#also I’m nervous to link my writing (even though my ao3 is on my profile 🤡) but I hope you guys like it!!😘

[myokk]

(His parents and Marvolo insist it’s a gift handed down from Slytherin himself, just like the Parseltongue Ominis despises. It is not. It is a curse.)

Or: The Gryffindor student has caught on that Ominis can read her thoughts and decides to get her revenge.

I wrote an Ominis oneshot a while ago & if you’re interested you can read it here 💓💓💓

[luminouslion-spam]

Notes:

Hi this is the first chapter to my rewrite of criminal minds! For more infos take a look at the criminal minds: found family masterlist!

Also disclaimer I’m not really happy with this first chapter it feels more like I wrote down keynotes instead of a cohesive story but I also don’t really feel like re-writing it again.

And also no beta we die like Gideon

Word Count: 1,039

Ao3 Link

S1 E1 Extreme Aggressor

They are called out to Seattle, Washington. Women have gone missing and have been reappeared dead. Recently, one woman named Heather Woodlander has gone missing again so the local police office asked for their help in this matter.

It’s one of his first cases with the team, so logically he is even more skittish than normally. Hotch, his unit chief, is sitting in the seat across of the isle, eyeing him every now and then but he pretends he doesn’t notice. Spencer is still hesitant around his new boss, always feeling the need to prove himself. He knows it isn’t normal to join the BAU at his age and that he only got in because of Gideon.

The man himself on the other hand also isn’t in his best shape recently. It’s his first case back after the accident.

After a short depriving Hotch tells everyone to get some rest before the case. Gideon immediately retreats to the back of the plane isolating himself from the rest of the team. Spencer takes the cue and stays in his seats even though he longs for the comfort of his mentor.

He is mindlessly scratching at his fingers and looking out of the window worrying about the upcoming case as he feels someone sitting down across from him.

“Nervous?”, Reid looks up surprised. Hotch just gives a slight nod towards his youngest agents twitching hand. There was no sense in lying now. Especially in front of a well-trained profiler. “Yeah, a bit, I guess.”

“There is no need to be. You are going to do just fine. Nonetheless it is normal to feel nervous during the first few cases. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Hotch assures him with the hint of a smile. Reid just reciprocates it and whispers a quiet thanks before they both fall into a comforting silence Hotch looking through some files and Reid getting lost in his thoughts again.

——

Walking into the local police station Hotch introduces his team getting reprimanded by Gideon for forgetting to introduce Reid as doctor Reid. “This is Dr Spencer Reid our Special Agent on well everything.”

He notices the confused faces the local officers are giving Reid but chooses to ignore them for now. He will deal with them if they start making problems by being disrespectful. But he can’t really blame them for being a bit confused. Reid is young for a special agent and he does look even younger than his actual age. Still, he is ready to intervene if they start giving his agent a hard time.

He takes Reid with him to interview the husband of the recently missing woman. On one hand to not leave him alone in the police station and on the other hand, to ease him into the case. This interview should forgo without any troubles. On the other hand, Morgan and Gideon are more equipped to go and look at the unsub’s dumping place.

Entering the husband’s home, they are immediately greeted by a dog barking at Reid who tries to hide his flinch. The husband profoundly apologizes but Hotch reassures him with a smile “We call this the Reid effect. It happens with children, too.” He walks towards the dog who is being held back by the owner and pats the dog. He can see Reid visibly relaxing, even looking somewhat sheepishly. Good, the kid needs to loosen up a bit. He is still hesitant and nervous around him.

The rest of the interview goes normal sadly without them getting new hints towards the unsub. At some point the husband asked Reid wether he is a genius. Hotch couldn’t help but smile at Reid admitting that he is, after explaining that intelligence can’t be measured like that. They really need to work on his confidence. The kid is smart, and he shouldn’t be afraid to admit it.

Back at the police station the team gathers the new information before deciding on an ongoing plan. While there Reid notices that people make a point of adressing him as doctor Reid and he contemplates asking Gideon about it, but he also knows that Gideon has other things on his mind at the moment. This is also when Hotch walks by him and after a second of doubt he works up the courage to ask his superior instead. “Hey Hotch, do you know why it is so important to Gideon that I’m introduced as doctor?”

Hotch turns around from where he was going smiling at him “You look young Reid. He just wants people to treat you with the respect you deserve and to not underestimate you.”

After that the case goes relatively smoothly. They figure out that there are actually two unsubs and arrest one of them. They even have an idea on who the second one is and manage to gain access to the first subjects computer just as Elle and Gideon lost contact to the second unsub. Now they just need to find out where he is hiding the woman and therefore heading at the moment.

On the computer they can see life footage of the kidnapped woman bound in a cage. That is when Spencer notices an odd thing about the lightning in the live footage. The lightbulb above the cage is slightly moving from left to right like the cage is on a boat at sea. And he was right. They find the woman and rescue her in time without any major injuries.

After wrapping up the case Reid finds himself sitting down on the couch in the plane with Morgan occupying the one across from him. Gideon enters after him shortly pausing in front of him. “You did a good job today.” He simply says but his eyes tell so much more. Spencer can clearly see his silent apology for not being there for him more even though he knows how much cases still stress Spencer out. Spencer in return just smiles hoping Gideon also gets his message. That it is ok. That he is fine.

He watches a small smile also apprear on Gideon’s face before he walks away to quietly talk to Hotch while Spencer himself lays down on the couch and promptly falls asleep.

[thedumpsterqueen]

Standards of Performance, Chapter 6: Buckshot and Tequila

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

AO3 Link

Finally, I write most of the chapter before the day I’m supposed to post it. This was mostly done on my laptop (which I’m not used to) as we just moved and my PC is barely set up, so forgive anything that looks weird or wonky. As always, I hope you enjoy. I love getting all your kind messages <3 (Also message me if you want to be on the taglist - I suppose I should be better about that!)

Summary:  You’re the BAU’s newest intern, desperate to prove yourself amongst an established team of much more experienced profilers. Agent Hotchner, the seemingly infallible team leader, sets strict expectations for your performance. He commands your respect without even trying, but is there something more to your relationship than a simple desire to impress your stony-faced boss?

Chapter: 6, Buckshot and Tequila

Chapter Summary: Events during a new case test your ability to keep your feelings hidden, and a night out takes an unforeseen turn. 

Words: 3736

Rating: Explicit, 18+. Warnings on AO3.

Pairings: Hotch x Reader, Hotch x You

Turns out, lying to Hotch was easier than you thought.

It helped that you were lying to yourself too, of course - that you pretended your gaze didn't linger on his form whenever he was in your vicinity, that the swell of pride in your chest when he agreed with something you said was purely professional. There were times, though, that the facade was much harder to maintain. The most recent case had been one of those times.

You had been tracking down an unsub abducting children in a rural Iowa town. Three kids had gone missing in the span of two weeks, and after Garcia matched the victimology and MO with neighboring states, it looked to be close to a dozen in the years before that. The case started off rough enough - locals refused to believe it could be one of their own, police resisted the BAU’s guidance, the usual - but it came to a head when a fourth child went missing during the investigation.

Thankfully, the team figured out the identity of the unsub relatively quickly. Reid did a geographical profile of all the locations where victims were taken and found a public health clinic that had branches in each area. Garcia cross-checked the employee records to find that only one doctor had done travel shifts at each clinic during the time the children were taken, and within minutes, you were rushing to his address.

The SUV carrying Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss arrived long enough before yours that by the time you pulled up, they were already kicking down the door and entering the home. The first thing you heard after you flung the car door open was the deafening crack of a weapon firing, and despite your lack of training with firearms, it was apparent that it was not an FBI-issue pistol.

You would never describe yourself as fragile - you couldn't be, not in this line of work. But when you registered the implications of that sound, your knees buckled, instantly bringing you down onto the dusty ground outside the farmhouse. The rest of the team sprinted in, guns drawn. You faintly registered Prentiss yelling inside, then more gunshots, but your head was ringing so loudly from the visceral panic that you couldn’t make out anything specific.

When Hotch burst back out onto the porch, you thought you might honestly sob with relief. That is, until you caught the glint of the sun in the slick, dark blood dripping down the sleeve of his suit.

That was when you puked.

Something about the sight of Aaron Hotchner bleeding felt so wrong that even as you struggled to your feet and stepped over the pile of sick you left in the dirt, even as you got closer and saw the rivulets of blood drip down to his fingertips and dot the wooden floors of the porch, you felt like you were in a dream. Your mind couldn’t grasp the sudden shock of his mortality, that he could bleed, that he could die, even, and he very well might, depending on what vessels were hit. You made it up the steps, only managing to call out his name - his first name - your throat still burning from bile. Despite the chaos of the current moment, he still whipped his head around at the sound of that, as if hearing the name Aaron desperately falling from your lips was more attention-grabbing than the rest of the team gathering around him trying to stem the bleeding.

“It looks worse than it is,” said Rossi, peering through the holes in Hotch’s mangled sleeve. “It was just buckshot, and he barely hit you. Nothing a few stitches won’t fix.”

He turned out to be right, thank god, and later that afternoon, Hotch was freshly bandaged and sitting across from you on the return flight to Quantico.

So, yeah, the “lying to yourself” thing wasn’t going so well at that moment. Hotch was absorbed in paperwork while the rest of the team napped - because of course he was; even being shot didn’t sway his apparently relentless refusal to relax - and each time he winced at the movement of his arm, your vice grip around your chest tightened a little more.

He must have sensed you staring, because he looked up, frown softening slightly as he saw the concern on your face.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” he assured you with a half smile.

Teetering on an emotional precipice, too scared to respond for fear of falling over the edge, you went back to your reading. After a few minutes of listening to him write while not turning a single page in your book, he set his pen down and took a breath.

“You were screaming my name,” he said, quietly, despite you two being the only ones awake.

“What?”

“Earlier,” he clarified, “when we went into the house. I could hear you outside, yelling my name.”

You looked at him, incredulous. “Of course I did. I heard the shotgun go off. Clearly,” you gestured at his arm, “I had a reason to be worried.”

He shook his head and cleared his throat, as if you didn’t understand the question. “Dave and Emily were with me. Any of us could have gotten hit. You only yelled for me.”

Oh.

You shrugged. “You’re the team leader. It’s my instinct to call for you when something goes wrong."

It was a lie, and a bad one at that, but Hotch gave you an unreadable look and let the subject drop.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, and when you finally made it back to your apartment, you had no plans other than to sleep off the stress of the case and the embarrassment of Hotch calling your actions into question. Garcia, however, wasn't about to let that happen.

BAU-tiful People Group Chat

Garcia: *added You to the conversation*

Garcia: Ok, my lovely children, I know you’re all tired, but I miss your faces, so I’ll see u at Whimsy tonight at 9! Notice I didn’t use a question mark bc it is NOT a question!

You knew from overhearing the team talk that Whimsy was a bar downtown they liked to frequent, but you’d never been invited before. Despite your overwhelming exhaustion, the idea of going out with the team, of finally feeling accepted by them, was enough to make you amenable to the concept. It may have seemed insignificant on the surface, but Garcia adding you to their group chat was the biggest welcome gesture you’d received yet.

Morgan: Only if you wear that dress you know I like ;)

You lived for the day they would realize they were actually flirting with each other instead of just pretending to.

Prentiss: Garcia… you’re killing me… but you know I’ll be there.

JJ: Contacting the babysitter as we speak.

Morgan: Fuck yeah!!! Pretty Boy, you in?

Reid: Can’t we ever go somewhere quiet?

As the group chimed in with various iterations of, “Shut up, Reid,” you hesitantly typed out a text to confirm your attendance. You were excited, of course, but nervous to be the new kid at their favorite hangout. After today's events, though, the desire not to be sober won out over nerves.

You: I’ll be there! Thanks for the invite!

Rossi: Hope you kids are ready for me to drink you under the table, as usual.

Morgan: Eyyy, you KNOW we party hard! See y’all tonight.

____________

Turns out, Morgan was not exaggerating. Not even a little bit. By the time you arrived, 15 minutes late, everyone looked to be at least 3 shots deep. Garcia ran over to greet you, squealing, and wrapped you in a suffocating hug.

“I’m so glad you came! What do you drink? Tequila? I’ll grab the next round!”

You laughed and confirmed that tequila sounded great, and as she scurried off to the bar with Morgan on her heels, you had a chance to look around.

The atmosphere of the club surprised you - it was all glass and steel and modernity, packed with people dancing to something with intense bass - not the low-key joint you’d pictured the team wanting to unwind at. But as you watched JJ, Prentiss, and Rossi cheer on Reid as he threw back a shot, doubling over in hysterics as he coughed and sputtered at the taste, you realized that this place was just loud and energetic enough to keep them from thinking about anything other than work. In that way, you definitely saw the appeal.

“I come bearing shots!” Garcia yelled as her and Morgan made it back to the table. “Grab yours… here we go- whoops! Alright, everyone got theirs?”

She turned to you, grinning behind a pair of hot pink spectacles. “Cheers not ONLY to rescuing four kidnapped children alive, but also to our lovely intern and her first Whimsy outing!”

The team erupted in cheers and you smiled back, downing the tequila. You chatted with the group while Garcia ordered more drinks, and then more drinks, and soon you felt a pleasant buzz filling your head.

“Morgan, you better ask me to dance right now before I go find another man to do the job,” Garcia said with a wink in his direction.

Morgan grinned and mock-bowed, holding out a hand for her to take, and led her off to the dancefloor.

“Should we join them?” JJ asked around the table.

“Someone’s gotta make sure they don’t do anything worth getting kicked out for,” Prentiss shot back. You giggled and followed the girls, leaving Rossi and Reid behind at the table in the midst of a heated debate about childhood brain development that you couldn’t even hope to comprehend.

Not long after you started dancing, you felt a gentle tap on your shoulder and turned around, looking up into the stunning green eyes of a man who looked to be about your age. It was hard to really tell what he looked like in the dim lighting, but by the way Prentiss was giving you a thumbs up and mouthing, “Go for it,” from your side, he was good enough for you.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked above the music. You smiled and nodded in confirmation, letting him wrap his arms around your waist and pull you to his hips.

He knew how to move, that was for certain. He ground against your backside lightly, snaking his hands around your stomach. You weren’t used to this kind of thing - dancing with random men at bars, letting them touch you like this - but the combination of the music and the booze and the relief at the last case being over was making you feel more free than you had in recent memory.

You exchanged grins with Morgan, who was dancing a few feet away in a much more R-rated manner with Garcia. The man behind you (whose name you didn’t know, but who cared?) leaned down to kiss your neck and you arched against him in response, reaching up to run your hand through his hair.

Throughout the song, you had rotated back to facing the table where the rest of your team was sitting. You glanced over, saw Reid and Rossi still deep in discussion, along with another man in a black button-up with a very familiar side profile and-

Hotch.

Hotch was here, and as if the powers that be were insistent upon proving to you that the opposite of serendipity existed, at the exact moment you had that realization, he turned and made direct eye contact with you. Drunk, wearing a skintight dress, a random man grinding on your ass, and staring right back at your Unit Chief at the motherfucking Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and if you had been drunker, you might have hurled tequila all over the dancefloor. Instead, you pulled away from the mystery man behind you, ignoring his shocked, “Wait!” and beelined to the bar.

“Tequila. Shot. Please, I’m sorry, just saw someone I didn’t expect to,” you blurted out to the bartender, swearing you could feel Hotch’s eyes on your back from across the club.

The bartender, probably having seen much worse, nodded in understanding and poured your drink. You gulped it down, wiped your mouth, and leaned on the bar to get your bearings.

It’s not weird. It’s not. It’s a bar, it’s outside of work hours, it’s perfectly fine that you’re buzzed and dancing and having fun. Everyone else is!

Really, it wasn’t that you were worried about your job, or even that he would judge you (he probably would, but that was unavoidable regardless of the setting), it was just that you hadn’t mentally prepared yourself for the possibility that he would come. He was in the group chat - obviously, if he had seen Garcia’s invite - but had never struck you as the social type, the kind of boss that would interact with his team outside of work.

“Did you see that Hotch is here?” Prentiss asked breathlessly, appearing at the bar beside you.

Apparently, you weren’t the only one surprised.

“I did,” you whispered back, despite the thumping music and the rowdy patrons making it logically impossible for your words to reach the table 20 feet away. “Does he usually join you guys?”

“Never,” she said, before thinking and correcting herself, “Not in years, anyways. When Haley… we used to drag him out, but we stopped after a while.”

“Why do you think he came tonight?"

She shrugged. “Who knows? Far be it from me to explain why Hotch does anything.” An idea seemed to pop in her head, and she grinned. “Maybe it’s because of you!”

“M-me?” Your reaction to the suggestion wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as you’d tried for, but Prentiss was too drunk to notice.

“Yeah, gotta help initiate the intern on her first night out, right?” She grinned and clapped you on the shoulder, then turned away to head back to the dancefloor, leaving you alone. You sighed, gathered yourself as much as you could considering the effects of the tequila, and turned around to go greet him.

“Hey, Agent Hotchner. Didn’t expect to see you tonight!”

“Yes, well. Thought I’d show up for a bit; it’s been a while.” He gave you a tight lipped smile then looked back down at his glass of whisky, the awkward energy palpable.

Probably because he just saw you basically dry-humping some random dude.

“Well, I’m glad you came! Feel free to, uh, come dance if you want! Morgan and Garcia are showing us all up,” you said, gesturing to where Morgan and Garcia were in fact drawing the attention of several onlookers.

He chuckled at that. “They’re certainly a sight to behold, aren’t they?”

You nodded in agreement and headed back to the bar, the brief conversation pointing you towards yet another drink. Talking to him was so easy , sometimes, and others it was like pulling teeth to get a human response out of him. Could you blame him, though? Your last one-on-one interaction was you basically inviting yourself over to his apartment with takeout and listening to him spill his guts about his dead wife and kid, and he probably felt uncomfortable with you after that, and then you went right to this case without any chance for things to go back to normal, and then he got shot, and oh my god, you didn’t even ask him how his arm was doing, how fucking rude can you be, dumbass? and-

“Whoops! Shit, I’m sorry!”

You looked at the person you’d just bumped into in the midst of your internal crisis.

“Hey, it’s you!”

The man you’d been dancing with earlier, now much more obviously handsome in the brighter lights of the bar area, grinned in recognition.

“Hey, I thought I’d scared you off there!”

You laughed and shook your head. “No, I’m sorry. Just saw my boss and freaked out a little bit.”

“Oh shit, your boss is here?” he asked. “That’s uncomfortable, damn. I’m sorry.”

“No worries, it’s just… yeah. Anyways. Wanna pick up where we left off?” you asked, more desperate than ever to get Hotch out of your head. If he didn’t want to see you having a wild night, he shouldn’t have come to the club.

He took your hand, looking pleased. “Lead the way.”

It really was so much easier, you thought, to let yourself feel attraction for guys like this. Uncomplicated, willing to take what you give them, no backstory to speak of. They weren’t riddled with tragic history, unattainable in both position and personality, not to mention impossible to even imagine ever returning your feelings. Guys like Cooper (you’d finally learned his name somewhere amid the grinding and groping) were easy and fun and they didn’t keep you up at night agonizing over whether that thing you said at work was impressive enough.

But then again, they didn’t give you the roller-coaster feeling in your stomach that Aaron Hotchner did every time you locked eyes.

And lock eyes you did - an increasingly frequent number of times, actually. It seemed like whenever you turned to face his direction, he was staring you down. He always went back to his conversation with Rossi and Reid, but you noticed that he seemed to get more and more pissed off with every song that played. His frown was deepened, his expression dark, and you could tell even from a distance that his knuckles were white from gripping his glass.

You shrugged it off as Hotch being Hotch - who knew what that man was thinking? And besides, you were trying to forget him, damn it. At least, that was until a particularly raunchy song came on and you were in the middle of getting your ass felt up, when you felt a hand squeeze your shoulder and whip you around, bringing you face-to-face with your boss himself.

“Hey, what’s going on? Is something wrong?” you asked, utterly bewildered as to why he was interrupting you.

He ignored you, instead staring down Cooper, who very quickly decided Hotch wasn’t one to fuck with and walked away.

“Hotch! Is there a case? Should I grab the others?”

He shook his head. “Can you come with me, please?”

Perplexed, you acquiesced (not that you had much of a choice, with the way he was gripping your elbow) and followed him through the crowd, out the back door, and into an alley. He let go of you then, sighing and crossing his arms.

Your mind was wild with questions - did you do something you shouldn’t have? Get too drunk? Everyone was drunk, though, and you weren’t even half as wasted as some of the others. Did Reid or Rossi tell him something bad about you? Were you about to somehow get yourself fired off the clock?

“The boy you were dancing with was bad news,” he said, after an uncomfortably long period of silence.

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” you repeated, this time out loud, and you knew you shouldn’t be talking to him like this, but you were too caught off guard to conduct yourself more appropriately.

“He was a drug user,” Hotch said, as if that would explain everything.

“A drug user,” you repeated back, no less confused.

“Cocaine,” he continued. “He was high - his pupils were dilated, he was rubbing his nose, and he's been to the bathroom several times.”

“So… you’re going to arrest him? For doing cocaine?” you asked, still baffled as to what he was insinuating.

“What? No,” he said, “I’m trying to warn you not to get involved.”

You had entered some parallel universe, you decided. There was no other explanation for your boss, a man you’d known all of four months, dragging you outside a bar on a Friday night and telling you not to dance with a hot stranger because he was on cocaine.

You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself before you really did get yourself fired. “Sir, I appreciate the concern, but I don’t think it’s really any of your business.”

His face hardened at that. “It is exactly my business,” he said, eyes boring a hole through your skull, “to watch out for things that may compromise my team.”

“Compromise your team?” you repeated his words again. “I was dancing, not getting engaged to the guy.”

“Should I allow you to dance with a sexual sadist if it’s just dancing?” he pressed, using the stern voice that usually caused any sort of dissent to whither and die right in your throat.

It didn’t work this time, probably because he was acting fucking insane. “Are you seriously comparing a sexual sadist to a guy who does cocaine while he’s out partying?”

“It’s not just while he’s out partying, by the way he conducted himself, he was a chronic-”

“It doesn’t matter!” you said, nearly yelling now. “You had no right! I'm sorry, what are you, my dad?!”

His eyes flashed at that. “If I hadn’t already had to sit through an 8 hour surgery not knowing if Garcia was going to make it out alive because her date shot her, then perhaps I would have no right. But as it stands, I do. Please be more careful with who you associate with, even if it’s just dancing.”

He spat that last part out, more vitriolic than you’d ever seen him, and stalked back inside. You were left outside in the alley, alone, reeling from confusion surrounding the entire interaction and shock at the emotional charge he’d leveled at you.

Reentering the bar, you saw that Hotch’s seat had been vacated and his jacket was gone. You rolled your eyes, and on your way to the bathroom, nearly ran into Cooper again.

“Hey!” he said. “What was that all about? You good?”

You looked up at his face and for the first time, noticed faint traces of white dust around his nose. He looked keyed up, jumpy - his pulse racing and visible on his carotid. You sighed.

“I’m good. Just not in the mood right now, sorry,” and pushed past him into the bathroom.

Hotch was an emotionally stunted asshole with a control complex, but he was also never fucking wrong.

[lydia-bell]

The Twelfth Time’s the Charm

Happy TBTP Holidays, @mysugarglidersrox​! I wrote you a bit of AU Stragan fluff (mostly). I hope you enjoy it!

[Edit: now with AO3 link!]

The Twelfth Time’s the Charm

Alex finally made it to the front of the line for signings. She'd let everyone else go ahead of her because she wanted to have a bit of fun without worrying that she was holding anyone else up. Handing the hardcover to the author, she said "I'm really looking forward to reading this. The chapter you read was pretty compelling."

"Thank you," he said, giving a small nod of acknowledgement. He was even prettier up close, those bright blue eyes catching and holding her attention. 

"So, to whom shall I make this out?"

"Alex Reagan." She waited to see if he would make the connection.

"Is that spelled with..." his voice trailed off. He looked up at her, his brow slightly furrowed. "Alex Reagan. Have we met?"

"No, we never did quite manage it," she replied lightly. Maybe if I'd called a twelfth time."

He actually looked abashed. It was a good look on him. "Of course. The reporter." Then his eyes narrowed a bit and he said, "I hope you aren't still trying to get me to agree to an interview."

"Nope. We wrapped on that story months ago. I just thought it would be fun."

He relaxed then and started to sign her book. "Is 'Reagan' spelled with or without an 'a'?"

"With. It used to be pronounced like the president but I guess my dad's family decided they didn't want the association. It was easier to change the pronunciation than the spelling."

He laughed, signed the book, and handed it back to her. 

"I hope you didn't take it personally when I didn't call back, Ms. Reagan. But at the time, I was very much focused on finishing this book, and in any event I'm afraid I've never enjoyed talking with the press."

"It's OK, lots of people don't."

"I presume you were able to find someone else to talk to."

"Oh, sure. Though the whole 'paranormal investigator' well ran a little dry after that. Maybe if you'd returned my calls, we could have done a whole series on it," she teased. 

"I'm sure I'm not that fascinating," he demurred.

"Oh, I don't know."

He chuckled. "You have a way with flattery, Ms. Reagan."

"Alex."

"Alex. I haven't had dinner yet. Would you be interested in joining me?"

"I think I'd like that a lot, yeah."

***

Strand—he'd said to call him Richard but she was struggling a bit to adjust—wanted some good, fresh seafood because "it's not the same in Chicago." That was fine with Alex, so they found an oyster bar a couple of blocks from the bookstore. Once they'd placed their orders, and thus run out of obvious small-talk fodder, she wasn’t sure what to say next. She was feeling oddly nervous, like this was a date with stakes instead of a spur-of-the-moment meal with a (granted, hot) former prospective interview subject.

She decided to ease into the conversation by asking about something she knew he would want to talk about.

"So, what inspired you to write your book?"

"I'm trying to do my part to encourage rational thinking in the world, against the tide of all of the forces that seem to be pushing in the opposite direction."

It was really unreasonable, Alex reflected, to be attracted to someone who talked like that all the time. But here she was. "Sure, but I meant more like, why this particular book, and why you?"

"Let's just say that I have experience with," he paused, "family members who have turned to the occult in times of crisis. It didn't provide the answers they were looking for, and it probably prevented them from doing something more useful."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you."

They both fell quiet for a moment as the waiter brought their food. When he'd gone, Richard continued as if he'd never stopped.

"The impulse to turn to paranormal explanations is understandable in some ways. Especially for people who have suffered trauma, or who lack a proper understanding of science and statistics. Other people have a psychological need to feel that they're special, that they have secret knowledge of some hidden aspect of the world. Some people are just looking for a break from the mundane. Of course there are other outlets that for these impulses—things like conspiracy theories or radical political movements, for instance. Either way, if people aren't careful about how they get their needs met, they can become targets. They can delude themselves. I want to prevent that, as much as I can."

"Wow," Alex said. "I guess that's...I don't know, deeper than I expected it to be?" Off his raised eyebrow she added, "That may have come out wrong. I guess I just expected something more along the lines of the videos I've seen you in."

"Ah, yes. Less human nature, more ripping apart the claims of charlatans."

"Something like that, yeah."

"Well," he admitted, "there's some of that too."

Alex laughed.

"Speaking of charlatans," Richard continued, "I certainly hope you found someone to represent the rational point of view on your show."

"We couldn't really find another person with your particular profile, but we did talk to a couple of skeptics. And a woman named Arianna Asadi called me..."

Richard groaned softly.

Alex laughed. "What? She said she heard I'd been calling around to paranormal researchers, and she wanted to make sure I didn't get the wrong idea. She warned me off of them!"

Richard huffed. "Ms. Asadi is an odd case. She purports to be a serious researcher. She even offers very well-founded debunkings of the ghost hunters and so-called psychics who prey on people looking for answers and meaning. And then she publishes books about 'historical hauntings'. I believe she's actually sincere, but it's all very frustrating."

"Well, she thinks highly of you."

"And what makes you say that?"

"That she said she admires your body of work." He actually blushed a little. Alex grinned and continued. "Anyway, you're right about the debunking. She asked who I'd talked to so far, and when I told her, she immediately listed off all these tricks they do to make it seem like lights are going out on their own and things like that. It was amazing, she basically described everything that happened with Emily Dumont and the old psych hospital. I think Dumont must do the same stuff a lot."

"Oh, I assure you, she does."

"See, it could have been you, explaining all this to our listeners," she teased.

"It could. But to be honest, knowing that you'd been talking to people like Dumont and Abruzzi, I wasn't sure what kind of show you were making or whether I wanted to be part of it. And anyway, I needed to focus on my book. I'm trying to reach as wide an audience as possible."

"Well, that episode was only downloaded 100,000 times, so I can see how that might not be a big enough audience."

His eyes widened. "I apologize. To be honest, I have no idea how many people listen to shows like yours. I'm not really familiar with the podcasting medium."

"I'd noticed."

"I shouldn't have assumed."

It was fun having him a bit on on defensive, a bit flustered. "It wasn't very intellectually rigorous of you."

"It wasn't," he agreed.

"It did help that we got a big boost from the mothership—from Pacific Northwest Stories," she admitted. "But yeah, the show's doing pretty well, and we have enough sponsors these days to keep us in plane tickets and free socks, so I have no complaints. Well. I might want to do something a little more substantial at some point. But this is fun."

"So if you were to do something a little more substantial, as you say, what would it be?"

"I don't know. Maybe people who are working on climate change mitigation. Like, we still have to think about reducing emissions, but there are lots of people who've just basically decided that's not going to work or it's not going to be enough and are figuring out how they're going to live in the new climate. It's kind of depressing? But also kind of hopeful. There's a lot of people doing that work around Seattle. A lot of Indigenous people, in particular. I don't think it would be hard to at least get a mini-series out of it."

"That's a big departure from interviewing Emily Dumont."

She laughed. "It is! Don't get me wrong, I definitely think there's room for both kinds of stories in the world. All kinds of stories. But I just feel like I want to branch out a little."

"Well, I hope you get a chance to do that show sometime soon," he said. "It sounds like a subject worthy of your talents."

OK, wow. And he'd said she had a way with flattery. "Thanks. So, um. What about you, what's next for you?" she asked.

"I had to basically put the functions of the Strand Institute on hiatus while I finished the book, so I'll work on getting that running again," he said. "Also, as it happens, I'll probably be back in Seattle a few times in the next few months."

"Oh?"

"Yes, my father lived here before his death. No condolences necessary," he said, pre-empting her, "it was almost 20 years ago now. But there are still some aspects of his estate that need to be dealt with, including the sale of his house."

"Oh, well. I can show you around, if you'd like. When you come back."

"I would like that very much."

The waiter came with the check. Alex started to say something about paying her share but Richard said "Please, allow me. I did invite you to dinner, after all." She had to admit to herself, as she watched the waiter show Richard how to settle the bill on his iPad, it was something of a relief; the prices had been frankly terrifying on a journalist's salary.

As they were walking back to her parking spot, they passed a quiet-looking bar. Richard stopped in front of it.

"Would you like to get a drink?" he asked.

Yes. She took a deep breath. "It sounds nice, but, I don't think that's a good idea. I had that beer with dinner, and it was a while ago so I should be OK, but I have to drive."

"Of course." He hesitated for a moment. "Although, if you don't want to drive home...you don't have to."

"Ah." It wasn't a complete surprise, but—OK, yes, maybe she was stereotyping because of his age and his manner, but he hadn't struck her as a sex-on-the-first-date kind of guy.

She must have come across as pretty unenthusiastic, because he added, "That's not why I paid for dinner."

"I know." And she did. He wasn't really smooth enough to be a manipulator...unless, of course, he was such a good manipulator that he was only faking the bluntness and questionable social graces in order to lure her into a false sense of security.

It didn't seem likely.

Did she want to have sex with him? (Well, yeah.) Did she even like him? Everybody had said he was kind of a prick, and they weren't wrong. But he wasn't just that, either. Maybe it was his obvious passion for his work, or maybe it was just that she'd seldom known anyone quite so confidently, exasperatingly himself—even if that self might be, well, a little stuffy and self-important. He wasn't even a little bit charming but he was somehow still endearing. (He'd also been very respectful to the waitstaff, and that was always a good sign.)

She was pretty sure she liked him. He was a challenge, no doubt—but Alex was never deterred by a challenge. But she had a stupidly early morning tomorrow and also, God, she hadn't worn her pretty underwear or shaved or anything, and it was silly, yes, but she liked to make a good first impression.

And then she imagined saying that out loud and how ridiculous he would find it. "The male libido," she imagined him saying sternly, "isn't deterred by those things. Women are far more concerned about their body hair than men are."

God help her, the thought made her giggle. She suppressed it, though—it didn't seem polite to start laughing right after someone asked you to sleep with them. "I'm very, very tempted," she said. "But it's late, and I have an 8am meeting for some ungodly reason."

"I understand."

"But," she continued, poking him gently in the chest, "I'm going to hold you to that promise to look me up the next time you're in Seattle."

He smiled, probably the warmest smile she'd seen on him all night. He really was very attractive, damn it. "Good."

In a couple of minutes they were back at her car. Neither one of them seemed to be sure what to do next, so she unlocked it, but didn't make a move to get in.

"Do you want me to drive you back to your hotel?" 

"What? Oh. No, thank you. I'll be fine." He seemed very distracted all of a sudden, like he was looking past her, or just a bit over her head. She turned around, but there was nothing there. Just deep shadows.

"Everything OK?"

"Of course. I just thought I saw something." 

"OK. Well. Good night?"

"Good night." A bit hesitantly, he bent toward her.

He was so tall, she had to almost get on tiptoes to kiss him. It started out light, but they both lingered and it quickly became intense. Not sloppy, do-me-right-here-right-now intense, more like... like there was a lot of feeling under that buttoned-down exterior. They stepped further into each other's space; he was so much bigger than her that his embrace was like being wrapped up in a cloak, and it could have been intimidating but it wasn't, it was warm, it was hot. He ran one hand through her hair and gently cupped the back of her head to pull her closer. Fuck, it was good.

To hell with 8am meetings, she thought. To hell with next time. She deserved some fun.

She pulled away, not far, but far enough to look him in the eye and say, "I think...I think I'd like to take you up on your offer after all."

His hand was still in her hair. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

They got into the car to drive back to his hotel. She fumbled her keys a bit, making them both chuckle in that high-strung way of people who know something's about to happen. As they pulled away, she noticed that Richard was looking back at that same spot.

It was weird—all she could see were shadows.

[majesticnerdynerd]

Author Interview Tag

I was tagged by @iris-best-taken-in-small-doses, thank you for tagging me! <3

Name: Vee

Fandoms: Primarily Sherlock BBC, but also RDJ Holmes, Harry Potter, and the Fallout games universe, plus Supernatural and bits of Doctor Who which I’ve seen and liked

Where you post: Ao3, I love this site

Most popular multi-chapter fic: So far it’s my first ever published fic from earlier of this godforsaken year, Harry Potter and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which has just a few days ago surpassed 2k hits. It’s a crossover between HP/SH, and I must admit I do neglect it a little because I have a second fic I publish, which brings us to....

Favourite story you’ve written till date: Definitely Reichenbach Falls. I speed-wrote the first 8-and-a-bit episodes over the course of 2 months while also studying for transfer exams, and I keep my pace up and it is my main focus at the moment. It’s also the most ambitious crossover I’m attempting, because it is the Holy Trinity of SuperWhoLock, and a Gravity Falls AU, so it offers a lot of lore I am proud that I came up with. It has its own challenges I like to tackle, especially when it comes to intertwining characters from numerous TV shows to coherently worked together, plus their character arcs and character developments that are to come. I hide easter eggs here and there and put some of my soul into it, so it is very dear to me. I think I am doing the job adequately so far, but time will tell. :) I do love HPatAoSH, because it is my first fic ever and I am still excited about it, but I put it on the backburner and procrastinate on the chapters I post usually

Fic you were nervous to post: Both my big series, really. One never knows what reception they’re going to get, and we all hope to get the characters to interact just right. The HP crossover because it has two timelines that later intertwine in 1997 when the Golden Trio asks the Baker Street Dumbass Detective Duo for help and I need to make certain corrections in some earlier chapters. Reichenbach Falls because it is SuperWhoLock and as I said, it’s huge, 3 parts in 1 work, so 300 chapters give or take in total, and I hope to do my best with everyone’s characterisation.

How you choose your titles: Depends. HP/SH was a bit self-explanatory, and I think it fits well into the AU and foretells what’s up in a sense that you know who is involved and if you know both fandoms, you get a whiff of a couple shenanigans. Reichenbach Falls was a bit difficult to name and I stalled on it, but then on one hot summer day that I spent cowering inside the house like the pale gremlin I am, I thought hm,,,,, the show is called Gravity Falls, but I can’t use that of course. And then I remembered that Reichenbach is a thing, the waterfall is in canon as well and BAM - Reichenbach Falls. It’s all more about a sudden epiphany than hard thinking, it comes by itself. 

Do you outline: Yes, but do I stick to it? Nah. I do write steps for each episode for RF, but those serve only as a mild reminder of what the end goal is, and I wing the rest to my standard. It works well so far. With HP/SH, I just wing it and rely on the past chapters because as I mentioned, I’m a sorrowful procrastinator on this one for now. My outlines are general which gives me space to improvise and improve on the run, which I like, it doesn’t restrict me in any self-induced way, so I prevent mental blocks nicely. 

Complete: Living Musical, which is a one-shot I wrote for Steph from inevitably-johnlocked. Fluffy, too! And it needs revision because I wrote it in 4 hours until it was 1am and I have no recollection of that evening anymore. And... god, I need to fix the typos. *facepalms*

In Progress: HP/SH crossover and Reichenbach Falls I linked above already. They’re plenty to take care of :D

Coming soon/not yet started: this is what I am excited about! I have a new AU in mind, either some postapocalyptic wasteland AU, but most probably also an AU of the game Fallout: New Vegas at the same time (it’s basically the same concept). I have the basic plot in mind and down, and ohhhhh guysssss I really like it. I’d also like to make it an interactive fic where the readers may choose which factions John and Sherlock could join, which would affect the ending of the fic, much like what happens in the game, but I’m not decided on this. But there is great potential, I think, though I need to make a big mindmap and brainstorm all that would need to be involved, so there’s lots of lore to consider (which I already got started on). It would be another huge fic, and I plan to write at least half of all that could be published before sending it to ao3, possibly. We will see, but you can see how my mind is overworking itself already... >:) it looks quite badass (but that’s just me so far), and its working name is Fallout: New London. Actually, there’s a prologue and first two chapters that are constant (meaning that it is firmly locked to the AU and can’t be influenced by choices) and in progress already and semi-drafted because I am a psycho like that, but no details yet! I have no self-control.. but yeah, this is the biggest one I’m excited about out of all the fics my mind invents.

Do you accept prompts: ehhhh, maybehaps? I don’t know. Probably not at the moment, maybe in a year or so. I like the idea of doing Christmas prompts, so maybe in 300 days approximately, who knows?

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: Currently, it stays on Reichenbach Falls and its 2 later seasons, because that’s when things get real >:)) also Fallout: New London. so much johnlock in sight.

Upcoming story you are most excited about: Due to my lack of time at the present moment, I nowadays mostly revisit some comfort fics if I feel like shit, but I do keep my eye out on @iris-best-taken-in-small-doses‘ The Corvus That Calls at Night. I am subscribed to the ao3 profile so once it an email popped up and I saw ‘medieval’ and all the other priceless tags (pls check them out I love them) I went oo >:D I am merely waiting for my holiday spirit to kick in fully so I can put my feet up and catch up to my reading; there’s also @simplyclockwork‘s Hired Gun I keep my eyes on, and I patiently wait for @jbaillier‘s Messages From Deep Waters -- I remember that back in August(?) she posted a post about doing research on sea fish and how to gut them? Not sure on the English word or if I’m correct at all right now, but hmmm Scotland staged AU, I like that. Also her You Go To My Head stories that are coming, I love them dearly, and I am so excited there’s going to be more Medical Husbands content :’) 

[fieryanmitsu]

Worthy | A3! Rare Pairs Week 2020 – Day 1 (Itaru/Izumi)

I AM SO LATE, but welcome to my first entry for the A3! Rare Pairs Week 2020!

This writing event is being hosted by @A3!_69min on Twitter and AO3 and focuses on writing romantic fics for unpopular A3! pairings. As it happens, every single Izumi pairing except Sakyo/Izumi is a rare pair per the event’s definition of rare pair.

SO, MY GOAL IS TO WRITE IZUMI SHIPS ALL WEEK!

Of course, I’m starting off with my OTP – I love ItaIzu so much, I’ll take any excuse to write them.

WORTHY

PROMPTS: Adoration / Jealousy

CHARACTERS: Itaru Chigasaki, Izumi Tachibana

PAIRINGS: Itaru/Izumi

My fanfic masterpost: Here

AO3: Link in my Blog Menu

Izumi was curious.

The question had been on her mind all day since her conversation with Muku over breakfast. The middle schooler had been excitedly telling her all about the shojo manga he was currently reading. Apparently, he hadn’t slept well the night before because he had gotten worked up over the latest chapter.

“You’re staring a hole into my head,” her boyfriend remarked suddenly, though his eyes never left the television screen in front of him, his thumbs flying across his controller.

Itaru was playing some kind of action-adventure game and was currently exploring an underground dungeon with his character. Ever since she had mentioned that she liked the background music, he played this particular game whenever he had to wait for her to finish reviewing her post-rehearsal notes.

“Oh, sorry – I was just… curious about something. But, it’s a bit, er, awkward to ask about…” Izumi responded, one hand fidgeting with the pages of her notebook and the other absentmindedly poking the back of her pen into the Poyo – some pink, round mascot character that Itaru liked – cushion on her lap.

“Oh? Why don’t you try me?”

“Well… I was talking to Muku this morning about the shojo manga he’s reading. There was a scene where the rival character was confessing to the heroine. It was apparently a very heartfelt and passionate declaration of love. Something about how even seeing her with the other guy made his heart feel like it was being torn apart by knives. And that he hated seeing her cry because of that other guy and that he’d give up everything to whisk her away and make her happy. It ended with him asking the heroine to pick him instead.”

“Ahhh, yeah, that’s a classic. Never fails to stir up the fans,” Itaru responded with a knowing nod.

“And then, Muku gave me a 20-minute seminar on classic shojo jealousy scenes and, uh, well… They were more, um, thrilling than I expected? Sooooo, it kinda just, you know… made me wonder,” Izumi stiltedly blurted out. She couldn’t believe she was going to ask him this – her face was already flushed with embarrassment. Maybe Muku’s starry-eyed wonder was contagious. “Do you, umm… ever get jealous of seeing me with other guys?”

“Uh… I’m not sure how to tell you this, but you have twenty other guys, twenty-one if you count Kamekichi, hanging off you – sometimes literally – every single day. If I got jealous every time one of them sat next to you, I’d be six-feet under already.”

“Okay, yeah, that was dumb question – let me rephrase it!” Izumi backpedaled frantically. “What would you do if someone else confessed their love to me – like they were trying to steal me away? Would you be jealous? Would you fly into a blind rage? Or pin me against a wall and forcefully kiss me?! Or barge in and passionately declare: ‘Choose me, not him’?!”

“Man, you really are starting to sound like Muku – all of those options sound awful, by the way. But, in all seriousness, I, uh… don’t think that would ever happen,” he responded with a nervous chuckle.

Izumi felt herself deflate a bit, unable to help feeling just a teensy bit disappointed that he had shot down her fantasies so quickly. At the same time, she wasn’t sure that she could even imagine him acting that way. She just felt like… it wouldn’t be Itaru anymore – and that thought also made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe this whole jealousy thing wasn’t as exciting as she had thought it would be a few minutes ago.

As her thoughts came full circle, she suddenly heard an odd sound from the television. She had been watching Itaru play this game for a few days now and recognized the sounds his character made when he was dying. Thinking that he was losing against a boss, Izumi glanced at the screen and saw that he was just fighting a bunch of normal enemies. She noted that the usual boss music wasn’t playing, either. Yet, his health bar was slowly, but surely, depleting.

Thinking it was strange for him to be playing so badly, Izumi shifted her attention from the television screen to look at Itaru. What she saw made the blood in her veins turn to ice. Unceremoniously throwing her notebook and poor Poyo to the floor, she practically hurled her body across the empty space between them.

Itaru had taught her the basics of how to use his GameStation when she had borrowed a Blu-ray movie from a friend, and she knew that, if she pressed the middle button on his controller, it would bring the user back to the home screen. Reaching over his arm, she pushed down on the middle button and a blue screen immediately popped up, effectively pausing the game. Gently prying the controller away from Itaru’s limp hands, she set it down on his coffee table before she turned off the television screen.

“Itaru, what’s wrong?” she asked worriedly, placing a hand on one of his arms and squeezing it gently.

The salaryman’s brow was furrowed, and he kept his face averted from hers, gaze trained on the floor. Even from his profile, she could see that his mouth was set in a firm and tight line. It had been a long time since she’d seen him make this expression.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” he responded after a long pause.

Izumi could feel her stomach drop. She had heard those words before – it had been right before her last breakup. She had thought things were going well between them, but maybe she was wrong…?

“Why don’t you try me?” she prompted, trying to keep her voice light as she imitated his words from earlier.

At the same time, she did her best to brace her heart, despite that it was starting to beat erratically. Whatever he said, she would graciously accept it – telling herself that she couldn’t afford to have things be awkward between them.

“Getting jealous over someone… it only happens when you don’t want them taken away from you, right?” Itaru said slowly, deliberately. “So… I don’t think I could ever be jealous… because… I… I don’t feel that way.”

Izumi couldn’t have possibly braced hard enough for that kind of impact. She could feel a hot feeling well up in her throat and tears were already prickling at the back of her eyes.

“Does… Does that mean you don’t want to be with me, anymore?” she asked, unable to help the waver in her voice.

Her question hung in the air unanswered as she watched him clench and unclench his hands on his lap, his eyes still stuck on the floor.

“Itaru, will you look at me? Please?” she begged. She was starting to feel light-headed and she just… She just needed to ground herself somehow.

After a long moment, he shifted his position to angle himself towards her on the couch, though his eyes remained downcast.

Izumi gently cupped his face in her hands and lifted his head to level with her own. She could feel his jaw clenched beneath her palms.

“Itaru, talk to me,” she coaxed gently, fighting to keep her voice steady. “What did you mean earlier?”

Though he didn’t move her hands away, he continued to avert his eyes.

“I… I can’t be jealous,” he began quietly. “Because… if someone else confessed to you, it’d be better that way. I’d be happy.”

“Why would you say that?” Izumi demanded, her tone coming out harsher than she had intended. She inhaled deeply to try and calm herself, though her brain was still rattled by his words. “Weren’t you the one who confessed to me first, Itaru? You asked me to give you a chance, so why would you think that way?”

A long moment passed between them in silence, but Izumi could see Itaru’s emotions warring on his face. She didn’t dare breathe until he finally opened his mouth again.

“Sometimes… I think it was a mistake that I asked you out,” he said quietly, his voice cracking as he continued on. “The more time I spend with you… the more I think about how… how you deserve someone better than me.”

Suddenly, she felt a wet sensation tickle against her fingers. As tears fell from his magenta-coloured eyes, Izumi was struck by several emotions.

The first was awe. For the first time, she understood what it meant when people said that there were beautiful criers. Though she knew that it was morbid, at that moment, she truly thought that Itaru was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, even as tears blotted his cheeks and turned his eyes red.

The second was sorrow. She felt unspeakable sadness that this person before her had struggled through so much in his life that he felt unworthy of being with someone he professed to love and thought that she would be better off without him.

Anger was the third. She was angry at herself for being unable to reassure him, to stop him from feeling this way despite the amount of time they had already spent together.

Last of all, she felt a surge of… something. She had only been in a couple of casual relationships before, and none of them as passionate as the one she had experienced with Itaru in the past half a year. Nor were any of them as comfortable as what she felt when she was with him. Spending time with Itaru both calmed her and brought butterflies to her stomach. Never in her life had she felt like she mattered as much as she did than when this man looked at her.

Was this love? She didn’t know, since she had no landmark to compare it against. But, what she was sure of was that she didn’t want to see Itaru look this way. She wanted to see him with his usual crooked smirk, just like the one he always gave when he teased her. She wanted to see his eyes crinkle like they did when he won a game. She wanted to see a smile on his face – like the one that bloomed across his face whenever the curtains fell after a successful Spring Troupe performance.

 She didn’t know when it had started, but she was crying as well.

 “Itaru,” she started, ignoring the salty taste in her mouth as her tears rolled past her lips, turning his face in an attempt to meet his gaze. “You… You don’t mean that, do you.”

 “I do,” he said firmly, still refusing to look her in the eye. Instead, he took her hands in his and removed it from his face – but rather than letting them go, his fingers squeezed hers tightly.

“No, you don’t,” she replied just as forcefully, finding her footing again as her heart resolved itself. “Because if you did, then you wouldn’t look so torn right now. Your hands wouldn’t be shaking. If you would truly be happy to have someone take me away from you, then you wouldn’t have been dying against enemies that you can usually beat in your sleep.”

 Itaru closed his eyes, as if he were wincing in pain.

 “Itaru, please. Don’t push me away.”

 A fresh stream of tears rolled down his face as he let out a rasping breath, shoulders shaking.

 “Did you know, the look on your face just now was so similar to when you told me you wanted to quit the troupe? You couldn’t look at me when I asked you to admit that you weren’t interested in theatre – that you didn’t care about performing with the others,” she said softly, using her thumb to wipe away the tears streaking his face.

 As a quiet sob tore its way out of Itaru’s throat, he leaned forward and buried his head against her shoulder, quickly soaking the material of her shirt. Letting her own tears fall, she lightly ran her fingers through his hair.

 “I… I want… to be with you… I want to feel worthy of you,” he gasped out in between sobs.

 “Itaru, I’m not some deity on a pedestal. I’m just a regular person, like you. You don’t have to be worthy of anything to be with me,” she replied.

 She felt him shake his head against her shoulder, his hair tickling against her chin.

 “If you still think that way, then… then let me tell you what I told you once before. Give yourself a little more time,” Izumi said, wrapping her arms around him, and nuzzling her face into his hair. “You owe it to yourself to keep trying. And… it’s not all on you. I’ll keep trying, too. I want to be a person that’s worthy of your efforts.”

 Then, after a long moment cradled in her arms, Itaru slowly lifted his head and finally allowed his red-rimmed eyes to meet hers, a small, lop-sided smile sneaking its way onto his lips.

 “Well… then I hope you’re ready to accept responsibility for your actions again.”

 “Of course!”

I had hoped to put this out on the actual first day of this week, but I kept rewriting it because I wasn’t satisfied with it. Even now, I’m not completely pleased with the finished product, but, I honestly don’t know how long it would take me to finish writing if I kept mulling over it! So, I decided to finally just settle with this version and post it and not look back!!

 In the end, I still got my central point across: which is that I wanted to write about how and why someone doesn’t feel jealous in a romantic relationship. And, so, this happened, haha. But, I didn’t want a sad ending, so I ended up on a hopeful note.

 Anyway, I APPARENTLY ONLY WRITE ITAIZU ANGST. I’m so sorry, Itaru – I’ll do you right next time!! No, really, HAHA. My entry for Day 2 (which will hopefully get written out in the next couple of days) is another ItaIzu and it’s NOT sad, I promise. In fact, it’s just PWP, LOLOL.

 If you liked my first entry, please do stick around for my other pieces for “A3! Rare Pairs Week 2020”! After my ItaIzu for Day 2, I’ll be moving on to other Izumi pairings. It’s a secret for now which pairings will all be covered in the end, but I’m here to spread the Izumi love!!

 Thank you for reading and please do leave a comment letting me know what you think! Any reblogs are always greatly appreciated and would really help me out!

 I hope to see you again! Bye for now!

 -Anmitsu

[violetsmoak]

Appetence [1/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn't expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #cemetery #haunting #relics

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52

Author’s Note(s): My attention span was really terrible today and I couldn't focus on either of my two other fics even though the next chapters of both are completely planned out. So I'm posting the start of the third (and final) story that I'm doing for the JayTimWeek/Month challenge. Also, I'm really excited about this one. I spent more time planning this than either of the other two and I can't wait to hear what you guys think!I've got work stuff to do tomorrow so there may not be anything updated until Friday.

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

The Bat-Signal cuts through the dark and hazy clouds lingering above Gotham City, and for a split-second, Jason Todd has the urge to drop everything and race for the roof of the GCPD Headquarters. It’s hard to ignore the nervous jump of excitement in his stomach, the phantom sensation of a domino mask on his face and the heavy drag of a cape at his shoulders.

Which makes no sense, since it’s been at least five years since I even wore that shit.

Taking a drag of his cigarette, the smoke mixing with the familiar summer smog, Jason turns his back on Gotham’s literal beacon of hope and steels himself against nocturnal threats of his own. The city is for the caped crew—because apparently, the Bat has a posse now, he thinks with only a hint of a bitter sneer—and Jason has been fighting in a different arena for quite some time now.

He takes a final drag of the cigarette, and then grinds it beneath his boots, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. It’s a weathered and worn thing that reminds him of one Willis Todd wore in one of the few memories Jason has of him that doesn’t involve alcohol or fists. He thinks it’s less pretentious looking than a trench coat and probably gives off fewer ‘creepy motherfucker’ vibes like the sartorial choices of certain other people. It’s also less likely to snag on things when he needs to make a quick exit while digging up graves.

Yeah, it’s a thing in his line of work.

Gotham Cemetery is a sprawling necropolis, as dark and forbidding now as it was the night he dug himself out of his own grave. Half a decade of Gotham-style tender, loving negligence has left the somber green hills overgrown and the majority of the old tombstones fallen or rotting.

You’d think in a city with the highest homicide rate in the country, the mayor would spring for better maintenance. Then again, it’s Gotham. The dead don’t pay taxes, so fuck ‘em.

Which…enough said.

Gotham and the world think Jason Todd-Wayne is dead and has been for five years now; in a way, it’s the truth. He’s no longer anything like the boy that was beaten to death by a psychotic clown, no longer the shrimp who fastidiously dyed his hair black and jumped into someone else’s cape and pixie boots just so he didn’t have to be his own screwup self anymore. He outgrew wanting to be Dick a long time ago, outgrew wanting to be Bruce, too, and embraced a whole new other set of skills to put him apart from them.

Most occultists and even homo magi need to put conscious effort and intent into calling up or even seeing a spirit. Ever since Jason died and then mysteriously got better, the dead appear to him as blatantly and a solid as the living.

John told him he was a fool to come back here.

“Someone with your gifts, they’ll drive you bloody mad,” his mentor warned him when he left London. “And I ain’t talking about the dead ones, neither.”

“You’re just saying that because Batman wouldn’t hold your hand that one time,” Jason retorted, shrugging off the concern. He is Gotham born and bred, his blood is in those streets, and he has always wanted to come home, even if it wasn’t necessarily to a stately manor or its inhabitants.

He clenches his fists.

Inhabitants that wasted no time in replacing him after he died. Jason was rotting away in fucking Arkham, and Bruce was shoving another kid into the tights.

If it didn’t involve seeing him, I would hunt him down and break his jaw.

He surveys the graveyard proper. The everyday observer considers cemeteries to be places of peace and eternal rest; quiet, if a little bit spooky. To Jason, they’re as gruesome as any major battlefield.

Spirits pack the way before him; some of them look relatively normal if dated by their clothes; many others are disfigured and bloody from whatever killed them, whether natural or unnatural. They clamor and crowd, eternally shouting to be heard, or screaming as they relive their deaths in their own personal purgatories.

In the beginning, that din almost drove Jason insane. Bruce’s teachings kept him rational as long as it could in the months after he woke up, and then John’s training helped him temper his own awareness further. By now, he can function almost normally, automatically filtering the voices out as he goes about his daily business; it’s only in places like this, where the dead outnumber the living, where it’s harder.

Jason reaches up, adjusting the noise filters in his ears—mechanical devices that need regular winding but are still more reliable than anything running on electricity of batteries. They’re like steampunk hearing aids, only instead of magnifying sound, they drown out the constant moan of the ghosts when he can’t do it himself. Just one of many methods of protection he’s learned over the years. Some are physical, like the prayer beads wrapped around his wrist or the bottle of holy water in his pocket; others—spells and symbols and mantras—are carved all over his body in tattoos and blood writing. Anything to keep the otherworld away.

“Personal space is a key to a medium’s sanity,” John told him once. “That and a good bottle of single malt scotch.”  

Jason ignores the moss-covered path that winds through the larger and more prominent mausoleums. He deliberately doesn’t search out the one in the distance bearing the Wayne crest—

(Still remembers the feel of his fingernails splitting against the wood of the coffin, choking on clumps of soil and insects.)

—and instead seeks a small structure much farther away. It’s in the furthest part of the cemetery, the shabby section almost hidden by overgrown willows. Half of the name above the doorway is obscured by vines, but it’s easy for him to make out the name etched into the stone with bold letters.

HAYWOOD.

According to the public record, Sheila Haywood’s body was returned to Gotham at the same time as Jason Todd’s. Bruce paid for her funeral and internment, which was just as well since she had no other family, and then she was promptly forgotten about.

By everyone except Jason, it seems.

It took some doing and a few weeks tracking down everyone that had worked at the same refugee camp as his mother, but he’d finally managed to collect what possessions she left behind. A colleague of hers had put them aside when there appeared to be nothing of actual monetary value in them.

A gold coin, small bone carvings of stylized animals, dainty trinkets of garnets, amber and lapis lazuli, a compact mirror, some seashells, a decorative fan, quartz paperweight, and a brightly colored feather. There was a picture of Willis in there, too, young and almost Jason’s double. No picture of Jason, though, but he hadn’t expected it.

He kept the picture but left the rest in the small wooden box, which he now removes from his messenger bag and sets down in front of the stone bearing his mother’s name. He follows that with various tools and ingredients. Black candles arranged in a star shape around the box, a chalice, a jar of detritus—teff seeds, driftwood and soil, all from the place where she died—that he sprinkles around in a circle, a handful of smooth obsidian stones to mark a pentagram joining the candles, the dagger John gave him for his last birthday, vials of oil and holy water.

Murmuring a few protection oaths, he shrugs off his jacket, leaving his arms bare, and then digs out a pack of matches to light the candles; flickering shadows dance across the mausoleum walls. He takes up the chalice to combine the water and oil, and then reaches for the dagger.

Hate this part.

Training to ignore pain doesn’t mean it goes away, and he grits his teeth a little as he draws his blade across his forearm, not deep enough to nick anything vital, but enough that the blood runs easily into the chalice. Without bothering to bandage the wound, Jason holds up the chalice in front of him and centers himself.

“Phantasma inrequietum, te voco,” he intones. “Eloguiorum mei audi: Sheila Haywood, te nominas!“ The stagnant air in the mausoleum starts to pick up. “In nominee creatricis, te impero, hic locum decede.” Hand over the top of the chalice, he swirls the liquid within, and then tips it into the open keepsake box. “Per sanguinem hominis et per sanguinem filii tui, non remane et apage! ”He strikes a match and lobs it into the box, not even flinching as the whole thing flares into flame; he intends to watch it until it burns to nothing.

“That’s not going to work, you know.”

“Jesus fuck!” Jason explodes, whirling to the right and glaring at the interrupter. “What did I say about sneaking up on me? Or just—showing up around me in general?”

The apparition in front of him doesn’t look impressed.

Sheila is still beautiful—or, at least, the side of her body that isn’t covered with third-degree burns and sections of pulverized bone—and still sharp. Cold, untouchable and self-interested.

But unlike the way she was before, she’s all-too present in Jason’s life now.

“Goddamn it,” he snarls, and against every lesson John has ever given him, lashes out and knocks the candles and detritus hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. “What the hell. I’ve done everything. You had last rites, your body was cremated, I just torched the things that had any value to you, why the hell won’t you just move on?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” Sheila replies, as always.

Jason scowls. “And of course, you can’t just tell me.”

She gazes at him balefully, and he runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Sheila, we’ve been over this. You can’t stay here. One, you know spirits that stick around past their time go Dark Side, and I really don’t want to have to exorcise your spectral ass. Two, it’s fucking creepy for a twenty-year-old guy to be followed around by his mother wherever he goes. What the hell is keeping you here? What more do you want from me?”

“Your forgiveness,” she tells him patiently.

“I already forgave you. Years ago.”

“You still call me Sheila.”

“That’s your name.”

“I’m your mother.”

“Who sold me out and got me murdered.”

“See? You haven’t forgiven me.”

“I have. I’m just stating a fact, Jesus…”

“Apparently the cosmic balance doesn’t agree enough to let me move on,” the ghost says dryly. “And to think, I used to be an atheist.”

“This is total bullshit,” Jason snaps, grabbing his jacket and stalking out of the mausoleum in frustration.

Three years of this mediumship crap, and neither he nor John have ever been able to figure out why the ghost of Jason’s dead mother won’t stop haunting him. Wards and sutras that keep even the nastiest spirits away from Jason don’t even phase her, and she’s inexplicably coherent.

And persistent.

As Jason stalks back through the cemetery, he can sense her in his periphery, gliding along beside him, unconcerned with his irritation.

“Can you just…stay away from me? Like you did in the beginning?” he grumbles.

“You were just learning how to communicate without going insane. I wasn’t about to disrupt that.”

“How considerate of you.”

“I try.”

“Look, I’ve had enough of the ghost-stalker thing for today. I went out of my way for this, you know. I didn’t even want to come back here. And now I’m back to the fucking drawing board.”

“It may not have been a waste of a trip,” she replies and vanishes.

“Oh, you can fuck off when it’s convenient for you,” he grumbles, though he already senses what she was speaking of.

Several yards away, a small boy, maybe eight, is clinging forlornly to an angel headstone. Translucent tears stream down his cheeks, but every now and again his face shifts, like a television caught between two channels, and his mouth widens into an unnatural smile.

Jason could have gone the rest of his life without seeing that smile again.

Still, he sighs and heads toward the kid.

“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice low and maintaining a safe distance from the boy, whose head whips up to stare at Jason in sudden fear.

“Who are you?” he asks, voice thick with tears.

“I’m Jason. You okay, kid?”

“I can’t find my mom,” the boy murmurs, wiping at his face. “I keep going looking, but I forget the way home. And then…I always end up back here.”

He sounds on the verge of tears again; it’s something Jason can understand.

With the puzzling exception of Sheila, who appears to come and go as she pleases, most ghosts are stuck in certain patterns and paths when they die, frozen in an infinite loop until they break themselves out of it or until some arbitrary higher power decides they’ve suffered enough. And for some reason, Jason can break them out of it.

“You could always try again,” he suggests. “I think you’ll manage it this time.”

The boy shudders. “There’s scary people here.”

No arguing with that.

“I know. I see them, too.” Jason glances at the headstone, scanning the name and dates. “Your name’s Cole?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re missing, there are probably people looking for you. They might have posted something online about it. I’ll check it out, but it could take a bit.” He holds up his phone, glad to see it’s at full charge and bars; that’s hit or miss around so many ghosts. “Can you hang around here until I’m done?”

The boy nods, silent, face flicking back and forth between sadness and the unnatural smile.

Fucking Joker…

Jason does a quick search of the kid’s name, pulling up obituaries in the Gotham Gazette in the past year. It doesn’t take long for an article to pop up concerning the Joker’s latest escape and a list of the dead.

He narrows his eyes, startling the kid.

“It’s fine,” he lies. “The internet is just really slow.”

“Or our phone is really bad,” Cole tells him with the blunt honesty of a kid that grew up constantly surrounded by functional technology.

“Everyone’s a critic…”

Another quick search for the parents, phone lists and social media, and he’s got an address. Crime Alley, of course. He brings it up on his map and enables a view of the street, holding the phone out to the boy. “Is this your house?”

Relief settles and settles over his face. “Yeah.”

“What if I helped you find your way home?”

Cole makes a suspicious face. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere with strangers.”

“Which is really smart. But you see, I’m not really a stranger.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

“Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.” Jason bends down, conspiratorial, and Cole’s eyes gleam the way any kid gets when hearing a secret. “When I was a little older than you…I was Robin.”

The boy gapes. “Like…Batman and Robin?”

“Exactly.”

“No way!”

“Way,” Jason smirks, crossing his arms. “And I’ll tell you all about it on the way to your house. Including the time that I stole the wheels off the Batmobile.”

“No way!”

Despite his scandalized disbelief, the kid is obviously hooked.

Jason’s heart clenches a bit at the open curiosity on Cole’s face, the reality hitting him that this boy will never have a chance to do anything mischievous or fun ever again.

From one dead boy to another, this sucks…

As he leads him out of the cemetery, Jason starts to tell the little ghost about his life. He edits out the less pleasant bits, like dying and returning to life half brain dead with the ability to see and hear ghosts.

He figures a good story is the least he can do for the boy.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

[littlemissmeggie]

fic writer meme

i was tagged by @irishsunshine-n-l-l-h​ to do this little tag thingy. i always love being tagged in things like this! thank you!

Author Name: littlemissmeggie

Fandoms You Write For: one direction. i’ve only ever written and posted narry and zarriall, sometimes with a bit of side lilo. i once wrote a chapter of a suite life of zack and cody fic but that was it.

Where You Post: ao3. i’ve reposted some things on wattpad but i don’t really like wattpad. i find it too confusing and hard to find what you’re looking for unless you have a specific link or know the fic title/author.

Most Popular One-Shot: you say you’re a good girl by a lot.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: a little drop for me. still under 5,000 hits, which makes me sad because i love that story and wish more people would read it and love it too! i guess i’m just like an indie band—unknown except by a small “following”—so that’s cool, i guess.

Favorite Story You Wrote: i really do love all of the stories i’ve written. if i’m forced to choose, though, i’d say all the time before i knew you followed by a little drop for me.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: i was nervous to post i think i know he don’t love me because it was the first fanfic i’d ever posted. i was also nervous the first few times i “hijacked” other people’s posts and added little drabbles that were inspired by the posts.

How Do You Choose Your Titles: most are song lyrics. how’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me is from a song by hank williams. a little drop for me is from a song by vampire weekend. all the time before i knew you is a line from a song by jake bugg. that’s the day i knew you were my pet is from a song by phil phillips. there are obviously a good number from one direction/solo direction songs. others are just a few words or a line from the fic that i feel sums up the story nicely, like tea kettles and bathroom taps, layer cakes, and birthday genie.

Do You Outline: i outline like a madwoman. pages and pages and pages of handwritten notes, character profiles, timelines, research, and outlines before i even start typing. i adjust my outlines as i go along if i change something as i’m writing that seems to flow or fit better a certain way, like if dialogue leads me in a slightly different direction or skips a few little bits of the outline.

How many of your stories are…

Complete: all but all the time before i knew you.

In-Progress: one—all the time before i knew you. two if you count my guardian angel fic that i started outlining three years ago and then sidelined while i wrote a little drop for me, i’ll always hold on ‘cause you make me strong, that’s the day i knew you were my pet, all the time before i knew you, and a number of oneshots and drabbles.

Coming Soon: the last two chapters of all the time before i knew you!

Do You Accept Prompts: i used to but i don’t really anymore. i find that if i’m not 100% into the prompt and it doesn’t inspire me enough, i’m not excited enough to write it and do the prompt justice. and if/when i inevitably don’t post it, i feel like i’ve let the prompter down. that said, both fics for the @1drarepairfest​ were written from prompts but were prompts i liked from the start and felt i could create a good plot and work into something good!

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: i’m really excited to finish all the time before i knew you and am looking forward to writing my guardian angel fic because it’s been on my mind for three years and is special to me because it has a good bit of my own personal struggles woven into harry’s character.

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions As Well. i’ll tag @yeehawnarrie​, @stylishmuser​, and @niallandharrymakemestrong​. i know that’s only three but i’m not sure who else to tag.

[mackinmacki]

The Modern Art of Dating

Rating: K+

Word Count: 4681

Summary: Meeting on an online dating service, the two queens of evil have to get past their own worries in order to potentially find something desirable between them.

Pairing: Bowsette x Booette

Notes: The idea of writing anything like this came to me after talking about it with @the-canine-king. We’re both bad influences on each other.

Links: (AO3)

Sitting in front of a large, ornate mirror, Bowsette carefully brushed her hair with firm strokes. Staring at herself in the mirror was a regular occurrence for the vain queen, but tonight held a special purpose. She was getting ready for a date, so she had to look even more perfect than usual. Putting the brush down on her vanity, she grabbed a hair tie and worked her scarlet hair into a ponytail. She gently patted her hair as she gazed at herself, feeling pretty damn good about herself. Perhaps a second opinion was required, though.

"Kammy!" Her roar echoed through multiple rooms of the castle, no doubt reaching the right pair of ears. While she waited for her right-hand woman to get to the room, she busied herself with trying on accessories. She grabbed a spiked black collar and affixed it around her neck, twitching it until it felt perfect against her skin. Then she grabbed another one and wrapped it around her upper arm: one for the left and one for the right. This was a night where she needed to dress to impress, and she always looked pretty damn impressive in spikes and leather.

"Yes your Majesticness?" Kammy came into the room as Bowsette was putting a pair of spiked wristbands on. She flew over to the vanity on her broom, stopping in mid-air and fixing the purple witch's hat on her head. "Oh, you look wonderful, your highness! Ah yes, you're going on a date tonight, aren't you?"

"Yes, and that's why I need your opinion on something." She pushed back her chair and stood up, smoothing down her black dress and showing herself off to her elderly adviser. "Do you think this is too much? Or perhaps too little? Perhaps I should get a bigger ruby..." She tapped the jewel stitched into the her dress, resting comfortably against her chest. It matched her eyes, but maybe it wasn't impressive enough. "But where could I get a bigger jewel at this time of the night..."

"You worry too much, your Sexiness. Any denizen of the kingdom should be honored to go on a date with you." She flew close enough to where she could pat Bowsette on the shoulder. It wasn't hard to tell that this was a big deal for her. Though she was the baddest and toughest queen in all the land, Kammy was more privy to the scenes behind the tales of grandeur. She knew this was her first date since the kid had come into her life. It would make sense that she was a tad nervous.

"This is not just any date! I'm going on a date with a queen! The Queen of Scream! To treat this like an ordinary date would be folly." Fire burned from her mouth into the open air, nearly singing Kammy's broom as she started to pace around the room. "A queen deserves only the best from a prospective partner. That's what I would expect as well." She turned on her heel, facing Kammy again. Though she enjoyed wearing heels to accentuate her height even more among her minions, she worried that would be too intimidating for the much shorter queen. "You know she captured Mario in a painting, right? In a painting! I've seen him hop in and out of those things all the time! How did she even do that?"

"Your Vileness, take a deep breath and stop pacing. It's making me dizzy." Bowsette scowled as she stopped moving, reluctantly taking a deep breath. "You look wonderful, and even a queen would be cowed by the awesome might of your beauty and power. Remember, you're not just a queen. You're the queen. Think of all the minions you rule over, and all the times you've kidnapped the Princess. All while raising your son to follow in your footsteps. Shouldn't that be enough for even the Queen of Scream?"

This took Bowsette back. She'd gotten so caught up in being extra perfect for her date that she'd let all the great things about herself slip into the back of her mind. "You're right, Kammy. I have done all that. A date's no problem for someone like me!" Energized now, she tilted her head back and breathed out a stream of fire to the ceiling. "Alright! Let's finish this up!" She stomped confidently back to her vanity, sitting back down and putting the finishing touches on her looks.

"That's my queen!" Kammy smiled as she watched Bowsette put on red lipstick and her favorite ruby earrings. The lights from the vanity shined on her horns, showing that she had given them a thorough cleaning beforehand. This was a serious night for her, so it was important that she was feeling as confident as ever. Getting her there was a part of the job, and she was always happy to help.

With her looks on point and every hair in its proper place, she was ready to go. Grabbing her leather jacket off of the side of the vanity, she shrugged it on and took one last look at herself. She was really feeling herself there. Looking damn fine. Flashing her reflection a toothy grin, she shoved the chair out of the way and started to walk out of the room. "Knock 'em dead!" Kammy yelled after her.

"She already is!" Giving Kammy a thumbs up, she confidently strode to the garage, where her Flame Flyer awaited. She was going to knock Booette's ghostly socks off tonight!

The two of them knew of each other, of course. It was hard to not know the most powerful evil beings in the kingdom unless you lived under a rock. Their travels had never brought them together, though. Now they'd be getting together for the first time, and on a date too. The reason this was all happening was because of a dating website. Yes, even great and mighty royalty sometimes needed the assistance of the internet. Neither of them had expected the other to be on the site, though, so they were both rather surprised to have been matched up together. Turns out they both had a love of artwork, real estate, and being evil, of course.

Deep within the darkened forests on the outskirts of the Mushroom Kingdom was a large, decaying mansion. At least, it looked that way from the outside. On the inside was a dark and splendorous interior: the home of the Queen of Scream, Booette. Her preparations for tonight's date were a bit different than her counterpart. She'd gotten up early that morning, then spent about two hours phasing through every wall in the mansion, wailing and panicking like hell. After a break to play a game of hide and seek with some of her brothers and sisters, she resumed her complete panic session.

Dating wasn't something she had a lot of experience in. Her skills were more geared towards haunting and interior decorating. Going on dates, though? That wasn't exactly her forte. If her stupid brother Booberry hadn't set her up a dating profile without her knowledge, she never would've done something so outgoing. She also would've declined the date and deleted her profile if the woman she'd been matched with wasn't so attractive. It had seemed like it'd be okay at the time, but now she knew she'd been wrong. This was definitely not okay. It was terrifying. Even more terrifying than herself.

She was what she liked to call 'selectively anti-social'. In truth, though, she was just shy. At times it was to the point of ridiculousness. While she was perfectly capable of socializing with her family, or being super scary to any pesky plumbers that were skulking about, being around others in regular settings freaked her out. Having someone merely make eye contact with her was enough to make her hide her face and want to escape back to the comforts of her mansion. There was nothing she could design that was scarier than socializing. How was she going to go on a date - in public, no less - without making a fool of herself?

As the time for her to leave for her date approached, she was still shaking in her heels. She'd finally settled on a lacy white dress that went down to her ankles, covering her modesty in its entirety. Whether to wear something formal or more revealing had been a focal point of her panicking that afternoon, but in the end formal had won out. She couldn't imagine how difficult it'd be to hold a conversation if she felt everybody's eyes were on her. This was as close as she felt she could get to looking good without drawing attention to herself.

Some of her family members had flitted in and out of the rooms she would find herself, offering advice or trying to get her mind off of the worries. For the most part it didn't work, since fashion wasn't something most of them were all that knowledgeable of or into. That meant she needed to figure these things out on her own, and it wasn't helpful to her already-frayed nerves. She'd never felt this way before, but she'd never gone on a date before. Hell, she'd barely left the mansion, unless it was to break ground on her new gloomy mansions. With all the money and jewels she had lying around every nook and cranny of her mansion, she figured that she might as well invest it in property.

There was only so many beauty products a ghost needed to use. Her shock-white hair always tended to be set perfectly, and tonight was no different. Even in her darkest hour, at least her hair looked nice. The only makeup she used was some blush on her cheeks, since she wanted to at least have some color somewhere. She was pretty damn pale, as befitting someone who was, well, dead. Her skin was a ghostly - heh - white, and the sun did not do any favors for her. Blush was her best bet to put some color in her cheeks.

She fiddled with the shimmering ruby necklace she wore, as if trying to find the perfect angle for it to sit. It was all just an attempt to delay the inevitable, or maybe to distract herself from losing her nerve. She wasn't sure which, since both probabilities made sense. If she was on a date that involved a haunted house, that'd be great. Her date would have to enjoy her phasing out to haunt all the furniture and lights, though. That might be a bit too much for a first date. Well, for her, anything was a bit too much. She was liable to start crying if the sound of a large grandfather clock going off hadn't snapped her into focus.

"I'm going to be late!" Back to panicking, as she floated up through the ceiling of her underground chamber and ran through the walls of her mansion from the back to the front. The Boo Pipes were waiting out in a dilapidated shack she used to house the vehicle. She had all the money in the world to upgrade it, but this was a cheaper option that fit her aesthetic perfectly.

Getting in the car, she just hoped that she didn't mess this up. Bowsette was the ultimate queen. The woman of fire and fright, one whose rage burned as red as her hair. Getting to go on a date with her was the chance of a lifetime - deathtime? - and she got the feeling that there wouldn't be a second chance if she did something dumb or acted way too shy. She could only hope that things ended up okay.

Bowsette got to the art gallery first, about ten minutes before they'd agreed to meet. She got out of her car and waited at the entrance to the gallery, leaning on a pillar while popping her jacket collar up and down. There was nothing else she could do with her hands at the moment since she left her trusty stress Goomba at home. She only stopped because she didn't want to tear the leather. It was good-ass leather, for real. She rolled up her sleeves and checked her watch, wishing time would go faster.

Right on time, her date made it to the entrance. Bowsette was immediately floored by the translucent beauty heading her way. She'd seen pictures, but they paled in comparison to the real thing. Whether she was floating up the stairs because she was, well, a ghost, or because she was immediately smitten, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that this date instantly became much more important than it already had been.

"Booette!" She pushed off the pillar and walked over to her date, pushing down any stray sensations of nervousness and worry. Confidence was key here, and she had plenty to spare. Flashing a big grin, she took Booette's hand in her own and lifted it up, giving it a kiss. Classic romance. Looked like she hadn't lost her touch. "Glad you could make it."

"Th... Thank you." Considering how white she was, any embarrassment would become quite apparent. There was no hiding the blush that started to spread over her cheeks, though she tried all the same. Hiding her face with her free hand, she knew she'd already made a mistake. If she couldn't even take a simple kiss on the hand, how was she going to deal with anything else during the date? She was so embarrassed, due to her own actions more than anything Bowsette had done.

"So... Wanna go inside?" Bowsette frowned slightly, but she recovered quickly outwardly. Inwardly, she was feeling a bit of those nerves coming back. Was she not interested now that they met in person? Could it be her looks? She was sure that she'd made herself absolutely perfect tonight. No, she couldn't let those kinds of thoughts invade her mind. If there was any hesitation right now, she'd surely stomp it out once inside. It'd still be a date to remember, and in a good way.

Booette nodded, not trusting her vocal chords to work properly. Her hand slipped from Bowsette's, and presently she was following behind her into the museum. At least, that was the case until the door was held open for her. She blushed again at her date being such a gentlekoopa, her mumbled thanks almost too quiet to be heard. Once she was inside, she stood there and waited for Bowsette to take the lead again. She felt more comfortable following behind her, where she wouldn't be stared at.

With Bowsette in the lead, that allowed her to feel more comfortable staring without having to hide her face in embarrassment. She was glad she had that chance, because wow, her date was gorgeous. It seemed like she'd gone for the first turn kill on the first date, wearing the well-known 'little black number' that looked damn incredible on her. Hugging her body in all the right places, she could only wonder if the dress was backless. The leather jacket she was wearing obscured it, but she didn't mind too much. It made her look extra cool and badass.

The museum was having a special exhibit that day, something that both of them could enjoy. In an appropriately darkened area of the building was an exhibition on creepy and unsettling paintings. They both showed their tickets to the employee guarding the entrance, allowing them to pass by the curtains and be swallowed up by the darkness. Well, almost darkness. There were pale, low-energy lights lining the floor so that people could see where they were going. Probably to avoid lawsuits and all that.

Lights hung from the ceiling just to illuminate the artwork, two crossing beams per portrait. The two of them stopped in front of the first one they came across, which was a rather grotesque bat swooping down from the ceiling of the cave onto an unsuspecting spelunker. At least in the darkness, Booette felt more at ease. Besides being her element anyway, everyone was partially obscured by it. She could make believe it was just her in that gallery. Her and Bowsette.

Before they moved on to the next painting, Bowsette grabbed her hand and smiled at her, her teeth glimmering from the shine of the ceiling lights. "Wouldn't wanna lose you in the dark." She was rendered speechless, only able to squeeze Bowsette's hand tighter as she led them to the next painting. Surely the lights weren't needed to see her embarrassment now. Her cheeks burned bright enough to light up any room.

She became intimately aware of how warm Bowsette's hand was. It was almost like there was actual lava in her veins. That made sense, though. She was the fire queen, after all. Still, she couldn't help but find her focus being mainly attached to her date's warm hand. It was incredibly comforting, even making her feel less nervous about the date as a whole. She found herself no longer wanting to let go. Maybe they could just hold hands for a little while longer. Or forever.

Halfway down the gallery, she'd been mostly silent. Though holding hands had made her feel a bit more at ease, she still found it difficult to make conversation. Instead, Bowsette was the one who fueled the conversations, while she gave short responses. She was worried that she was coming off as cold, though. Those short answers could be seen as curt, which wasn't her intention at all. There had to be something she could say to break the ice.

"It's... chilly in here, isn't it?" When she said 'break the ice', she hadn't meant to make everything cold-related. This was what happened when she opened her mouth around people she didn't know. Now, if they had their backs to her, then that was all fine and good. She could sneak behind them and haunt them to her heart's content. This, though? This was what happened when she was out in the open: exposed. Metaphorically exposed, anyway.

"Hmm? I didn't notice." It was hard for Bowsette to get chilly. She was basically a walking heater, so she could move through most winters without a problem. Most of her jackets, like the one she was wearing, wasn't even for warmth, but for looks. She'd roll up the sleeves to avoid overheating, but leather jackets were always cool. It seemed like the prime opportunity to use it for something cooler, though. Rolling down the sleeves, she stopped and removed it, then put it on her date's shoulders.

"Huh?" Booette looked at her shoulder, barely able to see the jacket in the darkness. It could sure be felt, though. Like a warm weight on her shoulders. Her cheeks burned as she slowly slipped her arms into the jacket. She felt much warmer with it on, though she wasn't sure if it was because of the jacket itself or because of the person who had given it to her. "Thank you... I-I appreciate it." She popped up the collar to obscure her embarrassment, as well as the small smile on her face.

"No problem!" Bowsette gave her a thumbs up, grinning as they held hands again and continued through the gallery. She'd chosen to take Booette there because they both held a love of fine art. Despite her own terrifying castle and evil nature, she actually was more of a fan of scenic artistry. However, she was sure that her date would enjoy something darker, so she decided they'd go to this specific exhibit. Considering how Booette's eyes lit up at times over certain paintings when she didn't know Bowsette was looking, she'd consider her assumption to be correct as usual.

"Now this one I really like." Near the end was a painting that really caught Bowsette's interest. It was a darkened forest, with black, dead trees comprising all of the 'greenery'. Shadowy figures stood at the edges of the canvas, almost seeming to dance in and out of existence. This was the kind of artwork that she'd want hanging in her castle. She'd like to see Mario escape from that.

"Mm. It really shows a quiet despair of loss in a world dying around you." Was that the artist's intent? Their vision. Who knows. Honestly, she was just making all that up. Using a heightened vocabulary she'd gained from reading book after dusty book alone in her mansion, she was sure she could easily make up some pretentious meaning to any artwork they passed by. She hoped that was enough to impress her date. They'd been having a great time so far, but she wanted to make sure she was cultured enough for someone like Bowsette. Coming to an art gallery on the first date was a refined selection, and she didn't want to disappoint.

"Yeah, it... absolutely does. I couldn't agree more." She nodded, pretending that she had any idea what that meant. Damn, her date really was an art connoisseur. She'd figured as much going in, but she wasn't a huge art snob. Not that she thought Booette was a snob, of course. She didn't know much about the reasons behind art. As long as it was cool, that was fine with her. She was a... cool connoisseur.

When they reached the end of the exhibit, it still wasn't that late. Since they were allowed to see the rest of the museum, bar the other special exhibits, they decided to keep going and see more. Booette found herself loosening up a bit more with each room they went into, even laughing when Bowsette claimed that one of the portraits of a rather dashing looking Koopa was an ancestor of hers. She could even get the pose from the portrait down perfectly.

In a room full of statues, Bowsette got a bit too into making up stories for the chiseled beings. Putting some excitement into one of the stories, which was some kind of retelling involving parts of her own life, she accidentally slapped one of the statues with her tail. Eyes wide, she hauled ass to grab the statue and keep it from crashing to the ground. Pulling it back up into a standing position, she wiped the sweat from her brow and looked over at Booette. "That didn't happen." She just covered her giggle with a hand and nodded, not wanting to admit just yet that it didn't matter if one measly statue got broken. It was she who had donated them in the first place.

Eventually they reached the end of everything they wanted to see. The museum was close to closing too, so that was perfect timing. They ended up in the gift shop, as one always wants to be before leaving. The two of them split up to look around, with Booette finding herself by a rack of print-ups of some of the paintings in the gallery. To her delight, she found that one of them was the painting that Bowsette had said she liked. Smiling to herself, she picked it up and took it the register.

She didn't have to wait long, since there was nobody in line. When she finished paying for it, she floated over to Bowsette and held it out with a shy smile. "I bought this for you. You said you really liked this painting..." She hoped that she liked it. It'd be hard to come back from being rejected on that.

"Yeah, I did. Thanks!" She took it with a grin, but then immediately turned that smile right-side up. "You didn't have to spend anything on me. I gotta find something good for you too." Before Booette could tell her that she didn't need anything, she had turned right around and zoomed down the aisle, looking at everything with a quick, critical eye. Would she even have time before the shop closed?

It was on the same rack of print-ups that she found what she wanted. A different painting, one of a sad, ghostly woman in a white dress sitting on a bleeding throne, seemed perfect to her. 'The Woman in Wight'. That was clever, she was pretty sure. It seemed perfect for someone like Booette. Silently applauding herself, she went up to the register and paid for it, then handed it to her curious date. "Told ya I'd find you something!"

Booette took it, looking over the painting print. It kind of looked like her, actually. Though her throne didn't usually bleed. It was the thought that counted, though, and there must've been some thought put in it to make sure she'd like it. She was really flattered, almost choking her up. Smiling, she ducked her head in embarrassment. She couldn't hide her smile this time, though. "This is really nice. It's... really sweet of you to buy it for me." Bowsette beamed, pleased with the response.

They walked outside with their prints in hand, a surprise gust of wind greeting them as soon as they exited the building. Booette shivered a bit, but Bowsette seemed completely unaffected. She looked so cool, honestly. Booette was rendered awestruck with both how cool and thoughtful she was on their date. Oh, and attractive. She was also very attractive. Couldn't forget about that.

"I had fun tonight... Thank you for taking me here." Outside of the exhibits, and in the night's sobering chill, she could feel her anxiety returning. She wished that she was holding Bowsette's hand again. At least then she'd feel warmer and less worried about her dating performance. She'd had fun, but had Bowsette? It seemed like she did, but she couldn't know for sure. Mind reading wasn't a power that ghosts had, unfortunately. Would she want to know the truth if she could, though?

"No problem. I had fun too!" As far as Bowsette was concerned, their date was a rousing success. It'd been so long since she'd been on a proper date that she'd wondered if she'd forgotten how to even do it properly. Since Booette had fun, though, it seemed that she wasn't as rusty as she'd feared. Perhaps that meant they'd even go a second date. She hoped so, anyway. It wasn't likely that she'd have a chance to go on a date with someone else who was even close to as interesting and easy on the eyes as her woman in wight over there. "So how 'bout you give me my jacket back on our next date?" She decided to go for it, hoping that her svelte charms would work to her advantage.

"I... think that should be acceptable." Blushing at both Bowsette's forwardness and her own agreement, she stepped closer to her date until they were face to face. Surprising even herself, she leaned in and softly kissed her on the cheek. Stifling her laughter at the shocked expression on Bowsette's face, she whispered "Call me," before turning and gliding down the steps to her car. She couldn't believe that she'd done that, but she could admit to herself that it was worth it. A second date sounded wonderful, and she felt a bit giddy being the one to shock her otherwise-gregarious date into silence. All the way down to her car, she could only think about Bowsette's big smile, carefree attitude, and her very warm hands. Also those back muscles that had flexed ever-so enticingly with certain movements she had made. That dress had been backless.

Still on the top step, Bowsette watched Booette glide away in stunned silence. She put a hand on the cheek that had been kissed, feeling a ghostly chill on the spot where it would usually be very warm. It didn't take long for her to break out into a big smile, though, pumping her fist excitedly. "Yes! Second date, baby!" She tilted her head back and blew a breath of fire into the air, clapping her hands excitedly. The museum's nightwatchman, just exiting the building, looked at her curiously. "What are you looking at, bub?"

[echoeternally]

Hey, this might sound kinda dumb, but I've been wanting to start writing some fanfiction of my own but I'm not really sure how to start or even good places to post it. Would you have any advice or words of wisdom?

Hey, to start, this isn’t dumb at all!

Writing fanfics is a lot more nerve-racking for your first time, especially if you don’t know what to expect or how your work holds up. So, let me help you as best as I can!

The short version is what I can post here:

Starting:

Make sure that you like writing and want to hone your writing skills.

Choose a fandom franchise that interests you! It’s gotta be fun if you want to work on it and research it.

Find a separate writing program to work in without Wi-Fi so you can write whenever you’re able.

It may make you nervous, but it’s fun too, and allows you to let your imagination flow!

Where to Post:

The better starter website is likely fanfiction.net (FFN), which has a wider selection of users. This is where you can develop and grow, as well as a good spot for garnering feedback!

Your alternative fanfic website would be archiveofourown.org (AO3), which has a more in-depth system to navigate, and is more exclusive to work with. However, you can refine your craft well here too!

Advertising is good on blogs, like Tumblr or Twitter, so you can post links to your work there. Alternatively, you can also use Tumblr to post on as well, though I’m not sure it’s the best for beginners…or even the best place for your writing to really stand out, honestly.

Advice:

Write for fun! That and helping you grow as a writer is what really counts.

Post small amounts of work to start before you find out what you like to write, and then go from there.

Your audience can help you with developing skills as a writer, and feedback is fantastic, but don’t let it control your every action.

Let your creativity flow, and experiment with everything that you can do.

Take deep breaths, create and stick to a semi-regular schedule, but don’t let the stories consume you. After all, you likely have a life outside of posting fanfics, so, keep up with that too! 

If you’d like a little more to everything than what I’ve posted, I’ve got a lot of words that I placed below, so…you can read there too!

Fair warning: this is lengthy, and I give a lot of words in this post, which is why I’ll post everything under a Read More tab. If it gets to be too much, just pick a section to stop at and continue later.

Getting Started

To start, of course, make sure that you want to try writing! It sounds like obvious advice and an easy part to gloss over, but it is important to keep in mind. I

t’s enjoyable to work on something when you hear back from folks, but the most joy you’ll get out of writing is creating your own content and honing your skills over time.

Fanfics are fun if you’re having fun, so you have to make sure that it’s a hobby you love. 

Next up, select some fandoms/franchises that you’re interested in and know a good amount about and/or would be invested in learning more from. This early on, you don’t need to be too committed to what you want to work on, as you’re going to be experimenting first.

However, make sure that you’re looking for stuff that captures your attention and would be what you like learning or talking about. If you’ve ever daydreamed stories that you’d like to tell using certain series of entertainment, go with those.

Before you begin working on anything, make sure that you’ve got some kind of writing program that you can save your work on. Rely on that program to generate your story ideas, because you’ll want to be able to write a whole lot there before you use fanfic websites.

While a good number of the fanfiction apps have tools for you to actually write in, these aren’t entirely reliable based on one easily forgotten reason: they usually need an Internet connection to work on. And sometimes, you might be having Wi-Fi troubles, so, make sure that you can rely on a program that you can write in at any time.

My personal choice is Microsoft Word, but that’s not available on all computers. Check out what programs your computer has, and see which you like writing in. Then, work from there!

Once you’ve decided on which franchise(s) you want to write for, think about small, quick stories that you want to tell for each one. To start, don’t plan on something becoming huge right away, even if you’ve got the ideas to support it.

Play around with stuff that you want to tell. Two of my ongoing stories started because, for one, I wanted to explore a hypothetical scenario of a villain’s attraction to the hero that opposes them, and for the other, I wanted to indulge in medieval concepts while writing mushy fluff stuff.

Both started as very small ideas that have grown wonderfully over time. So, give yourself some concepts that you’d like to come out with.

It can be a lovely date night for your two favorite characters, perhaps a neat little world for an OC of yours to star in, turning a dark and horror world bright or a cheery and light world dark, or something else.

Deciding on your stories isn’t something you need to be too strict with at the stat, but posting publicly can be daunting. That’s ok!

Remember, you’re a new writer, so don’t be too hard on yourself. The content you’re posting early on is stuff that you’re testing out to see what you like and what others find entertainment from.

It doesn’t need to be flawless or gain a huge amount of traction right away. Just enough to pique interests of yourself and other fans.

At this stage, remember to be flexible with everything. Some stories grow stronger than others, and some will get more attention than others. It’s time to play for now, so be open and experiment.

It’s ok to be nervous posting too, so just remember to take some deep breaths, and remind yourself that it’s for fun! Then, figure where you want to post.

Choosing Websites

At this point, I’ll give brief descriptions of websites that you can use to post.

The two major juggernaut fanfic websites that you’ll likely want to look into are fanfiction.net (FFN) and archiveofourown.org (AO3), as these two are the most tailored fanfic websites out there.

There’s another website called Wattpad, which…I know next to nothing about. It’s another writing website to post on, but it’s a little less user friendly than the two listed above, so…unless you know it better, I wouldn’t recommend it.

You can absolutely choose other websites to work on, as these are just fanfic only websites. For example, you can try posting here on Tumblr! Or other blogging websites. You can also post on some art websites such as deviantArt, though I wouldn’t recommend those unless you’re also an artist.

Personally, I suggest focusing predominantly on FFN and AO3, as those are the major two to go for. Blogging websites make a good place to go too, but those can be trickier to work with, since they’re not tailored specifically for posting stories.

So! Let’s take a little more in-depth look into each fanfic website.

Fanfiction.net (FFN)

If you’re looking to garner attention early on, and to get posting right away, you’ll be looking into fanfiction.net (FFN), which is probably the more beginner friendly of the two.

First and foremost: you can create an account and get started on the same day. Its major competition website, AO3, doesn’t offer that.

FFN offers a wide variety of places to post, franchises to check out, and different media to tool around with. If you’ve ever been on there, you’ll notice that they’ve got a Browse section for tabs of entertainment and media that you can look into.

Based on the fandom you want to write for, check out that section. Some might involve dabbling into other places.

For example, maybe you love the Pokemon anime. But, Pokemon itself started as a video game franchise, so you’ll need to look for that in the Game section.

Likewise, maybe you loved the Harry Potter movies, which there might be a specific area for. But, keep in mind that it did originally start as a book franchise, so don’t forget to check the Book tab.

Explore, experiment, get to learn the website for what you can gain from it to start. There’s a lot to go over with it, so make sure that you’re checking out things for yourself, and see what you can get started with.

That’s not even all of the menu options, as each of those sections open up for more things to look into.

Remember, it’s a lot to learn, and you don’t need everything right way! Just check for the basics that help you get started. Make your username, write a small intro profile, and maybe choose an avatar image that you like.

(For Avatar pictures and Images in general, please remember to use only public images of official content or art you created yourself. Unless you have permission from a fan artist, don’t use their work, as that’s a sure-fired way to annoy them from the start.) 

Your main tab of operations will be the Publish tab. That’s this little fella below here:

At the onset, you will have to check the Rules & Guidelines. Because that’s what the website makes you check first.

Your first story, if the Rules are the same as when I got started, MUST be a General Audiences fic.

This is just to post something, so don’t feel like you need that to actually be there. If you don’t want to even bother with that, just bypass it by posting a quick mishmash of words for a K story. Like, it doesn’t even have to make sense, and you can delete it right after you’ve uploaded it.

However, it can be a good idea to post something that anyone can see, so, maybe you do want to make that your honest effort.

Either way! Make sure that you’re able to post your first story, regardless of how you want it rated.

To post, though, you’ll first need to click on that “Doc Manager” tab. Do that so you can submit your content. It looks like this:

Once you’ve submitted a document, you’ll be able to use that for actually publishing on the website itself.

At that point, you can click on the New Story tab, which should lead to this:

There’s a good number of steps following that, which I’ll leave you to experiment with. Take it slow though, because you’re in no rush, and you’ve already chosen what you want to work with, so just look it all over and choose the categories and sections that line up with your fandom accordingly.

You’ll get to a point where you’re posting your fanfic, and then you’ll have it slapped on as part of the fanfic archive! And that, after a lengthy process, will be how you begin on FFN!

Archiveofourown.org (AO3)

Now, the other major fanfic website is archiveofourown.org (AO3), which a lot of seasoned writers tend to prefer. It could also serve as a beginner website, but there’s a catch: you must join the waiting list to be approved before you can begin using the website.

So, yeah, AO3 takes time to get in before use. Time as in actual days! So, if you do want to start there for sure, make sure you send out for the invitation early enough that you won’t need to wait very long on it.

Once you’ve joined, you can tool around with slapping together a profile, view how the different personal settings sections work, and just general exploration of how to use things. Keep in mind, AO3 features a bit more complexity than FFN does.

That’s my personal page, since I’m not waiting to create an empty profile. There are a bunch of spots for you to tool around with, but you can simply focus on the top section, which includes Profile information and Preferences for your website experience.

To browse the actual website, stick with the front page or look for the top left corner tabs that look like this:

Check out the fandom sections! There’s a few extra spots that even fanfiction.net doesn’t provide, like Music & Bands. So, you can explore a little more around this website.

What writers llloooovvve about AO3 is the tagging system, which you can also browse near that fandom section.

See that 3rd spot, “Tags,” right? That’s like the stuff here on Tumblr, where you can click different types of fandoms, key words / phrases, or different genres, topics, etc. to find a story that uses the tag.

Some folks like to police tags, but they are mostly used liberally on AO3. That means if you just click a tag that says, “Coffee Shop AU,” well…be prepared to net a LOT of results. (Didn’t actually check that, so your actual finds may vary.)

Thing is, unless you’re a strong writer from the get-go, you’ll likely be relying on that tagging system to actually get your works out there. It’s something that you’ll do better learning on your own than from me, honestly.

Anyway, to actually begin posting on AO3, you’ll be looking for the top right corner for fanfic generations, or the tab labeled, “New Work,” as seen here:

Click that and it’ll lead you to a massive section of things for your story posting, which ends up looking like these next few images:

This is where you choose your rating, warnings that apply, fandom, ship gender pairings if you’re writing romance, and tag the characters and other words you want to use.

This is where the title goes, along with your summary. Notes can be used for Author introductions and closers, which you use when you want to say stuff like, “Hey, here’s my story!” and “Thank you for reading!” to show some attention directly from you to the readers.

Privacy is if you don’t want your work to be found by many folks, which…well, that’s entirely up to you. And that big field that says “Work Text” is where you actually begin posting your story.

This is a lot to have prepared for right away, but if you’re good at taking a bit at once or practice it enough, it becomes easy fairly quick.

Unlike FFN, if I’m not mistaken, you don’t need to post a general / all audiences story as your first post. Also unlike FFN, you’re not limited on what you want to post. AO3 lets you post content that is inclusive of gore or porn, so uh, go all out as you like, if those are more of your speed.

Just remember, unless you’ve taken some computer programming classes, you’ll want to change the work section below to “Rich Text” over HTML, which simplifies where you post, or rather, where you can insert your text.

There is also an import option for posting fanfics, so that the website kind of does the work for you, so you can keep that in mind as well.

Once you’re finished getting everything together, you’re able to post your story onto AO3 and wait for some views to flow in.

A big and key difference to FFN and AO3 is that the user-base for the latter is much smaller, a more selective pool. Thus, if your fandom or franchise that you write for isn’t super huge, and your writing doesn’t exactly deliver upon arrival, well…it’s tougher to stand out and get comments or reviews.

However, since users tend to recognize this, they might try to be thoughtful with their comments on helping you out with the story or voicing their opinions.

As FFN does have the higher user-base, however, it’s easier to pick up a following on that website, though sometimes, it’s curt and unwarranted additions to your story. So, keep these things in mind, and choose whichever website best suits your needs.

Ultimately, to stand out on fanfic platforms, I recommend having an account on both websites and actively posting to both. This increases how far your stories will reach out, and gets your more attention from readers all around, even if they prefer to use one website over the other.

Hmm. I’ve talked a bit about feedback, so…let’s briefly touch on that too!

Feedback (Comments/Reviews/Attention)

Feedback gives satisfaction to writing and posting online, which is what throws off a lot of early writers that may expect more yet receive less. Again, though, you’re new!

Take it slow, don’t look to make an overnight hit. Sometimes, feedback can take weeks to come in, and that’s fine.

Listen and learn from what people say. Some are just going to be overly critical or negative to start, so don’t take those to heart. Those are impatient people that don’t give newcomers a chance, and they’re not who you listen to in the beginning because you’re learning still.

But there are those who have helpful advice to give at times, even in small doses. Even small comments and reviews that translate to, “I liked your work, keep it up!”

These let you know that, for this reader, you did a good job! They don’t need to say a lot to show appreciation, so take even just a bit.

After you’ve written some stories and posted them out, check everything over. First, did you enjoy what you came out with?

Perhaps it was a cute one-shot (single chapter story) about a character that you wanted more development for. Maybe you crafted a mini story that spanned 5 chapters. Whatever it was, make sure it was fun for you! That helps you decide on continuing to work with that fandom again.

Next, and what’s also key, is how the readers and audience participated with the story, so you’ll want to check that out too. Don’t look for something that has tons and tons of attention, but make sure that it’s a work that’s been noticed.

And mind your audience, to see if you’re getting helpful readers and reviewers. They can help you, should you choose to write for that fandom franchise again.

Closing Comments

This was everything that I could come up with for a guide, and I haven’t explained everything thoroughly. There is a LOT to take in with writing fanfics, and though I may seem a bit put together with it, I also still have a lot that I’m learning about using the websites and writing stories.

Honestly, I think your absolute best bet is to explore the websites and your interests, and find what you want to look into! Doing that, you’ll be able to really find what you enjoy, and then you’ll learn how to help make content for readers to enjoy with you!

Anyway, if you’ve managed to read over everything, congratulations on surviving Echo’s Obnoxious Tutorial to Fanfics! And thank you very much for reading the whole thing through.

So, I hope this helps give some guidance on your fanfic exploration! Should you choose to continue, I wish you lots of luck! And don’t be afraid to ask seasoned writers for help on both website utility and just general advice.

Some may be slow to reply, like yours truly, but they’re hopefully willing to help out when they are available!

Again, best of luck, don’t overwhelm yourself, and have fun writing!

[varemosa]

Asking

A/N: When I started writing this a week ago, I thought it would be less than half this long, but it just kept growing. I hope you like it. Word count: 1,692  |  AO3 link

Spencer held the door open as you exited the restaurant. This was your first date, but you had the feeling he would still be just as chivalrous on your tenth date and after. He seemed like a really nice guy, and you had been pleasantly surprised when he asked you out.

---

The two of you had been attending a 10-week book discussion series at the library. You glanced at him a couple times the first night and thought he was fairly cute, but you’d really noticed him the second week when he went into a five-minute monologue about an obscure historical topic that was briefly mentioned in that week’s book. Everyone else had started shifting in their seats and shooting glances at each other, but you were enthralled by his enthusiasm, the sound of his voice, and the way he moved his hands. You smiled encouragingly when he looked your way and, when he was finished, came up with a comment (which you hoped sounded relatively intelligent compared to everything he'd just said) to show him you’d been paying attention.

You were disappointed when he missed the third session and hoped he hadn't been put off by the others' reactions to his contribution. You approached him the next week to ask how he'd been.

"Hey. Spencer, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm Dr. Spencer Reid. And you're Y/N."

"That's right." You smiled. "Good memory."

"Eidetic actually. I remember almost everything I read."

"Oh. Wow." You were impressed, but also a little embarrassed that you'd thought he was paying attention to you specifically, instead of just reading everyone's nametags from the first night.

He noticed your discomfort and quickly added, "I remember you though. You had really good insights into the character motivations from the first week's book."

"Thank you. I was surprised not to see here you last week."

"Yeah, I hated to miss it, but we were called away on a case."

"A case?"

"I'm a profiler with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, the BAU. We work on serial killings, kidnappings, those kinds of things."

"Oh wow! Well now I'm especially flattered that you appreciated my character analysis. I guess you know almost everything about human behavior."

He looked like he was about to say something else, but the librarian moderating the discussions called for everyone's attention and the group quieted down and settled into their seats, cutting your conversation short.

You and Spencer exchanged a few comments at the following sessions. He would be kind of awkward at first, but you made an effort to bring up things you thought he'd be interested in, and then he could go on talking excitedly for a while and not be so self-conscious. When he ended up missing another week for work, he arrived early the next time and was waiting for you.

"Hey Y/N."

"Hey Spencer! Did you have another case? How'd it go?"

"It ended well, thankfully. We found a missing kid and were able to get her home safely."

"That's great! My brain was coming up with all kinds of crazy ideas of what you might be working on." You hesitated for a minute. "I wished I had a way to contact you and make sure you were doing okay."

"Oh. Oh, well, um, I'm not very techy but I could give you my cell phone number. And if you wanted to give me yours I can maybe let you know next time, if I can't make it."

"That sounds good," you said with a smile. You were glad he offered and you hadn't needed to ask for his number outright. You usually left it up to the other person to ask you things like that early in the relationship, but you were afraid Spencer would be too shy and you really liked him.

There were only two weeks left in the discussion series after that though, and you and Spencer hadn't needed to contact each other over any absences. As the final discussion session was wrapping up, you were contemplating how to say goodbye to him, unsure if you would get to see him again. Deep in thought as the other attendees were gathering their things and filing out of the room, you didn't notice Spencer walking over until he was right in front of you. You'd barely registered his presence when he blurted out, "I was wondering if you might want to go out to dinner with me next week? Maybe this same time?" He bit his lip and shifted his eyes around nervously, but looked back at you and smiled after you said yes.

---

Your conversation over dinner tonight had started much the same as usual, but it was nice to have more time one-on-one without interruptions and you did get into learning more personal information about each other. It was a very different atmosphere with the two of you in the candlelit restaurant compared to the group setting under fluorescent lights in the library community room. Someone at the table next to you knocked over the salt shaker and threw a pinch over their shoulder. You voiced your surprise that someone would do that in a nice restaurant, and Spencer went into a detailed explanation of the old superstition.

"You probably didn't want to hear all that though..." he finished.

"It's fine. I'm always amazed at the things you know. And I like listening to you talk."

"You're really the only one," he said with a nervous chuckle. "Even my coworkers, we're like family, but they all just kind of joke about it when I talk a lot unless it's directly necessary for the case. But you always listen, Y/N."

Eventually the waiter came over to ask if you needed anything else and gently reminded you that the restaurant was about to close.

"I've had a really nice time tonight, Spencer."

"So have I, Y/N."

Now you and Spencer started walking up the street from the restaurant to the downtown parking lot, close enough to each other that your arms kept brushing together. You hunched your shoulders up a bit in the chill night air.

“Are you cold?” he asked, unfolding his coat from where it had been draped over his other arm.

You nodded and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. “Mostly my back. There’s a cutout in my dress.”

He moved behind you to put the coat over your shoulders and you pulled your hair around in front of you.

“That’s very nice,” he said softly from behind you.

“Thank you.”

Spencer gently brushed over a piece of hair you had missed and his fingertips grazed lightly over your skin, lingering longer than they needed to. He rested that hand at your shoulder for a moment and his other hand traced across your exposed back, the collar of the coat hooked over his thumb. You smiled, though he couldn’t see it. Then he cleared his throat and settled the coat around you.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you replied.

“I touched you without asking.”

You turned around so you could see each other’s faces. “Well, I appreciate your awareness of the issue,” you said genuinely. “You don’t have to ask about every single thing though."

He still looked uncomfortable.

"Consider the context here.”

He raised an eyebrow at you.

“Think through it, Mr. Profiler,” you teased gently.

Now he was in analysis mode. “We're not strangers, we’ve known each other for a while, and we’re on a date."

You nodded. Spencer shifted his weight between his feet and unfocused his gaze as he was thinking.

"You already said when we finished dinner that you enjoyed the evening.”

“I have.”

“Your body language was open and engaged during dinner, and just now we were walking closer together than people usually do. That was some touching there, actually, kind of.”

Another nod as he looked up at you again.

“You mentioned the cutout in your dress and you let me see it instead of saying you didn’t want the coat or leaving your hair down over it like it was.” He paused for a brief moment, thinking back. “You didn’t tense up when I moved your hair; your shoulders actually relaxed a little bit. And then you didn’t move away at all when I touched your back.”

“All true,” you replied. “And it was a gentle touch on a fairly innocuous part of the body."

You reached your arms out toward him but paused, waiting until he looked at you and lifted his hands before taking them in your own.

"See, as long as you’re mindful of the other person, you can often use nonverbal cues to determine consent.”

Spencer was nodding now, and seemed to be feeling better about the situation.

“Of course, there are certainly times when it’s better to communicate more directly.” You moved a bit closer and faced him straight on. “For example, you still look a little tense, so I’m going to ask first... Can I kiss you?”

He hesitated for a moment, chewing on his lip. It seemed like a nervous habit; he’d done the same thing when he asked you out.

"You’re allowed to say no,” you said, catching his eye.

He shook his head and rocked slightly back on his heels before settling down. “I’d like it if we kissed,” he said firmly. You smiled and leaned closer, and he moved an arm to your waist.

The kiss was slow and soft, but warm. You felt him smile as he pulled back. He kept his arm at your waist as the two of you resumed the walk to your cars.

"Is it too early to ask you for another date?" Spencer asked.

"No."

"Would you like to keep meeting at this time? Um, maybe every week whenever I'm in town? Is that too much?"

"No, that sounds great."

"Good. I would hate to see you any less than we have been."

"And Spencer?"

He turned his head toward you.

"Just so you know, I really like having my back traced."

His arm slipped up under his coat on your shoulders, his fingers finding the cutout in your dress again.

[pain-somnia]

Writer Asks

Writer Asks

tagged by @wolf08 :) thank you so much for the tag and sorry for being so late, i literally waited until i came home from work. Warning: this is LONG.

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

my tumblr url is based on the chronically ill made up term painsomnia. i have always had sleep issues but they got worse when i became ill due to being woken up constantly with pain. my username on FF is ChronicallyChill which is based on, yet again, me being chronically ill.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/favourites, follows/subscriptions, visitor hits, kudos)

The Planning Of A Matriarch wins, hands down. I was so insecure and nervous about sharing anything I wrote but it was so well received! But it’s comedy and so much fluff and who doesn’t appreciate a little fluff? I have lost a lot of love for it because it was stolen and the whole event made me feel like shit. I think I owe a lot of it’s popularity to @mycherryqueen because she rec’d it on her blog. I plan on updating by the anniversary of this fic. But I may put it on hiatus indefinitely after that.

3. What is your FFnNet/AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

I actually don’t have one! I keep thinking I’m going to sit down and draw one or wait until I have the money to commission one of my favorite artists for something. I don’t create anymore but maybe one day I’ll dip back into it so I can finally have a profile icon.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

OMG YES. I get sooo excited when I see familiar guest names or usernames. I get so gooey inside and melt when Spanish speakers leave reviews (I can read Spanish guys, feel free to review in Spanish if that makes you more comfortable!) because they wanna share their love even if they can’t write in English well. I have an absolute fave and I shouldn’t but I can’t help it. Monika aka @mcornilliac leaves the BEST reviews and she reviews every chapter.

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

Oh tons. Tons, Tons, Tons! Here’s a few:

The Colors of Midnight by SouthSideStory is possibly my favorite thing they’ve written. I love so many of their SS fics but that’s the one I go back to the most. (also Providence, I love me a soulmate au)

Carrying On by Kiwako

Daimyo’s Daughter by Sakura’s Unicorn (but literally everything of theirs is re-read all of the time)

Spar by D.C. Filbert (warning: major smut)

Life After Detainment by merinxD

You Could See It Change by lavendersakurasasuke (it’s a Gothic Victoria AU but with ninjas!)

Chained by Kirikizu

xxlovendreamsxx has these LOTR AUs....fucking amazing. unfortunately I seem to have lost the link to them

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

lol...i’m just gonna say A LOT. I lost some of them when I didn’t have a FF account and if I didn’t I would have way more but trust me... A LOT.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

NON-MASS IS WHERE IT’S AT~ give me more SS non-mass and I will be the happiest person in the world.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

if I’m looking at it right....only 373 (me as an author not the individual works). and I love every single one of them.

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are 😨 of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

Sex scenes. I write it but I always feel nervous about them.

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

I wish I was more comfortable writing action. Also I do so much dialogue...I feel like it’s too much. I wish I was better at replying to comments (I try! like if someone writes me a hefty comment I’m likely to respond if I’m able to). Updating. If I could I would write and update every day.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

I write for the most popular ship in the Naruto fandom. But I also write ShiItaIzu and as a friend of mine has said before I’m not on an island by myself, I am the island. Google ShiItaIzu and posts to my content is what pops up. my readers seem to like them though so that’s great.

12. How many stories have you posted on FFNet/AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

5. Soon to be 8 if I ever get to publishing the other three. (not including prompt drafts)

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

*maniacal laughter ensues* i have so many....fanfic and original work....some of them are prompts...I’m a mess

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

mostly in my head but some things are written down. Most of those are rough drafts already.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

No. I’ve made fanfics based off headcanons I practically threw at friends and they told me how they felt about them. But never. I don’t think I ever will, at least not for SS.

16. How did you discover FFNet/AO3?

uh...i have no fucking clue. August of 2016 was when I started loving Naruto again and jumped into consuming all of the SS content I could find. I just googled and read like...everything.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on FFNet/AO3?

LOL....fuck no. I actually think I’m pretty insignificant in the Naruto fandom. But that’s okay.

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

no. maybe I should.... how about Loves? I’ll try it out in my next author’s note.

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

I don’t really have an author that inspired me. But @bkceallaigh is the reason anyone reads my stuff. she encouraged me to write and then finally publish a fanfic. And here we are.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

Write. Write what you feel. Write what you love. Write what makes you happy. Don’t worry about pleasing people, someone is always going to hate. Just write something you would want to read.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

LMAO. no. the closest I actually get to planning is something like “this is my goal. let’s get to it somehow.” i think I've only planned one story and hopefully I’ll post that prompt soon (it’s the Shape of Water AU).

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

Duh! I ranted and bitched to my friends. Some of them were sooooo bad. Like when I say bad it’s like they never even read the story or want to fore their interpretation on people. and then some anti-SS found me and decided to trash SS. like thanks...why the fuck are you here? so I will complain but I don’t care to confront them. Just...don’t like then don’t read.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Smut and action. Mainly ‘cause I want people to see the action in their head when I write but it doesn’t come out right... smut is bad sometimes ‘cause I get a little mechanical and describe the process and forget feeling sometime.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

Currently I’m mulling over Can I Be Yours? and Kingdom For Two and A Gift From The Universe. I’m really into A Gift From The Universe because it’s non-mass and I’m going to put a lot of focus on InoSai and ShiItaIzu, way more than I’ve done before.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

lol....I have my WIPs going on at the same time....I’m nowhere near finished.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

nope. Just write when I can. And wish that I was writing when I wasn’t.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

I want to say yes.

28. What is your favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

honestly....Kingdom For Two is my fic baby.

29. What is your least favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

The Planning Of A Matriarch actually. Like I could have done so much better. It’s still my baby but it’s the one that embarrasses me the most.

30. Where do you 👀 yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

hopefully with a finished original work lol

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

The easiest? I don’t know...I can’t really think about it right now...I guess for me, creating dialogue is the easiest thing....I’m really tired right now and may come back to edit this answer lol

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Telling myself to love what I write despite not getting the response that I want. There are people who love what I write and I move them with my writing. And I should appreciate what I get.

33. Why do you write?

It’s...so wonderful to see a world that’s trapped in my head come to life in front of me.

I will tag: @kuriquinn @roraewrites @xxxsasusakuxxx @randomwhorcrux @bkceallaigh and anyone that wants to do this

[zenlesszonezero]

Join Zenless Zone Zero with Tsukishiro Yanagi, the deputy leader of Hollow Special Operations Section 6! Beneath her ordinary office lady exterior lies a meticulous, emotionally intelligent big sister to the team.

[wolfie-dragon-rider]

My Fanfiction Masterpost

I just got 100 followers That totally didn’t happen three weeks ago already, and I’m totally not at 108 right now because I was too surprised and didn’t have a 100 follower special ready so to celebrate and thank my readers I decided to make this. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately in the aforementioned three weeks and I realized that a lot of you followed me because of my first big story, Black as Night, and its sequel, Blind Spots. I’ve been neglecting Blind Spots for a while, but I decided to get it out of hiatus and finally finish it. But when I looked for it on tumblr I realized that organizing things solely by tag is messy and annoying. 

So I decided to make a masterpost with links to all my fanfics, and to my accounts on fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own. I will keep this post updated whenever I post new fics or chapters, and it will be easily accessible from my profile. 

Now, I’m sure many of you skipped all that to get to the important part, so let’s get to it:

Table of Contents:

-My accounts -My Voltron: Legendary Defender fics -My How to train your Dragon short fics -Blindcup Universe (Black as Night and Blind Spots) -------------------------

My accounts:

Fanfiction.net (Wolfie-Dragon) Archive of our Own (Wolfie_Dragon)

-------------------------

For oneshots, the link will be in the title. For longer stories there is a link to each individual chapter below the summary. All stories are finished unless noted otherwise

My Voltron: Legendary Defender fics

The Imitation Game Summary: For as long as she could remember, Matt had been more than just a brother to Pidge. He was also her best friend and companion. She couldn’t imagine a world where he doesn’t exist. So when Pidge loses her brother, she can’t help but try to bring him back the only way she knows how. But she plays a dangerous game, one where the lines between imagination and reality blur.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

#

Lion’s Call Summary: After nearly getting killed during battle, Lance is confined to a healing pod. However, he seems to disagree with the severity of the situation, especially when he senses a cry of pain. And it’s up to Keith to make sure he’s going to heal.

--------------------------

My How to train your Dragon short fics:

Back to the Great Beyond Summary: Hiccup and Astrid always wanted to go back to Dragon’s Edge and have another adventure. But after Hiccup became chief there was never any time, and they never went back into the Great Beyond. Now it’s too late, but a gift from beyond the grave may show Astrid there are more ways to have an adventure than she thought.

#

Pressure Summary: Hiccup was always sure he was going to be a pilot. It was all he ever wanted. But when an unexpected problem emerges during his first flight, he learns that sometimes even the smallest things can crush the greatest dreams. Modern AU.

#

The Devil on the Mountaintop (on hold) Summary: Hiccup is part of a small mercenary company. He fights to survive, even though he hates killing. So he's eager when a letter brings them to the village of Berk to root out the monstrous demon on the nearby mountain. The monster jobs are easy, they're always just big animals. He's both right and wrong. This one is a big animal, but that doesn't make it easy. Medieval mercenaries AU.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

When I wrote this story, I had vague ideas on expanding it into a bigger AU. However, the plot bunnies died, and it never really went anywhere. However, if people are interested, I might write an alternative ending for chapter 1 to be more in line with the second chapter, and to have Toothless join the company.

#

Coloring the World Summary: After a car crash takes his leg, Hiccup starts sinking into depression, and he pushes everybody away. The world looks much grayer when you're forced to walk on a metal leg, after all. But thankfully a certain friend with bright yellow hair is determined to bring the colors back into Hiccup's world. Modern AU.

#

The Last Dragon Summary: Hiccup and Astrid are happily married, and Berk is at peace. But just when they think things couldn't be better, all the dragons start leaving, and Hiccup falls ill. Astrid starts losing hope when Hiccup says he'll die when the last dragon flies away, but perhaps there is a way to fight the inevitable. Post HTTYD 2, loosely based on O. Henry's short story 'The Last Leaf'.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

#

Paper Tiger Summary: Normally Astrid likes the calm, silence, and order that came with her job at the library. But one day a boy comes in, bringing nothing but chaos. And yet, she can't bring herself to be angry at the green-eyed boy and his black cat who so blatantly disrespected her books. Modern AU.

#

The Chief’s New Clothes Summary:  It's the first Snoggletog after Stoick's death, and Astrid is looking for a way to cheer Hiccup up. One problem: her mother keeps her busy with tailoring and other household lessons, citing their upcoming marriage. Astrid is not easily stopped when she is on a mission, however, especially when it involves new holiday traditions.

#

How to Replace a Leg Summary: Hiccup was not the only one to lose a leg in in the battle against the Red Death. Astrid doesn't let a wooden leg slow her down, getting right back to training no matter what, while Hiccup struggles with his own pain. Thankfully, they have each other to lean on when their own legs fail.

#

Kiss Cam Summary: Fluffy modern AU oneshot. Trying to bring back the spark in her love life, Astrid takes her boyfriend Eret to a soccer match. Their relationship is put to the test when the kiss cam falls on them during halftime. But when things get ugly, a certain mascot comes to the rescue.

----------------------------------------------------

Blindcup Universe:

Black as Night (completed) and Blind Spots (ongoing):

Black as Night was my first big story. It is unfortunately not posted on tumblr, but you can find it on fanfiction.net HERE, or on AO3 HERE. 

Summary:  Both Hiccup and Astrid are eager to prove themselves as worthy dragon killers in a war-torn Berk. But their lives change dramatically when Hiccup is blinded in a terrible accident in Dragon Training. And things only get more complicated when Hiccup has to hide a dragon in the forest and Stoick is desperate to punish someone for crippling his son. An alternative retelling of How To Train Your Dragon 1, featuring a blind Hiccup.

Blind Spots is the sequel to Black as Night. It’s a loosely connected series of oneshots showing how Hiccup and Astrid adapt to a life where Hiccup is blind. You could read these as stand-alone fluff or angsty Hiccstrid, but I’d advice you to read Black as Night first.

Chapter 1, Memories Summary: Three months have passed since Hiccup woke up a hero. Physically, he has healed, but he finds that losing one's sight means more than just getting lost or bumping into things. It also means forgetting what the world looked like. But thankfully, Astrid has a great birthday gift for him to cheer him up.

Chapter 2, Stories and Scars Summary:  With the war over, the Vikings of Berk had to find new hobbies to keep themselves busy. The most important of these: Dragon Racing! However, Hiccup is having trouble catching sheep without sight or throwing them in baskets. Meanwhile, Astrid feels bothered by Hiccup's ugly scars, and her mother's advice doesn't seem very helpful.

Chapter 3, Black Rain Summary: This chapter takes place during Black as Night. After the Battle of the Red Death, Astrid takes the wounded Hiccup back to Berk. Stoick is left behind on Dragon Island, and is forced to wonder if Hiccup will be okay. Even more pressing matters concern him, however, as the Vikings need food and shelter, and people are skeptical of the possibility of peace.

Chapter 4, Fighting and Hiding Summary: Hiccup is very happy when gets a nice new tool to help him get around town by himself. However, Astrid can't help but feel hurt when Hiccup gushes about how awesome it is, noticing he never thanked her for helping him. The two butt heads, leading to their first big fight.

Chapter 5: Dark Days, Bright Nights Summary: Not all scars are physical, and not all pain comes from visible wounds. Hiccup has become more anxious and nervous since he lost his sight. After all, when you're blind, you have a lot more to be afraid of. Thankfully, Astrid learns how to care for Hiccup when the demons in his head are too much for him.

Chapter 6, Forgotten Sins, Forgotten Virtues Summary: Astrid's parents see their daughter grow closer and closer to the chief's son. While Kirsten is happy Astrid isn't so cold anymore, Tolfdir is nervous. He remembers the foolishness inherent in young love. They remember their own whirlwind romance, their perfect love shattered by a horrible event. But maybe, with Astrid finding love, they can find a way to heal as well.

Chapter 7, Stuck Summary: Ice sucks. It sucks even more when you can't see it. It's even more horrible if you have a metal foot with little grip. Add an overprotective father on top of that, and you understand Hiccup gets a bit antsy when he hurts his leg. Stuck inside, Hiccup might face his greatest challenge yet: Boredom!

Chapter 8, Losing your Shadow Summary: Snoggletog is a time you spend with the ones you love. And although he's very, very happy he has Astrid, Hiccup's best friend is still Toothless. But when Hiccup gives him a Snoggletog gift, the dragon flies away! Meanwhile, Astrid finds that teaching Hiccup how to fight isn't as easy as she thought it would be. Gift of the Night Fury, featuring Blind Hiccup.

Chapter 9: Regaining Honor Summary: The Flightmare is coming, the Flightmare is coming! When the dragon who kills his brother and stole his family's honor shows up, Tolfdir is determined to slay it. But his drastic plan clashes with Berk's new policy of peacefully approaching dragons, and he is shut down. Astrid, however, isn't so easily deterred by old men saying she can't do something. Especially after training 10 years for this battle.

Chapter 10: Legends Old and New Summary: Hiccup and Astrid have made their relation official, but they still have a private date planned. Before that, however, the Midsummer Feast takes place! A time of festivities, eating, dancing, and honoring the gods. This year, however, Astrid's mother has something extra planned. The storyteller has written a play about Hiccup the Blind and Astrid the Scarred. But are the lovebirds really happy about this?

Chapter 11: Out of Touch Summary: Hiccup and Astrid generally make a good team, but problems are inevitable. Especially when one half of the team can't see and is forced to write using lines in copper, and the other half can barely feel said lines. When Astrid has trouble understanding one of Hiccup's inventions, frustrations explode.

Chapter 12: Echoes of the Past Summary: Even though Hiccup is getting more used to the blindness, fitting in on Berk is hard when everyone is determined to treat you differently when you're handicapped. So when Toothless helps him discover a cool new trick, Hiccup starts spending more and more time away from the village. But an old rival of Toothless is coming for revenge, and Hiccup will need to be ready for him.

Chapter 13: Invisible Friends When an eel pox epidemic sweeps through Berk, it's up to the dragon riders to gather the ingredients for the cure. However, since Astrid is sick, Hiccup is stuck with Snotlout! Can the two boys put their differences aside when their mission gets more and more complicated?

Chapter 14: The Burglar Princess With the return of peace to Berk also comes the return of old allies. The Bog-Burglars were the oldest allies of these, and one Burglar in particular was very close to Hiccup before his life got turned around. At first it appears like they're still the same friends they had been when they were kids, but they both changed more than the other expected.