#I also saw just the worst take in existence on fanfiction as a whole!!

[womgi]

Naruto is weird in many ways. Especially in terms of worldbuilding. speaking as someone who was into fanfiction from the 2000s, there was so much that changed in the elements of Naruto that people writing fanfiction were constantly having to change their frameworks, or have to put the rather ignoble looking tag of "non canon compliant" at some point. I have sat through so many author notes talking about "the manga/anime did this, so as of volume/chapter, my story is officially an AU". And there was a lot of it. And that's not talking about the shitload of retconning that Kishimoto just loves. Story stuck? Retcon. Need to escalate? Retcon. Anything at all? Retcon.

Remember when the Kyuubi was a demon? As in a full blown mythological demon rather than what it ended up as? Fanfiction went all in on playing with mythology. The whole Inari business, the Fox summoning contracts, the constant and surprisingly persistent use of "kit" as the pronoun of choice from inmate to warden...all of that was fairly ubiquitous. And back then naruto fanfics were much more imaginative too. The worst villain was Orochimaru, that terrifying amoral mad scientist who was willing to let the world burn for his immortality. He got nerfed.

Or Naruto's father? We all thought he was some guy named Arashi, because of that one panel with the name Arashi Kazama in the Toad summoning scroll. The Fourth Hokage was called that name for a long time, enough to have tons of fanfiction about it at a time when naruto being the Fourth Hokage's son was just a fan theory.

I will always find the idea that we all "knew" Tobi was Obito long before the official announcement funny.

The early speculation about what the other villages were like were rather interesting as well. I mean, consider what we learn about other villages from a manga release timeline. We hear about kiri through Zabuza and his posse. Kirigakure became this villainous, murderous place. We see Suna through the chuunin exams and they're basically this weak village which get owned. Hell, their Kage gets taken out by a random missing nin and they don't even realize! Grass is represented by a team that basically exists to give Orochimaru fleshsuits to infiltrate the Chunin exams with. Ame, they're assholes - like, Hanzo probably hadn't even been conceptualized as a character yet, so they are at this point one-dimensional assholes who exist to get beaten up by the Konoha troupe. We learn about Kumo through Neji's tragic backstory. And we learn that Kumo is a bunch of backstabbing honorless villains. And this shaped how the fans saw the other villages.

Like take Kumo. By the end, Kumo was basically Ninja USA. Militarized, aggressive, and expansionist. Outside of that they also had a lot of Black people, which is an interesting choice for a japanese ninja universe, if a welcome one. That kumo did not exist when Neji's backstory was being belted out to all and sundry. That was a much later invention when Kishimoto got baked(or whatever he does when he gets writers block). Yet, by the end, they seem to be Kishimoto's go to for ninja awesome. Oh, the other villages have badass characters? Hey, look at Kumo! They have lasers! and the stuff of original ninja Jesus! That do cool shit! and their leader is so badass he cuts off his hand without looking at explosions! Lots of Kumo wank in the fanfiction. Or maybe it's just where my searches led.

Or take Oto, sound village. I remember a time when Sound village being a Konoha copy because of Orochimaru being a Konoha missing nin was a thing. They had the whole village with tower in the middle and everything. Sadly, canon has forever robbed us of the classic scene of Orochimaru drowning under paperwork. Why Kishimoto why?

And remember when Itachi was a terrifying villain instead of a tragic hero? I remember reading fics that made Itachi a terrifying force of nature, a sadistic mofo that made satan look like a putz. And then Kishimoto was like "nah" and everyone was suddenly "I heart Itachi! UwU!" or something.

Akatsuki as a whole has gone through a wild ride. When Itachi showed up, there was so much speculation about what they were gonna use the jinchuuriki for. Tailed beast WMDs were fun reads, if terrifying to imagine. Zetsu was a grass nin. Deidara ended up Naruto's brother in so many fics. So many fics that are now forgotten because Akatsuki got a canon backstory.

It's kind of funny how the further we went along the Naruto timeline, the more restrictive fanfiction became. We all became collectively chained by canon. Plots became more streamlined, and frankly dull. The imagination just disappeared. It felt like every second fic was basically "Naruto has a bloodline" and after some very energetic academy time and wave mission the story disappears into the abyss of dead fanfics. I'm just saying, if fanfics rose up from the grave, kancolle style, because of grudges against their authors, we'd have a shitload of underdeveloped Narutos with all sorts of weird bloodlines.

Hell, until Dreaming of Sunshine came along, Self Inserts were just about done. Imagine that for a second. That the most self indulgent type of fanfiction ever, the one everyone at least imagines writing, was an endangered species! And DoS was one of the more canon restricted fics ever, carefully plotting out canon while having long introspective monologues. It was a wild time.

The crossovers and smut are a different topic entirely. I've not forgotten those, but not really something a random Tumblr post can touch reasonably well.

We have Boruto now, love it or hate it. And personally I hate it, though I don't begrudge those who don't. My personal issues stem from how they did the original characters dirty. In a Doylist sense, I understand why, considering that if the older generation was the terrifyingly competent bunch they had become, then Boruto would by necessity end up as slice of life with chakra. But the way they completely twisted their characterisation was just sad. That scene where those rookie nine jump in like chumps and get stomped in between frames? Who wrote that shit? And why?

And worst of all, Shino has a toaster of all things for a mask!

In the OG naruto series, the older generation then was shown as impressive people of their own. There was respect there. Anyone remember the Allied Moms? The younger generation had come up to the fore because they had grown into splendid shinobi, children who had grown to surpass their parents, not because their parents had become nerfed. Why does Boruto need to make the characters we love incompetent to make the new generation look better? But I digress

Naruto now is a different beast. It's had time to settle in, mature as a series. The sequel has made things different, but the fanfiction still exists online, showing a side of the fandom that saw it evolve. In the forgotten depths of the interweb are splendid stories of the past, prose written by dedicated and talented fans who crafted amazing tales. Who remembers those days? Who remembers those fics? Do we? Do their authors?

I'll still read Naruto fanfiction. It's a good chunk of my life I've invested there. Call it sunk cost fallacy if you must. But some part of me misses a different era, when Naruto was the frontier, and everyday was a new fanfic, a new adventure.

[nautilusopus]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @subdee, may as well since it's been a while

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

40

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

590,973

3. What fandoms do you write for?

FFVII mostly, but none of that spinoff bullshit. I have some stuff for XV in the works despite hating XV and the characters having zero fucking personality because this is just my grieving process I guess??? They're basically all crossovers with VII except one though so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I've also got a couple things for Spy X Family I'm excited for but unfortunately am a bit hamstrung due to certain reveals and lack of reveals so it's on pause.

(Also Ever Crisis and Remake back to back have sucked all the fucking joy out of me in one fell swoop so I'm trying to remember why I even fucking like doing this when FFVII has effectively been erased.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1)The Number I.

Go read it. I worked hard on it and it's very dense and heavily character-driven and a genfic focused on plot, and, most importantly, is complete. I'm going to shill this one directly I ain't give a damn:

Predominately involves Cloud, now four years out from Meteorfall, struggling to adjust to civilian life given he's still gene-spliced with an Old God, who begins losing control of his body to a heretofore seemingly unknown entity with inscrutable goals. As it gradually becomes clear that the events of the previous four years aren't as they seem in more ways than one, things start to go off the rails completely as Cloud winds up enmeshed in conflict between multiple parties: an international initiative studying cosmology and the two doctors leading it; the WRO, who has considered him a Jenova-based liability from day one; interpersonal friction with his newfound family stemming from the residual baggage of everything he went through; and reality itself beginning to deteriorate.

It's slice of life, it's cosmic horror, it's a character study, it's about grown men crying and legacies and grief and trauma and intimacy and autonomy and gender as a microcosm for broader truths about the nature of the self, it's got angry tearful fistfights, bottoms that haven't figured out you can take it in turn to service top, Cloud telling everyone his strong and correct opinions about magic and materia and bikes, found family shenanigans, and me talking about garlic for way way way too long. Something for everyone!

I wasn't kidding about any of that by the way, heed the warnings at the top of the chapters because I do NOT pull punches and we get into some heavy shit. Go hard or go home.

Originally it was a 500 word pee joke I was gonna show to two people in response to a terrible LTD argument I saw someone make and was sure I'd "wrap it up quickly". Oops.

2) An Idiot's Guide to Holding Hands. I wrote this in response to, I'm not kidding, the worst most hateful fanfiction I have ever fucking seen in my life. As big of a beef as I have with the Crisis Core fuckers treating the women like shit and being pretty hateful towards them as a whole, they're still at least clearly writing because they genuinely love Crisis Core and the characters in it for reasons that are presently unknown to me. This thing on the other hand was oozing contempt for the cast of VII and Evangelion and the women in particular and I genuinely don't know why someone would put that much fucking effort into making something like this and felt a sudden need to rebut everything it stood for. It's not super great as a fic tbh but y'all seem to like it so at least something came of it.

3) Don't Ask How The Job Interview Went. Harry Potter/VII crossover I shat out in like 6 hours on a whim because a Halloween prompt one year was "witches and wizards" and I hated all the existing crossovers (ugh again with the crisis core). Honestly had an entire multichapter fic as a sequel lined up that I was pretty excited for but as things went on I felt grosser and grosser about even making it. Maybe I'll do something with the outline one day, it was basically finished. Still kills me that this thing is so fucking popular but there you go.

4) What's Dead and Buried. This is literally just Chapter 18 of The Number I (which you should go read!). I wrote it, realised it worked great as a standalone fic and gateway drug, and published it as its own thing. If you're on the fence about TNI, maybe check out this oneshot. Features shitty gremlin child Cloud interacting with Vincent and a lot of grim implications about both their lives that Cloud is too young to really get. Very very black comedy.

5) Adjacent. I don't like this one sorry. It was a commission and while I like the individual headcanons of freaky shit Cloud is inclined to do and was chomping at the bit to use them somewhere I don't like how they wound up getting utilised. Feels like generic fandom fluff to me. I'd delete it but people seem to enjoy it and I don't want to take that from them.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always and as soon as I possibly can! I'm immensely flattered people actually take the time to comment on stuff and I enjoy getting to talk about the stuff I wrote in a bit more depth.

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

It's Full of Stars easily. Fucked that dude up beyond repair. Also was considering a sequel for this one too so I could explore some of the stuff fueling what the fuck is going on here, though that might obviously ruin the ambiguity of said ending and what exactly was done to him.

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

I'm a big baby I actually almost always try for happy endings, or at least bittersweet. Probably Tidewaters, nobody even gets pulped in that one.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Basically no. I've gotten five negative comments in all the years I've been doing this:

Two were people whinging about how I made Aeris Jewish in a fic and how that was reverse racist against Christians (die mad about it lol).

Two were someone that wanted an in-depth essay over my right to use a slur within the context of a character talking about people calling him that slur in a character arc partially about feeling alienated from gender and basically demanded I out myself to "prove" I could use it while missing literally everything about why that word would be used to where they felt the need to send that shit to begin with (gee thanks did you do it did you make the queers feel comfortable). Reading comprehension is so so important you are all going to kill me.

The last one was a long six paragraph rant completely unrelated to the fic in any way because I joked in the author's notes about not liking a video game that they liked(????), followed by an even longer ten paragraph rant about how actually the unrelated game was "95% perfect" (lmaoooo) and how "5% of it being bad isn't a good reason to hate it". The first half of it's on there, I deleted the second comment because my fanfiction comments are not the fucking gamefaqs forums dude. (Also die mad about it lol.) That remains to this day the only comment I've ever deleted from any of my fics and that includes the one that literally just said "penis" and nothing else.

9. Do you write smut?

If you squint lol. TNI has a couple sex scenes in it. They're uh

they're in it.

Boy are they in it.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Hell yeah I do. Also I'm a purist about this term A CROSSOVER IS WHEN YOU CROSS THE TWO THINGS OVER BUT THEY ARE STILL THEIR OWN DISPARATE THINGS. A FUSION IS WHEN THE TWO SETTINGS ARE FUSED. WORDS MEAN THINGS. ALSO A DRABBLE IS 100 WORDS EXACTLY NO MORE NO LESS. I'LL KEEP SITTING ON THIS PORCH SHAKING MY FIST AT THESE CHILDREN UNTIL THEY FUCKING LEARN.

Anyway I'll dump FFVII on everything and nobody can stop me. FFXV. Mass Effect. Spy X Family. Aliens. Ellen Ripley can, should, must, and will fight Jenova with a power loader.   

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah I talk a big game but I ignore the Comp too hard to break into the mainstream. I'm small potatoes.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah and no surprises why. Shit's too wordy.

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

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of? Fuck I gotta finish that thing.

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

meh. Does Loid/Yor even count? Everyone keeps writing it wrong and we still haven't seen the penny drop but it's sweet in its extremely fucking dysfunctional way (which is the best way GO READ TNI COUGH COUGH).

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Frame-Perfect. Should not have started writing before finishing the damn outline, don't know how to resolve this thing without it being a massive downer any way you slice it. This is why you should never pants VARETH.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue babyyyyyyy. I literally won an award for it once lol. Probably also psychological horror. Those two things combined means there's a lot of stream of consciousness shit in nearly everything I do, and if that's not your jam you probably won't like it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

It is so, so hard to get a character from a location to another location. It shouldn't be hard. Why is it hard??? I should be allowed to just go And then he went, in exactly that cadence every time and everyone should just deal with it UGH 

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

Extremely hit or miss and you can almost always tell if the person in question doesn't speak it. Use sparingly because you are playing with fire.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

FFVII. The Number I is technically my first fanfiction ever, actually!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Either TNI obviously, but also as a whole either Replacements or Tidewaters. Replacements I whipped up on the spot day-of in a few hours on a whim and it basically turned out perfect???? I've never been able to replicate that before or since. Tidewaters is Cloud Yuffie Nanaki shenanigans which I love, and I was shocked and horrified to learn I'm basically the entire tag of that as far as that's concerned (I'm working on rectifying that I promise shhhh).

Everyone I know that writes was already tagged basically uhhhhhhh

@varethinsilico, @denebolaleo-ffwriter, @spectroscopes, @terror-billie, @jenovacomplete, anyone else who wants to take a crack at this pretend I tagged you.

[missamyshay]

Fic writer asks: 70 to 79 🫶🏾

I read this as questions 70 and 79, but THEN I did a double take and saw the to, and I smiled, made myself a cup of coffee, and curled up on the couch to answer this.

70. Are you subscribed to any writers on A03?

The subscription function on AO3 is kind of lost on me because I hardly check my emails outside of work lol. But I have a few, including (but not limited to) @tvfanatic97-2 @promiseofthepremise @seek--rest @palettesofrenaissance @weezly14 @abcd-em

71. Do you spend more time reading or writing?

Proooobably writing at the moment.

72. What's your favorite writing compliment you've gotten?

I got a comment that said a fic was “like being invited in to a warm home, being given a soft blanket and a hot cup of soup”, I loved that.

But really, anyone who takes the time to leave a comment on my work is my absolute favourite.

73. What do you tend to get complimented on the most about your writing?

Readers often tell me they can picture scenes I’ve written in their heads like movie/tv sequences. I think that’s a great compliment.

74. Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

Oh 100%. I think timeless mostly. Writing that fic was a first for me in many respects. First time I actually brought myself to tears with my own words. My first time touching on a character I haven’t written before (Flash). First time gearing up the confidence to kill off The Guy™ lol. But mainly I think it’s just some of my best writing, in my opinion.

I’ll throw in Being Mary Jane too, but that’s a WIP so here’s hoping it’ll gain some traction along the line.

75. Is there a particular fic that readers gravitated towards that you didn't expect?

I was surprised about the love for for unexpected mothers and fathers. I wrote that fic primarily for myself, so it was nice to see other people loved it too. Also A Sticky Situation. That was one of those stories I wrote in one sitting in the middle of the night just because the idea wouldn’t leave my head. It was a surprise how many people related to it in different ways.

76. How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

Dealing with external pressure is easier, luckily my readers are supportive and even requests for updates are uplifting and encouraging. Internal pressure is the worst—not writing quick enough, not writing well enough, not getting a satisfying response, etc. Don’t have a system for that yet lol

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

Lots of reasons. The community of it all mainly. It’s really refreshing to be able to retreat into a space where other people care about the things you care about.

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

A whole bunch of things. Mainly I’m motivated to write because I love writing. Don’t know how to exist without it. But also the anticipated response of readers. With a fic like across the hall for example, the readers of that story are such a community and it’s always a motivation for me to update in anticipation of the banter in the comment section lol

79. Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

Write what makes you happy.

Thank you for these! ❤️

[entoman-created-by-the-tallgreys]

Too All Of Humanity ! ! !

I know you think I'm crazy, or as you say in your language schizophrenic now, I know you think I have a lot of mental problems you're right I do but not in the way you would conceive and think I'm very badly damaged and I have a lot of brain down cuz a lot of poisons in this world and a lot of toxic chemicals I was forced on as a kid called and it's icon if they gave me permanent brain damage and multiple places and permanent body damage damn it's part of my nervous system permanently.

I have come to you with all this information not to show up how mentally ill I can fucking people with a very Stark reality. I need help I don't need help I need help I don't need mockery I need help I don't need fucking Psychiatry I need help.

I need help finding my people and need help finding what the name like goddess was she said they know her over on this planet as "Goddess of Fairy's " but I have seen no Green Goddess of fairies ?

and I think a lot of fanfiction shit all over the Internet and a lot of video game Bullshit as well. 😡 which only made it that much more difficult to tell what was religion and what was just a made-up shit ?

I'm looking for help to give the 👽 a middle finger and finding my people prematurely. our entire lives are one big agenda playing out and we have to obey them everything okay of Our lives. we are connected to a psychic hive my network. and there's an implant in all of our heads. I'm looking for help. I badly need help. Humanity has enough but be cruel and aggressive towards me and I've done nothing bad to them but nearly exists. and speak a whole bunch of knowledge that just seemed absurd ridiculous and made people's heads explode they couldn't comprehend what they were experiencing which makes you really wonder if there is no intelligence in the human being ever again.

I wonder if human beings have completely lost all their intelligence ?

human beings are going to be very faithful in each other anymore cuz they're saying each other as fucking stupid.

I'm Not a Human Being I explained that in my blog I explained that on my Instagram I explained that on my Bitchute, and I explained it on my Discord the second one as well the first one got deleted and I had to fucking make a new one because this court is a fucking prick and you have to be really careful what you put so I went all the way to the extreme on the second one I became more uncensored and more unfiltered. and I bet they left me alone cuz I thought I was the biggest most mentally ill pariah they ever saw ?

I was just speaking the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth that they could not comprehend

I know motherfuckers are reporting my server every time they enter. I know. but I bet not only Discord actually want to go to the server to see if it's breaking the rules not because then in their training and in their programming they see everything I say despite being a Harpers and fucking true as mental illness they see it as the worst of worst examples of mental illness run completely rampant and wild in someone. to where all they see the natural alien human hybrid what they see is mental illness Gone to an infinite level of being Unhinged. They just schizophrenia gone to the infinite Extreme. When Really, I just speak Pure & Honest, Truth's !

so I come to you and ask that you go through my blog if you got the time. help me, please.

Don't judge me as mad. I'm not crazy, I'm honest.

if you find one of our women just report to me the picture and location do not have to go up to them they're extremely violent I don't even know if they're even alive how aggressive they are. if you see one of the males that would also be nice if you just take a picture of them and a location where you got it. else be nice if you turn on time stamp on your phone so when you take a picture it gives the time date and some of them even give the location. it should be in the picture settings when you activate your camera on your phone.

This is serious. if you don't want to help I understand.

There is 8 billion people on the Earth someone's bound to help me eventually. I hope.

[turtleduck-tea]

Just reached Zuko Alone in my rewatch and god yeah no wonder this altered my brain chemistry when I was 13

It's the first episode I ever saw. Little me, in my grandma's house on vacation in Hungary, watching cartoons on the little old box tv she had in crappy hungarian dubs. I was never interested in atla before, but there was only one kids channel, and that's what came on, so I watched it. And god.

I had absolutely zero context at all, but it was an instant special interest and it hit with a force. I'd never experienced anything like that before, and haven't since. The autism gods looked down upon me and pried open my third eye to look at this sad fire boy. I also knew nothing about Zuko outside of that episode, but I didn't need to, I was deeply in love with him immediately (hey, listen, I was 13).

The wifi at my grandma's was a mythical being that only existed in legend, and as such I was unable to even look anything up about the show. I had nothing to fuel my new love and a whole month left there before I'd get to go home to my reliable internet connection. It was hard catching episodes daily too because we weren't just always sitting around at home, and this was before the days where you could rewind the tv. I made up possible plotlines in my mind. I hyperfixated on those. I was desperate.

But my god. I've never felt love so strongly before. I saw Zuko in my dreams (again, 13 year old kid). I turned 14 later that summer. I imagined he was there to celebrate with me. I was also exhibiting other signs of mental illness, strangely no one ever noticed. I made my grandma watch atla with me. I think she liked it.

And then, at last, summer ended and I got to go home. The moment we arrived after a 14 hour car ride I ran to my room and turned on my computer's life support (I had an old-ass box desktop and big computer box thing combo, handed down from my grandfather, and I was incredibly lucky for it). Finally I could get to watch the show that's been taking over every cell of my body. I hadn't thought of anything else even for a second all summer. I had entire AUs and fanfics planned despite knowing at most the bare minimum of what the show is actually about. Category 11 autism event. And at last here I was, and I found the episodes online in german, and hit play, and it worked!

And I managed to watch it for two minutes. Before I turned it off. Despite all my autism I actually had to turn it off, because even though I wanted nothing more in the whole wide world than to finally watch atla. The german dub sucks so much ass. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

So I turned it off. And I sat my ass down. And I started learning english. So I could watch atla.

And just to be clear. English was my worst subject. I was awful at it. But the german dub was so utterly horrid that it hyperfixation-fueled me into learning a whole ass language and I'm now more fluent in it than some native speakers. When I tell you I went from barely passing the class to writing whole fanfictions in MONTHS. Look at me writing this post. I don't even know how to write in german anymore.

So, yeah, Zuko Alone. If it'd been any other episode I probably wouldn't have ever become interested. Giving me that episode in that very moment was divine intervention. I needed that. This was supposed to be a short post but listen guys ZUKO ALONE. OKAY. I have feelings about this.

I was never the same (I was better)

[kinomiakai]

Whats the weirdest thing you've heard someone say about Naruto? I saw someone on tiktok say that orochimaru was 100% a good guy, and that it was ok if he did experiments on babies.

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh. oh that. that is a....a take. I’ve seen....honestly my mind just spiraled through a whole bunch of terrible things and I am going to make an executive decision and spare y’all from all of them.

What’s the best Naruto take you’ve ever heard??? Mine is that Sasuke fucks up and says dattebayo once and lives in shame for the rest of his life

[starswallowingsea]

It took like three months but I have finally finished The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. And it was garbage.

Even without knowing that this was originally Star Wars Reylo Fanfiction, this book was dry as fuck and I zoned out so much while reading it I can barely remember the basis of the plot. The only thing that got me through it was how often I was pulled out of the plot by the comically bad writing. Spoilers below

Our main character, Olive, is in a predicament, that her best friend, Anh (Rose Tico), wants to date Olive's ex, Jeremy (General Hux?), but Olive had just broken up with him and Anh thinks she still has feelings for him. Olive tries to convince Anh that she's moved on and fakes going on a date until she almost gets caught working in the lab at midnight on the night of the date and kisses someone to make it seem like she's on a date...in the biology lab.

The rest of the book was honestly filled with Anh pushing Olive to actually act like she's dating Adam (the man she kissed in the bio lab that fateful night) and Olive pushing back on it for some reason. Girly nobody would honestly believe you were dating if you only met up for coffee once a week, said hello to each other in the hallways, and were never seen in public together otherwise. I'm shocked that it worked, but also not, because this book sucks.

The only time Olive actually takes control of the plot is when she kisses Adam and when she plays the recording of Tom harassing her in the restaurant (which she should have known that he was recorded like five chapters earlier, when she saw she didn't stop recording after her presentation and it had practically killed her phone battery. Like girly......it's not that hard. But whatever.) That one single page in chapter 20 was the only entertaining thing about this book.

Other than that, the characters were all flat, and Malcolm, who I am led to believe was Finn in the original, is a racist, homophobic caricature whose personality traits are fucking like rabbits and being the gay/black best friend and nothing else. Anh's personality was being the only woman of color in the room but also the head of several diversity committees and somehow running an organization for black and indigenous people despite not being either of those things (she's Vietnamese, which is notably not black nor indigenous). We are told Adam is a ruthless, cutthroat professor but never really shown that. He's just there to bounce off Olive's increasingly #quirky personality. The side characters even felt like copy/paste versions of Olive, which made the whole experience worse.

Not to mention one of the lines, walk with the confidence of a straight white man, is literally stolen from a 2012 tumblr post about the murder walk. I have not seen a single person mention this. Do we forget our roots? Something about repeating history...

Anyway, this book was bad, over-hyped, and just overall boring. I don't read romances so my only baseline is Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliassotti which was published in 2008. That book is far from perfect but it at least had an interesting world and heroine who did things instead of just letting things happen to her, and it was a fun read. I finished that book in less than a month and it took me three months to read the Love Hypothesis.

TL;DR this book was shit the characters were flat the plot was almost non-existant and Olive was one of the worst heroines in a book I've ever read. 0/10.

[purityoflust]

The Smile [Jeff The Killer X Victim!Reader] [PART 2]

Jeff the killer X Victim!

WARNING: Yandere. That's it. Yandere.

I finally decided how I would write part 2 to The Smile, which is my first and most popular post on my account so far. Anyone new who has come to read this, check out my other posts as well if you'd like. I'll post more like this. I also have a Quotev account with more fanfictions.

9/12/20, 3/4 days after the top part: God, AFTER SO LONG, I FINALLY DID IT! Took me days! I'm so sorry if this is a bit lazy, it is a tiny bit rushed by the end but how would you guys feel about a detailed part 3? I'll probably go as far as a part 3 or part 4 for the final part.

The vibrations in your brain felt warm and numbing - almost like when you have a horrible migraine and you can finally feel it subsiding with your eyes closed and your fingers gently holding down onto your eyelids as if you're holding your eyes into place to prevent them from bursting out of your skull. Upon waking up you can feel cold air settling into your skin. You haven't been awake 3 minutes and you already know what you're resting on; an extremely uncomfortable metal table. You've only seen them in movies but this was real.

The sound of a singsong voice just slightly echoing through what seemed like a moderately empty room. You groaned softly as you turned your head to your right, very slowly opening your eyes. Your vision blurred in and out, which, you wanted to rub to clear it out but as you went to lift your wrists, you felt pressure around them.

Something was holding your arms down. This catches your attention, blinking multiple times while turning your head back up straight and attempting to sit up. You were hardly successful with that, struggling while grunting under your breath to pull your hands from under what seemed to be a thick rope. As you pulled harder, you sucked in your stomach out of habit before immediately coming to a halt and choking up in pain.

This whole time you were ignoring the voice that was singing eerily nearby, "You and me, always forever~"

The voice was of a male. Scratchy, shaky. Familiar.

Familiar.

You could feel a string of your heart pop out of place as your breath stopped. That's when you knew something was wrong, but it just doesn't add up. You gulp while your eyeballs vigorously glance around to see where the source was coming from, only to see a figure in a corner. It was doubled over and it was sitting down on a simple wooden chair. Doubling over a...table? An average male figure, nothing unique. Although, the clothing style was unusual. At least what was on the clothes. He wore a fluffy white hoodie and what seemed to be black pants and black-and-white converse. The problem wasn't the outfit, no. His hoodie was spotted and had patterns upon patterns of darkened and more fresh-looking blood splatter. He had long black hair down to his shoulders. And luckily, his back was facing you.

You were dumbfounded. How did you get here, why are you restrained, and why is there a blood covered man near you? Is that even blood? Maybe it's paint or a design? Some people do wear clothes that have different kinds of blood splatter designs on them. Hm. Or he's an actual murderer about to gut you like a fish.

You wanted to speak. You wanted to speak so badly but you just couldn't. As you parted your lips, your throat went dry while your gaze stayed locked onto the bloody male that sat before you. The singing made you shiver as you tried so hard to remember where you could have heard or seen him. Why can't you remember?

The male then turned around to look at you. His singing had come to a gentle halt. Your mouth closed as he did so, your throat going completely dry and your whole body feeling like an ice cube. You were greeted with cold blue eyes. They looked hungry and bloodthirsty, yet they held a warm affection as they looked into your traumatized eyes. It was almost comforting until you saw the rest of his face. His skin was snow white and his lips looked dry. That's when more attention is drawn to his lower jaw. He's smiling. Too big for a normal person.

That's when you realize. He has a large smile carved into his cheeks going from ear to ear while his own lips were curled within a smile as well. And that's when it hits you.

And it hits you hard.

The memories of hours prior start brutally crashing into you, flooding back into your numb brain. All of the realization replaced itself with agonizing anxiety, your heart starting to race at speeds that felt impossible. You could pass out, but something inside you kept you awake. Something about him and about this whole situation was making you dizzy. The male slowly stands and turns his body all the way to face you. He seemed deranged, yet, he had a very relaxed stance and body language.

Uncomfortable silence loomed in the air.

He kept staring at you before slowly taking steps forward. You watch him carefully as your head feels like it's spinning, which you could notice your vision blurring a little bit here and there. The silence is suddenly disturbed with the male speaking up again, choking up in giggles. "Oh my sweet Y/N, you're awake~" He cooed, now standing over you. He leaned himself down and reached his hand to your cheek, gently brushing your skin with his surprisingly soft thumb. He leaned his face closer to yours. The smell of booze, blood, & smoke overwhelmed your nostrils. Yet it didn't seem to bother you that much.

His touch almost kind of made you feel...at ease. Your heart slowed itself and your breathing went back to pace. You felt fine, somewhat, but something in your stomach was still sore. The more you stare at him, the more memories come flooding back. The more memories flooding back, the easier you fit the puzzles together.

"M-my...stomach..--" You stutter out painfully.

In response to this, the male turned his head over to your abdomen and gently rested his other hand onto your bandaged stomach, applying very gentle pressure on it as to not hurt you. It was still slightly painful, causing you to groan under your breath.

"Oh, this...I'm sorry, my sweet butterfly. I had to make sure you wouldn't get away, and you didn't! Don't worry, Jack patched you up, so you'll be just fine!"

You remember now. You remember it all. The chase, your friend, the salty kiss before what you thought was your demise.

You naturally wondered as well; who's Jack?

"Wh-.." You weakly force air out of your throat again to speak, "why am I..tied-?"

"Oh, so you wouldn't be able to get away. I knew you would run away, or struggles, so I had to make sure you wouldn't do that!"

He was right. You would run away and struggle to get out of whatever the hell kind of place you're in. Well, knowing what he looks like. He DID stab you, after all. Who knows what this sicko wants.

He lifts his hand from your stomach and turns back to you, gently placing both of his hands at each side of your face. "You're so beautiful, Y/N. So sweet and so innocent. I couldn't keep letting the others eat you up like candy. You're mine and only mine. I need to protect you."

"Wh-who- are you?" You weren't really all too scared for some strange reason now. You were pretty calm. Probably from all of the energy this is draining.

"His name is Jeff." A deep and gruff voice cuts in.

The both of you turn your heads to the door of the room where a tall figure in all black stood. He was about 6"4 wearing heavy boots, black jeans, and a black hoodie. His hair was a dark brown though while he wore a mask. The mask was a dark blue with black goo oozing from the eyesockets. He was pretty intimidating even just by standing idly like a character waiting to be loaded in.

"And I'm Jack." He continued, "I'm the one who took care of your wound."

Jack stepped closer, soon standing at the other side of the table. He stood at the left as Jeff stood at the right.

"He wouldn't stop insisting I help."

You just blink, unknowing of what to respond with. He pursed his lips under his dark mask, in his own thought for a moment while staring down at you. You seemed calm enough, and your still pretty fresh injury was gonna hold you back anyway.

"[P]-[Pronoun]'s gonna-!" He attempts to blurt out, only to be stopped by you.

"I won't."

You were untied at your wrists and ankles, allowing yourself to pull your legs up and rest your feet at the top of the table, propping your knees up. It made your stomach feel weird, but it felt kind of nose and felt like it was easing the pain. You wrapped your arms around your knees, looking around the room more. "What is this place?" You ask.

"It's a medical room."

"Huh.." You shrug it off. Your anxiety levels had died down and the more you actually think about it, this isn't the worst thing that's happened. Your life has been pretty fucked up and you have damaged relationships everywhere. Honestly, being around new people and being far away from others sounds not too bad right now. Not like anyone would care anyway.

The next few hours, you're introduced to everyone else at the Mansion. They've been so...unique and honestly, you're surprised some people and beings like them even exist. They were all equally surprised with how little fear you showed.

You actually got along with most of them.

The others have taken a liking to you and hope you hang around longer. Alone in the living room, you, Jeff, Jack, and others sit at the couches and chairs in the living room, chatting away and getting to know them as they get to know you.

You feel Jeff wrap his arms around you and place a gentle kiss on your forehead, making your heart skip a beat.

You found out Jeff has been stalking you for months at a time. Watching your every move, eliminating anyone in the way. Huh, no wonder so many people in your life kept disappearing. You...couldn't bring yourself to be upset or scared, let alone even sad. You felt kind of at ease.

And far from uncomfortable. Someone loved you. Maybe more than they should, but they love you.

You didn't even feel upset at the fact Jeff had murdered that friend earlier. I mean, you just met the guy, so he wasn't even a 'friend'? So you paid no mind to it.

If anything, you really liked the thrill of someone being obsessed with you. A serial killer being so infatuated with you. He could be so protective of you and get rid of anyone you asked him to! There's is an advantage here. You knew he could snap and probably kill you intentionally or unintentionally, but you didn't mind. You really had no one else, technically speaking. No one that really cared. Not as much as he did.

Maybe he isn't so bad.

[madam-agony]

The Exaggeration of Problematic Ships

WARNING: Mention of Abuse, Death Threats

Hello! In this post, I will explain my point of view on this whole thing about “problematic ships”.

The reason why I decided to discuss about this kind of subject is because I’m completely tired of seeing people throwing hate and bullying other people over something so harmless.

By the way, excuse me if there will be any grammar mistakes.

First of all, I will explain what “problematic ship”, “pro ship” and what “anti” means

“Problematic ship” means a ship between two or more fictional characters, regardless if they’re abusive, age-gapped, blood-related, or just considered wrong in general. (examples of proships: Sebastian x Ciel, Hisoka x Gon, Endeavor x Todoroki, Bakugo x Deku, Illumi x Killua, etc)

“Pro ship” means to believe it’s completely fine for people to ship whatever they want, even if it’s a problematic ship.

“Anti" means to be against pro shippers.

Now, I will explain why being a pro shipper is completely normal and deserve respect just like all of us.

Never compare fiction with reality. It’s dumb and makes no sense when you compare these two different things in a case like this.

A problematic ship would be bad in real life because it does harm someone. Though, in fiction, nobody gets hurt.

We can do whatever the hell we want in fictional world and no one can tell us what to do, and that’s the beauty of it. We can do whatever we want without caring about anyone else. Telling someone to stop fantasizing about something just because you find it wrong is pointless and dumb

Fiction doesn’t affect reality. At least, not in the way to be considered as dangerous. It’s silly to blame a video game for a person’s actions, the game has no fault. An adult is completely aware of what they are doing, so they should know that any action they take has consequences they must consider. If it’s a child or a minor, then it’s the parents’ fault for not checking up on them and not taking enough care of them.

I understand that it may trigger you and may be a sensitive topic, but it’s not our problem. I don’t want to sound rude, but it’s honestly not our problem. We can create, post, and discuss about whatever we want as long as it’s not harming anyone directly. If it makes you uncomfortable, just block us. It is not up to us to create content that you find enjoyable or at least decent. It’s our posts, our accounts, our lives. We don’t hurt you on purpose.

Don’t say “but it teaches children to behave badly because they saw in a fanfiction it’s okay to be abusive or be fondled by adults!” just no. As I said, the parents should be more responsible with their children and check up on them whenever possible (not as in “spying your child every time you’ve got the opportunity” but you get my point). Also, if you really need to believe that everything displayed in fanfictions is normal/healthy, then you should get proper education.

I am myself a pro shipper, and while I’m not that hardcore of a fan, I still had previous experiences with angry and frustrated antis.

I know it will make me seem like I’m complaining or anything, but this will be an easier way I can guarantee you that people like these exist, since it was in my own experience.

I once wrote a fanfiction that implied pro shipping. I did put warnings in the description and before the story began, but I see that it was useless because people prefer to get triggered and shocked than read the description and pay attention to the warning so they can insult the living shit out of me later on. The next day, I woke up with 20+ hate comments and death threats in the comments.

All of them were horrible, it made me feel like shit and made me wonder why people are like that. Luckily, after a hour or two, I calmed down and realized that I shouldn’t stress on people like these so much. I should take this bad experience and make it something good to teach other people, something that I can give to other people so they can learn from my experience. I was stronger than before. (as cringe as it sounds lol)

At that moment, I realized that people like that barely even care about the real “issue” here. They only see it as a chance to bully someone without looking bad in front of other people. They are so sucked up in their own mind that they think what they’re doing is right.

People like that are the worst. Their morality is corrupted.

Because, their morals is like: it’s not okay to write things like that, but it’s okay to send death threats and bully them”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely fine to dislike a ship! I dislike some ships too, but that doesn’t give me the right to go and jump on them like a wild animal.

Not all antis are mean, but most of them are like that. It’s okay to not like something, but don’t make a mess out of it.

Now here are a few examples of frustrated and crazy antis.

Hell, they are so annoying when they put heart emojis at the end of their comment so they can make themselves look quirky and cool. Disgusting, that’s all I have to say about this kind of people.

If you really believe someone is doing something wrong, approach them in a gentle manner and talk respectfully towards them.

I’m sorry if I sounded rude in this post, and remember that you should look in other perspectives too, not in only yours. Even if someone does something wrong (but pro shipping is not the case), then explain to them what they’re doing wrong, not fuck them up.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

If you have any questions, just comment on this post or message me privately.

(Yes, I edited this post because I have mistaken the difference between “problematic ship” and “pro ship” and fixed a few typos. Don’t worry, my points in this post are still the same and I fully mean them.”

[tomatograter]

i saw on twitter you reread the epilogues! would it be okay to ask how you feel about them now on a reread? have any of your opinions changed, for better or worse? i've really loved the art and analysis that's come out of your tumblr/twitter ever since they dropped, so i'm excited to know what you think. i couldn't get a great read on your feelings based on your tweets so that is why i am asking directly, hope that's okay!

Not much changed. That wasn't the first time I attempted to re-read the HS Epilogues, I've gone through bits and pieces of them a handful of times in the years since the original release and it's an effort I make to remind myself of events that happened because I tend to... forget. I don't mind reading books, I like those! In the hellscape that was 2020, according to my StoryGraph stats (great new site, by the way, stop using the Amazon-clawed Goodreads and transfer your account to a black led effort to diversify the current literary environment) I managed to read about 22 new books. Not too shabby for a total dumbass. The problem isn't that it was text-only, they just sort of mush together as a nondescript mass in my brain given enough time. 

The first time I finished the epilogues, I said they felt like a purposefully unfinished text, but one at odds with itself (though in much more undercooked words, as I had just spent the last 2 days busy reading it) and it's an impression that has deepened since.

I do not mean anything like "Meat contradicts Candy" with this, that'd be foolish; the dissonance is the fucking point. I know how dubiously canon alternate universes work and I *enjoy* them, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted years in the circus ring that is accompanying Big 2 Comics in the hopes they'd do anything genuinely cool with that concept. Instead, I find there is a general problem in terms of internal cohesion. The Epilogues want to be a lot of things at once, be it a continuation, an expulsion, a deliberate attempt at public scorn, a somewhat genuine play in heartfelt analysis, a reinvention of what came before, or a loaded gun pointed straight at one's own foot. And in the process, they end up undermining the impact of their own strongest moments. 

I don't like the Epilogues. Their lukewarm indecisiveness makes for a poor reading experience that needs far more asides, warnings and 'before you read it-'s than the book is worth. It is a text with a particularly distasteful, juvenile fixation in the show and repeated humiliation of sexual abuse victims, and manages to be more regressive about its female characters and what roles they're allowed to play than Homestuck, the 2009 Comic, ever was. And that was disappointing. It's as if the coming of adulthood must sort them into one of two categories: "wanted, desirable" woman or "unwanted, undesirable" woman. It also interacts with trans women in a really shitty way. It is a text married to traditional white-centric politics that makes an attempt to challenge them from that same perspective but falls flat on its face by pulling big moves like "making the alien-Hitler analogue character fight for a rebellion meant to represent racial liberation" and other unsavory choices. But I don't need to like the Epilogues to acknowledge them as both a text that exists and works within a shared universe. 

They're pretty fertile ground for dissection and analysis. I think it's interesting how they accentuate some of the worst facets of the HS "canon"/"lore" by being incredibly blatant about their connection to stuff like the Skaianet archives, how they play with Fanservice and Fan Expectation by dedicating so much time to solving or sinking ‘The Davekat Equation’, and how they elaborate on complex facets of old characters. It's a text that acknowledges the existence of fanfiction and popular fanworks on a direct quotable basis (like "Can't sleep without holding onto a motherfucker" of 4Chords fame) as well as Fan Movements that preceded it (the also Gamzee-based "Free the clown!" Rush from 2016) it's intrinsically interactive, and that's not something you can say about a lot of media. The olive branch beckons.

I don't recommend the Epilogues. To me, the Epilogues portray glimpses of two potential, but not absolute, futures soaked in limiting metadoomer pessimism, best appreciated as "what-if" tales taking on the questions of serialization, post-myth, the self-cannibalistic nature of franchises, the abstractness of Canon, the absurdity of fanon, and why fascists like milk. The Epilogues are also not going to magically disappear or un-exist from our collective recollection anytime soon, or… ever. These statements coexist. 

I think complex feelings towards media are best put to use in the making of your own art, which is unsurprising, given the fact I'm an artist and a fag, & I've personally enjoyed creating things that interact and rebuke aspects of that text. I've also been graced with the existence of wonderful art from others doing the same, may that be in the form of illustrations, written epics, analyses, comics, videos, songs, the collective transgendering of the series' main character, and all sorts of harder-to-categorize community creations. You can make the best of it. That's my favorite part of the whole ordeal, and one I don't regret one bit. 

I hope this is an appropriately satisfying answer on this subject, and if it isn't, well, here's the thing; you can write a better one.

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

[elytrafemme]

hi. so it is new year’s eve, and because i’m the way that i am, i’m going to get way too personal about myself as sort of a ‘send off’ to this year, and whatnot. just, like, vocalizing my thoughts, i guess.

i have had this blog since May 15th, 2021. i’ve been using tumblr since sometime July 2020, as far as I am aware, but in terms of /this blog/, it’s a pretty new thing. and also probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me but i’ll get to that, promise.

2021 was obviously a fucking terrible year for a lot of people. i’m not going to get super blown-out and existential, but trust me, i do know that. my experiences are, in fact, universal. but... yeah, 2021 was a very weird year for me.

without going into too much detail, the first few months, and really first half (up until July, honestly) of 2021 all made up the worst period of my entire life. i hadn’t really grasped rock bottom just, as a concept, until that period of time ended. i won’t say too much about it specifically, but, it was not very good. and part of that not being good, as idiotic as it sounds, kind of had to do with how i interacted with the internet.

i started posting fanfiction on AO3 when i was 13, for the danganronpa fandom. i started posting SMP-centric content at some point when I was 15, i can’t remember a specific date nor do i care to check. it’s been kind of a long time of me doing this whole fanfiction thing, basically, and i got on discord when i was 14-ish, too, start of the pandemic. tumblr was, as stated before, a month or so before I turned 15.

bad idea. very bad idea, doing all of that at that age. it’s a bad idea i don’t regret, because it got me here and i believe in the butterfly effect really strongly, but. really bad idea for me at the time.

i developed a really bad perspective on what fanfiction writing was supposed to be like. and again i know that sounds really idiotic, because it literally is just fanfiction, but in the circumstances i was in, it had been sort of blown out of proportion for me. it was the pandemic, i was isolated and going through a really shitty time. i did not perceive internet interactions in a really healthy way.

the reason i made this sideblog, since i am not sure i ever said this before, was out of clear paranoia. i was losing sleep and constantly nauseous over my main blog, mostly because it was very exposed to people who i did not want seeing my content anymore, and i felt extremely trapped. dreamSMP content already sort of put a barrier, but it wasn’t enough. i was having literal panic attacks over my tumblr blog because i was so paranoid about who saw it. 

so i made this sideblog, flipped rapidly between advertising it and hiding it, and started almost entirely from scratch. and kind of went from there. 

it’s kind of crazy knowing that this blog was a thing in the midst of my psychotic break, but. many things didn’t really come out of that cleanly, and this blog was one of few that did. i’m really grateful for that honestly; there have been many times where i would think this was the end and i’d have to cut clean and start over. 

this is getting really long. point is, this blog kind of existed in a really hard time for me. and, we get to the second half of this year.

starting from august, 2021, i entered the /best/ period of my entire life. the way that i sort of reached that point involved some weird psychological fuckery that probably was not meant to happen, but it did and it worked. i started writing fanfiction again and, though i seem really stressed about fics all the time, i assure you that this anxiety (which i see as pretty standard for me) is absolutely nothing compared to what it used to be like. 

you might be noticing that this post is a shitshow. i don’t really know where i’m taking this one, either. 

the end of the year is just sort of a lot for me, basically. because within this single year, i went from rock bottom to my peak, with almost a clear divide in the middle of the year. i entirely transformed as a person essentially, and i kind of started over. 

and i wanted to emphasize the blog piece of this mostly just as a way to thank you all? i know i’ve done this before, oversharing then emotionally thanking you guys, but like. you all seriously have no clue how much you guys have meant to me. some of you-- holly, charm, fira, howls-- have been around since the first blog and, as scary as it is to think, probably directly saw me through this massive emotional crisis. a lot of you are sort of newer to me, hopped here be it a few days ago or a few months ago, and have been so incredibly kind and wonderful to me. 

i have a lot of mixed feelings towards 2022. on one hand, january and february are not very good times of the year for me. on the other hand, as my sibling eloquently told me in words i can’t exactly remember, 2021 has to end eventually and it can’t last forever. on the third hand i picked up on the ground somewhere, it’s hard to say goodbye to a year that completely changed your life. 

(or, if you want to get really mindfucky, goodbye to a year that split my life clean in half: age 15 and before, and age 16 and thereafter. almost two different people.) 

sorry for how long this is, just. there’s a lot of shit i’ve held about my weird mentalities towards tumblr. and i know it all sounds stupid, but i’m an exceptionally paranoid person and even small things caused a lot of anguish.

but i’m glad i’m here. because i’m happy with myself, now. 

and i have all the friends i’ve made, too, and all the writing i genuinely love, that can take me to 2022 safely. and hopefully without a psychotic break. man those suck so bad never get those they’re cringe as HELL

sorry this post is such a mess just. thank you guys. so much. i’m sorry i get so sappy so often i know it’s kind of weird or much but. seriously. i appreciate you guys. 

i could probably say it a thousand times in a thousand ways, but i could never come close to expressing how much i care for all of you and how much you mean to me. 

thanks for following for my writing and shitposts. fic tomorrow. CS tuesday. technically requests still open til midnight EST. 

love you. <3

[yanderecandystore]

How ye are having a good day v3v, I feel like imma you a bunch of oc ideas but ummm you got any siren/shark mermen ocs with a s/o who is a deep sea diver?😳 - Cold Anon

Boo, I'm so sorry for taking this long ;-; shit has been going down at the speed of light, so I haven't been able to focus all that well.

I have written your request a couple of times, but it always felt so… Awful? Like- It didn't read as proper oneshot so I kept re doing it over and over again.

I have two posts about mermaids, yet not exactly an official character. I'm going to make this one without an official one for now as well because I can't really think straight- Sorry Cold.

Shout out to @aka-thethirstyone for giving me ideas and helping me build this up-

TW/Tags: depressed/suicidal reader // failed suicide attempt (drowning/hydrogen poisoning although not very accurate) // victim blaming mentality (coming from the reader) // angst sad boi hours with some softness in the end //

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Deep blue sea [Yandere!Shark Merman x Reader - Short Fanfiction]:

You've put yourself in this situation, and even if the consequences may seem unfair, you should know better than to whine about it, you should know about now you don't have the right to complain about something you brought to yourself.

That's what you kept telling yourself, everyday, every hour of each day, and it seems to be a prominent thought even in a moment like this.

Every time you go underwater, you can't help but feel a deep connection with the submerged world around you. So much color and wild beauty that if makes you feel like you might as well not be on Earth anymore, it makes you feel like you're on a different planet.

Like you're in a different realm with wild creatures that hold both beauty and death in them, as marine creatures can be often quite unforgiving to each other, or unwanted visitors.

The alien-like ambience you feel while diving it's probably the most comforting thing in your job, if not the only comforting thing about your whole life.

Just like an old sailor, at sea you feel at home, and at home, you don't feel the same. But in your case, you feel like nothing whenever you come back to your house, and a "home" it's a place you have never really been in, so how can you describe the feeling you get when you're diving deep underwater, as something you never understood?

Who knows, maybe it was just a feeling you got, after all, all your team thinks you're too emotional over the ocean. Some would call you an insane person to be so attached to a body of water.

Yet it doesn't matter what the truth to your case may be, because it's whenever the embrace of said body of water fills your senses it's when you truly feel alive again.

That comforting embrace, as if the immense ocean was truly hugging you and relaxing your muscles.

That comforting, deadly embrace was what felt like home to you. And despite everyone else's warnings, you felt like it was your time to be one with the ocean.

It has been a long, unfortunate ride for you. And as I said before, it's not like you were planning on going back home today.

No, you refused to keep feeling empty at your empty house, going by every single day in your empty life-

It was time for a change. It was time for something different. Some peace for once, something that you wouldn't regret.

Or well, wouldn't be capable of regretting anyway.

Your plan was almost perfect, right? I mean, you were certain your diving team wouldn't notice you suddenly going numb, or even caring enough to help you out. So it was essentially perfect, right?

Yeah, it was unfortunate yet perfect. It brought you despair to think of how perfect your plan was.

But since when was your life easy, [Y/N]? Since when did your plans went your way, you don't really remember having luck-

Even at your final moments, you aren't giving peace that you waited for.

When you dived deep without the proper preparation and your oxygen tank having barely enough to half an hour, you let your body get numb by the water pressure and the narcosis that happened as soon as you dived too deep for your fragile body to handle.

Funny how something that can bring life can also take it away, water surely is probably the most powerful element on Earth. Yet, even if it was sentient, you couldn't be able to beg for the ocean water to fully take you away from this pain, from this emptiness you feel.

The ocean it's as beautiful as it is merciless, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that it would take back your hopes away from you.

While you were unconscious and awaiting your own end, you couldn't possibly be aware of the creature picking your numb floating body.

You couldn't possibly have seen the rest of your diving group looking for you, or the predator carefully observing them, making sure they couldn't see you or him.

When you wake up, you'll feel not only confused after finding out your plan has gone wrong but also finding the immense creature laying on top of you like a pillow.

You didn't feel like fighting, or understanding what the hell was going on, you just noticed that the man on top of you clearly wasn't human and really, really heavy.

Yet you weren't completely awake, you weren't completely fine passing through that whole event, hell, you didn't even realize you weren't inside the ocean anymore, or that you are laying on a completely unfamiliar beach with a creature who is essentially a myth on top of you.

He was sleeping. Dreaming.

Growling. Someone was having a bad dream.

Or maybe a good dream? Throughout your expeditions, you have never really interacted with sharks, only looked at them from afar, so you don't know how to read their behavior.

In a moment of high due to your sudden awakening, you pet his head, getting through his white and grey hair despite the fact that he shouldn't have any hair in his body.

But again, you didn't care, you didn't care for anything, you just wanted to look at the sky and drift once again into your dreamland.

Yet this gentle yet heavy and firm hold he got you on was starting to bother you, but not because you were not enjoying it, no, it was totally the opposite.

You... Missed this. You missed this now that you remember the last time you received any form of comfort from another living being. Even if this terrifying thing could possibly eat you, you felt somehow comfortable being hugged and used as a comfort pillow to someone so big and muscular.

You felt odd, like you were worth something for once.

As if this big predator of the vast seas needed some sort of comfort, and for some reason it chose you to help with his little self-conscious problem.

It felt great knowing that even the someone that is so menacing feels scared or sad from time to time. It makes you feel… Strong, in a sense.

If he can feel vulnerable and openly show it, then I can too, right?

Sigh…. Maybe you were overthinking it, like everything else you ever did. Maybe you should just sleep and see what happens when you wake up-

If. You wake up.

And while you were thinking the worst of yourself and of your captor, the man himself was trying his best to hold the joy, the sorrow, and the pain he felt when seeing you losing your strength while diving.

It doesn't matter if he says anything, what can he say? Nothing he could possibly think about telling you, you'll be able to understand back. The language barrier was just like that. Massive, towering, unbreakable.

It would take a long time to understand one another, considering how you both spoke in different ways. Generally speaking, even your minds seem to be in different places.

You thought about things that he would never be able to comprehend, your self hatred is something he'll never agree with.

Your pain, your sorrow, it doesn't make sense to him, cause up until this day, he only saw the [Y/N] that had fun swimming with the fish and playing with them. Not the one that lives unhappy up on the surface.

How can someone that brings him so much joy can think so little of themselves, is something he'll never understand.

He doesn't know exactly what your true plans are, since in his head, you do these things by accident.

You've been trying this for a couple of times now, and he has either not understood the meaning of it or tried to hide the fact from his own worrying heart.

You did something that would have been pretty stupid especially considering that you were all alone, what if he wasn't there observing you? Would you just- Stop moving completely?

The thought of seeing the cute diver he grown attached to going away from this plan of existence is cruel if not straight up torture.

He just found the one who is bound to be with him for all his life, how else would he feel after discovering something so terrible? The only thing that anyone would feel in his place is fear, is rage, is agony-

Clearly something was going wrong up there, something that made you just-

Decide to float through the ocean forever.

But- But this is oddly the perfect solution to his own problems, now he has a reason and a way to get you to be with him forever now, right?

You seemed to have given up on the human world you live in, and he really wants to be with you so you two can easily be together now. It's an unfortunate event yet also the only opportunity that he has seen as useful to his cause.

Of course, he doesn't understand you, and you surely don't understand him yet, but that is fine because as soon as he wakes up, he'll make sure to do everything in his power to make you feel like the happiest mate of all.

He only hopes you didn't see him sleeping on top of you as a lazy thing for a husband to do, don't worry about him being a bad dad though, he'll make sure to show off everything he has in store for you.

Even if it takes a while to get you accustomed to his mannerism and your now little private island, he knows you're going to love it here with him as your company.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[brookecuzyes]

Broken Promises — B.B.

Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Main Masterlist — Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Summary: Change is hard, especially when you’re having to change every single aspect of your life to fit in in the modern world. Change is even harder when it’s forced upon you, not an option you’re given.

Word Count: ≈2.2k (which is significantly less than pt.1)

Warnings: slight cursing, angst, daggers, mild depiction of blood (please let me know if I missed anything)

A/N: This is a part to to a series that I’m (attempting) to start. Part 1 is in the Bucky Barnes Masterlist. Also, I’m basing everything off of the movies, not the comics. However, I apologize if anything said/will say is not comically accurate, or accurate to the movies. It’s fanfiction, so it really doesn’t matter. Plus, the multiverse exists. And this is not a Stucky x Reader series, just to make that clear. Steve and Y/N are just friends :)

•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•

‘You get in, collect as much information as you can, and get the hell out. You might have to take more extreme measures in a worst case scenario—understood?’

And she did. She knew the mission. They just didn’t realize how many people were actually there.

Amilia Thatcher was sent on a mission: collect data from Baron von Strucker. Easy.

Just a missing detail: there were more soldiers than expected. They didn’t show up on any records, there were schedules that even S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t access. No one saw it coming— and it was no one’s fault. It was a failed mission that did more than just fail. Losing a soldier was one thing, not being able to ever get them back was a whole other thing.

•.•.•

Amilia took out all of the soldiers who were in the way discreetly and quickly. Some of them were more difficult than others, but she got them. Now, she was making her way to Strucker’s chambers.

When she got there, she slowly opened the door— taking a big breath and holding it in nervousness. She peeked through the small opening to get a lay of the land. She saw Strucker standing at the front of the room, looking at the screens in front of him. The news was on, showing clips of the Sokovian city that had been destroyed a few years prior. Another screen showed clips of protesters, too, and another showing pictures of two people specifically. Amilia recognized them from her mission briefing, but she wanted to focus on her mission first and worry about them later.

She drew her attention back to her mission, walking into the room entirely and silently closed the door behind her. She hovered her hand over her dagger, which was resting on the side of her thigh. Amilia walked closer and closer to her target, her heart beating out of her chest. She took silent steps, one foot in front of the other. She placed her hand on her dagger, getting ready to quickly pull it out and threaten information out of the man. She was about to jump him, that was, until he started talking.

Shit.

“You S.H.I.E.L.D. agents aren’t the sneakiest persons on this planet,” Strucker said, turning around. He kept his stance the same— his hands behind his back, standing up straight. “Tell me, miss, you are here to kill me, correct?”

“Not unless I have to,” she responded nonchalantly. “But, you can help me.”

“Hmm, how so?”

“Tell me what you’re doing with those volunteers you guys are going crazy over.”

“Ah, I see. You’re gonna stop me from an inhumane experiment. Sorry to have wasted your time, but nothing I do is ‘inhumane.’” Strucker explained, taking a small step forward. Amilia tightened her grip on the handle of her dagger, preparing herself for the worst.

“And I’m supposed to believe that? I’m supposed to believe that the leader of Sokovia's infamous base for shit like this is actually being decent for once,” she challenged.

“I know who you are,” Strucker announced, taking a small step forward. Amilia repositioned herself.

“Likewise.”

“You’re Amilia Thatcher… you were fairly close with Sergeant Barnes, right?” Y/N’s heart dropped.

“How do you know him?”

“So, I’m right. Great,” he took a few steps forward, opening his mouth to say more, but was cut off with Amilia jumping at him. She pushed him back against the desk behind him and put the dagger to his throat.

“Shut up. You’re gonna talk to me, and I’m not gonna kill you? Does that sound like a fair deal?” Amilia whispered, trying her best to threaten the information out of him— trying to intimidate him. “Now, tell me about those kids.”

“Wouldn’t you rather know about Sargent Barnes?”

“I’m not here for that, I’m here for this experimental bullshit. So-”

She gasped. She couldn’t finish her sentence. A rush of adrenaline rushed through her body. She wasn’t able to process everything, until she felt something come out of her side. She looked down and saw blood spewing from her stomach. She felt dizzy and light. She took a step back, but tripped. Baron caught her before she fell.

“It’s OK, miss. You’ll be fine. We’re going to take great care of you,” he whispered, though Amilia barely heard him. Sounds were muffled and quiet. Her sight was blacking out. She felt hands grab her by her biceps, dragging her across the floor, but her sense of perception was off, so she couldn’t tell where in the hell she was going.

At some point, she ended up on a table. There were people rushing around her and she could see Strucker standing over her. She grabbed his arm, trying to grip onto him as much as she could.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She whispered and growled through her teeth. He gently grabbed her arm off of him, adjusting it so he could hold onto her hand. He got down on his knees to reach her level.

“I’m helping you. S.H.I.E.L.D. was never your place, dear. We are your family now, Amilia. Now, it’s time to rest,” Strucker explained, while a doctor stuck a needle into her arm. She tried fighting it off, but the doctor had already injected her. She fell into a deep sleep. When she woke up, those kids she was worrying about would be the only people she’d have for a while.

•.•.•

2 days later…

“Fury!” Steve Rogers called out across the room. He stormed in, as upset as he’s ever been. Nick Fury turned around, now just as pissed as Steve for interrupting his work.

“What the hell do you need, Rogers?” Fury asked, watching as Steve stomped towards him. He got really close— too close for Fury’s liking.

“What happened with Amy? Two days ago, you sent her to a base in Sokovia, and neither of us has heard from her since. What happened?!” Fury sighed.

“It was a failed mission. It was a solo mission, but she had a team prepared to go in as backup. When they didn’t hear anything from her for three hours, they went into the field and found nothing. Not a beat up young woman, or a body. They did run into some soldiers, along with Baron von Strucker, who said he didn’t have her— which was a damn lie. He killed all of our soldiers except for one. Strummer let him get away. He told us everything,” he explained. Steve couldn't believe what he was hearing. “For all we know, she could be dead, but we’re searching for her. Now, if you care about her so much, you can help us, but you sure as hell aren’t going to Sokovia, you hear me, Rogers?”

After a moment of collecting himself, Steve answered, “Yes, Director,” and walked off. Steve and Amilia had stuck together since they both came out of the ice. They met a few days after they woke up, since S.H.IE.L.D. thought that it would be good for the two. When they met up, they were so emotional. They were talking about everything that had happened, Steve brought up Bucky. Y/N thought back to the night he left. She told Steve about what they actually did, Steve explaining how he already kind of knew.

“Oh, my gosh, Bucky told you, didn’t he?” Amilia asked.

“Yeah, he did.”

“Ugh, that asshole,” she said, a smile creeping on her lips, taking a sip of her tea. Steve chuckled.

“So, you guys were a thing?” Steve asked, somewhat hesitantly. He figured the subject was sensitive to her, since it’s just as sensitive to him.

“I mean, I guess so? Called me his girl.” Amilia looked down at her coffee mug, letting out a small, breathy laugh, and played with the ceramic cup. Steve frowned, looking back at memories of him and his best friend.

“I’m sorry, Amy.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I could’ve saved him. I could’ve reached a little farther and caught him.”

“Steve-”

“I watched him…” he paused for a second. Amilia noticed tears starting to form in his eyes. However, knowing Steve, he wouldn’t cry— and even if he did, he’d brush it off and suppress it as much as he could. “I watched as he fell off the train.” A tear rolled down his cheek.

“Steve, there wasn’t anything you could do. Don’t blame yourself,” she choked out, grabbing his hand that was resting on the table. Now she was basically crying.

“Yeah, I know,” he whispered, a couple of more tears strolling down his face. He tightened his grip on her hand, trying to find some reassurance in his friend. “What did Bucky tell you before he left?”

“He told me he would marry me. And that he promised to come back.”

“He really cared about you, you know that?” Amilia nodded slightly.

“Oh, trust me, I know,” she said, making Steve laugh some.

“Look,” Steve said, sitting up in his chair, putting both of his arms on the table and leaning close to Amilia. “Before Bucky and I started going on all of those missions, we made promises to each other. If something were to happen to me, I told him to look out for you and Peggy. If something were to happen to him, he told me to take care of you and make sure you’re happy— which is also when he told about you two.”

“That sounds like him. But, Steven, you don’t have to-“

“No, but I do, Amilia. You’re Bucky’s girl, and my friend. And, hey, I’m still that idiot from Brooklyn— you get to look out for me, too.” Y/N chuckled.

“Right, but that idiot is four times the size he used to be,” she teased, taking another sip of her coffee.

“Ah, that’s a no?”

“Of course not! Steve, you might be fuckin’ huge, but your whole personality stuck with you. If anything, you’re the one who’s gonna get in the most trouble. You and your stubborn ass.” She mumbled the last sentence as she took another sip of her tea.

“Yeah, yeah…”

Steve slammed the door of his car and put his keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead, he started sobbing, putting his arms on the steering wheel and resting his head on them. He sat there sobbing for about 10 minutes before he looked up, sniffling. Thoughts were running through his head. What he could do, what he should’ve done. He searched his jacket pocket for that note you gave him the other night (neither of you had even tried to figure out modern technology, so you stuck with pen and paper).

I’m going to be gone for a few days. Don’t do any stupid shit. There’s someone I want you to meet when I get back, but it’s a surprise. I think you’re going to love it.

“We can still meet them,” he whispered to himself. Another tear rolled down his cheek when he heard a knock at his window. He looked to his left and saw a man who he met recently, and rolled down his window.

“Hey. Rogers, right?” the man asked.

“Uh, yeah. Barton?” Steve asked, trying to cover up his puffy, red face.

“Oh, is this a bad time, man?” Barton, or Clint, asked.

“No, no,” Steve said, getting out of his car. “You’re fine. What’s up?”

“I heard about Thatcher. Actually, I heard you get on Fury’s ass about her. You seemed pretty upset.”

“Yeah,” he whispered, looking at his feet.

“Sorry. Just- you’ve gotta trust that Fury’s gonna find her. But, this is a scary job, and I’m sure you understand that— with what you did during the war. Our team is the best out there. But, these guys are good, too. They’ll try their best to cover up their location, to cover up Thatcher’s location. But, we’re better. Our tech is so advanced, they’ll never see us coming. Literally..” Clint paused, giving Steve a sympathetic look. “We’ll find her.”

“Thank you,” Steve replied, shooting Clint a sad smile.

“Of course. You’ve got a family here. You’ve just gotta trust us,” Clint started walking off, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.

“I’m trying, Barton.”

“Try harder. Trust me, you won’t regret this, Captain!” Steve watched as he was walking off, a small smirk appearing on his face. He shook his head and got back into his car, leaning back into the seat to relax as much as he could. He opened his eyes and looked over to the storage compartment in the passenger seat. Steve opened it and started searching. He found what he was looking for: a photo of Bucky from the 40s.

He sighed, reminiscing on Bucky’s life.

“I’m so sorry, buddy. I didn’t protect her. But I’m going to find her. We’re gonna get her back. I promise.” His eyes started watering, but he tried his best to clear his eyes. He finally started his car, pulling out of the parking space. He had gotten an apartment that was probably around 2 miles away from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ground base. When he got to his place, he set his stuff down in the living room and immediately went to his bedroom. He fell asleep almost as soon as he hit the bed, but he woke up early due to his concerned thoughts about Amilia’s situation. He just went back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and worked out for hours to get his mind in the right place to find you.

Oh, if only he knew…

•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.• 12/20/21

Taglist

@dpaccione

[memer-the-miner]

Dont Lie Dont Cry - a fanfiction by Memer-the-Miner

“‘Don’t lie dear, if you lie then the trickster will come take you for his games’

I thought it was some sort of hypocrisy. A trick; a lie parents tell their kids to make them tell the truth. But that was until I saw it happen.

I was 14 at the time, I remember the day vividly. Actually the day was normal. Me and my brother were messing around the farm. Just playing around as kids do and then…

It’s just…. He dared me to do it… if I hadn’t done it…. what did I do you ask… that doesn’t matter. The fallout is what matters.

Lets just say it ends with me breaking a window. Needless to say our dad was not pleased. He came out yelling asking who did it. There was a fury in his eyes, one associated with staying outside for the night. So my brother he said he did, with enough of a false proudness that our dad didn’t bother to check with me. A part of me was worried but I thought to myself it’s just one night outside for a lie. That he’ll be fine. Hell I even had a whole plan to bring food to him. And I did… he just didn’t get to eat it.

It was late and our dad was asleep, so it was time to enact my plan. I got a plate of leftovers from dinner and snuck out the back. My brother was sitting next to a shed. I was about to call out to him but then I was hit with an unease. At first I thought it was because a part of me knew our dad might wake up if I called out but I think I sensed… them. All I know is that I’m more than glad, hell, ecstatic even that I didn’t call out to my brother. Yeah that might have been selfish, but you would’ve done it too… anyone would’ve done it.

Anyway I stood to the side waiting for my brother to notice me and then there was this glimmer. As soon as I noticed it I ducked close to the house. Turns out I was right to do so…

Where the glimmer was, there was this man. He looked… valuable. Weird description I know. But he did. His face had diamonds for freckles, and his jewels… well let’s just say a tiny piece from his pinkie ring would set me for life. But I think most importantly we’re his eyes. The iris they weren’t irises… I mean they were but… look they were diamonds okay. And yet I could see the mischief in them. And at the same time there was no emotion in those eyes.

Anyway, the man looked at my brother gliding in place in front of him. He looked at him and said.

“You told a lie, but you have chance, chance to win millions and help everyone you know, so how about you turn this punishment into a profit.”

My brother didn’t say anything. Just stared. But he wasn’t staring at the man, but at the thing behind him. See the man didn’t appear alone. He had a demon, with long elongated arms and teeth. Pure white eyes and a halo that hurt to look at. But its claws were so sharp, its feet bent like an animals and it carried a pair of powerful wings on its back. The worst part is that it was staring at my house. Never moving just staring. And a part of me prayed to the gods that it wouldn’t hurt us.

The man sighed and touched the ground. Kneeling in front of my brother he breathed into his ears words I couldn’t hear. But I know they were bad because my brother paled. He finally turned to look at the diamond clad man and shakily nodded his head. And with a snap of his fingers the man and my brother disappeared. But just them.

That demon thing stayed and after they disappeared it lumbered into our house, I didn’t follow it…. But I heard it. I heard as it scraped through our house I heard it as it shoved something into our dad’s throat. And then it lumbered out side again. But it didn’t leave. It came back to the shed and sniffed. I don’t know at what point I realized, but that thing was looking for me.

As it neared my hiding spot I ducked into a barrel with a hole. I watched through the hole as the creature sniffed at my dropped plate. As it got closer to the barrel it stopped. It slowly went to open the top when… a snap. The man was there again.

“We have enough let’s go-“

“But Sk-“

“Let’s go Bad”

Another snap and they were both gone.

I didn’t leave the barrel until the morning hit. Even then I don’t known how long I sat there until I got out. When I did my dad was calling for me. In front of the house in tears there stood my dad… my dad who was alive. At the time I didn’t question anything and I ran to him. I buried my face into his chest as we both cried. He tried to ask where I was but I interrupted him. I said

“Dad they took him, they took him” I told him over and over that those things took my brother. And then my father’s next words practically killed me.

“Dear, you don’t have a brother, is that why you were out.. you were with an imaginary friend?”

He said he didn’t exist. Our dad said he didn’t exist. My brother who I watched get stolen away. I asked everybody in town, nobody remembered him. How could they all forget. He was my BROTHER. He was-is alive HE WAS REAL….

I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s been years but it still haunts me.

Please help me.”

The man who sat across from me adorned a dark hood and a pair of clean spectacles. He brushes his fluffy brown hair to the side and says, “wow what a story, I’d love to help you.”

I become elated, this hunter would help me catch the things that took my brother. “Really!?”

The man nods. “Of course- oh, also would you like a muffin.” He pulls up a basket that sat on the floor next to him. From inside he pulls out a blueberry muffin, the blueberries were especially shiny. I don’t really like muffins but I want to stay on this man’s good side.

So I grab it and take a bite of the muffin. Jeez my head feels a bit fuzzy maybe I should go home and rest. Wait what was I doing here? I look around at the hunter guild. Hunter guild? Our village doesn’t have a hunter guild. I don’t remember being here. There is a man in front of me.

“So you say your lost,” he says cheerily.

I snap back. I’m having a conversation with this man, I’m lost, he’ll take me home, to my dad whom is my only family.

“Yes can you help me go home?”

He smiles brightly, “of course you muffin head!”

[rextasywrites]

Little Darling 4 - a Lady Dimitrescu x Mia Winters fanfiction

"The walls of the basement were still as cold and slick as the day Lady Dimitrescu turned into what she was today. Some mold was still growing in corners here and there, but mostly it was contained to sealed boxes. “You turned because of the mold too?”"

what awaits Mia in the basement of Lady Dimitrescu's castle? how is the mold connected to both survivour, even if their trauma was 500 years apart?

ohhh boy i am SO happy with this fic yall have no idea. big thanks to everyone who has commeted on my fics so far, you make writing a fun process. i hope you enjoy the new chapter! !!!flashbacks are written in cursive!!! <3 <3 <3

Warnings: mention of child death, various mental illnesses

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

During the night, the snowfall in the valley had increased, snowing most of the village in. Lady Dimitrescu stood on the balcony, taking a drag from her smoke, blowing out smoke that nearly froze in the cold air. Mia was still fast asleep, the exhaustion caught up on her once the nightmares vanished. Lady Dimiterescu didn’t get any sleep during this very night - sleep was barely needed for her anyways, but she had ignored her own tiredness in favour of making sure Mia was okay. Guess the ‘human’ touch worked wonders on the traumatized.

“Lady Dimitrescu?”, Mia’s tired voice ripped her out of her thoughts and she turned around to face the young woman, standing in the doorway to the balcony, rubbing her sleepy eyes. “Can you close the door? I am freezing.”

“Oh right, you humans and your temperature problems.”, Lady Dimitrescu chuckled as she stepped back into the bedroom, “and please, call me Alcina.”

“Alright, Alcina.”, Mia chuckled, sitting back on the bed she had just emerged from, stretching her body from this good night’s sleep. “What is the plan for today? Will you show me where Rosy is?”

“Not yet. Before, you have to understand a few things. A few things about us. You worked with bio weapons before, so you will understand quickly enough…”

*

The walls of the basement were still as cold and slick as the day Lady Dimitrescu turned into what she was today. Some mold was still growing in corners here and there, but mostly it was contained to sealed boxes. “You turned because of the mold too?”

“Exactly. I spent hundreds of years dissecting my own blood to find out what was the trigger in this very mold, turning me into...this.”, Lady Dimitrescu said as she took a seat in the very same place the plague doctor had been on. “What I have come to realize - the plague doctors and fuck knows who else worked on the mold...they created an early version of the mold you were infected with. Of course, early and very simple, but you can see what it did to me.”

Mia nodded as she listened to Alcina talk, taking in the surrounding. It all reminded her so much of the basement she was locked in for three years, she could even feel the hard mattress under her spine. Something she never told Ethan was that she spent most of these years either trying to escape or sleep her injuries off. Eveline didn’t let her go. “How did they manage this back in...1500-something?”

“You are asking good questions, dear. I suppose the mold had a spontaneous mutation which caused its effects on me. I saw the dead bodies of previous victims. They died of mold poisoning or its effects on their lungs. Was lucky there, ‘suppose. And now I am immortal and could take over the world if I wanted to. Do I want to? Fuck no.”

“Why not?”, Mia chuckled at the thought of a vampire lady ruling over the world. What would the aliens say that watch us all day long? “Nothing could stop you. Not even any kind of bio weapons so far.”

“That’s the thing! Redfield and his team are developing a cure to the mold as we speak, with Rosy’s blood. The mold we were infected with is dangerously similar. Since no D-series exists anymore, they had to work with what they get. Ever since I got word of the D-series and the mold, I kept my eyes on your team and you. Because you would be the key to our deaths.”

“But why are they after you and your daughters? You haven’t caused any significant troubles, like turning a whole city into zombies…”

“Because we are mutants in the end. We shouldn’t exist in a perfect world with all sunshines and rainbow pooping unicorns. Too bad the world is a cruel place. Helping Redfield with the resurrection of Jill Valentine was the worst mistake I have made in over 500 years of living.”, Lady Dimitrescu explained, trailing over her exposed arm. Her veins were visible, but it was clear the mold had taken over her bloodstream judging by the colour alone. “The mold feeds off human blood. Once my blood was out, I started to thirst for whatever blood I could find. Most of the time I settled for homeless or old people - you know, the kind of people no one would miss.”

“...that makes sense, and that’s something rare to say in a situation like this.”, Mia said, earning a smile from Lady Dim- Alcina. “And why...don’t you just surrender and die? You have lived for over 500 years?”

“Oh Mia.”, Lady Dimitrescu chuckled as she stood up, cupping Mia’s cheeks, “Death is something so personal, trust me. It’s about the choice. If I want to kill myself, I’d just turn the mold into a vaccine. But being killed by a big mouthed assface who thinks the world belongs to him? I won’t give up without a fight. My daughters won’t give up without a fight. Suicide is something so personal.”

“Here.”, Carlos placed the newspaper article in front of Chris. Several homeless people had been found dead, drained of their blood. Chris read it with great interest, even though his Romanian was rusty. “Drained of their blood in Romania? This is either some sick dracula cosplayer or we have our eyes on vampires. Maybe they are the key to life!”

Chris raised an eyebrow at Carlos, “You really are into the thought of bringing her back to life, aren’t you?”

“Chris, look”, Carlos sighed, frustration and anger present in his mimic, “This is not the death Jill deserves. She deserves a second chance! Without the blood and pain and bio weapons. Fuck, let her adopt five cats and a llama if it makes her happy. But this is not the death she deserves”, and he pointed towards the cold camber her lifeless body was resting in. She looked so peaceful, as if she was just sleeping. Her blonde hair had fallen over her face, as if she was a fallen angel, ready to spread her wings at any given second. Chris might have given up on her, but not Carlos.

“Send out Kennedy then. He knows how to deal with the dirty work.”

*

The reports from Leon were clear. Mutants had infested the castle, but they weren’t much of a threat while Leon had been in there. It actually seemed as if they were avoiding him. But the key was a moment he accidentally witnessed.

“Lady Dimitrescu!”, a cry broke through the quietness of the castle. Leon had heard this sort of cry before - a mother who had just lost her child. A cry he never wanted to hear again. “Please help me! My daughter, my little baby…!”, she wailed as the three daughters surrounded her, taking the dead body of the toddler from her. The blonde daughter ran to where Lady Dimitrescu was staying while the two others comforted the hysteric mother. The child was pale and stiff, and must have been dead for quite a while. Leon swallowed dry at the view. He could deal with zombies and mutants in the weirdest ways, but dead children...he could never get used to this.

About an hour later, Lady Dimitrescu walked out of her study with the little girl, who was looking at least more alive. The colour had returned to her face and her chest was moving a little bit. “Here.”, she smiled as she handed the lady her daughter, “She needs rest for a few more days. Keep her warm and secure, bedrest is the best idea there. Also, she will be very thirsty once she wakes up. Let her drink all the water she needs, her body is severely dehydrated.”

Because of this, Leon decided to stay a few days more. He followed the mother to her home and stayed hidded. About a week later, he knocked on the door of the woman, asking for her help, if she had seen his dog ‘Rex’.

“Sadly, I have not.”, the woman said, and from the corner of his eyes, Leon was able to spot the once dead daughter, playing with some barbies. “But if I see him, I will let you know.” This was all the confirmation he needed. Leon headed back to the USA the following day to report from what he witnessed, and how they could be the key to saving Jill.