#Seeing as pretty much all I write are rarepairs that nobody cares about and ideas that no one wants to read in the first place

[whysamwhy123]

Me: Alright, I finally have some free time! I can get some writing done, since I have a bunch of different things I've started already, this'll be great!

My Brain: LOL, NOPE!! Not happening! You suck at this anyway, LOL, why bother?!

[onbanksofadragonriver]

Varric x Merrill thoughts

This is a rarepair ship I’ve believed in ever since I saw this fabulous art a few years ago, and the fic “Perfume Shop” (in Russian) has been a major inspiration too. And then recently, @hollyand-writes got me to air my headcanons and to actually get down to writing for this ship, so here we are.

I’ll go by points, but it’s not my goal to somehow attempt to prove that this ship is or should be canon. They’re my headcanons: Don’t like, don’t ship. Also, I haven’t played DA2 in a few years, and have never played any of the DLCs, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. All dialogue with no specifically indicated source is from the wiki.

Buckle in, this is long!

@geekalogian​, @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold​ ♥

>> Amazing banter

All the companions get frustrated by Merrill’s silly questions, though I believe half of them are actually only asked as a joke. They try to explain it or avoid the question, or sigh about Merrill’s naivete. Fenris is downright hostile to her, and Anders tends to get preachy. Aveline treats her like a child sometimes. Isabela is protective and friendly, but sometimes she sounds a bit condescending and impatient with Merrill’s innocence. 

But Varric, he gets her. He gets her silly jokes and just rolls with it, and their dialogues are a pleasure to listen to. It’s with Varric that her somewhat straight-faced, silly humour really shines, because he’s the only one to play along: about frolicking in the woods, and his resemblance to Hahren Paivel, and Bianca having a pretty name, or how his family is like fleas, or Darktown rats following the mage/templar mess, etc. He never brings up her naivete or makes her feel inadequate or as if she’s missed some context. And they’re both so relaxed around each other it’s like Varric has unlocked a whole new dimension to Merrill.

>> Protecting her freedom. The ball of twine and taking care of the gangs. 

I’ve seen meta on how Varric paying off the thugs is him infantilizing Merrill, but he does this for Anders too. It’s his way of caring about people. And also, if you see Merrill’s reaction in case Hawke doesn’t let her have the arulin’holm, you’ll see that she’s perfectly capable of realising when people are coddling her, and letting them know — in no uncertain terms — when that kind of meddling is unwelcome. (see also: Varric and his product deliveries below)

I also like to think that half of the reason “nothing ever happens” when she wanders around at night is because Merrill is a badass mage perfectly capable of taking care of herself. One of her default starting spells is rock armour, and when Hawke meets her, she admits to having fought before, and having done so alone. She’s certainly capable or recognising the stupidity and danger Sister Petrice is walking in as she wanders around Lowtown, and that’s in broad daylight. 

Also, I’m thinking Varric must have put that protection in place after news of some incidents reached his ears, because it’s not something he does by default to other party members who’re new to Kirkwall. So perhaps it is, or was necessary at some point. On the other hand, perhaps Merrill is totally taking care of herself, and the thugs are not even trying to attack her, they’re just enjoying ripping off Varric :P

I like to think that the Viscount’s gardens were an honest mistake and Merrill did cut down on wandering there after Varric’s comment.

The ball of twine is interesting. Her closest friends in the gang seem to be Hawke, Isabela and Varric, but only Varric actually gives her a tool enabling her to find her way around the confusing human city. I don’t know what others did. Did they expect Merrill to just stay in the Alienage if there was nobody to accompany her around the city? Or did they expect her to find her own way through trial and error? Varric gives her a weird, but apparently functional tool for navigating the city until she learns her own way.

And the common motif between ensuring safe streets, an access to gardens and the ball of twine, is how Varric is safeguarding Merrill’s freedom. She’s Dalish, used to living under open sky, travelling from place to place. She’s used to green, growing things and wandering about as she pleases. And she’s used to doing magic freely and in ways that she herself believes appropriate. Now she’s stuck in a barely hospitable alienage of a city with a strong templar and slaver presence, and Varric doesn’t have the heart to scold her and limit her freedom even more. 

Considering Varric is part of the ascendant group in Merchant Guild, who believe in leaving behind Orzammar’s strict caste system and traditions and embracing surface life instead, looks like Merrill’s freedom speaks to something deep in Varric’s own beliefs and values, nonchalant as he seems.

>> Trying to take care of her. Delivering produce.

This gives me feels. First, Varric noticed that something was off. Maybe he missed her showing up at the Hanged Man, maybe he went to visit her. Either way, he noticed that she wasn’t going out, not even to the market. It’s funny to imagine Varric standing in the market scratching his head about what actually goes into food preparation, but more probably he initially just threw some money at the problem, sending someone shopping for her. And then he checked up and saw she’s still not going out. And then he tries to talk her into going for a walk, to get fresh air.

And again this is something I’ve read as coddling and infantilizing, but — when Merrill is clearly not in a mood for teasing, she rebukes him politely: “I’m not a plant, Varric.” She’s not harsh as in case with Hawke and arulin’holm. When Varric leaves, she admits: “Varric is... very sweet. Frequently infuriating and a terrible busybody, but sweet.”

Which at first read as... Merrill not reciprocating Varric’s feelings for her? But on a second thought: what if Merrill is the oblivious one? Not only to Varric’s caring but about her own feelings for him? What if she never considered Varric romantically because she always thought she’d end up with a Dalish partner, and then she becomes friends with Hawke and starts opening up to the idea that what if she takes a human lover? And falling in love with a dwarf has not even crossed her mind yet? (Look lower, queen.)

Because when Merrill cares, she helps people: waters their plants or repairs ancient artifacts. Part of her potentially falling in love with Hawke is due to how they help her, how they have her back. Varric and Merrill have the same love language. I choose to think of it as a mystery, why Merrill is not canonically head over heels for Varric. Maybe she’s so used to his confident, handsome self boasting about all the female attention he gets that she thinks she’s out of his league and has friendzoned herself :P

Additionally, I believe “sweet” and “infuriating” is something that the gang could equally attribute to Merrill herself. Pot calling kettle black? :D

>> Opinions on magic

Varric largely doesn’t have an opinion on Merrill being a mage, a blood mage, or whatever. He’s not afraid, because he has other, more pressing concerns, like Merchant’s Guild breathing down his neck and sending assassins, and when he does mention Merrill’s blood magic being “evil” it sounds like a rehearsed thing that might cause him headache due to other people getting their knickers in a twist over it.

He does acknowledge he’s distrustful of letting “dangerous people run amok” if Hawke sides with the mages in the end of DA2, but apparently he trusts Merrill enough that she knows what she’s doing and leaves it at that. He’s just sick of the whole mage/templar drama.

>> Mutual interest in what they do. 

Merrill is interested in what he does for a living, while he tries to keep her out of trouble that would come from her knowing too much. And Varric is pondering why Eluvian is a mirror, and not some other piece of furniture. Not judging each other, just — curious. Showing they are in each other’s thoughts. And I won’t go into details here, because @hollyand-writes​ has, like, ALL the receipts where Varric thinks about Merrill in DAI, but he does — a lot :) He knows her interest in history and lore, knows that news of ancient elves keeping slaves would upset her, knows she would have liked to see the Dales. He seems to be missing her a lot...

>> Priority. 

LOOK at the sequence he mentions his friends in, Merrill is No.1, while Hawke is almost an afterthought :D

Merrill: How do you do it, living in the city without picking a side? Doesn't it matter to you? Varric: Of course it does. That's why I don't take sides. Merrill: That doesn't make any sense. Varric: I've got you and Aveline, Fenris and Anders. Hawke. Isabela. I've got friends in the Circle and drinking buddies in the templars. All of them matter.

And who’s the first person that comes to Merrill’s mind when Hawke calls her pretty? Varric! :D [X]

>> Comfort in storytelling. 

Yeah, Merrill says somewhere later that she wouldn’t have made a good Keeper because she’s not good with people, but she did receive all the requisite education. She studied lore and elven legends and history, as much as is left of it anyway, and I believe that storytelling, thriving on stories, is something that she and Varric both have in common. 

Maybe she’s too shy to tell her own stories, but she’s definitely enjoying Varric’s and looking for consolation in his stories when things get rough.

Merrill: Varric, how does the story end? Varric: Which story, Daisy? Merrill: The big one. With us and Hawke, the mages and templars. Everything. Varric: You want to know before it happens? You're not worried about spoiling the surprise? Merrill: I might not see it end. Varric: You have to stick with us if you want to find out how it turns out, Daisy.

Merrill: Tell me a story, Varric. Varric: Right now? I don't think we have time, Daisy. Merrill: Maybe a very short story, then? Please? Varric: Fine. "When the cards turned, he lost." Merrill: Oh. Did it have to be so sad?

Merrill: (passing the Hanged Man):  "Do you think there's time for Varric to tell us a story while we're here?"

Merrill: I hope we win. Varric will make it a good story, I'm sure.

>> Conclusions & Future

The thing that gets me the most is how good and kind they are to each other. It’s in their teasing, their jokes, the way Varric takes care of Merrill. I love Merrill’s confidence in Varric’s storytelling talent, and I like to think Varric finds Merrill’s confident tinkering with the mirror at least a little bit hot, even if he doesn’t understand magic (Bianca is/was a brilliant engineer, and I think Varric has a bit of a competence kink :D)

I also enjoy thinking of them both as slightly out of touch with emotions: Varric ignoring his own, and Merrill oblivious to his. I like to think of what happens when Merrill realises Varric loves her: because she’s open and honest in her affections, and it would be awesome to see Varric taken by that storm. To see him openly fall for someone so different, at a first glance, but also familiar: a knowledgeable storyteller, confident in her abilities, believing in free will and freedom. 

I see them moving on together: Merrill learning to let go of the disappointment that is the unfinished eluvian, and Varric learning to let go of his lingering feelings for Bianca. Yes, the past is important for Merrill, while Varric wants to live in the moment, but the point of knowing the past, for Merrill, is to be able to move forward, and Varric certainly knows his family’s past, so I don’t see any disagreements there. If anything, Varric’s resources and connections can help Merrill get her hands on more artefacts and ancient tomes, letting her continue on her path in some other way.

It’s interesting to imagine their life together. After DAI, Varric pours his own funds into various infrastructure projects until he ends up the Viscount of Kirkwall, and Merrill is in Kirkwall too, helping the city elves. Somehow, it feels logical that at least some of those projects would be new elf housing and improvements to the alienage. 

Would they get married? Probably, because I think it would be important to Merrill, and also probably because it might be a better way to protect her, a rumoured/known blood mage, from the Chantry than if she was just the Viscount’s mistress. On the other hand, knowing Varric and his cousin Elmand, and his spy network, and his tendency to successfully evade the Merchant Guild messengers [X], it’s equally possible he’d whip up a completely fake story about how his beloved Merrill is a hatter, and leave it at that. Probably he couldn’t even be found in the Keep, instead preferring to hide out in the Hanged Man or in his wife’s house in the alienage :D

Because, in the end, I think they both enjoy doing their respective Things very much, whether it’s helping elves or writing books, and they let each other do it selflessly, even if maybe it means they can’t live together. (Because can you imagine a Viscomtesse Merrill having to host a ball? Dealing with Hightown nobles? No, I don’t think Varric would ever ask such a sacrifice of her.) But they live close, and help and support each other, and, in short, I think they’d be awesome :)

[flydotnet]

Recurring Dream and What They Mean

VRAINS Rarepair Weeks 2018 - Day 8: Royalty/Dreams

Summary: Akira has always had the same fever dream since he was seventeen: he sees himself back when he was a teenager caring for his younger sister, probably about to die. However, seeing a guardian angel in its last iteration has to mean something has changed within his life since then. 

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS Ships: Hireshipping (Ema/Akira) + a huge emphasis on Aoi & Akira’s sibling bonds

Wordcount: 3.4K words

Notes: Nobody ever said you couldn't add "fever" before "dreams" in the given prompt, right? I'm sorry, my inspiration is kinda stalling today. I also turn out to be a complete idiot who forgot the Zaizen siblings were, in fact, step-siblings. Oops. Better notice it now than never! I've been in almost most of a Zaizen sibling mood than a Hire one, but don't worry, tomorrow's prompt will be like 90% Hire, I already have another angst idea to throw at the fandom. I promise it gets better by the end. It's also based on an idea I got like two days ago, so stay tuned for the day I actually write it xoxo

Event hosted by @vrainsrarepairweeks​

AO3 version available here.

It feels like a familiar situation. That’s weird, considering he has never gone through this before, right?

 He’s seventeen, his sister is seven, and they’re in the streets of Den City again to find a place to shelter themselves from the winter’s bitter cold. He finally has enough money to rent a small, shabby flat for them with one bed and a thing that looks like another. He, of course, occupies the thing: the bed is for Aoi who has the misfortune to have an awful childhood courtesy of their parents dying and the rest of their families being vultures attracted by their inheritance. They’re in the streets because they need to buy some groceries for tonight and, if they can afford it, some tissues for her to blow her nose in. Poor Aoi has caught a cold despite all the precautions he thought he had taken. That’s on him: he was the one who got sick first and unwillingly gave it to his sister.

 “Brother, I’m cold,�� Aoi says in a timid voice, almost in a whisper, as they cross a road. The least expensive convenience is on the other side of the road.

That’s surprising, he feels pretty warm for this time of the winter break. He’s lucky he doesn’t have classes to attend on top of this. However, he makes sure to take off his scarf, use a cheap disinfectant spray on it and wrap it around her tiny body.

“Here you go,” he tells her as he does so, making sure her facemask stays on so her cold doesn’t worsen. She started coughing yesterday, it can’t be good.

“Brother,” she asks him, “what about you…?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He knows he won’t be “fine” for very long when his cough digs out phlegm from his lungs.

 As she watches Akira’s face distorts ever-so-slightly in his sleep, Ema has a few questions rising in her mind.

“Does he do that often?” she asks Aoi sitting across the other side of the bed.

“I can’t tell for sure, Brother usually tries to stay alone when he feels bad,” she replies with concern all over her face.

It looks like the guy is trapped inside a nightmare.

“I don’t know why,” Aoi adds. “I wish he’d tell me. He’s always done that…”

 Seconds later he finds himself in the one-room flat he shares with Aoi. She is diligently doing her homework. Sometimes, he wishes she’d ask him for help, but she never does. In this case, it does help him: he can easily sneak out of the room to cough up the phlegm setting in his chest. Today was probably his last job for a while: his vision blurs easily, people don’t like to have sick mercenaries because they never accomplish their work properly. He cannot risk Aoi’s future on that. His? Oh, with how quickly this illness is degenerating, he won’t have the time to think about it for much longer. He needs to act soon, before he has to abandon her.

This is seriously starting to mess with his brain.

 He coughs one last time before going back inside the flat, staying in front of the door with his back against the wall, an arm wrapped around his ribcage and a hand on his mouth. The pain is terrible and burns through his entire respiratory system by now, from the tiniest corners of his lungs to his nostrils, making him jerk violently when he gets into a fit that seemingly never ends. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like that, especially not Aoi who has to keep a part of childhood innocence like he had the chance to have gotten, but he still spots a woman with long pink hair going down the stairs and looking at him concerned. She feels familiar, even if they never met before…

 He enters the main room again and his sister turns around on her chair to see him do so. Ah, he’s going to miss her when he’ll be gone…

“Aoi, I…” He freezes in place and instead prefers to give her better news. “We’re going to the doctor tomorrow… We finally have the money for that…”

Yet she doesn’t look relieved. Is she cold? Is she concerned about school?

“Don’t worry, I’ll call the school…” He barely retains a cough and almost falls because his legs cannot hold his weigh properly anymore, barely catching himself up on the door frame.

Aoi doesn’t respond, and instead gives him doubtful eyes and a saddened expression.

 His right hand, just before the bounty huntress’s eyes, is clutching the bedsheet under it, fingers grasping for something to clutch onto. He must be fighting against something terrifying in his sleep.

“M…” He murmurs, seemingly to no one but himself. Aoi and her ears immediately sharpen onto this sound. “Mother… Help us…”

Aoi immediately freezes. “He’d say that when he was sick, when we were younger,” she says as an explanation for why she is suddenly so disturbed.

“I guess it’s a reflex to call for your mother when you’re unwell,” Ema comments with her hand on her chin. Seeing Akira call for his mom? Now that was something she couldn’t have expected. If the context was any different, she’d have immediately made fun of him for that. As it stands… It’s terrifying to witness.

She takes off one of her gloves and puts a hand on her forehead, then on his. He’s still burning underneath her palm. The dreams he’s going through must be terrifying, if you could call them that. It’s probably closer to a nightmare.

“And, according to you, why does he never let you help him, Aoi?”

Not going to lie, she has her own idea as to why behind her mind.

“I don’t know. I wish Brother would tell me why at least. He used to always care for me, before we could have a real home… But he never accepted that I do it the opposite way around.”

 They’re in a doctor’s waiting room. He picked the nearest one, not the least expensive one: with Aoi sick and him unable to carry her on his shoulders, it was preferable that way. They have a margin: the advantage with being sick, in a way, is how he almost never feels hungry anymore. Less food, more medicine for her. That’s almost a good bargain in a black market. The room smells like nothing, or at least he thinks so, and is incredibly hot. He’s only dressed in a shirt and a pull, a gift from someone who took pity on him once, when everyone else has their coats on in the room. It must be him: his fever, because he ought to be feverish to explain the hallucinations he gets sometimes, has screwed with all his senses for what feels like an eternity.

 This pink-haired woman from earlier is back. Maybe she’s a hallucination, but he feels better when she’s here, for some reason. She sits next to him, Aoi doesn’t seem to have noticed her as she sleeps on his lap. They stay quiet, but that’s enough: he cannot hold a conversation properly at the moment anyway, so it’s better that way. Her pink eyes in a tone so similar to her long hair tied in a ponytail almost hypnotize him to forget about how much his chest hurts him. His heart is, for once, beating faster for a valid reason instead of his congested breathing. Is that… falling in love? He has forgotten to be a teenager all along… She seems far older than he is, though. Ah well…

 His hand grips Ema’s nearest wrist without warning, as the panicked breathing comes to a calmer halt. She feels her face redden but tries to stay put and composed in front of Aoi who seems more surprised than she is shocked.

“W…” Ema smothers a scream of surprise before it can get out of her mouth. “What the hell…?!”

Aoi doesn’t say anything, instead looking very curious as she stares at the hand’s twitching fingers. That doesn’t answer any of her questions!

“I frankly didn’t expect that to happen…” she admits as she too looks at it. She cannot bring herself to part it away from her imprisoned wrist anyway. It’d seem like a cruel thing to do to someone so vulnerable.

“Stay… stay here, please…” his weak, groggy voice mutters again.

“Seems like someone is in need of affection…”

Ema gulps concern down. This is eerier than she could have ever seen coming.

 He’s in the examination room, the doctor looking over him. He had promised himself, he wouldn’t give in: if he did, then they wouldn’t be able to afford Aoi’s medicine. If it wasn’t for her sister begging the man to examine her brother and the offer of getting it done free because he looks, indeed, nearly deadly ill, he wouldn’t be here. Instead, everything is cold against his skin: the air, the medical tools, this man’s hand, his own clothes. Everything is too cold and then it’s too hot, it can’t settle for anything, and his breathing is still awfully ineffective. He wants to pass out and never wake up again if that means having that stop.

 Once that’s said and done, he remembers his mission and tries to hurry up. He’s going to lose consciousness soon, that’s certain, considering how his vision is swimming around and how his fever hasn’t lowered since the doctor insisted on taking his body temperature after having noticed how boiling his skin was. He takes Aoi’s hand in his, making sure it wasn’t the one he was coughing into, but his legs buckle up under his weight, his eyes close on themselves, he’s falling and he doesn’t want – he needs to escape, find Aoi a new house when he’ll be gone too, hoping she can make it out big in the world that didn’t want them – but his body stops responding and everything fades to black, slowly, in blurs of colours fading with his senses numbing once and for all. Is he dying? Is he going to wake up again? That’s out of his reach, he doesn’t want to be unconscious, he doesn’t want to leave Aoi alone, he has to wake up and –

 He emerges in the real world, where things have happened and matter, in a gasp and a mix of cold and hot sweat, breathing heavily and quickly, hand on his heart, the other still gripping onto something. He looks around the room: this isn’t the doctor’s room from nine years ago. It’s his bedroom, in their own home, and there is a very familiar pleasant smell of a flowery perfume on his right. He reddens, nervous and embarrassed, when he notices his hand was wrapped around Ema’s wrist. Wait… When did she enter? When did he land there? Why is Aoi on his left, looking so concerned yet so intrigued? When did he even go to bed? The sun peeking through the curtains indicates it has to be the afternoon too.

 “Lemme guess,” Ema tells him with a smirk and eyebrows contradicting her smugness. “You’re confused, you have no idea how you arrived here, and you’re craving for an explanation?”

He only looks away, too embarrassed to ask the question himself.

“Simple enough. You passed out on your secretary at work and the first person they could find in your phone call history was your truly’s, Ema Bessho herself. I got the privilege to calm that girl down from panicked sobs and to drive you home on a bike.”

She’s too proud to actually spit out how much she was concerned for him, for what was inside his dreams.

“Brother,” Aoi’s voice makes his head turn left, “can I ask you something?”

He nods as an agreement. His throat feels dry, he wants to cough, but he doesn’t want to cough up blood again… Oh, wait, he’s in the present now. That means he doesn’t have that anymore. He should have noticed it was a dream as soon as he saw a woman he hadn’t seen back then hypnotizing him. He still doesn’t want to cough.

 “Why do you never let me near you when you’re sick?” Aoi questioned, eyes not intimidated enough anymore to search for an answer in his. Too bad his gaze couldn’t answer in his stead.

“Because of this,” he replies, purposely stalling as not to seem to vulnerable to Ema and his sister. “These fever dreams, I mean.”

“You’re still calling that a “dream”? I’d have called these nightmares,” Ema comments with a click of the tongue. She’s trying to make the unfunny at least somewhat amusing.

“They technically are dreams, and it’s always the same that comes back…”

 She watches her hirer (or partner? Maybe “partner in crime” fits better) try to focus with foggy eyes and hitching breathing like the overworked pseudo-machine he is. His voice is low, slow, almost quiet and has the saddening property of reminding her of her father’s when he was close to meeting death. She is tasting worry dripping down her body like corruptive acid, that sucks. This is what happens when she lets herself get too sympathetic. Never again.

Never, fucking, again.

 “It’s always the same?” Aoi asks with fingers fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.

Akira isn’t really sure of how to answer the question. He doesn’t want her to worry or remember that time of their life that was a hardship with no end, where he thought he was going to die and had no solution to truly go against it, where he was too poor to afford a doctor but too sick to be able to work and pay for one. But the thing is: it’s always this that serves as his fever dreams. He usually simply ends up crying and clutching his chest as phantom pains come back. It’s a minor trauma compared to everything he’s seen flying around this past year to the point complaining about it feels like trying to paint himself as a martyr he isn’t.

“Yes. I always see myself in the same place, doing the same things, and the end is always the same.”

“What… dream is it, Brother?” Aoi asks again, “if you don’t mind telling me of course…”; and the worry she shows towards him makes him nauseous against himself. She shouldn’t have to be that concerned for him if he was good at what he’s trying to accomplish. He cannot not provide her with an answer if she’s that concerned, so he swallows down his pride, almost forgetting there is also Ema on his other side.

“I always get sent back to the time where we both got sick, nine years ago.” Aoi’s face distorts immediately. It looks like she remembers this as vividly as he does. “It always ends in the doctor’s room, where I pass out and wake up after reviving, well, you know what happened that day…”

“And what happened?”

 Ema’s voice suddenly chimes in and he turns his head to her as abruptly as he can without his aching joints giving up on him. She looks upset but curious, as if he owed her that information. He doesn’t, though… Why would she be interested in it anyway?

“Huh…” He’s, frankly, speechless. “I got very sick that time, that’s it…”

“Aoi told me, you know.”

He feels himself decompose in front of her. That… That’s more intimidating than embarrassing.

“It’s about that time where you got pneumonia and didn’t want to get yourself examined so you could afford her medicine, right?”

This is getting worse by the minute.

She sighs. “With how terribly this could have ended, don’t be surprised that she wants to be able to approach you when you’re sick. Who can tell if you’re not going to do that again? Oh, wait,” she interrupts herself and glares at him, “you did that none earlier than today.”

He gulps again, not saying a word. She sounds offended enough without his input.

“And I thought I was the reasonable one of us two. You beat me to the bush here, Mr Zaizen.”

 Aoi remains silent, going over how much this could be terrible for her brother to relive through as soon as he gets a fever. From her slightly inexact memories from nine years ago, she can remember how bad his coughs sounded and how much the doctor and his wife sheltering them for a couple weeks were worried for him and his chances to make it out alive. Terrible times she couldn’t ever forget even if she wanted to. She, however, cannot bring herself to leave the room, so she stays there and erases herself from the commotion taking place.

 “Listen, Akira,” Ema makes herself sound sterner, “I’ve had to bring you here for a couple times already. You have to remember that time where you passed out on us after a mission with Blood Shepherd because you hadn’t slept again? It’d be time for you to handle yourself properly.”

She then looks on the side, almost ashamed of what she’s telling him, before looking back at him with red creeping on her cheeks.

“I think you’ve worried us all, Aoi and me and your secretary too while we’re at it, too much with your shenanigans. It’s time to slow everything down and actually think of yourself once and for all. That’s why you couldn’t have lasted as a bounty hunter, you don’t have a capacity of self-preservation!”

A pause again, a change of tone once more.

“I’m saying that for Aoi and you, of course. Now, your intentions are usually not wrong, so I can’t even scold you like a little brat, that’s annoying. Plus, I’m sure Aoi wouldn’t want me to anyway. Your sister loves you, you know.”

And so do I, she wanted to say. “I also happen to need my main employer up and running to afford my rent and groceries,” she instead told him.

She puts a hand on his forehead again, gulping down her honour and pride with it.

“You’re still very warm. Aoi, please, can you get me some ice?”

The teenage girl complies with a quick “yes!” and exits the room almost running. That’s good, she needs her private conversation with him.

 “Ema…? Is there something wrong…?” he asks her, worried by seeing her so troubled. He may be running a fever, he still senses it when there’s that little something with the people he knows.

“Well, more or less you,” she replies drily. “But hey, you’ve allowed me to afford my rent multiple times, so I suppose I do depend on you at times. That’s one reason more why you should stop being stubborn. Who am I to speak, though?”

“That reminds me, sorry for cutting you off, but... You started appearing in my dreams, lately.”

Ema stops speaking all of a sudden, heart skipping a beat. That’s astonishing to hear, almost speech-stealing.

“Wait, you mean I was in this fever dream of yours? That’s… flattering. Is that why you were gripping my wrist and calling for…” Never mind. “For someone?”

“Yes,” he confirms it with his glassy eyes looking at the ceiling, “you were. It was soothing to be around you in it, for some reason… Even when I was reliving waiting in that room where everyone was staring at me… You were breath-taking, making breathing far easier with clogged lungs…”

Ema almost chokes on her own breathed-in oxygen.

“Wait, was that a pick-up line?!”

“I-it wasn’t…!” Akira reddens even further than the flushing of his face made him look already.

 They remain silent for a few heavy moments, Aoi having brought back the ice just in time for them to find a distraction. Ema recovers her composure before he does, so she takes the matter in her hands.

“In a way, I guess I was your guardian angel in your dreams. I can be so too in real life if you want,” she ends with a flirty note. Teasing him is fun, after all.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t actually want to do that on the side, far from it. She watches his sister’s back for him, to grant her freedom without letting her expose herself to all the dangers there are out there… Why not watch over him in the first place?

“I suppose you could… If that means I don’t get scolded again,” he plays with it.

“Deal then.”

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex

Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!

Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.

She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!

With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)

I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.

During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…

Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.

I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.

Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)

I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.

I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.

That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.

I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.

Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.

(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)

The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.

Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!

As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!

[ncfan-1]

The Finduilas x Maeglin Essay, or: Me and My Rarepair

Okay, so people actually do want to know why I ship Finduilas and Maeglin, so I guess it’s time for a little shipping quasi-essay. I’ve been thinking about the ship more again lately, since I think I may start writing in the AU-verse of Unintended again soon. To those who wanted to know why I ship it, and to the others that ship this as well (!), this is for you.

It started when I was writing Stands Between for Legendarium Ladies April 2016. Stands Between is one of those feel-good, fluffy fix-it fics that says “I don’t care if it’s implausible; canon’s so depressing that I’m gonna do this anyways.” I hit a bit of a snag when I got Túrin to Gondolin with Tuor and Voronwë, because in order to get Turgon to understand the seriousness of the vision Ulmo imparted on Tuor, first Maeglin had to be made to understand how serious it was, and Maeglin… was not cooperating. I couldn’t understand how to get him to the point of being willing to see the threat posed by Morgoth for what it was.

I had a breakthrough when I realized that Maeglin was to Turgon what Túrin had been to Orodreth. The idea that the two characters played parallel roles clarified Maeglin’s characterization, both in this fic and in general, a lot for me. Then I got to thinking. I ship Finduilas/Túrin, so how about Finduilas/Maeglin?

I looked up the ship on AO3. Nothing. I looked it up on Fanfiction.net. Also nothing.

Things snowballed from there.

I’d be lying if I said I needed much reason to start shipping a crack ship. And Finduilas x Maeglin is nothing if not a crack ship. They never meet in canon; there’s no opportunity for them to meet in canon, unless in Aman after they’ve both been re-embodied. But it occurred to me that Maeglin seems to share more than a few traits with other men Finduilas found attractive.

Gwindor, pre-Nirnaeth, was described as valiant and impetuous, all but fearless in battle, to his cost. A man of action. Túrin shares these traits, and is additionally shown to be hard-working (he’d have to be, to keep at the crafts he learned in Doriath even though Morgoth’s curse kept making his attempts go awry), charismatic though he was not merry, and much more kind-hearted than most give him credit for, for he was always ready to lend an ear to people who claimed to suffer hurts.

Maeglin is described in the Silmarillion as being fairly wary in his counsels, and “yet hardy and valiant at need” (138), unafraid of the dangers of battle. He was hard-working, often going into the Echoriath to mine metal ore, including the iron he used to construct the Gate of Steel. He was said to have in his voice “a power to move those that heard him and to overthrow those that withstood him” (134) when he spoke of matters close to his heart, not a far cry from Túrin’s own charisma. We don’t know if Maeglin was ever a particularly kind person, because the narrative portrays him ambivalently from the start, even before he becomes a villain. But either way, he’s got a lot of the same traits as Gwindor and especially Túrin, and the descriptions of his appearance aren’t too far off from how Túrin is described as looking, either.

It’s harder to say what traits Finduilas has in common with Idril that Maeglin might find attractive, because the text never spells out what Maeglin finds attractive about Idril apart from her looks. Since Pengolodh is an Elf and Elves considered the kind of feelings Maeglin harbored for Idril thoroughly unnatural, and because Maeglin ultimately betrayed Gondolin, nobody’s particularly interested in why he was attracted to Idril in the first place, before attraction turned to obsession.

Since Finduilas x Maeglin is a crack ship, bordering on a crack OTP for me, obviously I believe mutual attraction is possible. An AU that allows the two of them to meet would entail Maeglin never going to Gondolin, so he never meets Idril, never becomes attracted to and obsessed with her, never gets captured by Morgoth, never goes over to Morgoth, never betrays Gondolin. The fic I wrote last year, Unintended (which was intended to be Finduilas x Maeglin, until I realized that given that his parents had just died, Maeglin probably wasn’t going to be in the head space to be attracted to anyone), has Aredhel fleeing to Nargothrond first, with the intention of heading to Gondolin eventually. There isn’t the same obstacle of consanguinity for Finduilas x Maeglin as there is Maeglin x Idril; they’re second cousins rather than first cousins, so it wouldn’t be considered unnatural by Elven standards.

I became very fond of the ship because of what it offers for both characters. For Finduilas, being with someone who, while he still falls under the Doom of the Ñoldor, doesn’t have an additional curse hanging over his head (unless Eöl curses him in this version, too), someone who could return her feelings, someone she could be happy with. For Maeglin, being with someone who wouldn’t consider the very idea of being in a relationship with him as taboo and unnatural, someone who could give him proper emotional support, someone he could be happy with.

Beyond that, it’s the road not traveled aspect for them both—Finduilas potentially surviving (it’s still the Silm, I admit; she could still die), and Maeglin never going down the road to winding up betraying a realm of Elves to Morgoth. They never met in canon, but what if they could? What might they say to each other? Might they commiserate as two children of the House of Finwë who were born in Beleriand, who never knew Aman? How might Maeglin, struggling to adjust to life without his parents and among his other kin, respond to Finduilas’s kind, sympathetic nature? How might Finduilas respond to her new cousin, quiet and intense and determined to prove himself?

Like I said, it’s still the Silm; they could still very easily wind up dying. But if you ship things in the Silm you pretty much have to admit that death is not an obstacle to shipping. Just because people might or will definitely die later does not mean that what they do now is worth nothing. Finduilas x Maeglin could very easily ending in both halves dying. Given that it’s the Silm, it could easily end with both of them dying horribly. But that doesn’t mean that what they did while they were alive, the relationship they could have forged, was worth nothing. To borrow a quote from another book series, “men’s lives have meanings, not their deaths,” and what they could have been to each other, what they could have been together, that’s what matters to me, that’s what appeals to me so much.

[ladynorbert]

Top Five and Bottom Five

All right, I know somebody tagged me in this recently - I think it may have been @roksanalyasin​ but I’m not positive. But somebody did!

Rules: tag the person who tagged you, always post the rules, answer the questions, and add the date!

Thank you, whoever it was! It seems like this is strictly referring to AO3, judging by the inclusion of a kudos count, so any of my works which are on FFN but not AO3 (e.g. the Elizabeth Quatermain series) are not being included here.

What are your five most popular works?

1. Flowers of Antimony (Kudos: 260) - And no one is really surprised, are they? This is probably the thing that will be mentioned in my obituary, at this rate, simply because everybody and their suit-of-armor-bound brother seems to think it’s worthy of being the official sequel to Fullmetal Alchemist. Higher praise I could not ask. I’m genuinely humbled by how much love it has received. :)

2. All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird (Kudos: 181) - I’m actually a little surprised since this is one of my most recent works, but I say with all honesty that it’s one of my best. I would even venture to say it might be my best fic yet. But I don’t think of it as being especially popular, so this is a nice surprise.

3. The Lady and the Lion (Kudos: 154) - I only take half the credit for this, since I cowrote it with @auroraborealia​. It’s a little silly, but I’m quite fond of it, so I’m pleased it made the list.

4. Brilliancy (Kudos: 94) - This is the sequel to Flowers, and I honestly think it’s of higher quality, so I’m surprised it’s got more than a hundred fewer kudos. But that’s me. We all have our favorite children, after all.

5. Shadow and Rose (Kudos: 93) - Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t realize Alistair was that loved! I mean, I know he’s loved, but I never expected this fic to be that popular - it’s nice to be wrong.

So what I’m getting here is that my FMA readers and my DA readers are duking it out for my attention.

What are your five least popular works?

1. Across the Waking Sea (Kudos: 2) - Well, it is pretty new. Plus it’s my DA rarepair, and almost nobody in the DA fandom cares about that except my own loyal crew.

2. The Beautiful Thing About Princes and Queens (Kudos: 6) - My one and only Fairy Tail piece. Talk about rarepairs - this is the one I literally invented. No, seriously, this is the only fic in existence for its pairing, and it’s so farfetched it almost qualifies for crack pairing. And yet it works.

3. Burn (Kudos: 7) - No surprise. I rather like this piece, it’s very metaphorical, but I can see why it never caught fire (pun intended).

4. The Skyhold Runner’s Guide to Survival (Kudos: 9) - Again, this is very new. In fact, it’s newer than Sea so I’m a little surprised it has more kudos; but then again, it is Varric doing what Varric does best - snarking to hell and back.

5. If It’s Dinsday This Must Be Castle Town (Kudos: 9) - Ah yes, the sequel nobody was requesting to a fic that barely anybody read. I’m not surprised to find this here, I’m mostly surprised it didn’t rate lower.

Are you surprised? Why?

Nope. This more or less lines up with my expectations.

Optional: If you want to calculate this, what are your works’ average number of notes?

I honestly have no idea how you would calculate that. 

Today’s date, so you can see how your results might change if you do this again in a year.

July 24, 2017

Tag six people to do this next!

I’m not sure who has and has not already done this - so if you write fanfic and you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

[todokori-kun]

‘I’d even ship him with Shuu’ what have you done now I’m actually shipping that (Shuu trying to be his usual romantic, flirtatious self and then realising Urie either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it)

I KNOW IT’S SO SAD

TG’s quality does seem to be going down a bit these last few chapters (I think the real problem started with the Touken romance. I swear I’m not being salty about a ship I don’t particularly like being canon, I just feel like the pacing was a bit bad…Touka’s ‘are you a virgin’ came completely out of the blue, plus Touken has hardly interacted in Re before the recent chapters. It’s been YEARS since they’ve seen each other, wouldn’t things have changed? Neither of them are teenagers anymore. Both of them have grown and changed, but Touka chose not to stay near Kaneki and watch his growth, while Kaneki had no way to see how Touka’s experiences gradually changed her. But Ishida decided to suddenly make it canon and then start focusing on the Touka-Kaneki-Mutsuki triangle to the point where it feels like he’s abandoning his other plot threads… kind of like what Isayama’s been doing lately.).

However, I believe that Ishida is completely capable of making things better if he wants to (remember, he still has the Hide trump card- bring Hide back in a believable way that nobody has predicted and also adds to the story, and I imagine most of the fandom will forgive everything that’s gone wrong in Re so far) so I’ll stick around. Plus, I’ve just gotten too attached to all the characters ;-;

Ugh, y'know, even if it wouldn’t fit very well with all the implied Mutsurie, I wish Ishida would just pull a plot twist and make Ken/Urie or Urie/Saiko canon.

I think I kinda hate centipedes now.

1: Yeah, I don’t think that’s Mutsuki’s hand either (like you said, it looked pretty 'fresh’. Plus, I have no idea how Mutsuki would have gotten one of the limbs Torso cut off). The only reason I mentioned it was because of the parallel with Torso showing Mutsuki their own hand with a wedding ring on it…Ishida loves his symbolism so I thought this might actually matter to the plot.

2: I think it was probably either a stranger or an acquaintance, since she seems slightly surprised and not exactly 'happy’ to see this person, but not afraid or displeased either. I’m scared…why would Ishida not show us who it was if it wasn’t something important? If things went well Yoriko’s probaby just gained some knowledge about what’s going on (perhaps she’s been told where Touka is and why she can’t come to the wedding?), but if not…perhaps a villain’s blackmailing her…idk :(

3: I want to believe that too, but I’m not sure yet. If there’s a reason for Yoriko looking so serious then that might be connected with the mystery character who greeted her when she was out shopping.

Thank you, that really means a lot to me <3 What I’m really worried about right now is that I go to a piano 'hagwon’ (a cram school of sorts, I guess?) and this year they’re going to do a small concert. Everyone who goes to the hagwon has to play a song and I have no idea how I’m going to do this ;-; just trying to look a person in the eyes when I’m talking to them scares me, how am I supposed to get on the stage in front of a crowd (a small crowd, since everyone there to see the concert will be the parents/family of the kids participating, but seriously). Things are just a bit complicated XD

Adorable Shuu. I guess that would just make me tease him even more LOL I’d probably ruin all his dramatic moments.

(Now that I think about it, though, Shuu and I have similar interests: music, fashion, art, literature…though I guess he’s a lot more interested in food than I am haha)

Oh, I’m so glad you liked them! I tried my best ;)

I actually like doing matchup things so that may be why they’re acceptable…if I ever get a tumblr account I think I’d like to make a scenario/hc/matchup blog.

As for Storm in Lover, yep, that was from your 'the names are weird’ message XD after I decided to add Love Live into the headcanons I ended up going on YT to listen to a few of the songs. They were all really cool, but it just felt like Storm in Lover would be Urie’s guilty pleasure song (or maybe that’s just because I ended up likng SiL way more than I was prepared for?)

BLOW US ALL AWAY QUEEN LUNA

I’M GLAD MY HUMBLE HEADCANONS COULD HELP

I WILL WRITE MORE

AS MANY AS YOU NEED TO GET THROUGH NEXT WEEK

(Seriously tho

-since your hair is either 'too long and in a ponytail’ or 'really short and in a ponytail’, Urie is secretly very, very disappointed when you’re wearing it short. He likes playing with your hair when you’re too busy watching TV or reading to notice he’s being cute ok

-short or long, whenever Urie gets a hold of your hair, he WILL style it. Don’t you dare say no to the Captain of the Q squad. A simple ponytail? Unacceptable.

-Saiko approves of this relationship

-So would Sasaki, if Sasaki still existed

-Shirazu approves from beyond the grave

-Mutsuki doesn’t care)

Thanks! <33 And yeah, I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of it ^^

I find all of those moments very relatable. Golfishes unite! :D

Burr is one of those weirdly shippable characters that almost every fandom seems to have…

And oh, I see! Honestly Tony is still one of my favorite avengers…RDJ really brings him to life. And if you’ve seen Captain America I definitely recommend The Winter Soldier and Civil War (next movies in the series)! So much Bucky angst ;-; Also the Thor movies, because I have a feeling you might like Loki.

Some of the best Loki quotes:

“Well done, you’ve just decaptitated your grandfather!”

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot.”

“Freedom is life’s great lie.”

“Oh dear, is she dead?”

Btw, do you remember the time I said I’d write a Heathers one-shot on the Yoi blog and never did? I think I’m getting over my writer’s block so maybe I can write that one-shot and submit it here?(And if that’s ok, do you maybe have any suggestions for which character I could use? I was going to write it as a Yuuri/reader but that doesn’t seem to fit so well anymore, so I might go with a TG character…I’d also like to use a character you like, since you’ll probably be the only person reading it ^^;;)

Speaking of Heathers though, when you have the time, is it ok if I try to drag you into that fandom again? Along with Dear Evan(s) Hansen. It’ll hurt you very, very badly but it’ll probably be worth it.

Oh dear, even more rarepairs. And I’m the one who ‘invented’ this one. Well, like I’ve said, as long as Urie is happy, I don’t care about whom he’s with. 

ISHIDA IS A GHOUL, ONLY HE DOESN’T LIVE OFF OF DEAD HUMANS, HE LIVES OFF OF PEOPLE’S SUFFERING!!!

Honestly, you’ve voiced my thoughts perfectly. I can’t help but get irritated at all the changes that have been happening. For me, it started around the time we found out about Mutsuki’s past. I mean, can’t we have one character who had a nice childhood and isn’t insane deep inside? At this point, basically everything is overdoing it for me. Let them have a break. A nice moment. A single day without a centipede or someone dying.  TG is slowly turning into shoujo manga. A sick, twisted shoujo manga, but a romantic one. That is the one thing I didn’t want from it. It was actually nice to have a manga without pointless crushes which play an important role in the plot, for a change. Guess I was wrong.

Dude, I don’t care who he kills, if Ishida brings Hide back, he is automatically forgiven for everything and anything. Well, I would care if he killed characters like, but other than that, he’s free to kill anyone he wants (like Furuta (or maaaaybe Mutsuki, but I’d like it better if they redeemed themselves (though that might be difficult))).

I just… I want the cookie to be happy. And Mutsuki is definitely not making him happy.

Gaaah, so many questions and symbolisms, it’s making my head hurt. Here’s my theory: This is a huge setup for everyone to be happy. Mutsuki will run away to New Zealand or something and restart their life, Kaneki and Touka will get married (tho I don’t quite ship it, whatever, as long as they’re happy), Urie will realise he’s loved Saiko all along and she’ll be there waiting for him. Kanae is actually alive and so is Hide. Kanae and Shuu get married. Hide finds himself a nice girlfriend (or boyfriend, not gonna discriminate), opens a pet shop and is happy.

Everyone is happy. 

Okay, but imagine this au: ghouls don't exist and there's no reason for so much suffering. Kaneki and Touka are two kids who knew each other from school and now run a coffee shop together. The Q squad went ri the same class and Saiko alway loved Urie. He recently realised it. And so on.

Ah, I definitely know how you feel. I went to music school as well, and we had yearly (or half-yearly, depending on how long you’ve played the piano) recitals. My method of calming down was to imagine I was at home, alone and just practicing. There was no one around me, and it didn’t matter if I messed up. I could always start again. Also, the audience was vegetables, as far as my imagination was concerned. It did help.

I know you can do it (๑و•̀ω•́)و You’re a fighter! The great Evans who can always cheer me up when I’m down. If I’m the queen, then you’re the king! All hail king Evans who’ll kick the recital’s butt!

Oh you would ruin all his moments, and it would be the most amazing thing ever. I’d always laugh at it, cause he’d be denied of all his theatrics.

They’re not ‘acceptable’, they’re absolutely perfect. I seriously can’t thank you enough, because they were very nice cheer-up material after a whole morning of cramming my two least favourite subjects. I’m pretty sure you’d do amazing if you got a blog. You do have amazing talent for writing.

Oh my~ Would you mind then if I listed a few more songs, my favourites?

Yozora wa nandemo shitteru no?

Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari (there’s a bit of talking in this one, it’s hard to find a version that’s not sped up)

Omoi yo hitotsu ni nare

Mijuku dreamer

Guilty Eyes Fever

soldier game

Thrilling・One Way

Ookay, I’m done ^^ I’m telling you, Idol Hell is very subtle. You won’t even realise you’ve been dragged into it huehuehuehuehuehuehue

Aaand there goes my heart, again. I have no words to thank you enough for writing those, since they help me keep my sanity.

however, we know whom we’d like from TG, but what about other fandoms we share? AoT? YoI? Kuroshitsuji?

Yeah, I’ve been told many times that I’d like Loki, but strictly looks-wise, I must admit I prefer his brother, and I prefer him very much. Idk, I just have a thing for guys with slightly longer hair.

All of that sounds suspiciously like something I’d say…

Of course, feel free to submit anything here!  As for the musicals, I’d be happy to listen to them, but after this week is over, because exams. Then, I’ll listen to both Heathers and Dear Evan(s) Hansen, despite the feels ^^

[herecomesnaya]

49. and 37? please

since it’s easiest, 37 first: canon or AU?

GOSH this is really difficult!! I love AUs a lot, but generally when I look for fanfics, I tend to seek out canon things. well, as canon as fics can be, anyway, lmao. one of my favorite things to think about is sort of “filling in the gaps” in canon where characters can fuck it out and then go about their mostly-normal business

in RP, though, I will inundate everyone I’m close to with AU ideas constantly, and any of my RP partners following me can attest to this, I just cannot be stopped

49: writing advice

honestly? the first and best thing I can think of is “just do it.” I struggled so hard with writing for the longest time because I got so caught up on the technicalities of everything that I’d talk myself out of even starting anything. I still kinda have that problem sometimes. but when I first wrote and put up Blurry and ended up getting way more attention for some rarepair PWP than I though I would, I was like whoa hot damn I should’ve gotten over myself and posted some shit sooner LMFAO

there’s a ton of writing advice I could give out, but people a lot better than me have written endless resources on it, so first I’d suggest you check out the writing section of your local library for those sorts of books. but I’ll give you two other pieces of advice I think are really important:

- read. read a lot. and think about what you read. go back to stories or books you really liked, and try to figure out why you liked them. is it the pacing? the description? are there any parts in the book you weren’t as crazy about, and if so, why do you think that is? take note of certain things, like how published authors rarely use any dialogue tags but “said” and “asked,” and yet you still follow along perfectly well without feeling like it’s repetitive (one big amateur writing flaw is when people use things like “he inquired” and “she postulated” and “he laughed” and shit constantly).

like Stephen King said, “if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.” it helps SO much with developing your own style if you figure out what really captures you in someone else’s writing. I always feel way more energized to write directly after reading a really good book/fic.

- this is one I still get caught up with: edit LATER. after you read all those books and absorb all their advice, you’re gonna be acutely aware of it as you start to write. but if you stop yourself constantly, thinking “does this flow?” or “is this marketable?” or “how can I subvert this cliche?”, you’re gonna have a bad time. you’ll never get anything done, and writing is gonna seem way more daunting than it should.

write what you want to write first and foremost. write the most bullshit ridiculous self-indulgent trash you can think of, let your daydreams pour out onto the page. then, once you’re done, you can go back and fix everything. don’t feel embarrassed if you think what you wrote is garbage. every first draft is garbage, whether you’re Sally Fanfic or J. K. Rowling or Ernest Hemingway. nobody ever has to see it, and no one’s gonna care that you made an embarrassing grammatical or plot error at first if you edit it out. they want to read your stories, and your stories will shine if you put your whole heart into them, so go ahead and write!

this got long and pretty cheesy, but that’s honestly the set of rules I go by most often when I write. I hope some of this helps you out, anon!

[icespyders]

opposing lawyers au? single parent au? doctors au? thunderstorm cuddles? celebrity crush au? buddy cops au? marry someone to piss of parents au?

YELLS VERY LOUD…THANK YOU OMG THESE ARE SO FUN!!! alright these ones are gonna be under a cut bc. well. you should know me by now.

opposing lawyers au: i’m torn bc it’d be equally fun to have, like, non-romantic rivals in these roles and the entire fic is just them talking shit (i’m not a big rarepair person so that definitely limits me in au plotting, lmao, i just dig weird friendships so much more than actual proper rarepairs!!) and also pitting an otp against each other and having belligerent sexual tension that will get the characters lectured by their respective HR departments. or! they’re competing within the same firm and both trying to get ahead so it’s more of an office drama, which would lead to a funny ensemble cast, which is always a win in my book

oh dude bokuaka could be fun for this, bc akaashi is a smartass by-the-book kinda guy who looks down on bokuto’s weirder strategies, but akaashi keeps underestimating how clever bokuto is and it infuriates him, and also kinda turns him on, and that infuriates him even further. or daisuga, too, i like the idea of them being rivals bc i have a funny feeling if they weren’t on the same team they’d just push each other’s buttons - daichi holds grudges over petty bullshit (sawamura “death to everyone who’s ever played basketball bc i’ve fought with their captain” daIchi tbh) and it’d just be too easy to irritate him for suga to resist doing it all the time.

if i get into non-romances pissing each other off in professional settings i’ll be here all night so i’ll spare you, but just know there are too many annoyingly-clever strategists in haikyuu who’d square off against each other excellently and it’s great

single parent au: true story, my sister and i have this very elaborate future domestic au about all our ships having kids, so, like, i love kid fics but having one of my own has ruined everyone else’s for me whoops. i can’t read anyone else’s bc i miss the babies i invented. buries face in hands. (but if you want to hear about that i have like a 30-page notes document so i’m happy to tell you about it)

aside from that i’ve vaguely plotted out a specific single parent au, i think (my sister and i are au machines, it’s a problem). we have one where daichi and suga hook up but then suga is daichi’s kid’s kindergarten teacher so the parent-teacher conference gets Real Awkward Real Fast. both of them try very hard to act professional and not ask “so like…we still on for a second date or…uh…”

doctors au: my immediate impulse when i saw this is to only make one of the characters a medical doctor and the other’s like. i don’t know a renowed geologist or smth. full on “dammit i’m a doctor, not a DOCTOR.” somehow they have wacky adventures. my brain wants me to x-files this and turn it into cryptid hunting shenanigans bc i shouldn’t be left to make aus past midnight. this is absolutely not what you meant when you asked me this, anon, but i don’t think i’m capable of writing a medical drama? i don’t watch that many, i lack a frame of reference. but you know what i don’t lack a frame of reference for. GHOST HUNTING. also MOTHMAN. catch me turning your prompt into gay “ghost adventures” somehow??

i have no idea what i’d write for this, i don’t think anyone wants me writing a doctors au. i think the closest i’d get is a future fic abt kyoutani being a veterinarian and he takes care of yahaba’s really fat cat and criticizes how fat it is and somehow they date. sorry omg this is not my best work, au-wise

thunderstorm cuddles: THIS IS A GOOD VIBE TOO…listen in my opinion all my ships should be cuddling all the time, or else what is the point. i really need to learn how to write short fluffy ficlets, i always end up turning everything i write into an absurdly long oneshot but writing ficlets sounds nice. 

anyway! this is a lovely moment of vulnerability to work with; if you run with a childhood friends ship for this, it could demonstrate how well the two characters know each other, that they’re aware of the need for thunderstorm cuddles and happy to provide it. however, it’s also intriguing as a moment to allow greater understanding and closeness in a relationship that isn’t as familiar. it demonstrates one party’s willingness to let the other see them in an unflattering state and let themselves be comforted. man i could do this for any ship, i really adore finding these little, understated moments of love and letting them cement a relationship, and also i’m weak to mild hurt/comfort where nobody is really hurt, haha. i would write asanoya for this, they’re especially good for cuddling, i feel. they’re both afraid of storms but refuse to admit it to save face in front of each other but they eventually both cave and learn, oh hey, we’re both scared of storms, this works, and then cuddle under a big quilt and everyone is happy

celebrity crush au: i would love to get “celebrity crush” down to absolute minimum level, like, oh god, since when do i go to college with that one hot youtuber who i’ve watched for years, or, oh no, i TOTALLY thirst-follow that guy on instagram, i’ve watched videos of him bench-pressing stuff WAY TOO MUCH, or, fuck me it’s the bassist from that band that plays in the campus bar, etc etc. i think that’d be funny bc it’s not even like you’re harboring a crush on a movie star like a normal person and it’s even harder to approach a youtube crush by explaining “hey so you’re famous, a bit, to me at least, i’m sorry, i love your work, i promise i’m not creepy.” if i was writing this, circumstances would definitely force the characters together (class group project! train your new co-worker, who you’ll spend hours alone with henceforth! we’re in the same club, time for icebreakers!) and the character with the crush would either awkwardly hide it or awkwardly blurt it out, depending.

i actually do have a vaguely-arced au about characters in bands that play in the campus bar attempting to woo various bar patrons; this kagehina i wrote is in that universe and i’ve just never sat down to write the whole au, and that’s an ensemble piece so there’s a bunch of ships. i dig iwaoi for the instagram thirst-follow concept, or bokuaka. that thirst is real. i’m also getting attached to the idea of the celebrity crush being a new co-worker, like, the two characters work in the school bookstore and spend many hours alone with no one but books for company. i’d write a kuroken for that. kenma didn’t expect that cool youtuber to be such a nerd in real life. also he’s pretty sure internet people aren’t supposed to be hot in real life, what the fuck, this isn’t even FAIR. so he’s all brisk with kuroo to keep his distance bc he feels so awkward and kuroo doesn’t get what he did wrong. (answer: existing and being cute was his mistake)

buddy cops au: COOL! this is another one where i’d love a weird friendship over an otp, just for shenanigans’ sake. if i was writing this it’d be less law & order and more brooklyn 99 so comedy is key. i’m thinking like. kenma and lev, worst partners ever, who solve all their cases against all odds. suga and kageyama would be a fun working dynamic too, or any combo of competitive setters, although i think with many other setters there’d be more attempting to outdo each other. like partnering shirabu and semi would be a mess of passive-aggressive sniping amidst their detective work. oikawa and ushijima where they both think they’re the good cop but they’re actually both the bad cop and oikawa thinks ushijima isn’t human bc he never drinks coffee bc he says he doesn’t “need it” like what the hell, how does he even stay awake on shift, it’s unnatural.

and on a not-haikyuu note, i definitely had a fucking komahina buddy cop au at some point in the distant past, and i’ve always lowkey wanted to write a naegiri noir mystery where kirigiri is the mysterious detective and naegi is the inquisitive reporter tagging along and helping her with a case. dangan lends itself to shit like that since it’s already about investigating murders

marry someone to piss off parents au: oh boy would i love to combine this with a royalty au. oh BOY would i love to combine this with a royalty au!! some upstart crown prince decides to marry below their station just to stick it to The Man and falling in love somewhere along the way, bc marriage is a commitment and it takes effort and you can’t just do it for no reason, it’s not a means to an end. i just find it mildly hard to believe anyone in haikyuu is offensive enough to someone’s parent to pull this off, like, even the ones that look skeevy are actually honor roll students, you just can’t accomplish this in canonverse.

back to the royalty au, make it even better: the protag chases after the crown prince of the rival kingdom bc they’re sick of the constant fighting and border disputes and assorted nonsense, and also it’ll make their parents SO MAD. like romeo and juliet but nobody dies, they just fall in love and dare somebody to do something about it. i’d do kagehina for this, it’s hinata’s idea. “what if i just. married into their family? then we’d share everything, right? right?” he pipes up at a lame-ass strategy meeting talking about import taxes on the rivals, he’d rather be going on adventures but noooo he has to sit at a meeting, so he decides to put his foot down. and then he has to journey off to kageyama’s kingdom and somehow win his hand. that sounds fun as hell.

if i did make this canonverse, i feel like one character is essentially fake-dating the other to make the parents mad, like, they have an arrangement, the fake beau is getting free dinner out of it, but they end up charming the protag’s parents and instead of pissing them off the visit smooths things over and the protag character is really irritated but also kinda falling for the fake beau what the hell?? it all just completely backfires. give me ennotana for this. ennoshita hires the toughest-looking dude he knows to annoy his parents but his parents think tanaka’s a good influence on him, somehow. goddammit how dare he be so charming. this is nonsense.

thank you so much for letting me ramble incoherently, it’s 1:30 AM and this ain’t my best work but i had some giggles writing this so i hope you have some giggles reading it!!! :’)