down a little. You completely forgot about the game, as you reached your arms around his neck gently. Keeping the kiss close, you felt him hesitate to deepen it, so you gave him a small sign of encouragement, by moving your hand to the side of his neck, naturally bringing him even closer. 

You had no idea how long you’d been there, on that polka dot sheet, but it was such bliss that you didn’t even care. Smiling into the kiss, you felt him smile back. 

Parting, he pressed his forehead to yours, “I win,” he whispered, lips in a smile. 

“What?” was all you could ask, still mesmerised by the kiss. 

Bucky motioned his head to his left arm which happened to have been keeping the two of you steady. . . all the while remaining on the green dot. You dropped your arms from around his neck, to the floor, elbows supporting you as you looked up at him, shaking your head. 

“That does not count, Bucky,” you tried not to smile as he kept his arm as still as possible.

“What? But my hand’s still on green,” he dramatically gestured to it, making you bite your lip to repress a giggle, trying to match his seriousness.

Shoving his chest directly above you, he feigned an ‘ow!’ before you softly pull him closer again.

“If I kiss you are you gonna hit me again?”

You smirk, “I might if you don’t.” 

Bucky smiled, lips almost touching yours, “alright, sorry,” he smiled, voice almost a whisper as his lips brushed against yours, “I’m still learning the rules to this game.”