#also if youre planning to post abt these and you use a certain tag or spoiler tag for it please tell me! thank you

[applescabs]

Had to block sonic p and jjk tags because my brother will be gone for an indefinite amount of time (at least a week), AND I won't be home (with internet) from today all throughout the weekend. So shiguang had to be blocked too. Pain.

[lewisvinga]

because i liked a boy , part ii. | carlos sainz x fem! reader

part one.

summary: carlos sees how y/n is thriving after their break up and he couldn’t help but feel regret, especially after seeing how she moved on.

fc; nicki nicole

warnings; cursing , reader is implied to be a spanish speaker, uhhh idk what else

taglist; @namgification @louvrepool @locelscs

note; requested ! this is set over a span of a couple of months btw ! this is a long one for me icl

masterlist !

liked by lilymhe, carlossainz55, and others

yourusername: por las noches [at night] remix out now!

thank you pesopluma for giving me the chance to feature on this track, had so much fun collabing with you!

tagged; pesopluma

username: OMG MOTHER

username: this song is so….💔💔

username: her voice + peso’s voice 😫

username: yall think it’s abt carlos???

pesopluma: fue tan divertido trabajar contigo, hasta la próxima! 🖤😁 [it was so fun working with you, until next time!]

yourusername: gracias por darme la oportunidad 🥹🖤 [thank you for giving me the opportunity]

username: omg wasn’t she rumored to date him before carlos??

username: they just shared a mutual friend 😭

username: ‘solita me dejarás’ [you’ll leave me alone] was 100% aimed at carlos for not defending her 🙁

username: the emotions in her voice, i just know that break up hurt her

lilymhe: idk what you’re saying but your pretty voice makes up for it 😫🫶

yourusername: love uuuuuu

username: when she said ‘todo lo que yo te di y todo lo que me diste, fue pa' nada’ [everything i gave to you and everything you gave to me, was for nothing] i felt that shit in MY SOUL😖😖

username: omg omg omg carlos liked!!!

username: my roman empire is cary/n

username: carlos still liking her posts and following her 🥹🥹

username: “voy a preguntar por qué todos nuestros sentimientos se quedaron en ayer” [i’m going to ask why all of our feelings stayed in yesterday] has me in my FEELS, miss y/n you ate w that🤒

alexandrasaintmleux: amazing! always so talented 🩷💐

yourusername: thank u alex 🥹🫶

username: my ferrari wags💔💔

username: this song seems like the last goodbye to carlos tbh, like she’s letting alllll of her feelings out before moving on bc in her recents she looks so happy🥹🥹🥹🥹 liked by yourusername !

liked by carlossainz55, carmenmmundt, and others!

yourusername: “ALMA”, my first album, is finally out! and if that wasn’t enough, official dates for ALMA tour is also out! presale link in my bio. 🖤🖤🖤

username: HELLOOOO?????

username: IM SLDKSKDO

username: trust I WILL BE GOING TO MADRID TO SEE HER

carmenmmundt: i better get front row seats in madrid!!

yourusername: i’ll get them for you #trust

username: anybody notice how the opening show is in madrid ??? coincidentally before the start of the season??

username: i noticed too omg, i’m convinced the tour was planned before her and carlos broke up so he could see her🥹

username: carlos liked this post too!

lilymhe: OH EM GEEEEE IM SO EXCITEDDDDDD liked by yourusername!

username: working extra shifts rn

carlossainz55: felicitaciones! [congratulations] knew you could do it! liked by yourusername!

username: cary/n💔💔😭😭

username: IM SO HYPED FOR THIS

username: so you’re telling me we might hear ‘because i liked a boy’ and ‘por las noches’ LIVE???!!

yourusername: maybeeeeeee

alexandrasaintmleux: already ready for when they officially go on sale! making charles also use his phone and laptop😌😌

yourusername: alexxxxx🥹🥹🫶🫶

carlos congratulations on the album and the tour, i know how hard you’ve been working on both.

y/n thank you, carlos. yeah, i have been working hard despite certain bumps in the road 😊

carlos listen, i’m so sorry. i should’ve defended you more. it was my mistake and i was blind and stupid and i lost you. i lost an amazing girl.

y/n yeah! you were stupid

y/n i was getting death threats and i was told that it was ‘complicated’ to make a post!

y/n but it’s fine, i’m over it.

carlos well i’m not over you.

y/n deal with it, carlos sainz. you messed up. you lost me.

carlos just give me one more chance, por favor, mi amor. [please, my love] te lo juro, [i swear to you] i won’t fuck it up. please.

y/n no. i have a tour to prepare for. goodbye, carlos.

liked by carlossainz55, carmenmmundt, and others

yourusername: MADRIDDDDD❤️🇪🇸 thank you for creating happier memories for me in this beautiful city. you’re all so special to me🖤🖤

username: ‘happier memories’ rmbr when she’d always be seen in madrid w carlos 🥹

username: OOMF ON TWT SAID SHE SAW CARLOS THERE W CARMEN AND GEORGE AND A MYSTERY GIRL

carmenmmundt: i think i lost my voice from screaming so much🤣 george is even worse!! but amazing like always 💞💞

georgerussell63: broken spanish and don’t have a clue what you said, but i somehow lost my voice

yourusername: it means sm to me that you both enjoyed 🥹🖤

username: MOTHER HAS MOTHERED

username: buenos días y k vivan los mujeres😍 [good morning and long live women]

username: el mejor concierto de mi vida😫😫 [the best concert of my life]

username: streets are saying carlos was there w another girl????

username: the way you guys stopped hating on her the moment she ended things w carlos, you guys are sick!!

username: literally, she was always that girl but since she was dating their fave……

username: idc i never liked her

landonorris: womp womp!

landonorris: waiting for u to come to england

yourusername: soooooon😁

alexandrasaintmleux: so excited for the monaco concert 🩷🩷

yourusername: can’t wait to see you and charles!🫶

liked by carlossainz55, pesopluma, and others

yourusername: special guest in cdmx [mexico city] tonight 🙈 tqm [ilysm] 🖤🖤

tagged; pesopluma

pesopluma: MI REINAAAAAA😍😍😍 [my queen]

pesopluma: la vida es mejor contigoooooo, tqm❤️❤️ [life is better with you, ilysm]

yourusername: 🥹🥹🥹🫶🫶🫶🖤🖤🖤

username: the way he looks at her, i am unwell

username: she looks so happy w him🙁🙁

username: friends to lovers is REALLL

username: mis faves

username: cdmx concert was the best one

username: POR LAS NOCHES LIVE>>

lilymhe: cuties🫶 2x date next time ur in town??

yourusername: of course 😖

username: not carlos liking 😭

username: wonder how carlos feels realizing he fumbled a bad bitch like y/n for not defending her online

username: the way peso pluma said ‘i’d defend her with my life, that’s how much i love her’ during his lil speech during the concert was so🥹🥹

username: i’m so happy that she looks so happy and relieved, AND THE COMMENT SECTION HAS NO TOXIC FANS!!

username: 😖😖😖😖😖😫😫😫💞

carlos so you’re dating your ‘friend’ now huh

y/n weird i don’t remember asking.🤣

y/n he was there for me when i was getting death threats and being called a slut for nothing. he was there to comfort me when i cried over the thousands of hate comments under every post.

y/n something you never did.

carlos wait until he finds another girl and will dump you. you know how it is when people get that famous that fast. he won’t treat you well.

y/n HA what a joke. very funny, sainz.

y/n weren’t you the one to bring a girl to MY concert?? but i’m the bad guy for moving on and dating someone else???

y/n you’re pathetic, sainz.

carlos admit it, you know i’m right

y/n fuck off, he treats me better than you ever did

carlos sure. sure he does.

y/n move on, sainz. move on.

liked by lilymhe, alexandrasaintmleux, and others!

yourusername: princess treatment only 💞🥹 muchas gracias, mi rey🖤 [thank you very much, my king]

tagged; pesopluma

pesopluma: lo mejor para usted, mi reina❤️ [the best for you, my queen]

yourusername: mi amor 🥹🫶

username: literal goals

username: mis padres

username: a relationship like them pls

username: the way she went from carlos to peso pluma>>>>

username: SHE SAID PRINCESS TREATMENT ONLY ‼️‼️ WE ONLY WANT MEN WHO DEFEND US‼️‼️ liked by yourusername !

username: she looks sooooo happy n free i love it

username: as much as i miss cary/n, peso pluma really does treat her like a queen

lilymhe: ITS WHAT YOU DESERVE BBY!!!!! liked by yourusername !

username: oh i just know lily knows the real shit abt carlos and y/n

lilymhe: i am neither confirming not denying…

landonorris: cool but can u tell him to get on his pc and join the game🙄🙄🙄🙄

pesopluma: on it 🫡

charles_leclerc: WAIT FOR ME

username: wait omg he’s friends w the drivers????

username: duh, she’s besties w the wags , ofc he’s gonna know their bfs

alexandrasaintmleux: gorgeous gorgeous girls date wonderful amazing guys who make them happy💐🩷🩷

yourusername: well that also makes you a gorgeous gorgeous girl! ilysm🫶🖤🥹

username: wonder how carlos feels knowing he lost y/n to a guy who treats her better AND is friends w his friends 😭😭

username: if i was him i’d be sooo pissed 😭

username: imagine if he was begging for her to take him back

yourusername: lol imagine

[knownbyanothername]

liveblog (Currently liveblogging ultrakill!)

Freakazoid! Blog

writing blog (mostly for original characters)

playlist blog

nsfw blog

(generally i try to stay sfw here due to my writing also being geared towards minors but like occasionally i may rb something a lil 'suggestive' bc i don't want to be disrespectful by rbing it to my nsfw blog-- if anything ever toes a line please do tell me!! it's sincerely not my intent to be Weird)

tags r #pichu barks (personal), #pichu writing (well, writing, but more rbed from different blogs now), & #pichu snarl (for if i think a post has gone into vent territory)

I try to tag things as follows:

#I live here for stuff I'm into, #I don't even go here for stuff I'm not but think is Neat, #the funnies section for shitposts, #The fridge for pieces of art i like of all sorts, #picture frame for any neat aesthetic posts I like. #Bebes will be for any cute animal stuff. #a quarter in the jukebox is for tunes. #for the funniest clown and #angelic pss pss pss for two very special people in my life :), #rats nest is for stuff that reminds me of Me :-). #mutual my friend is for stuff i rb from mutuals (i try to tag this when i can!! sometimes i forget who my mutuals are). #feels goods is for, well, feel good posts-- stuff that makes you feel all nice looking at it. :) #wisdom is for posts i just think are really good advice/words. #add to the library is for texts/written works i like. #designed delicately is for designs i like a lot. #i like your words is for good analyses. #database updated is for nice facts! #author notes is for writing info since I'm writer and want tabs on all that. #for future reference is for refs in general. #resipes is for any recipes i wanna find again. #activities section is for any games/interactive stuff I think is Neat. Will add more as needed. also old posts on my blog/posts i've queued won't be tagged but after a certain point they should be tagged. sometimes i still won't tag things bc it's a Feeling yk.

Otherwise, feel free to ask me to tag other stuff-- I can't keep up w other people's tagging systems if I don't know them well enough.

General abt is i'm a lesbian who uses any pronouns, leaning towards he/him. Generally inclusionist.

Trying to get myself out there to socialize more-- granted most of all I'd prefer a discord server I could vibe in so if you wanna possibly invite me to one i'd be open to it (obviously healthily cautious), or if you wanna start a convo we can see if we hit it off-- apologies though if it falls off at all, sometimes people don't vibe.

Not about to give out my discord willy-nilly but if you DM me and you seem chill i'll give it out-- and probably like, make a discord server if anyone/enough people ask me for it. That's like, the happy medium to me of like, making a random discord server and just putting it out there all willy nilly nally.

i will also state in advance i am a tad more careful around minors due to having so many experiences where adults have disregarded their safety, but if we cross paths we cross paths.

Current projects:

(Note: most of my writing projects I'm planning on making enjoyable via their own merits-- so if you don't know the source material, if you'd like to check out my writing regardless, you can read them regardless! )

[v-arbellanaris]

FAQ

about

vee, xhe/xer, 30. i don’t have twitter. i write, i read, i enable. big fan of villains, especially when they’re killing people and doing awful things. the more atrocities, the better.

before you ask a question...

I have a personal question about you that isn’t listed in your about

everything you need to know about me

Haha, very funny, no but seriously, I wanna know–

i don’t owe the internet any personal information about myself. you are not entitled to any piece of me that i don’t choose to share.

How can you like/dislike [fictional character]?!

they’re fictional

But THAT CHARACTER is evil and awful! Look at all the awful things they’ve done! Does this mean you condone their actions? / But THAT CHARACTER is so good! Look at all the amazing and morally upstanding things they’ve done! How can you not like them? / It’s hypocritical to like THAT character but hate THIS one because–

tbh all of this sounds like a you problem so good luck with that

Why do you have anon off?

because i can turn it off. the option to send me asks on anon is a privilege that i don’t always want to grant, especially when people take advantage of anonymity and use it to be abusive, invasive and entitled. 

When are you going to respond to my prompt? When are you going to update [x] fic?

my posting schedule 

I didn’t unfollow you but I’m not following you anymore. Did you softblock me?

nope. my blog was terminated briefly on 16 dec 2022 for having a vpn on while browsing on pc (don’t do that, apparently), which has messed with my follower count a bit. i don’t usually bother with softblocking these days, so feel free to follow me again if you want to!

tags of interest/writing

my da meta

other people’s da meta living in my head rent free 

wip wednesday

vee rewrites da (meta/references/info/worldbuilding work/character work i plan to incorporate into my personal canon)

byf

this is a fandom blog primarily, so real life politics may seep in occasionally but i don’t do my activism on tumblr.

if you’re checking this bc you’re worried i won’t wanna interact bc you like certain characters that i am critical of, this is my reassurance that i don’t really care unless you’re gonna be an asshole abt the characters i like.

this blog is also fairly bioware critical and anti chantry – it doesn’t necessarily mean i hate the series, or even that i hate specific characters, but i do engage w the content critically (and it’s all tagged with “#[character] critical”, “bioware critical” and “anti chantry” specifically), but if that doesn’t float your boat, feel free to skip this blog.

i WILL block for clowning on my posts. i also block because i hate the way you interpret canon or my favourite characters – and if you feel that way about me, i encourage you to do the same instead of wasting both of our times with anon. i use the block button liberally and generously and so should you <3

other info

minors interact at your own discretion. smts i forget to tag 18+ content

if ya need anythin tagged that i dont already just lmk – unless it’s the word queer. 

credits

mobile header and sidebar art is emerald graves concept art by matt rhodes for dragon age: inquisition.

icon is fanart birthday gift of my warden kalyani tabris by @/demandthedoodles.

[amiharana]

something i LOVE abt your writing is your creativity, like you fr come up with prompts that I've never thought about or never seen other ppl apply to revalink, and it's just so refreshing to see them in unique scenarios bc it gives me new things to brainrot about 🫶 I always love seeing your new au ideas because they're just so !! much fun to read !!!! not to give spoilers abt your wips but the one you showed me for the upcoming revalink week has been living in my head RENT FREE like how do you come up with such great ideas 😫✋

also I guess this isn't your Writing but I love the way you text AJSBAJDB the way you say everything is just so funny and I aspire to text like you 😞

(ask game from here)

hi oomfie 🤍🤍 thank you for blowing up my ask box like always /gen

but yeah i make connections to media i feel is so obscure on tumblr dot com like barely anyone interacted with the post i made about revalink au based off of the k-drama 'goblin' because probably no one in these spheres really watches k-drama 😭😭 i think one oomf rb'd knowing exactly what i was talking about but it's like COME ON GUYS IMAGINE THIS SCENE WITH REVALI AS THE GUY AND LINK AS THE GIRL AND LINK PULLING OUT THE SWORD AND [redacted because spoilers if you haven't watched the drama ㅠㅠ]

just the other day i was thinking about an orpheus!revali x eurydice!link au because i was listening to 'wait for me' from the musical 'hadestown'. what about a percy jackson au with revali as a son of apollo who resents link because he gets claimed by a powerful god that no one would have ever guessed would have children. i have part of a scene drafted in my informal-concepting style of a fucking writer!link x editor!revali au. i cannot stress to you enough how insane and Not Normal i am about these two, i will stretch so far to make every connection to revalink i can, i might just get a little taller!

BUT TEEHEE i'm hoping i can get That™ Revalink fic out on time for revalink week 🥺 i stopped writing it for a bit because i got some writer's block and i felt like i was putting too much Plot for a oneshot, but we'll see how it goes! i planned some other stuff based on the prompts, but with the way this semester is going, i doubt i'll be able to write full-fledged oneshots on time for each of them so i may end up just uploading them later on after the semester is over (late may, june, etc)

LOL to that last bit, idk....... i've spent so much time on stan twitter and the internet in general i've developed a very particular way of talking. i'm someone who, if you say a certain word or phrase around me enough, i'll start adding it to my vocabulary without really thinking. like the reason why i type 'not' and 'sorry' as 'nawt' and 'sawry' sometimes? my stan twitter bestie lele (i'm not gonna tag her but she's on here as well i know ur seeing this bff i love u sm). how sometimes my emoji usages are random? also partly lele and other stan twitter mutuals who liked to use random emojis that had nothing to do with the topic because it was funny. i feel like the way i type things online expresses exactly the tone and flow i would use irl too 🤞😽

[v2xe]

i got too carried away and ended up hitting the tag limit 🫠 hope it's alright if i just put this here instead

#SDJFGSDFNM asgsdfasd AGSDF GURGLES LIKE IM CHOKING ON MOUTHWASH FINALLY SOME GOOD FUCKING FOOD#I CANT BELOIEVE IM ONLY SEEING THIS FIVE DAYS AFTER IT WAS POSTED good lird#see i understand why there would be a split in the fandom abt this bc there is also a split in tumblr user v2xe#when i first played my reading was that sarah and jack's relationship was INTENDED to be portrayed as romantic#only the writers kind of expected them sharing some friendly lines + jack being the protag and sarah#being the princess would be enough for the audience to go “ah yes. romance”#and that the tragic and borderline romantic subtext jack has w astos was just incidental in the way it happens when writers#accidentally end up developing male characters and their relationships more than female ones#esp since se's games' track record w this is…….not great#(<-she is haunted by secondhand accounts from the tranches of ff16's writing)#and tbh i was ready to just assume this was my own little interpretation where it isn't that deep but it could be. and i could just build#myself a fun little sandbox in the hole i dug where the story could have expanded certain themes further but didn't#but after reading that one interview where the writers were like "maybe sarah was in love with him maybe she was just infatuated with what

#he represented" i turned into one of those shitty gore stick figures because what the fuck!! the writing agrees??#which meshes perfectly w her being sheltered which!! while i thought abt it i never really went into it like this and it makes!! sense!!#& a the same time yeah!! sarah IS a symbol. which having played ff1 i think was a cool way to go about expanding her role from that gam#oh so she's a symbol? she's a reward? the motivator that pulls you along to start your journey? ok fine then. i'll give you a Symbol#and if you asked me i think jack genuinely cared/s(?) about her (just not in a romantic sense)#and unlike other things i say here i can say w 100% confidence that the writers wanted us to notice he cares#like it always fascinated me how in the jp version jack's speech patterns change DRASTICALLY whenever he's speaking to sarah#idk much japanese but the formal/respectful way he spoke stood out massively compared to his usual form of speech#i get that this could be harder to portray in english without seeming unnatural but i'm sad they didn't include this tbh#bc we don't see him talk to ANYONE like this in the game i believe- not the king or queen not astos not anyone#they WANTED you to notice. they put a big neon sign pointing at jack and sarah there's SOMETHING important here#(tangent for some reason the spanish version got this backwards and it's ash and jed who address sarah formally while jack speaks in the same blunt manner...but that#version was so rushed it still has placeholder text in the script so i woulnt put too much faith in it having like…authorial intent lmao)

#& in general there are some very slight differences between the eng and jp ver that imo carry v different implications?#like how in eng jack just kinda sounds annoyed at sarah's request and his “of course” comes across as exasperated and sarcastic rather than#genuinely polite- which makes the scene of him tapping his foot seem like an intentional gesture of “stfu already” rather than “desperately#trying to contain the wave pure compulsive rage that drives me for 2 minutes so i can be polite to this girl" yknow? #anyway what i mean is that its interesting how his affection for sarah was also "weaponized" for the plan like the one he has for his friends #and yet sarah's role is more as a symbol than an emotional catalyst? to me at least-& i keep wondering WHY it's diff for her in particular #&it's not bc she was WRITTEN poorly i feel-if the writers did fall for that kind of trap we wouldn't have sophia or neon imo #it almost feels like theres all these conspicuous arrow signs pointing at something but i cant fucking see what it is??

#but after reading this i can see how that was kinda the point i think #at the end of the day this is jack's story. and us experiencing everything from his pov at all times is a big part of why the story works so well #it makes sense he wouldn't care for anyone's emotions or inner thoughts until it's too late- therefore the game doesn't show them #& sadly that includes sarah and what's going through her head #bc i kind of wish we couldve seen more of it- what was she thinking as she died? what did she feel? was it clean and straightfoward? #hope? despair? sadness? nothing at all? too many things at once? did she feel betrayed as she remembered? did she feel resentment for the #one man who could change her world by watching her die? how was she any different from the organic reconoissance unit Iving dead in a floati #-ng island somewhere surrounded by dead bats and FUCK I haven't even talked about astos yet #it's a tragedy that despite them having canonically interacted multiple times we never get to hear any of it :(( #tho i have to put a big * on all this because i know that this could very much be me critiquing the game on what i WISH it did #rather than on how it archieved what it was actually trying to do #imo sarah has the markings of god's little lamb(symbol of hope) most likely to be slaughtered #dare i say final fantasy's very own anthy himemiya #there's something about a character whose purpose is to essentially be a symbol #and who is also a sheltered young woman whose hopefulness is not a flaw but who is perhaps too idealistic for her own good that really intrigues me!! #and from that view i like how you can see her unwavering idealism as sheltered naivety or as something good and celebrated(? in the narrative #anyway sarah both as a character and how she fits into jack's story leave so so much room for fun stuff and i really appreciate that #in a better world i think they would have a lovely friendship

#ok running out of power now so ill stop and hope this doesnt read like gibberish or realize i missed sth if i reread it in the morning #i am so so sorry for the wall of tags none of this has much of a throughline this is just thought vomit bc this post made me Think #by which i mean this post is rearranging my brain and activating neural pathways i didn't even know i had rn #& in all seriousness im so so so glad i saw this!! even if i wish i had done it sooner!! its great to read someone's thoughts like this <33

"You Never Forget Your First Love."

The other day, a mutual (hi! you know who you are I think probably hello hi! thank you for the Posting Impetus!) said something that made me curious (for, like, the 80th time, actually; lol. I Have Thoughts) about something: what's the split on people who subscribe to the "Stranger of Paradise probably intended for us to believe that Jack & Sarah were in love" mindset, vs. not? In general, but ESPECIALLY around these parts.

I genuinely didn't read it that way myself (& I do NOT normally give media (general) this much credit, but the writing in this game is sublime; I had no choice but to fully engage Scholar Mode on it), + I think it's interesting that SPECIFICALLY any of my fellow tumblr people / AO3-heads / Gay People Online / etc. seem to have. (I expect nothing from people who haven't been basting themselves in the same online sub-subcultures as me for over a decade. They're allowed to write wrong things on wikis, and have done so already; it's whatever.)

I wanna metapost badly again, so let's go. Join me. No poll. If you have an opinion on this, I'm looking directly into your eyes and beckoning you towards your own keyboard + also the reblog button / comment section, like a weird ghost. What did you think when you first played the game?? What do you think right now? What are you about to think after you have read a bunch of my words. Tell Me. I Need To Know This.

Spoilers for, idk, everything? Today we will use everything we've got to talk about Princess Sarah.

1. As a Narrative Element

This game makes a point of referring to Sarah as things like "a symbol of hope and peace" as often as possible, & when it isn't doing that she's usually in the role of An Object Or Device Of Some Kind, anyway. She's important because she's capable of holding light and dark in balance & SOMEONE'S gotta hold onto this dark crystal for safekeeping, and also we're gonna need to upset that balance on purpose later. There's that conversation in the Wicked Arbor about whether the Strangers would "choose" her (as opposed to "treasure") as the "reward" for succeeding in their mission[1], & there's the one in the Sunken Shrine where Jed asks Jack what he thinks of her and Jack says that he doesn't care about her as a person[2] BUT that protecting her is mission-critical (lol), too.

Sarah's death is metaphorically charged. It's the point of no return: the dark crystal breaks, the balance of light & dark gets extremely ruined, & Literally All The Darkness In Cornelia converges in one place (Fool's Missive XXVII). That's the payoff for the "symbol of hope and peace" motif, and communicating this idea that "the metaphorical light of hope just For Real Died, Like Catastrophically Imploded, No Take-Backs" feels to me like it was the highest priority here. Second-highest goes to "Jack had way more humanity before, but he set it aside on purpose and is actively in the middle of losing the rest of it." "Sort of." "I'm not getting into what counts as humanity or doesn't because if I did we would be here forever."

Basically, I'm saying that the tidiest read on the situation is "Jack despairs because Sarah dying means in a very literary and final way that everything is ruined forever, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with, like, Love (romantic)." I don't think the text of the game is particularly signaling that Love (romantic) is involved, and I think that if it meant to, it would be more obvious about it. You could bundle "an romance" into the "humanity" thing if you wanted to, but I'm not inclined to, based on some additional list items that you can read below this one.

[1] The fact that Neon ALSO says she feels bad for her for being thought of in this way only reinforces my conviction that the game is pointing at Sarah & yelling "REMEMBER THAT SHE IS MOSTLY A SYMBOL!", tbh. Who wants to go point out how freaky the mechanics of Being An Royalty are w/ me and the boys??

[2] I will give the Wiki WrongPosters this: I can totally see this as some kind of irony thing, given that he's still missing like a fucktillion of his memories when he says it. However! As mentioned above, I have other reasons not to read it as evidence that he was ever, like, romantically interested in her.

2. As a Sheltered Youth™

We don't have a TON of information to work with RE: Sarah as, like, a person, but here are a couple of hard facts to start with: she's 19 (per the data book, but she'd have to be somewhere in the 18-to-early-20's age range regardless or her whole deal wouldn't really make much sense, imo. She's a baby...!), and she's royalty. I think this ties into her utility as a walking metaphor, among other things; she's archetypically young, fresh, & idealistic. I'd call her naïve but the game obviously isn't interested in portraying it as a weakness, so positive words only; why not.

You could argue that people look to her as a symbol of hope because she hasn't directly experienced enough strife to exhibit hopelessness or fear in response to bad news in the abstract. I find it interesting that before Jack, like, knocks the wind out of her & tells Sophia to take her outside so she can see for herself how bad things have gotten at the end of the game, she says that her duty is to die with her people if she has to, & it doesn't even seem to occur to her that she could lead at least some of them away to safety...? When she changes her mind, she still talks about herself as a symbol before she ever uses the word "leader". She sees HERSELF in terms of symbols and metaphors, and takes action based on her designated role As One Of Those. Not very practical.

There's also the dialogue you can have with the queen the first time you're allowed to run around in the throne room at the beginning of the game, where she asks Jack to smile in front of her daughters (NOT just Mia; daughters, plural). Even if she only means "dude can you be polite please," the fact that this is The thing she has to say to Jack is telling. Is it going to upset your 19-year-old daughter to see that the Guy Whose Job It Is To Kill Monsters looks serious? Why do you think this? Does your 19-year-old daughter understand how serious the situation is, generally speaking? Do you not WANT her to for some reason? Boats don't work anymore unless a weird elf messes with them first. Not thinking very hard about the implications of this is something a sheltered person does.

Residual time loop un-memories aside, a young woman in this situation is so obviously going to have a huge crush on Jack Garland no matter what. He Is So Cool, first of all, & he's also Different from the adult men she gets to see on an everyday basis (family, guards, rando townspeople[3]...). It's not like the political social scene could POSSIBLY be thriving in this world, either; it all seems to be one kingdom we're dealing with and they're kind of busy with the external threat of being Under Fucking Attack By Monsters. Does she even get fun treats like "handsome visiting dignitaries" & what-have-you? The game doesn't present us with any potential options, here. Jack is mysterious, he has special-boy Warrior of Light status, his one job & apparent life's purpose is protecting the kingdom she loves, he's pretty nice to her (even in later cycles he at least goes out of his way to be polite!), & additionally, he's shredded. THIS makes sense to me.

There's a Q&A in the data book that has something to say about JACK as a symbol & what that has to do with this whole thing but we'll get there. We'll get there.

[3] Tangent: what's up with how Cornelia's entire adult male population appears to consist of aging queens. Why did they only make models that look Like That for the NPCs? It's awesome but I have 1 quastion

3. JACK JUMPSCARE !

I'm not about to say that he's just humoring her, or anything, but please humor ME for one second & put yourself in Jack's shoes. Not the default shoes; we can have more fun than that. Maybe the Banded Boots. Blurple ones? Shaped like a cartoon would wear them? Big spikes on the back for no reason? I love those things. Anyway, you're Jack. You're working for literally the king, & the work means Everything to you for reasons you can't even necessarily explain except to say that it JUST does. The king's eldest daughter (very young adult; Never Been Outdoors; a little overly-sociable but nice enough & what do you expect from a princess, anyway) has imprinted on you like a duckling for whatever reason. You would be nice to this person, yes? You'd be patient with her while you're in town. You have Brutal Murders to be doing, but not until, like, 2 days from now, or whatever; you're sharing space with her in some capacity in the meantime & it's in your best interests to keep her happy. (You probably even enjoy doing this, if you're Jack of a Way Earlier Cycle; I'm in no way ruling that out. Sharing your music collection with an enthusiastic Baby Adult? That's fun. I think he was probably having fun. Okay, you can step out of the fun purple shoes if you want; the Humoring Me Minute has concluded; thanks.)

Also, @2000sanimeop and I think that if Jack felt that way about her Astos would have been a little More Something about how much it was gonna suck for him when she died. In Fool's Missive XXVII he uses the word "painful," but that's about it. He doesn't even bring it up in XXV, which is the one where he says he's curious about whether she'd survive being turned into a fiend (side note: Astos fucking rocks. Why did he write that down?? I love him). & Hey SPEAKING OF ASTOS,

4. I wouldn't put Jackstos on a wiki, either.

The writing in Stranger of Paradise, SERIOUSLY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATION, is some of the best I've seen in literally anything ever. It suits not just its medium but also its sort of Place in History Relative to Other Video Games & the things it chose to DO with that medium & that niche INSANELY well. It is CUSTOMIZED. It's SO INTENTIONAL. I can't get too far into this or we'll be here all day, but the essence of what I want to say here is: there are relatively few facts presented to us by this game, compared to the implications we can go about drawing from those facts & other, external sources of context.

Sarah calls Jack her first love; that's a fact. No facts are presented to us that REALLY say much one way or the other[4] about what Jack thinks of this, himself; "fucktillion memories missing" Jack says he doesn't care, but he's missing a fucktillion of his memories, and DLC2 Jack has a set of dialogue options (hi Anne the Malboro I love you Anne the Malboro) that can point either way depending on what the player chooses, which is kind of nothing, on balance. As the audience, we can (should!) draw whatever conclusion we want about it, but none of those conclusions are text.

[4] I WILL GET TO THE DATA BOOK IN ONE SECOND. HOLD ON.

And, okay, please let me level with you. Let's be on the same page. Jack & Astos had some kind of thing going on, imo, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to be CLEAR and I want to get CREDIT for the things I'M bringing to the table to help generate this conviction. I drew that conclusion & I read that reading based on subtext, context, personal history, personal preference, & sheer gay zest for life. It is also, emphatically, NOT TEXT.

Astos refers to Jack with the ol' "...friend" in Fool's Missive XXI. He calls him "my Jack" in Fool's Missive XXXI. Canonically, textually, he has some big fucking COMPLICATED fucking feelings about this man. These are facts. If you're playing this game as Some Guy, I can see how you could potentially absorb these facts & still pay them much less regard[5] than I did & continue to. My argument here is that god I wish I lived in a world where Some Guy could extend the same courtesy to me and not treat Sarah's textual affection for Jack as something that necessarily indicates Some Kind Of Reciprocal Romantic Whatever, Definitely, Obviously, Of Course.

[5] Longer Tangent: I have been informed that the Some Guys of the world are currently pretty good at Recognizing a character that behaves in a way that's Pretty Gay, but tend to stop there, possibly for the combined reasons that A. they're not very familiar with a lot of the the ways gay relationships often work (you know, soul resonance. mutual recognition. sharing a brain etc.) and B. the Object Of Affection is usually the player character and they subconsciously shy away from thinking of a Guy They're Supposed To Identify With as gay. This is practically a lead-in to an entire separate post I could make, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

The writing is too good for that kind of assumption! I'M SERIOUS!! It's mind-blowingly subtle & endlessly fascinating to hold up to the light & view from every possible angle, and "Jack & Sarah were in love" + "Jack & Astos were in love" are BOTH ANGLES. I'm personally very very interested in giving the text credit for that. I think it's impressive. I think it's really, really cool, and I think it was on purpose. Speaking of which,

5. Word of God agrees with me, btw

This is from the Q&A section on page 156 of the Confidential File. The translations below are my own (I think they're straightforward enough, but lmk if you know more than me & I'm actually being stupid in there somewhere. Alt text has the JPN, if you want to copypaste it or something). Someone asked:

Why is it that you established Garland as someone Sarah has a romantic interest in?

The answer is from Daisuke Inoue (director, one of 3; the other 2 are from Team Ninja; he's from Square Enix):

That was because, from a narrative standpoint, we wanted Sarah to be the kind of person who holds onto hope. You can imagine that she saw the "hope" to save the world in Jack, a potential Warrior of Light. Sarah is seen by her people as a symbol of a bright future, but if there were nobody to give her hope, that might destabilize her emotionally. As for whether she felt genuine love for Jack, or just mistook her feelings of admiration towards him for "first love," we'll leave that to your interpretation.

The first time I read this, I thought the question was implying the aforementioned Reciprocal Something, but on closer inspection that doesn't even seem to be true! "思い人" seems to indicate a directional relationship; as in, the question assumes that Jack is an object of affection to Sarah, but assumes nothing about what Jack thinks.

Also, the answer uses the word "初恋" (hatsukoi), which is a very established Concept as far as "first love" goes, but in that one cutscene, Sarah says "初めての恋" (hajimete no koi), which is. Different, but I couldn't tell you how, lol. It's Not The Exact Same Phrase, but I'm not sure whether it's meaningfully different in this context. If I had to guess, I'd say that IF ANYTHING it could be a way of saying "first love" without invoking the cultural CONSTRUCT of First Love (as much)? But it's whatever. The localization holds up. All sources show that Sarah had Feelings about Jack, and all sources CONSPICUOUSLY neglect to mention Jack's feelings about her.

It was on purpose. This is my license to be as annoying as I want for one second here. I am right. All the other writing in this game is notably subtle, efficient, intentional, and skilled, AND ALSO, WHEN do you ever see anyone write such a richly beautiful, mostly-subtextual relationship between two men, which can easily be read as a romantic thing, and NOT explicitly canonize a very possible romantic relationship between at least one of those men and a woman, like not even in an interview or anything. What the fuck, man.

I'm putting away the Respectable Scholar Hat now. This is so funny. The person asking this question didn't EVEN go as far as assuming Jack & Sarah had any kind of Actual Romance going on, & the answer STILL dials it back to "she might have been conflating her feelings about Jack AS A SYMBOL with actual affection, also. We'll let you decide : ) ". This game is everything ever.

[atlabeth]

hey! i love your zuko fics so much and was wondering if you’d like to write this, because the idea just popped up: maybe a zuko x reader fluff that takes place before/during LOK? maybe they’re reminiscing about their past adventures w the Gaang while helping out the new Team Avatar? idk it’s just that every time I see old zuko it makes me soft and emotional 🥲🔥❤️ anyways, much love! (and don’t feel pressured to do this at all, I was just thinking abt who I could submit this request to, and obvi my first choice was you 💕)

reminiscence - zuko x fem!reader

summary: just because you and your husband are retired doesn’t mean you don’t have amazing advice for the new team avatar.

a/n: this is so cute omg!! thank you so much for requesting this and thank you for much for your kind words i'm honored <33 im so sorry this took so long

sorry im posting so much lately im trying to stop slacking and publish things that have been wips for over a month sdkjfh

wc: 1.3k

warning(s): none bc i choose to ignore the news of zaheer’s plan right after this scene

-

Retirement was… nice.

You had spent your childhood fighting with the Avatar to end the Hundred Year War, a feat that was only made more difficult with your Fire Nation roots and connection to the banished prince. But all that’s well ends well, and you ended up getting your happy ending together — you had to fight hard for it, though.

You married Zuko at nineteen, three years after he ascended to the throne, and spent the subsequent years balancing your duties as Fire Lady and taking care of your daughter. Ruling the Fire Nation was a lot, but you knew you could get through anything with your husband at your side.

When he told you his plans to abdicate the throne, you were more than supportive. One of Zuko’s biggest fears was becoming his father, and by giving up his position willingly to Izumi, it guaranteed that he wouldn’t fall victim to the power-obsessed ways of his ancestors. It also gave him a well-deserved break after decades of being Fire Lord, and you were more than ready to get out of the world of Fire Nation politics. You had sat through enough meetings to fill multiple lifetimes.

But just because the two of you weren’t as involved in every day affairs of the world didn’t mean that you were completely out of it. No, that was far from the truth. You and Zuko were still some of the most important people in all of the nations, which meant it wasn’t a rare occurrence for your husband to be called off on some sort of mission.

One such mission was stopping the Order of the Red Lotus for the second time; Zuko had been part of the team that stopped them from kidnapping Avatar Korra as a child, so it was no surprise that he had been called to help for a second time. You knew even in his old age that your husband was powerful, but you couldn’t help but feel concerned about everything he was doing.

This concern was ultimately what led you to join Zuko on his trip to meet with Chief Beifong and Chief Tonraq in the Misty Palms Oasis. He had originally been against your involvement, claiming that the Red Lotus was far too dangerous, and he didn’t want to risk you getting injured in any way. You, of course, weren’t having it. “The Avatar’s in trouble, and I’d like to think I know a few things about getting out of trouble.”

One thing was certain after you arrived — it had been far too long since you had ridden on the back of a dragon. You truly adored Druk, and you felt bad for everyone that would never have the opportunity.

After conversing with Lin and Tonraq inside, you all exited to greet the new Team Avatar. If what you were told was true, then they had been through quite a lot since leaving Zaofu. For as long as you had been involved in foreign affairs, you had never met Avatar Korra nor her friends, so you didn’t know what to expect — an awestruck boy that could barely speak wasn’t at the top of your list though.

“Oh my gosh. It’s Lord Zuko and Lady Y/N. I can’t believe it!” He stared at the two of you with wide eyes, his voice getting higher and higher as he whimpered. He looked like he was going to fall over until another black-haired boy pulled him out of the way, his tone apologetic.

“Uh, forgive my brother,” he said as he put his fist against his open palm, his brother following suit. “We’re just really honored to meet you both.”

“It’s no problem,” you smiled as you and Zuko returned the greeting. It had been years since someone had reacted that way towards you, and you would be lying if you said it didn’t amuse you. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”

The two boys straightened again as the taller one gestured to them each in turn. “I’m Mako, and this is Bolin. We’re Korra’s friends.”

“Ah, she’s got her own Team Avatar?” You inquired with a twinkle in your eye. “You know, I traveled with Avatar Aang years back along with my husband.”

“Of course I know!” Bolin exclaimed. “Oh, I’ve heard so many stories about your adventures, they’re all so amazing!” His eyes widened and you actually thought that he was going to fall over. “Oh, oh, could you tell us about some of the things you went through?”

“Bolin, we really shouldn’t bother them—” Mako started, but you laughed and waved it off.

“I assure you, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not often I get to relive my journeys to such avid listeners. What would you like to hear about?”

He thought for a couple seconds then shot back up again. “What was it like when you escaped the Boiling Rock together? You guys were the first people to ever break out, right? That had to be amazing!”

You and Zuko both laughed as you shot him a look. “It was… interesting,” he said.

“By interesting, he means it was a complete disaster,” you corrected. “Everywhere something could’ve gone wrong, it went wrong. They had originally come there to rescue Sokka’s dad, but instead they found Suki and I. Then Zuko got found out and thrown into prison, our first escape plan failed, Sokka almost got found out, Azula showed up… it was honestly a miracle we made it out at all.”

“It wasn’t that bad!” he protested. “Getting thrown into prison was part of the plan, we wouldn’t have been able to get the cooler out if I hadn’t been found out.”

“I guess I can’t complain,” you chuckled. “I did get to punch you a couple times.”

“They are so cool,” Bolin whispered as the two of you went on in the background. He elbowed Mako in the shoulder and gestured towards the couple with his head. “Come on, ask them something! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

“I’m not going to ask them something, Bolin—”

“Excuse me, my brother has something he wants to ask too!” Mako shot him a dirty look which quickly disappeared when you and Zuko turned to him attentively.  

“Oh, um…” He coughed and scratched his head. “I guess.. is there any advice you have for us? With this whole Team Avatar thing, I mean.” You smiled at Mako and took Zuko’s hand.

“The friendships you forge during your journey are the most important thing — they’re the things that will keep you going during your darkest moments, and they will last a lifetime. There will be mountains and valleys, ebbs and flows, but no matter what, you will hold an unbreakable bond.”

You felt Zuko squeeze your hand and turned your smile on him as you returned the sentiment then nodded for him to continue. “Never take anything for granted, and trust in fate. You’re where you are for a reason — everything will end up working out in the end.”

You grinned and kissed him on the cheek, humming in agreement. “It did, didn’t it?”

-

After a few more minutes of talking with the two brothers, they went off to join the rest of their group. It was strange being on the outside of it all after how intense your childhood was, but it was… refreshing not to have the weight of the world on your shoulders anymore.

“The world’s in good hands with them,” you murmured as you leaned your head on Zuko’s shoulder.

“They all have that same fire you had when I first met you,” Zuko chuckled. You watched the four of them conversing and a smile graced your lips.

“Oh? Then I think the world’s in very good hands.”

-

perm tag list: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin

[revui]

Quin seems like a fun character but I have nothing to go by beyond Foreverlands and a few memes. I saw on your blog that you're down for talking abt your OCs though. So! Do you have any fun facts about Quin?

what if i [kisses anon on the mouth]

fr this is one of the best things i could've woken up to in my inbox although by the time i finish this it definitely won't be the morning anymore

SO QUIN. Quintilian Holmes. Here's a random fact before I really get going, looking at the posts that I have tagged as Quin, the oldest one is actually referring to a completely different character, and their name was Quindecim. They wound up sharing nicknames by accident. Anyway, from this point forward, this post is now all about Quin-as-in-Quintilian and not Quin-as-in-Quindecim.

So, the thing about Quin is that he's very emotional, he's very artistic, and he's very observant. He's also highkey brimming with rage at all moments in time. When people read "emotional" they sometimes forget that incandescent fury is an emotion, and it happens to be one he wears well. But it's very easy for people to overlook that because he tries quite hard to avoid showing that. He tries to act like a Guy Not Full Of Anger and partially succeeds, but anyone who really knows him is very aware of (and wary of) this part of him.

His major role in the actual story that I've been writing with him (I only post the random episodic stuff I think of) is as someone who's trying to solo the entire government. He pops up a few times earlier but his first big appearance is when he's in the middle of his plan to topple the whole system.

He's from a place called Ivory Ridge, a now-destroyed town which was a safe-haven for demons. "Demon" as a term is very loose in the Foreverlands. It just refers to any humanoid who isn't a human. Actual demons are hard to come by in the present—you'll pretty exclusively find descendants and people with demonic heritage instead of actual full-on demons. Quin is descended from dryad-like demons. After Ivory Ridge got destroyed, Quin got adopted by his moms, Mildred and Emelia Snow.

Switching topics entirely, glyphs. He brings those up quite a lot in the chapter, and the weird thing is that they're kind of a lost art. Quin isn't fully aware of this. Glyphs are essentially tiny symbols that "code" the magical world of the Foreverlands, and when you notice certain patterns (such as a symbol that seems to code for creatures being able to change color), you can mix-and-match different glyph symbols into a whole new glyph. If you mix the symbol that codes for color-changing with a symbol that codes for a lattice-shaped structure in a bush, you can use this new glyph to... I don't know, transmute your blue fence into bright orange lattice.

The reason he uses glyphs is somewhat related to his disability. Sorcerers can use magic because they have a special organ that turns the magic in the world around them into something they can actually wield, and Quin's doesn't work properly, and to put it very very simply, this results in him having "less magic" than other sorcerers. He medicates for this but still has an easier time just using glyphs instead of other focuses because they're smaller, easier to carry, and his special interest. That's right, boys. Autism is about glyphs.

Quin's an artist who is constantly filling his pockets with crumpled papers and pens and looking for new stuff to draw. He likes other arts like sculpting, carving, and pottery, but he's not as good at those and usually doesn't have the tools on hand like he does for drawing.

Colum's also from Ivory Ridge and the two have known each other since they were three. Quin still has a crush on him. Quin knows this fact. Quin hates this fact. His standards are basically "be a person, breathe oxygen" and yet he's only ever been on a single date, mostly by accident, because he didn't realize his classmate was asking him out in a romantic way instead of a friendly way. If ever asked on a date (assuming he actually realizes it's a date), he would dress in his weirdest clothes so that whoever he's dating knows what they're getting into ahead of time.

He's my little skrinkly.

His favorite color is pink, which happens to be his hair color, but he prefers more vibrant shades of pink, especially those that lean closer to purple, while his hair color is a sort of pastel pink instead which he really dislikes. Speaking of his hair. It's very curly and he never has any clue what to do with it, so he just kind of leaves it there to do its thing and hopes for the best. It ranges from "halfway decent" to "I was just in a wind tunnel" and he's stopped trying to keep it under any modicum of control.

He's got freckles. Lots of them.

He's very bad at holding himself to plans and deadlines and has made a habit of showing up to things late, or not at all. He was actually almost ten minutes late to his definitely-not-a-date and agreed to a second one only because he felt bad about that, and then they never showed up to the second date so Quin went home and carved a little wooden bird statue instead. Her name is Toodle.

Alright, insane ramblings over. This was a lot of fun :D

[momowho34]

Time for another naruto au post that so long and complicated it might aswell be a fic in and of itself. Why am I like this :,) Naruto au where Itachi runs away from the village with Sasuke in tow and doesn’t leave him behind. Also Itachi is a little older then a teenager because it makes more sense. Buckle up this is a long one.

Itachi refuses to kill his family and runs to warn them but when he gets there everybody’s dead except for Sasuke, (who witnessed the whole thiNG OOPSY-) so he takes him and runs for their lives.

Itachi joins the akatsuki but uhhhhh now there’s a four year old tagging along and Itachi’s too scary for anybody to mention it.

Imagine the fluff and angst potential with the akatsuki oooooof there’s so much omg

At first they all think it’s super annoying but within like two days they would all gladly die for this kid. Seriously they were pretty sure their hearts were made of stone at this point but apparently not.

Kisame is surprisingly really good with kids, partly because he appears fairly calm on the outside without being too standoffish so Sasuke likes him best. Also Kisame could happily play peek-a-boo for the rest of his life he likes the small things

Kakazu is awful with kids but sasuke likes him anyway and he hates it (not really) Hidan.... really doesn’t know what to do. He’s never cared about another person in his life, okay? He kind of wants to kill the small child but he knows Itachi would steal his fucking knee caps and bury him at the bottom of the ocean so he doesn’t even mention it ever

Sasori is the mom when Itachi isn’t around. They would all feed him candy until he fucking died if Sasori didn’t stop that. Sasori is also the one to go “oh my GOD Deidara you can’t dare him to climb that mountain he could fall and hit his head no I don’t care about that deidaRA HE IS SEVEN YEARS OLD ITACHI IS GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN HE GETS HOME MARK MY WORDS—“

Tobi likes to blame all of his mistakes on Sasuke as a joke. Also they all teach Sasuke bits of their fighting styles so he becomes even more formidable and all of them are kind of freaked out by how quickly he masters their techniques

When he’s too young to tag along on missions he has to stay with Konan and Pain. He really values Konan because she’s really the only one of them who treats him like a person instead of a stupid child that needs protection.

“He costs too much,” Kakazu says. “He shouldn’t be here, what about how much it costs for him to stay with us” all while consistently finding room in the budget to get the kid anything and everything even though he’s fairly low maintenance to take care of

When Itachi arrives, everybody tries to disregard the rumors paired with Sasuke being there. Because of Itachi’s overall demeanor and Sasuke’s refusal to talk about it, they assume that he killed his family but didn’t kill his little brother for some reason

...And then Sasuke starts having nightmares. Like loud, screaming and crying in the middle of the night nightmares. Every time it happens, Itachi wakes up, calm and collected, and holds him until he falls asleep again. They all start having doubts about Itachi really killing his family.

Itachi doesn’t really hold a grudge against Konoha, but he didn’t see the whole family die like Sasuke did. Sasuke wants revenge, and he’s dead set on it.

Okay yeah but what abt the actual plot and stuff??? Don’t worry I’m there.

So a while later after that during Naruto’s three year journey (which he still takes with Jiraiya because he needs training to fight Orochimaru who is still a big threat btw) he meets this weird black haired kid staying at the same hotel he is.

Turns out they’ve both got caretakers who are absent (Jiraiya’s at a brothel somewhere and Kisame and Itachi are off killing some guy) which sucks so they bond over that and compare abilities and beat the shit out of eachother a little and develop a mini rival complex all of that but then

“Wow you’re so cool! You fight just like a ninja! You should come back with me!” Naruto laughs one day. Sasuke asks “Back to where?” And Naruto’s like “back to the leaf village of course! I’m a leaf village ninja, I’m out here training with my sensei! I forgot that I left my headband in the room, I can show it to you.” But Sasuke just gets really pale and runs off and Naruto doesn’t see him for the rest of the trip.

He thought he’d never see him again but then Sasuke gets separated from the Akatsuki members reeeaaaallly far away from their base and Konoha. As he’s trying to figure out what to do, a certain ninja crew happens to be in town. Naruto is like “omfg I know this kid!!!!!!!! Hey Sasuke!!!!! Hey Sasukeeeee!!!!!”

Sasuke is like o-o but then he starts to consider his options. If anybody figures out about his sharingan, he’s straight up fucked. His eyes are gone, he probably gets murdered. Naruto is like “what r u doing here????” And sasuke spins a fairly convincing story

He’s like “oh yeah and I know my way around this place so I can help you out could I maybe seek asylum in your village maybe??? I could be helpful” just so he can head in the general direction of Konoha and hopefully get closer to his base along the way.

So Kakashi begrudgingly agrees and Sasuke tries not to burn alive because he’s in the general proximity of leaf soldiers that he fucking hates and he will not grow attached to any of them at all no siree, not at all, no way!

Sasuke begins to grow close to them, of course. Sai and Sasuke do goth shenanigans and he fights with Naruto and tries to get Sakura to leave him alone (what is up with her why is she being so weird?)

Oh bonus angst: Tobi used to talk in his sleep sometimes, and at some point Sasuke drops “those who break the rules are scum, but those who leave their friends behind are worse then scum” casually and Kakashi almost has a full blown panic attack.

This is when he first realizes something is seriously up with this kid; and his first name sounds... familiar. His suspicions are just suspicions until they run into Orochimaru. Now Orochimaru could just out Sasuke as akatsuki, instead he plays with his feelings a little bit. He keeps saying things like “how does it feel to fight on the same side as your enemies for once?” And “have you forgotten already?” They defeat him without Sasuke revealing his sharingan but the jig is up in Kakashi’s mind.

Kakashi doesn’t quite connect the dots; but he’s almost there. Whoever this kid is, they’re coming back to the village for sure. It’s the safest thing to do. Meanwhile the Akatsuki are freaking out. Itachi is unhinged and almost grieving, they have no idea where Sasuke could be. The team is out in full force; including Tobi

And you know, Obito doesn’t care. He shouldn’t care, nothing matters in this false reality. It just doesn’t. Tobi might have given a shit about Sasuke, but Tobi isn’t real. He’s just a front, Tobi doesn’t exist. So why is he looking so hard for this stupid kid that he shouldn’t give a shit about? Obito convinces himself it’s just a front, it’s just part of Tobi’s act, but it’s not. What’s happening to him? Why is starting to feel things now, so deep into the plan?

Annnnnndddd that’s as far as I got with it lmao. That’s still pretty fucking far tho

[combat-wombatus]

Truth or Dare

Pairing: Sero Hanta x reader

Genre: fluff, a lil bit of crack

Warnings: swearing (bakugou), but other than that, none! (unless u have traumatic memories of truth or dare)

WC: 3.1k

Summary: Mina and Denki work together to make sure that you know exactly who Sero's crush is. 

(A/N): so @klvbxlove requested some headcanons about sero’s fem!crush having an obsession with kpop/anime and sero doing cute stuff for her and i tried sticking with the prompt in the beginning but then i led myself off-topic (oops) so it turned into this! sorry it’s not what u requested, i can write something else for u if u want! i was just struck by sudden ✨inspiration✨ for this fic so...here u go...

“EEEK!” You squealed, bouncing over to your friends. “LOOKLOOKLOOK-”

“(Y/L/N),” Bakugou grumbled. “Calm the fuck down, no one can understand you.”

You took a deep breath, then handed your phone over to Mina.

As soon as Mina saw the screen, she started squealing just like you were.

“(Y/N)!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMG-” she grabbed your arms and started jumping up and down like an overexcited toddler.

Bakugou rolled his eyes, gave an exasperated huff, then stomped away. “Can’t deal with you idiots when you’re like this.”

Mina dragged you by your arm over to a bench on the side of the cafeteria and the two of you spent your lunch break slurping udon and watching your favorite K-pop group’s newest music video on repeat.

Sero was chatting idly with his friends, mouth full of sushi. Unbeknownst to you, he had been watching you from the corner of his eye, sneaking glances every couple of minutes. Dense as Kaminari may be academically, he had noticed Sero’s preoccupation with you throughout the meal.

“Hey bro,” He poked Sero’s elbow with the clean end of his chopstick. “Whaddya keep looking at (Y/L/N)-chan for?” He squinted at Sero. He glanced briefly at you, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, turned his eyes back on Sero. “Do you have a crush on her or something?”

Sero choked on his piece of salmon and spluttered, face beet red. “N-no! It’s not l-like that!”

Bakugou snorted. “You dumbass. The hell you mean ‘it’s not like that’? Any idiot with eyes and half a brain can see that you’re obsessed with her.”

As Sero tried to deny his feelings for you, Mina slowly shifted her attention from your phone to hers, which was dinging incessantly.

Kaminari

hey bro bro broski my man my lady? minaaaaa

Mina

asdkjfhluhal i told u to stop calling me that and what

Kaminari

so u know abt seros crush right

Mina

u have the AUDACITY to ask me, the queen of gossip, whether or not I know abt seros crush? the sheer AUDACITY is STAGGERING-

Kaminari

ok ok stop bullying me anyways wanna get them tog?

Mina

D U H would be easier if y/n wasn’t so dense and sero wasn’t so chicken

Kaminari

since ur in do u have a plan

Mina grinned. Of course she did. What kind of person did Kaminari think she was?

Mina

take sero to the boba place after school meet u there

Pocketing her phone, she turned back to face you. She had to resist the urge to cackle. This was gonna be fun.

Later that day, you and Mina walked to the dorms together.

“Whaddya say we go out today?” Mina asked excitedly, eyes gleaming. You found it a bit suspicious, since yesterday she had told you that she was failing math and was going to study with Yaomomo today.

“Didn’t you say you were going to study with Yaomomo?”

“Shit.” Mina face palmed. “I did, didn’t I? But I don’t waannnnaaa,” she whined. “Let’s just go out and get some boba and we’ll come back,” she promised, giving you the puppy dog eyes.

“Okay, okay.” You relented. “But if you fail math again, don’t blame it on me.”

She clasped a hand to her chest dramatically. “I would NEVER.”

Giggling, the two of you made your way to Coco’s Café, a cozy little place that served everything from coffee to cookies. It was also a developing cat café, mostly due to the popularity of the kitty that the place was named for, Coco.

Sidling up to the counter, you ordered a matcha boba tea while Mina ordered a strawberry milk tea with lychee jelly and boba.

“Is that it for you ladies today?” The man behind the counter asked cheerfully.

“Yes please!” Mina replied. The two of you sat in a corner booth, sipping your drinks and gossiping.

“Hey (Y/N),” Mina started. “So you know about Sero’s crush, right?”

You halted mid-sip. What? Sero had a crush?

Laughing at your startled expression, Mina leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “So,” she whispered. “Who do you think it is?”

You sat there, drink forgotten, racking your brain for possibilities. Jirou and Hagakure hung out with Sero sometimes, exchanging memes and goofing around, but they weren’t really around that often. Usually, Sero only hung out with Kaminari, Kirishima, Bakugou, Mina, and you. Mina, possibly? Was Sero gay? Did he have a thing for, say, Kaminari or Kirishima? You didn’t think that Sero would be the type to like Bakugou, but hey, he put up with Bakugou’s temper all the time, so maybe? Ugh. You resisted the urge to groan and drop your head into your hands. This was so complicated.

Mina sat back, this reaction obviously not being what she had hoped for. “Well?” She crossed her arms. “Do you have a guess yet?”

You thought about it, then decided to pick an answer randomly. “You?” You tried.

Mina snorted and almost spit out her drink. You were absolutely unbelievable. Of all the people you could’ve chosen, you picked HER? “No, (Y/N). It’s not me,” she managed to choke out in between fits of laughter.

You sprawled out on the table, no longer concealing your frustration. “Who is it then?” You whined. “Jirou? Hagakure? Is Sero gay?”

Mina actually did spit out her drink this time.

As she cleaned up her mess, Mina silently judged you with her signature side-eye. She really is that dense, huh. Guess I’ll have to knock some sense into her.

Furiously brainstorming, you tried to think of any more possibilities. As you sat in silence, something warm and fuzzy crawled sneakily onto your lap, and stayed there.

Knocked from your daze, you glanced down and the unfamiliar presence, only to realize that it was a kitty. THE kitty. Coco, the café’s namesake.

“Aww,” you cooed, lightly scratching behind her ears. She purred happily in response to your ministrations and curled into herself, tail tucked neatly around her haunches.

Just then, the doorbell jingled and the rest of your close friends walked in.

“Hey!” Kaminari chirped, giving you and Mina a lighthearted wave.

“Hey!” You replied, unaware of the glare Mina was currently giving Kaminari. As soon as they went up to order, Mina stood up and announced that she was going to the bathroom. You took out your phone and scrolled through your social media feeds, taking advantage of this time to research.

“Psst!” Mina pinched Kaminari’s elbow lightly.

“Ow! What?” Kaminari turned to face her.

Mina gave Kaminari her scariest glare. “I told you to bring Sero, not the whole squad!”

Kaminari whimpered. “But Kirishima heard and wanted to tag along too! And it would’ve been suspicious if I said no! And then Bakubro heard that Kiri was coming and decided to come too-”

Mina sighed. “You could’ve texted Sero in private!”

Scratching the back of his head, Kaminari gave Mina a sheepish smile. “Sorry Mina, I hadn’t thought of that”.

Mina stole a quick glance back at your table, and seeing that you were otherwise occupied, she turned her attention back to Kaminari.

“So, Stage 1 of the plan didn’t work. She didn’t even seem to consider herself as a possibility! However, no fear! It is time that we put Stage 2 into action!” Mina whisper-shouted. “It’ll be more complicated with Kiri and Bakugou present, but we always have a Plan B!” She quickly related her backup plan to Kaminari, who promised to tell the boys (minus Sero) to make it run more smoothly.

After giving Kaminari a quick fist bump, Mina slinked back into her seat. “So, (Y/N),” she paused, chin resting on her hand. “Since the boys are here, why don’t we ask Sero himself?”

You looked up from your phone. You hadn’t really found any clues as to who Sero’s crush could be. Most, if not all, of his posts were with your group of friends. You thought about it for a moment.

“Wouldn’t it be awkward if he didn’t want us to know?” You asked Mina.

“Oh, but we’re nosy friends! It’s our JOB to know and then tease him about it!” Mina giggled. “And besides,” she added. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

You hesitated. She did have a point. You were curious, but at the same time, a little voice in the back of your brain nagged at you. Did you really want to know? Did you really want to see him crushing on someone else, and then tease him about it? That wouldn’t really be funny, for you, at least. But if you disagreed with Mina, it would be suspicious, and besides, you WERE curious. Even if the answer wasn’t the one you wanted, you would still rather it be out in the open than bottled inside. You’d rather know for certain than lose sleep over it at night.

Sighing, you relented. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

Mina rested both of her elbows on the table and smiled at you, eyes gleaming with mischief.

“Truth or dare.”

As the boys returned, each holding their own drinks, Mina was bouncing in her seat. Bakugou and Kirishima each pulled up a chair, and Sero took the chance to sit next to you. At that, Mina smirked devilishly.

“So,” she grinned, fingertips dancing on the table. “Let’s play truth or dare.”

Bakugou huffed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. He couldn’t believe he’d been roped into this, but Kirishima and Kaminari wouldn’t let him ruin it. Kirishima dropped a fist on the table. “Yeah!” He turned towards Mina. “Who’s starting?”

Mina pretended to think about it, when in reality, she had already made plans.

“How about (Y/N)?”

“Me?” You raised an eyebrow. You thought that Mina would be the one to interrogate Sero.

“Yes you, dummy,” Mina teased. “Is there another (Y/N) sitting here?”

You rolled your eyes. “Who are you calling dummy?”

Mina grumbled. “Just get on with it, would you? Who are you going to ask?”

“Hmm. How about Sero?” You turned to face him. “Truth or dare?”

Sero was panicking. You weren’t the type to give out ridiculous dares, and he definitely needed to be cautious about truth. “Dare.” He said confidently.

You chuckled. Mina had prepared you for this possibility.

“I dare you to kiss your crush within the next 24 hours,” you said, “and the whole squad had to be there to see it.”

Mina and Kaminari let out simultaneous “oohs”. Bakugou pointed out the obvious. “Why the next 24 hours?”

“Because we don’t know who his crush is and they’re probably not here right now,” you answered. “And the whole squad will have to see it to make sure that he does it and doesn’t chicken out. You’ll have to ask their permission first, though,” you added. “Consent is key. Even if they turn you down, as long as you tried, we’ll count the dare as completed.”

Your friends nodded in agreement. Mina clapped her hands gleefully. “You should’ve known, Sero! You can’t hide things from us!”

Sero was *this* close to having a panic attack. He had to consciously remind himself to keep breathing. This is going to be so embarrassing how am I going to do this without making an utter and complete fool of myself gosh you really should’ve not stared at her at lunch today Sero or this wouldn’t have happened jeez are you really that dumb now the whole squad will know and you won’t be able to look her in the eye anymore adfkhiavelrsnjaerliaevr BREATHE SERO BREATHE-

The game continued. Mina dared Bakugou to smile for 5 consecutive minutes, at which Bakugou nearly flew out of his seat, palms crackling.

“You fucking extra how dare you-” He didn’t get to finish, as Mina quickly took out her phone and opened the timer app.

“And the countdown starts now!” She cackled. “That is, unless you forfeit-”

“I’M NOT GONNA LOSE TO YOU, YOU DUMB FUCKING EXTRA!!!” With that, Bakugou angrily took his seat again, disregarding all the angry scowls he received from the rest of the café’s patrons, and pulled his lips up into what could only be described as the devil’s grin. He sat like that for a full five minutes, glaring lasers into Mina, not moving a muscle. You think Mina was mentally scarred after that, because she never looked at Bakugou for the rest of the game.

Kirishima dared Kaminari to record a video of him singing the pi song and send it to Jirou. The poor boy had so many voice cracks while singing it that Kirishima went easy on him and told him to just send the first 15 seconds.

Bakugou dared you to let everyone look through your phone for one minute. You were reluctant, but seeing as you were relatively normal with only minimal embarrassing photos, no confession texts, and a fairly clean search history, you let them do it. The most embarrassing thing they found was your playlist.

“How the fuck is your playlist 74 hours and 42 minutes? What the fuck do you have on here?” Bakugou held out your phone for the rest of your friends to see.

“And why is your history full of that shitty Korean music?”

You gasped. He did not.

“Hey!” You snatched your phone back. “If you’re going to insult my music, you don’t get to continue!”

“Tch.” Bakugou sneered. “You call that shit music?”

You were thoroughly offended by this point and refused to even acknowledge his statement. You glared at Bakugou with as much intensity as you could muster. This man had no taste in music whatsoever.

The 1-minute timer dinged, and Bakugou was saved from a scathing talking-to as you all moved onto the next victim.

Mina was dared to order a glass of milk with ice, then put it on a random table (with customers) and leave without an explanation. She ended up choosing an old couple, likely in their sixties, who were cuddling with two cats. They’d each ordered a cup of coffee and shared a plate of cookies. When Mina put the glass of iced milk on their table, and the two women shared a confused look before turning their attention to Mina.

“Thank you?” The lady with horn-rimmed glasses asked rather shakily.

“Yes, thank you very much young lady, but we didn’t order this?” The one who had a tabby on her lap said, perplexed, looking Mina up and down.

Mina made a motion with her hand, zipping her lips, then giggled and sat back down at your table. The two ladies, baffled, took one look at your table and seemed to understand what was going on. They turned back to their coffees and cats and resumed their conversation.

You had all gone one full circle, and everyone had finished their drinks, so you all decided that it was time to go. You rubbed between Coco’s ears one last time and walked out into the afternoon sun.

“Hey Sero!” Kirishima clapped Sero on his back. “Don’t think we’ve forgotten about your dare,” he smiled cheekily. “Better get it over with when we first head back into the dorms, huh? That’ll probably be the easiest time to get it over with.”

Sero groaned. He’d hoped that you would all forget after the game was over, but his luck had run dry. He’d have to face the music sooner or later. He debated on his options. If he waited too long, he’d seem cowardly. He didn’t want to do that. On the other hand, maybe if he waited a full day, you would all forget? He shook his head. No, with Mina here, she’d never let him live it down. And besides, who was he to renege on a dare?

Taking his hands out of his pockets, he rubbed them together nervously. This was it. This was the moment of truth.

“Hey guys! Wait up!” He called out to Kirishima and Bakugou, who had walked ahead of the group. “I’ve got something to show you!”

Bakugou quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?” He smirked. “Whatcha got, Tape Arms?”

Sero cleared his throat. “I-I’m ready. I’m ready to do the dare.”

Your heart leapt into your throat. It was just you and the rest of the squad here. Did you really have a chance? You were scared to get your hopes up, but maybe, just maybe, you would be the one he kissed.

Hands curled into fists at his sides, Sero gulped. He was doing this. He was really doing this. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in and out, and strode over to where you and Mina stood.

“(Y/N),” He stared at his feet. “Would you…would you allow me to kiss you?”

You covered your mouth with your hand, trying to calm yourself down. It was you. Sero had a crush on you. Your crush liked you back!

After a while, Bakugou felt the need to step in.

“Oi, dumbass!” He hollered, garnering the attention of curious passerby. “You gonna let Soy Sauce Face over there kiss you or not?”

Your face flushed a furious red. “U-Umm, y-yeah!” You stuttered. “You can kiss me, Sero!” You cringed at how excited you sounded.

Slowly, Sero tilted his face downwards. He lifted your chin tenderly and lowered his lips to yours. His lips were soft against yours, his breath tickling your cheek as he let go. You blushed harder than you ever thought was possible, and he looked down with a pleased smile.

“Thanks, (Y/N).” He said in a soft voice. “Can I take this as a sign that you have feelings for me too?”

Nodding frantically, you whispered a noncommittal “mhm”.

“Can’t hear you, sweets,” Sero teased. “Come on, I’m gonna need a verbal confirmation.”

Looking up at him, you cleared your throat. “Yes.” You whispered in a slightly louder tone. “Yes, I h-have feelings for you too.”

At this admission, your friends all cheered, Mina hooting especially loudly. “Hells yeah!” She high-fived Kaminari. “We did it!”

“Best wingmen ever!” Kaminari shouted.

“That was so manly of you Sero!” Kirishima added, flashing a thumbs-up. “Congrats!”

“Tch. Yeah, whatever. Finally got it in their thick skulls that they liked each other. Big fucking deal,” Bakugou grumbled.

“Hey, hey! Don’t you go and ruin the mood now!” Mina scolded him. “Just look at them! They look so happy!” She pointed towards you and Sero.

“Hmph. Well, those idiots could’ve been happier sooner if Sero had the fucking balls to confess earlier.”

“Oh, shut it already! Just be glad that they’re finally together!”

“Like I care.”

“Stop pretending, you big grouch! We all know you care!”

“Tch.”

Masterlist

[astralaffairs]

think of it as like an au or something, but I'm just curious to see how president thom would react to seeing someone forcing themselves on mc at like a state dinner if they're not together, i feel like he'd try to stand up for her but also it'd be kinda sus of the president standing up for some press figure who's been talking shit abt him

i love this concept omg. i got an ask similar to this a while back, so i’ve been sitting on a lot of ideas for it. tbh thomas would hardly be able to restrain himself from fucking throttling whoever’s harassing mc, but he isn’t gonna refrain from stepping in. anyway, his standing up for her then makes the media hail him as a feminist icon for like the next 3 weeks

this broke my heart to write tho lowkey </3

-----

"You're… you're Y/N L/N, aren't you? With the Washington Post?"

Y/N had been sour all night. Her feet were cramping in her heels, the tag on her dress was starting to itch, and worst of all, her editor had forced her to take the invite Alex had extended her to the state dinner. She’d had no plans of interacting with the Jefferson administration — in fact, her plan had been to stay as far from them as possible so that she could focus on work, but she mentioned the state dinner offhandedly to a coworker, another had overheard, and the next thing she knew, her boss had found out.

Moreover, she was fairly certain that Thom– no, President Jefferson had only invited Alex to antagonize him, so it was no wonder he didn’t want to go. However, when he gave her the invite, she protested that, since it wasn’t addressed to her, she couldn’t go, and she certainly couldn’t go without him, but both Alex and her editor had insisted it’d be fine. There would be enough people present that she’d slip under the radar, so what was the harm?

And slip under the radar she did. As Vice President and Second Lady, James and Dolley were unattainable company for the evening; they were busy with the heads of PACs, with senators, with members of the State Department. The latter group included Lafayette — he’d been promoted not long after President Jefferson took office, which ruled him, too, out of her options for who she could hang out with. He was off wooing foreign diplomats.

So, there she was, standing alone at the side of the room with her expensive champagne (there was an open bar, thank god) and the small-but-growing pile of business cards she’d collected throughout the night.

At least, she was alone until the anonymous man in question approached her. She turned to him with her eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m Y/N,” she said, surprised that she’d been recognized. “I’m not with the Post, anymore, though.”

“Of course. My mistake,” he apologized, and when he extended to her a hand to shake, she stuffed her newly-acquired business cards back into her purse “I’m Richard Lestrade. I work in the Department of Defense.”

“Nice to meet you.” She had little interest in chatting with him, but she politely shook his hand. “What can I do for you?”

He laughed softly, but it made Y/N raise an eyebrow. “I don’t have some kind of agenda. I just recognized you from your time as a news analyst and thought I’d come introduce myself.”

“Of course.”

She only responded so as to placate him, and she thought that how curt her reply was would deter him from trying to strike up a conversation. She met his eyes with an expectant eyebrow raised as she took another sip from her champagne.

“So how’d you get an invite here tonight?” he asked after a moment. “I mean, I was invited because I work for him, working on naval strategy and all, so it’s just a perk of the job, but I’m surprised to see you. With how much you’ve done to keep President Jefferson from being elected, I wouldn’t think you’d end up on the guest list for state dinners.”

She shrugged. “Alexander Hamilton invited me, actually.”

“Secretary Hamilton was invited? Really?” At that, the disbelief in Richard’s expression was almost patronizing. “Wow, I didn’t hear that he and President Jefferson had buried the hatchet. I always thought they were rivals, or even enemies.”

“Oh, make no mistake, they hate each other,” she said coolly.

“So why would Secretary Hamilton be invited?”

“So Jefferson could rub it in his face that he won the election.” She shrugged, turning back to face the room before them, but Richard seemed surprised.

“No, no, he wouldn’t be that petty,” he scoffed, but his tone was condescending, as though her theory had absolutely no foundation. “He’s the president. I think he has higher priorities than antagonizing someone who’s old news.”

Y/N resisted rolling her eyes at his calling Alex ‘old news,’ as though Richard was somehow a higher calibre of invitee to the state dinner. “You underestimate how catty politicians are. Jefferson included.”

“President Jefferson,” he corrected her, and she gave him a sidelong glance, eyeing him warily.

“Sure.”

“But anyway, I suppose I’m glad President Jefferson invited Hamilton, if it means you’re here, too.”  Richard raised his glass to her as though in tribute, and she was sure the smile she offered him came off as more of a grimace. She had little appreciation for his heavy-handed advance.

“That’s nice of you to say,” she replied mildly before draining the remainder of her glass. She turned to him with a nonchalant, nearly-blank expression. “And as great as it’s been to meet you, I think I have to run. I’m heading out soon and need to say a few goodbyes.” Truthfully, she had no intention of leaving. Her editor would have her head if he found out she cut bait so early in the night, and if she fled before Jefferson addressed the entire room, she wouldn’t be able to provide her boss with the synopsis of the presidential address. She only wanted to leave that conversation.

“You’re leaving so early? Why’s that?”

She shrugged. “I suppose the Jefferson Administration isn’t really my scene. I’ll see you around, Mr. Lestrade.”

“Please, it’s Richard,” he corrected her. “But you should stay longer. If you leave now, you’ll miss President Jefferson’s address.”

What was it with this guy and using Jefferson’s full title? “Please, consider for a moment that missing it may be entirely the point,” she said dryly, and Richard gave a light laugh.

“Oh, please. I’m sure that even a democrat like you can appreciate a good speech.” ‘Even a democrat like her’? What was that supposed to mean? “As a journalist, this should be right up your alley.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find the transcript online in a few hours. I’ll survive.”

“It’ll have a much greater impact in person,” he countered, and she sighed. “So, please, stay. Can I get you a drink? What are you drinking?”

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” she said. As though she was about to let a man she’d met only minutes before handle her drink. That would be a recipe for disaster. “I really should get going.”

“No, wait,” he protested, and when she began walking away from him anyway, he caught her by the arm, pulled her back. She turned back to him with an expectant expression, trying to quell the anger building in her chest. “You can’t leave yet; dinner hasn’t even been served.”

“I can fend for myself on that front,” she assured him, and although her teeth were clenched, she plastered on a smile. “So if you’d kindly let go of my arm, I’m going to be on my way.”

“I was hoping to get to know you, actually.” He released her, but her immediately marching off toward the center of the room caught him off guard. “No, wait!” She stifled a groan when she heard him hurrying after her, and as he came to a stop in front of her, blocking her path, she narrowed her eyes. “Come on, Y/N. Come sit down with me and some of my friends; it’ll be a nice time, okay? I’m a nice guy.” He wore a hopeful smile, apparently convinced of his words as she folded her arms.

“I’m sure you are, but I need to get back to my table to retrieve my coat,” she said apologetically. Her anger didn’t show on her face, thankfully. “So I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Oh, sure you can; you’re just being stubborn,” he insisted. He took a step forward toward Y/N, and she took a step back. “Now, I know we’re from opposite parties, and all, but I’ve been a fan of your reporting for a long time, and I’d really appreciate it if you just came and sat down with us for a few minutes. You and I have a lot in common. I have a feeling we’d hit it off.”

The coy smile he wore made her want to grimace, and when he added a wink, she did grimace, visibly. “This is nice and all, but I’m not really interested.”

“Sure, because you don’t know me yet,” Richard countered, and he took another step toward her, grabbing her by the elbow as he came to stand next to her. Y/N could feel her heart pounding as he forcibly turned her, pointed out his table. “Let’s go. We’re sitting right over there.”

“No, really, I’d rather not,” she repeated, and as she tried to pull her arm away from his grip, he pulled her toward him with an arm around her waist — it was then she realized she couldn’t do nearly anything about it without making a scene. And given her history, a scene was the last thing she wanted. “Please let go of me.”

“You don’t have to stay long; I’m not asking much.” It was then that he began leading her toward the table, and as she stumbled alongside him, panic was rising in her chest. She was looking around for some way out, some familiar face — Dolley, Lafayette, someone — but nobody appeared. “Just have a seat. Let me get you a drink.”

And there he was, repeating his offer. No matter who it was, the insistence on drinking with her would make her wary, but this man already had worry building in her throat, so the feeling only compounded with his words. “I don’t want to come with you. Get your hands off of me.” He didn’t stop, though, and she finally had to dig in her heels, trying to pull back from him. She knew he was stronger than her, but her resistance to him dragging her along certainly grabbed his attention. Richard frowned.

“Oh, come on, don’t be such a–”

“‘M fairly sure I heard her tellin’ you to let go of her.” The voice was stern, and it made both her and Richard freeze, and for entirely different reasons. Y/N would’ve been able to recognize it anywhere, the southern drawl, the lazy enunciation, and her pulse was then spiking for an entirely different reason. Richard turned immediately toward the sound, releasing her, but Y/N stayed put.

“Mr. President,” Richard said breathlessly, his eyes wide. “It’s an honor to meet you; I–”

“What’s your name?”

“Richard Lestrade, sir.” He sounded excited to have courted Jefferson’s attention, apparently oblivious to the undertone of anger in his voice. Y/N recognized it clearly, though, too clearly, and it made her sick to her stomach. She resented the familiarity.

“D’you work here, Mr. Lestrade?”

“I work for the Department of Defense, sir. I’m a naval strategist. Graduated top of my class from the US Naval Academy; I actually helped plan the–”

“I don’t remember askin’ for your resume.” Then, the annoyance Jefferson exuded was clear, unmistakable in his snarky interjection. Y/N had to purse her lips to keep herself from laughing, especially as she glanced over at Richard and found him pale as a ghost.

“Of course not, sir. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you should be apologizin’ to, now,” Jefferson said frankly, and Y/N didn’t see him watching her until she reluctantly turned, glancing between him and Lestrade. “Ms. Y/N L/N, correct?” he asked, and she nearly winced.

“Yes, that’s me.” Her strained smile was fooling nobody, but when he saw it, Jefferson’s composure didn’t waver.

“Did I hear you tellin’ Mr. Lestrade not to touch you?”

When he addressed her, she forced herself to shake her nerves, he jumbled emotions, off for the time being, and she pushed her shoulders back, presenting a front of confidence.

“You did, as a matter of fact.” She looked up tentatively to meet his eyes — and she immediately wished she hadn’t. While his expression exuded nonchalance, his casual authority over the situation, she knew him well enough to recognize the concern in his eyes: his forehead was creased almost imperceptibly, one eyebrow was quirked up, and one corner of his mouth twitched down. Her jaw tensed as she swallowed her heartache.

She was grateful that he then turned back to Richard. “Care to explain yourself, Mr. Lestrade?”

The interaction had stirred a bit of a crowd around them by then; the others in their immediate vicinity had ended their conversations at once upon hearing the confrontation, but the hush seemed to be spreading further across the room, and Richard was glancing left and right as he gaped at Jefferson. “Oh, no, it was just a misunderstanding. Look–”

“I’m not sure it was,” Jefferson cut him off, and his tone was biting. “Forgive me if this is too presumptuous, but I don’t think there’s anything unclear about a woman tellin’ you to take your hands off of her.”

“We were just chatting.”

“That wasn’t what it looked like,” Jefferson said, folding his arms. “From where I was standin’, it seemed like you grabbed a woman against her will, and you refused to let go. ‘S that accurate, Ms. L/N?”

She wished desperately that he’d stop addressing her. Her throat went dry as he all but admitted he’d been watching her, and she could only nod, unable to find her voice. Thankfully, he took that as enough of an answer.

“I never meant to hurt Y/N, sir. Honestly, I’m so sorry if I did–” Richard turned to Y/N. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you, but my intention wasn’t–”

“You blatantly ignored me telling you to stop,” she said. His speaking to Y/N once again made her blood boil, and she couldn’t help but snap at him, despite how lightly she felt herself to be treading in present company. “Don’t pretend like this was some unfortunate accident.”

Lestrade went from gaping at Jefferson to gaping at her, then. “I… I’m sorry, again, but come on, you know I was just trying to be friendly,” he defended, and she rolled her eyes, getting tired of his excuse. The edge of aggression in his tone made her take a wary step away from him, though. “I invited you to–”

“You said you work for the Department of Defense, correct?” Jefferson cut him off, diverting his attention from Y/N, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, silently thanking him for bailing her out.

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade offered a weak smile, but his fear was obvious in how he was holding himself. Jefferson regarded him with an air of disgust, looking him up and down.

“Well, you don’t anymore.” Y/N’s eyes widened at the declaration, but President Jefferson paid her no mind. “ I’ll be in touch with your supervisor to have you dismissed.”

“What?” Lestrade asked, “but, sir, that’s my job. I need to–”

“Not anymore, it isn’t.” President Jefferson’s words were firm. “Now, please, I’d like to ask you to leave now so it isn’t necessary for me to have you shown out with a security detail.”

Lestrade froze, and for a moment, Y/N expected him to protest, but when he saw all the people around them watching him, anticipating his next move, he turned on his heel, flushing bright red, and started toward the exit. Y/N and Jefferson were both scowling as they watched him leave.

However, it wasn’t long before Jefferson turned to Y/N, although she hadn’t turned back to face him.

“Are you alright, Ms. L/N?” he asked mildly, and she was sure her surprise pertaining to the whole situation was written across her face when she met his gaze. She nodded hesitantly. “I’d appreciate hearin’ you say it.”

“I’m just fine,” she assured him, voice shaky, and his tense shoulders relaxed, although he didn’t look fully convinced. “But thanks for your concern, really, Thom– sorry, Secretary– I mean, President Jefferson.”

She saw the corners of his lips twitch up when she almost called him Thomas.

"Of course. Let me know if there's anything I can do." His words were wary, careful not to cross any lines or to impose upon her, but she smiled.

"I think that firing Mr. Lestrade on sight was quite enough," she said, and when a grin split Thomas’s– President Jefferson's worried expression, her stomach turned; her smile was strained. Everything about him felt too familiar, painfully familiar.

"Fair enough,” he acquiesced. At how ill-at-ease she appeared, though, his smile wavered. “Hope I didn't go overboard."

She shrugged. "He deserved it."

Thomas Jefferson laughed, and the sound was as warm as she remembered it being. She hadn’t heard it in person in nearly three years, and for her to have come across him so suddenly, it was jarring. She was quite sure she was going to be sick.

“I s’pose you’re right.” By then, those around them had begun to disperse, so after glancing left and right, he took a step closer to her, furrowed his brow, and every muscle in her body tensed. Yet, she didn’t move away. His voice was soft, gentle when he asked. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, swallowing hard. “Don’t you have some politicians to get back to?”

He pursed his lips, and she was sure the tense grief in her expression wasn’t hidden as well as she’d have liked it to be. “I guess so,” he finally said, but he didn’t move, looking her over, and his voice was quiet when he said, “‘S good to see you, though. You look good.”

“Yeah, you too,” was all she could manage in response. He gave her a sad smile, nodded, and the silence between them stretched on Just as she thought he was about to turn, head back to where he’d been previously, he stopped himself.

“Will I see you around?”

The hope in his voice made her throat tighten, and she took a deep, shaky breath. She shook her head, and her voice nearly broke when she answered, “I don’t think you will.”

[sugarvamgar]

you ever make some  Bastards? anfisa and valentine!  also the context of the little labels on valentine’s sheet is to like, number the parts of the story for me and my friend who’s working on this so we know when the hell in the story we’re talking abtsgddfg anyways more info abt them under the cut .. i love these bastards...

these two are in the same world as some of my other ocs - you can find them in my neontok tag under rum’s post for more information about the world nd stuff! if you do not want to look at it tldr its just me putting my more uh. “darker” concepts?? like these two! let’s continue into more info tho: so like, context! in this world, there’s this group of seven assassins who’s existence is.. very speculated. like, they’re a common myth. maybe not among all of society all around the world, but most people have heard folk stories of their existence at some point in their life. this group of assassins has existed for literal hundreds of years, and nobody knows how or why, so they just.. assume it’s a story. a myth. but it’s Not. the “seven” is actually countless people who have been trained throughout their family’s bloodlines as a tradition with every other generation’s first child - or in the case of assassins One and Two, the first two siblings. they’re all basically trained to do the exact same stuff as the original seven did, too. other than One and Two, the children don’t necessarily know each other, especially because usually they’re in completely different countries. anyways so, anfisa here used to be part of this. he was assassin Three, born and raised in russia, pretty much the only assassin of the seven to not be trained to be sneaky and quiet bc most of what he does is loud on purpose. he does know how to blend in among people normally and how to scramble away from people without getting hurt, but man. he is NOT graceful like the other six. he ends up defecting from the assassins (which is just him going. huh. fuck this <3) and leaving to not-america and goes. i will live a normal life now.          he ends up going. oh wait actually i hate how society is and how much of this city is controlled via bribes and crimes - what if i just. actively tried to cement myself in that world. what if i did crimes? i already did them before. he ends up gaining a mild following of people for this and they help him to do this.. the dude who runs the Local Crime Syndicate™ (at least, the largest one), jack, gets. very pissed off about this once anfisa’s group grows large enough scale. he employs this highly revered journalist bc in jack’s mind this goes. “oh, this guy is SO very good at picking people apart and getting into their business, and my stupid police force isn’t doing their fucking job right (lol), i’ll hire this dude. if he dies its barely any loss on my part. the journalist is valentine <3 idk his first name but he’s valentine and he is SO full of anxiety and has so much in common with anfisa about Hating Authority nd shit. this is a mistake on jack’s part who is blind as hell and cannot read valentine’s old articles + thinks he can bribe him with money to do whatever. valentine goes. <:( okay i will try i hate this but also money and also you are pointing guns at me and threatening to kill me if i Dont take the money and do this. valentine ends up joining anfisa and goes from anxious timid british (lol) bastard to mildly terrifying and willing to organize and command a group of people with anfisa who are actively trying to like, overthrow a straight up  crime syndicate organization thing that Also has quite a large hold on a lot of businesses and government related stuff in the city. and SUCCEEDS for the most part. he is very good at this and it scares the group so much esp with the fact that it grows from like 6 or 7 people to like, over 50 or more in like.. a year. shoutout to anfisa he intentionally picks on valentine bc he thinks this guy is cute. when valentine is lowkey stalking getting research on anfisa/the group, anfisa notices and goes. :) im going to make your life so very difficult but in an only slightly annoying way. you got knocked out one day so i stole your tie and then the next time you saw me on the news you saw me wearing it around my arm like a trophy. valentine is so very annoyed and takes all of anfisa’s mild friendly torment as This Little Man Hates Me So Fucking Much. Why Does He Want Me DEAD also shoutout x2 to anfisa for being great at working with machines and learning how to put foot pedals on his motorcycle so he can switch the seat around to like, a pedal control board and ride it like a skateboard. this is dangerous and very, very impractical. he does not care. he’s having fun ps. if you think valentine is similar to a certain someone you’re right. its on purpose. i “steal” canon characters all the time (see: idk, not often actually) with friends bc its very fun to see how you can reinterpret a character without it being basically an au of the original character. TLDr if you can make a connection with the other character; good! just know he’s still his own thing and its on purpose and i love him. ps. x2/bonus i named anfisa after cat no banana <3 also anfisa (анфиса) means flowering/blossoming. i have made anfisa allergic to bananas and have given him plant themed clothingLKJGFDLKJG

ps. x3 im planning on drawing the rest of this team and talking about them but i want to post them all at once. i honestly wanted to do that here but i havent posted in 9 days so i. went ahead and just posted these two and gave their info since its more than, yknow, nothing? ps. x4 (help i have so many notes) literally i never put any of my stories on earth but then dont make any effort to make the contries non-earth countries bc like. *gestures vaguely* man idk how to do that and dont have the energy to make new cultures nd stuff on my free time??? im not doing this for a professional story??? so like. yeah. anyways so anfisa is Not from russia. he’s russian. valentine is british. britain doesn’t exist. make of that what you will. anyways. that is all. thank you. i kiss you for reading this. if you have questions please ask me them i have so much information all the time and it shows me theres interest in this

[daisy--sorbet]

heyyy, hope you’re having a good night!! if you have the energy and feel okay answering, what’s up w taz graduation? i haven’t checked it out yet but i was thinking ab it. just asking bc you’re the first person i saw talk ab the show having serious issues, but also feel free to not answer this!! hope you have a good week!

i took a nice hot bath, had a strawberry kiwi capri-sun, and did a nice face mask and i’m feeling pretty good - so, y’know what anon? let’s talk about it. 

for anyone who likes taz grad who sees this post: it’ll be tagged with “taz grad hate” (although i feel hate is definitely a very strong word - it’s for the simplicity of tagging it) - so please block the tag if you don’t want to see this post (especially because i put a readmore on a post before and it didn’t show up on mobile and instead gave the full post). mobile tumblr has a tag blocking system, so please feel free to use it! i don’t mind haha

anyway, so this is... probably going to be a lost post, and i wanna go ahead and preface it: this absolutely isn’t any hate on the mcelroys themselves. i love the brothers and their dad a lot, and while i doubt any of them would ever see this (or have it sent to them, or shown to them, because im pretty sure they try to distance themselves from this sort of thing), i just want to make it clear that criticizing a product is different than bashing a person. which brings me to the point of if i do end up sounding as if im bashing someone - please call me out on it! it’s not my intention to target anyone.

with that said, let’s talk about this campaign.

so my problems are as thus: the railroading, the shipping (a fandom problem, but it’s present in the podcast), the NPCs, and some misc problems others have addressed better than i have.

which. i know. that’s basically the entire podcast. (i promise i’ll bring up some positive points to balance it all out). keep in mind i’ve only personally listened to... what, six episodes? and it was enough for me to drop it. some people dropped it first ep, some dropped it ep four, and others are still forcing themselves to listen.

the railroading

there was a time i could handle travis and his railroading [making sure the story goes exactly the way he has planned], because it was the very beginning of the podcast and that’s what you can kind of expect from a plot-heavy podcast. hell, i wouldn’t mind it if the interactions and goofs weren’t a huge part of why i listen to TAZ in particular (which, by the way, is why amnesty still stuck out to me - even if there was a direction griffin wanted to push them towards, the interactions between the players (or players and npcs) made up for any railroading). it’s kind of hard to not railroad a little when it’s story-heavy and you’re trying to built up a world that you’ve put a lot of thought into. however, a huge part of d&d is the spontaneity. 

it’s kind of why i think balance was so popular. while there was railroading towards the end, there was the presence of improv that made it all good. most mcelroy content is enjoyed because of the goofs. the magic brian moment is memorable. the jenkin’s fight still stands out because it was funny (albeit a result of some bad rolls). the boys teasing angus sticks out because the four would play well off of each other. even without that - griffin had talked about how he had to roll with things (the fact he had planned for a fight atop the train, but ditched the idea for what his family members came up with instead). even in amnesty, a couple moments that stick out to me still are ned with the jetpack taking out a pizza hut sign, and the scene with the water where jake was trapped inside. they aren’t as fun, but they still stand out as “things i didnt expect to really end the way they did.”

with grad, it’s just. one after another. the thundermen want to subpoena a xorn? cool, let’s run with that until actually the xorn gets fed rocks and goes home and who cares about the subpoena now. fitzroy wants to keep his cloak? lets talk about it for a while and you also get no rolls to even try to keep it. fitzroy goes to meet higglemas in his office? oh, why are you here fitzroy? im going to keep asking you until you answer fitzroy? you arent getting out of this scene until you answer me, fitzroy, so just tell me why you’re here already, alright, fitzroy? 

and even later in a episode i read a transcript of: hey argo, remember how you have this whole secret motivation? fuck you, im gonna talk about it here in your dream and reveal it to listeners and remove any tension you had building up, and you dont get a choice to talk about it because this all-knowing villain knows all about it :)

and even NOW in the latest episode, there’s a comment that “we should cap argo’s skills here” instead of just... making the checks higher. rogues are good at certain things and usually arent the best in battles. better hope argo never makes it to level 11, because who knows how people are gonna handle the fact that he gets a skill that’ll make it so certain skills can’t have a roll below 10 (reliable talent). 

(griffin, thankfully, calls travis out for that, but still - travis, why would you even imply that, considering you should be aware of how rogues work considering magnus multiclassed into rogue and you played one on tiny heist?)

and in the newest episode, their Big Bad chaos (which, god, i personally hate that name) straight-out says “dont do this” to the thundermen. travis tries to say, on twitter, “a character saying “dont do this” is different than me saying it” but i need to point out that it’s one thing if you’ve said “no” in character but worked with the PCs doing otherwise, but the railroading says differently.

the shipping

ill try to make this quick, because it’s nothing to do with the fandom (ship however you want, man) - but i really feel the need to draw attention to this.

fitzroy, as confirmed by griffin in a ttazz episode, is asexual. not aroace, but ace nonetheless. and i find it... troublesome that the idea of rainer and fitzroy having a relationship is still pushed nonetheless, despite the fact that fitzroy (to my knowledge) was never once shown to reciprocate any feelings. not to be that person, but i really hope that grad doesnt have any sort of romantic relationships in it (at least - not between NPCs and PCs unless they’re actually like... warranted?). 

i dont know, man. one of my closest friends is ace, and i know she wants a relationship, but i think it would reassure her a lot to see an ace character who isn’t pushed into one in case she ever changes her mind. someone once mentioned that they hope fi/tz/ra/in doesnt happen because theres relationships that have that “oh, you can just date” and it goes upwards there to “oh, you can have sex just to please them <3″  (which, to be honest, is kind of a gross mindset - if someone isnt interested, they arent interested).

also, uh, the TTAZZ where griffin states this, there’s kind of the mention tht the whole sexuality question was posed in relation to the episode “creative thinking” (the dream one i mentioned earlier) - which. uh. i don’t know if anyone caught this, but... rainer straight-up wrote fitzroy a letter in the dream like “are you going to accept my proposal? a girl doesn’t like to be left waiting” which. leaves me with some gross feelings because uh.

if... if the whole thing about fitzroys sexual orientation was addressed here, then why would you push your ship anyway? feels kinda iffy, man.

to which i want to say: fitzroy can date. he’s allowed to date. griffins allowed to do whatever he wants with his character. but when a lot of the flirting is met with nothing, i’m not gonna see the chemistry there. just because travis ships it doesn’t mean it’s canon.

the npcs

ah yes. lets talk about the npcs.

there’s... a lot. a lot a lot. i think travis trimmed down how many were present in a scene, but uh. there’s still a lot. and... uh... i kinda wish there wasn’t?

look, i know im going back to balance/amnesty, but just. hang in there for a moment. chill with me. vibe. 

balance didnt have too many NPCs present at all times in each mini-arc. gerblins had some big names like barry, klarg, gundren, killian, yeemick, and magic brian. rockport limited had angus, jess, graham the juicy wizard jenkins, and all of the tom bodetts mentioned. 

amnestys first arc had mama, barclay, jake, dani, pigeon, kirby, minerva, and that was about it for like. big names? and not all of them were present in each scene. 

in the first episode of grad alone: gary, hernandez, jimson, rolandus, zana, rhodes, buckminster eden, rainer, leon, tomas, hieronymous, higglemas, stuart, jackle, bartholomeus, mulligan, groundsy, germaine/victoria/rattles (the skeleton crew). and those are the ones i wrote down (minus groundsy, who i just. ignores. idk him).

like holy shit, my english prof got onto me for having too many characters in my first chapter and i didnt even have half the amount listed there! 

it’s just a huge cast. does this take place in a school? yes! theres bound to be a lot of students present - but you don’t have to name every single one of them, at least not in the first episode!

the miscellaneous

i don’t know if travis ever actually addressed it, but wheelchair users have actually like... said that rainer’s introduction bothered them, because she was like “please ask me abt my wheelchair :)” when travis saying she was in an ornate chair would have sufficed. 

uh. the colonization vibes people have discussed within the centaur arc. mentioned here, the replies here, and this post (and its replies) here as well.

the overall lack of d&d when the campaign was kind of advertised as a return to d&d if i remember correctly

also no one seems to be taking literally any criticism at all which like. ignoring the petty shit, sure, but people have stopped donating to taz and their listener-ship must have dropped some during this entire time - you’d think that maybe someone could say “we need to find out why people dont like the thing and fix the thing” consider this is. yknow. their livelihood.

anyway uhhh 

tl;dr: travis railroads way too much (even now), the shipping in-game has become pushy and gross (especially bc its shoving a relationship onto an asexual character), theres too many npcs that dont stand out well enough, and no ones taking any criticism about the major issues with grad. 

[apothecarywormcrud]

11 and 13 for Masato? 👀 i wanna say all of them for Masato but.

oh i am DOING all of them i wanna talk about masato

or. well. most of them. 

1. Does your insert have a name that’s different from yours? Does the name reflect their character in any way, or is it just because it sounds nice? How did you come up with it?

I’ve talked about this before, but Masato’s name is very specifically spelled 眞人, (the kanji for “real” and “human,” respectively.) I sorta knew from the start that I wanted to give them a name with 人 in it; something deliberately ironic, because Mayuri is a dick who loves a bad joke. 

(It’s a particularly cruel joke in the context of Masato’s original backstory, where they were meant to be an experiment in what happens when you let someone think they’re a real person and then strip that assumption away. But I wanted to give them sick powers, so that was shunted to the sidelines.) 

2. Does your insert have a very strong relationship with a f/o, maybe more than one? 

I talk about Szayel enough on here so I’m gonna talk about Nnoitra instead. In my version of canon, his mask is cracked open by Kenpachi, reducing him to a state similar to Nel’s. (That’s karmic retribution, bitch!) Suffice to say he’s pretty upset about this, and proceeds to skulk about Las Noches refusing to let anyone see him until Szayel gets back to fix things. 

Masato meets him by chance when their powers are still sealed up post-jailbreak (this one’s seal 2: electric boogaloo) and is all like, what’s with this sassy lost pre-teen? Eventually they become sparring partners, since while Nnoitra’s regaining his powers, Masato is the only person in Las Noches capable of fighting at such a low level; and once he’s got them back, they can go hog-wild without worrying about fucking him up too much. Their relationship doesn’t have the same...belligerent romantic tension that Masato and Szayel’s does, but Nnoitra is fond of Masato, even if he’s horrible at admitting it. They’re friends and they suck! 

More abt. Nnoitra actually bc I love this song: nerfing him puts him in a position where he’s forced to rely on other people, and despite feeling totally worthless and vulnerable and having to undergo the humiliation of being protected, there’s also the experience of being told, “So what if you don’t have any power? That doesn’t make me respect you any less.” So he has the opportunity to build his self-worth back up based on something less subjective, and now he can actually interact with other people on the same level, which is great news for Tesla, who gets to strengthen his spine and be truly up front about his feelings, because Nnoitra no longer has any power over him. 

I think, for relationships like these, finding a level playing field is super important! And I’ve always been fascinated by characters who develop in opposition to one another and eventually meet in the middle. Masato and Szayel are also that way, in that they round out some of his edges, and he sharpens some of theirs, and the actual feelings proper don’t start developing until a ways in, and they’re not even admitted until post-canon, because in order to even consider that sort of relationship, the two of them have to come to respect each other first. Enemies-to-lovers is a fucking ART. 

3. Who in their canon are they closest to? 

Kurosaki fam and by extension, Ichigo’s friends. Masato has commissioned at least one custom jacket from Uryu. Also Arrancar Squad and my friend Percy’s insert Juro, who’s a creepy little goth weirdo and a visored.  

4. Does your insert have a backstory? Tell us about it! How does their backstory, if any, define who they are? 

Masato is a mod-soul based off of Mayuri’s quincy research. They’re designed to passively absorb reishi until at max capacity (which is quite large), at which point they can be forcefully “detonated,” destroying them in the process and causing a significant amount of damage to the surrounding area as the stored reishi is released. As a weapon, they’re highly experimental—meant as a last resort rather than something put to regular use. 

Mayuri dumped them in the human world, where their reishi absorption wouldn’t negatively impact the Seireitei, and planned to let them simmer there for about ten years. There’s a seal incorporated into their gigai that not only blocks them from accessing the reishi inside of them, but prevents any outside force (such as hollows) from sensing it. 

Once they become aware of what they are, Masato gets big anxious about anything that implies they’re not a real person. I’d love to salvage Kon’s original personality from before he was relegated to pervy comic relief because I think there’s the potential for some interesting interactions there. 

5. Does your insert have any magical talents or otherwise special abilities? 

Passive reishi absorption, and after Uruhara modifies their gigai so they can access their power reserves, they can vent it from their body and use the force to blast themselves around or add more power to their blows. Their body is about as resilient as a normal human’s, but the only way they can truly “die” is if their soul candy is crushed, which means that injuries that would normally be fatal are just excruciatingly painful. This definitely isn’t just an excuse for me to fuck them up beyond all belief. 

Due to Szayel’s tinkering, they eventually end up as what’s effectively an artificial Quincy. 

6. Do they fight? What’s their weapon of choice? What’s the motivation for them to fight, or to stay OUT of a fight?

They prefer not to fight if they can avoid it, but if shit gets real then they won’t hesitate, bitch. They’re reasonably proficient with a blade after several years of kendo training, and like to bring a practice sword into dangerous situations. It’s not going to do much good against the likes of shinigami or hollows, but it makes them feel more secure, and it’s a good misdirection tactic. 

Due to the whole “functionally unkillable” thing, they’re also far more likely to take risks in battle, and have a tendency to rush in without thinking when one of their comrades is hurt. 

7. What kind of clothing style do they like? What would they never be caught dead wearing? 

It’s all cropped jackets and harem pants up in this bitch. I drew them in that sort of outfit once and now it’s all I give them. They don’t particularly care for their arrancar clothes, but it makes them less conspicuous and also, Szayel insisted on it. Can’t have your prized experiment running around looking like some sort of ragamuffin, after all. I keep meaning to write something where they visit Sastre for a fitting, because what good is having other arrancar OCs if I don’t do anything with them? 

8. How do they fit into their canon world?

A side character who tags along with the main cast but ultimately doesn’t impact events too much. They have their own wholly separate plot going for them and it involves self-actualization and kissing arrancar. 

9. Their favorite foods? Colors? Activities? What do they enjoy in life? 

Kendo, gardening, bike rides through the countryside.

11. How easy is it to make your insert angry? Sad? How easy is it to twist their emotions into negative things? 

Masato’s actually pretty difficult to rile up, unless you’re pushing some Very Specific buttons (personhood is the big one), at which point they become incredibly easy to mess with. Szayel is...uncomfortably good at making them upset. 

13. What are your insert’s goals? 

Up to a certain point, they were happy to live a normal life and protect the people around them when called for. Then they wind up back in Mayuri’s lab and proceed to jailbreak Szayelaporro, retreat to Hueco Mundo, and strike a deal with him in order to gain more power and get mutual revenge on Mayuri. 

Post-canon...they start coming to terms with the fact that their body will never age and grow like a normal human’s, and that if/when they die, their soul will effectively be destroyed, and they decide, hey, fuck that shit, actually, and do a bunch of crazy science until they’ve got that shit sorted out (ultimately becoming like Nemu, if not something that improves on her design). 

14. Does your insert have any family relations? 

Isshin was the one who found them shortly after they were dumped on Earth, and kept them around for a number of reasons (the majority of which involved his Soul Reaper Senses tingling). So Masato’s got what’s effectively an adoptive dad and three younger siblings, who they dote on and bully interchangeably (and whose last name they may or may not have borrowed) (Isshin insisted on it, actually, since it’d make the documentation easier). They have temporary solidarity with Yuzu over not being able to see spirits. 

Mayuri is....arguably family but also like, fuck that. Masato does consider Nemu to be something like a sister, though, and feels particularly protective of her the more they interact. They have just as much a desire to help Nemu escape Mayuri’s influence as they do themselves. 

15. Does your insert have any enemies? What’s that dynamic like? Why are they enemies? Did they ever get along in the past? Is patching up differences out of the question for the future?

Fuck Mayuri me and my homies all hate Mayuri. I shouldn’t really need to explain this one. He treats Masato solely as an experiment and tool for his use. Unlike with Nemu, the fact that Masato is developing on their own is more of an inconvenience than anything, and before they broke out with Szayel, Mayuri was fully intending to wipe their memories and start over from square one. There is some good news, however, which is that Masato does get their revenge and uses their shiny new Quincy powers to seal up Mayuri’s reishi and get him kicked out of the captain’s seat. 

Szayel starts off as an enemy, since you can’t really have an enemies-to-lovers plot without one. He’s done some pretty atrocious things to Masato, but he treats them significantly more like a person than Mayuri ever did. Masato has very little respect for him, and the only reason they start working with him to begin with is because he represents a means to an end. Of course, the more time they spend together, the more tolerant they become of each other...among other things. 

[daz4i]

non-con and r/pe fics are not ~problematic~ content you fucking tool, neither is child p/rn, which ao3 ALLOWS to run rampant on their site. this is also the site that has been in beta for YEARS and doesn’t have the most basic feature aka a block button because it would be ‘too complicated’ to add. shut the fuck up and sit down south park fan

yknow i was originally planning to not answer this bc of the way you’ve “presented” your point, but i do wanna clear what i said while ignoring your needless aggressiveness even tho it’s clear you’re not looking for a real discussion but just looking for an outlet to your anger. you probably won’t read my answer anyway but maybe if any of my followers share the same views, it’s good for me to explain lol. i actually put effort into it rather than throwing insults so it’s long, therefore under the cut

i feel like you’re purposely misinterperting me, once again probably just for the sake of being angry, but ok. yeah it’s more than problematic content, but man when i’m typing tags half asleep what else am i supposed to call it. fine, the writers are the ones who are ~problematic~, phrasing issue, does this part even really matter...? 

this fucked up content (is that better phrasing for you?) makes roughly 1% of the content on the site, from what i’ve heard (obviously i could be wrong, because it’s also really hard for people to measure considering the nature of a proper tagging system, aka if a fic has mentioned rape in it as in a character’s trauma people should tag it, but then is the data analyzer supposed to count it as rape content? probably not. anyway, i kinda went off topic), so i wouldn’t call that “run rampant”

either way, ao3 lets people host this content because of what i mentioned - you can’t actually monitor it unless you have real people running fic by fic to check, which is literally impossible, especially when your team is made of volunteers

and. as i’ve said in my tags. it beats the original purpose of ao3, which is to allow whatever fan content people want to make, due to fandom history

and like, this may seem obvious to you, but how can they choose exactly what counts as content that’s supposed to be blocked? when you say cp, do you mean fics abt highschooler anime characters? this probably counts, but what if the person who wrote the fic is 16 y/o for example? is it just as bad? what if the characters in the fic are aged up? where do you draw the line? (don’t bring up that one “don’t make sexual illustration or written content of minors” law, it’s about real minors, people on tumblr have a tendency to misinterpert that one and think it means cartoon characters) and how do you enforce these rules about stuff like rape? as i said, do you just delete every content that mentions it? what if someone’s venting their experience through a fic and does it in a proper way that doesn’t romanticize it? is it still not allowed? there’s too many “if”s and “but”s for this stuff, and if you try to enforce any rules about them you’ll end up censoring harmless content and survivors coping with their trauma through fiction, and as i said, this beats ao3′s original point which is to allow people to post the content they want with no censorship like previous fan content sites and hosts tried to. this is literally what ao3 was made for. 

ao3 has a proper tagging system and now a blacklisting system just so you won’t have to deal with this type of content that you don’t want to see. and yeah, if people don’t use it right it’s a problem, but it’s a them problem, not ao3′s problem. honestly, you don’t even have to use ao3 at all and you can easily avoid all of this if you want. 

as for the beta thing, i mean, okay? i don’t know enough about web design to see the problem with the site being in beta for years, esp considering they’re still adding features and tweaks. dunno what you might need a block feature on a fic site for (i mean, mean comments? i guess? bc if you don’t wanna see a certain author in search results you can blacklist them after all) but k, legit criticism, but don’t forget they’re also a team of volunteers and have life outside of this site too, obviously it won’t evolve as fast as sites made by people who work at it and get paid to do it. 

anyway, tldr, this shit is unfortunately all or nothing because of the nature of fandom spaces and content blocking, and ao3 would rather go with all (as in all content is allowed). if you disagree with their approach then don’t use the site, idk what to tell you. no one’s forcing you to go on it or look at fucked up content. 

i probably won’t want to further discuss this, esp not with you if you’re gonna approach it like that bc as i said it’s obvious you’re not going to have a proper discussion, and also i think i said my opinion here and hope it’s clear enough? if you disagree with me aight, if i bother you cool just unfollow me. don’t be a dick

[nativemossy]

Cap-IM Rec Week 2019 - Wednesday

Rec Week- Angsty Wednesday @cap-ironman 

Don’t forget to leave kudos and comments for your hardworking authors! they deserve the credit for the hard work they put into entertaining us with their fabulous works of art!

disclaimer: i genuinely struggle with the difference between angst and h/c, so the way i’m differentiating those lists is (mostly) by what the author tagged. 

the stillness of forgetting - by nasa

“Who are you?” Tony asks every morning when he wakes up and finds Steve lying next to him.

“I’m your husband,” Steve always replies.

-

aka Tony has Alzheimer's.

why rec?: ouchie, this one makes me cry a lot, so I don’t read it often. memory loss fics really get to me, so if thats something youre interested in this has it in stock! its so heartrendingly sweet and i just love it a lot

Orbital Mechanics - by Sabrecmc

Freshly out of the ice, Captain Steve Rogers definitely does not want to Bond with anyone. Until he does.

(Steve's POV for Celestial Navigation)

why rec?: tbh i’d recommend anything of Sabres (and multiple times at that - hence why i posted abt this on monday as well), but Celestial Navigation and by extension Orbital Mechanics both have permanent places on my instant classics list. just a lovely fic all around.

Something Death Can Touch - by thatdammeddame

Tony nearly dies in the field on a Saturday.

Steve breaks up with Tony the Wednesday after he's released from hospital.

why rec?: sad!! with happy ending!! its got a nice round conclusion, everyone comes full circle and is better for it.

Like A Comet Streaming On - by Sineala

Tony escapes Afghanistan with a functioning Iron Man suit and a perfectly normal heart. He even manages to bring Ho Yinsen home safely at his side. But he may as well have lost everything... because his wolfbrother is dead. Six months later, the Avengers find Captain America, frozen in ice, miraculously alive. Everything and everyone Steve has ever known is gone -- except his wolfsister, the recipient of the lupine version of the super-soldier serum, who was frozen in his arms. Tony has everything but his wolf. Steve has only his wolf. This is how their lives fit together.

why rec?: another fic that lives in my phone and travels with me - this is an instant classic for sure. i feel like i’ve recced this before no but i will be reccing it’s “fanfic of a fanfic” in tomorrows post, so I have talked about it. I love the psychic wolf premise, I hope to maybe do something in the future with it, though I could never dream of coming close to this amazing fic. If i’ve read this once i’ve read it dozens of times and loved it more each time. 

Wait & Sea - by Lenalena 

In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

why rec?: tagged as angst and humor and if memory serves that’s exactly right. perfect blend of the humor of the identity porn trope with the angst of constant misunderstandings. 

Born From The Earth - by venusm

Tony Stark's born an omega in a world where that means he's supposed to follow certain social rules. He becomes Iron Man anyway: Fuck biology.

If only his biology (and the world) would quit fucking him back.

why rec?: i debated real heavy about including this because it’s technically steve/tony/omc, but hear me out: A great part of this fic focuses on the developing relationship between Tony and Steve, as well as Tony’s relationship with himself and the world around him. This is, hands down, my favorite fic of all time. as far as writing in general goes it’s right up there with my favorite authors. if i could only read one fic for the rest of my life this would undoubtedly be it - unfinished or no. i cannot even begin to impress upon you how much I love this fic. I can only aspire to write like this. the author makes you angry when they want you to be angry, sad when they want that too. It’s a beautifully orchestrated rollercoaster of emotion and I fall a little more in love every time I read it (which is frighteningly often).

Never Too Late for Love - by Sineala

Steve has always believed that a soulbond is a blessing -- a rare and beautiful miracle, joining the thoughts and feelings of two people forever, from the first time they touch. Steve knows he's not going to be one of the lucky ones. He knows Gail isn't his soulmate. But he loves her, even if they're not soulmates, and he's going to do right by her. After the war's over, he's going to marry her, and they're going to settle down. They'll buy a house. They'll have children. He'll see his family again. Maybe Bucky will live next door. It's going to be a good life. He doesn't need a soulbond. He'll be fine without one.

Then Steve wakes up sixty years in the future to find that his wonderful life has moved on without him. His family is long dead. His fiancée married his best friend. And the only purpose he has left is leading the Ultimates, a misbegotten team of superheroes with flaws too numerous to count. Steve hates everything about the future -- but most of all he detests Tony, flashy and flirtatious, who embodies everything Steve hates about a world he never wanted to live in.

And, oh, yeah, Steve has a soulmate after all: Tony fucking Stark.

why rec?: so much relationship angst. so. much. angst. Steve has to get his ass in gear and his brain into the 21st century, and Tony probably needs to go easy on the poor guy. its also ultsfic, which I’m usually not a giant fan of bc of the assholery but the dynamic works for me here

Senseless - by Scavenge4Dreams

Blinded, deafened, exhausted, injured and afraid, Tony raised himself up into a defensive position, the knife coming up just like Nat had taught him.

“That had better fucking be you, Steve Rogers- it had better be you. Fucking disarm me. If you let me kill you, I swear I will be very, very pissed.” Tony snarled, sure it was Steve approaching. Had to be. Had. To. Be.

What if it wasn’t?

why rec?: it’s been a while since i’ve read this, but I remember this being a good one that involves a rescue, injury recovery, and some eventual upon a brief reread I can say that this fic also has established relationship going for it! it’s tagged angst but it’s definitely got it’s fluffy parts and a really fun ending

Thrust Issues - by Sineala

A battle gone wrong leads Tony to the unexpected and pleasant discovery that Steve is much more well-endowed than he could ever have imagined. But when Tony learns that Steve has never actually been able to sleep with anyone because of his size, Tony does what any good friend would do: he offers to relieve Steve of his virginity. Personally. Tony's determined, Tony's methodical, and Tony has a plan. He's going to get Steve laid. Tony just needs to make sure Steve never finds out that Tony's in love with him.

why rec?: look at this point i think we can all agree that i might be a little bit of a fan of sineala’s. just wanted to throw that one out there to start us out. 

so my rec has little to do with the oodles of pining angst (of which there is plenty) and much more to do with there being a specific line in this fic that boils down to “friends fist friends right?” and I think of it at least biweekly. the rest of the fic is beautifully written and the characterization is to die for, plus its got a lovely happy ending!

She - by isozyme

Iron Man is strong and muscular and masculine, and Tony Stark wears a three-piece suit and walks with his hips stiff.  No colors other than navy or muted red. No prints bolder than a pinstripe. No luxurious silks and linens. His outfits are tailored to hang crisp and straight, his slacks hemmed to a conservative medium break.  The public won’t know. Nobody will go digging deeper, for classified ads and witnesses who remember him from half a decade ago. Steve will never find out all the ways Tony’s ruined himself.

why rec?: i’m putting this here just in case I don’t make a post for Sunday. This is one of those fics that hurts so good - it’s so well written sometimes it makes my teeth ache because it’s so sad and as the reader you can see all the pieces but a character cant. I love that feeling, its a great feeling. Some of this stuff can hit close to home so heed the warnings and read the tags!