#also i am so proud of the fact there's only one IF fanfic on ao3 (last i checked) and its an art teacher x reader

[drc00l4tt4]

,,, new fictional crush just dropped

[canonicallyobserving911]

WIP Wednesday

Fanonwriter2023 on AO3

Where CANON and FANON collide!

Season 7 FANON FanFic: Buddie Multi-Chapter Fanfic - Hiatus Reading: “I’m still in love with you but... I needed to learn how to love myself too!”

Chapter 28 will be posted soon.

This is an EPIC LOVE STORY!

Currently 27 chapters completed: 1.09M Words; Rated: Mature

One chapter will be posted at a time.

___________

I'm excited to finish writing Chapter 28 because at the end of Chapter 27, Buck, Eddie and Chris had just arrived in Philadelphia, PA so that Buck could say goodbye to his friend, Malone who passed away in December. Also, he wants to visit Daniel's grave again but this time he brought his husband and their son with him. While they're in PA, they're going to Hershey and Lancaster but is it possible they'll bump into the Buckley parents while they're visiting museums and eating Hershey's chocolate? When they were planning the trip, Eddie hoped they wouldn't but with their luck, it's possible. Buck planned a celebration for Eddie while they're there since he received his Paramedic Certification Certificate but Eddie's the only one who doesn't know about it.

When they return to L.A., of the four cardiac tests Dr. Salazar scheduled for Buck, he'll have two left to complete but the Diazes are worried since he fainted during the tilt table test and they're wondering if there are any long-term effects to his heart after the lightning strike. Additionally, all three members of the Diaz family are supporting one another as Buck continues to face the fact that he died last year and as he proceeds to deal with all 7 stages of grief. He was on the bargaining stage at the end of Chapter 27 but the next stage is depression so how will he deal with it, especially with everything else that's going on in their family?

___________

Here's a snippet from Chapter 28 of Buck and Eddie having a conversation while they're in bed in their hotel room in Philadelphia, PA.

___________

They're lying in bed facing each other and Buck decides to ask the question he's been wanting to ask since Tuesday. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You know you can ask me anything.  What would you like to discuss?”

He unwraps one of his arms, lifts his hand and cups his cheek.  “First, I want you to know how proud I am of you.”  After the words leave his lips, he closes the millimeters of space between them and he places a kiss onto his lips that’s soft, tantalizing and filled with love and devotion.  When he pulls back, he continues.  “Babe… from September to December, you worked hard to pass your Paramedic Certification Course, you accomplished your dream and me and Chris wanted to celebrate your achievement with you again.  I know we did it back in December after you finished your final exam but you’re officially a paramedic now and that’s important.”

Eddie nods as he remembers everything they did earlier in the day to celebrate.  With a smile on his face, he replies, “Thank you for the cake, the song and for the tour at the Giant Center”.

“You know you don’t have to thank me.  We wanted to do all of it just for you, Eddie because you deserve it.”  He takes a moment to prepare the next part because he knows how his husband internalizes everything and he wants the next thing he says to land properly.  “You becoming a paramedic is huge and extraordinary but we didn’t know you received your official certificate until I found it inside of one of the drawers in our credenza.  Um… you didn’t tell us about it but do you want to talk about why you didn’t mention it?”

Eddie sighs as the internal conflict he’s felt since it arrived last week increases.  “When it was delivered last Friday… I opened and looked at it but…”  He shrugs his shoulders as he tries to think of the words, he wants to use to describe how he felt.

“But what?” 

“With everything we have happening right now... it all seems so far away and I’m wondering if I should…”

He interrupts him and whisper asks, “If you should what?  Eddie, please don’t say you’re thinking about stopping.”

How is Eddie going to respond to Buck's question? 👀

Is he really considering giving up his dream of becoming the Critical Care Paramedic of Los Angeles County? 🙃

If so, why? 🤷🏽‍♀️

___________

Fic Summary: Months after Buck and Eddie were hit by the same lightning strike; they’re still struggling with the aftermath of it.  But before they make their love confessions, they’ll spend time getting to know themselves as individuals first. Eddie learns to enjoy the simple things in life as he participates in activities on his own and with new friends while Buck learns the rest of the 31-year-old deep dark family secret about his conception and birth. Their journey to forever is still a work in progress but once they finally admit they’re in love with each other, everything that follows their love confessions will be cataclysmic.

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Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 - Eddie makes a new friend while Buck receives devastating news regarding the sperm donation he made for Connor and Kameron.

Chapter 2 - Buck does a lot of research to learn more about the abnormalities found in his red blood cells and Eddie starts a new therapy journey that’s all about him and not the traumas he’s experienced.

Chapter 3 - After more than a month, Buck and Eddie finally spend time together outside of work but it doesn’t end well and they part with a lot of uncertainty regarding their places in each other’s lives.

Chapter 4 - Eddie has a few realizations about his life which causes him to consider moving back to El Paso, TX while Buck continues to be reminded of his past which causes him to take an impromptu road trip across America.

Chapter 5 - Both Buck and Eddie have difficult conversations with their parents and Buck finally learns the truth behind the reason why his mother despised him while Eddie finally tells his mother about the way she tries to control him.

Chapter 6 - More than two weeks after Buck pushed Eddie away after suggesting they needed a break; Eddie decides to try again. Eddie’s there for Buck when he’s at his worst just like Buck was there for him when he was at his worst and he won’t let Buck give up.

Chapter 7 - After Buck’s mental breakdown, Eddie has his back the same way Buck had his when he had his own breakdown more than a year ago.  They share several vulnerable and emotionally intimate moments with one another and they begin to realize their small, sweet and caring gestures matter just as much if not more than any grand gesture ever could because these are the foundations of a long-lasting love relationship.

Chapter 8 - Buck, Eddie and Chris all have their own therapists and during their sessions, they reflect on their pasts while they’re in the present so they can prepare for their future together as a family.

Chapter 9 - Buck and Eddie are there for each other when Buck has to testify as a witness during the trial.  But by the end of it, they’ll both realize their individual and shared traumas are going to keep resurfacing until they talk about them, deal with the fact that they’re in love with one another and face the fact that they can’t live without each other.

Chapter 10 - As Buck and Eddie finally begin to confront their past traumas, they realize how much they need each other to fill in the gaps of their memories.  Additionally, the universe screams at them for what appears to be the one hundredth time so Buck can realize he doesn’t have to ‘find it’ because he already ‘made it’ and Eddie’s reminded tomorrow isn’t promised and he doesn’t have to die alone if he doesn’t want to.

Chapter 11 - A “virga” or dry thunderstorm is in the forecast but once the rain starts, the thunderstorm happening outside won’t be able to match the storm brewing inside between Buck and Eddie.  It’s the universe’s final scream and when the tumultuous winds begin to blow, they’ll have one last chance to hold onto everything they’ve built over the last six years or they’ll lose it all forever.

Chapter 12 - Buck and Eddie have always shared a deep physical attraction and an emotional intimacy that’s unmatched but now that they’re in a relationship, they’re learning how to navigate the romantic intimacy they’ve been waiting for six years to explore. The love they have for each other is a once in a lifetime, soulmate, love of their lives type of love that transcends space and time.

Chapter 13 - While navigating the newness of their romantic relationship, Buck and Eddie take advantage of every moment they spend together. As their individual lives, people from their pasts, time constraints and the possibility of losing each other again make attempts to interrupt and interfere with their journey to forever, they love, care for, support and hold onto each other even tighter to withstand it all.

Chapter 14 - Buck and Eddie can see the lights at the end of the tunnels regarding the results of Buck’s Cancer Screening along with everything else they’re dealing with. But are the lights they see exits to the tunnels or are they headlights on different runaway trains that are speeding towards them in an effort to interrupt their forever?

Chapter 15 - Buck and Eddie have known they were exactly who the other one wanted in a partner since they met six years ago when they agreed to have each other’s backs. They’re in a romantic relationship, they’re both preparing to ask the other one to spend forever with them and by the end of the seventh week into their relationship, together they will plan their most important and greatest adventure for their future.

Chapter 16 - As Buck and Eddie begin to prepare for their marriage ceremony that will take place in Rome, Italy in December 2023, they start planning their first international adventure as a romantic couple. Even though Chris is still the only person they’ve told about their relationship, several people who know them have already witnessed the love they share and as the days continue, others will witness it too.

Chapter 17 - As Buck and Eddie get closer to departing Los Angeles for their international adventure, a moment in time will remind them; life is fragile, tomorrow isn’t promised and every second of everyday should be cherished because everything can change in an instant. The result of that realization will cause them to hold onto each other even more.

Chapter 18 - As Buck, Eddie and Chris prepare for family gatherings before and during the Thanksgiving holiday, the “Santa Ana Winds” start to blow and all sorts of expected and unexpected familial drama ensues.

Chapter 19 - As Buck and Eddie get closer to their wedding day, the universe begins to align everything so that some of their parent and children's relationships are strengthened while others come to an abrupt end.

Chapter 20 - With only 14 days remaining until Buck, Eddie and Chris depart Los Angeles, CA traveling to Rome, Italy, for their first family adventure, an early morning conversation about “tying up loose ends” helps Buck and Eddie realize there are still several things left unfinished on their ‘To Do’ lists. The question is will there be enough time to complete all of them?

Chapter 21 - Buck, Eddie and Chris are finalizing their ‘To Do’ Lists, double checking their itineraries and packing their suitcases in preparation for their trip to Europe so they can board their flight that departs Los Angeles, CA on Friday, December 15, 2023 at 3:25PM.

Chapter 22 - While Buck, Eddie and Chris spend the first 8 days of their European family adventure in Italy, their primary reason for going will be fulfilled as well as several others they hadn’t considered or anticipated.

Chapter 23 - As the Diaz Family continues their Italian family adventure, they’ll say, “Ciao” or hello and goodbye to a lot of things almost immediately after they become an official and legal family.

Chapter 24 - After Buck, Eddie and Chris arrive in London, England on December 24th; the Diazes immediately start preparing to spend their first family Christmas together. During their stay, each of them will hear a few choice words that will be the life raft to get them home to complete their searches to be seen and to be found.

Chapter 25 - After spending more than two weeks in Europe, Eddie, Buck and Chris are back in Los Angeles and they’re getting ready to attend Maddie and Chimney’s New Year’s Eve party. During the event, they have plans to make two surprise announcements but the question is, who’s really going to be surprised, the Diaz family or their found family at the 118?

Chapter 26 - Buck and Eddie are once again faced with their greatest fear of losing each other but this time it could be permanent and if it is, then they won’t be able to spend the rest of their lives together.

Chapter 27 - After Buck resumes therapy, he’ll continue to face the fact that he “DIED” in March 2023 and during those sessions, he’ll learn about the 7 stages of grief. As he continues his healing journey, Eddie will be right by his side just like he promised and the Diaz family will start to deal with their three minutes and seventeen seconds loss as a family.

Chapter 28 - Will be posted soon.

__________

Read chapters 1-27 are available on AO3.

Continue reading on AO3

[meetinginsamarra]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I've been tagged by @totallysilvergirl and @calaisreno TYSM!!

1. How many works do you have on A03?

51 in total

12 "real" fics and 21 ficlets and 18 covers (I didn't know how to embed on AO3 back then)

2. What's your total A03 word count?

271.977

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Sherlock BBC

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Mutual Attraction , Learn My Scars, The toe that didn´t belong, The embers still glow when I´m sober , Gravity is missing from everything

The last three are in fact a series called Here I Am

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Of course! Always and quickly. I love comments, they make my day and fill me with happiness for hours. Not kidding!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of my fics end angsty. Some of my ficlets might, possibly Time

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

They all end happily.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

There had been a few very weird comments on "Mutual Attraction" that were rude or offensive. Some had been deleted by the cowards who posted them later.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes, I have written porn and enjoyed it. I also write gen and everything in between. Depends on the story.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No, because I define "crossover" as a mix of two existing universes, like Sherlock x Star Trek for example. I have written several AUs though. Alternate Universes with the same characters of my show but placed somewhere else.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have been offered three times but declined because I personally am not comfortable with it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Johnlock

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have this fairy tale AU sitting in my drafts for literal years. 20k written and several attempts to take it up again, it is mostly plotted but just resists being finished. *sigh*

16. What are your writing strengths?

Learning by doing, I guess? I think of myself that I am versatile. Maybe writing movie-like action scenes. I remember that's been said in comments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I honestly do not know. (Which is not me saying I can do everything perfectly!! I just try whatever I want.) Finishing the above mentioned fic possibly.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If it fits the story, why not? I write in English which is not my native language, so I could do German and some French and Italian, too.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sherlock BBC.

I've actually never written anything before I started with Sherlock fanfic. I got this idea and it grew and I began to write it down just for me so that I would not forget it. Then I thought, why not write it into a fic? I've been reading a lot fanfic already. Over the course of two years (writing on and off) the idea had turned into a 94k fic. I only started posting "Mutual Attraction" when it was completed on AO3.

I still think it's funny because just imagine this. Never wrote a word of fiction before, not even in my native language. Then, first thing I produced is a novel-length fic written directly in English. Still seems surreal to me.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I love all of my babies and will not choose a fave one. There are only faves in categories.

"Mutual Attraction" was my first and longest fic.

"Wretched and Divine" was the one that made me find my dear friend and beta @peageetibbs

Technically, I am most proud of pulling off "Learn My Scars" because it is 38k written under a huge amount of pressure due to daily posting for Whumptober 2022. Five weeks of intense writing madness but very rewarding, too.

AU and plot-twist wise it would be "The 13th Book ".

---------

So many people have done this but I think @shiplocks-of-love @shelleysprometheus @cumbercurlygirl have not been tagged yet. And anybody else who wants to share, please.

[gildedmuse]

If anyone is wondering why I haven't updated, there are a number of reasons. However, a major one is that Crunchyroll will no longer allow you to use old versions of the app. What this means is I am no longer able to take screenshots of record small scenes so I can transcribe them or basically do most of what I do here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this blog, I am a broke ass bitch with a chronic, genetic kidney diseases I had the pleasure of being born with, which severely limits me in a number of ways. One such way is money: medical bills at expensive and even with insurance I owe something like $1,462.78 and that's just the past year. Nevermind the bills I collected from other hospitals/doctors. The result is I live a pretty simply life, including the fact that I don't own any sort of fancy recording equipment like "a pc". Every screenshot, every gif, every artistic and not so artistic edit, every video recording, every single post and fanfic and reply, that is all done from my phone. It's my one and only portal to the Internet and sole tool to do whatever is is I do.

With that in mind, while I am proud I managed to take my degree in English Literary Theory and learn how to do all of that on an older model Android I've had for a few years now, I also know that then bulk of internet denizens are just WAY more skilled/knowledge at this then I will ever be.

Keep in mind, I have no money (so advice along the lines of "just buy this $99 program, it's so easy!" or "why not just get a cheap laptop, you can get one for under $600 EASY these days" or even "you just need a monthly subscription to this OTHER streaming site, that doesn't have a film blocker" just doesn't help, especially since I don't even have my own subscription to CR so there is no just dropping that to pay for another.) I was hoping someone out there knew a method I could use to record the "latest" episodes.

I say latest but I left off at 1078. I know, I'm ages behind, but there is a good reason for it.

Please, anyone who knows how I can take screencaps (recordings would be useful but not required) PLEASE contact me and let me in on your secret.

I won't tattle, I swear. I just want to be able to watch the show and react about it on this blog since, sadly, I've recently lost all my OP watching buddies to various life circumstances.

Failing that, I need someone to agree to watch every single episode along with me as my "recorder", recording long swatches of each episode and then sending to me when we're done so I can get my screencaps and gifs and the likes. The good news? You'd have someone eternally thankful for your contributions, who would credit you in every post, and I wouldn't even use any jokes/observations/thoughts you might share while we watch without permission. And.... errrr. Did I mention the gratitude? Shit, that's really all I have.

But I have so much of it!

Guys, I hate getting all emotional, but I am having a hell of a year between the dogs, the bad diagnosis and, hey, this is currently my face:

For comparison, when I'm not dying:

Just any help or even attempts at advice would be welcomed. I know it's stupid, but a lot of what I personally get from reading/watching/playing things is in sharing it with others. I shouldn't have to explain that, it's part of why places like Tumblr and AO3 EXIST.

Feel free to reach out in a reblog, comment, tag me, DM, message me on discord (gildedmuse). Whatever is easiest. And thank you, so, SO much for any potential advice or help you can offer.

[resplendent-chungus]

Fanfic 20 questions! This seems really fun, thanks for tagging me @followerofmercy

1. How many fics do you have on AO3?

Twenty-six! Which I think is a bunch when not compared to insane people who right, say, a hundred twenty fics. Cough Mercy.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

179,826, though I will add since I got my start in fic writing quests on Sufficient Velocity, there's another 113.2K that's not on AO3.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

My tastes are as fickle as the wind. I am a wandering ronin writing whatever I feel like. I theoretically write RWBY but also haven't updated a RWBY fic since January. I thought I was done with Madoka fics but then I heard news about the movie and had no choice but to write Heartless. I've written 3 A Practical Guide To Evil fics over 5 years. Who fuckin knows with me?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Breaking and Entering Your Heart (Madoka Magica) is, somehow, my most kudo'd fic of all time. I have no idea why. I don't think it's particularly good (not helped by the fact that I was like 16 when I wrote it). It's not even my favourite Madoka fic I wrote as a teenager!

Doka Don't You Know (Madoka Magica) is my favourite Madoka fic I wrote as a teenager. It's still kind of embarrassing for me to read back, but I do think I did good with it. The real embarrassing part is that it was inspired by me getting emotional listening to the Ninja Sex Party song of a similar name.

Drabble Roulette (Steven Universe) is sort of cheating, as it was a drabble collection I did with several friends, but nevertheless it's one of the most kudo'd fics I've worked on. We all did a short fic every week based on the same one-word prompt, and God we kicked ass.

I can almost hear the Hounds (RWBY) is definitely the one I'm most proud of. What if Ruby got turned into a Hound before V1? Well everyone would be sad, for one. It also holds the distinction of being the first time anyone's ever done a "Cast of [show] reacts!" thing to a fic I've read. Talk about an ego boost!

And my fifth-most kudo'd fic is... Actions, Consequences, and the Tragic Lack Thereof (Worm)? The edgy oneshot I did where a very well-adjusted Taylor uses Coil's power to blow off steam? Huh. Not either of my RWBY oneshots? Well I suppose I can't complain.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Not really. I try, but as I've said before responding to comments is my dump stat. I really do love everyone's comments, I'm sooo insanely bad at responding sdgsd

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

It depends on what qualifies as an angsty ending; most of my angsty fics have happy endings, with Heartless being the only one I've written to really contradict that. Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff and Sometimes the only way out is as a carcass have the worst endings insofar as horrible fates, but I wouldn't really call them angst.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Trim and nothing else? It depends on how you define it, but I'd say that one.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really, thankfully. I straight up can't remember anything of the sort lmao

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Boy, do I! Of the smut I've published, I'd say it's pretty varied? Some het, some gays, some ships and an OC or two... I've got the variety, baby.

10. Do you write crossovers? If so, what's the craziest one you've ever written?

Not really? I find they're usually more daydream material than hunker-down-and-write material, though sometimes I have no choice. I have a chapter or two of the most self-indulgent APGTE/RWBY crossover that I doubt I'd ever put out there on account of it having a target audience of exactly one. Craziest would probably be the Madoka Magica/Magical Girl Noir Quest crossover I wrote as a teenager. It's harder to get more self-indulgent than fanfiction of a fanfiction crossing it over with the source material sdgds

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I sort of vaguely remember this happening? I remember someone posting a really poorly written edgy SU fic that had the exact same premise as my slightly better written edgy SU fic and only updated after mine did.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, though if anyone wants to please feel free.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really? The Drabble roulette is the closest I've come, and that was a bunch of individual shorties. Besides, I can't imagine I'd have a great time trying to fit my writing process with someone else (and I definitely don't think they'd have a good time trying to adjust to me lmao)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

God that's tough. I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer here. I might have to say Madohomu or Midlink just because of how deeply they've altered my brain chemistry

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Brother that is most of what I've written. I really want to get Tomorrow I'll be perfect and You waxen wing, you foolish thing done at some point, though I'm not sure I'm will. The Most Insane Girls On Remnant is a work so in progress that only one person knows it even exists, and if I could magic myself into fully writing one it would probably be that one.

16. What are your writing strengths?

If I could write an entire book of nothing but snarky narrators I would be a new york times bestseller by now. They are my bread and butter. Comedy in general, I guess, but that specifically.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes. Action scenes action scenes action scenes. It's not so much that I think I'm bad at them, more that they're just so hard for me. I could write a thousand words of most anything else before I write five hundred words of an action scene.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't super mind it when reading, but I can't imagine writing it. Maybe a word or two, but still.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote down Madoka Magica at first, but now I'm realizing it was actually Warrior Cats, all the way back when I was a wee little child. I'm not sure if I deleted them or just changed ff.net accounts at some point, but I don't know where they are and I'm happy that way.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I mean it's gotta be I can almost hear the Hounds. There's a lot of other things like (Aw Drat, Tomorrow I'll be Perfect, etc) but this one hold a special place in my heart. There's a reason I have chapter on pinned in my blog.

Damn that took me like three days to write. I shall pass the curse onto @golddragon387, of course, and perhaps @borkthemork to torment him

[remyfire]

I think the funniest thing about Hawk being Like That is that Alan Alda has writers credits on the show. This man voluntarily made his character the most touch starved needy desperate person on the planet and that's so fucking insane of him. But also Mr Alda I would like to give you a little hug and a kiss for giving him to us because I love him with my whole heart. And don't even get me started on the fact that Hawkeye yelled to a general "I want to have your baby!" In literally the first season. Like Hawkeye my love not everyone needs to know you want to be pregnant 😂 And truly he deserves to be absolutely smothered with cuddles, everyone loves him and he loves everyone and I think it could help fix him.

Listen my Trap brain is always on, he's my man, I am thinking about him quite literally daily. And now that you reminded me of the priest line I'm gonna think of that too! Like Trapper my love what happened in your past? Did your parents give you that many names in hopes you'd be a priest? Did you pick one yourself for confirmation? Why did you keep all of the names despite seemingly abandoning the religion? I am peering at him like a bug under a microscope and there's nothing he can do about it.

That little coffee through line with Margret is so cute! Even though I'm sure it was unintentional on the show's part I definitely couldn't help but think of it and flash back to The Nurses in both the scenes in Temporary Duty and CAVE. Margaret and cups of coffee representing her character growth is honestly so sweet and I love it. Also ooohhhh self proclaimed Military Brat Margaret Houlihan realizing that the Army Way isn't the only way or even the best way, and the things that would DO to her. The realization that what she's learned her whole life isn't necessarily good, and having to contend with what that means for her and her career and her personality. And also having to face her father after that, because we see in Are You Now, Margaret? that she cares very much about disappointing him and even affecting his career. Would such a realization maybe help her become more of her own person that isn't living only to make her father proud and keep up the Houlihan name? Or is her desire to be a point of pride for her family more important to her than her personal development? Truly she's so fascinating to me. And it's definitely an interesting parallel with Mulcahy, both of them having something so deeply ingrained in them that it h u r t s when it's finally inevitably broken out.

Everyone in this show suffered enough in the narrative for several lifetimes but damn if I don't wanna give them a little bit more hardship to really crack them open and wrap up their character development in the way they deserve. I'll definitely give them softness and love but first they need a little bit of pain I think 😂

(Also I am officially onto season 8! I finished Goodbye Radar last night and was a Wreck. Man I love this show)

Okay hi again anon, sorry for making this sit while thinking too hard about Hawk and Beje and Trap things.

I swear that Alan did more to break and attempt to breed Hawk than any of us fanfic authors have ever done. I am not entirely convinced that this man didn't start getting the bends once he couldn't whump Hawk anymore and instead pivoted to writing fanfics for the old distant zines that popped up in the '80s. He probably has multiple AO3 accounts right now just churning out agonizing pain. Alan we know what you are.

I do hate that we got so little development for Trap compared to Beej but it's also delightful because it means all of us get to sit here and rotate him on a merry-go-round that goes faster and faster and never stops. Anything is possible. He's so INTERESTING!!! He's like half a guy! No matter what anyone says, they could probably make it work! And that means I am in fact slam dunking the religious trauma into him at breakneck speeds. Sorry, bud (lie).

I'm so glad you mentioned Are You Now Margaret because that's one of those underrated episodes that always has its teeth so deep in me. We learn so much about her so fast. Her big friend group!! She had so many people who loved her and who she loves enough that she refuses to endanger them even though she hasn't spoken to make in years!! The fact that she will give her father that kind of deference even though we all know in our bones that he doesn't deserve it! God, Margaret.

I love people like you who run in with a wrecking ball just absolute decimating all these characters that we know and love so that I can come in after in my little clown car with hot chocolate and blankets. I am a simple author. I know what my duty is here. And it's getting everybody laid by everybody else but ALSO giving them extreme amounts of aftercare and pillow nests ;v; We all share such a vital role in this ecosystem.

[le-panda-chocovore]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "le-panda-chocovore "?

Oh I think I can actually answer that without rambling too much !! (<- took an entire week to answer the ask and select the fics, and I commented on each one of them lol) It won't be a Top in order of preference tho, there's no actual classment, it's just the ones I loved the most.

The Way I Behaved - EraserMic (MHA)

This fanfic gave me the inspiration to write my greatest work (still unfinished to this day) and literally changed so many things about me. It also made me discover a whole genre of music that I've never listened to before and with which I am entirely in love now. Prepare to cry tho, because this is deeply heartbreaking. It's a Villain Mic AU where Aizawa was never a teacher. And it is good.

What if Percy did become a God - Percy Jackson and the Olympians (based on the books !!! do not read if you just watched the show !!!)

The title says everything. This is not a happy story, you will cry, I promise. It's short, like a 1k word OS, it's really poetic, it's deep, it's beautiful, and also, it's painful. Humans were never meant to be gods, not even Percy. It's written like a poem, I read it so many times and it hurt me every time.

Demon and Angel Professors - Ineffable Spouses (Good Omens)

Not a fanfiction but a serie of short works about Crowley and Aziraphale and the people around them. A teachers AU very nice to read with many Original Characters (the students) who are all captivating and appreciable. The story is extremely queer-positive and neurodivergent inclusive and physical handicap representative, honestly, you want to read it. There's everything inside it. If you have chronic pain or if you're a closeted queer or even a curious ally who wants to understand their peers, this is what you need. The love is so pure it's overwhelming.

Honor and Vengeance on the High Sea - Zuko (ATLA)

Tbh this deserves to be published, it's a novel itself (I haven't finished it yet). The author reappropriated the Avatar universe to write something completely new. It's an AU where Zuko becomes a Pirate after his banishment and fights against the Fire Nation Navy, and eventually joins the Avatar's team. There's a whole work around internalized homophobia, the discovery of the self, acceptance, injustice, family trauma and everything. Original Characters are cool too. Chapters are long and very, very complete, you can see the author has historical and cultural knowledge.

Strength, the meaning of - Asano Gakuhou (Assassination Classroom)

I can't believe a fanfic about this total asshole made it to my top 10, but it is beautifully written. The progressive mental breakdown of a man who used to stand proud above everyone, the slow fall down to hell without even realizing it. There's also his son's POV here, which is equally beautifully written. I really hate the man and I don't like the fact that the end of AssClass completely disregard the consequences of what happened on the character's mental state, and reading how even him wasn't okay at all is very pleasant to read. That's karma my bitch.

Je suis assis - BokuAka (Haikyuu)

Yeah it's in french and on wattpad. It has been a while since I read it but I still remember the principal. It's a OS anyway so it's not very long (we didn't do that 20k words OS on Wattpad, this madness is only popular on AO3 lol). Since I'm sensitive to everything that is around handicap, it touched me. It ended up being cute and warm. Honestly I was more thinking of another BokuAka fanfiction but I couldn't remember the name nor found it online so I put this one.

25 - Riren (SnK)

Yeah yeah I know, pedo ship etc, but I was 14 and this is a High School AU where they're both 16 so, it's okay I guess. Yes the name of the fanfic is twenty-five. It's in french, it's on wattpad, and there's Eren's POV too. I don't know how I'm supposed to describe it... I think you have to read it, it's not actually strange or weird but, it's a whole experience.

Here there be dragons - Centennial Husbands (the Sandman)

This is the exact definition of love. What is love to me ? This fanfiction. Engagement, devotion, caring, this is it, this fanfic has the meaning of all these words. I had a hard time reading it because I hate ultra-long OS (I need CHAPTERS, give me a BREAK) but it was soooo enjoyable, and I was crying the whole time 'cause it's so pure and beautiful.

Palm to Palm - KaRen (Assassination Classroom)

Yes I am a part of the extremely tiny fandom that ships Karma and Ren (I do ship Karma with multiple people throughout the manga lmao) but only in THIS specific context. And this is beautifully written, I can't stop re-reading it. Also, the name of the ship makes me laugh. Karma and Ren relationship after losing Gakushuu -the boy they both love above everything else- is peak romance.

Le goût du chocolat - L x Light (Death Note)

I honestly don't remember a thing about this fanfiction except a single sentence, but I do know that I totally fell in love with it. It was one of my fave fanfic when I was full active on Wattpad, and I even archived it because I didn't want to lose it. I should read it again now that I found it again.

Alright that's 10 !!! Finally !!

Oh it was so fun to fall back into all the things I read before ! But it was harder than I expected because, well, I only have AO3 for 3 years and I've been on Wattpad for 7 years, but I started reading fanfiction even before that, I just didn't have any account back then. So, I kinda forgot about some of the things I read more than 4 years ago, and I couldn't find the gems I discovered when I was 12. Most of the books that made out to this list are my recent lectures, it's a bit biased I guess.

Anyway, thank you for the ask ! It was fun to analyze all my bookmarks and everything !

[productofaritual]

Tumblr doesn't let u pin multiple posts, so here's some posts I would pin too if I could :D (will grow over time)

Watch me go insane in real time

Crazy? I was crazy once

More about asks

More about me but in the form of a bad joke

Art (and not just art) resources

Intro? Intro. I've decided to actually engage with OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. Sometimes. Occasionally. To talk about my silly little thoughts and silly little writing.

Agender, any pronouns/terms (neutral preferred), Aroace

I'm working on an original book called "Bound By Name". It has its own tag and if you want to know about it, be sure to check out #Bound By Name (intro post about it here) (I don't post much about it but I am in the process of writing!)

Author/fanfic writer

Bilingual (English/Czech)

My ao3

Askbox always open! Speak to me! Also if you have fic prompts or ideas you think I'd like/want me to write, throw them in there too!

DMs always open but say what you want right in the first message because I might not answer or panic block

Spam liking/reblogging/commenting is A-OK. I love to see people enjoying my silly little posts

Moot = can interact anytime all the time as much as they like I literally can't say how much I appreciate all of them

I mainly write SBI and beeduo (yes, in 2024) and talk about random stuff

All of my fics are strictly about the characters! All of them! Every single one!

Way more WIPs than completed works

Expect me talking about discontinued works, unfinished works, or those on hiatus, but I'll only be posting the finished ones on ao3! That's why they're taking so long

I only write for the DSMP fandom but some of my other interests include: D&D, Detroit: Become Human, EPIC: The Musical, Project SEKAI, Genshin, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, The Magnus Archives and maybe getting into the life series

CRINGE CULTURE IS FUCKING DEAD

DNI: Basic DNI, just don't be weirdchamp and we'll probably get along. I really don't think I mind anyone with basic human decency. If I dislike something you do I'll just block

Not siding with anyone on any cc drama ever. All I'll say is do your research and base your opinions on concrete proof and verified facts. I might have my own opinion, but I will not be voicing it.

Blinkies and tag sorting under cut!

Tag sorting (started 22.05.2024 so anything earlier isn't gonna have them. Also I just forget to add them sometimes)

#textpost.bzzt - generic post that I made. Includes asks because I don't get enough of them to justify making a separate tag

#rbees.bzzt - reblogs. Can you tell I'm proud of that pun?

#artbees.bzzt - specifically art reblogs. Can you tell I'm even more proud of that pun? (I tend to reblog art multiple times, only one will be tagged)

#fandom.bzzt - fandom related posts. Can be any fandom. Art reblogs won't have it, mainly because I'm lazy

#mootsies.bzzt - anything related to my mutuals

#personal.bzzt - stuff that might be a bit more personal/talking about my personal life. No I'm not doxxing myself, just talking about my pets or experiences or whatever

#writing.bzzt - anything writing related

#onceinafullmoonramble.bzzt - my once in a full moon rambles. They're longer than my usual posts and can be about literally anything

#horizonverse.bzzt - anything related to the fanfic series "Event Horizon" by Hellenite on ao3. Will not be tagged with fandom or fic tags most of the time because I don't wanna spam them. I didn't have any part in the creation of it, it's just my special interest

#genshin dsmp fusion - a random au I post about that features the DSMP as a new genshin region and the members as playable characters! It's not a fic and I don't plan on writing it into one, I'm just rambling about my ideas for it

(Made w https://blinkies.cafe, divider by cafekitsune)

[saiilorstars]

Ch. 26: Beyond the Liaison & Profiler

[Story Masterlist] // [Aitana’s Masterlist]

Fandom: Criminal Minds // Pairing: Spencer Reid x OFC

Taglist: @ocappreciationtag​​​​​ @arrthurpendragon​​​​​ @anotherunreadblog​​​​​ @maaaaarveeeeel​​​​​ @stareyedplanet​​​​​ @averyhotchner​​​​​​ @foxesandmagic @kmc1989​​​​​​

If you’d like to be a part of Aitana’s taglist, please let me know!

Also available on Fanfic ○ Ao3 ○ Wattpad

Aitana brought her game tonight even if it meant feeling her soreness each time she moved quicker than she should. Still, she was very proud when she fit the last piece of the puzzle before Spencer could even reach for the damn thing.

"Ha! Yes! I win—" She had barely cheered with fists in the air when she felt the sharp jab on her side and was forced to pull her arms down. She settled for one mock salute afterwards.

Spencer was only holding his laugh because it looked like she'd hurt herself badly. "I, uh, thought this was supposed to be a friendly puzzle..." He remarked, pushing his chair closer to the table.

Aitana snorted, very subtle passing a hand over her wound. The kitchen table thankfully hid the movement from Spencer. "You do realize that everyone else was happy to tell me that you're secretly competitive, right?"

"Spencer frowned. "I'm not competitive."

"That's not what Morgan swears."

"I'm not!"

Aitana raised a hand, indicating she would pause the argument. "You know what? Because you so kindly came over to lend me a new book and you actually sat down to do a puzzle with me, I'm going to pretend that Morgan wasn't right. You've given me some fun on this solitary evening of mine."

Spencer deadpanned her. "Wow, so big of you. Thanks."

Aitana smiled proudly. "Yes, I am."

Spencer pretended to disapprove of her tidbits. She was right, though, in that the evening had turned out to be a little more fun than expected. Keeping true to his promise, he had let her borrow some of his books while she recuperated at home. Tonight, he'd stopped by to pick up the finished book from her and to give her a new one in place. He found her alone at home doing a puzzle and when she asked if he wanted to stay for a bit, he couldn't refuse. More to the fact that he actually liked doing puzzles, he wasn't fond of the idea of her being alone while she was healing a bullet wound. In the case of an emergency, it would be better if someone was with her. It was also a better way to spend his free evenings. He had found himself drifting to JJ's home a lot more lately and he would like to give her couch a break. Aitana seemed to help distract him in a good way.

So, she allowed him to help her with her puzzle. Somehow along the way, it may have turned into an unspoken race to see who could finish it first. She did, apparently. It was all still very shocking to Spencer.

"Alright, I'm sorry," Aitana said in the end, offering him one genuine smile. "I may get a little competitive myself."

"Noo," Spencer feigned shock.

"But it's not often I can do it with puzzles!" she exclaimed. "My family doesn't do them and Elia thinks they're kind of stupid so I'm usually only competitive with myself. But now I have you!"

"Lucky me…"

"I'll stop," Aitana said, leading Spencer to laugh.

"No, it's fine. But you do know that I let you win, right?"

Aitana raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh? You let me win?"

Spencer nodded, now growing his own smirk. "Sorry to tell you the truth, but you don't get a pass just because you have an injury."

Her 'ha!' echoed in the kitchen. "We'll just see about that," she warned. She reached for the puzzle box and pulled the lid open. "You know I have like a hundred more of these boxes, right?" She asked as she started dumping their finished puzzle into the box.

"Are they actually challenging?" Spencer was full blown proud of himself by this point. He couldn't tell if the incredulous shock on Aitana's face was real or not but he liked it either way.

"Oh, oh, it's on!" she pointed at him. "It is so on! Just you wait!"

"I look forward to it," he said, flashing her a casual smile that just irked her even more.

Before she said anything else, they heard the front door opening. Spencer didn't even have the time to consider the possibility of an intruder when a familiar voice called.

"Aitana?"

"Kitchen!" Aitana didn't look up from the puzzle she was dumping into the box.

Spencer recognized Angel when he walked into the room.

"We have visitors?" He looked at Spencer with some curiosity.

"Competition," Aitana corrected, shooting Spencer a little mock-glare.

Spencer smiled only briefly now. It was hard not to feel self conscious around Angel after everything that happened — things that almost happened. He was beginning to realize that he had actually spent quite a few hours with Aitana tonight. There was nothing wrong with it of course (they hadn't done anything wrong) but there was the senseless guilt gnawing at him anyways.

"I'm sorry, what was the name again?" Angel asked.

Spencer cleared his throat as he pulled himself up from his chair. "Spencer Reid," he could only wave a hand at Angel.

"I'm Angel, nice to see you again. Sorry, I forget just about everything."

"His head wouldn't be there if it wasn't attached," Aitana remarked and smirked when Angel shot her a look.

"Ignoring her," Angel pulled his attention off her a second later. "If you stayed with her voluntarily, I commend you."

"Uh, it was…" Spencer was naturally puzzled with the words. They seemed a little harsh, in his opinion.

Aitana rolled her eyes at the comment. "Don't mind him, he's extra rude when he comes home from work."

"I own a restaurant so I deal with a lot of people," Angel exhaled a heavy breath, his dark eyes widening as he probably thought of his day. "We had multiple big parties today, so..."

Spencer nodded. That sounded hectic and definitely not what he would want to do with his day. "I should get going," he said.

"What?" Aitana blinked in surprise. "But I said it was on! You can't leave once I say it's on!"

Spencer smiled at her. It was a whole other side he was seeing of her and it was very amusing.

"She is so competitive, don't mind her," Angel shook his head.

"I am not!"

"Right."

"It's fine, Aitana, you need to rest. Penelope really wants you to come back already." Spencer counted at least a dozen moments in which Penelope said those exact words. She had grown attached to Aitana working as co-liaison partners.

"Do you mean to tell me it's just Penelope who wants me back?" Aitana feigned offence. "Nobody else?"

"Of course we all want you back," Spencer amended his fault even if he didn't have any. "But to do that, you do need to rest."

Aitana sighed. "Fine, but you're not off the hook."

"God forbid you get off the hook," Angel reiterated with a small laugh to follow.

Aitana chose to ignore him. "Thanks for the books, Spencer. I'll take good care of them, I promise."

He had no doubt that she would. She was the most organized person in the team. "I'm glad they're helping with the boredom. I'll see you soon."

She nodded. "Yup!" If it was up to her, she'd already be back at the BAU.

"Bye." For some reason, Spencer left in a hasty manner like he was trying to get away. He was smart enough to know why but it was better to pretend to be confused. It saved him the embarrassment.

"I cannot believe you forced that poor guy to do a puzzle with you," Angel said as soon as they heard the front door close. "Seriously? Did you want to torture him like that?"

Aitana rolled her eyes as she finished placing the lid over her puzzle box. "Some people actually like doing puzzles and for your information, Spencer is one of them."

Angel snorted at the idea. "Why?" He headed for the kitchen cabinets.

"They're relaxing!"

"Not with you! Ten bucks says you got competitive with him." Angel paused to see Aitana's face and was more than pleased with himself to see her looking away with guilt. "I knew it." He snagged a glass from the cabinet and headed for the filter.

"It's not my fault," Aitana shrugged. "You and Mateo never wanted to do puzzles with me. I always did them by myself so now that I actually have a friend who likes to do puzzles, I want to keep my winning streak." Angel shook his head at her then drank water. "And I'm going to keep them, eidetic memory or not."

Angel snorted again, nearly choking on his water because of it. "It's not healthy to be that competitive, you know."

"It's fun." Aitana gathered her puzzle box and got out of her chair.

"You're going to run him off, you know!"

Aitana smirked. "Doubt it. He invited me to the movies Friday."

"Oh!" Angel barely made a face when Aitana added that it was a group invitation. It was nowhere near what he was thinking.

"There's a movie that Penelope wants to watch," Aitana said, shrugging her shoulders. "So there's your FYI. You better cook dinner yourself tonight."

Angel snorted then fully laughed. "When do you ever cook dinner for me!?"

Aitana rolled her eyes and decided to head upstairs for some relaxing reading. She did have something new to read after all.

~0~

On Friday, Aitana received an apology text from Penelope because they'd gotten a new case and their movie plans were unfortunately put on hold. Aitana sent back a response assuring her that she of course understood.

She spent the weekend moving around as much as she could without forcing herself too much. The idea was to slowly ease her body back to her old routine so she could finally go back to work.

She went around her room organizing her things. Her shelves had gathered dust from her bed rest days and her poor plants needed more of her attention. Even her fish tank downstairs got a well deserved cleaning. After she felt like her home was decent enough to live in, she got to reading the books Spencer let her borrow. He'd been so nice this whole recuperation time, letting her read from his personal shelves. She wasn't a big reader growing up, at least not out of her favorite subjects (space and marine life). And wouldn't you know it, the first book that Spencer let her borrow was a space fiction story. After that, Spencer started bringing her a few classics he thought she might like.

This time, it was Crime and Punishment. Aitana couldn't help her smile when she first saw the title. It turned out to be a book of moral dilemmas, reminding her of the trolley problem (which she would happily compare to when Spencer asked her about the book). It was fascinating and she couldn't wait to find out how it ended. She hoped to finish soon. She had an inkling fear that Spencer was too nice to tell her not to take too much time with his book. She learned well by now how he was with his things and she did not want to upset him by any means.

She was so deep into her book that she almost missed Penelope's text message on Sunday night.

Hey Sprinkles! I know it's a little late but I managed to convince the others to go to the movies! If you're interested, we can pick you up!

Aitana answered within the minute. Of course she was ready to go at any time. And even though she insisted on getting to the theater on her own, Penelope insisted that she should take it easy. Seaver would pick her up. And in an hour, Seaver was at her front step.

"You're going out?" Angel caught the pair unexpectedly just as they were getting ready to leave. "Kinda late, don't you think?"

"What are you? My mother?" Aitana playfully rolled her eyes.

"Well, I know Pamela wouldn't like it."

Seaver smiled at the pair. "It'll just be a movie," she assured Angel but Aitana scoffed.

"Please don't indulge him. He thinks he's so cool being an annoying big brother."

"It's a fun job," Angel said with a completely serious face. Seaver had to laugh.

"Goodbye!" Aitana ushered Seaver out so she could shut the door. "God I hate him sometimes!"

"He's funny," Seaver remarked on the way to her car. "I always wanted a sibling…"

"You want him?" Aitana gestured back to the house. "You can have him. Or Mateo, really. He's my other brother. Both of them are up for grabs, seriously."

Seaver laughed again. She unlocked the car so they could get in. "I just thought it would be fun having someone else in the house. A sibling would've made a big difference."

"I guess they would," Aitana would have to agree. As rowdy as her childhood had been with Mateo and Angel around, she couldn't fathom the idea of living as an only child. "It would be too quiet without them," she realized. "My house was always loud. Angel's my step brother so he wasn't always in our house. He came by every weekend but even then, it was still loud."

Seaver turned the ignition on and soon drove into the street. "You know my childhood," she said with a sigh. "It was so quiet at times. I could hear every little noise in the house."

"You didn't have friends over?" Aitana curiously asked. "I always had Elia over too."

Seaver shook her head. "Not a lot. My father didn't really like them coming over."

"Oh, sorry about that…"

Seaver didn't seem to think long about it. She had long ago learned to move past the troubles in her home.

"You're more than welcome to stop by my place anytime you want," Aitana promised, "As annoying as Angel is, he's actually really easy going. It's why we work as roommates."

"Looks like it," Seaver chuckled. "I've never met any pair of siblings willingly living together, honestly."

"Ah, well, there's a reason why we have this arrangement," Aitana admitted. "I, um, had a lot of trouble living by myself after coming out of WPP. My parents had been looking for a while to rent the house so they decided to let me rent it. And I know they didn't want to say it out loud but I knew that they didn't really trust me to live on my own yet. Angel offered to pay half the rent. I couldn't say no."

"I'm sorry about that too," Seaver said. "It's ironic how many different ways there are to ruin a person who's lived peacefully all their lives."

Aitana hummed in agreement. "I was different," she said. "I know that I'm better now but I also know that I will never be who I used to be, not with the things I saw and lived through."

"I can share that sentiment too," Seaver said and shared a small laugh with Aitana. "The things that my father did...I could never go back to being who I used to be before we found out what he was. And I tried…"

"Yeah, we always try," Aitana whispered, falling distant with the memories of her failed attempts to reintegrate into society after WPP. "I went through so many jobs within the FBI. The leniency they had with me...dear Lord."

"I changed my name," Seaver reminded lightly, exchanging a brief glance with Aitana. "I was naive for thinking I wouldn't have to do it. The stares that I used to get…"

Aitana sympathetically looked at the woman. That would have to be something hard to live with.

~0~

"They're parking," Penelope looked up from her phone to Morgan and Spencer. "We should start buying the tickets. Save Aitana the extra walk."

"Well, we could've avoided it altogether if someone had just postponed the plans for later," Morgan shot her a look. She was so eager, as usual, to go out even after what felt like the longest case.

"Shush," Penelope waved him off. "She's bored. And I want to see a movie!"

"Can't be that bored…" Morgan swayed his head in Spencer's direction, leaving the man little time to ready himself for the inevitable teasing, "Not when Pretty Boy over here is stopping by every night to see her." Penelope snickered between them.

"I am not!" Spencer frowned.

"But you have been several times," Morgan flashed him a smirk.

Spencer's eyes landed on Penelope, accusing her for all this. She should know better than to tell Morgan this kind of stuff. She had the decency to smile a little bashfully.

"So has Penelope, so has Seaver," he said as his genius defense.

"Yeah, but you're doing puzzles with her and lending her books…"

"Talking about fishes and space," Penelope decided to add, giggling when Spencer glared at her. "Oh c'mon, you guys talked for guys about her little space project for her fish tank! It was really cute!"

Spencer shook his head at the pair. It was all harmless talking and they knew it. He knew it. It was actually really fun getting to know more about Aitana's side projects at home. She was more in depth than anyone at the BAU would expect their liaison/profiler to be. For the past 7 months, she'd been thoroughly focused on healing and reintegrating, leaving very few moments to really get to know her. Now she was beginning to open up and she was turning out to be a very interesting person. She was huge on space and, by an odd extension, fishes. He even learned that she had been president of an astrology club in her old high school. She had more plants than she needed to, she was constantly on the hunt for new fishes for her tank, she liked to dance, and there was still much more to her. She was surprisingly competitive when it came to doing puzzles, though he should've seen that coming with her little playful point system with him. Her easy going nature provided for a comfortable atmosphere, a trusting atmosphere. It was easy talking to her and therefore spending time with her, even alone.

To say, she even made it a little easier to tell her more of the situation with his mother. He still felt guilty for lashing out at her on their last case and though she had every right to still be upset with him about it, she welcomed anything he wanted to talk about. Everything was nice, everything was easy. The last thing he needed was for it to shatter because of some incessant, baseless accusations. Everyone also seemed to conveniently forget that Aitana was very much in a relationship. That alone proved she was just a friend.

"Hey there Sprinkles," Penelope was the first to greet Aitana when she and Seaver joined them. They already had the tickets and were merely waiting for the group to be together.

"Hey," Aitana waved before hurriedly stuffing her hand into her pocket. She was a little cold. "You guys look like crap, no offence."

"Just because it's you, I'm going to let it go," Morgan sarcastically wagged a finger at her.

Aitana's small laugh was short but it appeared like she could laugh freely without feeling the pain of her wound now. "Spencer, still reading the book. Might hang onto it for a couple more days if that's alright."

"Take your time," he said. "And I always have more."

"Yeah, I'm sure you do," she nodded, chuckling.

"More space?" Morgan asked with a healthy tease smile.

"Don't diss it," Aitana waved him off. Penelope started leading the way into the theater. "You know I was president of my astronomy club in high school?"

"And that's supposed to be cool?"

"It sounds cool to me," Seaver said, earning a grateful 'thank you' from Aitana.

"I even got us a camping trip to see the constellations! We saw Ursa Major on the first night, then Cepheus and Cassiopeia the following nights!"

"What? No shooting stars?" Morgan reached for the entry door first to hold for the others.

"Unfortunately, nothing fell from the sky those three days," Aitana dramatically sighed.

"You know, it's estimated that 60 tons of debris falls from space each day into our atmosphere," Spencer remarked.

Aitana scrunched her face at the fact. "I think I would've seen it."

He smiled. "A lot of it is microscopic particles that burn up when they enter the atmosphere."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, a lot of it ends up falling into the ocean."

"Those lucky fishes!"

Spencer laughed with her. From behind, Penelope nudged Morgan. She mouthed 'this is what I meant' to him, and consequently, Seaver. The two had a fairly amusing time understanding exactly what she meant.

~0~

"Unnecessary!" Penelope huffed as soon as they were out of the theater. Not even the chillier air could distract her from the deep disappointment of their movie. "There's too much blood and gore and eew!"

"Garcia, it's a slasher film," Spencer reminded her. "How do you do a slasher film without violence?"

"You imply it!"

"Baby, the movie is called "Slice 6." What were you expecting?" Morgan could barely hold his laugh for her sake.

"A refreshing beverage with a twist of comedy!?"

"That's what you got from the title?" Aitana made a face. "I would think the word 'slice' is a dead giveaway of what the genre was."

Penelope did not care for reason. "I'm gonna have nightmares for a week!"

"With everything that we do and see on a daily basis, that got to you?" Seaver had to ask because from a logical point, it didn't make sense.

"Listen, newbie, you may be all Sigourney Weaver ass-kicking tough, which is awesome, but the mystical mavens of innocence like myself jump at things that go bump in the night!"

"Why are you worried? I'm sure that Morgan will protect you," Spencer gestured to the man, though he added with a growing smirk: "As long as he's not jumping out of his chair like a prepubescent schoolgirl." The others snickered.

"The only reason I jumped is 'cause you guys woke me up," Morgan said.

"How could you sleep during that?" Aitana asked. Several people had screamed around them multiple times.

"Easy. They dragged me out after a 12-hour workday...for what? You telling me that girl didn't know that the unsub was waiting for her upstairs? Come on, now."

"Villain," Spencer corrected.

"What?"

"Villain. In movies, unsubs are called villains."

Morgan playfully rolled his eyes. "My bad."

"You want to know why horror movies are so successful?"

"Why is that, genius?"

"They prey on our instinctual need to survive. In tribal days, a woman's scream would signal danger and the men would return from hunting to protect their pack. That's why it's always the women and not the men who fall victim to the bogeyman."

"Count on you, Reid, to break a movie down to science," Seaver said with eyebrows raised. At this point, she shouldn't even be surprised.

"I don't know, if you ever meet my maternal grandmother, the boogeyman will seem scarier," Aitana said, causing an eruption of laughter from the group. "She's got a tough attitude if you cross her."

"Oh, so we know where you get it from then," Morgan smirked. "Spicy Sprinkles."

She rolled her eyes at him. She would keep in the fact her parents often said the same thing. He didn't need the extra ammunition.

"I actually like horror movies but I need to be mentally prepared for them," Penelope said, thankfully changing the topic. "My favorite thing about horror movies is the suspense factor."

"Ah, the ticking clock," Spencer hummed. "The helpless victim walks through the dark. Shadows reaching out to get her. A sudden noise draws her attention. Is someone there, or is it just in her head?"

"Still, it's totally unrealistic," Penelope said, "No one should be walking through a dark alley by themselves at night."

"Ahem, hello?" Morgan made a clear gesture to himself.

"Ah," Penelope immediately endeavored to fix her mistake, "No one should be walking through a dark alley without a Derek Morgan by their side."

"But the best part of a horror movie is you never know when the end is gonna come," Spencer said. Their movie had ended suddenly on them, leaving a big 'what if?' for the audience to leave with.

"Unfortunately, that's also how it goes in real life," Aitana said, folding her arms over her chest. She turned around to the group, smiling wryly at them. "And with that, I bid you all goodnight."

"Oh, what a lovely send off," Morgan remarked.

Aitana mocked a bow, almost losing it when Penelope exclaimed a sharp 'Oh my god!' and tried straightening her back up. "Your wound!" She reminded.

Aitana laughed. "Pen, I'm good. Doctor says that I'll be able to go back to work next Monday."

"That'll be good," Seaver nodded, "We really need you around."

"I'll be back, promise," Aitana raised a hand. "I can't wait, honestly."

"Well you take care of yourself," Penelope said, reaching over to close Aitana's coat. "We want you nice and healthy for Monday."

Aitana promised her that she would take care of herself. She was going crazy at home doing nothing. She couldn't wait to go back to work. She just hoped she didn't miss anything important in the meantime. She also hoped that the first case back would be an easier one to prove for sure that she was just fine.

[caius-hhhhhh]

following up on this fanfic emoji ask game: I know this is not the general convention but i tend to like responding to an ask game all at once rather than waiting for prompts. so I’ve just answered every single one of the questions below the cut. Again, if you wanna play or use the game for your own purposes, please do! you don’t have to repeat my strategy, although you’re free to do so too.

i was about to say “this is a bunch of autofellating nonsense” but that’s the point. who cares. i wrote a lot about disability. if your mental illness also significantly impacts your ability to write, this might be triggering.

I’m still a baby ao3 user (@ is spitemonger) with only one published fic (it’s Zutara. It’s not that I’m not proud of it but I wrote it on a deadline and thus spent a lot of the creative process going “i don’t want to i don’t want to”). but a) I have generally been writing since I was a teenager, and b) I want to write more and publish more.

So I’ll be mostly referring to unpublished wips, with a primary focus on a long-form one-sided radiostatic fic covering Vox’s fall to Stayed Gone, and a minor focus on two shelved Magnus Chase (PJO spin-off) fics, one for Fierrochase and one for Blitzstone. [if you haven’t read Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgaard get the fuck on it, there’s a genderfluid character]

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

my entire trunk novel? If I’m embarrassed by a scene I delete it during edits. So the only thing I’m even minorly embarrassed by is the fandom-specific plot I wrote by the seat of my pants (Magnus goes to Camp Half-Blood) — I’ll get more into that in a later question

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

love that this emoji doesn’t fucking register on my computer. I’ve never thought about this before! It’s hard for my own writing to get me emotional, I tend to look at it so clinically and dispassionately I kind of get caught off-guard when people say an emotional moment hit them. I do get very easily fucked by other people’s writing about transness. No prizes for guessing why, characters exploring their own gender and other people telling them they see them as their proper gender always get me feeling some type of way. calam4r1’s comic about Alastor’s “what have you done to me” makes my heart EXPLODE

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

I am exceedingly proud of this Cave Johnson-ass line: “All projects, collaborations, products, and endorsements featuring or even vaguely mentioning that crimson ass’s likeness are to be liquidated. And burned. In fact, trap and seal the gases from the fire, freeze them back into liquid, and then burn them again.”

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Oh fuck yes. It is a major twist that I’d be stupid to spoil, but! There is a red herring at the start of my current fic that you don’t get resolution for until three-quarters of the way through. It involves Vox’s real name.

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

My close associate SpaceWall is a fan-fucking-tasting editor who understands my need for my writing to be completely eviscerated. She has the balls to tell me when I’ve got a shite idea, and I could not ask for a better editor. Go fucking read her fics and tell her she’s excellent. On the subject, I really like editing and am fully open to reading your work. I’ve a slightly longer post about it here but please reach out to me if you’d like me to look at anything you have.

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Disability. It’s well and truly quite hard to find a story that doesn’t deal with disability — hell, it’s hard to find a human that doesn’t have a relationship with disability — but it’s something canon so frequently either tacitly ignores or doesn’t pick up on. If I’m going to do anything in a fic, it’s explicate the characters’ canon disabilities or headcanon new ones. This is my favourite part of Cold Bodies btw, and basically the only part I wrote without explicit prompting. It’s in the last subsection if you don’t want to read the 8k words of prep

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

idk man I’m really bad at pacing so even if the content is whack I go about it too slowly to really shock anyone

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

fuck off.

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

Love the implication that I don’t fall asleep every night fantasising about a thousand different first kiss scenarios.

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I’m very picky when it comes to listening to music while I write. I can’t think about words if the song I’m listening to also has words, nor if it has a really tangible melody that I want to follow along with. So I need really slow, atmospheric music without a real tune. Undertale genocide themes are actually fucking excellent for this, I’d highly recommend them. I’ve created a massive fuck-off OSRS playlist (on itunes, not spotify, so I can’t share it, sorry) basically comprised of the entire Portal 2 soundtrack (special fucking shoutout to The Friendly Faith Plate, which is SO VOX CODED YOU DON’T HAVE ANY IDEAAAA) and Sim Gretina’s electro swing (Enemy Like Me is my favourite), plus Kira’s Piece of Art and Dua Saleh’s mOth. The first because it’s giving Vox’s obsession with Alastor, and the second because, duh.

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

I’m a google docs hoe. I know I shouldn’t be, but fuck man, I know how it works. It feels natural when my writing is on there. I’ve tried Scrivener and it made me angry. What the fuck ever And “tools”, that’s really funny — I’m the type of grad student that does all my citations manually because switching to Zotero is weird and scary. I know how to do it manually! Why would I ever accept help for something I know how to do?? (< ocpd symptom)

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

The world doesn’t fucking need any more Nico di Angelo fics. It really doesn’t. There’s plenty. He’s a skinny white boy, he’s got the entire internet in the palm of his hand. You wanna compete with Robin? Really? You wanna do that to yourself? I don’t even have catholic guilt, I’ve got nothing to add

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

SpaceWall and I are irl friends, but we hold each other’s secrets in equal regard. The secret is that she is a good writer and I’m a poet I wouldn’t actually mind if people I knew irl found and read my fics. It’s just writing. I don’t find anything to object in it, and in fact I’d like it if I could talk about Hazbin with other people irl. I would hate it if people I know irl found my tumblr, but that’s principally because I’m significantly more open about my ocpd here. I’m not a person on the internet, I’m just words and a drawing. You haven’t seen the kinds of fucked up shit I do in front of my peers that would suddenly Make A Lot Of Sense if they knew I had a FUCKING personality disorder.

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

The Blitzstone origin wip, which is mostly “ostracised gay dwarf learns ASL because he saved this dying elf’s life”. come to think of it the first chapter of that fic is technically perfect and there’s very little stopping me from putting it the fuck on ao3 and abandoning it for three years before coming back. huh. i might… just do that.

🍷 Do you drink and write?

Always. It turns the judgemental part of my brain off and I have a much easier time making things and getting ideas down. Such a shame I don’t smoke too! I’ve tried writing whilst high and it was not writing. It was in fact lying back and rereading 666

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

“the spicy stuffs” porn is the word you’re looking for. You can say it. It’s four letters. The internet police won’t get you. See look, porn porn sex penis tits ass fucking Writing erotica was a really instrumental part of unlearning the self-destructive writing habits that made me suicidal scrap my original work. My initial intention was that because it’s erotica, it’s not for other people: it’s for me. And having that barrier of “this is not for other people to see” was liberating and necessary — I turned it off eventually, because erotica is not something to be so ashamed of that no eyes but yours can look upon it — but I needed to force myself to write something that I couldn’t imagine being scrutinised and therefore needed to be Purposeful and Say Something.

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

11pm–2am is when I get my best work done. Unfortunately, I write the most frequently between 1–3pm because I have the energy and motivation to, but those are Self Doubt Hours and I have a hard time getting into the swing of things I actually have the best writing luck when I get up early but that’s not gonna fucking happen

💖 What made you start writing?

In general, pathology, but I’ve kind of made that clear already. What made me want to write a Hazbin fic was seeing how exceptionally creative this fandom is and how much fun people seemed to be having sharing their ideas. I feel like in the circles I’m running in, there’s not a lot of pressure to make Good Art, and it’s… not really a big deal if your work gets a lot of attention or not. Everyone seems to be getting the same tone of feedback, all cheer and encouragement, and the vibe to me seems really casual and fun. I’m not thinking to myself “how will I compete with these other authors”, but “I wonder if the user I idolise will see and like my work”. And the answer is often yes. It’s not just that people are creating and playing so freely, it’s that it feels like a lot of us are here to support one another, and that’s been really reassuring. Because I feel like people will like anything I put out

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

I was about to say “anything related to pregnancy, thinking about my uterus makes me nauseous” but I uh. Wrote about a miscarriage. So I guess writing about a wanted pregnancy is the real limit

💲 Would you ever open commissions?

This is a super interesting question I haven’t seen spoken about very widely: it is considered extremely normal to commission fanart, but whenever the subject comes up, people seem incredibly reticent to ever commission fanfiction. I’m not fully sure why — in principle, it seems like there should be no real distinction in paying for fanart versus paying for fanfic. They’re both derivative work, they’re both made by enthusiastic artists who deserve to be compensated for their thousands of hours of expertise. I’m not certain what causes the disconnect. I have seriously toyed with the idea of doing podfics for money. I am in fact a professionally trained actor, and I own a USB microphone; which puts me ahead of like 50% of all of AO3’s userbase. Not sure if I’d fully commit to the idea because it’s still rather contentious. Were I to read my entire fic out loud I would put it behind a patreon though. It is in fact a very labour-intensive process, and again, I do have professional training.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

Hoo boy.

this is my fic folder. For most fics I write, I have a draft document and a research document: I’ve colour-coded the related documents: so dark green and dark green are the draft and research, pink and pink are both parts of the same project, etc. Let’s compare the word count in each of these draft documents and research documents, shall we? The dark green draft is 8k; its research document is 16k. The pink document is Cold Bodies. Including the html coding and my author’s notes, it’s edging on 13k. Its research document is 8k. It’s the only fic I’ve completed. The light purple draft is 21.5k. Its research is 96k! The light green draft rather conspicuously titled “botw script” is in fact a script, not prose, so it’s only about 4k. Its research, which is in fact titled “I don’t like botw’s story”, is 25k. The dark purple draft is a rather tragic 6k. Its two research documents are a combined 104k!!! One of the documents is called, rather tellingly, “I think I like research more than I like writing.”

My research process involves a not insignificant amount of textual analysis. For Cold Bodies, it looked something like this:

I haven’t done a lot of that kind of work for Hazbin because most info is fanon or only vaguely canon-adjacent, but I have compiled a list of headcanons many of you have put out into the world.

that’s gabrielsbubblegumbitch’s post and soot-and-salt’s And Not From Head To Toe. The other significant form of research I do is scour books I think are interesting or relevant so I can take plot or thematic inspiration from them. Previously, I’ve combed through Creating A Champion (and cannot recommend the experience. it’s kind of racist 😬) and made a fic a loose parody of Emma so I could fall back on its plot when I needed inspiration. For this Vox fic I’m rereading David Sedaris’ When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Eden Robinson’s Traplines (the last short story has a Monkey Beach spoiler, read that first), Catcher in the Rye, The Chocolate War, and, for some reason, Cary Elwes’ As You Wish.

🏆 What's your most popular fic?

Only got one. Shoutout to grownupchangeling for fucking SPRINTING into my inbox to ask for the answer to this question, really admire their(?) tenacity and dedication to squatting in my notifs like a spider in the corner

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

Never really crossed my mind. I do like a good beach fic, and anything set in winter makes me happy, but I’m not a massive holiday story enjoyer.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

I spoke about this a bit in response to soot, but if your readers are able to accurately guess a plot point or twist it means you have done it successfully. It means you have given your readers the tools to reach the same conclusion you did: and those tools are foreshadowing, atmosphere, subtext, and tension. Those are how a twist or beat feel that they belong in the narrative, because they gel with everything that has come before it. It in fact should be the author’s goal for readers to be able to guess the twist! It’s not that it should be blindingly obvious, but more that a seed should exist somewhere that smart readers (which are all readers!) should be able to see it and notice when it takes root.

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

Who doesn’t like fan art? Who’s the fucking Anne Rice of AO3 that’s going to be like “you may read my fic but do Not make art inspired by mine” literally who does that

📈 How many fics do you have?

Guess.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

I outline wherever possible. How detailed the outline is depends on the scene rather than the fic: “Vox goes house hunting” is in fact a very very long scene and a scene that amounts to two pages might well be described beat-by-beat in the outline. Pants-writing gets me incredibly stressed out because I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know where I’m going, I have no direction in mind, and because of that panic impulse I cannot be open to serendipity. It’s also really hard for me to do complete rewrites, so as soon as I have something down on the page and it’s made it past the first, worst, round of excruciating edits it tends to remain as-is in the final draft. So I often need at least a vague idea of what’s going to happen before I can start my work. I don’t do drafts, inasmuch as I’ve used that word pretty consistently throughout this post. I think. I think, think, think, research, ruminate, think, tentatively write less than 100 words, think think think consider scrapping the whole thing and then I detonate like a firework and the vast majority of the ink that first splatters on the page in that initial explosion stays until I know it’s done. I write like a shotgun: with a very intensive buildup and lots of preparation with a very short but very powerful discharge. I’ve told this to people and received the kind of expression you typically only get were you to remove your shoes and begin licking the sole of your foot. So please do not compare your own writing process with mine. Okay? This is not normal. I don’t know how often I’ve mentioned this but I have a disorder. No one but me does this. You should not expect yourself to.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

No <3

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

I am literally the last person you should ask. Never pour water on a grease fire? Your face mask should completely cover your mouth and nose? Always make sure the base is larger than the widest point?

💞 Who's your comfort character?

I don’t actually find that there’s a single character who brings me comfort to write about. I write about someone if I have something to say about them. I do have a comfort trope, which is sleeping together.

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

I think that Valentino used to be a porn actor before he became a director. During a shoot, he would wear an earpiece so his director could feed him lines, given that he couldn’t read the scripts.

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Alastor! I also talk breezily and with an emphasis on slightly elevated language, so I find his dialogue to be incredibly natural to spit out. Plus, who doesn’t love dated exclamations and turns of phrase like “By Jove!” and “take a powder”?

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

I well and truly don’t care. I don’t publish anything I’m ashamed of. I only publish things that I think showcase my skills, and that I think are worthwhile pieces of art. And if I had a friend who thought fanfiction or erotica was something to shame or scorn, well, they would not be my friend.

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

Finishing it.

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

Romantic partners becoming the main character’s therapists… I mean, that’s one of the great things about writing villain protagonists. They don’t fucking have to go to therapy.

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

Buckle up, cunt. I had a novel I was working on as a teenager. It was about toxic masculinity and MLM sexual assault. I said to myself, this will be a piece of art that defines a generation. It will say something that our (western) society desperately needs to hear, and one day a young gay kid just like myself will be tilting their head at a 90° angle to see the titles of the books lining the shelves of their local bookstore, see my novel, pick it up, and discover that it spoke to them: in the same way that I felt seen and heard by the books I loved. So as I wrote and worked on it, I often looked at my own writing with the harsh and uncaring eyes I knew it would be faced with when I inevitably contacted an editor. I wanted to make it flawless, bulletproof, do everything in my power to make this work perfect before an editor could see it, so that way I could wholeheartedly say that it was ready for other eyes. So nothing was perfect. Every part of it wasn’t good enough, fix it, FIX IT, I know you can do better so stop acting like THIS is the best you can accomplish. Come on, pick yourself up and do it right this time. And I tortured myself with that. To this day I cannot look at my draft without thinking of all the mistakes I made, what needed to be improved, what still needs to be improved, and after I’ve grown more and gotten diagnosed and met with people who have been published — met publishers — I know that I can’t trust myself enough to let this become a career. Do you know how hard writing this post has been? Did you know it’s taken me two days? Did you know how long I leave my posts in the drafts for, rereading, rereading, rereading, making sure there’s no chance this can be fucked up in any way, that it is totally within my control? I cannot become a professional writer. It’s my disability.

so, you know. rock make stick hit hard on head, cock make dick real hard in bed

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

A lustrum.

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

B-plots! I kind of get regular plotting, in that I know how to build and resolve tension, but I am so bad at finding other things for the characters to DO in order to take a break from the main plot. I already worked so hard to make a main plot, you want me to do another one??? To say what? I did everything I wanted to, I tied it all in a neat bow, if the readers want a break from the main tension why can’t they just tab out

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

I love trans Vox, but in order for him to be in character he has to hate being trans. I’m really used to writing about trans joy, for my own health and for everyone else’s, so writing a character that wishes they weren’t trans is really sad.

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

I actually love criticism. Your work can only get better through education, and one of the easiest ways to get education is by having another person read your work and tell you something about it you didn’t know. I need other perspectives because my own perception of my writing is exhaustive and exhausting: I feel like I’ve done everything I can to improve my work and I am so tired of looking at it that I need a fresh pair of eyes to show me something I’d not found. Getting better is always something to strive for; and even in mean comments it is entirely possible to find the thread of a lesson. More often than not it’s a threat of a lesson, but personally, I take what I can get. Criticism is something I find easy to receive because I can turn it into something productive, either “okay, this is something I need to improve upon, let’s do that” or “this is so clearly in bad faith it is costing me nothing to ignore it”. It’s something I can easily take control of. It’s positive comments that feel like apple-bobbing in a tub full of syringes.

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

#Psychological Horror immediately followed by #Eventual Smut. One of my favourite tag jokes I’ve written is #falling in love, #unrequited love, #friends to enemies, #on-again off-again relationship, #don’t date your coworkers holy shit don’t do it. And you really can’t go wrong with Cold Bodies’

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

I suppose I’m kind of asking for it at this point.

I’ve left this one for last so it will have the best dramatic impact. Thank you, heartily, for sorting through that much shit!! I hope this is a worthwhile reward for your efforts.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

The shadows lengthen. The room is small, bereft of light; the darkness has plenty of recesses to establish itself within. His chest distends and recedes with a languid, heavy pulse: good. He will not wake. He dares not take a step. He contorts with the gloaming, letting it carry his weight like waves on the wine-dark sea. Ink creeping along the fractal contours of incautious skin, on paper pulp. The blanket is drawn too far up his shoulder, but his hands have wisely ventured away from its grasp. He has nestled them close to his face: the right palm faces the ceiling. His overgrown claws, weightless, curl around the soundless air. The cuffs of his shirt have drawn back to reveal the skin on his left wrist.  He casts a faint but adequate illumination. Regrettably — he discovers — he has not flesh but casing. Whether it be titanium or catalin, it protects the veins underneath. What seams it must possess, he cannot access at present. He cannot smell his blood. Only the hot hiss of his breath, of bertholite and alkaloids. Experience has had the good grace to train him to anticipate the worst-case scenario. Thus, he suspects his knife would dent upon contact with his skin. This would likely require blunt force, something messy and more out of his weight class. Which is unideal: his own strength is formidable, naturally, but imprecise. And somewhat unsubtle. He sees the power buzzing underneath his grip. A live wire ready to snatch at the first hint of energy, snapping, sparking, antsy and unfulfilled. He likely isn’t trained enough to feel it himself, but again, the danger is too tangible to risk tripping over it. Were he more experienced, older, had experimented enough to test his limits, it would be a safer estimate; but as he is now, untapped and spring-loaded — fisticuffs would result in a significantly less assured victory. It is not a lack of confidence. It is simply a risky bet he does not want to get caught foolishly trusting himself with. That is smarts, not sheepishness. He does not hiss aloud. Nor does he retreat: he takes stock. The room offers little relevant information. His possessions are scarce, no letter drafts upon the writing desk, no bandages or weapons. His wallet is useless. He’s laid out nicotine patches and topical creams upon his toilet table: an invasome, it seems, may be a possibility. Unfortunately, he would have to synthesize it himself. He despises inconclusiveness. He returns his gaze to the picture box, his screen dim and vacuous.  Loathed as he is to admit, this may be a somewhat longer project than he had initially envisioned. More’s the pity — what a spectacular send-off he would have been able to provide! Keep your chin up, now, old boy. This was hardly a trip for biscuits. It was, however, strike two.

[television-overload]

20 fanfic questions

Thanks for tagging me @randomfoggytiger !

How many works do you have on AO3?

30, I'm still working on putting more that I wrote either on Tumblr or Fanfiction.net back in the day on my AO3 (if they don't induce too much cringe. Been doing this almost a decade now).

2. What's your total AO3 words count?

137,433 and counting

3. What fandoms do you write for?

NCIS, X-Files, Star Wars, and on rare occasions, Harry Potter

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Mother (Star Wars Obi-Wan x Satine), Life Force (more Star Wars), Back to You (old NCIS fic), Like Life Itself (you guessed it, more Star Wars), and sh-boom (X-Files :D)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Sometimes, if I get a particularly nice comment that makes me all excited. But I recently read a post where someone was saying you shouldn't reply to comments on your own fic on AO3 because it artificially inflates the number of comments on your story, and I was like :'(

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooh, I've been specializing in angst since I got back into fic writing. Let me think... The Star Wars prequels are inherently angsty, so-- hope like the sun (Star Wars) this could be such a dream (Star Wars) what was once a garden (Star Wars)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Mother (Star Wars), because even though it's angsty, it's a happy ending AU. I'm realizing a lot of my fics that I'm actually proud of have melancholy endings lol sh-boom (X-Files) is a good one too.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I mean, maybe I used to? When I wrote as a teen? Not so much "hate" as "this doesn't make sense," and half the time, the commenter was getting some fact about the fandom wrong anyway haha

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind?

Nope, never will

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Never a crossover, although I have thought about an X-Files/NCIS crossover. Pretty sure I'd be the only one interested in it though. I am currently writing a Star Wars fanfic that is basically a retelling of The Sound of Music, which is probably as close to a crossover as I'll get.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. But I did have someone ask to print my fic out once to keep forever and that made me so happy :')

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

That would be cool, but no.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I can't. I'm so loyal to Tony and Ziva from NCIS, and they really are fantastic. But even I have to admit that Mulder and Scully are the blueprint. Nobody did co-dependent coworkers turned lovers like them. Both of them have WILD stories about how they ended up with a child though, and I love them for that.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Oof. The forbidden topic. I was writing a fic called "In the Eyes of Tali" on Fanfiction.net once upon a time before they brought back Ziva on the show, and a lot of people seemed to really enjoy it. It was basically the episode Family First from Tali's perspective, which I think is really unique, and then went on toward an eventual reunion with Ziva. I think I could theoretically finish it one day, but there's so much I'm writing now that I doubt it. Maybe I need the proper incentive.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I actually don't know. I've been told I capture characters' voices well before, that's really nice to hear. I hope I'm improving in the description department.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably maintaining good pacing, getting from point A to point B without rushing it, and actually making myself finish what I started. I'm also a little wimp when it comes to not getting comments or bookmarks on a fic, even if it's a small fandom and it makes sense that the engagement isn't as high as I hoped.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Occupational hazard in the Star Wars and NCIS fandoms. Star Wars you're dealing with made up languages (most often for me, Mando'a) and NCIS is usually Hebrew for Ziva. Best you can do is do the research, try to fact check Google, and provide translations if needed for context in the story.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Technically, Harry Potter. When I was 13 I started a story that I had grand plans for, posted 2 chapters on ffn.net, and then never touched it again lol. But the ones I actually stuck with were (now really cringe) NCIS fics, and they got a decent amount of attention on that site (and even among some old ladies on Twitter that would share links sometimes, how cute is that?)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

So far, either Mother (Star Wars) or Beautiful (X-Files), but recently I've been putting out a lot that I'm finally proud of! I'm hoping they're actually good this time, and not the "good" that I thought I was writing in 2015. I've always hoped I'd build up a base of readers that enjoy my stuff and subscribe for when I post new fics, but I don't think I'm there yet. Easier said than done, especially on Tumblr.

Tagging: @indestinatus @wanna-be-bold @ whoever else wants to do this! I'm out of touch with who writes stuff on here, and also relatively oblivious to people's blog names if I read them on AO3 haha

[aokuro-san]

Recommending fanfics (II): One-Shots

Many thanks to the few souls who voted in the poll (I honestly didn't expect anyone to!)! Thanks to you today we can have this second post here. And before I continue, 

I want to remind you that... In general I like to read fanfics x reader (or with the inclusion of reader) because I enjoy imagining that I am inside the story, however, you will see that there are some that I did not take them that way and even so I love them. 

I hope you like it!

                      Part 2: One-shots!

Can't Get No Satisfaction, by MicrowaveRave

                        (Tokyo Revengers) AO3

There's a fair amount of TokRev fanfic that includes "adult drinking games", but if there's one I can recommend for how easy it is to find, this is it. We have the ToMan, now adults, enjoying a rather... hot bar talk. And with them the protagonist, who suddenly admits that she always fakes her orgasms. And while the therapeutic talk with Mitsuya (↕) that ensues is mostly related to sex, it's clear the depth that the text wants to evoke with it. And besides, it has a rather... flirtatious ending, which might make you want to keep reading (even if you don't need it). Or leave you with your mouth open, as someone assured in one of the comments, haha!

↕

A CHARACTER INCREDIBLY REPRESENTED HERE, because I feel that sometimes, MANY OF YOU IDEALIZE HIM. Mitsuya is enigmatic, and he's not evil, but he's not a piece of cinnamon either... Rarely is the manipulative side of INFJs talked about... xD

pillow talk, by flashily

                        (One Piece) AO3

Crocodile and Doflamingo. Bundled up by the fandom ad nauseam, but what good stories come out as a result! Above all, this one. A one-shot that portrays a personal theory of the author, and that, after reading it, made me wonder for days! It is not a joke! A very interesting proposal that also involves Luffy... and the secret that Ivankov keeps from the lord of the desert.

they call it animal magnetism, by quassia

                       (Danganronpa Series) AO3

Never in my life would I have shipped Gundham and Hajime... But after this fanfic I don't know what to believe anymore, haha. Because this is one of the best narrated stories on an erotic level that I have read. Yes, even outside of fanfics. Because we have a BRUTAL sexual tension, which not only makes both protagonists pull their hair out, but also me as a reader, and the fluidity with which the couple's naturalness is worked on is also awesome. I don't know, quassia is one of the best authors I've come across lately on AO3. So I not only recommend this one-shot, but also "capsule", her anthology of LGBTI + stories from Danganronpa and, in general, the whole damn profile of her. If you want to write erotica (good erotica!), you know who to start learning from, haha.

lovely to be here (with you), by cupofmiko

                     (My hero academia) AO3

OK. This fanfic should be a short story, because it's much longer (but much, much) than a typical one-shot usually is. But since we have it all in one chapter, and it is quite engaging, why not recommend it as such?

In this case, the story deals with a relationship between a superhero (a devoted superhero like Deku) and an ordinary girl from the beginning, to problems, separation and a new beginning. And despite the fact that it may seem basic, in reality his way of dealing with the story seemed to me... Disturbingly realistic. It made me rethink several concepts (because I'm spiteful and proud, more than anything, haha) and what I would do if I faced a similar situation and if the protagonist did well or badly towards the end. An interesting fanfic to discover that, to this day, continues to make me wonder the same things as back then.

PS: Bakugo-Adult is incredibly represented in this work, by the way.

A Night at The Inn, by gatocart

                    (Kimetsu no Yaiba, Demon Slayer) AO3

Adorable story, of a natural sweetness that rots the teeth. But it could not be otherwise with Tanjiro Kamado, in my eyes, one of the best and most genuine protagonists ever created.

No more details are needed, as the title explains everything in itself.

Swapped, by itbeajen

                  (Haikyuu!!) AO3

I don't remember if I have ever said or demonstrated it, but if so, I reiterate: SHIRATORIZAWA is my favorite team in all of Haikyuu!! And I have a good horde of fanfics built around it that I love, but out of the anthologies or the longest fanfics, perhaps the one that I could recommend the most is this one. A small sketch or everyday scene in a study session with the whole team and his manager (here the reader, haha)... Oh well, that's how it would be if Tendou wasn't obsessed with a new video game... And a mysterious and an excellent player who she suspects is her manager...

Slice of life to have a good time.

wild ride, by imaushi_ji

                 (Tokyo Revengers) AO3

And continuing in that vein, why not recommend this one-shot as well? Another daily scene with the Haitani brothers in the middle of a heat wave... And of course, Wakasa always annoying in the background.

Polyamory. Heat. Slice of life and some guaranteed giggles (I laughed a lot, but who knows? Humor is a personal thing). And that's why I recommend it.

And here for today! I hope I have encouraged you to read them, see you! 🤗

[aelaer]

So, for the first time, one of my fics reached 1000 kudos on AO3. It's for a popular fandom, but it took two years to get this high.

It's interesting that my general reaction is ambivalence. On one hand, it's pretty cool that that many people enjoyed it as to spend the time to leave a like. I appreciate them taking the time and showing the love and whenever someone takes even more time to comment, it genuinely makes me smile.

On the other hand, it's nowhere near my favorite fic. I'm proud of the work I did on it and its high quality of writing and research--but I wish most of these readers would check out my other stories, which most of them do not because they don't have any shipping.

My two most popular fics are fics marked with a popular shipping tag within a popular fandom. But they're not my favorite fics because I generally don't like romance as a genre. In my head, the two main characters at the end *don't* get together in the most popular fic (and I left it purposefully ambiguous for that reason in the epilogue). In the second most popular fic, it was not at all ambiguous because it was for a gift exchange - and I discovered I don't like writing the pair as romantic at all. It'll be the last time I participate in that exchange as other people just want romantic stories. I'm glad I tried it, but I just didn't enjoy it.

I suppose it is a bit frustrating that my favorite character in this fandom is not often appreciated solo (as a younger more popular character is, for instance). It's also frustrating that a lot of people don't look for him outside of pairings, as if romance was the end-all be-all of storytelling.

I'm very fortunate in that a lot of folks know me in the fandom for this character because it's incredibly difficult for people to get known if they don't write the character in a pairing. And at times in the past, back when I joined the fandom, it really discouraged me and it took a lot of work to get to the point that I'm happy writing what I want to read, regardless of the fact that some stories will never be as popular if it were marked as a pairing.

But I sort of wish I was more excited about this milestone. I am significantly more excited for my fully illustrated fanfic story crawling up to 500 kudos as I was afraid for a while that that story would live on in obscurity.

Popularity is an odd thing in both pop culture and the fandom world. The most popular items are sometimes also of great quality, but quite often it's trashy quality with no nuance (or outright terrible writing). Objectively there's nothing wrong with this as folks are allowed to like what they like - but I feel awful for the real high-quality work that gets lost in the weeds because the fandom was too small, or it didn't have a popular pairing, or the character is often only cared about if they're in a pairing.

And in the fandom world, AO3 certainly doesn't help with its lack of main character feature so it would be easier to find stories starring a character without the necessity of being in a pairing. My favorite character is usually a side character in fics marked "gen" so finding stories that star him in that category can be an exhausting search.

I guess this is just a plea for people to give as much consideration to genfic as they do to shipping fics in their active fandom. So many good ones slip through the cracks.

[terresdebrume]

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

Guadeloupe! (It’s a tiny French island in the Caribbean.) It’s warm and beautiful, and that’s the place that made me appreciate the beauty of hiking, even though I never did manage to get into it after that x)

It’s also where part of my family is from so that helps too :D

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

I’m really proud of how much I’ve grown as a person these past few years. I’m proud of the fact that I’m still standing even though it sometimes felt like I wouldn’t be able to.

Also I’m proud of my writing to be honest. I think that’s the most solid ‘I’m good at this’ part of my life and it was the cornerstone of me building any kind of self esteem. I hope I get even better as time goes by :D

Favorite books?

I think the Hunger Games books are the ones I reread the most often (sidebar: I absolutely recommend you read Spin Control by Trovia in this fandom. It’s still pretty high on my ‘Introducing people to quality fanfic’ list!)

That being said, Pride and Prejudice is also a big favorite! A lot of my favorite stories are fanfics, though, it’s my favorite medium x)

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?

My cats, my goddaughter, my niece, my friends 😊

Favorite thing about your culture?

The fact that we’re used to pushing back against authority (make fun of the French all you want for striking all the time, we sure do it a lot and even too much at times, but sometimes it’s useful to have a coworker who’s not afraid to be frank xD)

Also: how affordable books are! I miss paying only 5-10 euros for pocket-format paperbacks, especially when I can’t find anything under 13 dollars here ;_;

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

Last year, and late in the year at that! Although whether I’ve really joined the fandom is debatable, given how bad I am at socializing, but I’ve definitely written fic xD

What can I say, I watched this show twice before I caught the fic/shipping bug for it! Now I’m trying to decide whether I can actually watch The Pacific without damaging my mental health because I am not a gore fan xD

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

None so far, though I’m still looking around for Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron’s book…and I’d like to get my hands on David Webster’s book as well, if I can. Not that the others aren’t interesting to me, but I’d say these are the two at the top of my list.

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

To my own surprise, I had a hard time deciding between Webster, Guarnere and Liebgott for this one! But I think David is the one that rotates the most in my mind, and I do absolutely love his whole “Can you believe I said that?” bullshit when he gets shot like, man what are your priorities xD

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

Well, I’m coming up on a million words of fanfiction published on AO3, the most recent works being largely Band of Brothers fic, but I also occasionally fiddle on Canva to make fic covers!

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

I think I still have to answer Tom Hiddleston, and Thor (the first one).

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

I do love Mika’s lyrics in Rio: “Maybe I’ll be myself when I’m somebody else.”

It really resonates with me, and if I’m going to tattoo any words on my body it’ll be those.

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

When I go cross eyed I can make it look like my eyes move independently like a chameleon’s.

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

Beta reader, cheerleader, whichever you prefer! I have too many fics on the backburner tbh! Right now I’m trying to wrestle the one where modern AU!Don Malarkey and David Webster met on Grindr, disliked each other too much to actually sleep together, but accidentally become ride or die friends anyway x)

Three things that make you smile?

I’m going to count my cats as only one thing, even though there’s three of them :P

Whenever my students compliment me.

The smell of rain on a hot road or warm grass.

And, because I can: swimming in a river/lake it hot weather.

Any nicknames you like?

I would describe myself as largely indifferent to nicknames on the whole? I’m fine with Matt tbh, I picked it myself and it’s only one syllable so it works x)

I do have two people who refer to me by a (different) nickname though, and I would feel very strange if they stopped ;_;

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!

Well, @almost-a-class-act, who tagged me, is a pretty nice presence :D I'm also always happy to see posts from @formerlyknownas-delight, @liesmyth (enjoying the Italian blogging at the moment even if I don't understand most of it), @lectorel, @nemainofthewater and @talysalankil

Lately, I've also really enjoyed the works of @renegadepublishing, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @atlaculture

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

Freeze and try to be as quiet as possible? Probably slowly kill myself with stress over my cats’ wellbeing.

Favorite movie?

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but also The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.

Do you like horror movies?

No D:

Tag list: @ronsparky @cinnamonmalarkey @1waveshortofashipwreck and whoever else wants to do this :D

[guildtree]

Laurel Writes Things Sometimes Megapost WAHOO

So yesterday's be-proud-of-your-stuff theme was art, today it's writing! Starting with my own, because in fact, I have written and posted about 64,000 words of fanfic for GW2 since last October! If you just want to go ham and check out everything I've written, you can go here or check the Ao3 link in my pinned; I am known there as TreeofWords. The tag #my writing has several WIPs and snippets I've posted on here as well. If you want a more curated selection:

Kasjory

I fully and shamelessly admit to being a dirty shipper; the Dragon's Watch lesbians own my soul and I have easily written the most about them, in a number of varieties. I've got fluff! I've got mixed angst and hurt-comfort! I've even got comedy and character analysis! Six gods know there's never enough wlw stuff in fanfiction-land, and I proudly do my part in fixing the shortage.

Action

But that's enough sappy stuff, what about violence?! Yeah, I've got that too, somehow. Every so often I get a thirst for blood that can only be safely satiated with fanfic, and so I go write action scenes. I've got a little compilation of them here (also has some Kasjory and best boy Braham) and a more intense version of Almorra's fight with Ryland here. This one also has action in chapter 3 - scroll near the bottom. Fight scenes do not seem to be super common in fanfiction, and I've been complimented on them multiple times, so go check them out!

Miscellaneous

And how about the random junk? Well, if you want Taimi and Gorrik cuteness I've got something here I made for last Valentine's Day. Left Behind is the first fic I ever posted and still one of my favorites; it focuses on Marjory and Taimi recovering from Balthazar and bonding in Tyria while the rest of Dragon's Watch is scattered across Elona. If there was one fic I could get you to read it would be this one - I think it's a pretty fair representation of my style and the stories I like to tell. And finally, there's this oneshot I wrote from Zafirah's POV - I think the first Zafirah POV on Ao3 at least - that somehow blew up and now has the most kudos out of all my fics.

Future Projects

The biggest thing I'm working on right now is an Aurene fic centering on her speaking with the other elder dragons through her magic and coming to terms with her new role as The One. It's totally an excuse to write cool setpieces, play around with perspective and magic lore, and flesh out dragon personalities. Beyond that, there's a few ideas for Kasmeer in the works: her bonding with Rox over them both essentially being gladia, and an examination of her time in the desert and loss of faith (religious trauma wooo). And finally, I may jump into the deep pool of OC lore in the near future and finally flesh some of my guys out! They definitely have some stories worth telling.

I think that about covers it! fanfic sadly does not get as much attention here as fanart, but that doesn't make it any less valid or artistic! In fact, fanfic was what first got me into the gw2blr community; I started on Ao3 and slowly got lured over here by some kind friends. So if you want to check out my roots... go read some stuff! And remember to show your favorite writers some love.

[juliasdowntonstuff]

So, about a week ago I did a writing-WIP-tag here on tumblr and that caused an old drabble to resurface thanks to @bella-caecilia. In the last few days I finished it and reworked it a couple times. That did not help in the least - in fact, it only made it worse (classic case of verschlimmbessern) so now I’ve decided to just put it out here to prevent me from making it even worse.

The prompt I used was given to me a by a friend and it was: "I don't need a lot to be happy"

you can also find it on ao3: click here

My dearest Robert,

I hope this letter reaches you well and in good health, wherever you are right now. I still do not dare to imagine what your daily life looks like and what horrors you are facing. But enough about that — I am sure you want to hear about home.

You will not believe what our daughters did yesterday afternoon. The three of them put on a show for me and your Mama! Edith played the piano — her lessons have not been wasted, I can assure you — while Mary sang so beautifully for us. And darling Sybil danced to their music. What a sight to behold.

It baffles me time and time again how Mary and Edith can be so nasty towards each other and fight all day long, and then put on such a nice show together immediately afterwards. Even Carson clapped excitedly for the girls and their efforts — Mary had insisted he stay and watch the show, as you can imagine.

Apart from that, nothing much has happened since the last time I wrote to you. Life has been slow, and the weather is still cold and windy, not at all pleasant enough to go on strolls alone. Oh, how I miss our daily walks, my dear!

I hope you get to come home soon, at least on leave from the front. I need to see you, my darling one.

But until my tired soul sets eyes on you again, I remain your longing, loving wife

Cora

Robert had had a bright smile on his face when an officer handed him the envelope with his wife's neat writing on it, even more so when he found not one, but two letters in the envelope. Reading his wife's letter first, that smile stayed there and almost extended all the way to his ears. He must have looked like a fool, but he frankly could not care less. He was a man deeply in love with his wife, and who could blame him for that?

She did not write much about life at home, she never did. She missed him, just like he missed her and their family, and that did not improve with writing about it too often, both of them had found. She had stopped writing those long letters full of stories of what happened at home months ago. At first, he had not noticed, he had been too preoccupied with the raging war. Still, when her letters had turned from spanning several pages to barely scraping the bottom of one single page, he had started to worry and eventually posed that question in one of his letters. Her reasoning had only been all too understandable when she replied and it made him miss his family even more.

He could not wait to get home.

Two and a half years. That's how long he had already been stationed in South Africa. He had seen his family only a handful of times in the many months since he got called up to serve his queen and country at the front. Even when he got leave, it was rarely enough to travel all the way back to England and see them. This war had cost him over two precious years of his life already. More than two valuable years he did not get to spend with Cora and their daughters and he couldn't wait to get home, hopefully for good in the near future.

Home. Downton Abbey.

He could still picture vividly the abbey's striking architecture as it rolled into view when one came home from the station or simply went on a long walk across the estate. He was proud, incredibly so, that he was the one to call this his home.

If only he was already standing at the gates to the estate.

But he was not. Not yet, anyway. Robert was still on a boat. One that was set to land in Southampton in only a matter of hours. Sure, he would still have to board several trains to take him up to London, then on to York, Ripon and then finally to Downton.

Home was already well within his reach. He had sent a letter to Taylor when he was on his way back to England to inform him of his arrival in the village but asked the chauffeur to keep it to himself as a surprise for her ladyship. By god, the young Earl hoped his chauffeur had listened and kept it to himself.

Then, on the train taking him to London, Robert had finally found the time and peace to read the letter his daughters had sent him. It was clear that Mary was the one who wrote it — he knew her writing that looked mature and meticulously placed for her age only too well. Reading the words she had written in seemingly hasty penmanship made his heart only grow heavier than it already was. He hated to think of his dear wife in such a state that even their daughters couldn't lighten her mood with a joint performance. Those were rare enough as they were. And it only made him want to get home even quicker.

Dearest Papa,

We sincerely hope you are somewhere safe and not getting yourself in danger.

Mama only just now told us we could write a few lines and put them into her envelope to be sent to you along with her letter, but we do not have much time.

All of us miss you so terribly much and we cannot wait for the next time you get home on leave. It seems like we have already forgotten what you look like — Edith and I have had quite the argument about the colour of your hair. She says it is a very, very dark blond, while I think your hair is a shade of brown. You do need to settle this for us, so please come home soon!

Mama has not been feeling too well since the last time you were home to see us. Ever since you left again, she has been in her room for most of her days and has not taken much interest in anything apart from tea with us and Granny. She looks so awfully, awfully sad all the time and we have not managed to cheer her up for long. Edith and I even played the piano and sang for her while Sybil danced!

Granny said that she is worried about Mama's lack of interest, and I have never seen her look so concerned.

Please, come home very soon, Papa!

That is all we wish for.

Promise us to please stay safe and think of us every once in a while.

Mary, Edith, and Sybil

Oh, he would give anything to see the scene of his daughters trying to cheer their mother up. He would give anything just to see their happy little faces look up at him.

What would his darling girls say once they caught sight of him in this state — his arm in a sling, covered in bandages, a healing gash on his forehead? His wounds and bruises were the sole reason he got granted this longer leave that allowed him to travel home to his family. He had not told them of his injury, not even Cora. He simply couldn't get himself to write those horrid words on paper.

Cora.

How would his beloved wife react when she saw him, battered and bruised as he was?

It was the beginning of May, and what a nice day it was.

Finally, after weeks of nothing but horribly dull weather in all of England, the sun had made a rare reappearance. For the first time in weeks, Cora wanted to go outside and maybe sit on the bench for a while — she would have to ask Thompson for her light coat in a few minutes. Cora had not been outside for longer than a few minutes in at least a month, but that had not entirely been to blame on the weather. Similarly, she had not even responded to any of the invitations to luncheon or tea with her mother-in-law down in the village in the dower house. A fact that would likely turn into a lengthy argument when she would next meet Violet, which was inevitably quite soon.

Cora knew that she should take more of an interest in the estate and entertain more of her acquaintances. But truth be told, she did not feel like it and she had no great aspirations to spend evenings with women who looked down on her because of her heritage, not when Robert wasn't there to cheer her up with a look or a stolen kiss.

She had not seen her husband in well over 9 months, and his last letter had reached her over a month ago. He had never taken so long to respond and it concerned her greatly. What if something happened to him, what if he wasn't coming home?

All of this uncertainty only further added to her uneasiness and sudden need for constant solitude. She found no real joy in things she once loved, and not even her daughters had managed to lift the heavy clouds weighing down on her.

Cora was standing at her bedroom window, looking out over the green grass in front of the house and the gravel path that stretched all the way down to the gates of their estate when she saw a carriage ride up to the house drawn by two horses.

They were not expecting anyone, were they? Or had she forgotten about a visitor? No, that could not be — someone would have reminded her; Mrs Hughes would have, surely.

Quickly, Cora turned and left the well-known comfort of her bedroom to rush downstairs and see who came to see them without prior announcement. Just when she arrived downstairs and crossed the threshold of the grand entryway, their butler opened the carriage door to let whoever was riding in the back step out onto the gravel.

There he was in his khaki uniform, climbing out of the carriage with a bright smile plastered onto his sun-kissed face.

Her eyes must be deceiving her, or maybe this was all just a dream.

Had Carson not looked so surprised himself, she would have believed that this was just wishful thinking, a rather vivid daydream at most. But he was here, he was home. Robert was home.

With three quick and long strides, he reached her, stopping only a metre in front of her when she did not move. His bright smile slowly turned into a frown when she still did not show any reaction to his presence.

"Cora," he said, trying to sound encouraging, and it seemed that this finally snapped her back into reality.

"Are you really here? Or are you just a figment of my imagination?" she breathed, looking up into his excited face.

"I am really here, my dear. I got granted enough leave to travel home at long last," he replied, taking off his beige military hat with his gloved left hand.

Then, without any warning, she closed the gap between them and fell into his arms. Her arms wrapped around his neck almost on their own accord and she pulled herself up into his embrace.

While trying to hold her tightly to him so that she would not fall, he winced and drew in a sharp breath. The sudden impact of her body on his was painful, and so was his right arm being squeezed between their bodies, but he couldn't deny relishing in the familiar sensation he had been deprived of for so long.

"Robert?" she asked alarmedly when she heard his sharp intake of breath. Only then, having stepped away from her husband again, she noticed the sling his right arm was in and caught sight of the already healing cut on his forehead. "Robert, what happened?" she gasped.

"Don't you worry, darling. I was wounded, but not too badly, and they gave me leave to convalesce a little. It is not as bad as it looks, I assure you, my dearest," Robert replied before making a start for the main entrance of his ancestral home. "Where are the girls?"

"They are on a walk with Nanny, I believe," Cora said, not at all sure if this was truly the case. Maybe they had gone on that walk the day before, or maybe Nanny had asked for the day ahead? Cora couldn't remember, she hadn't paid close enough attention. Their girls were not all that little any more, and she trusted their Nanny. It's not that she did not care — she did care, a lot! She just couldn't get her mind to focus on anything lately. Not even on her daughters' whereabouts.

"Good, so you can tell me all about what happened without us being interrupted over a cup of tea," he smiled as they went into the library.

///////////////////////////////

"Cora, I have to ask," Robert said after she had given him an account of what had happened in the last few months since he had last been home to England in August. By the sounds of what she told him, everything seemed perfectly alright, but that did not go well with what his daughters had written. Adding to that, he knew his wife well enough to know that she liked to keep her sadness to herself to spare the feelings of others.

"What is it, darling?"

Cora looked at him wide-eyed, expectation and fearful anticipation clearly visible on her still youthful features while her hands closed around the empty teacup she held close to her chest, sitting up straighter on the settee.

Robert scooted closer, carefully taking one of her hands in his. While she was trying to avoid his gaze, his eyes searched her face worriedly. Calmly, he said: "How have you been, truly?"

"Whatever do you mean?" she asked, pretending to sip from the empty teacup in her hands.

"The girls wrote to me and they said you were incredibly unhappy, hiding away in your bedroom most of the time. They even said that Mama was worried about you. Speaking of which — she, too, wrote to me, about 6 weeks ago, stating that you have ignored all her invitations to come down to the Dower House and also haven't invited her to come here, either. I know you haven't been entertaining, that is somewhat understandable. But this is not like you, dear, no matter how hard she is being on you."

"Nothing gets past you, then," she replied dejectedly. "You know everything, even when you are half a world away. It's true, I have not been feeling my best in recent weeks."

"What can I do? What do you need to be happy again?"

"I don't need a lot to be happy, Robert, you know that," she said dismissively, glancing shyly to the ground near the fireplace.

"Yes, I do know that. But what does it take for you to be happy now? There must be something, surely."

"I need to know you're safe," she replied, finally meeting his gaze.

"And you shall have that for at least another fortnight still," Robert replied, taking her slender fingers in his bigger, unscathed hand.

That was not entirely what she meant and he knew that, but a fortnight was all he had to offer, no matter how much he wished it was more.

"What happened?" she then asked, motioning to his arm to bridge the silence that had fallen over them.

"We were under attack during the night, we had not seen it coming. They cornered us, but we fought back. I was lucky that my batsman had been awake, he warned me just in time, he saved me. We managed to get away, not unscathed, obviously. He had to be taken to a military hospital to get stitched up while they sent me home. So many of our fellow men didn't. But enough about tha-"

Suddenly, squeals of delight filled the library when the three girls entered, almost running to their father but remembering their lessons in etiquette and good behaviour.

"Papa?"

"Papa! It is you!"

"I knew that was your voice I heard from out in the hall!"

It was little Sybil in her light blue dress who first asked: "Papa, what happened to your arm?"

"Oh, that. It's nothing for you to worry about. Papa fell badly and needs to let his arm rest for a little while longer. That is why the doctors gave me a sling."

"And what about your forehead, Papa?" Mary asked curiously.

"Like I said, I took a rather bad fall. But this, too, shall heal again, I have no doubts about that. And now come here and let me hug you," he laughed, opening his arms for his three young daughters.

They all but ran towards him again, throwing their short arms around him while squealing in delight.

"Mary, Edith?" he asked as his daughters hugged him.

Dutifully, they all let go of him, stepped away and looked at him expectantly.

"Yes, Papa?"

"I hope you did not give your mother and Nanny too many grievances while I was away?"

The two elder girls looked at each other rather guiltily, but it was Sybil who eventually replied: "They did fight a lot, but I managed to calm them down, apologise to each other and then make them play nicely again every single time."

The young girl looked up proudly at her father, bouncing on her feet so that the hem of her dress swayed animatedly with her movements.

"That was very good of you, Sybil, my dear. Thank you," Robert said as he patted his youngest's head. Turning to face Edith and Mary he added: "Now, the two of you have undoubtedly noticed that I have not yet replied to your last letter and there is still an unresolved argument, isn't there?"

"What do you mean, Papa?" Edith asked sheepishly, her eyes flitting from her father to her mother and back again to her father.

"Well, I gather the two of you have been fighting about the colour of my hair, haven't you?"

"Oh, that. That was nothing, Papa. It was just a silly argument, I should not have mentioned it," replied Mary hastily, trying to diminish the fight she mentioned in the letter to their father. It was, after all, a truly banal question that she posed.

"Was it really silly if you indeed argued over it?" he said when his daughters both shook their heads no rather shamefully. "No, I didn't think so. If you were to ask your Granny for photographs and paintings of me in my youth, you would find that my hair indeed used to be lighter. I had blonde hair when I was a child, with a hint of red in it, just like Aunt Rosamund. Then, as I grew older, it got darker until the darker shade of blonde I had in my youth had turned into brown. Until finally, in the last few months especially, it has started to turn increasingly more grey."

The Earl leant forward in his seated position and pointed towards his temples to let his daughters inspect what he had just told them. And it was true, the hair at his temples was already turning considerably grey, even though he had not yet reached 40.

Just then, Nanny came to call the girls upstairs for their bath. Diligently, Mary and Edith bid their parents goodbye and quickly dashed upstairs. Only Sybil stayed back and moved closer to her father.

With her voice barely above a whisper — as if she were to plot something with him — she said: "You know, Papa, they didn't fight badly about this. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I can't let them lie to you and mama. They didn't fight about the colour of your hair. In fact, they never truly argued about your hair at all, we simply talked about you, what we remembered about you and how much we missed you. This was all just a plan we came up with that was meant to get you to come home to us faster. We thought if we exaggerated things, you might be able to come home. I am sorry," the young girl said, bowing her head ashamedly.

"Sybil, darling, I know."

"You do?" she asked. Her brown eyes were wide when she looked back up at her father with surprise and shock

"Yes, of course. Why would you ever seriously fight about something so insignificant like the colour of my hair? And I am not mad about this plan of yours, not in the least. I wouldn't even have been mad if they had argued."

"You would not?" Sybil asked.

"You would not?" Cora echoed her daughter, almost at the same time and just as surprised.

Robert quickly smiled at Cora before turning back to face his daughter. He took Sybil's small hands in his.

"Sybil, your sisters argue over many things. They always have and they likely always will. They are very different people, and both have inherited their mother's strong determination, as have you. That leads them to argue a lot, but they are still sisters. They love you and they love each other, they just can't show it. They don't know how. This plan of yours just shows that you care; all of you do, and I am glad for it. So no, I am not mad that you lied."

Sybil beamed brightly at him, more than relieved that her Papa was not cross with any of them for their deception, and quickly made to leave the room and follow her sisters upstairs.

"But only this once, little lady," he shouted after her when she was already out the door.

Her head peeked back around the wooden door again, still smiling widely, as she said: "Of course, Papa, we will never lie, ever again!"

Her parents shared a laugh at that, both knowing this to be quite far from the truth. Neither of them was an only child, after all. Just when they thought they had the library to themselves again and Robert made to kiss his wife, Carson entered with a silver tray in hand. Starting to get quite irritated by the interruption, he asked rather harshly: "What is it now, Carson?"

"I am sorry to interrupt you, milord, but this just arrived for you," the butler replied as he lowered the tray for him to retrieve the envelope. "I will also ring the dressing gong in a minute." Then, turning to face the lady of the house, he said: Oh, and the Dowager Countess has also sent word that she will arrive very soon. She will stay for dinner and she will not take no for an answer this time."

"Thank you, Carson," both of them said in unison, and Robert helped his wife up from the settee. He knew she would immediately want to go down to the kitchens and report the change in the menu to their still rather new cook and inform her of the two extra stomachs that needed to be filled.

Sure enough, Carson rang the gong as soon as he was out in the hall again and soon after that, Violet arrived at the abbey. All evening, Robert wanted nothing more than to finally be alone with his wife. And yet, his mother, who was understandably quite joyous about his leave of convalescence, simply would not leave that night.

///////////

It was almost midnight by the time they were alone in her bedroom, both exhausted after the events and surprises of the day.

Lying in bed, Robert watched his wife, who was still sitting at her dressing table and took off her jewellery. He saw how preoccupied she seemed, that her mind was somewhere miles away. Cora had her brow furrowed and pensively took off her right earring while staring at her reflection in the mirror with a frown on her face.

"Cora, what do you truly need to be happy?"

"I told you already, darling. I don't need much to be happy."

"Yes, I know you don't. But what is it that you truly need or desire? What would make you feel better?" Robert pressed on.

Silence.

For a minute, a deafening silence filled the otherwise cosy bedroom. His wife looked at him through the mirror on the vanity. She let her gaze wander from the long laceration on his forehead to his arm resting limply in the sling, and then back up to his face.

"You, Robert. You are who and what I need. I need you with me, here at Downton, and not away on another continent fighting for your life every single minute of every single day. I need you here with me. I need to be sure that you're safe, that you are far out of harm's way. I need to know you're alive, that you'll come home to me."

Cora turned and finally looked at him.

When he did not reply, she added: "It seems like I have steadily gotten worse at coping without you here. It is true, what the girls wrote in their letter to you. I have been unhappy and I have been ignoring your mother's messages and invitations. I am honestly quite surprised I did not get an earful about that tonight. No doubt that was only because of your unforeseen presence."

"I think you might be right about that, dearest," he chuckled. The same thought had crossed his mind already, as well, and it would be in his mother's character.

"Robert, I mean it. Look at you, you have been hurt badly-"

"It could have been worse, so much worse. So many of my comrades will never return home like I did. But I had a lucky charm that saved me. Which reminds me-"

As gracefully as he could, he hoisted himself out of bed and went to his dressing room. Cora only heard how he rummaged through something, muttering under his breath, until he eventually returned and took a seat on the cushioned bench at the foot of their bed.

"I want you to have this back," he said, extending his left hand.

With surprise written all over her face, Cora looked at what he tried to give her.

It was her lucky charm, the small toy dog she had insisted Robert take with him to the front when he was first called up. Her father had given it to her when she was a young girl and it had always brought her luck, and so she wanted Robert to have it. He would need all the luck he could get, she had figured.

"No, Robert. You need it. I can't take it from you."

"You can. Your lucky charm did its trick, it saved me. I am here, am I not? Please, I insist."

Once again, he urged her to take the toy, extending his arm further towards her.

"No, take it back with you. This time, you and your batsman were only injured. But god knows what will happen next time," Cora replied adamantly.

She took his hand and closed it around the small dog, trying to push Robert's hand back towards his chest.

"Cora, take it, please. I have no use for it any longer. There is nowhere left I could take it."

"I don't understand?"

"The mysterious letter Carson brought this afternoon. I never told you what it was about, did I?"

Seeming more than slightly confused about the sudden change of subject, Cora shook her head no. They hadn't had a chance to talk since then, and she had already forgotten about the letter delivered to him, if she was completely honest with herself.

"It was a telegram from the general I served under in Africa. He said that the last of the guerillas finally surrendered a few days ago and that a treaty is currently in the works, waiting to be signed. That will put an end to this war once and for all. I don't need your lucky charm any longer because I'm staying. I'm staying for good this time, Cora," he smiled.

"You will never have to go back there?" she asked, bewilderment written all over her features.

"No. I will never have to go back there. The war is over for me, for us. I am home and I wanted you to be the first person to know."

Robert tried again to give Cora the toy. And this time, she took it. Gladly. She stood up and put it on her nightstand before getting into bed, waiting for him to do the same.

He lifted the covers on his side of the bed and slid under them, carefully trying not to move his arm too much. Once she had finally settled into bed next to him and her head was resting on his chest as she snuggled up to him, he asked: "Cora, are you happy now?"

"I told you, I don't need a lot to be happy," she replied. "And this proves it. Yes, I am so very happy."

"Good, so am I."