#SEE IT'S ME THAT'S THE PROBLEM HERE NOT FANDOM

[tj-dragonblade]

[Fluffbruary Fic] Marriage of Inconvenience

Fandom: The Sandman Pairing: Dreamling Rated: G Word Count: 2414 Tags: Fluffbruary, Fluffbruary 2025, Selkie AU, small town meet cute, meet weird maybe, cafe owner Hob, Selkie Dream, more examination of the rules of selkie lore than I ever intended

Notes: 'Coat' and 'Accept' right next to each other immediately suggested this idea and then it evolved a bit along the way, as these things always do. Help, I only wanted a cute fluffy one-shot and now I have a whole 'nother universe to play in.

Fluffbruary 2025 prompts: Day 8: train | zenith | road Day 9: accept | icy | ornament Day 10: coat | grimace | paper Day 11: bench | cottage | tough Day 12: backwards | feign | recognize (Yes I've temporarily skipped day 6 and 7; they've been bundled in with the 14th)

Summary: Hob is delighted to see the pretty stranger coming back to his cafe, but he has no idea how his life is about to change

On AO3

"Wait! Please!"

Hob turns at the call to see the beautiful dark-haired guy he'd noticed in the cafe earlier that day jogging down the road toward him, hand raised, clearly waving at him. He pauses in locking up the cafe's front door, silently thanking whoever's in charge of his luck today.

"Can I help you?" he asks, once the guy's close enough they can speak without yelling. He's got his friendliest smile on, willing to hear out whatever this guy has to say. He's just as pretty as Hob remembers, and he's not at all mad about seeing him back again.

"I left. I left something. Property. One of my belongings, when I was here earlier." Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Pretty draws himself up, catching his breath. "I had hoped. To reach you before closing, to see if it is still here."

"Of course, no problem." Hob un-flips the bolt that he hadn't yet pulled the key out of and unlocks the rest, pushes the door open and steps inside.

"Thank you." The guy follows him in, eyes darting to the table where he and his group had sat this afternoon. "My sibling assured me they had my coat when we left, but they did not."

Hob perks up. "Black coat, fur trim?"

"Yes." The guy turns his gaze on Hob, intense and hopeful and oh, but those are some devastatingly blue eyes. "You have seen it?"

"Yeah!" Hob smiles, delighted he can help this pretty stranger after all. "Another customer brought it up to the counter, said it'd been left. I put it up in our lost property in case the owner came back—and here you are! Let me grab it for you."

"No, wait—it would be better if—"

But Hob has already ducked through the door marked 'Employees Only', misses the note of alarm in the guy's voice. He opens the cupboard where lost property is stored and carefully pulls the lovely black coat with its silky fur trim off the hangar he'd put it on earlier, drapes it neatly over his arm and heads back to the front of the cafe. "Here we are!" he says merrily, holding out the coat to his guest.

The guy looks almost disappointed as he takes it with careful hands. "Thank you," he sighs, with relief that somehow also sounds like resignation, and Hob can't help frowning a little.

"Is everything okay? It's not ripped, is it? Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, if it got torn in our care I'll gladly pay to have it mended—"

"It is not. Damaged," the guy interrupts firmly. "It is in excellent condition and was clearly cared for while in your possession. For which I thank you. My husband."

What.

"S-sorry? Your what?" Surely Hob did not hear him correctly.

"My husband," the guy repeats, quite clearly. "I lost my coat. You have returned it to me. You are now my husband."

Hob bursts out laughing. "Right, okay, you're a selkie, then?" He's grown up in this quaint little coastal town, he's heard all the stories; obviously this guy is having him on, a little jest. Surely.

"Yes." The guy's answer, though, is completely serious.

It occurs to Hob he may inadvertently have gotten drawn into this poor fellow's break from reality. Either that or he is an extremely deadpan comedian with a terrible sense for when the joke's gone far enough.

"Selkies aren't real, mate," Hob says carefully, not unkindly, confident in the obvious truth of the words no matter what tales his gran used to tell.

With a sigh, the guy puts on the coat that Hob had returned to him and abruptly, instead of a beautiful pale-skinned dark-haired man, there is a pitch-black seal with shockingly blue eyes on the floor in the middle of Hob's cafe. He starts backwards, not believing what he is very definitely seeing.

The seal shimmies, twists, and then the pretty stranger is standing before him again, swirling the coat back off his shoulders.

"Holy fuck." Hob steps, stumbles backward, sits heavily on one of the stools at the counter. "Okay. Okay, give me. Just a tic." He blinks, stares at the guy, his brain replaying the transformation he'd undeniably witnessed. "You're. Really a selkie. Okay."

"Yes. And now, you are my husband."

"But that's ridiculous! There's no way anyone can possibly think my giving you back your coat constitutes a legally binding marriage!"

"Not on land, perhaps. It is a long-standing tradition among my people."

"But…why? I mean. Surely you don't want to be married to me, to be married to any stranger simply because they were kind enough to return what's yours? How is that any better than being bound to someone who steals your skin?"

"Nevertheless. It is the tradition."

"It's not my tradition!" Hob is feeling more than a little panicked here. Certainly the guy is very pretty; certainly Hob had been of half a mind to ask for his number if the opportunity presented itself but marriage is a very far cry beyond any of that.

What the hell. Seriously.

"Generally. It is considered. Far preferable, to be married to the human who would freely return your skin than the one who would steal it and lock it away." The guy has primly perched himself two stools down the row, leaving a single stool between them.

Considerate, Hob supposes, not to crowd him while he's having his worldview rearranged. Points in Mr. Selkie's favor.

"That makes sense, I get that," Hob says at last, "but why does it have to be marriage at all? Is it strictly tradition, or is there some kind of magical binding going on when humans get hold of your coat?"

"It is. Both, to some degree. You touched my coat, held it, with intent toward me. That leaves a signature, a link between us. In losing something so integral to my existence, I incur a debt to the one who would willingly return it to me. Even without the traditional label of 'marriage', I am now bonded to you in some degree.

"I'm sorry, but that sounds like a shite arrangement for you."

"Yes. It could be."

"So…do I get any say in the matter? Can I release you from the obligation or something? Or. Or is there maybe. Some other way to honor the 'debt' than marrying me?"

"The marriage—the bond—it occurred when you offered my coat and I accepted it back. It is the traditional way. It is already done. I apologize for being so objectionable a spouse."

"Objectionable—I don't know you!" Hob can't keep his voice from rising, feeling just a little hysterical by this point. "And you don't know me! Fuck sake, you—I don't even know your name! And you're just gonna move into my little cottage on the beach with me so we can live happily ever after?!"

"Ideally, yes." He blinks. "My name is Dream."

That's. Okay. What. Hob shakes his head, equilibrium lost. "Has this ever worked out for any selkie you know?!"

"In the old stories? Sometimes. I am the only modern selkie I know who has been foolish enough to be tricked into leaving my coat behind." There is bitterness in his voice now and god help him, Hob's starting to feel a bit of sympathy for the guy.

"Seems a very cruel prank for a sibling to play," he offers. "And you're extremely calm about this whole oops-forced-marriage thing. Tradition be damned for just a second; does it not upset you even a little?"

The selkie—whose name is Dream, apparently—looks at him with those soulful blue eyes, contemplating. "Truthfully, I welcome the promise of escaping my parents' household. Even in so outdated and risk-prone a way as this. They would at least recognize the validity of such a claim—" He straightens abruptly, eyes widening. "…oh. Oh. Perhaps. My sibling. It is perhaps not a prank, after all."

Hob cannot for the life of him keep up with this conversation. "Wait. Wait. Escaping your parents? How old are you?" He looks a young thirty-something, certainly, but what the hell does Hob know about actual selkie physiology, really?

"Well past the age of majority, in my culture and yours. My parents are very traditional in most respects. Their children remain part of their household short of marrying out. My sibling, who found their way to a marriage some time ago, appears to have orchestrated one for me, as I have no prospects at home."

"So, what, your sibling lied about your coat and left it here so you'd get stuck with whoever picked it up?"

"I am beginning to think so, yes."

"Bit daft a way to go about it?"

"Ours is…a complicated relationship."

Hob casts a disbelieving glance at Dream; he can't help it. "What if you'd wound up bound to some creep?"

"I have no guarantee that you are not, as you say, a creep."

"What? No! I'm not, I promise! And again, why would you accept being married when that's the case?!"

"The bond exists regardless, whatever sort of person you may be." Dream shakes his head, black hair fluffing with the motion and despite everything, Hob is still deeply struck by how pretty he is.

"You are dead serious about all of this, aren't you," Hob says, resignation creeping into his tone.

"It is tradition." Dream gazes at him, assessing. "But I would choose to trust the circumstances of my sibling's meddling, in any case." He blinks at Hob, a slow, considering look. "If my husband will have me."

"Hob. My name is Hob Gadling. Short for Robert." Hob can hardly believe he's even thinking about agreeing to this madness, and yet. Here he is. "Sooo, what happens to you if I reject this marriage? You go home in disgrace? You wander the human world abandoned and alone? You die because I broke the bond?"

"The bond will not break simply for being rejected." Dream looks away. "If you spurn me, I will leave, but I will always feel the draw back to you. I would face ridicule and disdain, should I return home, for allowing my coat out of my possession and failing to honor the bond formed by its return. I am already deemed a misfit; such disgrace would only confirm it for those who care to pass judgment."

"Like your parents."

"Yes." He looks resigned to the misery.

Hob's heart thumps, decision made. And okay, yes, maybe he is being a little bit stupid about this, a little too-much-too-fast like usual, but he can't just send Dream away to all that. "Can I perhaps offer a compromise, then."

Dream tilts his head, attention on Hob, listening.

"How about. We go on a date. Can we try a date first?"

"A date."

"Yeah. Y'know. Two interested people meet up, have a meal, do an activity. Learn more about each other, see if they click?"

"I am. Familiar with the concept, yes."

Oh, but that dry snark is so attractive to Hob. He forces his brain to stay on subject. "I'll even—my cottage has a guest room; you can stay there unless you'd rather book a room down the street. I'm willing to get to know you and see how it goes, okay?"

Dream blinks at him, primly flabbergasted, and Hob is delighted to have finally gotten the upper hand in this conversation. Heaven help him, he's starting to like this weird selkie man already.

"Look. You've got circumstances you want to escape. You accidentally got bound to me. Doesn’t have to be a traditional marriage if it's not agreeable to us both. Been thinking about taking on a housemate, anyway. You'll suit. Don't need you to keep house for me or any of that rubbish from the stories; I'm a full grown man who's been looking after himself for years. We'll share chores. You can explore your options for a life on land. Find a job, or something, if you like."

"And what of the bond already between us?"

Hob shrugs. "We can leave romantic possibilities open, if you want to. Like I said—let's try a date. Let's learn a bit about each other. We'll learn plenty living under the same roof already, I'd wager. If romance doesn't feel right, we'll focus on building a friendship. But either way, I'm not going to leave you homeless and rejected and abandoned on land. Let's start from as reasonable a place as the situation allows and see what happens." He offers a smile, warm and sincere. "What do you say?"

Dream is still watching him, intent and contemplative; after a moment, he inclines his head with gracious old-school formality. "I. Will. Accept your compromise, Hob Gadling."

Oh, his full name in that voice, that is dangerous. Hob is still very much interested in dating the guy; he's pretty, he is thus far not a complete arse, and weird as this conversation is it's given Hob a little glimpse of who Dream is as a person and he'd like to learn more.

Which he will have ample opportunity to do, it seems.

"Wonderful!" Hob beams. "I was heading to the shops after locking up here; you're welcome to join me."

"I shall," Dream decides, with the tiniest hint of a smile, and that's it—Hob is officially smitten.

God, but Jo is gonna roast his arse to kingdom come when she finds out about all of this.

Grocery shopping seems entirely too mundane a task to contemplate after the last several minutes but his refrigerator at home is not going to magically restock itself, is it.

He doesn't think selkies have that kind of magic, either.

He isn't going to ask.

He tries very hard to ignore the little voice in his head telling him he's being incredibly stupid. It's not like he doesn't know. Marriage, then cohabitation, then getting better acquainted? That's very much coming at the whole thing backwards.

That other little voice in his head, though, the one that tends to speak for his gut instincts? That one says he's made the right call, backwards or not, as he strolls down the street toward town center with his new selkie husband-slash-housemate trailing beside him and sees the contented little smile still wreathing those rosebud lips.

He hasn't gotten where he is in life by listening to the first voice over the second.

He's not about to start now.

= Started: 2/8/25 Drafted: 2/11/25 Posted: 2/12/25

This is where I stipulate that I don't know how official-traditional the whole 'giving a selkie back their coat means you're married' thing is. I've run across it a few times but usually in like. Tumblr posts and amateur fiction more than compendiums of mythical creatures or collections of folklore and the like. Regardless, it suits my purposes here.

[coraniaid]

I know I keep going on about this, but I really do think that the majority of the Buffy fandom downplays the importance of Buffy's relationship with her mother to, at times, an almost ludicrous extent. Obviously it's not a perfect relationship (if you think Buffy has a perfect relationship with anyone on the show you've really not been paying attention) and indeed at times it's a very strained one, but it's a central part of understanding who Buffy is and why she says and does things that a lot of writing about Buffy on this site just ... pretends isn't there.

There are more or less extreme examples of this -- I saw a "Giles should have adopted Buffy!" post a couple of years ago that didn't even acknowledge that Buffy had a mother who might have objected -- but so much analysis of the show seems not to engage seriously with the thought that Buffy might care about her mother as a person or worry about her mother's opinion of her. And really, the show is very, very clear about this. There are multiple episodes in the high school seasons where the emotional stakes only make sense if you accept that 'demons from hell might end the world' and 'Joyce might think her daughter is getting into trouble at school' are two roughly equivalent problems for Buffy to navigate.

I recently saw a post about Season 5 that listed Joyce's death as just one of several different reasons for Buffy's burgeoning depression that season -- along with Riley leaving and her having to drop out of college -- but .... that's not right, is it? Those aren't three isolated and independent issues at all. All of those factors go back to Buffy's mom. Riley leaves her in Into The Woods because he decided the fact she's too worried about her mom getting sick to spend time humoring his fragile ego means she doesn't really love him. Buffy drops out of college in Tough Love because her mother died and she has to take care of her sister ... which, when you remember that Dawn is explicitly presented as a stand-in for Buffy ("she's more than [my sister]," Buffy tells us in The Gift, "she's me"), can only be read as Buffy dropping out because she has to take care of herself. "Who's going to take care of us?" as she asked Dawn in Forever.

Buffy's depressive spiral in Season 5 happens because her mother dies. There are aggravating factors, sure, but this is surely the heart of it. It's not because her crappy boyfriend left or she suddenly remembered she was a Slayer. It's because her mom gets sick and dies, and Buffy Summers -- who is afraid of hospitals, who blames herself for every death in Sunnydale, who has been trying to protect her mother from the supernatural for years, who hates the very thought of there being problems in the world she can't solve, who loves her mother more than she can say -- doesn't know what to do about it.

"I don't know how to live in the world [...] if everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish my mom was here," she tells Giles in The Gift. It's Buffy who turns to the door to let the shadow of her mother back inside in Forever, and Dawn who has to break the spell that brought her back. In Season 6, Buffy is trapped by a demon in a fantasy world where she was never the Slayer and her mother is still alive, and it's that image of her mother, telling her that she's strong and urging her not to give up which allows her to break free. When Giles comes back to England that season, and offers Buffy a temporary reprieve from all her new financial worries, the highest praise Buffy has for him is that this uncharacteristic generosity on his part is "a little like having Mom back".

There are people in the world Buffy cares about as much as her mother (but not as many as some of you think), and there are perhaps a dozen characters who appear in the show more or get more speaking time than Joyce Summers, and there are certainly lots of characters the writers obviously care much more about as people in their own right. (Like many of you, the writers seem pretty dubious about the idea that middle-aged women could ever be interesting.)

But there is nobody in the world who means more to Buffy than her mother, and I think trying to analyze the show as if there were is going to give you a very strange impression of what's actually going on. Ideas like, well, maybe Giles should have adopted Buffy.

[tossawary]

I'm only on Episode 5 of "Teen Wolf" and it's hard not to think about Stiles/Derek due to the pairing's influence as a fandom juggernaut throughout the 2010s. It has, over the years, occasionally made me intensely curious as to what was actually in the source material to spark this, versus how much of it was the migratory slash fanfiction fandom stuff.

I don't have... super strong opinions of them from the source material yet? I don't really think they have positive or negative chemistry at the moment. Their interactions are hampered by the fact that I think Derek Hale is currently kind of incoherent as a character, apparently not allowed to actually talk to anyone due to contrived drama reasons, preventing him from connecting naturally on an informational or emotional level to Stiles or Scott. Derek's backstory is still murky and largely unknown. Derek's personal goals here are also a little unclear. Some of this will be cleared up as the season goes on.

I do think that I personally would enjoy Derek more if he had actually been only a few years older than Scott and Stiles, as Stiles says in the first episode, and actually looked it as well. I think that Derek being younger, being another "teen wolf" at 19, would have 1) put him on more even footing with Scott, and 2) made him come across as more of a scared, cornered animal, lashing out at the Argents and stumbling around lost without his family/pack. Like, the traumatized lone wolf thing is apparently what's happening with Derek anyway, but I do think all that would be better communicated to the audience if Derek looked younger and more pathetic and was allowed to snap at / talk to people more and with purpose.

If Derek was younger, I also think that he would function as a better mirror / foil to Scott. Here's this kid who was born a werewolf (unlike Scott), had a big and loving family (Scott has a single, loving mother and an apparently better-absent father), and is now orphaned and homeless and friendless (unlike Scott). It would also make Kate look even more vile and I'm good with that. I know the writers are going to absolutely miss the opportunity to have Scott and Derek's relationship have some more positive give-and-take. Scott has a lot to offer Derek! Scott's kind heart is one of my favorite things about him so far!

Anyway, back to the Stiles/Derek stuff. Yeah, I would also like Stiles/Derek or Scott/Derek more as concepts if Derek was younger. Right now, from the actual canon material I've seen, disregarding the knowledge I've picked up over the years regarding Derek's life, Derek is mostly giving me Angel from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" vibes. And I really did not like Angel and especially not Angel/Buffy.

One positive thing I will say for Stiles/Derek is that I can absolutely see where the ship originally came from. Stiles does have some very queerbait-y lines with the "am I attractive to gay guys" humor. Derek is conventionally attractive. Derek and Stiles are the only two people in on the "Scott is a werewolf" problem, helping him out, and there's maybe a dash of "pair the spares" to it, but these two people are actually interacting and cooperating to solve problems together. And "I got you arrested for a murder you didn't commit" / "you need to cut off my arm" is a hell of a starting point for a ship. That's honestly great stuff. That's a level of freak that might generally inspire me to invent chemistry for a pair of characters, just to figure out how to make that relationship work.

In conclusion, I don't personally ship it, but I get it. I totally see where it came from.

[nqueso-emergency]

Fetishisation … as opposed to BT shippers who did literally that the second Buck came out and entered a relationship with Tommy. Instead of looking at the relationship the way the writers/creators intended it to be, BT shippers looked at it through the ‘two hot white guys’ lens and refused to see anything else. Still can’t despite being outwardly shown AND told it wasn’t supposed to be an endgame relationship and was only a means to an end.

While some Buddie shippers DO fetishise MLM relationships (and it is a consistent problem throughout many fandoms), I don’t think the majority of people reading Eddie’s character as anything but straight is doing that. What about the LGBTQ+ of us who maybe see themselves in Eddie’s characterisation? Are we fetishising?

Ryan has even openly acknowledged to fans who feel that way that it’s valid.

The fact you’ve made an entire blog to shit on other shippers because they disagree with your ship is insane. Like I think you might need mental health help if this is bringing you joy.

Baby girl (gn) Tommy Kinard is a gay character. Evan Buckley is a bisexual character.

They want to be together yet broke up. That is a very popular trope in which they could (presumably) get back together.

That is NOT fetishization. If it was a wlw couple or even a straight couple, we would want them back together.

If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community and you see yourself in the characterization of Eddie Diaz than awesome! I'm glad you've found a character you connect with.

But please remember that a healthy precent of us bucktommy shippers see ourselves in the characterization of Tommy Kinard.

That's what we want you to understand. That's what we've been trying to say to all of you. Some of us are not your "typical queer shape." Some of us didn't come out until later in life. Some of us grew up thinking we were wrong for simply being ourselves. Some of us have or maybe still are dealing with internalized homophobia. So when you call the character a racist or misogynistic, we take that personally.

And this blog is not to "shit on other shippers because they disagree with my ship."

This blog is here to give our side of fandom a place to feel seen and understood. A place to vent anonymously over the way we're treated. All I do is repost YOUR words. If it looks shitty, that's not on me.

And I've said this before, but unless you are genuine, do not comment on my mental health it's not something to make light of.

[cameronsprincess]

can i just ask/say… why the fuck is the obx fandom becoming so toxic? all i see is bullying and hate and drama within this fandom and it’s getting way out of hand. people creating anonymous profiles and sitting here bullying people, saying they do things they don’t, sending hate and harassment, just being all around horrible to people who do not deserve it. no one deserves to be bullied or harassed, and when i see people i love and people i respect being harassed and dragged into shit, when i see people i love and respect feeling like they’re no longer safe on their accounts and leaving completely or having to step back and feel like they’re having to start completely over bc some anonymous bitch is dragging their name(s).. it’s super upsetting. i’m usually quiet and am there privately for those who come to me and wanna talk to me, and i’ll continue to be, but the drama and the hate within this fandom is super fucking childish and getting way out of control. if you read this and feel some type of way, then you’re probably a part of the problem. grow up. that’s all i have to say. grow the fuck up.

[olderthannetfic]

AO3 going "we shouldn't just have a MCU Captain America category, we need a Chris Evans one and an Anthony Mackie one" is so weird to me as a Doctor Who fan. We have way more stuff. We get by with the categories we have just fine. All you have to do is put in a tag for 9th Doctor or, in this case, Sam Wilson Captain America or something. Why does this need a second category? And why are the categories named after actors? Nobody calls them that. My MCU friends call them Sam and Steve.

I don't go here but this is just so weird. Like. What is the point, genuinely? Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? And Sam's movie isn't even out yet. Who's to say we're even going to get enough Sam-centric fics for this to be an issue?

I try never to assume bad faith but this looks so, so out of touch. It's like your mom coming into your room and rearranging things without your permission, then telling you she cleaned it for you because she knows you're going to go shopping and buy new stuff. And then you go, "I wasn't planning on that, and I didn't ask you, actually?" and she shrugs and says you can't move your stuff back to where it was.

I really hope they don't do this to the Doctor Who fandom. I don't want separate categories for every actor who has played the Doctor. And I don't even want to imagine what a clusterfuck this could be when applied to comic characters. Especially since AO3 is willing to split categories for something set in the same continuity. Even canon doesn't split the second Captain America into a different category than the first. It's not "2nd Captain America: Brave New World".

The vibe here is "I don't go here but I think I can help!" when nobody asked for that. It's like my cat trying to help me by knocking ornaments off the tree.

--

Ah, I see we're descending into Did Not Look At The Tags on this one.

Disambiguating with actor or director names isn't new. I'm skeptical that it will be useful here, but it's something AO3 has done for years.

In what sense do you have more stuff? More Doctors? Yes, that's true, and on Teaspoon, everything was organized by them. But if you mean AO3 works, you don't.

All of Doctor Who currently has 91,281 works.

The old Captain America movies tag (now synned to the Chris Evans one) has 114,257.

I guess if you go up to Doctor Who & Related fandoms, you just squeak through with more at 114,874, but come on, dude, the sheer might of stucky dwarfs anything in Who and even exceeds the total works for new Who, and that's the issue going on here.

From the sound of things, people are trying to figure out a way to let works be more findable when they're more about later developments in the continuity. I suppose people are tagging too much past or background stucky for just filtering the ship to work or there's too much where a cap!so-and-so additional tag doesn't indicate what people wish it would. (Personally, I think this is an unsolvable problem, but I see why people are trying.)

Frankly, this would all be better solved by a return to reccing culture and more Sam-centric bookmark collections and recs lists, but wranglers don't control that.

[crazycurly-77]

Flowers for Mrs. Gibbs

Fandom: NCIS

Pairing: Gibbs x reader

Warnings: pure fluff

Dear @dreamy-state-of-mind, thank you for the wonderful prompt for this story. Enjoy!

Everything seemed normal that day. There was no case to solve, no special incidents and nothing. It was pure routine.

And it was normal for messengers to come and go. But it was unusual, however, for them to bring flowers.

The young man who brought them was apparently practical, because he stood in the middle of the bullpen and called out loudly:

“Flowers for Mrs. Gibbs!!”

His voice faded away and silence spread. In fact, it was dead silent, because everyone had abruptly stopped what they were doing and interrupted their conversations. You would have heard it if a pin had dropped.

Tony confidently walked up to the boy and said: “There must be some confusion. There is only one Mr. Gibbs here.”

But the messenger remained persistent:

“No, no, no. I’ve been instructed to give these flowers to Mrs. Y/N Gibbs.”

At that moment, you and Gibbs came out of the principal's office and wondered why everyone was so quiet.

Obviously it had something to do with Tony and a flower delivery man who were standing in the middle of the desks.

When Tony saw you coming towards him, he said with relief: “Hey boss, Y/N. Nice to see you here.”

Gibbs just looked at him sternly: “DiNozzo. Don't you have anything to do?”

“Uhm, yes, boss,” he replied before looking at you: “But the boy is bringing flowers for you. He just wrote down the wrong name.”

Since you could imagine what the “problem” was, especially after the conversation with the principal, you just smiled at Tony and left it to Jethro to sort it out.

Unlike you, Gibbs didn't bat an eyelid, but just raised both eyebrows and asked interestedly: “So? Which one?” The question was actually superfluous because he knew the answer, but he just had too much fun teasing Tony a little.

"The flowers are for Mrs. Y/N Gibbs, Sir," the boy replied with his head held high and a firm voice, as if he were giving a prize.

"I already told him that it must be a misunderstanding, boss. But he absolutely doesn't want to believe it," Tony hurried to explain.

"Who are the flowers from?" Jethro wanted to know.

"From Mr. Tobias Fornell," the flower man answered.

Against all expectations, Gibbs laughed out loud and you ran your hand over your face. The colleagues had expected a lot, but not that the boss seemed to be very amused by the mix-up.

When he had calmed down enough, he grinned, shook his head and muttered:

"Good old Fornell..."

The messenger was slowly becoming restless, because this had been going on for far too long.

"Sir, I have to move on. Am I in the right place or not?" he wanted to know.

Gibbs smiled at him, pressed a tip into his hand and replied:

"Yes, you're in the right place. Give me the flowers."

"Thank you, Sir. Have a nice day!" the boy called, gave him the bouquet and ran to the elevator.

Tony still couldn't believe how such a gross mix-up could have happened: "We've worked with the FBI so many times and they still can't get it right. They really have no idea if they mix up names so massively."

Gibbs was in his element. He grinned at him, handed you the bouquet, leaned over to you and gave you a short but loving kiss on the lips.

As the boss intended, DiNozzo stood there and stared at him with his mouth wide open.

But Jethro couldn't help himself and went one step further. He looked at his team member and said with a broad grin: "That's because it wasn't a mix-up."

At the same time, you raised your hand and showed him your new ring.

Tony's jaw dropped.

Then Gibbs went grinning to his desk and you went to the elevator towards the forensic lab that you share with Abby and you were sure that she already knew the news by the time you got to her place.

The End

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Masterlist stories Part 1 - (finished ones)

Masterlist stories Part 2 - (finished ones and ongoing ones)

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Tags: @ilovemark1951, @hobby27, @dreamy-state-of-mind

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[honeyhotteoks]

on one of your post said something like “shipping yourself with real people is wrong” and it kinda makes me want to add that is okay to have a crush on an idol. idols at the end of the day are celebrities and public figures, i’ve always found it strange they i could say harry styles is my celebrity crush for explain and a lot of people will be like “oh same”, “me too”, or “real i get that” but if i said the same thing about literally any k-pop idols they make it seem like you just performed the most disgusting act against them. (i’ve also seen some people do the same for people calling idols attractive) i genuinely don’t understand why its like that here

YES THIS - excellently said.

do i have a crush on yunho? hell yes, i’ll shout that shit loud and proud. does that mean i am not in touch with reality? no, definitely not. i have a parter that i am extremely happy with, a full life outside of kpop, but that boy gives me stomach flutters and i’m not going to lie about it.

how people behave after that is the part that matters. the boundaries of that idol they choose to respect or not respect are what matters.

the problem i have in the kpop space is that we have puritans policing people’s ‘crushes’ and how they ‘sexualize’ them which in essence infantilizes and objectifies the idols. at the same time, those people are policing fandom expression and experience operating from their own sense of moral superiority. and all of that is packed up in a neat little bow of misogyny and homophobia.

there are people who take it too far on the nsfw side of things to be sure, i’m not sitting here saying people with ‘crushes’ on idols don’t go too far or people who create content don’t go too far, it’s kind of a…… you know it when you see it situation, but shaming people for basic human romantic attachments or sexual interest is so far beyond the snake eating its tail i cannot.

[bloodtiesstilllives]

A Call To Any Fic Writer Who Has Seen The Show Blood Ties

I made this blog after seeing the show Blood Ties for the first time in March 2023.

I and a few others have made it our mission to find whatever content was still floating around and put it all here. We still have our diligent scroungers scrounging. They get cookies and warm milk when they come back with something.

We also do our best to come up with fresh content. And that is what this post is about.

As it stands right now there are only 670 fics up on AO3. I have certainly seen less, but this is the fandom I am focusing on.

To anyone who has seen the show, read the Tanya Huff Books, have a fondness for shows based in Toronto, or just enjoy the concept of hot vampires, tough, smart women, demons, magic, action, romance (however muddled)...stuff like that, I am putting a call out to you to post something up on AO3 or even here on tumblr, even if it's a drabble.

"Well if it's like that, why don't you do it?"

I'm glad you asked random Tumblr anon person. If you go to AO3 right now and type in "Blood Ties (TV)" you are going to see a name pop up a whole lot in the last year. That's me. Problem is that I focus my writing on Henry Fitzroy specifically and do mostly crossovers with other shows in the hope some others will get interested and check this show out.

But that's the problem, I mainly focus on Henry and am barely writing canon. There is so much stuff that can still be done, so many characters that can be put in the sandbox. Plus Henry Fitzroy was turned in the 1500s...there is a lot to play with.

Sure I am screaming in a void, but no worries I take food, water, sleep and bathroom breaks.

So, with that being said, anyone who has made it this far, please consider making a bit of content for this fandom that is in a bit of a coma.

Please come check out this blog it is FULL of content and is mainly focused on the Blood Ties show.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Yeah, sure, I'll chime in, but only because I generally agree with everything laid out above. As always, I don't publicly comment on posts I don't agree with. This is not the fandom way. Do not attack others for their opinions on fictional shows. If you disagree and think they're horribly wrong, then roll your eyes, block them, and let them be wrong.

I've made my thoughts on the "true selves" theory pretty clear. It's insulting to the characters on every level. Marinette is not wrong for being drawn to Adrien when he's being sweet and Adrien is not wrong for being drawn to Marinette when she's at her most badass. You're not a bad person for being drawn to positive traits. What usually happens is that you're drawn to positive traits and come to love the whole picture over time. As an example, Marinette doesn't appear to hate puns. It's just that puns won't make her fall in love with you. Genuine kindness makes her fall in love while puns are a neutral trait. It's not about Adrien being better. It's that Adrien is more likely to show the softer side that Marinette values in a romantic partner. Meanwhile Chat Noir can be pretty freaking annoying. It's no wonder she likes the side she does.

All of this is yet another reason why I like Ladrien best with Ladynoir as a close second. Those are the relationships that allow the characters to be the most open and honest while maintaining secret identities. The relationships that let you fall for the whole picture so long as the characters aren't over the top about secret identities which they shouldn't be in a city of millions. Of course, I'm talking about those relationships in concept. In the context of canon, things are a little more messy.

When it comes to canon, Marinette and Adrien both have massive issues re the way their crushes are written. I tend to talk about Marinette's problems the most because of the asks I get, but I've mentioned several times that Adrien is equally bad and I stand by that. His bad behavior just has a different flavor and is framed in a different way, making it less glaring to the casual observer. When Adrien is rejected in canon, we're almost always supposed to feel bad even though Ladybug owes him absolutely nothing re romance. She is allowed to say no! The fact that she secretly loves him does not make his persistence okay, especially since he has no idea that she secretly loves him. Meanwhile, when Marinette fails to confess, we're supposed to laugh. It's pretty messed up and is absolutely part of the reason why she's viewed as the sole problem by some.

While I don't like either character's persistence, if this is the running gag that canon wanted to go with, then it should be framed the same way on both sides. Chat Noir's endless confessions should be as much of a joke as Marinette's endless failed confessions. I've even pointed out that canon should have had them both constantly failing for better parallels and humor. Instead, you get shit like Galciator where Ladybug explicitly tells Chat Noir that she can't meet up later:

Cat Noir: So, uh, Ladybug? What would you say if you and I met up tonight for a little dinner? Rooftop style? Ladybug: For dinner? As superheroes? Cat Noir: Well, uh, yeah. That's right. We're only together when we're saving Paris. I mean, wouldn't you actually like to get to know one another? Ladybug: I... That's so thoughtful of you, but I can't. I have to, uh, I already have plans with some friends. Bus driver: (steps out of the bus and shakes hands with Cat Noir) Thank you. (shakes Ladybug's hand) Thank you, Ladybug. Cat Noir: Well, if your plans end early, come and join me. Ladybug: We'll see. Cat Noir: I'll be waiting, my lady.

Only for Chat Noir to be heartbroken when she lives up to her word and doesn't show. He's played in an incredibly sympathetic way here even though the lesson of the episode really should have been that he was in the wrong. He should have sneaked out get ice cream with his friends instead of sneaking out to waiting for the girl who told him she wasn't going to be able to make it. Yet Marinette is the one who causes an akuma here and the one who is made to feel guilty even though Adrien is never made to feel guilty for missing out on her confessions:

Cat Noir: Just give me a minute. (sets Marinette down and lights up the candles) Alright, you can open your eyes now. Marinette: (looks around in awe) Wow! Cat Noir, this is... beautiful! (notices Cat Noir looking glum) I'm so sorry. Cat Noir: Why? It's not your fault. Marinette: No— Yeah— I mean— What I mean is I'm very sorry for you because, um, you prepared all of this and then... she didn't show.

This is especially saddening since my experience is that you're way more likely to run into an Adrien than a Marinette precisely because of shit like Miraculous where persistence in the face of a no is shown to be a good thing for some reason. In the context of lessons for the kids watching at home, Adrien's behavior is the one I'd like to see addressed because I don't want little girls being told that they're bad for rejecting a guy who loves them. If Chat Noir must behave this way, then it should be played for laughs not heartbreak. The show reinforces a lot of society's messed up standards about the way women are taught to prioritize the feelings of others over their own feelings and I do not like it.

I have also noticed a trend in fics where they either focus on having Marinette apologize or Adrien apologize with Marinette's behavior seeming to get a lot more attention than Adrien's. I get why. She's the one actively making mistakes and being played as needing to learn lessons, but that's part of why it's just not fun for me to dump on her. It would be one thing if they were both messing up, but the longer canon goes on, the more Adrien only exists to flirt and be sad. He never does anything!

As I pointed out in a recent post, canon doesn't even allow him to ask for more responsibility unless the writers want to cause tension in a battle or other high stress moment. When it's a calm moment where Ladybug has time to listen, he's totally content with the status quo and doesn't want anything to change. It's annoying and part of the reason I can rarely bring myself to care about anything Marinette does wrong. On paper, I'll probably agree that it was a bad action, but emotionally I'm just like, hey, at least she's moving the plot forward! I don't think Adrien has done that since season one unless we're counting things like him quitting or getting hit by Oblivio because he wouldn't stop flirting in the middle of a fight. The writers have really failed to make him the cute, supportive, funny romantic lead I signed up for and I hate it.

I've said this part before but I stand by it so I'll repeat it here as a closing statement: the love square is a wonderful setup for a perfect give-and-take relationship. You have Adrien with all the pressure of his messed up home life and Ladybug with all the pressure of leading a team in battle. Meanwhile Marinette has a great home life and Chat Noir is more of a supportive fighter and distraction who just does what Ladybug tells him (not a negative, battle teams need leaders and followers to work). This allows for a civilian setup where Adrien gets all of Marinette's support and a hero setup where Ladybug gets all of Chat Noir's support because that's who needs the support on each side.

Instead of embracing that wonderful setup, canon has made a mess of things creating a toxic mess of a relationship that's unhealthy for everyone. Marinette can do nothing right and Adrien can just generally do nothing at all. It's why my preference is fics that ignore the later seasons and just embrace the cute fun couple we could have always had. I'm here for what canon could have been not what it actually is.

It's you dislike of Adrien solely because of his actions on the show, or was it also because of his fandom?

A mix of both, but honestly? I'd say it's more because of his fandom. With Canon, I probably would have written a single salt fic for him and moved on because I did still like him and overall felt I could do more with him than Canon was willing to, but I was on a binge of Miraculous fics for a while I started to notice a reoccurring trend in the fandom and many fanfics. Even the ones that didn't outright hate on Marinette before seemed to have this rather one-sided view of their relationship.

Them getting together was being primarily for HIS sake, regardless of Marinette's feelings or personal needs.

Any issue was on Marinette to apologize and fix, regardless whether or not he was in the wrong. And completely IGNORING whether Marinette was even realistically or reasonably capable of fixing them.

The "true selves" argument was all too common, mostly if not entirely on the side of Marinette needing to be the one to learn a lesson and accept Adrien for his "true self" as Chat. Nevermind that this was never an actual point in Canon.

Marinette needing to be the one to work to be worthy of him...which, hello? Hasn't Canon made her do enough yet?

All these stories I read and fandom comments I saw were ultimately indicative of a desire for a completely one-sided relationship between the two where Marinette has to be the one to prove herself to be "good enough for him", to "earn" a place at his side, to work to be "deserving" of his heart, to take care of his physical and emotions needs and effectively serve as a replacement mother figure...at least when she wasn't otherwise expected to "save him" from his oh so horrible life as a rich and popular supermodel.

Even in stories where he was completely in the wrong on a major point, matters wouldn't get resolved until Marinette was the one to have to step up and make an effort, make ADRIEN feel better about whatever happened, apologize for something that either wasn't her fault or was relatively minor in the face of his own actions, and fix things so they but specifically HE can be happy.

Sorry all, I know Adrien is popular and has no agency either in or out of Canon, but I can't NOT see it. And I can't stop seeing it, especially as we get more Marinette hate that seems to reinforce this narrative or otherwise say that failing being this perfect housewife/mother to him, she should suffer in loneliness for the rest of her life.

All anyone had to do was just...let Adrien be wrong. Let him acknowledge being wrong, apologize for it, and be the one to make things right. No excuses. No "but but he's a sad boi!" Just let him be wrong and try to be better. And yet much like Canon, the fandom has been quite insistent that THAT be the one thing they refuse to allow.

[igbylicious]

me: hm fandom is always so exhausting for me even tho it's fun :( i gotta figure out a way to be in this space so it costs less energy & it won't constantly exacerbate my chronic bullshit :(

me later: okay so reviving my old ateez blog @wooyoungslipmole to reblog gifsets, art, memes etc etc works really well! (/blatant plug-in) i can easily mute the blog's notifs to manage the overstim better and i'm not flooded w/ small, flashing images in my writing blog's activity anymore so it's less of a strain to look at! yay, progress!

me, who should have stopped there: huh, maybe then a separate blog for fic recs is also smart 🤔

me: and it's also a nice excuse to finally create an actual tagging system so ppl can search recs by members! and by genre! and whether it's reader insert or not! and oneshots or series! maybe i should tag different types of au's too? 🤔🤔

me: AND OH WHAT IF, WHAT IF, what if i go through all my old recs and queue them up for the new blog so they're neatly gathered in one place, AND i rotate them by member so there's a nice even spread in content!!! and i should also spread out the writers too so they don't get spammed too much. yes yes let's do this 👍 hmm wait i've got like 80 fics in my queue now and i'm not sure if i have any recs left for certain members... i knew i'd have more for some than for others but this... hm... maybe i should tally which members are in the remaining 90 fic so i know what the exact disparity is 🤔 oh dang i read a LOT more San fic than i realised lol oop okay so all i gotta do is dig through my tumblr tbr for the other members and read massive amounts of fic for them so i can keep my queue nice and balanced! yeah lately i've felt too blocked to read anything on tumblr, that's true, but having a deadline will make all the difference to kick my brain back into gear, i'm sure 👍 brute-forcing it will have no negative consequences 👍 let's start wi— wait what do you mean it's 2am already? why is my brain all frazzled and foggy???

me: ...okay maybe, just maybe, it's not fandom that's exhausting.........

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[theloveinc]

I do think it pisses people off how … good… your relationship with Togame is

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[spaciebabie]

oh so you wanna fuck that monster huh. make sexy art of them without giving them muscles and/or making them look human

[rosy-crow]

On one hand, I need to calm the fuck down about Sephiroth and stop giving into Twitter to debate lore. I KNOW I’m better than this lmao.

On the other hand, I see people genuinely angry about “how Crisis Core ruined Sephiroth by killing part of his agency through Genesis,” and “how having friends made him less cool,” and “how all the Compilation is humanizing him too much and taking away his mystery,” and “how he went evil for no reason,” and “how he was always an asshole that saw himself as superior to others and only broke down because he found out he wasn’t all that.”

I see unironic worship of “canon” traits he has that apparently mark him as a perverted alpha daddy dom sex god instead of the actual raging, delusional murderer with a loathing for all life he becomes for a reeeeeeeally key and important reason.

I see remarks like “I hate how First Soldier is ruining my favorite character and taking away more of his agency,” when said “favorite character” is Sephiroth’s most surface-level traits as a villain with no further depth and he has to be cool and perfect 100% of the time or else he isn’t Sephiroth anymore and he’s suddenly “badly written.”

That’s not the same character.

Yes, I know.

Why am I mad that one of the most beautifully designed and canonically objectified and powerfully portrayed and sensually voiced and thirstily fawned over characters in video game history is being reduced to singular traits???

I don’t know.

How can I demand the luxury of rage when faced with such odds.

What did I expect.

Yeah, this one’s on me.