#I think part of the indulgence of fictional romance is the fantasy of 'what if it all worked out so cleanly'

[outeremissary]

It is kinda crazy though how scary relationships are. Not as like. A thing to be in, but as the competition at a certain age. Maybe it's just the environment I'm in irl all the time, but it's just so much like. When people's time becomes limited, it's going to be their partners and family every time. They don't want to live with other people anymore and you have to worry over housing. They don't have time for other things. The best way to connect would be a double date, but if you don't want to date...? It feels so isolating. And maybe it's just that I spend a lot of time with older people, but honestly somehow that makes it feel worse. Like sure, maybe there's a tiny bit of hope for you right now, but just wait a few more years and it'll all disappear, don't worry. Maybe it's too much to want to be so important to someone without being able to give them that. I don't know.

[the-summ0ning]

𓉸ྀི Linger 𓉸ྀི PART ONE

Roomie!Nick Folio x Fem!introvert!Bookworm!Reader

Word count: 5.1k

Awkwardly avoiding your hot roommate after him walking in on you listening to your guilty pleasure was easy enough, you thought, until it wasn't. Not when you had all the same friends, and you were all in a cabin in the woods for Noah's birthday, and Nick shows up looking like said guilty pleasure.

!!!THIS PIECE IS PURE FICTION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE, NOT YOUR THING TURN AWAY. BUT AGAIN IT'S JUST FICTION AND NOT HOW THESE PPL ARE IRL!!!

CONTENT WARNINGS: swearing, recreational drug and alcohol use, awkward romcom moments, fluff, yearning.

A/n: hahah spooky season is upon us and I wrote this after I had insomnia for over 24 hours after the wildest week of having the flu a few weeks ago, and have been sitting on it debating if I wanted to post this. This could be a totally considered self-indulgent, maybe cringe, but oh well it's my digital footprint & I have to live with. But welcome to my first fic on this blog, and my first piece posted at least for the BO guys in general, had to show the cinnamon roll Folio love first. thank yewwww and enjoy

⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧⛧°。 °⛧⛧°。 °⛧⛧°。 °⛧⛧°。°⛧⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。

The universe had a painfully ironic sense of humor. Noah Sebastian and his friends, with their twisted embrace of clichés, unknowingly played right into its hands.

After years of running in the same circles, Noah had grown to resent sharing his birthday with Halloween—except for the rare occasions when he leaned into the theme completely. This year was one of those times. A slasher-themed party in a huge cabin in the woods for the weekend. Cute. Real fuckin’ cute.

If it weren’t for the fact that you’d promised months ago to make all the baked goods—long before you knew the party theme—and that his closest friend and bandmate happened to be your roommate, you would’ve bailed. But you were a good friend, one who loved your friends and kept your word. Even if it meant enduring the mortification of being around Folio, said roommate, fighting the urge to disappear into the woods every time he glanced or came in your direction.

Because Folio knew your dirty little secret.

One you hadn’t even shared with your closest girlfriends. A secret you’d intended to bury in the deepest corners of your feral little brain—until Folio, of all people, unearthed it. He’d come home early from a fishing trip because of a storm and found you in your natural state of debauchery: high, sprawled on the couch, blasting a dark romance smut audiobook through the living room’s soundbar to a concerning decibel. To make matters worse, it was during the most graphic part, and not just any audiobook—this one had sound effects. And masks. And filthy, filthy things.

You’d nearly combusted when you saw him standing in the doorway for who knows how long, looking bemused, at you giggling and quietly squealling into a throw pillow. You scrambled to pause the audio, but of course, the universe wasn’t on your side, and your phone took its sweet time. Long enough for him to hear everything. 

It’s not like you were about to do anything. You weren’t physically aroused, just mortified that he now knew what you listened to when he wasn’t around. Mortified as if his living room had been christened by your smut. Mortified he probably assumed you touched yourself to it when he wasn’t there—or worse, that it was some deep, dark fantasy of yours. No that totally wasn’t your guilty conscience projecting or anything.

You’d only lived with Nick for four months. Four months of being around him more than you ever had since meeting him through mutual friends years ago. Before this, you could count on both hands the number of times you’d been alone together. Not that there wasn’t any issues with him, you just considered the two of you as polar opposites to think he’d actually want to be around you or you’d have enough in common to pass the basis of ‘acquaintance’ or ‘mutual friend’.

He was funny, the kind of guy who made your cheeks hurt from laughing at his corny jokes. He was charming, with that Southern hospitality that always seemed to melt your insides, and his country twang made you melt just that much more. You hated how easily he could make your social anxiety melt away at parties, offering you a hit of his joint or a cigarette and small conversation when he noticed you hadn’t your usual friends you clung to. Confident, magnetic, always ready to be rowdy, a through and through extrovert, everything you were not.

You were an extroverted introvert–at best. A pessimistic optimist. An awkward rain shower on a sunny day. The house cat who only craved attention when it suited you, having zoomies when no one was watching.

That’s exactly what the embarrassing night felt like—your version of a cat caught in a burst of energy when it thought no one was looking. Except Folio was looking. And all he did was give you that dopey smile, the one with the gleam in his dark chocolate eyes, and made some smart-ass remark before disappearing into his room.

“So, this is what you do when I’m not around. Cute.”

As if he were the amused owner, catching his pet in the act.

He never brought it up again, but you both knew. And it gnawed at you. Maybe you were again projecting and he hadn’t thought much of it, but still!

And now, of all the costumes in the world, famous slashers, any other character from a horror movie, or crashed out and went with a basic t-shirt in the same vein of the theme of the party. No. He had chosen to wear a Ghostface mask. You, meanwhile, were dressed as a cheesy, slutty Casey Becker from Scream. It wasn’t planned. You’d done your best to avoid him the last two weeks, conveniently ever since the theme had been known to you. Quick hellos and goodbyes, or hasty exchanges with those days.

But tonight, at the party, there was no escaping him. Between leaving early before he even woke, helping with decorations, and playing the mom friend throughout the night for your own friends, you made yourself scarce. Dodging him became an art form. Until, of course, he cornered you.

You were about to refill Matt’s drink when Nick approached, his Ghostface mask pulled up. He tossed Matt’s empty cup, and handed you a cup of red jungle juice (with gummies shaped like body parts floating the mix of fruit of course), his hand casually settling on the small of your back, guiding you wordlessly toward the quieter part of the yard by the small shed by the brush of woods. The touch sent an unexpected chill through you, even though you tried to ignore it. You turned to protest, but he tapped his ear, signaling the blunt tucked behind it.

You rolled your eyes, laughing under your breath, and let him lead you to the shed. As much as you weren’t ready to talk to him, you hadn’t taken a break all night, and the excuse to get away from the crowd and babysit your friends was tempting. Your social battery ticking away faster than anticipated.

“Didn’t realize you were such a great party planner,” he said, leaning against the shed as he lit the blunt, his eyes catching under the faint glow of the solar lights.

You shrugged, struggling to keep your voice casual as your heart raced and cheeks warmed. His presence was overwhelming, making you hyper-aware of everything—the slight brush of his fingers when he passed you the blunt, the way his lips curled when he smiled. Even the music felt like it was conspiring against you, with Deftones' haunting melodies filling the background, stirring things inside you that you wished would stay buried.

“It was a group effort,” you mumbled, staring at your shoes to avoid his gaze. The warmth of his hand on your back lingered, leaving you unsettled in ways you weren’t prepared for. But when you glanced at him, his eyes were fixed on you, his brow furrowed like he was trying to figure something out.

“Nah, I didn’t do anything. I’m just here to boost morale and be the life of the party,” he chuckled, though the sound felt a little forced. As if he was trying just as hard as you to keep things light, keep things normal. 

He passed the blunt back, and you took a hit, trying to calm your racing thoughts. You couldn’t help but wonder if he thought about that night too. It had been weeks, but it still felt raw in the fiber of your being, especially now with the tension hanging between you.

“And I know half of these ideas were your asshole suggestions, after searching kid halloween party on Pinterest.” He added, smirking. “But they love it. Noah loves it.”

You smiled despite yourself, taking another hit quickly to hide it, the warmth of his compliment stirring something soft in your chest. “Glad to hear it. Sometimes I worry my trolling gets taken a little too seriously.”

“They thrive off it,” he said, his voice quieter now, more thoughtful. He gestured for you to keep the blunt, taking a swig of his drink instead. “All for you, bub. Roomie blunt.”

The nickname hit you harder than you wanted to admit, a surge of affection mixing with the ever-present tension. His voice, low and soft, carried a weight that made it feel more intimate than it should have. You swallowed, trying to push the feeling down. Deflect, deflect, deflect.

“Matching costumes and now roomie blunts?” You teased, though your voice sounded breathier than you intended. “Are we hitting new roommate milestones?”

He laughed, but it was quieter this time, almost shy. “Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.” He said almost apologetically, there was still an edge of smugness maybe arrogance. “I tried to wear a t-shirt with just Michael and Freddy on it, but Jolly told me to ‘piss off and I wasn’t wearing that to our best friend’s birthday party.’ Drove me to a Spirit before we picked Noah up, it was like the only thing left close to the theme.” He explained. “I didn’t even have a plain black shirt. Had to flip this inside out.”

“Oh Jolly said ‘fuck you thought’ for real.” You giggled, the effect of the cannabis hitting you as you rubbed the rough inseam on his shoulder that you failed to notice when he walked in tonight. It was comical and relieving to know this wasn't a jab at you now, and just a half-ass last minute idea--typical Folio fashion.

“Wait for it, wait for it,” he pointed a finger up. Balancing the cup rim between his teeth, his drink splashing on himself as he pulled his t-shirt up exposing his torso as he clumsily tugged his shirt toward you to see a print of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger holding hands in a meadow.

Through puffs of smoke, you full out cackled, now holding his shoulder for support. “What? Did you think you were too tough to dress up for Nowah’s birthday party?” Mustering your best baby voice in between your wheezing, the tension breaking for a moment. But even as you laughed, your eyes lingered on him a second too long. On the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the way his dark ochre eyes seemed to trace your every movement, as if he were studying you, waiting for something. But then he pulled the mask down, breaking the easiness of the moment.

He smoothed his shirt down, mocking your laugh. “The fuck am I gonna do with this after?” 

Well…

Even with his shirt inside out, with alcohol spills staining it, and ash from your blunt speckling his clothes, the look did things to you--he looked good. The mask, the way he carried himself, all of it stirred something deeper. Your mind flashed back to that audiobook, to the night he caught you—and suddenly, the faceless man from the story wasn’t faceless anymore. It was Nick. It had always been Nick, lurking in the corners of your thoughts, even when you tried to deny it for several months before. You had buried the attraction you felt towards him well enough, denying that maybe your harmless crush was something more. Letting the term roommates be your boundary for him, not wanting to make an arrangement of living with an attractive acquaintance that you had festering feelings for even more awkward.

Despite your best efforts, you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks. And even though your mind screamed at you to say something, to make a joke, you were too caught up in the moment—the way his presence pressed into yours, the unspoken tension crackling between you like static.

You handed the blunt back, your fingers brushing a second too long with his, the touch jolting something within you. “I’m sure you can find other uses for it, Bub,” you said, but the words came out softer than you intended, almost like a promise.

For a moment, neither of you moved. His hand lingered near yours, his dark eyes searching your face, as if he was waiting for something—waiting for you to break the silence. The air between you felt heavy, charged, like the moment could tip in any direction. Your heart hammered in your chest, your breath coming a little too fast. You were standing so close now, the night’s sounds fading into the background. 

Your lips parted, wanting to say something, anything—but the words caught in your throat. Maybe this was your chance. Maybe you could make sure things weren’t as weird as you imagined it to be. Or maybe you could take that small step forward, close the gap between you, and see where it led.

But instead, you took a step back. 

“Thanks for the morale boost! Gonna go beg Ruffilo to play something less whiny and horny now!”

The moment stretched, taut and unspoken, as you turned away, nerves rattling inside you. You felt him watching you as you sauntered off, the weight of his gaze burning into your back, the unspoken tension still thick in the air.

Deflect! Deflect! Deflect!

But as you walked away, your heart still pounding, you knew the moment between you wasn’t over. Not really. It lingered, hanging in the air like a storm cloud waiting to break. And you couldn’t help but wonder if next time, you’d have the courage to step into it.

。⋆༺♱༻⋆。

Nick let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as he watched your denim skirt ride up slightly with each step you took away. He swallowed hard, the familiar pang of frustration settling in his chest. Admiring you from afar had become second nature to him, an unspoken routine he’d never quite managed to shake.

You perplexed him, right down to his core.

Every time he felt he was getting closer to understanding you, to unraveling the mystery of what made you so magnetic—you were gone. Slipping through his fingers just as quickly as you’d come into focus.

It had been that way since Matt and your friend first introduced you all those years ago. At first, he found your quietness cute—a stark contrast to the loud energy of your other friends. But as you started coming around more, he saw there was so much more beneath the surface. The dry wit, the easy charm you showed only to those closest to you, the way you seemed to light up in the right company. And then there was the obvious—he had been attracted to you from the moment he laid eyes on you.

But the more you intrigued him, the further away you seemed to drift, casting him aside without even realizing it. It gnawed at him, deeper than he liked to admit. Nick Folio wasn’t used to this—he could get anyone to open up, to be themselves around him with little effort. But you? You were a challenge he couldn’t crack, and it was driving him crazy.

It baffled him how Matt had convinced you to be roommates in the first place. Living together hadn’t helped his case at all—if anything, it made things worse. Since the moment he’d walked in on you listening to your smut audiobook, he could feel the shift, how you’d started shutting him out. He wasn’t oblivious to the way you avoided him now, keeping your distance, as though that moment had broken some invisible line between you.

But it hadn’t, not for him. If anything, he loved that glimpse of who you were outside the parties and hangouts. Seeing you comfortable, in your own space, high out of your mind, letting your guard down enough to geek out over something you clearly enjoyed.

Did you think it made him see you differently? Did you think that knowing your private little quirks would change how he felt?

If anything, it made perfect sense. A girl like you, attractive, smart, with a mind that clearly wandered far beyond the surface—you were bound to have something like that. Hell, now he understood why your nose was always buried in your Kindle. He’d probably be the same way if he had something that compelling.

He had hoped the blunt he’d offered earlier would serve as an olive branch, something to ease the tension between you. But now, watching you skitter away, retreating from him again, he wasn’t so sure.

“There’s the kingpin,” Noah grinned lazily, coming up beside him clapping him on the shoulder as Matt trailed behind.

Nick tried to muster a smile, but it was clear something was weighing on him, his usual carefree demeanor dulled by the conflict that tugged at him deep inside.

“What’s wrong Folio?” Matt was the first to ask.

“Nothing, just clearing my mind a bit.” He lied.

“Yeah, okay.” Noah snorted, trying to tug the mask on top of his head down. He was clearly tipsy, enjoying himself. “If you don’t want to talk about it, whatever—but I know what will really help clear your mind.” The lazy grin turned sinister.

The drummer merely raised his eyebrow waiting for an answer.

“Manhunt—slasher style.”

。⋆༺♱༻⋆。

Would it really be a slasher-themed birthday party if Noah hadn’t forced the remaining guests into a game of manhunt, despite how dark it was and how most people were borderline drunk? No, only Noah would think this was still a good idea. You didn’t mind, though. It distracted you from your exchange with Nick—finding hiding spots, giggling quietly, getting chased, and chasing your friends around. It felt cathartic, especially in your tipsy, cross-faded state.

Noah was too far gone to establish real ground rules anyway. The only rule was that nobody hid past the brush of the woods, and he was always the seeker. Brush, cabin, shed, backyard—fair game for your large group of friends. It was the third and final round now, and most of you were out of breath, legs aching, too close to rolling an ankle in the dark. The adrenaline was wearing thin, and the nostalgia for childhood games had run its course. You were all gonna feel the aftermath of this in the morning.

“Once you're found, head to the fire pit, pop a squat, and call it quits for the LOVE of god,” Matt groaned, hands on his hips, out of breath.

With all the cabin’s lights off, the vast space was hard to navigate. Maybe calling it a cabin was underselling it. This was a huge luxury lodge, a weekend splurge to comfortably fit the group with several bedrooms and rooms to hide in. You’d found a bedroom on the second floor at the end of the hall, away from everyone else, deciding to hide alone instead of pairing up like some of the others. You didn’t want to change your spot like you had the other two rounds you played outside. This was it, and you’d let whoever come to you to find you.

You weren’t sure who’d claimed the room earlier in the night when everyone arrived, but it didn’t matter now. The large bed in the center had ample space underneath for you to squeeze under. The bed skirt fell perfectly, hiding you completely as you curled up, knees pressed against your chest, mouth against the sleeve of your knitted sweater to stifle any sound.

Your heart pounded as you heard the seekers stomping clumsily through the halls, doors creaking open, followed by screeches of defeat from your friends as they were found. Finally, Noah and Davis's triumphant laughter echoed through the house, growing distant as they led the captured outside.

For a moment, you thought you were safe. You let out the breath you'd been holding, relaxing slightly. The steady thrum of your heartbeat began to slow, and you debated slipping out the back door to claim victory, imagining the disappointed faces of Noah, Davis, and the rest when you emerged triumphant telling them to suck it.

But then you heard it—a single set of footsteps at the end of the hall. You froze. Your pulse roared in your ears as a familiar laugh echoed down the corridor.

“You guys suck at this game!” Nick’s voice rang out, smug and teasing. Faint bickering followed from outside, Noah and Davis shouting back that they were done, ready to drink by the fire.

Nick scoffed. “Fuckin’ amateurs didn’t even check my room. There’s still people hiding!”

You tensed, silently praying, Please, don’t be in his room. Please, don’t let this be his room.

But your luck had run out. You heard the door handle turn with an agonizing slowness, the door creaking open.

“Bryan, I swear, if you’re making out with your girlfriend in my room instead of hiding—” Nick’s voice trailed off as he stepped inside. You could hear his confusion as he scanned the seemingly empty room. It was his room, of course. The one place you’d somehow ended up hiding.

You bit your lip, heart pounding in your chest as he walked around. His footsteps were soft, deliberate. The room was dark, but you could see the faint glow of his phone’s flashlight as he swept it around, peeking under the desk, inside drawers—absurd places no one could possibly fit.

You started to hope he might give up. His footsteps retreated toward the door, and you exhaled softly, relaxing ever so slightly, your body tense from being curled up so tightly.

But then you heard the closet door swing open with a creak. “Got you!” he shouted abruptly, his voice playful. You jumped, your head hitting the wall behind you with a soft thud. You bit down harder on your sleeve to stifle any sound, praying he hadn’t noticed.

The door closed again, and there was a long silence. Then his voice dropped lower, a teasing edge creeping into it.

“I knew there was a little mouse in here.”

Your eyes flew open in shock, blood rushing to your face. No way. Was it just coincidence? Or had he somehow found out—about the pet names in your books, about your... tastes? Did he find your Goodreads somehow?! You screwed your eyes shut tighter, wishing you could disappear.

Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed your ankle and yanked you out from under the bed. You shrieked as you tumbled out, blinking into the blinding light of Nick’s phone. He was doubled over, laughing, thankfully with no Ghostface mask on.

“Where the hell did you get that from?!” you demanded, fed up, voice hushed but furious.

He was still chuckling, genuinely confused. “Get what from?”

“‘Little mouse?’” you hissed, jabbing a finger into his bare chest since he discarded his shirt after the first round. “What the hell is that?”

He raised his hands in surrender, amusement dancing in his eyes. “I don’t know! It just seemed fitting.”

“You didn’t snoop through my bookshelf?” you accused, heart racing for entirely different reasons now.

His brow furrowed. “Why would I go through your bookshelf? Where’s this coming from?”

“You know where!”

“I don’t, though!” His voice softened, growing more serious. “You really think I would go through your stuff?”

You hesitated, caught off guard by the sincerity in his tone. “I don’t know... you caught me listening to my smut—”

Nick had the audacity to huff a laugh, and it sent your blood boiling all over again.

“It’s not funny, Nick!” You glared at him, horrified by how quickly this night was spiraling out of control. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go tonight.

“It’s not,” he agreed, but his grin remained. “But it kind of is. Because that just confirmed everything I thought.”

You crossed your arms, defensive. “What did you think?”

“That you got weird about me seeing you... be yourself.”

You scoffed. “I did not.” You did.

He said your name quietly, and it made you look at him, caught by the softness in his voice. “I don’t care that you were geeking out over some dirty audiobook. I thought it was cute.”

“I was not.” Your face burned. “And it’s not cute.”

“What would you call it then? Fangirling?”

You grimaced, crossing your arms tighter. “No.”

Nick exhaled, leaning against the desk. “Look, I’m not trying to make this a thing. Relax, okay?”

But relaxing was impossible with him standing there, shirtless, casual like he hadn’t just crawled into your head. He was so nonchalant, while you felt like you were teetering on the edge of something far more dangerous.

Finally, he turned on the lamp in the corner, casting a warm glow over the room. His eyes softened as they met yours, and he gestured to the bed. “Can we sit? I’m not trying to argue, and my legs are tired.”

You stared at him, defiant for a moment longer, before finally sitting on the edge of the bed. He rolled the desk chair up to you, knees nearly brushing, close enough that the warmth of his skin made the air between you thrum.

“You’re a brat, you know that?” he teased, his voice low.

“I’m not a brat,” you muttered, looking down at your lap, “I’m just... embarrassed.”

The silence stretched between you, heavy, until Nick broke it with a sigh. “I said the wrong thing. But I called it cute because... let’s face it, I know you, but I don’t *know* you.”

You glanced up at him through your lashes, his face softer now. The tension in his shoulders had eased, and his eyes held something you couldn’t quite name.

“I could say the same,” you admitted quietly.

“Yeah, but I’m a simple guy.” Chortling to himself. “Half my body shows almost all my special interests.” He gestured to his tattoos, the ones you’d seen countless times but never really looked at until now, trying to avoid finding yet another reason to be drawn to him. “You? You’re a mystery to me. I’ve known you for years, and lived with you for months, but I’ve never seen you just... let your guard down. Sure, in rare passing moments that I wished I could see more of, because I love seeing you light up when you talk.”

Your heart twisted at his words, warmth creeping up your chest, but before you could respond, he added, teasing, “Now I know you’re the quiet girl who secretly geeks out over porn—”

“Nick!” You groaned, immediately burying your face in your hands, the heat on your cheeks unbearable.

Nick laughed softly, tugging your hands away from your face, his grip warm and grounding as his thumbs traced gentle patterns over your knuckles. "Relax, relax, it's our secret," he murmured, his voice softening into something almost tender.

Your heart raced, pulse quickening as the air between you thickened with unspoken tension. His laughter faded into a quiet intensity, and for a moment, the space between you felt charged, like you were both standing at the edge of something neither of you had fully acknowledged yet.

"I like it... that we have a secret just between us," he confessed, his voice quiet and uncertain, as if he wasn't sure how you'd react.

His words hung in the air, and you froze for a beat, the weight of them sinking in and nearly taking your breath away. When you looked up at him, his brown eyes-usually playful-were filled with something deeper.

There was a warmth there, an affection that made your stomach flip as you watched him nervously lick his lips.

Your face felt hot, and you weren't used to being in such an intimate moment with him, your hands still held in his. But despite the closeness, you weren't uncomfortable. If anything, you realized how close the two of you actually were when his eyes dropped to your lips, and your pulse fluttered even faster.

When he started to lean in, your body moved instinctively, meeting him halfway. His lips brushed against yours-soft, tentative, and a little chapped from the night's activities, but sweeter than you could have imagined. The faint taste of jungle juice lingered on both your mouths, and his hands stayed gently on yours, as if he was afraid to push further.

Hesitant, like he thought you'd pull away any second.

But you didn't want to run this time.

The kiss, as surprising as it was, had a way of grounding you-settling the storm of thoughts and emotions swirling in your mind.

You found yourself pulling your hands free from his and sliding one up to the nape of his neck, your fingers grazing the buzzed part of his hair, while the other rested on his shoulder, gently tugging him closer. Your touch seemed to ease his hesitation, and he responded with a firmer grip on your waist, his hands warm against your skin as he deepened the kiss.

The tension of the past weeks, all the uncertainty and confusion, melted away in his touch. His lips fit perfectly against yours, and as he grew more confident, the kiss became less restrained, his hand gripping your waist tighter as he gently guided you back onto the mattress. You both smiled into the kiss, the weight of his body pressing down on you, though he propped an arm by your head to keep from crushing you entirely.

In that moment, with the world outside fading away, you were in a kind of bliss you hadn't felt in so long. The feel of his lips, his warmth, the way his tongue softly brushed against yours-it was all-consuming, and you could have stayed there all night, wrapped up in him.

"Did Y/N kill you, Nick?!" Noah's drunken laughter rang through the wooden door, followed by the sound of Davis and one of your friends giggling along with him. The sudden intrusion startled you both, and you froze, your breath catching as the door handle rattled.

Nick groaned quietly, reluctantly pulling away from you, the absence of his touch making you ache in a way you hadn't expected. You quickly sat up, trying to smooth your hair and fix your sweater, your cheeks still flushed as you glanced over at him. He, on the other hand, seemed unbothered, walking casually to the desk to grab the half-smoked blunt from earlier before making his way to the door.

"We were just deciding if we wanted to finish this," Nick said coolly, holding up the blunt as he opened the door, playing it off like the two of you hadn't been making out just moments ago. His calm demeanor caught you off guard, while you were sure guilt was written all over your face-your hair messy, your cheeks still warm, and your sweater slightly askew as much as you made yourself presentable.

Your friend peered over Nick's shoulder with a playful smirk, narrowing her eyes at you.

"Without us? How rude. You're now officially obligated to share-let's go."

Nick shot you a sheepish smile before offering his hand, extending it toward you as the others started to head back down the hall, unaware of what had just transpired between the two of you.

You hesitated for a second, your heart still racing, before taking his hand and letting him pull you to your feet. The moment might have been interrupted, but the charged energy between you was far from gone.

The universe did have a painfully sick sense of humor after all.

。⋆༺♱༻⋆。

A/n: pls lmk your thoughts as writing this I had so many ideas of how I wanted this to go, and the ending was weaker than intended but this is what I got after being up for over 24 hours 🤷🏼‍♀️ but I will be writing a part two 👹

[july-19th-club]

everybody in the goodreads one-stars dislikes outlander because it's got too much rape and dubcon in it, which is fair and is in fact what turned me off of the show in college. but many of them dont like the sex in this book in a puritanical way and they're WRONG it's not bad because it's sex! it's not even necessarily bad because it's sexualized violence. it's bad because it's poorly contextualized, not justified by the text enough to bear as much repetition as it gets, and neither fits nor deconstructs the genre it's trying to play around with.

like, the marriage/sex/punishment-by-force fantasy is clearly a fetish of gabaldon's, so the book bends over backwards to present opportunities for it whether they make story sense or not, and in so doing gives readers a skewed understanding of the period and location it's simultaneously attempting to do historical fiction in. WHICH WOULD BE FINE IF: this was georgette heyer we were talking about, por ejemplo, and the whole scene was established as the kind of pseudo-history fantasy realm such fetishes often take place in. after all, there's a particular brand of time-tested romance fiction where the whole conceit is a fluttery but undeniable "but you don't understand - i had no other choice!" which allows our heroine the chance to indulge sexually without being considered a slut (see dan lavery's piece on this subject). which i think is what gabaldon's trying to do with the plot contortions that require claire to get married, and then REQUIRE their marriage to be consummated With Witnesses, and then REQUIRE him to beat her in order to maintain standing...etc, etc, etc. a good british woman doesn't want to commit adultery, a good british woman doesn't like it rough, a good british woman doesn't get off on humiliation, etc. which, described that way, almost talks me back into the whole idea.

except the description i just gave is not how it reads in the book. in the book there's no indication that she's performing mental gymnastics to get past her hangups, or that there's some underlying Understanding between characters, author, and reader. it reads like she's married a budding young abuser who claims 'this is normal here' to get what he wants. WHICH brings us to the whole 'savage man-beast...but i WANT him...but he's so violent! but i can TAME him' trope. it's only this side of racist here because the scottish people in this book are white. this man can't be expected to have respectful attitudes, those are modern. and he's from a strong, manly culture! and there's no use looking around for some other kind of guy, because everybody's like that here, and that's history, man. there's a scene in this book where her tarzan in tartan believes that all sex is doggie style and is shocked to learn it isn't. this scene made it into the show.

what im trying to say is. she's both trying to write serious hist fic AND trying to have the protagonist get raped every other page so as to justify the amount of sex in the book. like...i feel insane saying she's doing it wrong when i read carey with gusto, but again, there we are in the 'context' issue. carey's context is that the protagonist is a) a professional sex worker and b) a confirmed masochist, so it's no shock to the reader when she goes to have sex with a patron and he lays into her with a flail. people who don't want BDSM aren't going to be reading Jacqueline Carey. she even has goddamn safewords, for chrissake. and while it absolutely can be argued that the absence of a declared scene in-text IS part of the fantasy for some readers - and must be for at least a few of the outlander fanbase, since people think these books are sexy - there's just too much failure to commit. either claire is into it or she's not, either this is a wish fulfillment kink book or it's hist fic. a better writer might be able to thread that needle in such a way as to keep it both sexy and consistent, but gabaldon's not that writer. her fetishes come off uncomfortably; her details are sometimes wrong enough that even not very historically minded readers point them out and find themselves jarred out of the story.

and...worst of all? she's not at all interested in the time travel aspect of her book, which may not seem like the worst sin here, but let me go out by tying this into its origins. she based the books on doctor who, a show about travel through time and space. rarely do her 1740s characters make it to the 1940s, where the story starts - she doesn't care about the nineteen forties, or later the sixties, after the time skip. they are where stodgy frank is from. they are where claire is exiled after she's torn away from her highland lover! she doesn't care about this timeline except insofar as they constitute a Modern place (but not too modern!) to act as a bland counterweight to the pull of those glorious days of old. the interplay of timelines is never really about culture shock or culture sharing, never really about what it would be like to survive culloden and then find out about the nineteen sixties. not in a funny, lighthearted way; not in a serious, all-implications-delved-into way. in diana gabaldon's time travel, the twentieth century is only there to get away from, to leave for some imagined romantic past where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry creatures from alpha centauri - except, wait. we don't know, do we, if the small furry creatures from alpha centauri are real small furry creatures from alpha centauri. in diana gabaldon's story, the scottish guy doesn't even go anywhere near alpha centaurai. truly there's no fixing this one.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

If The Magicians taught me anything it's that two of their same sex leads could sleep with each other, spend a lifetime together raising a child, have one actively ask out the other, and it all still be largely interpreted as a bromance. I suppose it could be, but only with an admittance that the boundaries around love and sexuality are not as solidly defined as they're perceived to be. Which is not something you're typically going to get from either the text itself or those that deny the very possibility of two male friends being in sincere romantic love with each other.

In all honesty, a tv production playing around with homoeroticism is likely doing so without malice. It can be a writers room being intentionally flexible with gender and sexuality and coming up against industry standards and practices. Or, and more often, a developing conversation between a queer fandom that finds meaning within the text (and easier access to the writers and actors), and a production encountering queer theory through that fandom for the first time.

That is to say I've been watching Supernatural again because I don't have a good relationship with the series and maybe this is something I need to get over. Supernatural means a lot to people here and I dislike the trend I see of treating a popular queer interpretation with dismissal and disdain.

If Supernatural has taught me anything in the past few years it's that one part of the biggest ship in the last decade can say he's in love with the other part of that big ship (to his face), and it still be interpreted as a confession of platonic love. To me the confession is clear in intent. Castiel is canonically in love with Dean Winchester, and through falling in love with Dean falls in love with humanity. Castiel's confession is actually a rather inevitable and lovely realisation of his character trajectory, even if I don't believe Dean knew what he was asking when he asked a creature made for unconditional devotion to have faith in him instead of Heaven and God. What's more, a character being in love with their friend is not a failing, nor rare, it happens all the time in fiction, but I think Castiel could've passionately kissed Dean goodbye in that scene and it still be considered the culmination of a bromance. So stubborn is the dismissal and disdain.

I like Eric Kripke. There's something modernist about his themes— a deliberate breaking of the romance of the past. A reflection of dysfunction, of things falling apart. In Supernatural it's in his building the family unit only to destroy the family unit using Christian mythology. In The Boys it's in his satirizing of the American myth using an American power fantasy (superheroes). There's also a bit of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation about what he creates and how he creates it, a hectic homoerotic masculinity that both indulges in and is critical of the darker sides of human nature. It's therefore unsurprising that there's such a strong queer reading of his work and of Dean Winchester in particular. So while it's absolutely fine to say, 'i don't interpret the text or character this way', it's less fine to try and erase every possible queer interpretation of the text and characters.

US TV networks are concerned with alienating their conservative audience with overtly queer main characters, especially when it subverts hegemonic forms of masculinity. But it has always been something queer fandom is fixated on— that subversion of both toxic masculinity and heteronormativity. It's why I think Supernatural has, not only the most fanworks written for it on AO3, but a large body of academic articles about its relationship with gender, religion, and sexuality. A queer reading is definitely there and it doesn't deserve the disdain or dismissal.

[coffeenonsense]

I usually try to stay in my lane most of the time (mostly bc I am far too old for fandom drama) but what the hell, it's friday, let's put that lit degree to use:

the way people are playing morality politics with fiction is really starting to genuinely irk me and I think some of the responses to ascended astarion are a perfect example of why this type of thinking is actually hugely detrimental to one's ability to meaningfully engage with fiction and also to the future of art.

astarion is one of the most well-written complex characters I've seen in recent years bar none (and I'm clearly not alone given the explosion of his personal fandom lol) and he has a truly compelling, emotionally resonant character arc whether you ascend him or not

If you keep him a spawn, you get a deeply touching, realistic character's journey to healing and personal growth where he learns who he is after the experience of his trauma and depending on the player's choice, explores his relationship to sex, romance and intimacy

If you ascend astarion, you get an equally emotional and well-rounded character arc where he chooses the power that allows him to have the desperate freedom and safety he's wanted, but in the process eschews any hope of real healing or personal development, and again, depending on the player's choices, restarts the cycle of abuse by taking cazador's place.

These options offer vastly different paths for the character and experiences for the player, but while yes, ascended astarion is the evil ending, and yes, ascending astarion is a tragedy, and a fucking incredible one (not only do you have astarion reigniting a circle of abuse but you have the narrative weight of KNOWING he could have actually overcome his trauma...hats off to the bg3 team tbh) but that does not mean ascending astarion MAKES YOU AS THE PLAYER EVIL

Ascend astarion because you love tragic story arcs, ascend him because you want to indulge in a master/slave vampire fantasy, don't ascend him because you want a healing character journey, don't ascend him because you want a sweet romance; all of these choices carry the same moral weight for the player, which is to say, none, because they are an exploration of fiction.

I know I'm saying this to the villain fucker website but it bears repeating; just because someone wants to engage with evil, fucked up characters or content does not mean they support evil acts in their real life, and furthermore, exploring dark, taboo or tragic concepts safely is part of what fiction is for. It enables us to look at those things from a distance, work through difficult feelings and develop greater understanding of what makes our fellow humans tick — and before you get it twisted there's also no moral issue with exploring fucked up media bc you're horny or just, because. You can take it as seriously (or as sexily) as you want.

It's starting to really concern me how many people not only do not get, but are violently opposed to this concept, because equating what someone likes in fiction with their real life moral code and actions is an incredibly dangerous and let's be honest, immature way of thinking that not only stunts your ability to engage with fiction but ironically, hampers your ability to deal with complicated issues and emotions in real life.

I don't know what's driving this trend (though purity culture is certainly playing a role) but it's definitely something that's not just impacting individuals but contributing to the commercialization of art, where we get games and stories and tv shows and books that regurgitate the same safe, mass marketable plotlines and character archetypes over and over and over again so corporations can squeeze out as much profit as possible.

Anyway, remember kids: There's no such thing as thought crime, reaching for morally pure unproblematic media is directly contributing to the death of art, and this is why funding the humanities is important.

[the-blue-eyed-firebender]

Hi!

Have I ever told you this? (Probably! But I'll say it again, ha) It's been an absolute treat reading your Royai fics. Thank you for joining this fandom!

What are your inspirations? 😃 In terms of writing style, but also ideas, etc. Please indulge us all, and please do geek out about your writing process too!

I always love learning about how fan fic writers work and write!

Thank you, and I hope you have a lovely day~

Hey there!

You are so kind. It's hard to put into words how much it means to have had such a lovely reception from the FMA fandom. I used to write a lot when I was a kid, but eventually stopped due to some unfortunate and painful circumstances. Writing for this fandom over the last couple of months has been an incredible journey. It has healed some very intrinsic parts of me that I’d forgotten were wounded, and I have written more in the last few months than I have in 15+ years.

So, first and foremost, thank YOU.

Inspirations: I've always been a lover of fantasy and science fiction. My very first fandom was Star Wars, followed shortly thereafter by Avatar: The Last Airbender. Recently, I've become a huge Sarah J. Maas fan (I read ALL of her books in the year 2023 - minus the new one that came out in January). I've also enjoyed Suzanne Collins and Leigh Bardugo (particularly her Six of Crows duology).

But really, I just love stories. I love adventure, magic, and romance. I look for complex characters, vibrant worlds, strong magic systems, and rich backstories. My favorites always involve women who embody strength (mental, physical, and emotional), capable leadership, and femininity. Characters who are equal parts war-like and compassionate, fearsome yet soft.

But my very best inspiration comes from real-life: my sweet husband. It's going to sound silly, but I feel like I write about true love because I've experienced it. This guy was 100% written by a woman (lol). He's read everything I've written, and provides the most wonderful feedback and encouragement.

As far as style/process, I feel like I am still developing it? Haha! It's only been a minute since I got back into writing. But it usually starts with daydreaming to music (often songs without lyrics; Secession Studies is a favorite), typically while I'm in the car. With my first FMA fic, The Counteroffer, I was listening to "Beautiful Things" by Benson Boone on repeat. Something about the way he sings "Please stay / I want you, I need you, oh God" really set the tone for that story. That, combined with inspiration from the infamous Chapter 54 of A Court of Mist and Fury.

There's usually an moment or a line of dialogue that pops into my brain first (for The Counteroffer, it was Hawkeye lifting the discharge paperwork to find Mustang has also given her an unsigned marriage certificate). I write that bit, then the rest of the story sort of fills in around it. I write in disjointed fragments, adding chunks here and there and then connecting them together. Sometimes I shuffle things around, moving chunks to different locations in the story to see how it changes the flow.

Beginnings, endings, and titles are usually the hardest for me to come up with.

And here's a few of my own patterns that I've started to notice:

I love stories that read with a poetic beat to them (I think the best example of this in my own work is Hourglass).

I use line breaks for emphasis a lot.

I am intentional about keeping things concise but impactful. When it comes to word count, my personal rule is quality > quantity, always.

I try not to use "said/says" without other descriptive words.

If a portion of the story is dialogue driven, I'll read it aloud to make sure it actually flows like real conversation.

I often drop "and" from sentences when I feel like it messes with the poetic flow ("She became familiar with the space between heartbeats, the squeeze of the trigger, the wet sound of a bullet finding its mark." - Hourglass).

In the same vein, I use a sort of "rule of threes" quite a bit. I break sentences into three parts, offer three descriptions of a character's observation/sensation/emotion, repeat the same phrase three times, etc. (Oh look, I've done it again.)

I write in third person, present tense, always from the perspective of one character at a time. I feel like this puts myself and the reader right in the middle of the action, as it's happening. I dive deep into the primary character's thoughts and senses, both internal and external.

I re-read/re-watch the original content (i.e. FMAB, the manga) often, even if it's just in small parts. It keeps me grounded to who these characters are, and prevents me from going OOC. It's so easy to lose track of characterization if it's been too long since I watched an episode or read a chapter.

Hoo boy this got long. Thanks so much for the delightful ask! It was a lot of fun to dive into my own writing process and habits.

[idrellegames]

You've probably gotten a few of these before but my turn for praise. Even as a person who's probably a hopeless romantic I dearly appreciate that Wayfarer doesn't make itself a romance first game. So many IF do that and it makes the game lose any sense of plot and in the worse cases, outright repetitive because the options fail to add any flavor to the rest of the game. Even worse are all the games that sort of 'forget' the other characters are there once you're in a romance.

But what makes Wayfarer even better is the fact you have ace/aro-spec representation that actually matters because people fall into the pitfall of making them a "hard to get/aloof/unaware of anything ever" romance option. Having the ability to make platonic bonds that influence the game just as much as romantic ones and don't diminish aro/ace characters is so nice and I appreciate it so much.

I think this is maybe a good opportunity to riff a little on genre conventions and expectations.

Romance games have their own conventions. They're fun, they're often self-indulgent--the point is to indulge in the fantasy that the MC (and therefor you, the player) is the centre of the universe. Everyone you come across is at least a little bit in love with you. You are special. You are loved. And this is really fun!

Of course, there are romance games that colour outside these lines, but the general expectation is that you will have your selection of ROs, their individual routes, and that the ROs are always going to put the MC first. Having individual routes for each RO usually means that the RO is the star of their route, and all other characters take a backseat because they are the star of their own route. The MC and the romance is the focus, everything else is secondary.

I do really want to stress that there is nothing wrong with this format. It's successful for a reason! The problem comes when you try to apply these conventions to all games, especially ones that do not fall within this genre.

When romance isn't the focal component of the game, the narrative can ring a little hollow if you try try to employ conventions like this. I think there needs to be room for IF games where the MC isn't special, where they are literally Just Some Guy, where the characters they interact with have a range of things going on with them that don't have anything to do with the MC at all. Characters having a life outside the MC is really important for creating deep bonds and meaningful relationships; it's part of having rounded, fleshed-out characters. There needs to be room for conflict and complications, because that's where character development lies.

There's a reason why Aeran doesn't spill all his secrets in Episode 2. If this were a romance game, he might--but it's not and he won't. He is in a significant amount of emotional distress in Velantis and it is not in character for him to break down and reveal everything at the MC's request. Relationships aren't easy, especially when both parties have a lot of growth and healing to do.

And I think, too, when it comes to early IF development it's very easy to want to rush right to the romances. Romances draw in an audience, they give folks something to look forward to. They're the thing you get asks about, which generates interest in your game, and helps you inspiration and drive afloat. But when the focus remains only on that, it's very easy to overlook other necessary narrative aspects. There needs to be balance.

With regards to aro/ace characters - it's easy to fall into tropes for them, even if you don't intend to. There are expectations about what a "good" and "satisfying" relationship looks like in fiction, and aro/ace characters often fall outside of that. To grasp being aro/ace, you have to question what sexual and romantic attraction actually is, which you don't necessarily have to grasp with other characters because the assumption is that it is there naturally.

And even then, aromanticism and asexuality is hard to communicate effectively in fiction without making it feel "lesser". Take for example, Aeran's intimacy scene in Episode 2. There's a difference between the allosexual option (where the MC sleeps with him and they are emotionally and physically intimate) and the asexual option (where they don't have sex, but the emotional intimacy is still there). Even though I was being as careful not to weigh one option over the other, in comparing the two the allosexual version is the more traditionally "satisfying" ending to that arc than the asexual one because it follows conventions. I am personally really happy with the asexual option, but it still feels like it lacks a certain… "oomf", for lack of a better term.

I think this is why it's really important to have substantial relationships outside of romance. When romance and sex aren't weighted as a signifier of the deepest bond you can have with a person, there's room to explore more diverse relationships and how they can take form.

[gillianthecat]

Books Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @littleragondin! I've actually been reading books again these past few weeks so I have answers now lol

hardcover or *paperback* (i am but a weak little woman and those hardcovers are heavy) // bookstore or *library* (probably I would usually say bookstore but I was going to many different libraries to study at towards the end of the semester) // standalone or *series* (really depends on my mood, but the most recent books were a series) // nonfiction or *fiction* (fiction is an indulgence, and while I'm interested in a lot of non-fiction, reading it usually feels more like work) // thriller or *fantasy* (I've never been into scary stuff) // under 300 pages or *over 300 pages* (otherwise it goes by too quickly!) // children's or *ya* (i have not connected with the YA I've read in recent years but at times I have devoured it) // friends to lovers or *enemies to lovers* (there are some amazing friends-to-lovers I adore, but I'm compelled by even mediocre enemies-to-lovers) // *read in bed* or read on the couch (either but recently it's been all in bed) // *read at night* or read in the morning (through the night and into the next morning) // *keep pristine* or markup (I don't try to actually keep books pristine, but I also never bother to mark up anything but textbooks) // *cracked spine* or dog ear (historically I read most books on one sitting, but if not I'd just search for the page again/use a random receipt as a bookmark)

Currently Reading:

I'm not in the middle of anything, but I've read more in recent weeks than I have in a long time. (Well, technically I'm in the middle of Solomon's Ransom by Corey Kerr, because I read the sample and now am waiting for the book to be released in a few weeks.)

Several months ago I got from the (physical!) library a (physical!) copy of She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan, and I finally finished after the semester ended, and then found an ebook of the sequel, He Who Drowned the World. (Compelling, though I think the ambitiousness of the project inevitably meant that parts of it didn't quite work.)

Then I read a bunch of romance ebooks, and even found a m/f one that I liked! Jodi McAlister's Not Here To Make Friends. (It was also the reality dating show romance I had been low-key hoping would exist.)

I also read RF Kuang's Babel: An Arcane History (which I appreciated and was provoked by, but didn't exactly love), and then read that she was inspired by/responding to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, so I reread that. (When I read it years ago my reaction was, I'm too old for this. It felt like a book you need to read in your teens or early twenties to get swept up into. My thoughts this go around were pretty much the same.) Then Kuang's Yellowface, which was also compelling.

Speaking of enemies to lovers, quite enjoyed The Sorcerer's Omega, also by Corey Kerr, which is why I'm awaiting her latest release. (The other two books in that world are also good, just not catnip for my tastes in the same way.)

And your post reminded me—I too read Love in the Big City, which was good and also unsettling in that way of most autobiographical novels about the authors fucked up twenties. Now I can go and unblock the tag and see all the fascinating discussions y'all had in your book club.

I have no idea how they'll manage to turn it into a BL (which is what I think I read is happening?). Although it's about relationships it's very much not a romance. Are they just pulling out some random plot points and building a whole new story around them? I hope they don't try to smush it into BL shape at all, and just tell the narrator's melancholy story as written.

(Oh, technically I'm in the middle of Mari Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but I'm not sure if I'll read any more. Other people's advice can be counterproductive at times.)

(Most most recently was a bunch of Untamed and Drarry fanfic, but I'm not counting that.)

I'm not sure who's done this already, but I'll tag @lelephantsnail, @petrichoraline and @tungtung-thanawat.

[lothli]

About Tumblr, My Writing, and Finding Home

This is a personal post unrelated to news about my writings, and as such, is quite possibly dreary and uninteresting. I do apologize. As a courtesy, I've included a Keep Reading.

I spent around a month on Tumblr, from the end of September to the start of October, and I've observed many interesting posts from many people. I've also learned new things, such as what a whump is and other such writblr-exclusive terms.

But in a way, the more I learn, the more I understand the differences between myself and the wider community.

Most of the time, I do not write romance, especially regarding shipping of existing characters. I understand that this is quite an important part of the Tumblr community, what with the "antis" and the "pro-shippers" all running amok. For the record, I still consider myself a pro-shipper; what other writers wish to write is none of my business. It's just something I find little interest in doing.

I am a queer writer, but I feel like my work is not "queer" in the same way as many other very talented queer writers have. This kind of leans into the lack of romance; for my original characters, you'll never know if they're gay or ace or bi or het, simply because it's just not something I ever have them think about.

I find myself lost, unable to find a real home for my original works. Tumblr and Ao3 are suitable places for An Unmaking to live, and I am glad that the folks here seem to enjoy them somewhat. However, long posts don't seem to be in vogue on Tumblr, which makes some sense. This is a blogging site, not a writing site.

My one-shots fit in alright, but I also have short stories that simply don't fit here. Serialization is something I find great difficulty with on Tumblr; it's why I've given up posting An Unmaking here.

Ao3 and FF.net are both fan-fiction-dominated pages. Sure, I could probably post original works on both, but it doesn't feel quite right. It's not a home.

I've looked into other websites, but Wattpad seems unappealing in general, and I've never heard anyone say good things about the site outside of nostalgia.

RoyalRoad makes sense, but the demographics feel strange as well. I am not a LitRPG or Portal Fantasy writer, and the works feel pretty skewed toward a straight male-leaning audience. This isn't criticism; it's simply that I am not straight or male. In the same way that I do not fit in Tumblr's shipping and romance, I do not fit in RoyalRoad's power fantasies.

I'm not someone who chases stats or engagement. I simply want a place where my original works feel at home, where it feels like my work is something that belongs, instead of a strange hanger-off that does not quite fit in with the rest.

For my Secret History readers, an analogy: A creature of Winter and Sky is looking to settle. But the first is a place that is too full of yearning, too dappled for it to truly rest. The next is warm and comforting but also sharp in a way it is not. From place to place, it flits, looking for somewhere to make its home but never truly finding it.

If you've read this far, thank you for indulging in a painfully conspicuous and inexperienced outsider in her ramblings. If you have any suggestions for where my works may roost, please let me know in all the myriad of ways that Tumblr lets you interact with me. Frankly, I've probably missed some. Maybe there's some tag that fits me that I'm unaware of, too.

None of this will affect An Unmaking, not that I've been consistent with its upload schedule. Thank you for reading.

-- Lothli

[mademoiselle-red]

Reading the Renault fandom dissertation, part 5: more Renault fandom analysis

An academic, Jui-an Chou, wrote about us, online fans of Mary Renault’s works, as part of her phd dissertation in 2018 at Duke University. As the subject of her research, I have a few thoughts.

(Here is part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 6 of my series of posts on this TC fandom study)

In part 5, we continue with Chou’s analysis of the online Renault fandom, with the focus now shifted to tumblr fan art. The dissertation does not credit the artist of the piece below, but the tumblr source link takes us to @februeruri, a popular fan artist for both TC and Renault’s Greek novels.

Here is what Chou has to say about the artwork above:

“In contrast to the previous artwork, this piece strips away the Greek setting, leaving two young male bodies at the center of the work, again engaging in suggestive gestures and looks. Both artworks incorporate Renault’s novel but strip away its references to Greek life, politics, and the historical specificity of Greek pederasty, extracting only the young male couple that embodies the ideal of romance and erotic tension in slash/BL aesthetics.”

I think Chou’s argument that the artwork strips away historical specificity in order to focus on idealized romance are unreasonable and slightly absurd. The art work above faithfully depicts a scene from The Last of the Wine where the two protagonists are on an isolated beach where they share an erotically charged moment. Since the scene takes place outside their familiar urban environment and away from the presence of other people, an artistic adaptation of it cannot be reasonably expected to depict Greek life, politics, and institutions. Just as no one would reasonably expect an artist drawing a modern greek couple skinny dipping on an isolated beach in 2023 to also portray contemporary Greek life, politics, and institutions in the same image.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Chou’s decision to focus on fan art for Renault’s works is not only flawed but also conveniently serves her argument that Renault’s online fans fail to engage with the “reality” of queer life. Unlike Japanese BL manga, which uses text alongside illustrations to convey its messages & storytelling, online fan art does not, as a genre, usually use text to flesh out the context of its subject matter and explore its ties to historical and present reality. Instead, historical specificity and analysis is more likely to be found in fan fiction and meta (fan analysis posts & discussions), where the primary medium is text.

“These fan artworks suggest a new way to read Renault’s male homoerotic historical novels. For slash/BL fans, history is but an excuse to indulge in a homoerotic narrative that is disengaged from modern gay politics due to its distance from the contemporary world.”

By choosing to focus her close analysis only on illustration (and completely ignoring fan fiction and fan essays), Chou sets up the online Renault fandom to fail her test of “historical specificity” and intellectual engagement with modern gay politics (not to mention that literature & fiction does not have an obligation to engage in politics. Why make art or write fiction in the first place when you can write a treatise?).

This flawed methodology enables her to then come to the to conclusion that:

“History, both of ancient Greece and Renault’s mid-twentieth century, serve as fantasy material for 21st-century fans. History promises a world in which beautiful boys are free to fall in love with each other without social persecution and without the need to “congregate” and to wave banners in the streets. In this sense, Renault’s relationship to politics is surprisingly closer to her 21st-century fans than to her gay readers in the 1950s to the 1970s.”

Chou once again makes a baseless assumption that we (the online fans of Renault’s works) all agree with Renault’s political views and don’t care about LGBTQ+ political rights. First of all, fandom spaces are not primarily spaces for political activism & organizing. I do care about my political rights, but fandom is a place for fun & socializing! I don’t want to devote every aspect of my life to politics. That’s exhausting! Besides, there are plenty of online spaces devoted to queer political work. Furthermore, because Chou chose to ignore the fan fiction and analysis produced by the online communities she studied, she was unable to see all the ways that many fan writers did engage with “real issues” such as internalized homophobia, trauma, persecution, conflicts within the queer community, the desire and struggle to find belonging and love.

As Ralph Lanyon would say, she’s working up queerness into a religion, rather than just something that one simply is.

Continued in part 6

[castlebyersafterdark]

a big part of the celebration of spicy byler is the mess and indulgence. what do you think about people who approach sex from an 'it's so messy' standpoint and attempt to keep things clean as possible in order to avoid faff of cleanup? for example, no facials only ever coming in mouth and swallowing. or condoms only. or trying to avoid getting things on bedclothes to avoid having to do more laundry, etc.

two very different ways of approaching sex with one being less concerned about the amount of effort you have to put into the admin around sex after the high is done lol!

The mess and realism and authenticity is my favorite part of writing this type of content, I've found - besides showcasing how sex and romance can can be portrayed together in fanfiction. The following can all ring true for reality and in fiction.

In fiction, I think there can be this interest in only exploring and indulging in the fantasy - so the messy parts of sex aren't really appealing. Pure entertainment. Hyper-realism isn't what some people are here for. And that's fine! There's an audience and a creative interest. I like that style too, sometimes, but sometimes too much of that is too samesies ya know? I personally find reality hotter than lofty erotica. Adding in the reality of what would physically be going on makes details appear, and details are where the uniqueness spills out. Spills, ha.

But yeah!! I think... and this is for both real sex and fictional sex - there might be a level of embarrassment? Human nature, to be embarrassed about the body. Society tells us that - hell, look at stupid commercials now telling people they need deodorant for the entire body every second of every day. There's a distinct confusion between what hygiene actually is and the standards of just - having and maintaining and existing in a body. Anyway. soapbox for another day!!

There can be comfort levels with what kills a mood, makes someone feel kinda, I don't know if shame is the correct term, but it's wrapped up in it. Often, some may not want to acknowledge what's actually happening in sex. Sex can be pretty gross, or awkward, or messy. It's a living body. You gotta reckon with it! Fluids and weird sounds and scents and what genitals actually look like. Embarrassing, if you get too in your head about it. But not necessarily. I think cum really grosses a lot of people out, to be frank. Same with anal sex. Maturity! Understanding the reality. It's all fine. As always, I'm not getting into the dirty details, but it's amiss to not acknowledge this part at least in passing.

But, these aspects are a part of sex for a lot of people! And many just don't want to deal with it or acknowledge it, especially the after effects of well, finishing. What happens after the pleasure and sensations of sex have concluded. Some say it's just a sensory issue and I'm not going to dive into that aspect, but I do think embarrassment fuels things a little. And I'm not saying everyone must love having someone come on their face haha - that's kind of a specific act and I equally agree that can be hot for some and over the line for others and I totally get that.

But in general, I don't know. I just think that with sex being what it is, sweaty bodies and parts going into parts, there's a maturity needed? Because real life isn't the sanitized, fantasy version and maybe that freaks people out. Still holding onto repression. I do think it takes a certain mindset to get to the point where you're unphased by the weirdness and not-so-pristine aspects of the human body. It is freeing to allow yourself to let go and lose the embarrassment. In reality - and even in writing!!

[altraviolet]

Jane Austin didn't know she was Jane Austin / writing encouragement

Cozy fantasy/romance author Lidiya Foxglove has a youtube video called "How to write a classic bestselling novel that everyone will read in 200 years," that's very interesting and inspiring. Here are some parts that really struck me, and that I think other creators will resonate with:

…Pride and Prejudice has been one of the most enduring novels of our time. It's very impressive to me that all of Jane Austin's novels are still widely read, and I'm quite sure that Jane did not write them thinking, “I bet people are still going to be reading my books in 200 years.” And then she died without ever knowing that she was Jane Austin, which I think about constantly … She sold some books, some of them sold decently well. A few prominent people read them, which I'm sure must have pleased her very much at the time. And then she died and then over the course of ages she became Jane Austin. … The point that I want to make … is that I think it's just really important to write the books that call to you. Maybe even just the books that you need to write to make money. I think it's really important to write the books that call to you, even if they feel a little self-indulgent or silly at times. If they don't feel like they're necessarily what you're capable of, but they're what you want to write because you don't really know where a powerful theme or a character that's going to resonate with people will emerge, and you also don't know where culture is going in the future, it could be that people of the future appreciate different things than we appreciate now, and that something that's only minorly successful now is going to be huge in the future.

Perhaps you really love literary fiction and you got a bachelor in English, and you got an MFA, and you genuinely love classic literature, and you love, like, really beautiful literary prose, but the work that you're working on is like a cute little romance about lesbians running an adoption agency for baby dragons. Something in your head is like, “That is what I'm capable of. That sounds kind of silly, but it's just something that I write because it's fun.”

I'm here to give you permission to write whatever calls to you, whether it is yet another broody vampire, or a horror novel that just reminds you of books you read under the covers when you were 12. Even if you want to write a literary novel about a sad man suffering, yeah, you know, if that's what calls to you, there's always room for another one. Don't feel bad about writing something that just feels like you, and don't get too in your head about whether it is a great work or not. If you're going to devote some of your time, your one precious life, to writing, then I think the last thing we should be worrying about is whether it's important or whether it will be a classic or a bestseller, much less both, which as we've established is extremely rare.

You have no idea what will resonate with people 50 or 100 years from now and you don't know what will resonate with people now. It might be that you die not knowing that you were Jane Austin, but aren't we so glad that Jane Austin just was Jane Austin without knowing she was Jane Austin?

And the other point I want to make is if you need to write something for money, as I have done, it doesn't mean that that book won't mean something to people as well. You really have no clue how long a book will last or what kind of long term relevance or popularity it will have, or whether it will just like hit someone a certain way at a certain time in their life. There are entire categories of creations like pulp science fiction or superhero comics that were kind of treated as throwaway amusements when they first came out, and now have a much more elevated place in our culture. So it's also possible that a Court of Thorns and Roses will in fact be more popular in 50 years and that people will be getting their Sarah J Maas books graded and encased in plastic. Like, I don't know. They are also books that never become classics in a broad sense but have a small group of people who love them, or there's books that really influence someone when they came out so, they might not have been known themselves, but some other great artist would never have been what they were without that work.

I think all of these things are important and that art is just a big web and conversation and that you can drive yourself crazy trying to decide where you fit into it. So write what you love, write what you need to write to be able to keep on writing, and don't worry about tests of time or bestseller lists.

Be sure to check out the video, because she touches on so much more. And check out Lidiya's channel, The Cozy Creative!

[quoteablebooks]

Genre: Fiction, Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Content Warning: Sexual content, Grief, Death, Car Accident, Cancer, Toxic relationship         

Summary: All's faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author, Jen DeLuca.

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon, or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

*Opinions*

After reading and enjoying Well-Played I decided to go back and start with the first novel in the companion series. I remembered all the buzz around this when it first came out and all the love around it, so I figured I would have a good time. What I didn’t expect was the feeling of this novel to be so much different than that of Well-Played. I can see why some people have been a little disappointed with the books that followed this one because I was obsessed with it. 

Well-Met follows Emily Parker, who has moved in with her older sister and niece after a car accident shattered her sister’s leg. As Emily has recently been dumped by her long-time boyfriend and is practically homeless, she plans on spending the summer helping her family and attempting to figure out what to do next with her life. When her commitment to her family means she has to join the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire so that her niece can participate. This brings her face to face with Simon Graham, a man who seems to take an instant dislike to Emily, especially when he thinks that she isn’t taking the Faire seriously enough. Even with Simon’s grumpy personality, Emily starts to make friends in Willow Creek and dreads the end of the summer more and more. Then, Simon’s Faire persona starts flirting with Emily’s, things get very complicated and the lines between real and pretend get blurred. As the summer continues Emily isn’t sure what she is supposed to do or where she is supposed to be. 

I think Deluca did a good job of forming the atmosphere in this novel in regards to the Faire itself, but also all the work that goes into putting one on, even a smaller one. I would have liked to see more of Willow Creek, but the point of this story is the romance, which mostly takes place at the Faire, so it makes sense. As for the plot of this novel, it is all character work and around the romance so I really don’t have much to say about it. I do appreciate that it isn’t just about Emily and Simon, but she is made a well-rounded character with her anxieties with her past relationship, feeling set adrift, and a love of connecting with her sister and niece. 

I really liked Emily as a character and I saw a lot of myself in her, which added to my enjoyment of the story. She has been screwed over by her ex-boyfriend and now feels as if people only care about her when she can do something for them, not for who she is, which is very relatable to a lot of people. She also wants to do what’s best for her older sister, that she is just starting to have a relationship with, and her niece. The inner anxieties that we see Emily have, especially in regards to Simon and her place in his life, were ones I have had myself, but after a while, I got a little annoyed with her not saying anything to anyone. I understand how we get to the third-act breakup, but it also seemed a little ridiculous. I know it had everything to do with Emily’s insecurities, but it was a huge blow-up for a rather small issue, in my opinion. 

We get a lot less about Simon, which makes sense as it is all from Emily’s point of view. He is a man who is still struggling with grief and expectations that there have been all his life. While I enjoyed the bits of his personality that we did get to see, he is still a bit of an enigma by the end of the novel. Yet, it makes perfect sense that a younger brother living in his brother’s shadow is unsure how to manage now that there is no one casting the shadow any longer. Still, when he and Emily are on the page together I enjoy their chemistry a lot and I feel like they are a couple that you see staying together after the novel is over (and not just because I have read the next novel). I just wish I got more of her personality on the page. 

I have read some reviews that the characters and romance fell flat, but I really enjoyed both. I think that Emily and Simon have great chemistry, even when they are at odds with one another, and the steamy scenes were well-written. The one hiccup for me was the huge displays of affection, so when he pulled her up during the pub sing I felt as anxious as Emily. While she ended up enjoying it, I would have not been as amused. Still, I like Simon and Emily as a couple, especially when they are being vulnerable with one another.

Overall, this is a fun and fast romance. There is also something in this novel that wasn’t translated to Well-Played. This is a 4.5 read for me, with small squabbles rounding it down to a 4-star. It almost make me really want to do go to a Renaissance Faire finally. 

[h-pelessly]

July Reads

The Coworker by Freida Mcfadden (8/10) The beginning was slow. I'm not going to completely lie, but the book threw me for multiple loops. First off, I thought Natalie, FMC, was a good person, but turns out, she's a bully? Like who would've thunk. But then all her actions showed me that she might've killed Dawn, the other FMC, but like she didn't remember anything. So I was like eh, but bullying in a workplace. What are we-- 5? PLUS, it was painfully obvious that Dawn has autism and it sucked hearing about how people treat her. It was also weird that she had an unhealthy obsession with turtles. Like I get the similarities of how she feels vs turtles behave, but like gd girl this obsession is so weird. Then Natalie kept acting like Dawn's death had no significance so I was like though she doesn't remember, she suddenly did it. Then it turns out Dawn isn't dead. THEN, CALEB, NATALIE'S "BOYFRIEND" KISSED AND MADE LOVE TO DAWN. I was so confused like this honestly bumped the rating up. Jeez. Then Dawn wants to kill herself to get Natalie in jail. Like dude, that's intense. Anyway, the cliffhanger or the "peak" was that Dawn killed a friend of Natalie's from high school that aided in her best friend's suicide. I still don't think that part was realistic, but this book was pretty good.

Not a Peep by MT Addams (8/10) This was a dark bully romance. The first bully romance book I didn't like that much because the FMC was kinda annoying. But this one, I liked it because she was so much more mature. Like she wasn't stupid and didn't try fighting back knowing nothing will change. I didn't expect the MMM attraction/love story, but I liked it. It made sense as how the three guys were so close. Also, the guys were attractive unlike the ifrst one I read. Although, I would lowkey want to continue to read the other one. And it was HOT. Love it, but at the end, although it was a HFN, I didn't feel led on. The second book feels like a second story and not a continuation. I enjoyed this book more because for some odd reason, I was able to differentiate fantasy/fiction from reality, and when I did that, it made me enjoy the book more. So I'm glad I liked this book sm. I feel bad that I won't be indulging in the second book, but it is what it is. At least they all got engaged at the end.

Scoring the Player by Rebecca Jenshak (8/10) This book was cute and in my personal opinion, non-toxic. I love Rebecca Jenshak's books, and I love the fact that Dahlia is such a non-toxic, mellow girl. I didn't relate to her bc she was a golf girlie, but the fact that this is her first relationship and she doesn't know what to do but isn't freaking out or overthinking makes me want to hug her. Felix is such a sweetie for "taking Dahlia under his wing" to protect her. Along the way, they fell in love, and it was cute. When they "broke up", I was sad, but Dahlia made me realize what a strong woman is. I'm so excited to finish the series.

The Draft by Ana Shay (6.95/10) Lowkey disappointed at how this was. It had all my favorite tropes, but the FMC was actually insufferable. Like babygirl needs to be humbled. I get that she's young and excited to be in college and live the college life, but like why do you push yourself on people? Not only did she push herself on her brother's team, which is understandable honestly, she forced Dash to admit his feelings. And the whole time they were messing around, the misunderstanding was insane and how they both immediately went to extreme circumstances gave me the ick. When Madison misunderstood, she went to the extremes to make Dash jealous like girl grow up and keep your petty feelings to yourself. And Dash being called Dash sarcastically bc he's slow? Bro, that gave me the ick. Idk, there were some good parts though. They were cute together but a part, no. They will not last in the long term.

The Graham Effect (7/10) I enjoyed this one, but I don't think about it often. Gigi Graham is a GRAHAM so I thought I would be obsessed, but I was not. It's just weird seeing Garrett as a dad and just so not understanding, but also, Gigi being all grown up and needing a FWB. I get the connection, but I felt like it was just forced proximity and didn't feel the chemistry as strongly as I thought it would be. Maybe it's just because following up with Garrett and Hannah would be very hard. And how they got married???? I'm like... bro? Idk I didn't feel the connection as much which disappointed me.

Love, Within Reason by Everalda Ocampo (7.5/10) I got this as an ARC read a while ago and never got around to it. Though I'm glad I got to it now. I honestly thought this one was cute. I didn't like Mari, the FMC, at first, which is already a bad sign, but as the story progressed, I thought she was very understandable and her opinions were valid. I thought the close family dynamic was very fun and although very annoying at times, it gave a sense of closeness for me. I liked how fun Marcos, the MMC, was. He was a juxtaposition of Mari and I thought they were super cute together. This was a quick, cute read. Too bad it was very fast paced, but it made sense. It was a perfect in between book.

The Road Less Traveled By by Emily Tudor (8.5/10) I got this as an ARC and lemme tell you how proud I am of Emily and her writing. It seems like she grew into her writing and oh my god I love it. I don't know too much about Taylor Swift and how this book is an album or song or whatever, but this book was chef's kiss. It follows a social media influencer x bodyguard, and it opened my eyes to bodyguards, honestly. I didn't see the appeal in Vince, the MMC, but I am so in love with both of them together. I felt the love radiating from my screen and it made me melt. It was wholesome. I am in absolute love with Bree, the FMC. She had a stalker and now that he's out again, she needs a bodyguard with her. Vince has been her bodyguard before and he came back for her. Okay, first off, swoon. Just the way Bree slowly reclaims herself and Vince watching her proudly just makes me swoon. It's a slow burn, but the spice? JEEEZ. I love u Bree and Emily.

Hooked by Emily McIntire (6.6/10) This was my first step into a real dark romance and let me tell you, I was underwhelmed. Maybe it was just the book, but I was like.... That's it? I get it, it's forbidden and there's unaliving aspects and stuff, but I have read heavier shit. AND, it's also a Peter Pan/Captain Hook retelling so it's also my first in that. I don't know what to say. I was super underwhelmed and didn't care for any of the characters whatsoever. Like it wasn't bad, but it was cringy. And what do you mean she gets off by choking HERSELF? Okay... Anyways...

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (9/10) This was one of my thrifted books so I went into this blindly. Based on the blurb, I was hooked, but I didn't fully know like the tropes and all that. Honestly, reading the back, it seemed like I was about to read The Hating Game over, which isn't bad, but it's just like a book I liked when I first started reading. I don't know if I'd fully love it now. But this one, oh my god. I HAD TO FINISH IT. There were some dumb parts like why Olive, the fmc, just didn't acknowledge her boss on the honeymoon like when they meet in the office, she could've been like 'oh, that was my twin sister.' I get that's why Ethan and Olive get together, but also like that part pissed me off how she was fired for lying off the job. I wanted Ethan to grovel more, but their love story was honestly so cute. I couldn't stop giggling and kicking my feet tbh.

[misscammiedawn]

Permit me some self-indulgence to share my Favorite Character Bingo.

For this bingo I favored my fandom tags (17/24 spaces selected from my 25 listed fandom tags) and tried to round out with movies that I adore.

I wanted to diversify my range of franchises to include TV, animation, books, comics and video games and also pick characters that resonated most with each of us, though Camden's influence is felt the strongest. I won't state where the attachments lay but I'm sure those who know us can infer.

Descriptions and reasons under Read More.

Full spoilers for any character featured. Content warning for suicide discussion under cut.

1: Miles Edgeworth - Ace Attorney - Literally the last square filled in and we looked at the remaining 9 fandom tags and thought "which of these 9 have a character that we feel strongly about", it was either him or Alucard Castlevania and both for the same reason, daddy issues. I love the idea of a virtuous child of anime Atticus Finch being raised by a deliciously evil prosecutor to become everything his father would have hated. I love the conflict between two siblings raised in the house of Perfection. I love his dramatic ass (except when he pulls that "chooses death" bullshit. That was unforgivable). Plus I just adore his slowburn romance with Phoenicholas, how supportive he is of their daughter, Trucy, and how the sequel trilogy is sparing enough of him that we always miss him when he's not around. He is our favorite Ace Attorney character by a mile. Plus he's a the straight man (well, he's got his hidden eccentricities, but for comedic purposes he's the straight man) in a world of lunacy. The first game leaned heavy on that joke and it always made me smile.

2: Catra - She-Ra (2018) - Our tag for She-Ra is "Catra Did Nothing Wrong" and she is the character in all of fiction I would go up to bat for every time if I saw a debate start up on a Discord I frequent. I'll be straight. She's our (Camden's, anyway) BPD projection character. I adore watching characters with crucial personal failings get swallowed up by dramatic irony. There's something so powerful in being an audience member and knowing what a character wants, what they need, what they should do-- while understanding it's not in their nature to do it. I wanted her to stay with Scorpia in the desert where she was respected and comfortable but knew that it just couldn't be. I loved all the moments where her failings caught up with her. When Scorpia walked away from her, when Double Trouble gave her emergency therapy, the way she struggled with her hair and entire season to force herself to be something she couldn't sustain. I love Catra more than I can measure. I could write essays on how I would do exactly as she did in Season 2 and ruin EVERYTHING for just the chance of a parent proving that they loved her. To be consumed by self-doubts and paranoia and terror of abandonment. Catra is the character we are most like in all of fiction. For better and for worse. Much like her, we're trying to be better.

3: M'gann M'orzz/Miss Martian - Young Justice - Surprisingly I have two Greg Weisman shows on this bingo and no fandom tags for his work, I am using my generic DC tag here. I should change that at some point. M'gann gets so much character development over the 4 seasons of Young Justice. From a starting point of her blue and orange morality of being a Martian not understanding Earth customs causing her to break consent boundaries with her abilities and hurt people (including a fairly uncomfortable angle where she grooms Connor to be her fantasy boyfriend without him knowing what she's doing) to her learning in season 2 that a black and white morality is hardly any better (she mind crushes enemies, thinking that it's good to pacify evil until she does this to someone who turned out to be innocent) to her being a transgender allegory in season 4 (where she meshes the two cultures that she's part of and tries to gain cultural acceptance). There are elements of her story which are under baked, we know that she received a heavy amount of discrimination growing up due to her being a white martian and the arc of her embracing her heritage happens off screen between seasons 2 and 3. Her romance with Connor was well handled, though, particularly as she was not virtuous. In season 2 she was in the wrong (having tried to mind control Connor against his consent) and reacted very poorly to his rejection of her and used a rebound relationship to make him jealous (fortunately Lagoon Boy ended up in a healthy poly family and is doing great. Did I mention Young Justice has good relationship dynamics? Because it does). As with Catra I adore characters who have made mistakes and take a slow road to making up for those mistakes because it begins dialogues about their ethics and every season of Young Justice is about trust, communication, deceit and manipulation and Megan is easily the most complex character when it comes to those themes, particularly as her abilities allow her to blur those lines even in her personal relationships. She's an ethical trainwreck and I love her.

Every character in Young Justice brings something to the table and I think I should note how that deep vein of character driven story telling brings out the best in others. I had mentioned Megan groomed Connor. She was obsessed with an Earth sitcom when she was on Mars and decided to become the main character of it and then when presented with the newly born Superboy decided to start treating him as that Sitcom's love interest who was named Connor. It was a massive violation and Connor was hurt and confused when he learned and it was also in an episode where Megan lied about her racial heritage and Connor, who had been inside her mind, KNEW she was lying and told her outright that she shouldn't fear his judgment. The thing about Connor is that his arc is about finding personal identity when he is defined by everyone else's expectations and impressions. Cadmus and Lex literally programmed him, Superman put him in a box and kept distance from him, the Genomorphs have expectation of him, the team have expectation of him, even his girlfriend is trying to shape him and for much of the show he struggles with it but doesn't reject it. He finds comfort in being accepted in these windows of projection and expectation and I find that him learning who he really is and what he stands for to be one of the more compelling narrative threads throughout the 4 seasons. He and Megan are the main couple in a show about trust and communication after all and I think it should go that the character who typically displays the most raw honesty and vulnerability should be paired off with the most ethically complicated character because they bring the most out of one another while still wanting their relationship to succeed. I know much of the audience dislikes the pair and thinks Connor forgiving and eventually marrying Megan is a bridge too far but I really think they work for one another and even when they don't, from a storytelling perspective it's compelling as shit.

4: Briar Moss - The Circle of Magic - When I started this meme Daja (username relevant, yes) asked if I was going to pick Tris or Briar. They are both "Camden characters" with one being a child who has been kicked out of her biological family and the other being someone who grew up in extreme poverty adapting to moving up the caste system. I went with Briar purely because of the 4 siblings he is the one with the most interesting dynamics with his mentor and student. Evvy sticks around in the main cast while the other apprentices do not hang around and Dedicate Rosethorn is my favorite adult in the franchise easily. Briar is a streetwise kid who has to learn how to trust and rely on people and sadly in the third quartet (pending Tris' Lightsbridge book being written) he gets a painfully accurate depiction of PTSD. I wrote about my reaction to the ending of Will of the Empress a while ago and I stand by my comments. Briar building a safe place as the home he built with his siblings and staying there when he was tortured burned my heart. As did the sequence of him deciding that if Rosethorn was going to let herself die then he was going to follow her. As I'll allude later, I have experience there... and it certainly aided my fondness for Briar.

Much of the fun of the Circle of Magic series is seeing how the siblings adapt to their abundance of magical potential and I love the fact that for 3 of the 4 this is depicted via external means. For Daja Kitsubo and Sandry it is via their art, Daja bends and shapes metal, pouring her power into items where Sandry weaves it into fabric. Briar cultivates his via life. He grows plants and those plants are imbued with his magic. If I had picked Tris this would be where I note that her magic is entirely stored within her, bottled up (literally when she starts glasswork) and too much to contain. Magic is emotion, it is passion, it is a connection to life and the world and with Briar his is not giving shape to his creations, it is cultivating the growth of things that cannot be tamed, he communes with the wild of the world and aids it and heals it. Daja and Sandry give their power shape and form as art. Tris tames the raging storm inside and eventually scries the winds to connect with the world without letting it break her, Briar's power is in love and nurture (which I adores as he is the only member of the 4 with masculine pronouns- as with all Tammy's work, gender is not a box) and it's fitting that his connection to both mentor and student be the strongest due to this.

Also his tattoos are cool.

For a personal anecdote that happened while we were reading Briar's Book. Towards the end there's a sequence where Rosethorn and Briar had an argument in the afterlife and Rosethorn only chose to live again because Briar would have let himself die otherwise. That parent-child suicide gambit--- that's what I was alluding to before. I don't want to type more than is necessary about it. We have experience. It caused a switch and our girlfriend, Daja, is observant enough that she noted the shift in how we typed. Particularly in how we used the word "ain't" which apparently is something specific only to our male part, Craig. Daja was so lovely, kind and caring in accepting him, seeing him and not pressuring him when he was out that it helped us heal a part of our heart that we had pushed away. I'll always remember that whenever I read that book or think of Briar. It's a huge part of why we're fond of the character.

Incidentally if I picked from Tortall I'd have been paralyzed for choice with Numair, Daine, Kyprioth, Farmer, Kel and Alanna herself. Tamora Pierce writes amazing characters.

5: Jesse Faden - Control - Is Control an isekai? It starts with our main character talking about crawling through the hole behind a poster as if it were the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.

Anyway, there's a fantastic character analysis I read once that spoke about the relationship between the director of the FBC and the service weapon with Northmoor trying to impose his will upon the Oldest House and the items within it and Trench being a turn-key manager who simply filled the power vacuum and spent his career trying to find a suitable replacement. These represent the two extremes of Jesse's potential leadership of the Federal Bureau of Control. She could either go all in and try to claim ownership of the Bureau and impose her will upon the forces that are too strong to control or she could reluctantly attempt to maintain the Bureau without considering herself actually in charge of it. What she actually does is she finds a path of humility. She is the janitor's assistant. Neither king nor steward of the bureau but the custodian of it. She does not seek control nor does she seek to pass on the responsibility. She merely manages the messes and does so as an assistant. Ahti is the most powerful entity in the game by far and by trusting in him and following his direction, Jesse becomes the perfect head of the bureau.

I was predisposed to love her because she has red hair, she was a lot like the tabletop character I took my name from, she's got a queer dynamic with the head of research and technically she's plural. She's wonderful.

Oh and she's an oddball. I love the little hints of just how weird Jesse is beneath her protagonist swagger. I should probably write more about her, particularly as much of her depth as a character is not obvious from a surface read of the material. Maybe I will some day, but I love her.

6: Chidi Anagonye - The Good Place - The Good Place is a sitcom adaptation of Jean-Paul Satre's play No Exit and involves 4 people sent to hell and are utilized to be one another's unwitting tormentors. The thing is that part of the message of the virtue ethics driven show is that in the modern world every action we do or do not do causes additional suffering in the world and the 4 "cockroaches" are not bad souls, they just made choices that made them bad people. For Chidi he is a good and loving person who is kind and heavily believes in virtue ethics. He belongs in hell because he's anxious and indecisive and makes people's lives harder by worrying so much about how to be a good person. I love Chidi because his growth is less about becoming a better person and more about being confident enough in his convictions to know he's a good person. In every reality he will inevitably help the other cockroaches and teach them to be better people because that's who he is. But he's also selfless to a literal fault. It's one of his damnable traits. After everyone makes it to heaven people can enjoy paradise until they're ready to move on and he decides to continue past the point of which he makes peace with moving on because he doesn't want to hurt Eleanor.

The final episode of Good Place made me gross sob so much and a big part of it is the sofa scene where Chidi explains his personal philosophy after countless lifetimes of discussing, teaching and learning philosophy he gives Eleanor one final lesson on their final night and then, on request, disappears while she's asleep. Heaven knows I understand making that request of someone you love.

He's the heart of the entire experience. Truthfully I love all 4 of the cockroaches and it comes down to how I reacted to their final episodes. Chidi's final moments were the most powerful of the show for me. I love him so much and admire him.

Plus he's a philosophy nerd and as a fellow philosophy nerd <3 I love love love him!

7: Allison "Ally" Carter - Sunstone - Every character in Sunstone deserves to be on this list but I went with Ally because (much like with Chidi) when I have difficulty picking between a stacked cast of great characters I go for the love interest of the protagonist because people really shine when the perspective character is in love with them.

Ally is a god damned dork and she's also an incredible domme. Sunstone is a romance about entering the world of kink circles and navigating the troubled waters that come with consensual risks, emotionally charged play and non-standard relationship dynamics. I love the way the story is presented so much that it is my strongest inspiration for Madison/Belladonna stories.

The thing I love most about Ally is that she's not just the amazing dominant that she plays during the spicy scenes. We get to see her freaking out with nervousness, scared about having to host and live up to expectation, we see her be an absolute nerd, we see her in her element while performing.

I've been Ally and the people I love most have been Ally. Being a Top is hard as heck and you can't help but love the dork as she lives up to expectation while trying to be an adult. Seeing her and Alan literally learning the ropes in the recent GNs has been a gosh darn treat!

8: Elliot Alderson/Mr.Robot (Alderson System) - Mr. Robot - What can I say about my dear Elliot that I haven't already said in my DID Representation in Mr. Robot essay? I love him. The whole system. Though I have an affinity for protectors and so Mr. Robot himself is my favorite. He is such a protector that he will attack his host (well, the show fucks up that aspect of DID enough that it's complicated to call the Elliot we see in the show a host) in order to save him from the evils of late-stage capitalism. When pre-show Elliot wants a way out of loneliness and the evils of modern society he fantasizes about taking it all down. The Elliot in the show just wants to make the evils of the world pay, Mr. Robot is perfectly okay killing entire buildings of collateral to achieve his goals. Not because he's evil but because he's laser focused on his mission. I respect the shit out of that, especially as later seasons show that he's not even remotely as capable as he thinks he is.

The scene during the "sitcom" episode where he takes a beating so Elliot doesn't have to was the moment he won me over and then in season 4 he has the speech where he begs Elliot to understand that he is not their father and that he will disappear if it will help him out of the dark hole he's in. Just the fact that, post memory retrieval, he starts by saying "hey, kiddo..." despite that being the reminder of who he is modeled after. Mr. Robot cannot help but be a manifestation of Edward Alderson, it's who he is, it's why he is. Elliot needed a version of his father who was not a monster. I love him deeply. I love the whole system. Even Magda for all her 7 minutes of screen time.

Plus, Elliot summed up the thesis of the show in the final episodes in saying that changing the world is about living and being visible and in not backing down, no matter what.

And then there's the monologue. Fuck I love this show and these dumb hacker boy.

9: "Badeline"/A Part Of You - Celeste - Well, we're on the topic of plurality so let's stay there. Badeline's a fairly subjective character. Celeste's narrative isn't very long and she doesn't even have an official name. Even the DLC chapter refers to her as "A Part of You". But whether she is a living symbol of Madeline's depression, the doubts and fears she holds towards climbing the mountain/transition or is a protective alter in a plural system, I love her. I always have. The fear she puts into thinking Madeline wants to just get rid of her, the fact that she pushes Madeline to move past grieving Granny faster than Maddy is ready for.

Watching the pair learn to loan one another strength and conquer the mountain was lovely and then seeing Baddy try to stop Maddy from hurting herself in the DLC chapter only to be pushed away was heartbreaking. I just want these two to play nice.

I love that the entire objective of Celeste 64 was for Maddy to reach Baddy and say she's going to go on another adventure and soothe Baddy's fears. Climbing mountains is tough (happy trans day of visibility everyone!) and these two are going to continue doing it, so long as it's together <3

10: Laura Palmer - Twin Peaks (Fire Walk With Me) - So first off, read this essay for better words than we have. We could have picked Dale but Twin Peaks is a show about Laura Palmer and the community that failed her. Laura was a victim of abuse from her father and was commodified by the town who all chose to only see parts of her that they could use for sex, charity, kindness, validation etc etc. There's a meme that goes around:

and I think that at face value it's silly, but it's important to know that everyone in Twin Peaks was complicit in her murder because they used her up for all she was worth and the story works best when you consider that she had no one protecting her, no one saving her. This is why, in Fire Walk With Me, she talks about the angels not coming for her and Donna tries so hard to convince her that they can and will, because Donna, of all the people in Twin Peaks including Dale Cooper, does not want anything from Laura but her trust and friendship.

If you watch Twin Peaks and view Laura as "the victim" then you're doing yourself a disservice. She's a nuanced character and a horrifying Lynchian portrait of those who are caught in webs of abuse. But she has agency. She just has no meaningful way of escaping, particularly when by the end of her life she views the whole world as a prison full of users and abusers and when she finds someone who tries to offer her kindness, she rejects them at first and when they refuse to leave or back off, she tries to drag her down with her. It's only when she realizes that she's so far gone that she'll bring Donna into her personal hell that she decides to become the angel for her and save her. The Pink Room sequence in the movie may well be my favorite part of all the Twin Peaks saga. Laura Palmer is such a compelling character. I love her.

11: Lady Bird/Christine McPherson - Lady Bird - Lady Bird is a phenomenal movie and one of my all-time favorites. I'll split this one up into character and then personal attachment.

For the film, Catherine/Lady Bird is a young woman raised in Sacramento in 2002. She goes to a catholic school because her parents are afraid of sending her to the local public school. Well, I say her parents but the movie is entirely about Lady Bird and her mother. In that regard it is a tough movie to watch because the pair clash so much. Lady Bird and her mom are both willful women and care a lot about what other people think about them. They see one another in the other and hate what they see while still loving one another.

The conflict between Marion and Lady Bird typically displays itself in Marion's refusal to refer to Lady Bird by the name she has chosen for herself. In the Opening Scene she says that "it's stupid and it's not your name" and continually talks down to her daughter, saying that she cannot get into a New York college because she couldn't pass her driver's test (which Lady Bird argues was because Marion refused to let her practice). These clashes continue throughout the movie and any time Lady Bird figures out a way to reframe a critique against her mom she just pivots away. Another example is the "Name a number" scene where after being told that she has no idea how much money it takes to raise her and Lady Bird responds by demanding a number so that she can pay her back; Marion just says "you'll never get a job that earns that much money".

All of this squabbling makes the most sense with the scene in Goodwill where Lady Bird confesses "I just wish that you liked me" to which Marion, dodging again, says "Of course I love you" and Lady Bird calls her on it with "But do you like me?"

Marion pauses and says "I just want you to be the best version of yourself you can be" and Lady Bird, hurt and knowing she won't make a connection says "What if this is the best version of me there is" and Marion gives an incredulous look before letting it sink in. The fact is she is trying to be the best mother she can be and is confronted with the vulnerability that maybe neither she nor her daughter is failing to be their best, maybe this is the best and she has to make peace with that.

That's why I love the movie so much. Two women who want the best for themselves and thus each other but are completely unable to understand one another or connect and speak different emotional languages. It's such a powerful and honest narrative about growing up and becoming your own person. I find the conclusion a little too forgiving on the mother's side, but I love Lady Bird. I love how willful she is, I love how cultured she wants to be. I love how she just wants to be part of the world she feels connected to while knowing she is on the outside of it. Legitimately one of my favorite film characters of all time.

For personal attachment. Camden Dawn is the name of one of my OCs, I first wrote her in 2001 but the version I consider "Camden Dawn" started off in tabletop games that began in 2010. Camden was a raised catholic by two parents who were obsessed with optics and how Camden's behavior reflected on her and their household and she successfully emancipated herself from them after managing to get them to fund her to go to college in Chicago. Over the 7 years I wrote that version of Camden she was always special to me. More than I think I could display to my tabletop group at the time. I considered her my "trainwrecksona" the fantasy version of what we would be like if we were allowed to express our anger, frustration and pain. Camden smoked, she had an alcohol problem, she made bad relationship decisions and was a mess. Watching Lady Bird was like seeing a film version of everything that I was trying to do be done by a masterful actor, director and screenwriter. There is no amount of language I can put into how powerful it is to pour so much of yourself into a fictional character you created, enough of yourself that you adopted her name as your own and to see someone take all the passion and soul that you tried to convey through fiction and do it better. It was awe, admiration and connection.

I'm not Camden (the character) and I'm certainly not Christine. But I understand what emotions go into writing a character like that. How can I not love her when she's the culmination of everything I love about my favorite original character?

12: Bill - It's Such A Beautiful Day - Three heavy movie characters in a row. Bill suffers from an unspecified psychological disorder that messes with his perception of reality and his memories. The movie is an outside view of his life and the narrator becomes so attached to him by the end that it cannot bear to let him go. "He lives and lives until all the lights go out." is such a powerful line to end the production with because that's it. That's all any of us get. The world may continue on without us but our capacity to perceive this beautiful trainwreck is only within us and there's no grander design than that. We live and then the lights go out. Even our memories may die before our ability to perceive. The movie talks about how we start looking forward, start looking back and in the end... all we can do is look around.

Which makes the bus ride so unspeakably poignant, long before the titular Beautiful Day. As the narrator says early on in the experience, life isn't the big memorable experiences, it's all of the tiny little things that happen in between. That bus ride, Bill looking at the raindrops and admiring the world. That's far more true than any moment in the film and what Hertzfeld wants the audience to pick up through the experience.

I became attached to him during the runtime. The mundane thoughts of a person who begins the story with the news that he's going to die and ends up finding the sentiment that gives the movie its title.

Hertzfeld does such an amazing job with Bill. The subtle gestures like how he wrings his hands together or the wrinkles under his eyes betraying his fear and worries. He's a stick figure in a world of stick figures and all he has to differentiate himself is his hat. We cannot even hear him speak because the movie is conveyed only by the narration and yet the animation gives him so much personality.

There are so many scenes which just connect so well, like when he meets his father despite both men being so incapable of understanding the relevance of what is happening.

Bill lives until he doesn't anymore and we share the journey of life with him. It's breathtakingly beautiful.

13: Susan Sto Helit - Discworld - Susan is really three characters. Soul Music Susan, Hogfather Susan (goth Mary Poppins) and Thief of Time Susan (goth Ms. Frizzle).

I love her. I love her more than I have words for. Especially Thief of Time Susan.

She's almost human. Part of her will always be a deity. She is the granddaughter of DEATH and much of her character in Hogfather and Thief of Time is attached to her wanting to embrace her human side. But it's in Thief of Time where she learns that what she's looking for is not to be accepted within humanity, but she wants to find someone who is like her. That's why I adore her connection to Lobsang. She puts up a ward of sensible Susan and tries to be practical and put together but she's a deeply emotional woman and she's lonely because no one else shares her experiences.

She loves her grandfather very much but she cannot abide by "the family business", she is kind to him but wants to be her own person and she ends up finding herself more attached to children because they haven't lost their curiosity yet, in many ways she finds they are more sensible than adults because they haven't decided how things are and closed their hearts and minds to ideas outside of what they think and expect.

Susan is important to me. I love her dearly.

14: Ben Reilly - Spider-Man - We're unapologetic in our love of the clone saga. The thing about Ben (and Kaine) is that he's a fantastic character study into the nature and nurture of Peter Parker and the writers had so many fun and cool ideas for how to handle a version of Peter who had 5 years to not be Spider-Man.

One of my alltime favorite moments in comics is when Aunt May died and Peter is embraced by MJ and Anna, he's surrounded by family. Ben is on the roof, alone. Ben's has no one because he's a clone and completely broken off from others. He slowly builds his own family over time and considers Peter (and Kaine) his brother(s) but it takes time.

The lost years are where he exemplified himself in my eyes. We get to see how he grows from finding out he's not Peter Parker until he returns to New York. How he tries to walk away from responsibility, how he tries to live a normal life. He's a tragic character because no matter how much he wants to be a different man, he still has Peter's memories and cannot help but have the drive that makes him Spider-Man.

15: "Sunshine" Joe Fixit (Banner System) - Hulk - So I did two whole essays on Banner's system with the second part entirely about Joe and Betty's relationship. Fact is Joe is what happens when a man is so repressed and ashamed of himself that he cannot act out. Joe is all of the things that Bruce wants, lusts for, desires but cannot allow himself to act out upon. He's capable of lying, cheating, stealing and killing in a way Bruce can never allow himself to believe he is capable of. The period of time that Peter David was writing Joe as the main front of the system gave us some incredible insights into the widening chasm between his morality and Bruce's as well as what Joe finds himself wanting. There was a period of time where changing into Banner was the greatest fear of Hulk(Fixit) and it worked remarkably well to see the two having their day and night battle for dominance.

But what really made me love him more was the Immortal series where he's in Banner's body and needs to keep the body safe the way that only he can. The latter half of the comic Bruce is not even in the system and it's just Joe and Savage against the world. Joe's a reluctant protector. He used to be a hedonist but over time his affection for the system

Look at this page (first panel especially) from a 4 page side-story where Joe is talking to their therapist and briefly remembers Brian Banner beating the shit out of him and how he would take the beating so Bruce didn't have to.

Joe's attachment to Mike was evident in Peter David's run and solidifying that Joe just wants a father figure is such amazing characterization. With both Mr. Robot and Hulk I love how these adults are driven by childhood notions of safety and comfort. I even hint on it a bit with Catra too with how she sold herself out to get a chance of Shadow Weaver's affection. Good trauma representation is showing how a character carries their past into their present and Joe is a manifestation of Bruce's repressed anger and childhood trauma just as much Hulk himself is. Joe just wants what we all want, to be loved and protected in a world where the person who owed him both those things failed to do either. In lieu of being loved himself, he's damned well going to love his inner family, especially the kid.

16: Kimberly Wexler - Better Call Saul - Kim is a phenomenal character in a character driven drama. Again, when surrounded by amazing characters I go for the protagonist's love interest. But here it's different. In the final season Kim is approached by Mike. Mike is the most level headed guy in the canon. He's the one who is objectively right about everyone and has a good eye to who people are. Enough that Season 4 of the show only makes sense if you consider they needed a season long plot arc for why he didn't execute Walter where he stood in during BrBa.

Mike approached Kim because he judged that she was the one who could be trusted with the information that he had about Lalo Salamanca, another incredible character in a show full of them. Kim is headstrong, crafty and hates being talked down to. She is attracted to Jimmy because they are equals and she typically acts up when Jimmy doesn't display the trust and respect that he owes her.

Throughout the show we get glimpses of her childhood and there are some gems with her mom. She refuses to be picked up from school when her mom shows up late and drunk and ends up walking home miles on her own. There's a scene where she steals from a store and her mom picks her up and acts up the punishment she would get only to laugh about the store manager after leaving the scene. Kim had a tough childhood and bad rolemodels and yet still clawed her way up to being a lawyer.

We get to see her realize that the system is inherently broken to its core and no amount of pro-bono work within the system will make a difference, she is reduced to constantly being hit with "did Jimmy put you up to this" levels of disrespect for her agency. Kim is fascinating because she was always the capable one and Mike and Jimmy are about the only people in the show who can see it and even Jimmy can't when his ego gets in the way.

Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to go apeshit?

Kim is best girl and Rhea Seehorn should be given every Emmy forever.

17: Johnny Truant/Pelafina H. Lièvre/The Book Itself - House of Leaves - This one is a total cheat. The fact is I wanted to type "anyone who types in Courier or Dante fonts" but the book is a mind worm and the mere act of trying to communicate about it is a bottomless pit that will make you look like you're in front of a Pepe Silvia wall. The fact is nothing inside of the book House of Leaves can be said to have happened in any meaningful sense. It's a journal of a man reading an analysis of a film of events that likely didn't happen and the person at the top of that narrative pyramid (well, under The Editors, I suppose) is an admitted liar. Which means that I cannot say The Whalestone Letters are true or not. I can say that they are my favorite part of the book and judging from my interaction with the only fandom, this makes me a little unhinged. Johnny's panic attack at seeing purple ink, the back and forth on whether Pelafina attempted to strangle Johnny as a child or not, why her secret decoded message mentions Zampano, how her letters can refer to events after she died... as I said, it's a bottomless pit and the more you think about it the more insane you become. Fact is, Johnny is an interesting character and there's a lot to him and part of that IS the fact you cannot tell if he's lying and that means that if he forged his mother's letters they are his words and if he didn't she's equally compelling in her complexities. We have an unknowable psyche of someone who is both inviting us in to see the innards of his soul AND pushing us away so we can not know him, see him or judge him. It's brutally honest AND guarded. Deceptive while bearing everything. I tend to feel strongly for characters if they go through something I've been through because I get to see someone else deal with the thought processes I went through, I don't need to see myself reflected in that, just empathize with the fact they're dealing with it. A parent being put away in a mental care facility is fucking tough shit and as I saw Johnny's trauma unfold through his journals I cared more about him and wanted to understand him more.

Which brings us to the end of his portion of the narrative and his big "fuck you" to the reader. I'll admit it. Upon first reading I was hurt by Johnny's betrayal of the reader and then I realized, much in the same way HBomb's described during his analysis of Pathologic, that I knew the entire time I was reading a book and Johnny wasn't real, that by feeling betrayed and hurt by his lies it just showed I cared and that he had made me care. No character has ever violated the attachment I form with fictional characters in such a way that really made me understand how one-sided and false that connection was and it was a unique experience. Certainly one that makes me love the character, for all I know they are an unknowable wreck and I cannot ever truly understand them. House of Leaves is a mirror and it reflects everything you put into it and that's why I love it so much. The experience of reading that book is mine and mine alone. My relationship with the book and its characters is unique. It cannot be replicated. It can barely be described.

18: Puck/Owen Burnett - Gargoyles - Seems I posted without writing about Puck! Better edit it in. I LIKE FAE AND BUSINESS MAN OWEN AND I'LL EDIT THIS IN LATER I PROMISE!

5/4 edit: okay, I promised. So here's the thing about Greg Wiesman's writing. He sometimes is fixated on his internal consistency to the detriment of story. I love Gargoyles, I love Spectacular Spidey and I love Young Justice. But they are flawed works and their flaws are Greg shaped.

I love them, though, because in the 90s, only a few years after Twin Peaks brought long-form storytelling out of Soap Opera and into drama, Gargoyles had consequences and growth which at the time were not really things. Gargoyles was essentially Disney's version of the 80s TMNT cartoon and by all rights it should have been a pale imitation. With Turtles the archetypes were baked into the DNA and the growth typically came from new toys being added to the line. So my "too young to remember watching but young enough to imprint and rewatch a ton of times as an adult" mind was spellbound when Eliza is shot and takes months in universe to recover. Xanatos is imprisoned from corporate crimes and serves a 6 month sentence in show that opens the door to new plots. Brooklyn's or Lex's reaction to Demona's or Fox's betrayal inform how they treat people and situations throughout the show. Broadway's hatred of guns. Hudson's illiteracy slowly being worked on.

The show rewarded you for paying attention in a time when such things didn't exist.

So why is Owen my favorite?

Well, as stated above. We love Fae. Dawn considers herself to be Seelie and though the show is actually really bad with sourcing its folklore and mythology, famously placing the Norse pantheon under Shakespeare's interpretation of Fae lore (the lengths of "all worldwide culture is sourced to The Bard's depiction of Celtic/Gaelic folklore" is actually kind of Ancient Aliens levels of xenophobic to my adult mind), their depiction of Faerie was deeply enjoyable.

Owen is Puck. The same guy who rides on Kratos' belt in the latest God of War games. He's a trickster and a magician and the supreme master of Keyfabe. There are big damned twists that are introduced in shows that you wonder "when did they know?" And for this one I really do think it was from the start which is ambitious as heck. If not from Season 1's 13 episodes then from day one of Season 2's 50+. When Preston Vogel is introduced the similarities between Owen and Preston are apparent instantly. When Demona turns NYC into stone she binds Owen in iron and calls him "the tricky one."

It's a fair mystery in what may be the first ever kids cartoon to do long-form storytelling. It may not be easy to work out the specifics but it fits so perfectly. With most of these other characters my love comes from who they are, what they are allegories of or how I relate to them. I could have picked Demona and just had her be Proto-Catra. But Owen was the first time I was shown a character who had all the puzzle pieces for a big twist that made sense and was fair to an audience. It taught me how to tell stories and how to reward those I tell stories to. I owe him a lot for that. Plus I want to make out with him. Human or Fae form. He's hot.

Also, also, love the addition of his stone fist. The loyalty to plunge his hand into the cauldron and the continuity to just keep him with an unbreakable/unmoveable stone fist was just awesome.

19: JJ MacField - The Missing ((JJ Macfield and the Island of Missing Memories) - Beating this game made me come out the closet. I'd known I was trans for almost 20 years before playing it but when I beat it I told the support network in my life at the time that I couldn't stay in the closet any longer and began formally socially transitioning.

The Missing is about two girls going to an island. JJ and Emily. Emily tried to initiate intimacy and JJ pulled back and soured the mood, when she wakes up the next morning Emily is gone and JJ has to puzzle solve through themed areas of the island to find her. As you progress text messages fill you in on JJ's life.

So. Being honest? I thought it was a game about being a lesbian. I thought that it was about JJ coming to terms with her sexuality, even when her mother is controlling monster (literally in terms of the game) and sent her to conversion therapy. Nope. Turns out JJ is trans and I didn't see it. I didn't know.

I played the game on release day and just... didn't figure that out.

JJ is a cutie who loves donuts, she loves her stuffed plushie, she loves Emily, she loves flowing fashion. The game sadly is a nightmare from her trying to kill herself and being saved.

The thing is, though, the game's aftercare is so healing. After beating the game you have the opportunity to play the game without JJ's "idealized" dream form. You can play as socially transitioning JJ with her developmental voice, change her wig, let her experiment her look. Here's some gallery items showing the differences between first run and second run versions of JJ.

and I think it's beautiful to show her as being the same person no matter what she appears on the outside. Because she's JJ. Voice, wig, eye color and outfit do not change the fact she's a sleepy donut gremlin.

I could write more. Like how the themes of the game are the amount of pain one must endure to actualize as their true selves and how learning to live with that helps you pull yourself together and become endure more (not to fetishize suffering, but well, learning to endure pain can be virtuous if you cannot avoid it) or how the player becomes the final boss themselves and lashes out against Emily to show how her attempted suicide was a harmful act.

The thing I adore most though is that the final secret in the game, the reward for everything is photographs of JJ and Emily going clothes shopping and buying the outfit that JJ wears during the game.

Fuck that story makes me so happy. Especially from the perspective we were in when we were closeted.

As a sidenote, I own a F.K plushie and love it very much.

20: Korra - The Legend of Korra - Running low on steam but I'll be quick and say "Avatar is the story of a normal little boy finding out that he's the chosen one and having to learn how to save the world. Korra is the story of the chosen one who was raised to save the world learning to become a normal woman."

I find the latter so much more compelling than the first. Especially when season 4 spends so much time on her rehabilitation after Season 3 left her disabled. The depiction of both recovering from a severe injury and the PTSD was well handled.

Anyway. She's rad.

21: Hal "Otacon" Emmerich - Metal Gear Solid - He's the spiritual child of Dr. Strangelove and The Boss. Huey was a sperm donor and nothing more. Hal's an idiot. He's a geek. He's a hopeless romantic who makes dumb mistakes. He's also Snake's husband and Sunny's father and he saved the world. I love him.

But really the single 10 minute recording from Strangelove in MGSV where she outright explains that Hal is the true heir to The Boss' will is what elevates him. In a world of war, he is peace. Yes he's a dumb otaku who built a nuclear battle tank that could destroy the world but he truly and dearly believes in peace and spends his entire life being better and being kind and being compassionate. In time he turns from Snake's failwife to the savior of humanity.

Hal is a good father, a terrible heterosexual and a cute lil' guy.

22: Adonis "Donnie" Creed/Johnson - Creed - Gosh I wish I wrote about him when I had more in the tank but I'm 22 characters in, the end is in sight and I'm tired. The Rocky franchise is a special series of movies. We get to see the same man through 50 years and even in the first film they were talking about him being past his prime. I chose Donnie over Rocky though because Creed is my a contender for my favorite movie of all time. Ryan Coogler said about it

"[My father] used to play [the Rocky movies] before I had football games to pump me up, and he would get really emotional watching the movies. He used to watch Rocky II with his mom while she was sick and dying of cancer. She passed away when he was 18 years old. And so when he got sick he was losing his strength because he had a muscular condition. He was having trouble getting around, having trouble carrying stuff. I started thinking about this idea of my dad’s mortality. For me he was kind of like this mythical figure, my father, similar to what Rocky was for him. Going through it inspired me to make a film that told a story about his hero going through something similar to kind of motivate him and cheer him up. That’s how I came up with the idea for this movie."

"If I fight, you fight"

It's about a father being a hero, it's about being strong enough to live up to legacy, it's about passing down knowledge and inspiration from one generation to the next. Donnie is a conflicted character. On one hand he is the foster care kid who got into fights in juvie. On the other hand he is the son of world famous Apollo Creed and raised in a mansion. He is Adonis Creed and he is Donnie Johnson. Both of these are true and that conflict burns within Donnie because he burns for a father he never got to meet and connection to a world he's not part of anymore. In being rescued from his group home situation by Mary-Anne he left behind all he knew. We learn more about his childhood prior to juvie in Creed III. Point is, he's hurting to make a place for himself and prove he belongs. The armor piercing quote in the first movie is when he says "I gotta prove it - That I wasn't a mistake."

I cried when I first saw that scene and just loved him. Rocky movies are about underdogs putting their heart into what they do and overcoming the odds and winning the moral victory. Donnie isn't a perfect person. He's kind of an arrogant jerk at times, but I adore him.

The second and third movie are heavily about his growing relationship with his wife, Bianca, who is the star of her own movie that should exist too, about becoming a performing music artist while her hearing is fading. His daughter is born deaf and he has to adapt to her hearing loss. Watching Donnie learn ASL and just exist with his family is one of the highlights of the movies because though there's a brief scare in Creed II where Rocky asks if he's going to love his daughter if she's born deaf, the franchise never treats Bianca or Amara's disability as anything more than a part of who they are.

Creed movies are the best. I hope Michael B Jordan makes them as long as Stallone hung with the Rocky franchise.

23: Parker - Leverage - She was a side character who became the star of the show. Parker is brilliant. A foster kid who tangled with a brilliant gentleman thief and learned to be the best there ever was. She's autistic, she's brilliant and she's an oddball. Her relationship with Hardison was the emotional backbone of the show and throughout the entire show her need for a family is one of the threads that ties seasons together. Season 4 includes an episode where she needs to learn to dance from Hardison and he says "I've got you, I've always got you" and prepares an escape route for her at the end of the episode only for the finale to have a callback where she saves him on an elevator wire with the "I've got you". If you watch Leverage through the lens of her rising to become the new mastermind you have a 5 season show (and ongoing revival) about a girl who never fit in everywhere, prickly and defensive and unable to understand other people creating a family for herself, building a better world and being the best version of herself she can be.

Also she really hates it when people are mean to kids and I love that about her.

I love Parker. Häagen-Dazs!

24: Asuka Langley Sohru - Neon Genesis Evangelion - Why did I leave her until last? Asuka prides herself on being the best EVA pilot. She is not the best EVA pilot.

She wants Kaji, a grown man who will never be with her.

She wants her mother to have not succumb to mental illness and projected all her maternal affection onto an inanimate doll who she hung alongside herself, leaving Asuka alone in the world and so thoroughly rejected that when her mom killed herself she took the effigy of her daughter with her on the way out.

Asuka doesn't get what she wants.

Instead she gets Shinji. Someone who, while complaining the entire time about how much he hates and doesn't want to do it, is a better EVA pilot than she is. Who in End of EVA...

Well.

Y'know.

Asuka is a cautionary tale of what happens when you pin all of your personality, your reason for existing, your pride and passion onto a single thing that you do not control. It can be taken away from you and it will leave you with nothing.

Asuka needs to put others down to feel good about herself because the source of her self-esteem is in her ability to perform a task that may not always be there, that others may surpass her in. She needs to learn to create worth from within, not from external praise and validation. Shinji shares that flaw.

EVA is a show with a lot to say about isolation and connection. About drive and purpose. About the reason why we exist and what we do with our the time we're given. Hopefully through looking at the other 23 entries and seeing the themes, you'll see it's pretty clear she's just my type of character.

I love her.

BONUS

Because I didn't do all my tags, here's the remaining tags with my favorite characters:

POTO - Erik Castlevania - Alucard Umineko - Beatrice Sonic - Fleetway Super Sonic Persona - Aigis Sailor Moon - Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter Scott Pilgrim - Kim Pines Pathologic - Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky (the fact I do not have to justify this down here is a big reason he's not on the bingo)

[adarlingmess]

I think I finally figured out what's off. It's misogyny, pure and simple.

Villainesses and anti-heroines had been sexualized since time immemorial. In the last 100 years we see them from film noir femme fatales, to Bond girls, to comic book characters like Catwoman and The Baroness.

Videogames weren't safe from this phenomenon. In RPGs where romances are becoming popular, players are given the choice to go after the "bad girl"... While "bad boys" are more scarce in comparison. Why?

I don't want to throw my fellow sapphics under the bus, but even with the significant cultural shifts in the recent years, these romances with bad girls are marketed towards cisgender heterosexual men. Men in fiction are allowed to play with fire and possibly reform or conquer these dangerous women. Villainess romances fulfill sexual, romantic, and power fantasies for them. When a man expresses attraction towards a villainess, I've never seen anyone tell him "but she's evil!" and men don't get shamed for that. Evil is sexy... if the evil in question is a she.

Meanwhile, women get derided for loving bad boy romances that we used to mostly get from romance novels. These fictional men aren't even villains, they're just bad boys. Until recently the recent explosion of villain romances in circles like booktok, villains and anti-heroes that are romantically or sexually linked to the female protagonist are often depicted as predatory, irredeemable creatures who aims to destroy the purity of these women, such as Dracula towards Mina, and Erik/The Phantom towards Christine.

As a femme queer participant of fandoms, I observed that women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community get so much flak from wanting the villains and anti-heroes, and a small but vocal part of the BG3 fandom even engages in that bullshit. I've seen folks, especially cishet men, who mock female and LGBTQIA gamers for romancing Astarion and wanting romances with villains like Raphael and Gortash. The worst of them fall into redpill nice guy rhetoric, saying shit like "uGh wOmEn'S rOmAnCe oPtIoNs pRoVe tHaT tHeY wAnT aSsHoLes aNd dOn'T gIvE nIcE gUyS LiKe Us A cHaNcE."

This misogynistic phenomenon infantilizes women and queer folks, making them seem like naive children who can't differentiate fiction from reality, while men indulge in the same fantasies without reproach.

We just want options. Personally, I always wanted to see what could've happened if Mina Harker damns Jonathan and stays with Dracula. I've always wondered how things would have turned out if Christine chose the Phantom instead of going with Raoul. As mentioned above, the rise of villain romances in books is starting to balance the scales. Now that videogames have become a robust medium for storytelling, give us the option to explore these narratives.

There's a lack of morally grey/evil male romantic options for BG3.

Let me preface this by saying that the direction Larian Studios took for the romances are groundbreaking. I can definitely feel the effect they wanted us to feel with the romances- it feels like an actual relationship instead of a game where the end goal is just sex. The players are given an opportunity to influence their love interests and affect their storylines for better or for worse, just like how one would in a real relationship. Kudos!

But… I need to say it. As much as I love Baldur's Gate and BG3, the "bad girl" romance options are numerous (Viconia, Hexxat & arguably Safana in the predecessor games; Shadowheart, Lae'Zel, & Minthara + Mizora as a fling in 3) compared to the male (Dorn in 2, Astarion in 3). There's something off about it that I can't put my finger on. Plus, player have more control on whether to "fix" the bad girls or "make her worse". Meanwhile, Astarion is the only "bad boy" you can do that with. You can't even steer Dorn to a lighter path- he will straight up leave you if you are too good.

In Baldur's Gate 3, every male romance option except Astarion starts off as "good boy" romances. Gale and Wyll did questionable things but their alignment ultimately leans towards good. Halsin is a walking green flag. What if we want to roleplay a character who is into the "bad boys"? This is why we were clamoring for a Raphael and Abdirak romance since Early Access. I see folks wanting Nere and Gortash too. Where are our bastards? Please, we want to play with fire 👀