#Oh I DO also have a Self Insert fic I wrote of him once based on my headcanon for how the crater works

[kakusu-shipping]

YOOOO NEW EMILES JUST DROPPED!! Okay okay, so what are the individual ships for your new Pokemon s/is??? And also what are their origins? Is it like a same backstory, different timelines kinda deal or completely different backstories??

Thankyou Devin for being excited for the New Mes I create like monthly kjgksjgk Always a joy.

All 3 of these S/Is are completly separate persons that I had to do some MAJOR fanagling of story to keep from Interacting because I agree with you, writing yourself interacting with yourself is. Weird. And hard. fdkgjfdkj

The main Story S/I doesn't have a major romantic ship, he's more about the Platonics with Arven, Penny, Nemona, and Team Star. Though I do have a crush on my Armarouge Charlos, so I imagine post story they eventually get together.

My Teacher's Pet S/I was originally a NSFW X Reader I'd drafted up for a School Staff polycule concept I had that... Just kind of developed into more of an S/I as I made myself fall in love with the teachers... I could never write NSFW fic anyway so it's better this way in my opinion.

The DLC S/I is self shipped with Kieran and eventually Drayton and I talk about his backstory Here (No DLC spoilers)

I actually made my Main Story Self Insert LAST year around this same time, that post can be found Here, and nothing major has really changed about him I don't think, but I like his story so I'll tell it again in further detail under the cut!

Emile is the grandson of Director Clavell, and as a child spent all his time either in the lighthouse lab watching his grandfather and Sada work, or scrounging around outside with his brother (not biologically) Arven for any item they could sell for change.

Emile's first Pokemon was a wandering Gimmighoul he had befriended on top of the lighthouse. He was determined to give his Pokemon a chest full of treasure he could be proud of, and put a lot of work into collecting all sorts of coins for his Gimmighoul. He even hand made him a chest to put it all in!

Eventually, Sada and Clavell's research took them into the Great Crater, which meant Emile and Arven weren't allowed to visit them as often. To keep the two out of trouble (following them into the crater unsupervised), the two were enrolled in Naranja Academy, and everything was fine.. for a while.

Emile was Arven's rock when the older realized his mom cared more about her research than him, when he noticed Clavell came out of the crater to visit Emile much more often than his mom did for him, when they went into the crater and it was only Clavell there to greet them, to escort them lower, to take a break from work to make sure the strong Pokemon in the crater didn't hurt them.

This made Emile a lot more protective over Arven. So when he got called into the Director's Office and scolded for how long his hair was by the new Student Council President, Emile didn't hesitate to retaliate.

At first, he was just petty. He grew his hair longer, dyed it bright pinks and oranges and blues, switching it up every day. He'd step on the back of Giacomo's shoes at he walked to class, or shoulder check him just hard enough to make him drop his books. He didn't hurt him physically, just defied him and pushed him around a bit.

Then other students got involved. Suddenly there was a whole group of guys around Emile with long deep purple hair and their uniform shirts unbuttoned. When he shoved Giacomo, someone else was there to shove him the other way, passing him around like a game of catch.

Anyone who stood up for Giacomo became a target, tripped in the halls, missing gym clothes, spilled lunches, and eventually.. stolen money.

That pompous president deserved it anyway, Emile had convinced himself as he filled his Gimmighoul chest with more coins than he ever could have gotten on his own. He'd convinced himself he was in the right, that that guy's rules were unfair. He didn't even notice when Arven stopped coming to school, or the looks his Gimmighoul gave him sat upon a throne of thievery

On the day of operation star, Emile's Gimmighoul left him, taking the first coin Emile had even given him, and vanishing overnight. Emile had no Pokemon to battle back against Team Star with. He was one of the first to retreat.

For a full year Emile didn't go back to school. He didn't talk to Arven. He didn't visit his grandfather. He just laid in his room with an empty Gimmighoul chest...

Until Clavell became the new Director.

He urged Emile to come back to school, even going so far as to get him a new Pokemon Partner, a noble loyal knight who wouldn't leave him. Charlos, the Charcadet.

Against his better judgement Emile returned to school with the plan to go as under the radar as possible, and stay out of the way of all the kids he's wronged.. Until Charlos dragged him into Operation Starfall.

And that's about it outside of canon events, which unfold about the same just with a little more resistance by the protagonist. It was hard to work with an S/I who wouldn't wanna play along with the story as is, so I gave him 3 Pokemon that'd drag him along the plot.

Charlos for Starfall Street, Koriadon for Path of Legends, and a Rotom Phone that REALLY loves to fight for Victory Road. He should probably have more teammates but I like these three.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight: [REDACTED] “Oh Goddamnit. DANNY!”

Prompt Creator: @mr-lancers-english-class

Even Danny’s school projects cause ghostly issues and Lancer really should have seen this coming.

Alright fine, Lancer knew this was a bad idea. He knew it. And yet... here they all are, with each of his students doing their self-chosen presentations. And as he should have expected, Every. Single. One. has been on Phantom. Sure at least there’s been some variety. Star’s piece on his fashion and how that reflects on his personality and the era he died was actually fairly interesting (if it wasn’t for the fact that Phantom spiced up his jumpsuit with t-shirts and whatnot sometimes then this would have been a very boring one). Kwan also surprised him some, apparently he’s spent the past year or so sneaking photos of Phantom eating and did a piece on Phantom’s rather peculiar food tastes (who dips their pickles in milkshakes???) as well as effectively providing proof for the existence of ectoplasmic food (there’s no way any earth apples are neon green on the inside). Dash’s wasn’t even correctly calculated, trying to figure out how far Phantom could throw footballs based on his known strength and if he could kill someone by tackling them (disturbingly the answer -regardless of Dash’s bad math- was decidedly yes. Daniel seemed particularly disturbed). And Paulina’s was quite literally a badly written self-insert ship fan fic; the added drawings of what their child would look like only made it worse (Daniel left, not that Lancer could blame him. Lancer’s also glad for the ghost fight interrupting the presentation). Emilie’s was... disturbingly about ghost hunger and purposed the thesis that Phantom, for the good of the town, should eat the aggressor ghosts (he actually had to cut her off for getting too graphic).

But the single most interesting thing was that a ghost apparently caught wind of this and literally Every. Single. Presentation so far had words that were permanently replaced with [REDACTED], which, needless to say, caused some chaos when Samantha gave the very first presentation.

-

Lancer clicked his pen, crossing his legs and resting the evaluation sheet on his thigh, “alright, Samantha. Feel free to start whenever you please, though soon would be preferred”, by ‘preferred’ he had meant required, but no need to be mean. He chooses to ignore the goth teen's eyeroll.

Predictably the projected screen doesn’t work when she opens her file so Lancer has to spend ten minutes fiddling with the outdated tech that they wouldn’t give the school funding to replace. Eventually, he does get it up and running showing Ms. Manson’s title screen reading ‘Phantom And Hate Crimes Against Blood Blossoms’. Lancer’s positive ‘blood blossoms’ are a type of flower, figures she would do something nature-focused. She’d make for a great herbalist or botanist someday. He does catch Daniel and Tucker giving her ‘death glares’, as the kids call it, though; Samatha doesn’t look any less smug. The second page has what he thinks was supposed to be a detailed drawing of a flower but it’s severely pixilated, almost as if it been blurred; Samantha looks visibly upset so he’s going to assume something when wrong with the file or pasting format. He’s not marking on artistic capabilities though, so effort is effort there.

She quickly clicks to the next page, where the actual writing of the assignment is and looks decidedly pissed; Lancer even quirks an eyebrow since at least two-thirds of the words are a very bold noticeable [REDACTED]. Lancer watches her yank out her physical copy while glaring with murderous intent at Daniel -Lancer will have to dock him marks if he messed with another student's project- before looking at the physical copy in bafflement for a few seconds. Half the class shrieking when she drops the papers and basically launches herself over the desks at Daniel, “OH YOU LITTLE FUCKER!!!! HOW THE FUCK!”.

Lancer’s sighs and stands, “language, Ms. Manson”, moving to pick up the papers and quirking an eyebrow over them looking the same. Sighing again and eyeing Daniel, who’s being choked -or throttled perhaps?- by Samantha yet is grinning innocently. “Daniel, messing with other students' work is against student policy”, sighing yet again, “and I’ll let Star go while Samantha fixes her document”, summoning up the blonde while glaring at Daniel. Some days that boy was more trouble than he was worth but he was also insanely bright and had a heart of gold. Lancer knows he’ll do good things someday, and that’s why he still tries with him.

Half the class is snickering or laughing now and Star is very clearly trying not to laugh as she sets up.

However, as soon as it opens up the class is met with a very familiar sight. [REDACTED] litters every single page; he checked. And Star’s physical copy was in the same state.

Kwan blinks, “okay seriously, what is going on”, before scrambling to grab out his own physical copy; the rest of the class going wide-eyed and following suit. Lancer just puts his head in his hands and sighs very audibly while shaking his head. Why could nothing go right? Sighing again as the class erupts into noise.

“Mines all weird too!”.

“Same here!”.

“Okay there is no way Fenturd messed up everyone’s work”.

“And I actually tried on mine! It was about the merits of Phantom getting armour!”.

“Oh damn do we just get auto hundreds now? Please please please say yes”.

“Oh damn, Phantom would actually look awesome in armour”.

“I know right”.

“Can we just skip class entirely now?”.

“Oh my Zone a ghost messed with or work”.

“Holy Shit”.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! You don’t think Phantom did do you?”.

“Why the heck would he do that? How would he even know??????”.

“Oh I hope Phantom was inside my computer. That would be so hot”.

“Oh I don’t know, maybe someone told him or he overheard shit. He’s a ghost, he can be invisible. Heck, he could be here, right now, invisible”.

“Invisible and laughing at us”.

“No! No! Hold up! What if he doesn’t want us writing about him or maybe someone wrote some sus shit and he just nerfed us all for good measure”.

“That would mean Phantom totally read my stuff, aw Hell yeah man. That was some boss shit”,

Lancer sighs and stands up, “alright that’s enough”, sighing again because why did this have to happen to him, “and I apologies for blaming you earlier, Daniel”.

Samantha snaps, “oh no, I still blame him”, and continues glaring at the teen. Lancer suspects Samantha would continue blaming the boy even if it was firmly proven he wasn’t at fault.

Addressing the class again, “here’s what we’re going to do, you’re going to read off what of your projects you actually can and allude to the rest. Please reframe from repeating what you know was there beforehand as I’d rather not have whatever ghost responsible -Phantom or otherwise- come here pissed off”, glaring at few students who look slightly encouraged rather than discouraged by that prospect, “anyone who does will receive automatic zeroes”, ah and the encouraged looks have deflated. Good. Gesturing at Star, “you’re already up here, so do continue”. Better to not bring the clearly infuriated Samantha back to the front until she’s had some time to calm down.

Star nods and clears her throat, thankfully everyone quiets down. “O-okay, well, um”, gesturing at the screen, “I did my piece on Phantom’s sense of fashion and the cover image was one with him dressed in one of the Spook Sense stores meme shirts....”.

-

Lancer shakes away the memory, he honestly slightly regrets giving this project. But regardless right now is Daniel’s turn and Lancer is honestly slightly fearful of what his file is going to look like. Thankfully all their files were saved to his computer before the [REDACTED] debacle, so no one could go back in and edit theirs to add [REDACTED]’s for an easy grade. Lancer’s still not exactly sure how he’s supposed to mark assignments that were anywhere from one-fifth to one-third [REDACTED]. That word will be burned into his head after this grading period.

Lancer moves to find the boys file, but stares when clicking it crashes the computer. Not once. Not twice. But thrice. The fourth time rebooting the computer he inspects the file and is a bit dumbfounded, “Daniel, your entire file’s corrupted. The file type has even been changed to redacted, which I’m fairly sure, isn’t actually any possible file designation”. Everyone’s silent for a bit before bursting out into laughter.

“Just what the Zone did you write, Danny!”.

“Oh we so have to know what this is now”.

“Danny has the forbidden knowledge! We haft found him! The keeper of things forbidden and Ghostly! Haza!”.

“Ha! It was probably so lame that Phantom wanted to save him the embarrassment”.

Lancer sighs, but Daniel gestures Tucker up, “hey Tuck, feel like trying to fix the file”. Tucker chuckles and walks up, though apparently glaring at the boy. Based on Daniel’s smirk he finds this quite amusing.

Tucker does manage to make the file viewable at least. Lancer nods and leans back in his seat, “thank you, Mr. Foley”, while the file loads on screen.

Tucker sits back down with a head shake while Daniel stands at the front and gestures to the screen, “aight, as you can see from my not redacted title-”, that earns a couple laughs, “I did mine on Phantom’s portfolio of crime. Every single time our dear Phantom broke ghost law. Including such wonderful things as, that time he caused not one, not two, not even three, but five, prison breaks in one day. Or that time he invalidated a Observant spectator duel by bringing an inflatable sword”. Samantha slams a hand on her desk, “IT IS YOUR FAULT YOU DICK!”.

Lancer has some serious questions as Daniel clicks for the next page, the entire class going dead silent as a screen comprising of almost nothing but the word [REDACTED] shows. Lancer sighs very audibly. Eventually the class starts up again.

“Fenton... actually has forbidden knowledge”.

“If it wasn’t for the teacher computer saved thing I’d think he was fucking with us”.

“I mean... he is a Fenton, right?”.

“Okay the fact that this entire presentation is on ghost crimes is concerning alone. But they’re forbidden ghost crimes at that”.

“Shit I wanted the tea. Damnit”.

“Better question, how does Danny know?”.

Daniel clicking the button to go forward is very audible. And, Chicken Soup For The Soul, every single page is [REDACTED] to the point of being completely and utterly unintelligible. There are occasional lines pointing out how Phantom apparently ate confetti at a ghosts third wedding (which is apparently illegal for some reason) or that time he beat someone up with a violin that had a pie inside it (Lancer can see this one, Lancer himself has smacked a ghost with stranger).  Literally the only photo that isn’t blurred beyond recognition is one of Phantom in a prison uniform (Paulina was very vocal about liking men in uniform here). Lancer is absolutely positive the end of his conclusion ‘[REDACTED] are a bunch of [REDACTED]’ is an insult.

Samantha chucks a boot at his smirking face, “YOU IDIOT. Of course they were going to block you from talking about them. Ancients, I can’t believe you”. Tucker’s busy laughing into his hand.

“Oh my Zone, they know too”.

“They’re really earning that weirdo trio title, huh”.

Daniel snickers as he sits back down, “they broke into my room and wrecked that epic puzzle I was working on. They shoulda seen this shit coming. Literally”. Tucker snorts, “they probably did but couldn’t do anything else about it. They can’t stop you and your endless bullshit”.

“Damn fucking straight”.

Lancer isn’t going to claim to know what exactly they’re talking about but apparently Daniel effectively orchestrated this entire fiasco just to annoy some ghost. Lancer is honestly more impressed than disturbed. A for effort but an A- for making everyone's work nigh unusable.

End.

Prompt: For the last project of their senior year in high school, Mr. Lancer is letting his class do presentations on literally whatever topic they want. He is very, /very/ sure that this is going to go poorly, but that's a problem for later...

[adorethedistance]

Party Hard - Owen Joyner x Reader

JATP masterlist

Warnings: drinking, partying, intoxication, non sexual stripping, swearing probably, 

Words: 6343 (which, if you know me, is a FUCK ton)

Summary: Going from tipsy to full on drunk is a terrible idea, but especially when you’ve got a secret to hide that could mean the difference between preserving and ruining your relationship with your best friend.

A/N: A couple items before we get started: I think I’m back on my bullshit? I mean I wrote this fic and it’s three times the length of my normal fics. Also I wrote this headassery as a literal self insert me(ace) x someone and so there are a couple flaws here and there that make this something I’m not 100% proud of. Owen picks the reader up a few times and I’m aware this kind of thing can really effect someone’s experience with this fic so I do apologize for the lack of inclusivity in regards to body type/ableism. I’m falling really behind on school work because I just can’t find the motivation which either means y’all will be seeing a lot more of me soon or absolutely nothing at all. Not sure which yet.

“You’ve got it so bad.” Charlie rests his left arm on his best friend’s shoulder, tipping back the half-full angry orchard bottle he’d been nursing for the better half of an hour. Owen’s stare is immediately broken and he crosses his arms defensively.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” Turning to meet his friend’s smug stare, Owen shoots Charlie a glare of annoyance before returning his attention to the girl on the dance floor. Surrounded by a gaggle of her closest friends, Y/n is dancing and singing her heart out to Fergalicious with Chelsea, Leila, Savannah, and Carolynn. The bunch of them share in sporadic laughs as they exchange ridiculous dance moves just to add to the fleeting moment’s laughter. An assortment of screeches and squawks blend together as they all prepare to sing the rap section of the song. Observing the level of excitement the girls have over the verse, Owen can’t help but laugh at the spectacle.

“Why don’t you just ask her out already?” Charlie inquires between sips of his cold drink.

“What?”

“Y/n. Why have you not asked her out.”

“We’re just friends.”

“Yeah. Because you haven’t asked her out.” Owen rolls his eyes before turning 90 degrees to fully face the smug guitarist. He turns about-face to prove a point, but another symphony of squeals at the next song choice drags his attention back to his other best friend on the dance floor. “You’re so whipped.”

“Am not.”

“Are too! Look, if you don’t ask her out tonight, I will.”

“You’re not even into her,” Owen protests unceremoniously. Setting the molasses colored bottle on the counter next to Owen, Charlie steps back and copies his position of crossed arms and a relaxed stance.

“You’re right, I’m not. But you are, and if that’s what it takes to light the fire under your ass then I’ll do it.”

“She wouldn’t say yes.”

“Are you sure? I mean, the only way to know for sure is to ask.” And with that, Charlie is off, speeding toward Y/n at a pace that launches Owen into an impulsive chase. To prevent his friend from doing something stupid, Owen shoves him in the opposite direction from the group of girls on the dance floor. What he hadn’t anticipated was Charlie moving so far so fast. Owen has longer legs, he’s supposed to be the faster one, not Charlie. That’s why he hadn’t anticipated turning away from his musical friend to come face to face with a very flushed Y/n. Her lip-gloss coated lips are parted as she catches her breath from all the dancing. They look so soft and inviting that Owen can’t help but stare, and doesn’t realize the several looks of confusion among the girls around him.

“Everything okay, Owen?” Snapping out of his hyper focused stare, Owen blinks a few times, trying to generate a reason for coming over.

“You’ve been dancing for a while.”

“...Yeah?”

“Let me fix you a drink?” His statement comes out as more of a question but the breathless girl agrees nonetheless. Owen extends his hand to her which she gladly accepts but not without a quick word to her friends.

“I’ll be right back, I’m getting a drink.”

Her friends aren’t stupid, quite the opposite actually. And they see right through Owen’s facade of fixing her a drink because she’d been ‘dancing a while’. Please. As if they didn’t know a desperate attempt at flirting when they saw it.

The pounding music from the backyard begins to fade and muffle once the pair step into the Shada’s beautiful kitchen space. Owen leads her to the kitchen island where he has her take a seat on one of the barstools in front of the high countertop. Stepping around the fixture, Owen busies himself with whipping up a drink for Y/n at the makeshift bar on the island. He doesn’t even have to ask what it is she wants. Ice, pink whitney, club soda, and a splash of lime juice mixed together in a red solo cup Owen had considerately written her name on before going all mixologist-mode.

“Your usual.”

“Thank you, sir. You know, I’ve only had a handful of barbecue chips since I got here, and I’m already tipsy, so this actually might get me completely drunk.” Taking a sip, Y/n hums out of pleasure, “Why do you make my favorite drink better than I make my favorite drink?”

“So you have a reason to keep me around.” At the sound of Y/n’s laugh, Owen cracks a smile in time with his favorite sound in the world. The blonde haired man leans forward to rest his weight on his left forearm. He stares at her with adoration seeping from his gaze, before lifting his own cup to drink with her.

“What is that?” she asks, sitting up taller to try and see into Owen’s cup over the island.

“Jack Daniels.”

“I want some.”

“No,” Owen answers swiftly albeit softly. Y/n, however, is not feeling as conciliatory.

“No?”

“Have you ever tried whiskey before?”

“Well, no-”

“You’re drinking a fruit flavored cocktail that’s like 30% nonalcoholic. A sip of this would knock you off your little ass.” Y/n frowns at his words and employs a fake pout of anger to guilt her now laughing friend. Despite her smile, she whines,

“You suck.” Owen merely shrugs unapologetically before sipping and wincing at his drink of choice. “So… how did your date go- with Amy?” And there it is. The question that’s been at the forefront of Y/n’s mind for the last 24 hours.

Owen met this girl Amy at a more professional house party type of event and they hit it off right away. They spent the night invested in conversation, sharing in a cacophony of laughter. Y/n had no right to be upset, but she was. Amy was drop dead gorgeous in that Mini length red, velvet dress that hugged her curves in all the right places. Her figure was snatched to the gods, and she was about 5’3”; a seemingly irrelevant thing to notice, but Y/n knew that was the height Owen loved in a partner. At least, based on all his previous flings. And not to mention, her beautiful golden blonde hair that extended all the way down her toned back. Amy was perfect to all standards including that of any straight man with eyes and undoubtedly Owen’s. They spent the entire night together, Y/n long forgotten despite having been Owen’s plus one.

Y/n on the other hand didn’t exactly view herself as the drop-dead gorgeous supermodel type. Seeing how Owen took an interest in her at that event, it was no wonder Y/n was jealous. In fact, she had been so jealous that she allowed their flirting to ruin her entire evening.

She had been invited platonically as Owen’s guest, but Owen didn’t feel guilty about leaving her alone once he saw Charlie was by her side the whole night. Little did he know Charlie was only there for her because Owen wasn’t. It was pity company. Pity company that she was grateful to have as she cried into a few gin and tonics. Y/n avoided telling Charlie about her feelings for the adorable drummer, but with the way events transpired, he had figured out what it was that had upset her.

Charlie so badly wanted to give Owen the guilt trip of a lifetime. And he did once he and Owen were alone, heading home in Charlie’s orange hatchback car. He did so by telling Owen about how his best friend had spent the entire evening crying into gin and tonics. ‘Y/n doesn’t even like gin and tonic’ was all Owen could come up with.

When he inquired about why his best friend was crying, Charlie said he didn’t know, but it may have had something to do with the fact that the person who invited her spent the whole night ignoring her; he left it at that, leaving Owen to connect the dots, sort of. Owen had come to the realization that Y/n must have been crying over him, but why? Unable to comprehend a reason, he pushed the situation to the back of his mind. So far back that when Amy texted him that same night, he immediately responded and eventually set up a date for them to get dinner alone Friday evening.

The date was fine. Objectively there was nothing wrong with it. But every time Amy took a sip of the gin and tonic she had ordered, he couldn’t help being reminded of Y/n that night. It took Owen a solid thirty minutes to finally conclude that maybe Y/n was... jealous? Of what? Of Amy? Quickly reviewing a long list of qualities, identical to the one that Y/n had thoroughly checked through when she first saw the blonde, Owen realized she was indeed jealous of Amy. But why? What did Amy have that Y/n didn’t?

Oh.

His initial conclusion in the car with Charlie had to be right. Y/n was crying over him, and seemingly jealous of Amy, all because Amy had his attention. Why was that a problem?

Oh… no. No, Y/n does not have feelings for him. Y/n is... well, Y/n. His best friend, his partner in crime, his confidant, there’s no way she’s in love with him. There’s a different reason as to why she’d been crying into drinks she didn’t like. And that different reason is why her text replies have been short and cold when he had asked for date night conversation pointers. And that different reason is why her smile kept faltering on FaceTime when he was asking for fashion advice for his date.

Y/n is not in love with her best friend.

Owen had spent the past year pushing down his feelings for the girl that threatened to bubble over the top. If Y/n was truly into him, he would’ve acted on them. But she isn’t, so he didn’t. At least, that’s what Owen told himself…

“It was alright,” he offers lamely as a reply to her inquiry. Y/n simply nods and takes another swig of her drink to dull the ache in the center of her chest.

“Just alright?”

“Okay, it was better than alright. She was great.” There’s a hole burning in the center of her heart, and against her better judgment, she expands the deficit by asking for more information.

“What does that mean- that she was ‘great’?”

“You know…” Owen trails off in search of the right words, some words, any words, but nothing comes to him. To sell her nonchalant demeanor, the hopelessly devoted girl is staring down into her cup as if it’s the most interesting thing in the room. She didn’t expect Owen’s eyes to be boring into hers when she looked back up, so she quickly musters a polite smile. Maybe the average onlooker couldn’t tell it was fake, but Owen knows something is off. He just knows. Because he knows her.

“How did those conversation pointers pan out?” She’s deflecting, he thinks.

“One of them worked.” I’m just feeding into it, he thinks.

“Only one of them?” He’s holding back something, she thinks.

“Well, yeah. We didn’t really do much talking if you get what I mean.” I don’t think I can handle this, she thinks.

“I see…” The pair stands together in a silence so tense they felt like strangers. It’s awful. Y/n and Owen hate every second of it, but what could they do? In a moment blinded by upset, Y/n reaches across the island to grab the newly opened bottle of grey goose and pours what must’ve been no less than three shots of liquid into her cup. No club soda or lemonade this time, she chugs down the rest of her drink in a flash; Owen stares at her in disbelief and shock.

Y/n hates being drunk, she likes being the designated driver, she’s never had straight up liquor in her life, and she’s a lightweight, that’s for damn sure. Owen knows all of these things and is even more surprised to see her reaching for an almost empty bottle of gin.

“Hey. Maybe you should take it easy, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a lightweight and you know it. Put the cup down.” When Y/n shakes her head no, something in Owen snaps and his desire to be gentle is long forgotten. “Y/n. Put the drink down.”

“Why do you care, Owen?” In taking time to respond, Owen sees the opportunity and goes for it, taking the cup from her loose grasp and splashing it down the drain of the vegetable sink. “What the fuck?!”

“I think you’ve had enough to drink. Come on.” It’s only a matter of time until Y/n becomes an incoherent human being that’s impossible to wrangle, so Owen is very aware he’s on the clock. Snagging two Arrowhead water bottles in one hand, he takes Y/n’s hand in the other and brings her into the Shada’s den. There are only a few other people in the room, one is a couple and the other a pair of pining idiots, to which Owen becomes slightly wary. Not that the dynamic would change much. He and Y/n are practically a couple according to everyone around them.

Chelsea and Charlie are sitting fairly close together for just friends, on the chocolate brown loveseat facing the couch that Owen has plopped his increasingly intoxicated friend onto; Leila is sitting in a single armchair that a very tipsy Taylor is hanging over the back of to hug her shoulders. Upon seeing Y/n’s pouting expression Chelsea seeks more information,

“You good, fam?”

“He threw it down the sink!” She’s fading faster than Owen had hoped.

“I did. I poured what would’ve been her fifth and sixth shots down the sink.”

“Jesus, Y/n, are you trying to kill yourself?”

“What are you, a cop?” Even tipsy she’s still sharp as a tack. If Owen wasn’t frustrated with her at the moment, he would’ve probably laughed. But he is, so he didn’t. Slipping back into caretaker mode, he hands her one of the water bottles he snagged from the cooler on the way out. In her typical stubborn and petulant fashion, Y/n weakly throws the unopened bottle onto the couch cushion next to her. All their friends laugh but Owen isn’t having it.

“Y/n.” And it only takes a firm call of her name for the slumped over lightweight to glare at him but oblige. She retrieves the bottle and sticks her arm out straight toward Owen’s still standing figure.

“I can’t open it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this fucked up,” Leila comments.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you fucked up period,” Chelsea adds on. Charlie laughs lightly before resuming whatever conversation the four of them had going pre-Owen and Y/n’s entrance.

Satisfied with the small sips she’s taking of her water, Owen relaxes and takes a seat next to her on the couch. The temporary break in her temper tantrum allows Owen to save his breath; he opens his own water bottle, taking a few drinks which ended up being half the bottle. He’s given her a good bit of room on the couch but it isn’t good enough for Y/n. It takes her a few failed attempts to screw on the cap of her water but once it’s properly sealed, she moves closer to her best friend. The water has acted like some magical temperament cure as Y/n’s previously permanent pout has disappeared.

Owen knows he and Y/n are close enough to where cuddling wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But the way she’s burrowed into his side, picking up his seemingly ‘heavy’ arm to place it around her own inebriated frame, laying her head high up on his chest, and unintentionally resting her hand on his lower abdomen, something feels off. Her hand isn’t dangerously low, but low enough that the side of her limp palm has met the waistband of his jeans. Owen can’t help but feel his skin tingle and burn under her touch. Why is he so affected by her touch all of a sudden?

Owen is pulled from his snowballing thoughts by the sound of Y/n’s muffled voice against his chest. He leans down as far as he can which places his head on top of hers gently.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, you don’t need to be sorry,” he whispers just loud enough for her to hear. A tiny drop of warmth on his shirt under her head triggers Owen’s memory: Y/n’s an emotional drunk. She doesn’t get drunk often but when she does, she goes all in and becomes somewhat manic as a result. That accounts for her previous anger. Now it’s sadness, so in about ten minutes, she’ll be easily excitable and bouncing off the walls.

Y/n had carpooled with Leila and Chelsea to the party, and though Owen was upset about her not picking him up like they’d briefly talked about at first, he’s suddenly thankful for the arrangement.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

“Unhhh.” The lack of a coherent response is enough for Owen, and after finishing the rest of his water, he sits up on the couch.

“Where’s your house key? Hm?” The prospect of losing her key is absolutely devastating to Y/n as she begins to weep. Her imminent distress in response to Owen’s question has all their friends laughing once more; Leila speaks up,

“Check the left chest pocket of her jacket.”

Owen nods, noting the directions, and gently rolls his friend over on her back. Deciding against using her strength, Y/n flops over onto her other side which still allows Owen access to her pocket. His long fingers dwarf the button fastener on her jacket that she often struggles to open, and sure enough her sky blue house key is in her pocket just as Leila said.

“Thanks,” he acknowledges Leila before taking Y/n’s cold hands in his own larger ones to help her stand. It’s a bit of a struggle to stand and as a result, the fading girl leans a bit of her weight into Owen’s side. “You gonna say bye to our friends?”

Y/n nods a goodbye to each person in the room, moving from left to right naming Leila, Taylor, Chelsea, and then Charlie. Upon saying bye to Charlie the small girl starts to cry again, harder this time, much to everyone’s confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“Charlie looked a-at me like he didn’t l-like me.” The entire room bursts out laughing, Owen included this time, but she’s still crying. “It’s no-not funny.”

“I know. You’re right, it’s not funny.” Owen’s exaggerated sympathy goes undetected by the very emotional Y/n as she presses her face into his grey long sleeve shirt. She reaches up to hug her arms around Owen’s neck for stability as she adds more tears to the tiny spot from before. “Can you walk?” He asks genuinely as more of her weight leans into him. The only response Owen gets is a few soft sobs, and in reaction to her messy state, lets out a subtle eye roll. He shakes his head before bending down to place one arm under her knees and the other behind her shoulder blades, sweeping her off the ground before she can protest.

“Would you guys tell Jer thanks and that I had to take her home?” A symphony of affirmations and goodbyes usher him out of the house, and once outside Y/n’s crying diminuendos into short sniffles and the occasional sigh.

“Here, be careful,” Owen panics as his friend nearly bangs the front of her head against the roof of his car. Once he cautiously places all her limbs in the passenger side, Owen shuts the door and hurries over to the driver’s side as if Y/n could hurt herself in the next five seconds. He places the key in the ignition but before he even touches the gear shift, he turns and looks quizzically at his best friend. The sniffling and sighs coming from her puffy face have lulled her into an almost unconscious state; Owen puffs out a frustrated sigh as he reaches across the entire car to grab Y/n’s seatbelt for her.

Another thing about drunk Y/n is that her emotional state makes her more likely to give in to physical impulses. So after she registers Owen leaning across her lap for the seatbelt, she grabs his shoulder so he doesn’t move away. The action surprises Owen and he turns his face to look into her half-lidded eyes. He’s trying to make sense of the action but his trailing thoughts are interrupted when the girl in the passenger’s seat leans forward slightly to put her face against Owen’s neck.

“I like your smell.” Owen tries so hard not to laugh in fear of upsetting her again, but he can’t conceal the smile growing on his face. He then gently pulls away from her grasp in order to actually start driving,

“Okay. Thank you.”

The car ride is composed of mostly comfortable silence with the occasional inebriated comment or nonsensical sound from the girl in the passenger seat; Owen had been so captivated by Y/n’s uncharacteristically relaxed state, he’d been driving on autopilot and instead of turning left to get on the highway that runs south to where her apartment is, he’d gone north to go to his own place. No big deal, Owen didn’t plan on leaving her intoxicated and alone, and she’s stayed the night plenty of times before now. What’s one more night? It isn’t until he puts the car in park and helps her out of the vehicle that Y/n clocks her surroundings.

“I don’t live here.”

“You don’t, no, but I do,” Owen replies simply before he slides out of the car. Y/n stays in the car as if Owen told her not to move, and looks up at him confusedly when he opens her door. In her tipsy state, she is able to recognize what Owen is doing and smugly places her hand over the buckle of her seatbelt. With her tiny palm over the red button, she begins giggling maniacally.

“What are you doing?” Owen asks with a frustrated sigh although he can’t help the small smile overtaking his features at the sound of her growing laughter. He doesn’t get a response, just more giggling which lets him know he’s going to have to do things the hard way now that she’s in a lifted mood. “Kid, you have to get out of the car.”

“You can’t make me.”

Owen takes a step back from the open door to reevaluate. Y/n always tells him to work smarter, not harder. Another one of her many bouts of wisdom is that you can keep the attention of children and adults alike with a vastly dynamic change in volume. The question is will she notice Owen using this tactic on her in her drunken state?

“Hey, Y/n/n,” his speech drops to a low whisper. “I’m sad, can you hold my hand?” The change in volume works exactly as described; completely convinced by the sincerity of his whispering, Y/n gives him her right hand. “Can I have the other one?”

When she nods a small ‘yes’ and gives him both of her hands, Owen finds himself fighting the urge to laugh at how easy that was. He takes both of her cool hands in his larger left one to reach across her body and release her seatbelt with a swift CLICK.

Luckily Y/n didn’t tangle herself up in the seatbelt, but she had other ideas for causing trouble. Owen helped her out of the car but once she was standing on her own two feet, she began running away from him. With a slam of the car door and a string of breathy curses later, he chases after his best friend before she can hurt herself on literally anything in the parking garage. The sound of Y/n’s laughter carries through the vacant space, and despite all her best efforts, Owen quickly catches up to her. Her giddy intoxication allowed for the suspension of disbelief that she could outrun the much taller Owen Joyner, but she’s sorely mistaken when his strong arms wrap around her waist and lift her feet off the ground. Y/n’s bouts of laughter are contagious; Owen finds himself laughing alongside his best friend. Setting her feet back on the ground he asks,

“Are you going to run away again if I let go of you?”

“Yeah,” she chokes out through the tail end of her laughing fit. The candidness of her reply prompts Owen to throw his head back, shaking it as if in disagreement with the universe itself,

“I appreciate your honesty.” And with that, Y/n screeches in glee as her best friend maneuvers her body in his grip to lift her over his right shoulder.

“Owen!”

“You did this to yourself, kid.”

The silent elevator ride up to his flat is comfortable relative to the current position they’re in. Y/n’s no longer fighting being carried but instead entertains herself by tapping out an intricate beat on the surface of Owen’s back.

“Guess what song this is.”

The beat she’s playing is close to incoherent and Owen tries to stifle his full laugh in fear of making her cry again. He’s been successful so far, but now having Y/n over his shoulder, she can feel the movement of his abdomen that was unintelligible by sight alone.

“Your favorite song,” he guesses insincerely.

“No, my favorite song doesn’t sound like that. It was sicko mode.”

“That was not sicko mode.”

“Owen, how come you don’t wear a badge?”

“What?”

“Because you’re the song police?” Owen can’t help but snort out a laugh even though the comment was made at his expense. Still sharp as a tack.

Once the pair reach the front door of Owen’s ‘bachelorette pad’ as Y/n liked to call it, he sets her back on the ground albeit reluctantly as he recalls why he was carrying her in the first place. Thinking quickly on his feet, Owen forms a plan that’s more likely than not foolproof.

“Hey, Y/n/n?”

“Yeah?” Her voice is still right behind him thankfully.

“Can I have a hug?” After a few seconds of silence in the hall, Owen begins to doubt his plan until he feels the weight of his best friend leaning on his toned back. With her cheek pressed against the middle of his spine, Y/n brings her arms around his waist, clasping her hands tightly together. Her semi-public display of affection allows Owen some time to unlock his front door. Once he props the door open, Owen realizes that Y/n probably isn’t going to let go any time soon and opts to waddle through the threshold with her still attached to him. He’s able to turn around and lock them back in for the night which makes the girl begin to laugh.

“Was this your plan all along? To get me drunk so you could lock me in your apartment and hold me prisoner for the rest of my life?”

“And I would’ve gotten away with it, too...”

“If it weren’t for those meddling kids and their dog.”

True to his imagination that Y/n wasn’t letting go any time soon, Owen swivels her around his torso so that he could hold her to his side rather than support her with his back. He now has his right arm over both of her shoulders as she continues to hug her best friend. The way she leans her head onto his chest makes Owen’s heartbeat the tiniest bit faster. ‘She’s drunk, she doesn’t know what this does to you’ is the mantra blaring through Owen’s subconscious. Shaking any and all sort of romantic thoughts out of his head, he begins to lead her back to his bedroom.

Flicking the lights on proves to be a mistake once Y/n starts groaning miserably, and Owen decides the floor lamp is a better option than the overheads. Much to Owen’s surprise and relief, Y/n moves to sit on the edge of his bed on her own volition. She’s not upright for long as she collapses into the sheets of his unmade bed that contemplated neatening before leaving the house; hindsight is 20/20.

“Hmm. I like your smell,” Y/n parrots despite already bringing up the topic on the ride home.

“This is the same cologne I always use.”

“No. I like your natural smell.”

“What?”

“I was reading up about pheromones the other day. And there was this thing that said when couples like each others’ scent, it’s like a primal way of seeing if you’re immuno-compatible with someone so your offspring have the best chance for survival. It’s an evolutionary thing for the survival of our species. Ants have pheromones, too.”

Sometimes she has trouble remembering to feed herself, but leave it to Y/n to remember extensive information about pheromones whilst intoxicated. The concept is intriguing to Owen, so he proceeds to ask questions, ignoring the tug on his heart he felt after hearing her say the word ‘couples’.

“So, if I like your scent, we’re immuno-?”

“Compatible, yeah. But it’s mostly me because you can sniff out my period.”

“I can what?”

“I read that men can tell when a woman is at her most fertile because that’s when they like her smell the best. They did a study where a bunch of men were introduced to a few different scents, and without fail, the one they liked the most or would describe as ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ was the scent they took from the woman who was ovulating.”

Y/n continues talking about what she learned about pheromones as Owen picks up a bit of the mess around his room. She returns to the topic of ant pheromones as he digs through his surprisingly large closet for something for his friend to sleep in. His temporarily bubbly best friend also notes that he should ‘sniff her now because she’s ovulating and he would like that’ which makes him laugh into the drawers of his waist-height dresser. Returning to find her still slumped over on the bed, he pats her leg and beckons her to sit up. After Y/n’s upright again, Owen hands her his classic black ‘BEANS’ t-shirt and a pair of briefs that won’t properly fit her but will fit better than a pair of his actual pants.

“Can you put these on for me?”

“Yeah.” Owen’s conflicted with both wanting to respect Y/n’s privacy by leaving the room, and prioritizing her safety, and not leaving her unattended at any moment. He comes to a compromise which is staying by her side but turning a full 180 to face the wall of his bedroom. A couple of moments pass until Y/n begins whining frustratedly.

“Owen.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t ubns-” her words become incomprehensible as she begins to cry again and Owen turns around to find her struggling with the buttons on her shirt, her jacket long discarded on the bedroom floor. This shirt: her white, cap-sleeve crop top with a peter pan collar that she wore for anything mildly significant, this was her favorite. Owen remembers her fussing about how she ruined it only to find that she just forgot to steam it one day. So with a little heat and water, Owen had fixed the shirt like nothing ever happened, and he’d do it a million times over again if it meant he got to relive seeing the smile that graced her face for the first time again.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do the buttons.” She runs the back of her right hand against her tired eyes to wipe away her tears and Owen internally curses himself for the way the small action makes his heart flutter.

“Do you need help?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen to me, you are okay,” he sinks to kneel in front of Y/n as she sits tiredly on the edge of the bed. Owen doesn’t miss the slight tremble of his hands as he reaches up to unbutton her shirt, but he prays that she will. Through tiny sniffles and teary eyes, she watches his hands effortlessly work down the length of her shirt, each button modestly dancing between his fingertips. Once the short top is fully unbuttoned, Owen returns to his normal standing height and Y/n attempts to shrug the fabric off her body. She struggles lightly and knowing her frustration is imminent, Owen reaches down to gingerly push the sleeves off her shoulders. The light graze of his rough, calloused skin against her own skin sends electric-like shocks through the both of them; yet neither of them believed the other felt it too.

Owen hastily withdraws his hands and, without warning, Y/n quickly removes the bralette she was wearing. Owen’s eyes widen slightly at her lack of inhibition. He does his best to be a gentleman and swiftly redirects his gaze to the white ceiling fan that has all of a sudden become the most intriguing object in the universe. His lower peripheral vision indicates that she’s finally slipped the black tee over her head, but she begins sniffling more fiercely as she struggles with taking off her jeans. Owen sighs and drops to his knees once more in spite of himself, and aids his best friend in slipping the material over the length of her calves and off the tips of her toes. Hoping to speed up the process, he grabs the briefs he had brought her and unfolds them in preparation for helping her into them. His efforts are all for naught as Y/n forgoes the need for any more clothing and slides under the covers of his unmade bed. Owen then turns to leave the bedroom, opting to set up on the couch for the night before Y/n’s small voice is cutting through the comfortable silence.

“Where are you going?” He sighs,

“I’ll be right back, okay? I’ll get you some water and Advil for when you wake up tomorrow.” Y/n then nods acceptingly and allows her eyes to flutter closed as he leaves the room. Despite how tired she feels, Y/n won’t quite yet let herself sleep--not ��til Owen is beside her. When he returns he sets the ibuprofen bottle on the nightstand before uncapping the Kirkland brand water bottle he had in the fridge. He coaxes her into sitting up just one more time so she can drink some of the water before falling asleep. She sits and rubs her tired eyes as she drinks and Owen has to physically force himself to look away from the adorable sight. He just wants to take care of her forever but things have always been strictly platonic between them.

The risk of making their friendship weird or awkward was just too great.

“Goodnight kid, I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Owen leaves without awaiting a response and lets out an annoyed sigh before setting himself up on the couch in his living room. He was so focused on getting Y/n to bed safely that he forgot to grab clothes for himself. Not a big deal. He simply strips down to just his underwear and climbs underneath the thick Pottery Barn throw blanket Y/n had gifted him as a housewarming gift. That and a fire extinguisher because ‘you don’t notice its absence until you need it’ she claimed. The memory makes Owen smile and he allows his eyes to close after a long day.

A long day that was about to get longer. Owen finds himself sinking further and further into sleep until he hears the padding of footsteps that are now in his living room. He’s too tired to open his eyes, and it’s not like he doesn’t already know who it is. What does surprise him, however, is the feeling of the familiar weight squeezing between the couch and his turned back.

“What are you doing?” He half mumbles into the night.

“You’re warm.”

“That was not the question, Y/n/n.” After not receiving a reply, Owen turns as best as he can to look at his friend who’s nestling her way into his sleeping arrangement for the night. “Kid-”

“I just wanna be with you.”

“Alright,” Owen sighs out of irritation, exhaustion, and a sliver of adoration before sitting up on the couch, “Come on.”

He stands up, fully expecting to have to drag her back to the bedroom, but finds relief in seeing her struggle her way off the couch. Slipping her tired hand into his unexpecting, larger one, Y/n allows her friend to lead her into the bedroom for the second time that night.

Owen considerately lifts the covers for her to climb back into before getting into the other side of the bed.

“Owen.”

“Hm?”

“Guess what.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too, kid.”

“No,” Y/n speaks in a casual tone as if she’s not divulging into her biggest emotional trepidation to date. “I love you, Owen.”

Owen can’t help the way his heart seemingly stops. The way the butterflies in his stomach are going wild. The way he wants to smile like he’s the biggest lovestruck idiot on planet Earth.

She’s drunk. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She won’t remember this tomorrow.

“I’m in love with you, Y/n.”

She won’t remember that tomorrow.

***

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[babypandawrites]

Allies, Pt. 1

A New Companion 

Pairing: Sokka x F Reader Warnings: None Word Count: 3,102 Summary: You meet Team Avatar in the forest on a rainy night, and offer a helping hand. 

Note: So, while I’m unable to write new pieces, I’ve decided to start posting this fic that I’ve been working on for a while- since a good part of it is already written. This is the first of many parts, it’s a pretty long slow burn.  I’m also posting this on my Ao3, but figured I might as well bring it over here as well!  Also apologies if my characterization is a bit off here, this was the first ATLA piece I wrote. 

-Navigation- | -Allies Masterlist- | -Atla Masterlist- 

Raindrops gently hit the leaves of the trees, slowly rolling off the foliage and hitting against the ground. Despite the fact it had been raining, Y/n found herself walking about the familiar forest, pausing her steps to crouch in front of a berry bush. She untied a small pouch from the piece of rope around her waist, and started to fill it with berries.  Hearing voices in the distance, her movements ceased, and her head snapped in the direction they come from. Not only was it raining, but it was getting pretty late, yet it appeared others were in the forest as well. Strange. She tied the pouch back in place, and was quick to climb up the nearest tree. She perched herself on a sturdy branch, and grabbed onto her bow which rested over her shoulder.  “-ot for your stupid water magic we wouldn’t have to be stuck in the rain right now, so yes, this is your fault!”  “Even if we had our supplies, we would still be in the rain Sokka, we don’t have anywhere to set up camp!” She drew an arrow from her quiver as the voices got closer.  “Guys! Can you please stop arguing? I’m sure there’s another way we can solve this.”  Aligning the arrow with the bow, she pulled it back and aimed at the ground in front of the group of three.  The arrow zipped through the air, lodging itself in the ground in front of the taller boy of the group. The sudden appearance caused him to jump back with a yelp, before he frantically looked around.  “Where did THAT come from!?” The other two members of the group took on a fighting stance, looking around the area in front of them for the source of the arrow. Y/n settled her bow back over her shoulder, and jumped off the branch, to one that was a bit closer to the group. The rustling of the leaves caught the group's attention, and they looked up to the trees. They couldn’t see her seeing as she was shielded by the leaves, but they at least had an idea.  Readying her bow again, she aimed another arrow at the group. This time, she waited to shoot it.  “Who are you.”  Her tone was harsh, threatening.  The taller of the two boys looked around the trees, reaching for a boomerang. “Why should we tell you that?!”  Eyes squinted, the aim of her arrow moved to him. Still she didn’t shoot it. “I’ll shoot again.”  The shorter boy didn’t drop his guard, but took a step closer to where he guessed this mystery person was at. It quickly made her aim change to him.  “Let’s not do that please. I’m Aang. This is Katara and Sokka, then these guys are Appa and Momo. We aren’t looking for any trouble, just a place to camp for the night.”  Silence fell among them for a few moments, as the group waited to see what she would do. Dropping down from the tree branch, she rested her bow over her shoulder again, and slid the arrow back into it’s quiver. All three of them looked ready to attack when she revealed herself.  “I see, sorry about that then. You can never be too careful.” The two boys seemed to relax, but didn’t lower their weapons. “I’ll just take my arrow and be on my way.”  She took a step closer to them, but stopped when Katara held up a hand. The girl reached down and pulled the arrow from the dirt, and tossed it in her direction. Y/n caught it, wiped it clean on her shorts, then tucked it away in the quiver with the rest of her arrows. Turning on her heel, she started to walk away.  “Hey, wait!”  Turning her head to look back at the group, she raised an eyebrow at Aang who had asked her to wait. The others didn’t look very pleased by his actions.  “Would you happen to know anywhere we could set up camp for the night?”  “There’s a clearing nearby, I could show you the way.” She paused for a short moment, debating her words. “Though, if you’d like to get out of the rain you could stay at my base.”  Y/n never trusted people easily, especially strangers. A lot of dangerous people came through this forest. But they didn’t seem like a bad group of kids, and she was ninety percent sure that Aang kid was the Avatar. Her knowledge of the Air Nomads was limited, but she knew enough to recognize the blue arrows tattooed on him were a thing only they did- and it was pretty common knowledge at this point that the Avatar was an Air Nomad.  His expression brightened at her offer. “Really? That would be great!”  Sokka glared at his friend, and leaned closer to him, whispering something she wasn’t able to catch. The two had a quick back and forth, before getting Katara’s opinion on the matter. The three paused, and looked at her, before all standing up straight. Aang offered her a bright smile, while Sokka looked mildly upset, and Katara looked like she had mixed feelings.  “We would really appreciate that! Thank you.”  “Sure thing.” She started walking, motioning for them to follow her. They did so, albeit a little hesitantly. “I even have room for your… For Appa to get out of the rain.” She wasn’t too sure what the large animal was if she was being honest. 

The group arrived to a clearing after not too long. Several tarps had been strung together and tied around the trees a good ways off the ground, keeping the area dry. In the center of the tarped off clearing was an unlit campfire, next to it sat a long log. A few feet away from the campfire a tarp way laid on the ground, several rocks sitting at the corners to hold it down. A sleeping bag was on top of the tarp, as well as a crate. Y/n walked into the tarped off area, immediately going to light the campfire. The rest entered the area as well. Appa found a place to lay down, Momo sat atop his head. Katara and Sokka moved to sit by the campfire once it was lit to warm up, while Aang approached Y/n. He offered her a small bow.  “Thank you again for allowing us to stay here for the night. Sokka might be… a little sour about it but he’s just being cautious. I know he appreciates it as well.”  She let out a nervous laugh, and rubbed at the back of her neck.  “It’s no problem.” The siblings were having a quiet conversion that died off when Aang and Y/n joined them by the fire. They all sat in an awkward silence, before Sokka cleared his throat.  “So, do you just attack anyone who walks around this place?”  Katara gave her brother a glare, elbowing him in the side.  “It was a warning, not an attack.”  He mumbled under his breath. “A warning that almost stabbed my foot…”  “Sokka…” There was warning in his sister's tone, he didn’t seem to pay mind to it.  Y/n glanced off to the side. “If it was an attack I would have done worse than stab your foot.”  Aang and Katara glanced at each other, as Sokka’s expression twisted to anger. “Wow, what a great way of greeting people.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Actually, when most of the people you come into contact with are willing to kill you to get what they want, it is a great way of greeting people.”  Before the conversation could escalate any further, Aang inserted himself in the conversation. “You know what, I just realized we never got your name!”  She took in a deep breath to compose herself. “Y/n.”  Standing up from his spot nervously, he grabbed into Sokka’s arm to pull him up. “It’s great to formally meet you Y/n. Hey Sokka, can I talk to you for a second?”  Before Sokka could give an answer, he was dragged off by his friend. Far enough that they shouldn’t be heard, but to where they were still underneath the tarps that shielded them from the rain. The two girls sat in silence for a moment, until Katara spoke up.  “I’m sorry about my brother, he’s an idiot sometimes.”  “Being idiots is what brothers do best..” She trailed off with a tense laugh. The other offered her own quiet laugh, rubbing her hands together before placing them closer to the fire.  “Do you have a brother too?”  Offering a small nod to the question, she pulled a knee up to her chest. Katara took a quick glance around the camp Y/n had set up, raising an eyebrow when she noticed it was only set up for one person.  “Is he not with you?”  “Oh, um no. He’s fighting in the war, so I haven’t seen him for a while.”  “Must be nice.” They both laughed. “I understand what it’s like though, our father is fighting in the war too.”  Katara had mixed feelings on the matter, when Aang suggested that they accept the offer for a dry place to stay. On one hand, she didn’t want to sleep in the rain, but on the other this girl had shot an arrow at them. Seeing and hearing a bit about the conditions Y/n had seemed to be living in though, made her agree more with Aang than her brother on the passed manner. This girl had just been acting in a way of self defense, making it known she wasn’t afraid to attack if they tried anything. Now hearing about her brother, she could feel herself sympathizing for the girl.  “Sorry to hear about your dad.” Katara offered her a small smile. “And I’m sorry to hear about your brother.” Don’t be. When the boys returned to the campfire, Sokka took a seat next to his sister again, arms crossed over his chest, as Aang returned to his spot next to Y/n. Aang looked between the two girls.  “What are you guys talking about?” Katara offered him a small shrug. “Not much.”  Silence made its way into the group again, the four of them looking about awkwardly. Y/n found her gaze landing on Appa, the large animal who laid himself in the grass. She observed him and Momo- a small lemur who sat on his head -for a few moments before turning to look at Aang.  “So um, what exactly is Appa?”  “He’s a flying bison!”  Sokka watched the two carefully as they conversed.  Her eyes widened slightly. “Flying?” Aang offered her a nod. “Yeah! He’s been our ride for our adventure.”  “What is your guys’ adventure?”  Sokka cut into the conversation. “It’s none of your business.” He spoke harshly, earning a glare from Y/n.  “Interesting. I don’t recall asking you, boomerang boy.”  “Why you-”  Katara intervened this time, clapping a hand over her brother's mouth to silence him. “We’re heading to the North Pole.”  Y/n held back a laugh at Sokka being silenced. “The North Pole? You guys have some ambition, that’s on the other side of the world.”  Aang laughed nervously rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah.”  When silence fell over them for the third time, Y/n stood up from her seat. “Are you guys hungry?” When Katara and Aang answered that yes they were, she grabbed her bow and pulled a small basket out of the crate she had.  Sokka clasped his hands behind his neck. “I mean, I could eat.” She shot him a glare. “I wasn’t asking you.”  “What- Are you just going to give food to Aang and Katara?” “Yup.”  His expression twisted into one of offense. She snickered.  “You’re free to come with and get your own food, boomerang boy.”  “Would you stop- you know what, whatever.” Sokka stood up, and hooked his machete onto his belt. “I could probably catch better food than you anyways.”  Y/n turned on her heel, and headed to the forest. “Hope you don’t mind the rain.”  Slumping forward, his expression fell flat. Right, it was raining still. Great. Still, he followed after her.  Katara watched with worry as the pair walked off. “Aang, do you think we should go with them?”  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Huh, why?”  “They might kill each other.”  Aang looked at the direction they went off to, before looking back at Katara. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” 

Sokka followed closely behind Y/n as she led him through the forest. He had no idea where she was going, and he really didn’t like that. At the very least, she seemed to know where she was going, so they shouldn’t get lost. But that didn’t make him like the situation any more.  After a while of walking through the increasingly growing rain, they ended up at a river. It was wide, and pretty deep as well. The tide rolled through it at a slow pace. It looked like a good place to fish. He assumed that’s what they were there for.  Unhooking his machete from his belt, Sokka pushed past Y/n and approached the river. “I’m sure you’ll need a demonstration on how to fish properly, so let me show you how it’s done.”  She raised her eyebrows in amusement, and took a step back. “Oh yeah, totally. Why don’t you show me how it’s done.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she spoke with heavy sarcasm.  He ignored her sarcasm, and used his machete to stab into the water in an attempt to catch a fish. When he pulled the blade from the water, there was nothing on the other end.  “Wow! An invisible fish, that’s really impressive, those are so hard to catch!”  He shot her a glare. “I’m just warming up.”  “Mhhm.” She crossed her arms over her chest, watching as he stood still, doing nothing. “That’s a whole lot of nothing you're doing over there.”  “Fishing is a waiting game, it’s all about being-” Pausing, he stabbed the machete into the river again. “Patient!”  When he failed to catch a fish for the second time, Sokka let out a groan, and started rapidly stabbing his machete into the river.  “Oh, yes, because you’re being very patient.”  He paused mid stab, and took in a deep breath. “Rapid fire fishing is a Southern Water Tribe specific tactic, you wouldn’t understand.”  Y/n raised an eyebrow at him. “My grandma is from the Southern Water Tribe actually, and she taught me how to fish.” She brought up a hand to her chin. “I don’t remember her ever bringing that up.”  He turned his head to look at her with wide eyes. “Wait- You’re from the tribe? Why are you out her-” “Maybe I should show you how it’s done.”  Cutting him off, Y/n readied her bow and pulled an arrow from her quiver. Aiming the arrow at the water, she waited for a few moments, before releasing it. The arrow zipped through the air, and lodged into the river bed.  Sokka watched as she went to retrieve the arrow from the water. “Psh, I bet you didn’t even catch anything.”  He quickly ate those words, seeing as there was a fish impaled on the arrow when she pulled it out. She gave him a look, as she threw the fish into the small woven basket she brought.  “Oh. Well-” He just decided to shut his mouth, and turned back to the river to continue his fishing venture. 

Once they’d both caught a handful of fish, they started to head back in the direction of the camp. Sokka carried the basket that was brought with them, agreeing to do so in exchange of him putting the fish he caught in it as well.  He cleared his throat. “Um, Y/n?” Glancing over at him, Y/n raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”  “Well uh, I wanted to apologize for earlier- It was unnecessarily harsh of me to attack you like that. It’s just not the most pleasant thing to get an arrow shot at you out of nowhere, y’know?”  “Yeah, that’s kind of the point, it’s supposed to be threatening.”  “It definitely is.”  Silence fell over the two, as they continued walking back. Once the camp was in their view, however, Y/n spoke up.  “Your apology is accepted, by the way.”  Sokka smiled softly, as they rushed to get back under the tarps and out of the rain.  Katara’s head perked up when she saw the two. “You guys are back.” She was honestly a little surprised they both came back in one piece. “Yup, and we brought dinner.” Sokka sat the basket down, before quickly going back to his spot by the fire to warm up.  Y/n was also quick to get by the fire to warm up, not bothering to put her bow down until she was near it.  Katara looked between the two, before getting up from her spot. “I can cook, since you two went through the effort of getting this in the rain.”  Y/n offered the girl a smile. “Thank you, Katara.” 

By the next morning, the rain had cleared up. Y/n had helped the group pack up the few things they had up onto Appa. Getting her attention, Aang bowed to her much like the night before.  “I wanted to say thank you again. We really appreciated your help last night.”  She offered him a smile, giving a small bow in return. “It was no problem. I wish you all luck with your travels.”  “Actually,” He rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing to the side for a moment. “Katara, Sokka and I we’re talking earlier and we were wondering if you’d maybe like to come with us? We could use your help on the team, and I honestly feel kind of bad leaving you out here alone.”  “Well, I sort of live out here, alone, so.” She laughed quietly. “I mean, I guess I don’t really have a reason not to join you guys.”  Sokka poked into the conversation. “So, is that a yes?”  “I guess so.”  Deciding to join them on their journey, Y/n got to packing up her own things. It would probably be best for her to get out of this forest anyways, the Fire Nation came through it a little too often for her liking. Once all her stuff was packed up, Katara and Sokka helped her get up onto Appa, and they took off.  Joining the Avatar on his adventure wasn’t what Y/n expected to get out of this encounter, but, she wasn’t mad at the outcome.

[ourimpavidheroine]

Oh! Numbers 1, 9, 16, and 27 if you please :)

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

Actually, I use two fonts. I read once that you should write in one font and then proofread in another: this would help/trick the eye into seeing more mistakes. I find this to be absolutely true. It's a great trick!

I write in Comic Sans - yes, I know, the one everyone hates, but it's very readable for me - and then I do my final proof in Courier New. For some reason my brain hates Courier New and immediately hones in on typos. I have no actual neurological/scientific explanation for this. Just that it works.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

I absolutely do. That is based on personal experience, not just random belief.

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

I once grabbed an unused panty shield and shoved it on in there in a moment of great distraction. You can then imagine the response the next day when I was on the commuter train (BART) in San Francisco, pulled out my book, and, having forgotten what I had used the day before, proceeded to remove my bookmark in front of God and everyone and absent-mindedly dangle it around in my fingers as I read until I finally realized what I was doing. 😳

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Oh, Baatar Jr. The clear winner, no question at all. He's an asshole, you know? He's done terrible things for terrible reasons. The showrunners have openly said they themselves hate the character, something they've not said about any other character they created. (True!) And boy, did that show in how they wrote him for Book 4, didn't it?

I wanted to keep him true to canon, but that was difficult, since Book 3 and Book 4 Baatar don't resemble each other at all. I could have just retconned him or reinvented him - as I did with Huan, for sure, that character is meant to be a pretentious, ennui-filled art student, like I am sure Bryke encountered at school, not Autistic - but in Baatar's particular case I wanted to explore the whys and wherefores of why the shy, bumbling dork of Book 3 became this man so full of rage that he'd force his family and neighbors to literally fucking bow at his girlfriend. I mean. That's a big ass change to go through in a three year time skip.

But at the same time, if I wanted to insert him into what is one of my beloved OPs - Ikki and Huan, my readers love them* - I had to make that work in a way that kept him in character as well as made readers come around to him. If I am completely honest here, I didn't know if I was going to succeed in that and it was part (not all, but part) of the reason it took me so long to write IDNAtNfE.

Baatar is still a huge pain in the ass to write for me, and probably always will be, but he is also very, very close to my heart and I love that fucking prick. Even if he stresses me out. Jerk.

*Except for the readers who tell me I'm a pedophile for making adult Ikki have sex with people because apparently she will always remain 11 years old. For all time. Forever. Even when everyone else in the fic has aged up 10 years or more. She just magically stays 11, with pom-poms in her hair. Just like I, at 53, the mother of two children, twice married, once divorced and once widowed, am still actually my 11 year old self, frizzy hair, freckles, buck teeth and squinting with as of yet still undiagnosed myopia and all. Please don't have sex with me, you pedo.

[tequiladimples]

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but I saw that you dislike when collision is branded het cause you're not het, but no one's talking about you personally? like for me, I really like collision but I can understand the criticism in a way and that isn't an attack on you (or an attack at all lol). again hope I'm not rude but idk it seems unnecessary to get upset, it's better to take it as constructive criticism

sigh i don't think ur rude but it simply isn't constructive.

look i’ll talk abt this one more time n then i Beg we can put it to rest! (this is gna be a lot of word vomit but if i'm elaborative now i hope i won't have to talk abt this ever again)

i’m deeply insecure abt many aspects of collision. i don’t really keep that a secret. i also know some ppl don't like fantasy, some ppl don't like the kinds of dynamics i like, some ppl don't vibe with my style of writing (hell, i barely vibe with my style of writing). those things are fine. i can't control that and i don't take that personally. the reason why this is the one critique i do take personally is because it genuinely presumes wrongful, harmful things about me and my values, especially when i've made deliberate efforts to avoid writing the exact flavor of fic they're accusing me of having written. just because people don’t mean for what they say to reflect back on me, doesn’t stop it from doing so.

the thing about calling something a “het fic” is that the term brings along certain connotations which i don’t stand by at all and feel deeply uncomfortable and distraught to possibly have created. i’ve gone over this godforsaken story again and again just to be absolutely sure i didn’t actually do so. when people say “het fic” they generally don’t mean “boy meets girl and they fall in love”, they mean “super rude and mean boy meets uptight virtuous girl and makes her fall in dependence with him through manipulation and treating her like shit until she behaves how he wants.” and that is straight up not the fic i wrote. i’m not stupid. i know the dynamic i went with is widely and easily misused and there’s a lot of fiction depicting really bad, uneven, unhealthy relationships through it. i knew this going in, and i’ve tried persistently to avoid making those same mistakes. 

skipping over the fact that they’re both boys (bc duh)--harry doesn't exhibit any real manipulative power over louis. collision harry is a grumpy, fruity little nerd who happened upon a really unfortunate lot in life and managed to trick himself into believing he's evil for like half a second of the story and his resolves crumble like a danish pastry the moment he receives his first hug. he's kind of aloof and arrogant, and understandably hardened from his past, but he's not bad. he's just lost. that's the basis of his character arc. now on the other hand, louis has harry wrapped around his finger starting like chapter 4. harry’s the one who opens up emotionally first, harry’s the one desperately seeking louis’ approval and caring about his opinion, harry’s the one who makes himself vulnerable continuously throughout the entire story. the only time louis makes himself vulnerable on a comparable scale is during the smut scenes, and even then, harry is gentle and attentive and puts louis first. louis is less experienced than harry in that area, but he isn't scared or intimidated by harry, and he has full reigns of the progression and nature of their relationship as a whole. that’s kind of how it needs to go with tough x soft dynamics for the power balance to not feel uneven, and i wrote the story accordingly. if you then happen to still be so blindly determined to associate soft/small with weakness (and thereby uh, womanhood ig) that you still felt like louis had an inferior position to harry solely because he is indeed soft/small, that sounds quite frankly like a you problem.

now, the whole point of louis’ character is that he’s underestimated. sure, he’s naive and self-centered and sheltered from the real world--that’s the basis of his character arc. those things all change. but louis isn’t ever weak. like idk who apparently needs to hear this but you can be small and simultaneously not be a pushover. the two aren’t mutually exclusive. there isn’t a single time louis takes shit in this story, especially not from harry; he gives back as good as he gets every time. oh! and then he literally saves the entire universe and the execution of that whole thing was his idea alone. i tried really hard to underline how strong-willed and full of grit he is to contrast what others think of him. if you think he’s portrayed as a meek and frail damsel, you missed the point. once again, i feel like we circle back to this misconception of louis being kind of naive and physically small = louis being inferior = louis being female. just do some soul searching.

(i could also get into the fact that for a bunch of people who don’t know these boys personally (no matter how much we like to think we do), this fandom is weirdly opinionated about characterization. especially regarding sexual stuff. i know creating a version for ourselves of who we think these boys are based on things we recognize in ourselves or things we find endearing is part of the comfort with loving them. but that doesn’t really equate to actually knowing them, and besides, this is fan fiction; no one’s opting to write a biography, anyway. being experimental and explorative and putting different aspects of their personalities in different lightings is what makes fic fun. if someone’s writing harmful or one-dimensional characters, that’s one thing, and preferences is again whatever floats your boat. but the “out of character” argument feels mostly really strange to me. this is a bit of a tangent, though.)

lastly, the thing is that i will and i do take it personally if someone insinuates that a character--a gay character--that i, a lesbian, construed is a secret vessel for expressing heterosexual attraction. if someone calls louis a “self-insert”, that does reflect back on me. and to elaborate on that--i don’t particularly love to bring it up, but it's quite disheartening to pour personal PTSD experiences into a character and rly put effort into doing it right and justice and underline growth and healing, just to find out people disregard all that completely in favor of declaring that my self-projection lies in the attraction to a man--which is to say, the one thing i couldn’t possibly feel more estranged from. it's so incredibly tactless. i feel thoroughly whiny at this point but how is that not supposed to make me a little sad?

anyway. none of this is to say that you can’t dislike or critique collision. you can. sometimes ppl don’t like things. but i hope i’m clear about where i’m coming from with my discomfort now. people’s preferences and dislikes are indeed not mine to be hurt by, but these things are. this definitely got unnecessarily long and i probably look like i take myself unbearably seriously (i promise i don’t), so i’m sorry. but at least i've said everything now, and if i encounter this sort of rhetoric in the future, i have something to redirect people to. also anon, none of this is directly pointed at you, i know you mean well. take care <3

[your--isgayrights]

hello hi 2 7 11 13 25 26 31 (👁️👁️) and 32. i know its a lot but im curiouss

afklasfsf hello!!! don’t worry i love the excuse to ramble haha.

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

Hmmm this is one that can be sort of simple to answer but also sort of complicated? I write fanfiction because it’s my way of processing the way that the original work made me feel, like it’s a natural decompression. It’s also just something that it’s good to have a creative outlet for. I’m not really a person who does self inserts or ocs in fanworks, but I do think that I put a lot of myself into my writing. When there are emotional parts of my work, they are directly coming from the way that I have felt in a certain time in my life. Fanfiction lets me use characters that other people already know to communicate these feelings and have them be understood by someone other than myself.

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

Getting started writing is always a struggle for me, because I’m very good at daydreaming and writing nothing down. I have so many snippets from moments of inspiration that I had that somehow translated into scenes in my notes app, but stitching them together with transitions can be hard for me to start doing. Usually to get in the mood, I will read other fics in the fandom or reread the original work itself. That gives me ideas and keeps the characters voices in my head haha.

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

This is sort of outside of orv, but I have this very specific niche of writing adult characters who went through traumatic situations in their child or teen years. The trauma will usually be from the original text, and then I will want to write the character after the fact, growing up and being old and somehow just managing to live even after all of that. Having this feeling of existing after the war, of marveling at the fact that you are still alive, is very important to me.

Rest under the cut!

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Hahaha.... Um. If we’re talking about when I first wrote any sort of fiction based on fiction, it was probably warriors cats when I was like... 8. If we wanna talk about first published work, I am embarrassed to say that I do in fact have three separate ao3 accounts for a couple different fandoms. My first fic was from Danganronpa V3, but I’m going to ask that no one go looking for it because I’m a bit embarrassed.

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

Yes... I might publish a collection of scenes from other povs once I get through “and at the very least, the wall will change.” because I have a sort of mental map of the way that every character feels in a scene that can be sort of limited by writing only from KDJ’s perspective.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

Honestly I have a 40+ chapter fic I was writing for a different fandom that I want to get back to some day, but the way that I planned it out was vastly overestimating my own writing abilities, and I sort of hate the way it starts out now. This is why I know that getting the eight chapter “and at the very least, the wall will change.” done is very doable for me, though, because I learned from the experience.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

Oooh haha yeah. I dunno, there are a few stories that I’ve had in my head over the years (I used to make a lot of comics of original characters), but nothing I’m making content for right now. I had a story way back when from the perspective of a boy who is best friends with a kid named Ravi. Throughout the story you get the sense that Ravi takes the pov character for granted, as he seems constantly depressed and troubled by something that the pov character desires to fix because of some sort of emotional history between them. Everything in the world seems to be about Ravi. But then it begins to creep in that everything in the world really is centered around Ravi. A long time ago, he gained the power to reset the world, and make it in his image. But no matter what he does, the world that he wants doesn’t come out right, and none of the people in it seem real to him, because they only do what he wants them to. The climactic scene is Ravi breaking down in front of the pov character and asking him what he wants, that he must want something, that he can’t really be dead. Ravi has reconstructed his old life, and the pov character is the shell representing his best friend that died when he remade the world. The pov character only wants what Ravi wants, though, and in the end, he kills him.

It was from like my junior year of high school, and I think that writing that one was my way of processing one of my longest childhood friendships ending, so sorry if its a bit angsty!

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

Oh nooo I’m terrible at summaries. Um. Uh.

“KDJ doesn’t value himself. YJH is traumatized about it. Romance.”

[im-the-punk-who]

Fanfic author tag game!

tagged by: @halewoods ! <3 and I’m actually remembering to do this one!

tagging: gosh....who hasnt done this?? @queer-crusader, @herself-nyc, @riotsofbloom, @lesbians4luke and ilke?? anyone else who wants to??

Where you post: AO3, I also usually cross-post drabbles here. I have an ff.net account but it’s uhhhhh cursed knowledge and you have to be level known-me-for-a-decade to have access to my old Newsies self-insert fics.

Most Popular One Shot (by kudos): Memories, Like Water, Can Be Tainted or Distilled; Sometimes Will Evaporate (473), by a LARGE margin but also, it’s been up for like 7 years at this point and it’s Stucky xD My more recent most-kudos is also one of my personal faves, Between Breath and Love, I Choose Him (139).

Most Popular Multi-Chapter (by kudos): LMAO it’s funny you think I actually finish things. Okay so this is Play, Boys (130) - my Umbrella Academy eternal WIP that I’ve mostly abandoned. Sad Face, because I actually really loved it - just completely lost inspiration.

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Oh god. UHHHHH I have a bunch? Honestly Memories, Like Water, Can Be Tainted or Distilled; Sometimes Will Evaporate is quite good and something I’m very proud of. a smell that is loathesome to some is sweet to others is stupid and cute and I love it and also it’s nsfw so like. Up My Alley. Into The Blinding Sun is also like....listen I just love stories where Thomas is in love and gets flustered by how much he likes James okay?? And then of course, my passion project, Doubting Thomas which once it’s finished and reuploaded will easily take the cake in terms of like, every metric to rate my fondness of fanfics I’ve written.

Fic you were nervous to post: So honestly? Sometimes A Family As uhhhh anyone knows I have a REAL complicated relationship with the silver-centric part of the fandom and for a long time it’s stopped me from publishing ANY of my writing that deals with him. This is the, I suppose tamest of them but I was still like, having a minor panic attack while posting it. xD

How do you choose your titles?: I usually like poems, or quotes that have to deal with the subject matter. (Or, made up titles that sound like a quote that would deal with the subject matter.) Also, song titles if the song inspired the fic (Doubting Thomas, Unsteady, etc.)

Do you outline?: Not really? For one shots I tend to just have the idea in my head and write it all down, then flesh out and edit. For Doubting Thomas, I had a basic idea of what I wanted to do and wrote key scenes first, then have been filling in as I go.

# Complete: What....counts......as...complete? XD So I have 23 “marked” complete on AO3. I have Of my five “wips” I’ve posted, only 2 are likely to be completed. Listen I’m an Aries. I’m an Aries. I’m sorry.

# In-Progress: ..........................................I have 18 WIPS with their own google doc, and 15 in my “Prompt drafts” doc where I put ideas that I’ve fleshed out but haven’t started editing yet. I’M AN ARIES OKAY. AN ARIES!!!!!!

Coming soon/not yet started: Gosh. Okay so the main ones are “Many Hands Make Light Work” and “Spice”, and also that AU I have based on the Arthurian Green Giant myth. Many Hands is a modern-AU PWP multi fic where Thomas is a good Dom and arranges for a, shall we say, stress outlet involving James and the employees of The Walrus, the gay bar they co-own. Spice is a Flinthams figging fic because that’s just who I am as a person. And then of course there’s my Madi-backstory fic that I’ve started the first two chapters of that I love.

Prompts?: PLEASE. I don’t always answer them, sometimes they get shoved into that Wips-gdoc but sometimes!! I do!!!! And I love getting them!

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: Easily Doubting Thomas. It’s by a MARGIN my longest fic I’ve ever written(currently sitting at 60k) and also a really personal story that I love a LOT and which involves a lot of detail around my post-canon headcanons and how I would have loved to see the show end/deal with, and also me getting to nerd out about history and how it intersects with Black Sails. 

[i-love-pie-and-satan]

A Self-Indulgent Reader Insert

Note: Alright so I mostly wrote this because I’ve been dying to write a reader insert to the point where I can’t focus on my multichapter fic. So this is mostly getting it out of my system but idk if people like this sort of stuff, then I’m all for writing more. In the meantime, have my garbage.

The first thing you noticed was the smell. It was like a dying animal vomited up something rancid then curled up and died in said vomit before some kid set the whole scene on fire. It made you want to gag. Groaning, you tried to put a hand to your face to block the smell but your hand wasn’t much better. 

Why did you smell so bad? When was the last time you showered? 

The next thing you notice is the weird slimy feeling on your back. That actually makes you gag. Mustering up the strength, you push yourself up and blink away the spots that danced in and out of your vision. For a moment, you briefly panic over the thought of being blind but then your eyes adjust to the low flickering light. From what you could tell, you were in some back alley between two dumpsters. That probably explained the slime you had woken up in. Probably best to ignore it unless you wanted to add to the stench with some vomit of your own. 

Doing your best to ignore the painful throbbing in your head, you pushed yourself shakily to your feet and look up and down the alley. One side looked to lead to a dead-end so you headed the other direction, towards the opening of the alley and the source of the flickering light. As you approached, you raised a hand to shield your sensitive eyes and paused at the opening of the alley. 

Where even were you? You didn't recognize anything around you so how did you get here?

It opened up on to a mostly abandon street that you didn't recognize in the slightest. The only people in sight were a small cluster that stood before a roaring fire. There seemed to be something large in the fire before them but you couldn't quite make it out from where you stood. 

"We got the money," came a voice, making you jump. "We should skedaddle before any heroes get here, yeah?" 

Heroes? Did they mean police? Or law enforcement? 

After a moment, the same voice called out again, as if trying to get someone's attention. "Overhaul?"

"Overhaul," you repeat, voice just above a whisper. The name sounded familiar, though only in some vague way. Frowning, you tried to follow that string of the thought. Where had you heard that before? You knew there had to be something.

Then, floating up from some dark corner of your mind, a quote came to you. "They're all sick," you said, the words feeling foreign on your tongue. "Every last one of them." You weren't speaking a language you were familiar with and yet it came easily. Was this your native language? It really didn't feel like it but you also didn't fumble over it. 

"Hey!" The shout abruptly yanked you out of your thoughts, snapping you back to reality. You couldn't tell which one was yelling at you due to the strange, beak-like masks they all wore but the one with the green and purple jacket was now approaching you. "Pay attention when Overhaul is speaking to you!" 

"I-"

"I asked you to repeat yourself," said the one in the jacket, stopping a few feet away from you. 

Shrinking back against the wall of the building behind you, you swallowed hard and said, "I-I said 'they're all sick, every last one of them.' That's, um, that's what you were going to say, right?"

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "And just how did you know that?" His voice sent a chill down your spine, setting you on edge. 

As you opened your mouth to respond, you came to the sudden abrupt realization that you had absolutely no idea how you knew he'd say that. It was distressing to acknowledge it but you were coming to the realization that you didn't know how you knew a lot. "I don't know?" you said, the statement coming out as more of a question than you'd like.

"You don't seem very sure of that," Overhaul said sourly, before turning and gesturing to one of the others in his group. As the man with the wide brim hat approached, Overhaul turned to glare down at you again.

The man in the hat (you were pretty sure his name was Nemoto) stared down at you. Like a wave of icy wind, you felt a question pulse through you. "How did you know what Overhaul would say?"

Before you could even think, the words were already spilling out of you."I-I remembered it. From something I watched." The answer probably shocked you more than the two yakuza members. 

"What were you doing in that alleyway?"

"I don't know," you said with a shrug. "I just woke up and there I was."

Rolling his eyes, Overhaul crossed his arms over his chest and demanded, "Is there anything you do know?"

"What do you know?"

Again, it seemed as if words were just spilling out of you or maybe being yanked out of you by force. "I, um, know that you go by Overhaul and that the guy in the hat is called Nemoto and the one over there in the hood is Chronostasis and the big guy is Katsukame. Oh, and we're are currently being watched by Twice." You looked just as surprised as Overhaul but, though you had no idea how you knew, you knew you were right. You knew these people more or less by name. You were also now painfully aware of the man at the end of the street watching the whole group. 

Glancing down the street, Overhaul considered you once more. "Your quirk," he said, voice dropping dangerously low.

"What is your quirk?"

"I don't have one," you said, the words being forced out of you once more. 

Humming, Overhaul turned and said, "Chrono, pack everything up while I deal with the League's little rat." 

You watched wearily as Overhaul went to handle Twice at the end of the street, jumping slightly as Chrono lept from his perch on the parked van. "You heard the boss," he said curtly, "Let's wrap this up quickly. Hey, that includes you." You start slightly as Chrono turned his masked gaze on you. 

"I don't..." you murmur, taking a small step back. 

"Don't even think about running," snapped the largest of the group, Katsukame, as he pulled open the back doors of the van. "You won't get far."

"Do us a favor and make this easy on all of, alright? You're lucky we weren't ordered to kill you outright," Nemoto said with an annoyed sigh. 

They were right. You wouldn't get far, especially since you had no idea where you were. That's not even considering the fact that you apparently speak Japanese and only remembered vague details about random people around you. Taking a steadying breath, you nodded slightly and let yourself be herded into the backseat of the van's main cabin next to Nemoto. 

After a few minutes, Overhaul returned to the van and climbed into the front passenger seat. "Chrono, get us back to base and clear my schedule for the evening. I have a meeting with the League of Villains to attend to."

"Yessir," Chrono said curtly, starting up the car. "And what would you like us to do with the extra?" You frowned at being called an extra but held your tongue. You only knew the barest of basics about them but the air around the gang alone was enough for you to pick up on just how dangerous they could be. 

"The extra?" Overhaul hummed, turning his head just enough to look at you. Trying not to squirm, you met his gaze. "That's a bit rude, don't you think?" 

It took you a minute to realize he was asking you. "Oh, um, I guess."

"So, are you going to give us something else to call you?"

You looked away, frowning in concentration. You had to remember something about yourself. Even if it was something small, you should have had some vague notion of who you were but, if you did remember anything, it wasn't making itself known. "Nothing," you said softly, not looking up. 

Overhaul sighed and turned back to the front. "Shame. Extra it is then. And put on a mask. Until you get cleaned and we know for sure if you have a quirk, I refuse to breathe the same air as you."

"Here. Put this one on," Nemoto said, holding out a black, cloth face mask. Nodding, you take it and put it on over your nose and mouth. 

While the van fell silent, you decided to take inventory of your memories. It wasn't much but, if you could figure out what you did know, it would help you know what blanks to fill in. 

You started with Overhaul since it was the first thing to sound familiar. You knew he was the acting leader of the Shie Hassaikai, a small-time yakuza. His quirk was Overhaul, a power that let him pretty much complete disassemble and reassemble matter. You vaguely remember something about a phobia of germs and an isolated childhood but nothing was all that solid. Then there were his subordinates. Chronostasis, Nemoto, and Katsukame. You could remember their quirks and full names but other than that, nothing. 

Then there's Twice. You remembered more about him, more than just his name and quirk. He was a part of the League of Villains and had developed something of a personality disorder after abusing his quirk. Concentrating on the villain, you did your best to follow the line of thought. Screwing up your eyes, you try to remember.

"He... wants to recruit you," you said softly, pressing a knuckle to the center of your forehead. You could see it, just barely. It was Overhaul and Twice before a group of people who you were pretty sure was the League of Villains. There was blood, too, and someone crumbling to dust. "But you aren't going to agree. You're going to...kill someone, I think, and someone else will crumble to dust. And...um...that's all I can recall." You dropped your hand to your lap and sigh softly. 

"How do you know this?"

 The sudden question makes you jump and you speak quickly. "I remember it from something. I think it's a show but I just can't quite remember where I watched it."

There's a long moment of silence, in which you lock eyes with Overhaul again. Finally, he said, "When we get back to base, I'll have someone do a blood test on you so we can be sure of the status of your quirk. From there, we will discuss this further. I want to know anything you can tell me about tonight."

Sensing that you weren't going to have much of a say in any of this, you nodded and sunk a little more into your seat. 

[go-events]

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @wyvernquill

The amazing @wyvernquill (also WyvernQuill on AO3) has claimed Ruby Sparks to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About Ruby Sparks: Young author Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano), once a literary darling, is having trouble composing his next novel. Following a therapist's advice, Calvin pulls out an old manual typewriter and creates a vivacious, flame-haired woman he dubs Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan). Overnight, Ruby leaps from the page into Calvin's home as a real flesh-and-blood woman. And, what's more, she's unaware that she's actually a fictional character and that her actions and feelings are dictated by whatever Calvin writes.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @wyvernquill a little better!

* * *

goromcom: Let’s begin with what Tumblr can tell me about you. You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post "about #fanart and #illustration". I really admire people who can draw *and* write. Do you enjoy one more than the other?

wyvernquill: Oh, don't ask me to choose between my brain-children! I love both for different reasons, and find some ideas are easier to express in writing, others through drawing; though I also love to combine the two by illustrating my fics or writing something based on some random thing I sketched during class. (I'm also a very quick artist, while my fics tend to balloon out of proportion - so "doing a quick illustration in an hour" and "writing a 102k epic" are two very different and really rather incomparable experiences!)

goromcom: Oh goodness, yes. Two very different creative outlets! But for now, let’s talk about writing. You chose to adapt Ruby Sparks as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it? 

wyvernquill: Cards on the table? I never heard of this movie before. I got very close to writing the fic without having seen it once, and only watched it a week or so ago. (And even then... it's not a *bad* movie, but, personally, I didn't grow attached to the characters at all. Just didn't really appeal to my tastes, I guess.) So, why Ruby Sparks?

Well, I made a List, capital L for significance. In the 12 hours before claims, I researched the plots of every single movie up for claiming - most of which I never heard of, clearly I don't watch enough romcoms - and categorised them into "absolutely not" "mmmmmaybe?" and "possibly", making my way through IMDB short descriptions and Wikipedia pages until the List was down to the top 10; most of which were movies I'd seen or at least heard of - except Ruby Sparks, which I chose for the simple reason that I'd ALREADY written an "accidental" AU of it.

The premise was exactly the same as roughly 3k of unfinished Doctor Who fic I scribbled together and never published, even though I was quite fond of it. I figured I could re-use my favourite elements of that fic, work off the base premise rather than the movie itself, and see where writing takes me.

goromcom: That is quite a ride! I’m a big proponent of re-introducing or recycling ideas or material that you find compelling but weren’t quite able to use before! It’s like, eco-awareness for your mind. :)

Given your history with this movie, this might be an odd question, but: What's your favorite moment of your movie, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

wyvernquill: For reasons already outlined above, this isn't really based directly on any scene of the movie, but I think Aziraphale writing his idea of a "perfect husband" (and a progressively more thinly-veiled self-insert as the main character) will be a delight!

I greatly enjoy having the subjective perception of POV characters and objective reality be comically different - "I'm an excellent cook," he said, scraping the burned remnants of what could really no longer be called an omelette onto a plate - so I think I'll have some fun there. Maybe Aziraphale will defend his Artistic Vision (And Not Wish Fulfillment At All Shut Up) to someone? I'm not sure yet.

goromcom: I have a feeling I know the answer, but let me ask it anyway. Do you plan to stick very closely to the beats of the original story, or make bigger changes?

wyvernquill: Bigger changes, definitely. I might pluck an idea or two from the movie - and, surprisingly, the rough progression of events was pretty close to what I planned anyway - but it'll be rather different. (See next answer - I might well take more from Mary Shelley than from Ruby Sparks!)

Also, I'm still a bit undecided on this, but I might actually have Aziraphale publish some of his writing about Crowley from the start, something which doesn't happen in the movie until the very end.

goromcom: What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

wyvernquill: Well, the moral of the movie was more or less that Writer Guy--no, I don't even remember his name!--has to overcome his controlling half-neurotic nature so he can be happy both among his more easy-going family and with the freespirited Ruby. Instead, I intend to have Aziraphale struggling a la Modern Prometheus (what does it mean to create life, to play God, to have a Creature that thinks for itself?), creating a subplot that is more overtly philosophical and thought-provoking, with a hint of religiosity - the essence of what GO is to me.(Meaning the final conflict will not be Writer Guy warping Ruby into a helpless parody of herself, but instead Aziraphale growing afraid of Crowley, who's beginning to show traits he never wrote for him, attempting to "erase" him again before he loses control entirely... but it all ends happily, don't worry! ;))

goromcom: Those are some pretty interesting ideas you’re playing with! I’m looking forward to reading it. But let’s not give too much away, and move on to my last question. I am blatantly stealing this from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

wyvernquill: Oh, the temptation to talk about my four darling cats is Real(tm)... but instead, I want to give a little shout-out to the absolutely fantasticamazingbrilliant teacher at my university who offered a course on fanfic and fandom studies this past term, and who is letting me write my term paper on the Ineffable Fandom!!!

She's the best, lots of fun to discuss with, and research for the paper - deadline in two weeks, I've not yet started writing it, let's hope I get it finished speedily! - is an absolute delight.

(The only difficulty will be staying within the page limit... there's just so much to write about with this wonderful fandom.)

Her course was the highlight of my week, and fan studies (unsurprisingly!) turned out to be a field that really interests me. So thank you so much, Ms Fanfic Teacher, I'm very grateful for... just about everything!!! ^-^ <3

goromcom: That sounds like a fantastic class and an even better teacher. You have to admire the people who go that extra mile to inspire and lift up their students, and get them actually excited about learning.

And you know what else is going to be fantastic? The GO adaptation of Ruby Sparks, coming soon!

[auncyen]

A, U, N, C, Y, E, N

oh boy lol

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

Since you didn’t specify a fic, I’m going to go with the one that stood out most this year: “Fall Seven Times, Get Comfortable on the Floor”, which is like, my longest title for a short fic ever lol.  The fic was kind of based on both Akiren week prompts of “at the top”/“at the bottom”, with Joker thinking he was at the top of his game but in reality, emotionally?   Hitting a low and taking stupid, needless risks as a result.  So when I couldn’t think of a good way to sum up the fic itself with a title, I went back to the whole “top/bottom” idea and looked up sayings until I found “Fall seven times, stand up eight”, and then twisted it around to sound like a fall out boy song title since that about fits Joker’s dramatics here.  …I mean he does need a hug in that fic.  But also he’s being dramatic.

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven’t tried yet.

There’s Ren/Yusuke and Ren/Haru which I’m kind of interested in.  Ren/Ryuji/Ann and polythieves in general.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

Ok so two Ns means two fics: someone please write the complete “The Toll of Miracles” and put AU Tiz through pain town for me lol.  In Persona 5 fandom…someone please write the fic where Sojiro is a hostage to try to push Ren and Futaba into becoming assassins for the conspiracy because I LOVE that idea and I also am just not sure I could do it justice.

C: What character do you identify with most?

In Bravely: Agnès, down to “I can’t drive to a new city without getting lost/making a wrong turn at least once, without fail”.  I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with getting lost, at least?

In Persona 5: Makoto is probably who I would have felt closest to as a teenager, but as an adult?  …………………………..it’s probably one of the people in the depths

Y: A character you want to protect.

So I wanna protect Joker but that’s like only after smacking him with the angst bat first, so maybe doesn’t count.  I think the real answer is Morgana.  Because, okay, given that it’s commonly agreed P5 happens in 2016, the oldest Morgana can be is 5 years old.  I headcanon a lot younger.  (I headcanon Morgana was created very soon after Ren’s trial ended, with the two events being indirectly connected.)  And his pre-Thieves history is pretty much “ran around the mental landscape of a stagnant and corrupt society on his own and got so mixed up he forgot his original existence and purpose”.

So, I think it’s perfectly fair to wish he’d been set up differently as a character.  I know his arc is pretty much a big ripoff of Teddie’s, to the point where when he first started having the ‘nightmare’ I was REALLY hoping it was a fakeout and he’d still turn out to have been like, either actually human or at least the pet of someone important.  (Honestly?  If Maruki had been in the original game, I would probably have been hoping that Morgana would turn out to be connected to him, in part to explain why Morgana puts such emphasis on self-care.)  But in-universe.  Given how he is set up.  HE DOES PRETTY DECENTLY?  He is trying his best on very limited resources.  This doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get hit with consequences (I liked hitting him with consequences for the Velvet Stage Palace au), but it makes sense that he still has some growing up to do and I kind of wish there’d been a little bit of the PT like.  Acting as older siblings to him, since they even seem to see Morgana as child-like themselves in certain Mementos chats, like when his fascination with “window-shopping” comes up.  (I may be planning for this to be like a favorite activity of his to do with Ann in the AU where he stayed with her for several months….ok ok moving on.)

E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?

…Maybe give me a specific fic for this one, nothing’s jumping to mind.

[izupie]

Okay! Ask game! I pick 1, 13, 19, 35, and 47!

Thank you for the ask from this fanfiction ask game!

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

My first ever fanfiction that I ever wrote - before I even knew what fanfiction was - was a self-insert YuGiOh story I wrote because I was a little kid with an imagination and a pen and I wanted to interact with my favourite characters.

Which is why I will never be mean about kids writing really cheesy self-insert fics. Let them have their fun!

I still own this notebook and honest to god it’s the funniest read ever. Sometimes I get nostalgic about my writing and I’ll reread it just for a laugh. There’s an iconic line in it that me and my friend lose our minds over - if I just say ‘Cause she shouted...’ at any time to her she will immediately just shoot back with ‘mega loud!’

It’s a great read ahaha h a h a

In terms of my first actual published fanfiction it was a Kingdom Hearts fic I put on FF.net and it reads with all of the excellent tropes and cliches a 12 year old can write. It’s horrific! How weird that I can read the one I wrote as a really young kid, but not the one I wrote as a 12 year old ?

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

A bit of a neat segue from the previous question is that my style when I first started publishing fanfiction was full of all those typical ‘just starting out’ stuff like describing people based on their hair colour instead of just using their names. THE SILVER HAIRED TEEN did this. THE BRUNETTE did that. oh yes. I went there. Describing people’s eyes as ‘orbs’ 

and

holding a breath

they didn’t even know 

they were holding

(Oh wait I still do that one)

I kept it very simple, lots of dialogue.

Now I try to get inside my characters heads. And I loooove to describe simple acts, but as something pretty or important - like watching a character getting ready or eating lunch in a Ghibli movie. And I guess I’m more adventurous now, and willing to be flexible with my ‘style’. (Though I can’t really describe what that style is - does writer struggle to capture the essence of their own writing style???)

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

I’d pick Ochako entering the cafe and finding Izuku there in Beep Beep Beep. In my head it’s probably my favourite thing I’ve written - really atmospheric and my heart clenches whenever I think of that whole scene. Probably that whole last chapter makes me want to cry with sentimentality.

I’ll add it under a cut~

----------

“What the…” she breathed. The whole café was covered in strings of fairy lights – even more than usual – winding and twisting over the tables and chairs, dripping over the counter and draped over the plastic planets hanging from the ceiling. Softly glowing spots of silver shone through the darkness and bright lights like stars were being projected onto every surface. Ochako lifted her hands in awe to see the spots of light on her skin. It looked like she’d just fallen into the night sky.

It was beautiful.

She looked around, mouth still open slightly, and noticed the ‘stars’ were being projected from a glowing ball in the centre of the room.

Ochako softly closed the front door behind her and began to walk over to the projector, wondering why Mina had set this up, when she noticed a figure standing nearby, nearly hidden in the dark shadows cast by the lights.

She yelped in surprise and grabbed a chair, brandishing it in front of her. “Who’s there?”

“Ah! N-No- Wait, Ochako, it’s okay- it’s just me! It’s just me!”

She could barely make out the figure that jolted forwards quickly and dropped down to crouch by the projector, but the voice was achingly familiar. She heard a few clicks and the starry lights illuminated the café more brightly, making it so that she could see the figure clearly as he stood up and rubbed the back of his neck.

Ochako replaced the chair slowly.

“Izuku?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was going to say something- but you looked so, um… so pretty standing there and I…”

Ochako wasn’t sure who moved first. But within another beat of her heart, so loud in her ears, they had pulled each other into an embrace. She buried her face in his chest, arms tight around his middle, and gripped onto fistfuls of his soft hoodie. His strong arms squeezed her against him, and he lay his head on her shoulder.

Together at last.

It was like everything she’d been feeling for him came crashing through her in waves all at once; that initial spark, gratitude, friendship, fondness, admiration, affection… She’d missed him so much. Though they’d only been apart a few days but her longing to talk to him and be close to him had only grown with each day that passed.

She inhaled deeply and snuggled into his warm embrace. His clothes had picked up the subtle tang of coffee that permanently lingered in the café.

“I thought you had to work tonight,” she eventually managed, though it still came out as barely more than a whisper into the soft material of the hoodie over his broad chest.

“I was supposed to be.” He turned his head slightly so that his breath tickled the skin on her neck.

She shivered, despite her warmth, and hated that her thick winter coat felt like a barrier between them. She had to resist the urge to just throw it off.

Izuku eventually pulled back gently so that they could look at each other. Silver light kissed the flushed skin of his cheeks, and the projected stars gave him cosmic freckles.

“Someone gave me some good advice. I decided it didn’t matter if the universe just kept on keeping us apart. I just needed to t-try harder.” He brushed a stray flyaway piece of hair behind her ear and stroked her cheek lightly. “Last time I got you a bouquet of flowers, but this time… this time I got you the stars.”

Ochako could feel tears filling her vision and she tried to say something, but her voice stuck in her throat. Something she couldn’t identify passed between their shared gaze, intense and powerful, and she had the sudden incredible urge to kiss him. She might even have done it if he hadn’t blinked and looked away, a vibrant red blooming strongly across his nose.

“Uh, s-sorry, that was kind of corny…”

His hand drifted away from her cheek.

Ochako shook her head violently, scattering the tear drops she had been desperately holding back, and knew they would be catching the artificial starlight as they finally trickled freely down her cheeks.

“No!” she squeaked. “Nobody has ever said anything like that to me. Ever.” She took a steadying breath, hoping it would stop her voice from wobbling so much. “Nobody has ever tried this hard to get to know me and spend time with me. I-I can’t believe you’d do all this just for me. All of this, it’s beautiful.”

Izuku stared long and hard at her, a smile creasing the skin in the corner of his eyes. “I’m so glad.”

He gently wiped her tears and Ochako’s stomach flipped like the moment of weightlessness that she loved at the very top of a roller-coaster, just as plunges down the track. She felt like her whole body was being held together by the vibrations of the pulse through her veins.

“Although you did nearly attack me with a chair,” he added playfully.

Ochako blushed as she hiccupped and clamped her hands to her mouth. “Ah! I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry Izuku, I didn’t know it was you.” She couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out from behind her hand.

----------

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

I accidentally had Ochako kind of almost slightly crushing on Doctor Shouto in BBB - I couldn’t stop her describing his ‘pretty eyes’ and I was like Yeah Me Too. oops

That’s as far as it’s ever gone though - I am pretty focused and single minded when it comes to writing my ships aaa

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

I have had a few people in real life read Beep Beep Beep! A friend from work read it and passed it onto her son who also read it and he drew me some fanart that he printed out and framed for my birthday. I literally nearly just died on the spot. 

Other than the names it’s one of those AUs where it’s kind of it’s own thing - just a really really cheesy romance - so I think it’s fairly accessible even if you don’t know the show? You just lose some of the neat callbacks

[tazrp]

what are some rps u think would be fun with some of ur muses? 👀

Oh boy. This is a pretty big question. tbh some of them I don’t have anything specific, I just wanna do something to get a better feel for them. But I’ll shove some ideas under the cut and if something seems like hmu

Brad, Barry, and Kravitz don’t have anything specific for. These kids and a bunch that I took off the list were ones that I thought, “ooh I really wanna write for them!” but when I was deleting muses, I couldn’t bring myself to remove these 4 anyway. 

Incidentally, though Taako isn’t on my list because I didn’t think I could write him well, I already have a thread going with him because I just couldn’t resist the urge. lmao Okay but others:

Magnus - I just want to play him being BFFs with literally everyone. lol He’s such a big friendly dude. I think he’d be fun in Graduation? He’d definitely be on the Hero track but I think it would end up being kind of funny if because of the methods Tres Horny Boys used near the beginning of Balance especially he ended up on the Villain curriculum. He’d be really mad. lol I think that would be fun to explore.Honestly I think he’s pretty versatile and I think it’d be fun to throw him into basically any AU/Crossover.

Merle - I ended up having multiple ships for Merle my first listen of Balance and generally I don’t get so into that my first runthrough of stuff? But he had such great chemistry with so many people that I couldn’t help it. I don’t often like doing things just based on shipping but I wanna! for him! lol I just love that this weird little plant fucker is also Emotional Support material. I love him.I also really like parent/child RPs??? I did some on another blog with an OC self-insert child to my canon character that I really enjoyed, so I think it’d be fun to do something with him and his kids. Pre- or -post canon/Hekaba would be fine.

John - He’s an incredibly interesting character and I just really love how he speaks. I think RPing him during his time with The Hunger would be really neat (I wrote a fic awhile back about him and The Hunger and it was a delight to write and I really love thinking about the dynamic there) so him starting up The Hunger would be interesting. I think it’d be cool to explore what might’ve happened if Merle was able to pull John out of The Hunger during Stolen Century and have him walking around with the Starblaster crew on some of those worlds. After everything, I have in his bio that he’s been put back into the world to learn how to do things better, so I think it opens up some crossover opportunities because we could throw him wherever.Also really like AUs so I’d love to see what it’d be like to play him as I think he was before learning the answer to life, the universe, and everything, or also figure out a way to make him Just Like That for a reason other than being The Hunger for centuries.

Mavis - I just want her to be BFFs with Angus, man. I want them to solve mysteries together and be super good friends and hang out all the time (to Merle’s dismay.) maybe she has a crush on him idk

Garfield - he’s got a Deal For You. I wanna play this spooky little gremlin doing basically anything, but I think it’d be fun to find a Magnus to keep him creepin’ on. lmao

The Amnesty group I don’t have anything specific for any of them tbh. I’ve only listened to Amnesty once so I haven’t thought as much about this cast as I did for Balance. I took Commitment and Dust completely off my list for this reason too, but at least with Amnesty we had longer to get to know the characters. So really anything with them would be fun for me, I think, and until I listen again I probably won’t have more specific ideas that aren’t all based on ships. lmao

I would like to play Ned during his time as a criminal, I’d love for Agent Stern to Investigate Some Mysteries, and I think Barclay is a babe so him being domestic around the lodge is A+ material for me. (Also: Indrid?? A great big babe!)

I don’t have AU ideas for the Graduation Kids either, but I’m really enjoying RPing them in their school setting! 

I’m also open to pretty much anything that anyone else wants to do with any of these characters. (Or literally anyone from Balance) so if you wanna come Plot something out I’m totally game.

[stansstansandmorestans]

White Oak- Stanford Pines x nonhuman! reader

so this is basically stanford/reader where the reader is a Dryad, but I’ve put thought into the character and my take on their species so I guess it’s more of an oc/self insert? the terms have overlap. 

@rosielibrary I was the anon from a few days ago! This is most of what I had from the old fic that’s a few years old, with minor edits (I first wrote it in 1st person at a whim lmao) that I’m considering expanding on now that I’m into Gravity Falls again

---

Things in Gravity Falls were peaceful. Or at least, they were until The Human came to stir everything up.

The Human was a curious thing. You always wondered why he did what he did, what made him so different from the other humans. Maybe you were a bit curious, too. But you had no reason to do anything, or at least not for a while.

When the angry loud screech of your brethren rang out, you could hardly be blamed for investigating, though.

The human was there of course, tied up in Douglas' branches as Douglas seethed in his human-shaped Mindform. You winced- it was bad luck, messing with Douglas. Any of the Douglas-fir's really, because once one was bothered, so were the rest. Naturally, Menzie, Esii, and Glas were already there, hissing and moaning.

“I- I'm sorry, I was only trying to-”

“Trying to chop me down?! Trying to mess with the fir siblings?” You stared at the spectacle. The Human looked appropriately nervous, his eyes glancing down at a curious journal- You’d heard of it before of course, the thing he was recording everything about this place in. It was true that the supernatural didn't always communicate amongst themselves well, but nothing got past a dryad, not in a forest.

Curiously, you stepped closer. There was a fallen twig next to the journal. You could tell immediately that The Human had harvested it. Sure enough, there was a tiny rip in one of Douglas' lowermost branches, a tiny place that should have fit the twig. Oh, The Human would not be leaving this alive. One simply did not damage a dryad's Soulform, the tree that sustained their life. Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if the human had realized this.

“You think you're so great, human? That you can just go around doing whatever you want?” Douglas tightened his branches, causing a yelp of pain from The Human.

“Oh, it's Alba!” Menzie's nasally voice filled the air. “Finally decided to wander somewhere interesting?”

You held back a groan. Oh gaia, did you hate the fir siblings. “Heard a scream, I thought maybe Douglas found another spider up his trunk.”

This earned scowls from all four of them. “That wasn't because of the spider! I told you, there was a colony-”

“Sure, whatever you say dude.” You grinned at their narrowed attention. They were just a bunch of bullies at the heart of things- far too easy to rile up.

It was at that moment that you realized The Human was doing something. He was wiggling strangely, trying to reach for something in his pocket. You wondered what he was getting at, because the Firs would catch him out. There was no escaping the branches of a Dryad's Soulform. Not without help, anyways.

You considered it. As a Dryad, you had some species pride. You should be sticking by your brethren just for the principle of the matter. But The Human was the cause of so much interest in the forest lately. The most fun thing to happen in years. Plus, you really, really, did not like Douglas and his crew.

So you kept their attention, waiting to see where the human was getting at. He eventually managed to reach his coat pockets, before drawing out a can of something. He covered his face before suddenly spraying the contents wildly. The effects were instantaneous. Douglas immediately screeched, Mindform stumbling back as his Soulform threw The Human across the clearing. He landed, not far from myself, with an a weighty thump.

It was fascinating, in a sense. What was in the can to get such a reaction? Douglas was screaming inarticulately now, not even making sense as his branches flailed wildly. The other siblings were followers at heart, immediately starting to panic. Their energy flooded into the nearby normal trees, making the clearing warp and twist with movement.

The Human struggled to stand, wheezing at some sort of pain to his midsection. “You- you-! You're going to pay for this!” The branches of the trees surrounding The Human curled and lengthened, twigs hardening to sharp points. The Human scrambled harder, but they wouldn't make it in time. He had more of that spray, sure, but did he have enough to fend off the entire forest?

You considered your options again before deciding that, all things considered, it would be nice if The Human lived. You pushed your own energy into the same trees. They were more Douglas-Fir's, which gave the siblings an edge. Combined with them being so close to Douglas' own tree body meant that you shouldn't have a chance at overwriting their will. But they were compromised, and  beyond that, the idiots hardly spent any time bending trees to their will- they were unprepared and out of practice. With a firm push of intent, you kicked aside their influence, immediately stowing the trees back into their previous shapes.

“Alba- what!? You traitor!”

You rolled your eyes. “Leave him be. He obviously didn’t know what he was doing, anyways.” The Human was still half on the ground, and now gaping at you openly. “I'd get a move on, if I were you,” You addressed him directly, raising one brow. “can't hold them back forever.”

The Human glanced once, desperately, at his journal. For a moment you thought he was actually going to go for it, despite being hopelessly out of reach, right at the base of Douglas’ Soulform. But then he nodded once, stumbling to his feet and running off with the awkward lope of an injured animal. You held the trees back for a while longer, sensing how far in the forest he was.

As soon as you deemed him out of the range of the Fir siblings, you allowed a tiny smirk. They were still levelling insults at you, unable to do much. They could have chased after him in their Mindorms, but apparently they didn't like the chances of that.

Before anybody else realized what you were doing, you walked over to the journal and plucked it up. You hadn't seen it in person before, but it was a pretty thing, considering it was made from fellow trees. Not living ones though, thankfully.

“What are you doing with that? We were going to destroy it in front of the human!”

“Well, I think you lost your chance at that. It's mine, now.” You released your mental hold over the surrounding forest with a snap and left the clearing. They wouldn't be following you.

()()()

The Journal was truly interesting. A mish-mash of the stranger properties of Gravity Falls, from the curious cliff patterns to the strange wormhole that would spit its contents out if it sensed living beings.

And then there was the entry on unusual trees. The Human had some documents on the large ones, and an unfinished entry on a “strange energy reading surrounding certain trees. Seemingly normal, save that they are at least twice the size of their respective species and seem to attract the supernatural at a much greater frequency. Unknown if trees are a side effect of unknown magical hot spots, or perhaps the source. Further research of what I have dubbed 'Enchanted Trees' is in order. Pending results of studies on plant samples.”

So that was why he had tried to clip Douglas. You giggled. For someone who already knew so much, he was rather naive towards danger. But clearly, he had not been expecting sentient trees as an option. And really, his efforts to understand this world were interesting.

You would hate to see his research so derailed. Not to mention, with this amount of information, it was all too likely he would try to recover it, and be subsequently caught by the Firs. Or maybe he'd be better prepared, but he would still be disappointed because you had the book.

Plus, You’d be lying if you said you didn't want a closer look at The Human. None of your kind had wandered so far as to approach humans. If it was going to be anyone, it might as well be you.

You took some more time to read the journal, properly rather than skimming. A lot of it was beyond you, being filled with technical speech and scientific data. You were a humble dryad, your knowledge came from what was picked up, and what was shared across the magical bond spread between much of the supernatural. That gave you an instinctual knowledge of the current local language. Not including scientific language, apparently.

Then, you asked the trees where the human had gone. This was the real reason no one could hide from a Dryad. Trees were horrible gossips, if only one knew how to ask. And out of all the forest's dryad's, few could ask better than you. Probably because you spent the most time building the skill up, spreading your senses branch to branch and root to root as part of your incessant wandering. Trees were all too eager to show you what you sought, especially since you had gotten a decent impression of the man.

After that, it was only a matter of getting there.

The house The Human lived in was seemingly small. But, as you stretched the roots of the nearby trees, and the awareness they carried, it was immediately clear that there was far more to the house than there appeared. A deep tunnel, a massive cavern of a room. Fascinating. Maybe you would come back some day. But not now, not when you had a delivery to make.

You weren’t certain where The Human was, but you figured it best not to make much of a scene. It didn't bother you, the idea of being caught, but you also didn't care for dramatics. Unfortunately you were certain that scaring humans would lead to dramatics of some sort. Even curious ones like The Human were like that. So, in a near silent whisper, you whisked up the front porch. Human entrances were not something You’d ever had to really encounter, so you pushed through it with your powers rather than fiddle with the hand sized knob. Roots sprouted from the wooden steps and tunnelled inwards, warping the barrier off its track. Leaves and vines trailed in your wake as you stepped in. No one in the front entrance, then.

You set the journal on a convenient table. Then, you noticed a thin cylindrical tool, several in fact, sticking out of a small cup. Writing devices, no doubt. It brought another idea to your mind, and you retrieved one of them, testing the writing point. Good enough.

You flipped through to the entry on your kind. Crossing out “Enchanted Tree” with a snort, you carefully wrote ‘Dryad’ in a messy, uneducated scrawl. You only had magical hivemind to thank for basic english literacy, though you could not say how that ended up in circulation. Perhaps some supernaturals liked reading human books? Regardless, it didn't mean your hands had ever had much oppurtunity to practice writing. So hesitant, blocky letters it was. You scribbled a few more words, crossed out a few lines that you knew were false. Then, thinking on The Human’s yearning for a sample, you made one final gift. Carefully, from your arm, you grew a twig, a few leaves sprouting and unfurling from the tip. Wincing, you snipped it off with your fingers and laid the piece carefully on top of the journal. It came from yourself, and so it would be perfectly identical in nature to anything chopped from the tree that was your Soulform.

It was dreadfully personal to do such a thing, but for that exact reason, you knew The Human would never get that sample on his own. No Dryad would dare let him. Well, maybe Maple. Everyone liked to talk about that one time she let humans tap her for sap like a normal tree. But she had always been lax, never curious. Never wandering, nor exploring. Never like you. And maybe that was why you felt like helping The Human out. He was a bit of an explorer too, wasn't he?

A sound started coming from the lower rooms. The Human was home after all, and coming upstairs. You decided to retreat to make everything easier. Placing the writing tool in it’s cup, you stepped away and out the door. Once you reached the forest line, you focused your Mindform, lengthening your legs and picking up speed. The trees gently bent from your way as you passed, allowing for a speed that few else in this forest could match. By the time The Human got to his front door, you were long gone.

()()()

It was a long time after that when you saw The Human again. However, the way you met him was far from usual. You wandered of course, wandered as you always did, exploring the forest that was impossibly large and tiny at the same time. It was interesting how, just by seeking somewhere out, you could be there in hours even though the distance seemed much greater. But that's how it was around these parts.

You were on one such aimless journey when you felt it. The feeling of something stepping on your roots, vague and distant but instantly uncomfortable. There was a reason most Dryads didn't wander, a very good reason why you were so atypical. And that reason was that your Soulform could not wander with you- the tree body which was the true root of a Dryad’s life and energy, the home to one’s soul. Without your Mindform nearby, the mobile humanoid form that carried your consciousness, your Soulform- and therefore your life- was ultimately vulnerable. Your powers were strengthened more than most, especially at distances, but you were much too far to do anything save put your Soulform into defense. You felt your branches grow, widen, and thicken into a protective shield. You needed to be closer before you could pinpoint the intruder’s position.

You panicked. There was a reason touching a Dryad's tree was a bad idea. You set into flight immediately, running lightning quick through the forest, flying over roots and growing branches to propel yourself between branches. Still, you could feel the presence, alone far too long with your undefended life force. You were too far, much too far. All you could do was hurry.

The presence had not harmed anything by the time you whipped into your own little magical clearing. You stumbled to a shocked stillness when you saw who it was.

The Human, looking nervous, sheepish, and determined, all at the same time. In one hand was the journal that you had returned previously. In the other, a strange beeping device.

“Ah, um, those others, they called you Alba, right?”

You looked over your Soulform, even though you didn't need to. Back close to it again, you knew beyond a doubt no harm had come upon it. All the same, your nerves were frazzled from the sheer panic.

You didn't appreciate this turn of events. But this was The Human. Purveyor of all things interesting as of late. And you were very curious.

“How did you find my tree?”

The Human straightened. “Ah! I thought that it might be yours! After you gave me that, er, sample, I simply created a portable version of my scanning machine and altered it to track to the source. Thanks for that, by the way.”

You couldn't help a tiny smile. “Thanks for the sample, or for the journal?”

“Ah, um, both of course.” He scratched the back of his neck. “And also, for the... details you added. They were helpful.”

You nodded, feeling comforted slightly. “So, why go out of your way to find me?If you read my edits, you must have understood that it's not exactly nice to approach a Dryad's tree.”

To his credit, The Human looked guilty at that. “Right, sorry. I just- wanted to see if I could. And, well, you seemed fairly friendly in helping me escape and then returning my book as well as donating a sample. Which again, thank you very much for that...” He couldn't quite reach your eyes with his own now, and you blinked. Interesting.

“To see if you could,” You muse, noting his wince. “Well I guess I can't blame you there, seeing as that's why I do half the things I do.”

He paused for a moment, and then suddenly brightened. “Really? So you're a scientific mind as well? Do you keep research? I've found nearly nothing archived despite the great amount of weirdness here! I never considered the other researchers might be weird themselves-” You cut The Human off with a wave of your hand.

“No, it's not quite like that. Does it look like I have places to keep written pages? I just wander and observe- see where I can go and what I can do. Your notes are much more interesting.”

His eyes widened, a peculiar pink spreading over his cheeks. “I-uh, glad I can be of service! Er, sorry for assuming. But still, I haven’t encountered anyone else actually interested in the secrets of this town.” His face returns to normal as he smiles suddenly. You haven’t seen many humans, but you think the smile looks particularly nice on him.  “Of course, that you ask questions at all is fantastic.” He stopped as a thought came over him. “Is that why you saved me? Because you wanted to see if you could overpower those others?”

You shrugged. There was something you’d rather know first. “If I tell you that, will you finally intoduce yourself? Unless you want to be 'The Human' forever.”

“Ah!” He held out his hand awkwardly. “Stanford Pines.” You couldn't help a wide grin at his surname. It took you a second to recall the human tradition of shaking hands, but eventually you did and managed to return the shake before he retracted it.

“With a name like Pines, perhaps it was inevitable that you would come to meet Dryads,” You started, before realizing something. “Hold on,” Your brows furrowed. You checked over your own hands, and then at Stanford's. “Have I- is this the wrong amount of fingers?”

You looked at his hands again, as he instinctively curled his fingers away. “I could have sworn it was 10. Maybe- but- hmm, do humans have differing amounts of fingers?”

“Errm”, Stanford was awkward as he shook his head. “No. Almost everyone has 10. I've... got a deformity, it was rare for me to be born with 12.” And then he considered your statement further. “How would you not be certain of that? Do you have a control over your human form?”

You shrugged. “A little. We can change the size and length of body parts somewhat, and grow aspects of our Soulform, but the base forms from our subconscious- how we see ourselves. It wouldn't be the strangest thing for an older Dryad to have mistaken the amount of fingers for a long time, and then passed that mistake down to younger generations.”

“I see,” Stanford suddenly began to scribble in his journal. You tried not to preen at the attention- getting into the too-interesting journals already. “And how old can Dryads get? Do you have family units? How do you reproduce?”

You laughed. “Well, most Dryads only live the lifespan of their tree, but I swear old man redwood has been around at least a couple lifetimes. Not sure how, of course, since you die when your tree does. It's possible he's just really strong- Dryad magic can keep your tree alive longer than a normal one was meant to.”

You considered his other questions. “We don't have family in the human sense, but there's never many Dryads around, so we all form a family of sorts. Not that we always get along.”  

And then, the last one. “As for reproduction, well, I can't tell you anyways.” It would be easier to admit that you didn’t know, and that you didn’t think anyone really knew, but the look of sudden distress on The Human's- no, Stanford's- face was priceless.

“What!? Why not?”

“Well, I have to keep some secrets. If I tell you everything, you'll just move onto the next monster,” You improvised, though after saying it aloud, you realized the sentiment was mostly honest. “After all this time hearing about the curious human, it would be a waste to send you on your way so soon.” You gave him an innocent grin.

Somehow, that earned another pink flush, lighting up his face and making him look all the more interesting, although you weren’t quite sure why. You weren’t really sure what the reaction meant- blood in the face, obviously, but beyond that? You didn’t interact with humans enough, and while Dryads had similar expressions of mood, you’d never seen something like that.

“Well.. you've been one of the nicest supernatural beings I've met.” He was stumbling over his words. Was that nervousness? After all that, why would he be nervous? “If you want, you can visit sometime. Maybe help with research, stuff from your end of things that's hard for me to get to. If- if you want to, anyways.”

You froze, surprised, and his expression turned pale. So he was... embarrassed?

Suddenly, you couldn’t contain yourself. “I would be delighted!” Your Soulform, fully unfurled by now, swayed in joy as a wide smile overtook your face. An invitation from Stanford, to see what The Human was really getting up to and the chance to learn new things that you couldn’t on your own? It was the most interesting thing to happen in at least a decade.

“R-really?” Stanford scratched his neck, glancing away and then back towards you again, his face perking up with what looked to be a hint of confidence.

“Of course! You're the most interesting thing to happen to Gravity falls in a very long time! And I bet you have an even more interesting perspective on this area. Of course I'd take you up on that.”

“Well,” Stanford stood straighter, clearing his throat. “Feel free to come visit my research cabin anytime. Hopefully soon, I’d love to perform some tests with your help as soon as I design them, but that should be done in a day or so. Oh, but do you remember how to get there? You’ve only been there once...”

You laugh. “I’m a Dryad and you live in the middle of my forest. How does two mornings from now sound?”

“Good! It sounds good! I’ll, um, see you then! I’ll start planning immediately.” Then, with an awkward wave and an abrupt turn, Stanford left.

You watched him go, first with your eyes and then with your trees. You were glad you saved The Human, because Stanford Pines was shaping up to be much more interesting.

[sultrysirens]

Please just go off and rant about your OCs! I just love them all so much (even the ones that haven’t been introduced yet) and want to hear more about them!

I hope you’re prepared for what you’ve just unleashed~!!

JOCELYN was the start of this avalanche. When I first conjured her up, I had just a few points in mind: I wanted her to be colored (though I hadn’t decided yet what her ethnicity would actually be), I wanted her to be a ballerina, and I wanted her to not be drop-dead fucking gorgeous.

One of these things did not hold up. X’D

My original intent was to just make a short story -- 10 chapters or so -- in which she gets with Raphael and they bang. That was the literal long and short of it, which you can kind of see considering how rushed the first few chapters were.

I didn’t mean for them to get so into each other and fall in love. They did that entirely on their own. And, to be honest, it’s been an amazing experience; I’ve learned a great deal and feel like my creativity has gone through the roof.

Considering I’ve always been crazily creative anyway, that’s saying something.

Initially I picked Raph for this story because I thought (in my ignorance) that he would have the least amount of love and sex-related stories. Oh, how foolish I was, lol. But I was also thinking he would be the easiest to write just falling into bed with someone, and while that is something I commonly see, in my story he very much did not do that.

It was really weird. X’D

While I was writing The Dancer, I was also writing a then-untitled sister fic/epilogue (which I later titled The Dragon). It was quite a few years down the line, so I went ahead and conjured up some future scenes and events. Among them: Lisa.

This fic started in Mikey’s POV for a few reasons, one of them being that I really wanted to write something from his perspective. Lisa was introduced to my story this way, and I quickly took a liking to her and started development on her character. One of the things I did first was write pieces of the first chapter of The DJ, just to get the start’s setting down.

Then all I had to do was get The Dancer to a point where I could connect the two. At the time I was only around chapter 20, so...yeah, it took a while. XD

With Jocelyn, one of the key decisions I made was to make her very unlike Raphael -- she’s flirty, often relaxed, has an incredible love for ballet, has almost no family (just a mother; no dad, no siblings), and has such a crazy obsession over shoes that she literally picks out what shoes she wants to wear before picking her clothing for the day.

With Lisa, I went in the opposite direction: be just like Mikey. She has low intelligence and knows it, yet is brilliant in an unconventional way; her sense of humor is one of her biggest traits and she laughs to defuse situations and deal with problems; her genre is 100% hip hop in nearly all ways; and I made her athletic pretty much entirely so she’d be able to keep up with the master of movement, Mikey. (Say that five times, fast.)

It wasn’t until after I really got into writing Lisa that I noticed something interesting about my two fics: the couples both view each other in the same light.

Jocelyn and Raphael think one another is sexy and bad-ass.

Lisa and Mikey think one another is cool and cute.

This is, of course, not the rule -- Raph has thought Jo is super cute before, and Mikey finds Lisa sexy as hell, too -- but it is their primary mindsets. And it makes me wonder if my remaining two couples will have the same kind of viewpoints. I can’t say for sure yet because I haven’t gotten to the part in either story where they’re actually dating, but it’s fun to consider.

Then again, maybe for Leo and Donnie’s relationships they’ll have opposite viewpoints as their lovers do. It would definitely be an interesting twist.

Progress with The Dragon is going very slowly, which is understandable given I still have a lot of world-building in The DJ to do first, but I do very much love the story. In fact, so far if I were to rank my fics based on my own favorites, it would go Dancer > Dragon > DJ (I have literally nothing written on the final fic yet cause I still haven’t even finished designing the final girl, lol).

As much as I love Lisa (and I freaking do holy shit), I just don’t quite love her the best. This is actually kind of weird considering just how close to being a self-insert she is -- an unintentional self-insert, yes, but the parallels are definitely there.

For example, Lisa is a white girl of mixed white heritage (like me) with a particular pair of beauty marks on her face (same as me, just in different places), she has brunette hair (like me) and blue eyes (mine are actually green, but my parents’ and brother’s eyes are blue and I’ve always been jealous of that), she’s a huge gamer (just like me; she’s just better at competitive games), she dislikes swearing (I swear a lot now, but at her age I was much more sensitive about it), she has an older brother (I technically have two, but one’s very distant and the other was always close), she has a distaste for meat (I’m not vegetarian but as a whole I dislike meat) and some serious compassion for life (same), she loves piercings (I’d have more but I’m seriously forgetful), and she has incredible ears for music (can name almost any song within seconds -- just like me).

Oh yeah, and she’s a Mikey girl. ♥

And more pointedly, I named her mother after my sister (deceased) and her grandparents after my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother.

I named Jocelyn based on the character of the same name from A Knight’s Tale (it just occurred to me that they have the same tits lmfao); after seeing the movie I kind of became enraptured with this character and her smart tongue and haughty attitude and incredible elegance -- not to mention I freaking loved her name.

Lisa, by comparison, I named based on one thing: the Mona Lisa. Yeah, that’s right, y’all -- I named her after a famous painting by an Italian Renaissance painter. Hurr hurr. XP But though I never mentioned this, Lisa’s mother, Brandy, cites that she named her ‘Lisa’ based on The Simpsons, as Lisa was Brandy’s favorite character.

This cute, incredibly good-hearted and brilliant young girl? Yeah, Brandy loves that character and was hoping Lisa would take after her.

Hmmm, what else...

Well, I had a completely different story set up for Cecilia at first. I’m honestly really glad things didn’t go the way I’d planned, and here’s why: Cecilia was supposed to catch a glimpse of Jo and Raph having sex one day (before meeting him) and go kind of nutso.

You see, at first she claimed diabetes but was not diabetic -- she was doing cocaine, and saying she had diabetes was her explanation for when Jo would catch her shooting up. And with the cocaine in her system, Cecilia’s mind went right to demons and witchcraft.

Terrified for her daughter’s immortal soul, the original plan was for Cecilia to attempt to burn them both to death. To everyone’s surprise, however, Jocelyn didn’t burn -- only Cecilia.

This was the original way Jo discovered she’d been taking on Raph’s mutagen. It’d made her fireproof.

As you can see, I’m super glad I didn’t stick to that, lol.

As for Lisa, me making her a cutter was a spur-of-the-moment decision during that scene where she examines her reflection in her undies. The boob thing, though? That was planned from day one -- because I wanted her to very much be Jo’s opposite, and this included general color palette, skills, likes, personality, and body type.

Jo: tall and willowy, grace incarnate, dark skin and blonde hair, super thick lips, generally thin but with a killer ass, rounded face, freckled, minimal piercings, crazy flirty and confident to no end.

Lisa: barely taller than average, kind of stocky and curvy, shapely lips, wide hips and heavy tits, shapely lips and face, zero freckles, tons of piercings, jittery and mousy but also immature and raucous.

By comparison, so far Mei and Pinky are just people. (Note: Mei’s faceclaim so far is Lucy Lui, but Pinky doesn’t have one just yet.) Mei’s also skinny, but that’s cause she’s 100% Chinese and as far as I can tell that’s just how they are. I’ve done a lot of googling and pretty much all young people I’ve found that way are, in a word, skinny. X’D

I’m leaning towards Pinky being the shortest of the girls, maybe in the 5′1″-5′3″ range, but I’m worried about making her too short. The concept is still very much up in the air, lol. This is also the character I once said I was considering being half Puerto Rican, and while I still like that I’m not sure it’ll stick. It might be more fun to make her like Indian or something.

We’ll see. (I’m very much open to suggestion about her, btw, if anyone has any thoughts...and I know it’s not much to go on yet but there’s a reason for that.)

And then there’s Cassie. My redheaded best friend of my best girl, Jo. I really don’t have much to say about her; I introduced her almost entirely to expand the world a bit and give Jocelyn more ties -- a girl like her would damn well have ties, y’know.

I don’t know what it is, but I have a really hard time writing her. She feels very bland, and while that was kind of the intent, it makes it really hard to get a feel for her. Only a few things remain strong when it comes to her: she’s kinda weirded out by the turtles, she supports Jocelyn completely, and she’s just as much of a ballet-enthusiast.

These girls have been friends for almost their literal entire lives. And I think part of the reason why I wrote them like this was out of jealousy -- I’ve never had that kind of a friendship. The oldest friend I can recall was Jenny, when I was five, and she was a BITCH.

I only have two memories of her anymore: 1, she used to invent games for us to play then change the rules on a dime so she’d always be the winner, and 2, I once tried to leave her home and she slammed the door on my fingers.

I sincerely hope she grew out of that, man.

Suffice to say we were not friends for very long. And since then I’ve seen a constant pattern: I can’t keep friends for longer than a few years, and not because I don’t want to.

Because something always happens. They move, I move, someone’s interests shift, we lose contact, a misunderstanding occurs, etc.

I wanted Jocelyn to have something better than a constantly-shifting sea of semi-friends. I wanted her to have best friends, and then THE best friend -- the one who will remain her best friend for the entirety of her life. The one who was there through all the biggest troubles and best celebrations, the one who will be there for all of the troubles and celebrations to come, and the one who knows her better than anyone else ever has (at least until a certain mutant comes into her life).

Lisa, on the other hand, is...me.

Her friendships flagged, drifted, dissolved, changed, and so on. The only constants in her life have been her family. And even then a good portion of her family has never been there, a fact that hurts her whenever she pauses to think about it.

She hurts, she yearns, and there are times she feels completely alone, even in a full room. She’s constantly scared no one understands her or cares about her, and she gets through this by laughing -- at others, at herself, at that one missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes it kind of look like a penis, and so on.

Lisa has always had the support of her family while needing true understanding and affection. Jo has always had affection and the understanding of her closest friend while needing support.

It’s amazing to think about. And while there’s a lot here that I never put into my fics, these are threads and pieces of my characters that have either always been there in the background or have developed as I wrote them. Maybe I never said Lisa was terrified of being alone, but it was in my mind every time I wrote her.

And I just want to take this moment to thank Anon for giving me this opportunity; I’ve always wanted to rant about my girls but never thought anyone would care, so what was the point, y’know?

Thank you, babe. ;)

[digimondestined]

1-50 :D (for xxx: Blurred Lines; 42: Aokise Songfics (Need You Now); 46: Try- and Keep Trying; 47, made up title: In the man behold a child) ❤️

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fanfiction?

Oof.  12 ish? FFNet But we don’t speak about it; the site or the writing :P

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

Right now, I’m more invested in aokise / knb fandom and well, once invested, it’s hard to pull my focus :P Other fandoms I’m interested in writing in as of the moment are Owari No Seraph (Gureshin :P) and Seven Deadly Sins (man, that’s lovely hell)

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

Probably OCs? I haven’t written OC’s in a while but heck, reader inserts sounds kinda of awkward to write :P

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?

…is angst with a happy ending a genre?(Otherwise maybe coming of age?)

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

Blurred Lines is the only one that has an actual plot :P and is multi chaptered :P. It’s also got a couple of my favorite tropes such as mutual pining & simultaneous obliviousness. To be honest, I normally don’t edit my works before I put them out (sometimes I’ll get a loving friend to look at it tho :PPPPPP) because I can’t bear reading what I’ve written without cringing, but yeah, I thought Blurred Lines was pretty good :D in terms of writing skill because I’ve been able to read it again aha and I thank all the wonderful people who showered me the work with compliments.

6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

LMAO WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I HAVEN’T ALREADY? If I delete stories, it’s always for the reason I’m disappointed with it in hindsight, or xD embarrassed I produced such poo.

7) When is your preferred time to write?

Night time becuz I like to procrastinate, it’s quiet and the dark is cozy.

8) Where do you take your inspiration from?

Other writers/stories, canon material, music, random insights at odd times, prompts sparked by single words or little phrases, prompts from sites or book quotes or from friends and epiphanies, and then mostly I don’t :P 

9) In your Blurred Lines fic, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?

Chapter 5, the (two I guess?) scene where Aomine’s really upset and Kise makes it his job to take his mind off of it; it’s a memorable moment for both of them because Kise’s determination and hard work really gets to show (SEIRIN GAH; jskghjkghg sg lgsg gsjlsd) in front of two people that mean a lot: himself and Aomine, and for Aomine, it’s an example of how he can be weak and injured too, and is so much more than some give him credit for.

10) In your fic, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind? Nah, I really liked how it ended actually :) Happy after endings are my favorite :)

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

I’ve only gotten harsh criticism once or twice and man, you should’ve seen me RAWRR in their faces :P. Sometimes self criticism- ex: dislike of plot- will get me to edit though; and then there are just times where I’ve been lazy but reading the work, I’ll see flaws that definitely have to be changed and will proceed to do so.

12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?

Aomine and Kise are the most fun imo. I go wild with both because of the complexity to both their characters and simply, the inspiration you can see from different works of other authors (Ex: MoustachePenguin wrote JustBreathe with Kise who had crushing depression and KaijosCopyCat wrote When It Rains, It Rains Bullets, where Kise is actually more jaded than Aomine is); point being said, there’s enough material to make a lot reasonable.Kise is fun for his masks and layers; Aomine is great for his relativity. And of course, you can always find a way to knit in angst of some sort :P 

13) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?

Lots man. Kuroko, Murasakibara-

14) How did you come up with the title for the xxx? - You can ask about multiple stories. 

SO. Remember how it was planned as a one-shot aha :P I’d gotten 3 chapters and ½ written out before I said screw it and posted them before gradually working on the rest :P 

Anyways, I’d only then finished on a final summary, and with one of the parts being “Lines Blurring”, I thought heck let’s roll with that.

Oh also! Had a hard time getting that summary out. gotta thank my special, one and only snowflake.

15) If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?

- Likes to indulge myself; I’ll base OCs of some real characters, then twinkle with the name little bit, maybe adding extra letters or finding names with similar meanings?

- It also has to do with how the name tastes. You know how some words just flow better? (Connotation and all that :P) but like, Jewel over Gem, Crystal over Jewel, Ruby over Everything, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

16) How did you come up with the idea for xxx?

Was a prompt- (voldetort :P)

but i was given an open ending option and then i took it and ran with it and turned it into angst with happy ending :P

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

Kise stuck out his tongue, Aomine smirked, and they let Momoi laugh herself dry.

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Yah, who doesn’t? :PP (atop of the temporarily abandoned WIPs :PPP) Either loss of enthusiasm, lack of ability (time, but mostly procrastination :P) to write, or post-insights that lemme realize the story is unsatisfying to the point of repulsive :P

19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

Maybe Blurred Lines? Struggle them through 2nd year of school, relationship where it’s so much more precious than a regular, “we-just-began-a-”relationship” because of the stakes. (But then I’d have to like write a conflict???and my inability to be creative would hinder that :P)

20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

I haven’t really “ended” any stories of worthy length, but for Blurred Lines :P. Which had an okay ending in my opinion, though maybe hurriedly carried out XDI imagine when I do get to finishing more/other stories, I might? Because I can be impulsive. :P But then again, I take a heck long time to procrastinate; and sometimes that means more time to think about how a story wants to go- in these cases, I don’t, usually :)

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

I am heck into lots of writers.

Roch; VanillaDaydreams22 (tumblr) and just VanillaDaydreams (ao3) is a great friend and writer :P with a lovely, descriptive style of fluid writing.

A famous one would be moustachiopenguin - wrote lots of heart wrenching stories; aha we both know :P So, imagination, use of plot, detail, etc.

And then there’s an up and new coming one; her name starts with a Y and ends with a U.

22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Literally all of them. :P Anything from over 4-6 months in particular is a bit of, no thanks :P

23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

I prefer music, even though sometimes it’s not helpful and actually, is a hindrance :P but music always helps the mood~

24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?

Laughs.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Writing? Nah. Reading? Heck, few times.

26) Which part of your Blurred Lines fic was the hardest to write?

All of it cause I didn’t want to write it, I wanted to waste time~

- In the later chapters, carrying out Aomine’s realization for feelings was a little difficult; I had Satsuki sort of catalyze his action, because he’s pretty heckin determined to get Kise in his unconscious mind; Satsuki’s rejection just enforces the feeling he needs to express himself, though hard. But I occasionally would wonder whether Aomine was made too soft, or OOC in general.

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

My impulsiveness pushes me towards flow; but for fics requiring detail, general outline help XD no matter how “general”.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

Maybe just the fact that the fandoms I’d get to were in existence :D like how some of us talked about, would have been pretty cool to write with the other gazillion of fan- tho, then again, wouldn’t trade them for you guys aha

There’s a lot of things I’ve learned from it and only with the actual writing action have I come to understand the things :P

29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Maybe Lazy or No Questions Asked. Lazy, because it was the first time I’d written something short but with a bit of story to it still, y’know? :P And then No Questions Asked because I just love the trope of uncertainty and obliviousness and pining in the middle of aokise.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Honestly? Say It. It was short and okay but like, plot-wise? Not sure if it deserved all the kindness it/I got XD

32) Are any of your characters based on real people?

I haven’t written any OCs in a while! I imagine one I get back to doing so, they could be :P

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Not quite sure. I have shit memory sometimes aha, but all the support is good :D

34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

On one of my first fics, which I’d written 24 chapters / 40K (GASP I KNOW :D IT’LL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN *SMILES THROUGH THE TEARS OF SAD*) I was told the other chapters should be deleted because it was so bad. But like, the reader had posted said criticism through at least half of the work so :P and a couple of chapters later, said, “This is better! But change everything before this.”I actually got a lot of help/reviews becasue I’d asked for them from various authors aha and fandom was popular and lively; the criticism just went straight through my ears I think. XD

35) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

I like getting a second opinion if I’m insecure about the idea (often, you guessed right

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?

No.

jkjk :P I currently have 4 active WIPs. 1. SECRET (for fanzine :PP), 2. As Long As You Love Me (CJ’s prompt) 3. Some Stuff Has Actually Changed 4. Oops I Did It Again

37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?

What is humor explain??!?!?

38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.

- You silly.- Roch + CJ- You, super lovely

39) Do you prefer first, second or third person?

3rd for the most of it. I’ve never written with 1st before but I’m considering it for a work that’d require an extensive cast. 2nd also strikes me as fun though, because of this angsty story I’d read where Kise was the narrator but done through 2nd? 2nd also seems very poetic and I’d like to try it out some day for fun :P

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?

Yeet :P

41) What’s you favourite minor character you’ve written?

Nijimura, Jellal, you name it XD all of them??? You know my tendency to avoid protagonists :P

42) Song fic - What made you decide to use the song Need You Now

It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you nowSaid I wouldn’t call but I lost all control and I need you nowAnd I don’t know how I can do without, I just need you now

Angsty and perfect for pining ships.

43) Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?

LMAO I’ve never written a fic long enough for a plot twist to occur; B) I DON’T WRITE PLOT?? XD

44) What is the last line you wrote?

A victory, Kise should think, should be thinking. What is there instead is empathy, but sadness anyways. Oh Aominecchi…

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?

Not much. There are periods of time when I don’t want to write at all and I will find excuses of any kind to get off my laptop, or stay on, and just not write aha. What helps is typically at night when I feel semi-tired, I’ll be motivated to write enough to be a pleasant thought before bed.

46) I really loved your Try and Keep Trying fic. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?

GoM have a Winter Cup Banquet and there’s alcohol there. AoKise has done a lot more pining and both gotten better at hiding it. They meet awkwardly at the event becuz of their friends talking to each of their friends and then suddenly disappearing while AoKise are startled, staring at each other. Cautious tense talk tried to be made easier by both of them; Kise makes a joke like, “Alcohol would make this a little easier, right Aominecchi?”

And Aomine blurts out stupid becuz high strung, smth like, “Is that what you thought the last time?”

AND THEN, Kise is also high strung right, so his reply is probably something dumb; maybe a few more lines and then:

KISE ACCIDENTALLY CALLS HIM ‘DAIKI’ AND THEY BOTH JUST FREEZE AND BLUSH PROFUSELY BC THEY’RE REMINDED OF THE KISS AND FDSJFS AHO REALIZES KISE DID N O T FORGET - and he’ quick to press Kise for an explanation but Kise is sure this is going to lead to heartbreak, that Aomine’s frantic (heart beating at 12432 beats a second) and desperate (to know becuz becuz if Kise- if Ryouta-) demands of Kise to tell him the truth are from a place of piss/fury. When Aomine realizes Kise is only shying away from his emotional cornering/words more and more, Aomine does the only thing he can think of and kisses Kise again and again and again.

Kise realizes he means it, Aomine is almost heartbroken over how Kise couldn’t understand he meant it; both are overwhelmingly overjoyed becuz c’mon. MUTUAL pining, not just pining :P and then THAT turns into cautious, hopeful, cautious prompts for dating.

47) Here’s a fic title - In the man behold a child

(Uni AU)Aomine pines after Kise’s ass and he constantly sends him is inviting him: “C’mon Kise, kiss me and I’ll shut up forever.” and “C’mon Kise, I’d be a great fuckbuddy. No string attached but sex. I’ll be gone immediately.”, lots of, “C’mon Kise. I’m fun. I’ll give you want you want, what you need.” and more earnest and genuine stuff, “I know I sound like I’m kidding, and maybe parts of me were…but I meant it when I said I love you. And I’ll wait until you finally hear I’m fully serious.”

Eventually, Kise comes to realize he is serious. The fact that Aomine really has matured as a person over time and that he really loves Kise.  Who also realizes maybe a little bit of the fact that he’d never needed a real relationship because Aomine sort of checked off all the boxes; and so, (poetically aha; i thought of this at last moment XD) child Kise is also revealed in man Kise for being oblivious and little bit scared (because that’s what teens/kids are good at Aha?)

Ofc, then Kise finally says yes, though hesitant still; Aomine takes him slowly through love and all the good stuff :P

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

Angst with a Happy Ending, Mutual Pining/Obliviousness & Uncertainty, Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, anything with a slight of it’s hard and if we’re not being told we’re gonna make it through, how can i be reassured now that we will; but you’ve got friends to rely on so it’ll be okay OTHERWISE KNOWN AS Angst with a Happy Ending :P

49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

Something from Warrior Cats

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

(Both both is good)

YOU CAN’T MAKE ME CHOOSE.

But like, if angst with a happy ending counts as angst??? Than that :PFluff is good but you have to have a reason that makes it even sweeter :P