#also think this would be cool to do as a dual author fic

[teabiscs]

Hear me out hear me out hear me out hear me out.

Manga!Hiro/Anime!Kai & Anime!Hiro/Manga!Kai

Almost some Isekai bullshit. Where the Hiro’s are transported out of their world to the other one. Some weird planets aligned stuff.

Manga Hiro gets transported to the future where he’s older, and has come to find out a lot of bad things have happened. Volkov in this universe was a monster, and by extension, so was he. Takao doesn’t look up to him like he did, and his father and Ryu are disappointed by him. The team he cherished and coached can’t stand him and don’t trust him. Even hate him? Who is Brooklyn? What is BEGA?

Anime Hiro is taken to the past. There’s no BEGA. Volkov is still evil, but holy shit he wasn’t as bad as the Volkov back home. There’s a different level of respect from the Bladebreakers. And they’re just all different than how he remembers them back in his world.

Manga!Hiro has the toughest time, trying to piece things together through the internet and others. Until he confides in Mr. D, who looks like he’s crazy, but hears him out.

Insert hospital scene here, where idk some made up medical stuff where it’s like yeah this isn’t our Hiro. Maybe. Or it comes out there’s nothing wrong with his brain, and yeah Hiros a master manipulator but he seems different.

The slowest of burns for Manga!Hiro/Anime!Kai. Kai doesn’t trust him, and is under the impression this is just another one of Hiro’s plans. Kai still hates his guts after everything that happened during BEGA. Everything that was said, that he partnered up with Volkov.

Manga!Hiro trying to make amends for what other Hiro did. Apologizing. Volunteering. It feels pointless because people still see him as other Hiro. He feels so lonely. Isolated.

Again slow burn, but eventually Kai takes pity on Manga!Hiro and talks with him and hangs out with him. And maybe… maybe Hiro was telling the truth. There’s not this ominous aura around Hiro. There’s just this gentler vibe. The hairs on his neck don’t stand up, and his gut isn’t telling him to get away.

And Anime!Kai’s feelings begin to fester

-

Anime!Hiro is having the time of his LIFE!! he got to do all this shit in his other life and now he has no consequences of that. There’s no Volkov to pair up with. No looming over throw of the BBA, it’s surprisingly calm. He’s coaching the team, and they listen to him, including Hiwatari, who was such a little shit in the other world.

This isn’t a slow burn. This story is kinda icky??? Depending on how it’s written. I see Anime!Hiro as such a manipulator. He gets what he wants, without caring who he hurts. Also this would take place more towards the end of the Manga, ignoring Rising’s existence. So like 15-16ish Kai and a 22-23 Hiro. So like while good and legal in Japan, my western brain is like NOOOO.

He wants Kai. This world’s Kai isn’t insufferable. Isn’t a little shit. Is bright eyed and optimistic. Isn’t damaged goods from the abbey, which may or may not exists (he’ll research that later, as well as Yuriy, for reasons). Has daddy issues. Is kind of unsure of himself, blushes????? Really? It’s endearing, and this world’s Kai is kind of cute.

And yeah okay, maybe wanting Kai, is him just getting back at his world’s Kai.

If the other world’s Hiro/kai is a slow burn this is a spontaneous combustion. It happens so fast. Hiros almost a little disappointed there’s no chase at all. Kai just opens up to him. Emotionally and sexually. Share his frustration over his dad and Hiro listens, and shortly after he kisses Kai and it’s a done deal after that.

He wants to be rough and aggressive with Kai, after everything Anime!Kai put him through, but he can’t. At least not the first time, and then after he finds out Kai is into that.

And then the rest of the story would be Hiro being like, ya know what? Kai’s not that bad , and he slowly falls for Kai.

Would probably alternate between the two Hiro’s one chapter for one then the next chapter for the other. Or two separate fics. The usual one

[theghostofashton]

okay for nice ask day, i have two questions - 1) what fic are you most proud of and why (it is allowed to be a WIP) and 2) name one headcanon that you always wanted to talk about, but were waiting to be asked about? <3<3

i love this thank you <3

1) i'd say i'm most proud of my exes to lovers au, i think. it's a wip i've been thinking about ever since you saw the truth in me was posted, and it's blossomed into something so special. i have so many ideas and a clear picture in my head of how i want to do things, and i think just the potential of this fic is so inspiring to me. the dual timeline is a fun challenge, i've never written anything like it before, and part of it being set in college feels like it opens up so many possibilities, not just for tk and carlos, but for all of the characters. college is such a unique time i feel like, this opportunity to explore yourself and learn your identity, and it's been really cool to imagine what it would've looked like for these characters.

for example, paul is a phd student in the college timeline, and grace is a year older than the undergrads (tk, carlos, mateo, marjan, nancy), and i had this idea for them to meet in a class, grace taking a graduate level course that paul happens to be in. as an undergrad still, she's a little overwhelmed by the pace, and he offers to help her out. to thank him, she invites him to hang out with her and her friends, and paul is swiftly integrated into the group after that. but what i've also loved so much about thinking about that has been imagining the types of classes paul and grace would be in, the conversations they'd have, their perspectives on the discussion, etc. i've been having a lot of fun with it and i feel like those are the best fics, the ones you can tell the author loved writing.

2) i have talked a bit about it, here, but i feel like carlos being demisexual is a hc i've wanted to talk about more for a while (you would know considering the state of our discord chat lmfao). it's one that ties his character together for me in a way i love so much. like, him saying in his vows how he was closed off and shut down in ways he didn't realize rings so true to that idea, that connection that he felt that he'd never experienced before, and what he said earlier in the season about realizing he wasn't actually broken the day he met tk. specifically that day, that one interaction, changed everything for him. it makes so many things fit, like how glowy and overwhelmingly happy he looks in 1x02, post-sex, just feels.... so much richer when i look at it from this perspective. so many moments throughout these four seasons feel that way now, and it's been a lot of fun to rewatch the show and think about things with this in mind. this hc is one of my most favorite headcanons about the show and it means so much to me.

[imogenleewriter]

yours is the first WIP i'm reading! i used to always run away from it, but then I started SMFM and didn't realised it was (dk how hahah i think it was because it was already telling how many chapters there would be) but i'm actually enjoying this way! i mean, the anxiety to read another chapter as soon as you post one is a bitch hahaha but then i spend a lot of times with that chapter and rereading it, and rereading the whole thing up until the most recent and ahh idk its really nice, i feel like i'm even more emersed on the story and the fact that you can tell you would never drop the story helps with the anxiety haha anyways that my little confession! hope your well and proud of your amazing work! the way it feels like two different people ahh amazing! also, my favourite type of fics are duo povs, i loveee when i can tell what both parties are thinking

I'm so happy that you're reading it! I totally get why people don't read WIPs but as an author, I love that people do read them!

I love that people are still reading You Can Hear It In The Silence, and I love getting comments on it and watching people go through the process of reading it and the emotions... but at the same time it's so cool to have a bunch of readers go through the same emotions at the same time and see their reactions in real time.

There were definitely things I liked about posting You're Not My Type (still I fall) as a complete work, and in some ways I think fics come out better when you write them in one go and can go back and forth to edit them, but again, I miss the interaction on it. I love getting comments there as well and I know people are still reading it (it's only been a month and it's out-kudos'ed SMFM, lol. But, again, there is still something really nice having people come on the journey with me!

I follow a few WIPs, and one of them only gets updated like once every month or two (I'd tagged the author but hopefully they know who they are!), so I really do get the frustration that comes a long... but also, it's exciting when the email comes through that they've posted, you know?

I also LOVE dual POVs! I don't think I could ever not write one. You, Me, (and everyone we know) is very heavily Louis at the moment (there are 16 chapters and only 2 have been Harry) but there's a creative reason for that. And the chapters - although there are only two - still give enough insight to his thoughts. All the comments on Louis' pov are always like "And you just know that Harry is xyz" lol. But they didn't know that before his first chapter - obviously.

Anyway, this was long but I'm procrastinating a lot right now, lol

[todoscript]

monopolize

SUMMARY: Having realized Bakugou and Midoriya’s infatuation with you, Shouto decides to make a firm point at showing that you’re his and his alone.

pairing: todoroki shouto x fem!reader (feat. bakugou katsuki & midoriya izuku)

genre: smut. slight angst. pro hero au.

word count: 8.0k+

warnings: 18+. characters are aged up. dominant!shouto. possessive!shouto. (!!!)coercion. exhibitionism. bondage (kinda). slight degradation. praising. squirting. humiliation (bakugou & midoriya receiving).

author’s note: so the idea for this fic came to me one day while i was studying chemistry and it kinda got out of hand the moment i started writing it...haha, oops... but anyway, shoutout to rosie ( @shoutogepi​ ) for listening to me ramble about this and encouraging me to write this shit, love you lots babe! <333 also a reminder to please look over the warnings before proceeding, thank you!!!

If your open jaw is not enough to emphasize your shock, then the bag that hits the floor after escaping your grasp does that job for you. It also alerts the three existing presences in the room of your arrival, to which all eyes maneuver to the door of your shared bedroom, witnessing your appalled state at what is lying in wake.

Lounging on the futon, Shouto breaks your awed silence. “Welcome home, love,” he greets, warmly as per usual whenever he arrives home from work before you do.

You’re utterly surprised by how indifferent he sounds despite the two additional faces in the room. After all, it’s not every day you’d ever expect the Pro Number One and Two heroes to be here in your very bedroom, bound by what you have to assume is your boyfriend’s ice.

Unsure how to go about your reply, you instead opt to slowly walk into the room, assessing the situation. Your wary gaze darts between the angry red eyes of Bakugou Katsuki and the strained green ones of Midoriya Izuku. “I... U-Um… Shouto? What is all of this? What are Midoriya and Bakugou doing here?” You finally manage to address the elephant in the room, yet Shouto does not tackle your questions with as much haste as you are hoping.

He gets up from the bed to meet you in the middle, gathering you in his arms before his lips find your temple—the kiss he presses soft and tender, but the fact that there are two other pairs of eyes glancing over at you from such a compromising position warms your cheeks buried in his chest.

You don’t catch how Bakugou practically wrenches at the sight while Midoriya turns away, abashed. There’s hurt discerned in their expressions that can only be akin to pure jealousy. But you don’t know that. Well, not yet anyway.

“Let me explain, love,” Shouto starts, his voice a meager space away from your ear that he tucks a hair behind, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but are you aware that these two both—”

“That’s it! I don’t have to stay here and listen to this crap!” Bakugou’s loud voice bursts out, cutting the rest of Shouto’s words short just before they fall to your ear. Watching as a fever of energy begins emitting from Bakugou’s palms trapped in the ice, the dual-haired hero quickly acts by erecting another glacier to impede the blonde’s abilities, effectively keeping him trapped there. Bakugou can only grit his teeth as he remains bound. Meanwhile, you gape at the lengths Shouto goes to prevent these two renowned heroes from leaving this space.

The chill that diffuses throughout the atmosphere of the room pairs fittingly with the frigid stare Shouto points at your guests. Ensuring the cold doesn’t affect you, he regulates your temperatures with his fire side while your body is still pressed against him before continuing. “As I was saying, these two men in front of you both harbor the same feelings for you as I do,” Shouto says. You slightly turn to meet his heterochromatic gaze with confusion written on your face, unsure what his words exactly imply.

Reading this, Shouto’s hand at your waist travels to your nape. “I’m sure you must have realized it by now, love... The way their touches linger on you for far longer than necessary whenever you meet them...” His calloused hand rubs at the back of your neck, the other traveling up your chest that yields a strained noise from your mouth.

“Or how they flirt with you whenever you visit my agency while they’re there, thinking I don’t notice. Telling you how good you look or how pretty you are.” His words meld into your skin as his lips meet below your jawline, the sensation of his nibbles manifesting your noises into frail moans that lights blushes in your spectators’ cheeks. All attempts at disregarding those cases as friendly compliments are hindered when your attention is captured by Shouto’s wandering hands and hypnotizing voice.

“Though I wholeheartedly agree with every statement, I think it’s only right of me—your boyfriend—to be a little concerned when they’re always giving you those looks.”

You bite your lip in hopes of suppressing the next noise that threatens to spill from your mouth before curiosity overtakes you. “What looks?” you pry yet not entirely ready for the answer. Shouto breaths in closely next to your ear, voice guttural and full of weight.

“Like they want to fuck you.”

His claims have your eyes blown out wide, timbre compelling goosebumps across your skin at something so vulgar departing his mouth. You try to muster out a comprehensible thought for the sake of the two heroes, but the words are drawn back in your throat. Shouto catches your guarded look.

“Now, don’t go saying they’re just being friendly with you, baby. I mean look at them. Are those the faces of two men who just want to be friends with you?”

The air has suddenly grown tense, the tension so taut it could be cut with a butter knife. Hesitantly, you shift to meet Bakugou and Midoriya’s eyes to gauge a response from them. To your surprise, all you can perceive are the sheer expressions of shame painted on their faces—red smearing their cheeks with humiliation as they can’t help but glance at anywhere else but you.

“Well?” Shouto chimes in after you’ve fully grasped the reality of the situation.

Peering into his icy heterochromatic eyes, you gulp. You know you have no right to be lying to his face, no matter how much you insist it isn’t so.

“N-No,” you admit.

A grin curves on his lips before he kisses your cheek.

“Mm, smart girl.”

Despite you waving your white flag, Shouto doesn’t stop his touches from wandering your body. He palms at sensitive areas that leave you burning. Those whimpers you’ve desperately tried to conceal unfetter from your lips when his hands inch upon skin hidden beneath your clothing. His touches are firm with a mixture of warmth and coolness that has you holding your breath. The sensations cloud your thoughts, making you forget where you are as the other presences in the room now in the back of your mind.

Midoriya and Bakugou can’t bring themselves to look anymore—can’t bear to gaze at such intimacy they can never hope to attain. Especially when your cute noises leave a twitch in their pants, a feeling they fail to cast off in shame.

“Todoroki... you made your point, now please let us out of this ice,” Midoriya says through his dry lips. Though the verdant-haired hero knows he could free himself on his own with his strength, if Shouto has anything to say about it, he’d just conjure another pillar of ice as quickly as a snap of a finger to replace the shattered ones. Considering that’s what he’s done to keep the two of them from leaving thus far.

“You can’t be fucking serious about leaving us here, Icy-Hot,” Bakugou adds with far more hostility in his tone as he shoots a glare at the red and white-haired man.

The reminder that the top two Pro Heroes are still present in the same room as you while Shouto trails his large hands at every expanse of bare flesh he can find delivers a jolt of embarrassment throughout your body. Embarrassment that somehow kindles a lick of heat in your abdomen.

“On the contrary, this is only part one of what I have in store for you two tonight,” Shouto says, lips playing on the fine line of a smirk. “In fact, I plan on ingraining in your very minds that my love belongs to me and only me by making you two watch her come undone on my cock.”

There’s disbelief throughout the room, trying to comprehend the lengths behind his words.

“W-Wait, are we really doing this in front of them?” you sputter.

“If you’re that uncomfortable about this love, then I’ll simply leave them in this room and fuck you in the next one so they can at least hear every little thing I’m doing to you,” he offers, tone descending multiple steps that rack shivers down your skin as he circles your body, standing chest to your back.

“But having an audience entices you, doesn’t it? After all, look at how wet you are.” He hooks an arm below your leg, lifting it slightly so his free hand can slip into your panties beneath your skirt, no longer blocked by your thighs clenching together. You find yourself winding an arm behind his neck to keep balance. Your eyes shut tight from both mortification and pleasure at how he strokes your slit in front of the two heroes. Sure enough, there’s an abundant amount of slick gathered at your center, the shameful squelching at your throbbing cunt not eluding anyone’s ears in the room.

“Mmm, already such a drenched fucking mess. It’s like the fact that all three of us lust for you makes you even wetter,” he whispers into your ear like a red-winged devil professing your sins to you—sins you should feel disgraceful for, yet you can’t help the exhilaration simmering in your chest. After all, having three powerful, attractive men vying for your attention is nothing short of every girl’s dream. To deny the effects this has on your body would only add dishonesty to your list of sins. Shouto takes your silence as confirmation.

Parting from your panties, he reveals his fingers coated in your shiny essence to everyone in the room. Bakugou and Midoriya water at the sight, groans stifled under their breaths as the many nights of dreaming about how sweet you taste come back to hit them all at once. The saccharine dripping between your thighs is so close, and yet so far as Shouto remains firm on his word about keeping them bound throughout his show of dominance.

Though driven in such compromising circumstances, the two Pro Heroes can’t find it within themselves to tear their eyes away from you. Perhaps in actuality, a deep, dark longing inside them secretly confesses to wanting to watch you unravel amidst the throes of pleasure, even if your undoing is due to someone that isn’t them.

“What a naughty slut you are, admitting you get off at the thought of more than one man wanting to ravage this body of yours.” His lips brush against the shell of your ear, heightening your mortification and the ever-growing wetness at your center.

“However, I’m all you need, isn’t that right, sweetheart? I’m the only man that can reduce you to this soaked, quivering mess from just my voice alone, and the only one whose cock makes your body shake with pleasure that leaves you sore for days.”

“Yes, Sh-Shouto…” you airily whimper in reply.

Shouto’s index finger presses against your trembling bottom lip, slightly smearing your slick on its plushness before he cups your face to stare directly at Bakugou and Midoriya.

“Go on then. Tell the Number One and Number Two Pro Heroes who you belong to,” he commands lowly in your ear. Before you can speak, heat ignites in your cheeks. You glance down and take note of the prominent bulges within the two’s tight clothing, their cocks positively aching to break free from the confines. The fact that the two seem to be getting off on the sight of you manhandled by Shouto is something to acknowledge.

“I… I belong to you…” Your voice wanes.

“Who? Be more specific, baby.”

“I belong to the Number Three hero, Todoroki Shouto,” you say, more clearly this time. The response is sufficient enough to satisfy the man behind you, who turns your head so your lips can connect in a passion of teeth and tongue dancing together that leaves your lungs gasping for air, detaching with ragged breaths. While you’re recovering, Shouto tugs you closer by your chin, pressing your foreheads against each other, where you gander into the depths of his gray and turquoise eyes swimming with lust.

“That’s right, and no one else is going to fuck you like I am tonight.” He sneaks a side-glance at his fellow heroes. “They can only watch as I drive my cock into your pussy over and over again, wishing they were me.”

Midoriya remains silent, letting his troubled expression speak for him, blush persisting on his face. Bakugou, on the other hand, decides to spit a few words out.

“Fuck. You.”

Make that only two words. Still, the venom dripping off each one gets his point across, in that he’s absolutely livid. But sadly for him, it has no effect on the calm and collected Todoroki Shouto.

Taking you by the hand, he leads you to the futon, sprawled out flat for your small audience to behold the entirety of your fucking tonight. Shouto kisses the back of your hand before leaving you to continue standing. He settles himself on the sheets with his arms propped behind him to view up at you as you obediently wait for his orders.

“Well, love, you know what to do. Take off some clothes for me,” he says gruffly. You oblige, slowly peeling off layers. Your skirt piles into a heap on the floor at undoing the zipper holding it in place, quickly followed by the blouse tossed over your head which leaves the remaining clothing on your body your mismatched lingerie. The dainty, silk intimates are the only thing separating you from being fully exposed to everyone.

Even given a sparing view of you from behind, Midoriya and Bakugou readily eat you up. If they somehow haven’t been undressing you with their eyes before this, then they certainly are now. Bakugou zeroes in on your pert ass, emphasized by your panties, and itches to grasp its softness in his own palms, desiring to squeeze, rub, and spank till his heart’s content.

Contrarily, Midoriya has his sights set on the clasp of your bra. What he wouldn’t give to unfasten it from your body and have the article of clothing slip off your skin, putting your beautiful breasts on display, nipples likely stiff and begging for the attention of his fingers and mouth.

It’s unfortunate for them that no such fantasies will come true tonight. After all, you don’t belong to them. You belong to Shouto.

Feeling incredibly vulnerable, you rub your thighs together to create some friction between your lower lips, trying to subside the throb growing in your belly. But you can only endure for so long when Shouto is staring at you with such scalding intensity. You’re struggling to hold onto the remnants of your dignity before it’s stripped away from you at the next command.

“Baby, you’re gorgeous, but,” Shouto hums, admiring the view for a second longer before cutting to the chase, “I want it all off.”

Not wasting any time, your thumbs hook under the waistband of the silk, quickly casting the panties to join the pile below your feet. The way your web-like slick connects your folds to the material before breaking off as your panties reach the ground does not go unnoticed. Your bra, of course, is the next to be discarded—unhooked and tossed, unveiling your tits to the chilly air.

Defenses torn down, you stand bare and exposed to all eyes in the room. You don’t miss the glint flitting in the mismatch of Shouto’s eyes, staring at you like he’s uncovered a beautiful pearl beneath the ocean. Though this is far from your first time engaging in your sexual desires with him, you always fall prey to that carnal look of his, which seemed even more lecherous tonight. He runs a finger on his lips pulled into a seductive smile, eyes piqued at your naked form.

Prickles of arousal travel down your spine. You can’t discern whether it’s the very thought of your vulnerability or the fiery looks you swear are piercing into you at every angle that has you tingling with anticipation.

Either way, such spark coursing through your veins drives you into Shouto’s waiting arms as he beckons you to him. He welcomes you onto his lap, allowing your thighs purchase next to his own while his large hands grope at your soft skin. It isn’t long until your lips meet again, Shouto coaxing—no—prying them open with his tongue as it finds yours, brushing the underside and chasing with zeal. His roughness has you at a loss for words, quite literally as all you can respond with are the airy moans leaking out between each fervent lip-lock. When Shouto grabs at one of your mounds, index finger circling your perky nipple, you let out a surprised squeak.

Your two bystanders’ dicks stutter in response at the noises, having absolutely nothing to do but watch and listen in envy. Every time they hear such a sweet succession of sounds from you, they fidget in their positions, attempting to pathetically generate some pressure against their clothes to alleviate the pain in their cocks.

Shouto does not miss the way they struggle within his periphery, smirking at their pitiful attempts to find any form of relief. At this, a sly thought flickers in his head.

With his hands on your hips, he guides your body further against his own. You find your knees supporting you up while your upper body leans over Shouto, hands gripping his shoulders to keep you steady. The position he’s led you in doesn’t grant you many options, besides obliging to be pliant in his hands.

Peeking over your shoulder, you flush with heat when you realize your ass is perked in the direction toward Midoriya and Bakugou. The troubling thoughts of whether you should feel flustered or flattered by their mesmerized state at how spread you are, hovering above Shouto’s lap, is ripped away when the Pro Hero begins cascading his hands across your skin. His palms waver back and forth within the boundaries of your ass and thighs, every now and then squeezing your warm flesh during his crossings between the two.

“Mmm, Sho…” you whine, the palpable neediness in your voice begging for him to touch your throbbing center already. Bakugou and Midoriya wish for the same, tormented by how slow he decides to take his caressing. If it were up to them, they’d already be tongue deep in your pussy already, perhaps even bottoming their cocks inside your walls, considering how soaked you must be. But no, Shouto wants this night to last. And he’s going to set the pace however he sees fit.

One of Shouto’s hands creeps beneath your leg to maneuver them further apart before his palms find their place at the underside of your poised ass. A short sigh floats amid your parted lips at how he spreads your cheeks, exposing your cunt freely to the two. You hear a groan, followed by an obscene “fuck…” that has you wondering what the view must be like from their perspective to render them so awestruck.

And man, if only you could see your pretty little cunt—wet, glistening, and fluttering on nothing, pleading for stimulation. Stimulation that Shouto grants sparingly as his middle and ring finger suddenly prod your slit, tearing a surprised gasp from your mouth while you toss your head backward.

Your slippery pussy coats his fingers in an opalescent sheen. He hums at the debauched image of your body yearning his touch. “Such a slutty, needy pussy… So messy, even though I haven’t even taken my clothes off yet.” Shouto takes the sullied fingers into his mouth, swiping his tongue at your delectable taste abiding his digits. It’s obscene how he makes a show of drinking up the honey from your thighs to taunt Midoriya and Bakugou, groaning between licks like it’s the one thing keeping him sustained. Well, then again, Shouto could probably survive on your essence for days if he tried, considering his favorite places to be is between your thighs anyway.

Head tilting in the direction behind you, you could’ve sworn you saw one of the two licking their lips while the other swallowed a large, heavy gulp. Before you can question it further, Shouto’s words resume ringing in your ear.

“It’s all for me right, love?” he asks as though he doesn’t already know the answer.

Your body quivers as he dives down to continue prodding your cunt before you can even respond properly. “Y-Yes, it’s just for you, Sho— Ah..!” You try your best to muster the words out. But his fingers give you no moment to spare. A jolt of pleasure spikes through your body as he reaches your clit, leaving your voice hanging in the air.

“Unnf... f-fuck...”

Shouto is relentless this time, attending to your bundled nerves at an excruciating rhythm that has you swaying your hips into his hands. Then all coherent thoughts are whisked away when you feel two fingers penetrating your sloppy pussy, thrusting into places you could never reach on your own, and prepping your walls for what’s to come.

“Baby, you take my fingers so well, you’re practically sucking them in,” he praises, reveling in the way you writhe in pleasure at him playing with your cunt. Whining, your legs move further apart involuntarily, allowing him deeper access.

You shake amid his ministrations, teeth pulling at your bottom lip at every sultry sensation rushing through your body. Wrinkling the fabric of his white shirt, your fingers dig into his shoulders, nails sinking deeper into clothed skin when you feel that familiar ache boiling in your abdomen.

“Your thighs are trembling just trying to hold you up. Going to cum soon, love?” Shouto asks. He chuckles at how vigorously you nod your head next to him, knowing your voice would fail you by the moans threatening to unravel precariously from your lips.

“Good, I want you to fucking scream. Show them how well you can cum from my fingers alone, yeah?” he murmurs beside your ear, not giving you much warning than that before suddenly increasing his movements on your cunt.

“Ah, Sho..! Sho!”

There’s nothing for you to do other than to chant his name over and over again like a mantra. You squeeze your fingers into his skin to make sure you don’t end up dissolving in his hands from the fire flaring inside you, threatening to melt you entirely.

And he loves every bit of the needy noises you make. Knowing it’s his name that echoes in the room around them, resounding in the very minds of his rivals who witness firsthand the way you scream out amidst the throes of pleasure—the scene better than any imagination of theirs they’ve conjured in their delusional fantasies—feeds Shouto’s ego deliciously.

The strained gasp you choke out when his lips make contact on your jawline has him smiling against you, the kisses he plants there blooming loving blemishes on your skin. You struggle to keep yourself together from all the sensations storming you at once. There’s something euphoric yet… foreign coursing through your body that you can’t discern, and you’re half-worried of what’s to happen when you reach your imminent release.

“Sh-Sho, wait..! Oh god, I’m gonna—!” you warn, but that only compels Shouto to speed up his pace in a last push for you to cum. From his bruising bites to his fingers methodically working you with skilled ease, it isn’t long until your escalating high peaks into intangible relief.

And god, the throb feels almost uncomfortable but so blissful at the same time.

The pressure builds up to an intense climax that has your walls clamping around his fingers, and your thighs shaking beside him while you yell out Shouto’s name. Holding you through every step of the way, his fingers steady inside you as you convulse around them. The ones at your clit continue rubbing your sensitive, swollen bud throughout your release to widen the intensity.

As your whole body trembles at the haze-induced orgasm, you lean against the hero for support.

“Ohhh baby...” His purrs rumble deep within his chest, an extra lick of delight in his tone. Your eyes are shut while you stumble down from your rapturous high, whimpering when Sho removes his fingers from your pulsating pussy.

“D-Did she just..?!” Midoriya questions incredulously, to your surprise.

“Fuck! I can’t believe she fucking squirted!” Bakugou follows.

At that, your eyes shoot open. You muster the energy to lift your body off Shouto’s lap and reveal to yourself the evident damp spot left on his pants from what you very much have to assume is a result of you gushing your release on him.

Trepidation creeps underneath your skin, swallowing you in mortification.

You really did that.

Squirted in front of the top three Pro Heroes in the country, making a mess on Sho’s pants with your flowing, translucent cum. The very reminder of it spouts your head with your overthinking.

“Wait, I didn’t mean to— I-I mean... I didn’t think I was ever a squirter. It’s just—”

“Love.”

A single word is enough to dispel your ramblings. You look up at Shouto like a deer caught in headlights, expression harrowed by apprehension. At that, he holds your shoulders, pulling you forward so he can press a reassuring kiss against your forehead. The tender gesture numbs the uneasy static racking through you, moving away to glimpse at the endearment hidden within the smoldering fog swirling in Shouto’s eyes.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he assures through hushed words he embeds unto your skin, hands warmly running down your sides. “Besides, you squirting on my fingers was so so sexy.” His seductive allure returns almost as quickly as it disappeared amidst his soothing tone. His touches and the extra flair in his voice makes you hot all over again despite just cumming.

“I must have made you feel incredibly good, getting you to cum so hard like that. Even giving those two over there a show. Just look at them...” Shouto whispers closely, nudging you in the direction of your onlookers whose reddening faces visibly recoil when your eyes cross. It’s as if they’ve gandered into the abyss—anxious at what’s to come yet can’t seem to look away. You flutter between their expressions, gauging their blushes and furrowed brows, before lowering your gaze at the prominent stain on the crotch of their pants, pre-cum seeping at the surface due to the arousal built watching you ruined on Shouto’s very fingers.

A part of you wonders how pent up they must be. Your curiosity dances upon lewd thoughts about how stiff their cocks are and how their lengths would look freed from the constricting clothing. Veiny, hard, and painfully red all because of you. All because of what Shouto is doing to you.

It evokes you with a newfound surge of confidence, finding solace in your sea of uncertainty. And coupled with Shouto’s loving demeanor, you don’t seem to remember what you were ever so self-conscious about to begin with.

“Look at how depraved these sad men are.” Shouto clicks his tongue, a voice in his head confirming of what he already long knew. Deep down, he at least assures himself that his former classmates are aware of their place. In which they’re only allowed to look—not touch—and if they so much as plunge into forbidden territory, he’d rise above the waters to bite their heads off. He recognizes this from just a simple inspection of their faces.

Deterring after hearing Shouto’s words, Midoriya’s eyes cast downward to the floor, brows softened with hurt. His expression is burdened upon not only stigma but guilt, lusting after a woman that isn’t even his while allowing the absurd thought he could steal you away from the fire-and-ice hero to ever cross his mind.

Meanwhile, the blonde mulls over in defeat more so than shame. Although never one to yield from a fight, Bakugou had long realized this battle was over before it even began. You were deftly out of his reach. All he can settle for now is the afterimage of your undoing played back in his head, the recording surrounded by a thick cloud of envy.

Shouto reads their compliance clearly—a wordless surrender witnessing your aftermath of pleasure. As a result, a grin surfaces his lips. Unfortunately for them, the sly devil latent inside him is far satiated. Perhaps it’s time to move onto the next course.

His fingers brush along the underside of your chin, leading your half-lidded eyes to him.

“Baby,” he says, and the way he calls to you in that low baritone makes you receptive to his every word, “why don’t you go over there and help our guests get their cocks out of their pants, hm?” You nod slowly, half-wondering if he read your mind during your indecent contemplation. Shouto kisses the corner of your lip before you stand from the futon and saunter toward the two pillars of ice resting in the room.

Your steps are slow and languid, the consistent sway of your hips hypnotizing to both sides. Reaching the two, you lower to your knees, bending forward and offering Shouto a view of your exposed cunt that still drips of your essence. He bites his lip, palming his bulge through his pants until he begins freeing himself of the unnecessary clothing that would have been discarded by now if he wasn’t so absorbed in your climax.

In the meantime, you kneel in front of the top two Pro Heroes, mooning over who to approach first until your red and white-haired boyfriend answers for you.

“Midoriya first. And then Bakugou.”

You can practically feel the fire lighting inside Bakugou at the command, knowing Icy-Hot gives the order in favor of Midoriya just to get under his skin. You do well to ignore his malice by crawling over to the green-haired hero, hovering above his bound form, and meeting his emerald eyes that are wide and fixated on your every move.

The proximity between you two has the air trapped in his lungs. He holds his breath out of fear that if he lets go, you’d vanish into a mirage. But his throat hitches the very moment your fingers trace up the fabric of his pants, disembarking across his thighs and toward his painful erection that twinges at your touch. It’s fortunate enough for him that you don’t disappear and that the sultry look you give him as you drag the zipper of his pants down isn’t a figment of his imagination. You catch a glimpse of his briefs, along with the head of his dick peeking above the waistband, still strained by a single layer of fabric.

Midoriya swears he can cum right then and there when you lightly palm his hardness—the first relieving sensation he’s felt all night before it’s surmounted by you tugging down the waistband. Cock released from its confines, it jumps forward out of excitement before slapping back against his navel. Midoriya hisses at being open to the air, his feverish skin stinging surrounded by the coldness throughout the room.

As you predicted, the Number One’s cock stands stout and protruding red at being neglected for so long. It begs to be touched.

“P-Please…” The whisper is almost inaudible, but you discern the desperation in his tone.

Midoriya’s pleading expression staring down at you nearly sways you to grant pity on him, but you know you’re given no position to do that. So sadly, you move on. The hero laments you leaving so soon, a whine quietly squeaking from him, left with nothing but his length stiff on his abs as you make your way to Kacchan.

Unlike the former, the blonde actually makes an effort to free himself one last time, a struggle you pick up on when you near him. He’s gritting his teeth together, heat slowly radiating off his body stoked by his anger. Yet that somehow all dissipates at a simple glance of your face. There’s a glassiness in your eyes that renders him silent.

His narrowed stare wanders toward your plush lips, looking so damn soft and kissable. If only he could muster the willpower to break free and move forward to capture them in his own, seal them tight so he wouldn’t have to hear Icy-Hot’s name spilling out of them anymore. But your steady gaze on him freezes him into the ice, halting his motions as if you were medusa. He hears nothing but his racing heart palpitating in his chest as he waits for you to make a move.

“Hm, Bakugou’s been a bit of a brat tonight, wouldn’t you say, love? How about you tease him a bit?” Shouto suggests mischievously.

Turning in his direction, you see him sitting on the bedding, naked and stroking his cock listlessly as he waits for you. The sight encourages you back to Bakugou’s erection to finish the task you started, thighs shuffling against each other at a glimpse of your prize between the Number Three hero’s legs.

As if you couldn’t get anymore seductive, you adjust yourself right between the blonde’s spread form, carelessly brushing a strand of hair behind your ear as you bend forward, back arching. Bakugou has no idea what he’s in for, fearing for the worst knowing you plan to tease him. He starts muttering a question that never reaches your ear, the words splintering off when he deftly realizes you’re pulling his pant’s zipper between your fucking teeth. Making sure never to break eye contact with him, you drag the metal down at an excruciating pace, each tooth of the zipper undone so slowly it’s practically torture to him.

“Shit... Y/n…” he groans wantonly as you reach the end of your destination. After being contained all this time, it seems his cock wants to come out with a vengeance. You gasp when it suddenly springs past his briefs, nearly making contact against your cheek.

Bakugou sputters an filthy amount of curses, finding the image of you wincing in shock and glancing up at his thick cock towering next to your face with the tip oozing of his pre-cum to be utterly pornographic. Well if this is truly reminiscent of a porn scene, you’d be wrapping your hands around the base of his cock by now, fisting it before delightfully enveloping the tip in your hot mouth. But the call of your name behind you cracks that fantasy into pieces.

To his dismay, your attention swerves from the embossed vein lining Bakugou’s dick to Shouto’s muscular body, idle on the futon, where he gestures a finger at you. You return to your usual place atop his lap, except this time there’s no longer any barrier of fabric to prevent you two from feeling each other’s heat.

Shouto grazes his hands on your back, humming into your neck. “Well, baby, you saw how hard their cocks were. How does it feel to have the top three pros all craving you at once?”

You pause amidst your reply, the little kisses he brushes on your jugular serving to distract you for a moment. You have to ask yourself if your boyfriend is throwing a trick question at you. Giving it some thought, you decide to tackle it honestly.

“It feels... pretty good,” you murmur, a tad squeamish while he maps the expanse of your neck with his lips. It’s an answer he anticipates according to the next question he follows up.

“But of all the cocks in this room, whose do you want the most?”

“Yours, Sho.” Compared to before, your answer is given promptly. Shouto grins at how eager you are for him. “Only yours.” You affirm one last time, effectively hammering a nail into Midoriya and Bakugou’s chests. Shouto’s hands traverse your waist, then to your thighs, giving your flesh a solid squeeze.

“That’s right, you’re my fucking cock slut and no one else’s.” You almost choke when he lurches forward to grind his erection against your wet core, emphasizing your innate effect on him. Whimpering at the slippery friction of his hardness on your swollen clit, you find yourself moving in tandem with his motions.

“My my, still that needy even after you already squirted all over my fingers? Your pussy is just so so greedy for me, isn’t it?”

“Y-Yes... F-Fuck, Sho, please let me put your cock inside me. I want to cum on your cock so much!” you plead, voice rising at every insufficient jerk of your hips. It isn’t enough to just rub your sensitive little pearl against it. You need the thing inside you since yesterday, and you’re more than willing to throw your last fragment of modesty out the window to get it.

Luckily for you, your neediness seems to work in your favor as Shouto has no objections at granting you your pleasure.

“Don’t worry, baby. I told you I’d be driving my cock in and out of you in front of them, didn’t I?” He runs his fingers on the edge of your cheek, admiring the cute desperation readable over your features—eyes glazed, skin hot, and cunt positively dripping. “Of course, I intend to keep that promise. But first…” He lays you two into his favored position, maneuvering your body until you’re straddling his thighs. He peers up at you while nestled back on the sheets.

“I suppose since I forced them here, the least we can do is continue giving them something to remember. It is going to be the first and last night they’ll see you like this anyway,” he reasons. The two mentioned pique hearing the statement. You yourself grow considerably hotter, realizing he’s angled you in a way that grants your audience another enticing view of your body above him.

“Well, princess, why don’t you start riding your stallion then?” Shouto incites his request as more of a command than anything else, and you begin earnestly catering to him by lifting your hips. You align his length toward your entrance. His calloused hands spread on your thighs at the anticipation of watching the head of his cock enter your wet heat.

“Ooooh yeah, keep going baby, take it all in,” he encourages through purrs reverberating in his throat. With each inch you swallow between your folds, his expression knits into pure bliss, brows narrowed at how well your tight pussy hugs his cock. He looks up and catches you slowly unraveling before his eyes. You strain to keep yourself together, eyes shut in pleasure at the delicious burn swelling in your stomach.

There’s a stifled noise parting your mouth that hangs open as you gradually envelop him to the shaft. Shouto’s thick cock slowly bottoms inside your walls and makes you feel so complete. While he lets you adjust to his sizable girth, his palms grope your skin, soothing the tense burn churning inside you.

“Mmph…” you whine, hands trying to find some leverage, laying flat on his abs. You give yourself a second, followed by another until the short pain you feel morphs into a delectable buzz.

“I… I’m going to move now, Sho,” you tell him before flitting up and down his long length, progressing tentatively. His heterochromatic eyes are dark and murky, watching his cock glisten in more of your sheen while you glide it into your pussy at a steady tempo. You make sure to take everything offered to you to the fullest, from the tip to base where his balls brush the underside of your ass. Shouto is more than endowed and you don’t ever plan on taking any part of his gift for granted.

“Mm, even after I prepped you, you’re still so tight for me,” Shouto groans, your cunt rippling waves in his body. Despite being consumed in your ministrations, you have to note how sinful he looks below you, sweat shining on his skin and tufts of red and white hair sticking to his forehead. It’s hard to believe a man as handsome as him could be so possessive with you, going through such lengths to prove to his rivals that you only belong to him. But man, do you find it to be hot. The notion once again has your cunt clenching considerably.

“It’s because—ah—you’re so th-thick,” you tell him, and in turn, he gives you a devilish smirk that adds fuel to the fire lighting in your abdomen. Before you can conjure another thought, he suddenly thrusts his hips up to meet yours, reaching a particular spongy spot that causes you to cry out.

“Why don’t we increase the pace then? Ride me faster, love. I want you to cum hard on my cock in front of them.”

Oh boy, he doesn’t have to tell you twice.

You swiftly nod, gathering some ardor in your thighs that helps you bounce more fervently on top of him. What was once subtle claps chiming in the room escalates into a concert of skins slapping against each other. Gripping your hips, Shouto meets every heavy drop with a firm thrust upward, continuing to reach the same place that induces heaven across your entire body.

Your moans are uncontained now, flittering out at how good Shouto’s cock is making you feel. The sounds are beyond intoxicating to him, like a midnight song he could get drunk on and gladly switch to repeat.

Every slam into your spread pussy steals your words away while reducing him to hissing between his teeth, your folds enshrouding him with unimaginable euphoria that has his onlookers glaring in envy.

The sight is one that Midoriya and Bakugou will surely replay throughout their wistful days after tonight. Your breasts swaying in time with your sloppy movements is a marvel to gawk at as the two implant your glazed body bouncing atop Shouto into their memories, their deluded imaginations going to work at inserting themselves into the fray.

Your hips plunging in sync at each surge of Sho’s cock has stars twinkling across your bleary vision, eyes rolling in the back of your skull. His cock penetrates you in ways no one else could, brimming your body with sublime rapture that you relay honestly in your wails.

“Fuck, you feel so good—” Shouto mutters his praises. He effortlessly keeps up his drilling and angles himself perfectly so the tip reaches your erogenous zone throughout. His hands are digging so deep into your skin, you have no doubt your hips will be daubed purple by the end of the night.

Sweat thoroughly coating his body, his aggressive rutting into your velvet walls has his cock twitching inside you. He recognizes you’re nearing your climax as well when you slowly grip him like a vise. “Gonna milk me, love? Squeeze all the cum out of me and into that slutty pussy of yours?” He asks the question through grunts he spits between his teeth, the sounds coming out on the cusp of feral growls. He’s amused by how your tongue lolls out of your mouth as you try to form any kind of response. The rampant motions make it hard for you to grasp any sense of reality other than the sensations that collide your nerves.

“Y-yes, yes! I’m so close, Sho— Please—!” The moment you have a hand on your wheel of cognition, you start begging like it’s second nature, uncaring of the other two in the room as tears dot the edges of your lashes for relief. And how is Shouto to deny you when you’re playing such a lewd act?

“Need it so bad, n-need to cum— Ah—!”

In the very next second, your body dives to where your back forcibly lands snug on the futon, choking your words to a startling puff. Shouto shadows over you, leering down like he’s sizing his prey one last time before going in for the kill.

“Hm, since you’re begging so nicely for me, I’ll gladly help you reach your bliss, baby,” he says, tongue running along his bottom lip before he resumes driving into your pussy.

He hooks his hands beneath your knees to spread you apart further, giving his cock no repercussions on pistoning forward at unbridled speeds. Your fingers delve into the sheets, gripping the cloth like it’s your lifeline. You feel your lower body slightly lifting off the bedding due to Shouto wanting you two impossibly closer, cock thundering against you.

What you’ve yet to realize—trapped within your tornado of ecstasy—is your spectators freeing themselves from the ice, glaciers reduced to pieces at their powers. The whole exhibition had been too much for them to handle, quite literally snapping their restraints. Their clothes are gone within a flash, articles of them thrown half-hazardly on the floor. It leaves nothing to stop them from finally granting some form of bliss on their neglected cocks, fisting their lengths in conjunction with your symphony of moans.

That aside, they don’t matter to you at this moment. All you have eyes for is the man above you, whose heterochromatic gaze returns your shared adoration with equal fervor, if not more so.

“Well, love, you wanna cum, right? Then you know what to do,” Shouto grunts, lowering his torso so he can close a bit of the distance between your faces, “Tell me, who’s making you feel this fucking good right now?”

Brain a scrambled mess, you’re thankful the answer you scrounge for is a simple one.

“You, Shouto! Unnf, it’s your cock that’s making me feel good!” you exclaim, your back bowing off the bed when you perceive the coil tight in your abdomen nearly about to break. Your wanton reply has him sending his satisfaction back tenfold into you through the expert rocking of his hips.

“Yesyesyes, oh fuck— Y/n, cum all over my cock! Let go, baby!”

You scream the moment the order is given, Shouto slamming into your g-spot the impetus you need to come undone in violent spasms. Firecrackers spark beneath your skin at the ecstasy hitting your every nerve. Seeing you reach the apex of your high—eyes lidded and limbs trembling as you throw your entire body into the sheets—encourages Shouto toward his release, pumping himself in and out of your fluttering walls.

“Fuck! Y/n!” he pants raggedly before snapping his hips in place, dick twitching inside you. A gasp rips your throat as you feel his thick ribbons of white cum fill you to the brim. Shouto remains inside you for a good minute longer, hovering over your sluggish, sweaty body to seize your lips in his while you two slowly descend from heaven. You move sweetly and slowly against him, savoring the moment in the presence of his tender loving.

Meanwhile, Midoriya and Bakugou have already blown their loads all over themselves, creamy spurts painting their skin. They lean back to find their groundings, unable to even speak after what was surely an excruciating event for them both.

You’re still unsure how to go about confronting the aftermath of it all, deciding to only imbed your eyes onto Shouto due to the embarrassment that starts simmering in your mind now that you’ve come down from your highs. Your fingers rise to swipe a few stray strains of damp red-and-white hair off your boyfriend’s forehead, murmuring something kept between the two of you.

“Going through all of this just because you were jealous? You sure are insatiable, Sho.”

He chuckles at the jest behind your words, giving the other Pro Heroes a once over before he comes back to you with a satisfied grin plastered on his face, making you question whether his devilish tendencies have truly left him after tonight.

“What can I say? I guess I just want to monopolize you, baby.”

[fantastic-artemis]

I am experiencing turbulent times in my life (aren’t we all, all the time) and when this happens I spiral into Supernatural fanfic. Currently reading my old favorites but was hoping some kind people coul rec me some new ones. My top tier SPN fics are dual Destiel/Sabriel fics that are just. Wish-fulfillment mostly. Like classic monster of the week type of deal with Wacky Relationship Hijnks. Also open to serious plotted fics but, like, I never watched past season 7 so a lot can get lost on me. Basically anything that totally diverges from canon into an actually entertaining and engaging story is my cup of tea here. 

Gonna list some of my favorites so y’all get the idea BUT ALSO because I love them with my whole heart and think everyone should read them

- Without A Trace by MalMuses. This is the most fic ever. It went so much farther than I ever expected it to and it was so awesome. People die, people die again, they go to Hell, more people go to Hell, and they also love each other to an absolutely apocalyptic degree. Heavy Destiel with side Sabriel but just. Chef’s kiss. It has been 2 years since I read this and I still think about it like monthly. “When Sam disappears during a hunt gone horribly wrong, Dean and his angel Castiel follow a trail of clues that lead them back through Sam’s past. Will Dean be able to save Sam from his history – and will Cas be able to save Dean from himself? Nothing is a simple as it seems for Dean and Cas. Luckily, they have some great friends (and unexpected allies) willing to help them through it.”

- In All Your Borrowed Finery by vanishingact. Wing!Fic except Sam and Dean get the wings and Gabe and Cas have to teach them how to use them while they also hunt the monster of the week. And Gabe is being manipulated by Metatron the whole time. This one was just cool. Both relationships were given equal time, they interacted with each other, and the monster of the week was really well thought out and interesting to read, which is something I always struggle with as a fic writer, so I love when others pull it off. Also the author includes original artwork?? And its So Good?? “Dean finds an interesting symbol in Kevin's angel tablet notes and, against Sam's counselling, uses it in the heat of battle with a pair of angelic assassins. Side effects include pain, disorientation, and uncontrollable new appendages for the Winchesters. A disgruntled Castiel and a delighted Gabriel show up to help. Hunting (and life) gets interesting when wings are involved.”

As The Romans Do by Relucant. This is literally just 36 chapters of destiel/sabriel porn with plot but I adore it so much because its just the Winchesters Chilling. With people they love. It also has a lot of sweet moments and just kind of meanders with no real beginning or end. They just took an impromptu vacation with some angels and its Good. “You should duck under the big waves. Pass right over you instead of knocking you over.”Cas looked uncertain, shifting as small waves splashed against his stomach. He held out his hand. “Would you do it with me?”A hundred innuendos flashed across Dean’s brain, followed by another hundred sarcastic chick flick moments retorts, but he looked at Castiel standing in front of him with the grey-green Atlantic licking at his skin and the moon reflected in those unearthly eyes and the sea breeze doing things to that stupid fucking hair, and he was privately sure in that moment that if Cas asked him to rebuild the Byzantine Empire and give it to him in a shoebox he’d be booking a flight to fucking Istanbul tomorrow.Instead he reached out and grabbed Cas’ hand.”

I know this is long as fuck I just like to gush about these fics whenever I can. Drop me links to new things, I haven’t read fic in two years so I’m sure I’ve missed some good stuff

[oldfritz]

hm for asks, can you talk about hetalia characters you find cool in concept but never bother with? Or about your mutuals' favourite characters!

Tell us about a character you liked but dont really care anymore, and about a character you dislike a lot!

Talk about characters who's fans you dont like, and about characters who's fans are "ah, fellow people with sophisticated taste"!

Talk about a character you like in theory but not in any interpretation or depiction, that is, character you like as a character but dont think they are fit to be in hetalia

I think Yao/Ch!na is a really interesting dude. Ancient man, seen a lotta shit, been through a lotta different styles of government. China has a long and rich history you could do quite a bit with. I took two classes on it in undergrad and, while I don't remember a lot of the details now of who did what/why/when, I found it immensely enlightening from a 'why China is what is is today' perspective, which is what I ultimately got. I don't write him for that reason and, honestly, don't know how I'd fit him into what I'm writing unless I pivoted to making Lutz and Al main characters (which I'm not). I would love some good recs from people who read historically-based stuff that includes Yao. This applies for In/dia too for much the same reasons. What does it mean to be so old when you're immortal? How do you avoid apathy? How do you keep life interesting? Could also go into weightier topics with them as well - how it feels to have been both colonizer and colonized, not sure if it applies to In/dia as well but certainly Yao - but the writer would have to be knowledgeable and skilled enough to pull it off. I don't think your generic fanfic author can - I get nervous about publicly toeing the line myself

I used to be an Alfred and Arthur stan. They were my favorite characters in the entire series!!! They had the benefit of being the countries I'm most familiar with because, if you haven't heard, I got that dual citizenship dudes. Now, don't get me wrong, I still enjoy writing them whenever they appear naturally and have a lot of Thoughts on how they should be characterized, what their relationships with each other/everyone else should be, etc but they're not the main focus of 90% of my fics now. They're guest stars that I love to have on set (goddamn that's trite). As for who I don't like, I've never been a Matthew person. I think it's doing a disservice to an entire country to just have his personality be 'forgettable' and 'soft-spoken.' Which like yeah sure, I follow people who have done more with him and have made him an actually interesting character (credit to Foxholes, whose url changed and now I can't find them and don't wanna tag their history blog), but beyond the one or two characterizations of him, I don't care. Man smells like stale bong water

Eh, I'm gonna plead the fifth on that one. I don't wanna gripe about specific fans because there's good and bad in every subset. Plus, no reason to go hurting feelings. Though those Gilbo stans can be real freaks. Who the fuck likes a country called Prussia?

Hmm, interesting question. All the major nations don't bother me and make sense for why they're there. I also appreciate HRE being around, but I'm not crazy about a lot of things about his characterization. I especially hate the bad Italian accent he has in the English dub. Have never gotten that because, as Voltaire once put it, that empire ain't Roman. I think there's a lotta cool stuff you can do with HRE (@kisamesopelagic 's Karl is awesome and parts of theirs has served as inspiration for mine, who tends to linger just-offscreen) but the canon one is very meh. As for one's who I don't think belong point blank period, the entirety of the micronations. I have a hard time buying that Sealand is out here running around like a menace but state, provinces, prefectures, etc aren't. A fucking rusty ass fort in the middle of the Atlantic versus Quebec? Get outta here dude. Plus, besides some of their designs, all their personalities grate on my nerves. A whole ass African continent with next to no characters depicted but yay we got Kugelmugel. Jfc

[river-bottom-nightmare]

“You need a new superhero name.” 

Damian brought it up unexpectedly, eyes still trained on the security camera he was dismantling. 

“What?” Jon was sifting through the footage, using superspeed to catch every little detail of last night, but at Damian’s voice, he paused the recording and looked up.

Damian was still digging inside the camera, having removed the back panel and a good chunk of wires, and was now sifting through the piece of tech with a pair of tweezers. Nonetheless, he continued the conversation. “A name. You’re not going to be Superboy forever, are you?”

“Um,” Jon could honestly say he’d never thought about it. He’d always been Superboy, ever since he could remember. He wasn’t one to place much thought into birthrights or heritage, not like Damian, but he also wasn’t overlooking the fact that his father was Superman. What exactly did that make him? Superboy was the obvious answer. “I don’t think I can be anything else, Damian.”

“You have an older brother who also goes by Superboy.”

Jon shrugged. “We share.”

“Still. You’re graduating high school in just a few months, Jon. Though it’s surprising to say, you’ve outgrown the title.”

Jon’s lips instantly turned upward in a smirk. “I’ve outgrown the title, huh?”

At that, Damian turned to glare at him. Pointing a finger, he said, “I will taze you. Shut up.”

“Whatever you say, short stack.” Jon chuckled at Damian’s little growl. “But honestly, what else am I supposed to be? Everyone knows me as ‘Superman’s Son.’ I mean, Dad’s name is so big in the League, I don’t think I’ll ever separate myself from it.” And if he was honest, Jon didn’t know if he wanted to separate himself from it.

Damian hummed. “Not true. Look at Richard.”

“Dick? What about him?”

“Well,” Damian paused to move the tweezers to his other hand, “Richard started out as the first child hero, working under Batman. And unlike the other early proteges, he didn’t simply work as his mentor’s sidekick. He created his own legacy. And then he became Nightwing.”

“But Nightwing was already a thing,” Jon pointed out. “It’s a Kryptonian legend.”

“Yes, but there hasn’t actually been a Nightwing, has there? Even if there was one on Krypton, Richard was the first Nightwing on Earth. You wouldn’t call him a sidekick, would you?”

“What, no!” Jon’s reaction was immediate. “Nightwing’s, like, one of the most well-known guys out there. Literally everyone knows him, and literally everyone trusts him. He’s not a sidekick.”

Damian turned to smile at him. “Some would say he was. Do you understand my point?”

Jon pouted, took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don’t know, I’m not even sure how to go about doing that.”

“Well, to start off, find a new name.” Damian hunched over the camera even more, suddenly focusing in on something.

“I guess so. You got any ideas?” At Damian’s lack of response, Jon asked again, “Damian?”

Damian straightened, holding up the tweezers. Clasped tightly between the tongs was a miniscule data chip. “Here’s the footage we’re looking for.”

Jon stared at him, eyes wide. “How did you even know that was there?”

Damian shrugged. “Simple matter of deductive reasoning.”

“Tim told you, didn’t he.”

A pause. Then, “Drake may have mentioned a while back that a certain trafficking ring was hiding the data chips inside the cameras, and that others were catching on to the trick. I simply tested out his theory.” Damian looked physically pained, and Jon laughed.

“Cool. Put it in, I’ll look through the footage.”

Damian handed the chip over, then laced his his fingers together, put his arms above his head to stretch. Jon, still holding the chip, stared at the line of Damian’s muscles. When Damian quirked an eyebrow, Jon quickly cleared his throat and took the old data chip out of the computer, replacing it with the new one. “So, any ideas?”

“For your name? A couple,” Damian said. “Of course, you need to have an idea for what you’re thinking of.”

Jon nodded absently, pressing rewind on the footage. “I’m not sure if I want to separate from the Super name entirely, though.”

“You don’t want to, or are you scared to?”

Jon snorted. “You probably know the answer to that better than I do. I think I got a name, it’s on the side of the truck.” He zoomed into the footage. “Yeah, it looks we were right. The pharmaceutical company’s related somehow. There’s that stupid gremlin looking thing again.’

“The griffin?” Damian asked, peering over his shoulder. He made a contemplative noise, brows furrowed

“Is that what that thing’s called? Looks like a half drowned bird.”

Damian laughed, and batted Jon’s hands aside. “That’s not what an actual griffin looks like. Here.” He pulled up a couple pictures on his phone.

Jon swiped through a couple pictures, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, those are a lot more impressive. What are they though?”

“Mythological creatures from a variety of different places. They have the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. They’re quite majestic.”

Jon squinted his eyes at him. “You’re implying something. I know you’re implying something.”

In response, Damian nodded his head towards the phone.

“What?” Jon asked.

“Griffin! It’s a perfect name.”

Jon raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Oh yeah. Because I’m part cat and part bird. Perfect analogy.”

Damian slapped his hand lightly. “No, you moron. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eagle or the lion.”

“Then?”

“Your dual heritage.” At Jon’s uncomprehensive look, Damian sighed. “You’re half-Kryptonian, half-human. And it shows. When you fight, you’re fierce and unafraid, much like your father. At the same time, though, you’re endlessly curious and inquisitive, like your mother. God knows I’ve been on the end of that far too often.”

“Oh. That, huh. That actually makes sense.”

Damian shrugged. “I’m just saying. It would be a good homage to your roots, and you’re honoring your parents, without being too overt.”

Jon looked down at the phone again. The lion part was strong, muscled, steady. The bird’s head was curved and fierce, wings spread majestically.

 “Griffin. You know what? I kinda like it.”

OKAY SO THIS WASN’T ACTUALLY MY IDEA i read a damijon fic a while back on ao3 where the author had jon’s name as griffin and i thought that was so so cool so i wrote a thing and i tried to find it again to give them credit but i couldn’t find it!!! so if anyone knows the fic i’m talking about, or if you yourself wrote the fic, please let me know so i can link you in the thing. it really was an incredible idea.

tag list: @comicsandhoney @birdy-bat-writes @elles-shitposts-personified @subtleappreciation @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl

and i know you’re not actually on my tag list so sorry for bothering you with this but @iamwhelmed i thought you would appreciate this

[thefairyletters]

Could you answer this question? I went through a bunch of Sakura fics, many recommended by yourself (many good ones, thanks for your excellent taste!) but I also explored on my own, which is how this question spurred. I was wondering why so many ppl want Sakura to have wood release? &, because it's been a while so my memory's foggy, wasnt wood release sort of a bloodline thing? They had to infuse Hashirama's cells w/ Yamato for him to use it. It seems a little...I guess radical to give it to her? I LOVE Sakura, which is exactly why it kind of throws me off. I think she's already strong as is, & I think being able to utilize genjutsu & slug sage mode are logical expansions of her abilities, so wood release seems very...Idk how to put it but it seems like erasing Sakura. I'm discovering that I truly really dont think I like BAMF Sakura fics a lot bc it just doesnt read AS Sakura. It's like the author's are ashamed of her. Also I dislike when they use Strong!Sakura as a tag on ao3 bc she IS strong that HASNT changed & there's a canonical version of BAMF!Sakura in everything before the Pein arc. Everything after the Pein arc turned the entire series in a bad fanfiction for everyone in itself.

Thank you, I'm happy to know you enjoyed my recs!

That's a good question.

This is what I think makes Sakura badass ➡ here

I love Sakura the way she is, as well. Her development, however, is lacking not in terms of her personality but her skillset. She has impressive chakra control, monstrous strength and is one of the two frontline medics and one of the best healers in the world. She has impressive feats under her belt as well, two of the most remarkable include her byakugo seal and her fight with Sasori alongside Chiyo. But it pales in comparison to her teammates, including Sai and Kakashi. I don't mind that too, because her journey is different than others, excluding Lee and possibly Tenten. She isn't seen much involved in fights, her attacks are repetitive in the show, she isn't bestowed many techniques under her belt and her best moments are in games and novels. It is not her character's fault but Kishimoto who just doesn't use her strength and intelligence which he (and other characters) have mentioned she has.

She is genjutsu type – but has she ever performed one, or even gotten out of one easily? Whats the use of such information if Kishimoto doesn't use it?

She has near perfect chakra control – she should be easily able to perform many techniques and practice different elements, especially water, but earth style and cloning is what we mostly ever see her use.

She has good foundation in Taijutsu – and that should increase her stamina and therefore her chakra coils, and that in turn will ensure she is able to use many techniques.

Her medical and research skills are only next to Tsunade – and we wish to see her revolutionize the medical field which she has but in Borutoverse. That is time skip. That doesn't really relive you much.

She has resistance to mind jutsus, thanks to her inner personality – and theoretically she should be able to even evade strong genjutsus like she did Ino's clan technique (something never been done before) but Kishimoto only used that incredible ability once. ONCE.

She has massive chakra storage and exceptional chakra control and sensitivity – she should be able to master Senjutsu, a field which is all about chakra. Anything that has to do with chakra control is Sakura's playground.

She is more or less an unofficial poison expert – but we didn't see her playing with poison expertly (a poison that even Suna's poison experts failed to break) after Gaara's retrieval arc.

She is the smart and responsible one of team 7 – but Kishi often makes her look both stupid and selfish. We don't see her use her intelligence much. I hate that more than her lacking in the expansion of the skills.

She trained under a political leader – that itself makes her and Shizune great administrators and governors. So, out of everyone, Sakura is the one of the best Hokage material. Hokage is said to be the strongest fighter of the village but that requirement failed us when Tsunade became the fifth Hokage.

She has yin seal – the strongest seals one can make, in their own body no less. It also shows her expert control of her chakra. She can summon one of the big 3 summons. Sealing is more or less code that requires high intelligence and great chakra control that can be fused into the ink. As far as I can tell, she is one of the best candidates to learn Fuinjutsu.

With all these possibilities of her growth – because it is not something we make up but something Kishi has implied she has but never explored – how can one not exploit it? It doesn't mean one doesn't love Sakura for who she is but that its because they love her that they want to give her what she has the right to. She doesn't have to be expert at something to be powerful, just her putting her skills to best use is admirable as it is. I love Sakura for who she is and who she could be.

Now, onto the question as to why people seem to favour giving Sakura wood release, this are the following reasons that I think could be it:

Does it have to be bloodline limit?

Kishimoto gave Hashirama a unique bloodline limit that apparently cannot be inherited by any other Senju. That defeats the purpose of bloodline limit. What makes Senju clan so different? Without Hashirama in the picture, you cannot distinctly identify a Senju clan member aside from their strong chakras. Tobirama is identified for his water techniques. Tsunade has perfect control of her chakra that allowed her to exhibit monstrous strength and incredible healing abilities. How come wood release is a bloodline limit but is not passed down the line?

It is complicated because Tsunade is also renowned for her perfect chakra control just like Hashirama. So, some stories make Sakura a secret Senju clan member because of her uncanny resemblance to Tsunade and Senju clan in general. Pink hair can be a diluted version of Red (Mito) and her chakra control originating directly from Hashirama's lineage.

I personally don't like this because I love Sakura being a civilian child.

It's not a bloodline limit:

So, assuming wood release is not a bloodlimit but a very hard technique requiring precise chakra control and mastery of dual elements Earth and Water, then it is possible for Sakura to practice same technique because of her prodigious chakra control. By that logic, we can also assume that Tenzo inherited Hashirama's unique chakra control to use wood release. Because Orochimaru could have used Tsunade's DNA too if it was only about clan blood. So that rules out bloodline limit.

I love the idea of Sakura practising wood release because it is possible for her to do so. So if an author gives Sakura wood release that she hones with practice and control (ref. fanfic: Labyrinthine) instead of having been gifted with it, I'm digging it.

Nature chooses the wood user:

Naruto universe has many references to spiritual entities such as gods/goddesses, reincarnation and celestial bodies. It is conceivable to make nature an ethereal entity that has its own will. Sakura looks like the embodiment of spring with her petal hair and green eyes, and Hashirama can be compared to wood with his warm personality and appearance, these attributes can make them look distinctly attractive to nature. No other characters remind me strongly of nature than these two so I suppose they can be uniquely selected to be blessed this ability. Tenzo's abilities is the result of human experiment by Orochimaru who always cheats on nature so he is an exception.

I only like this because I like the idea of Sakura being Nature's child.

Most stories that I love don't give her a special edge and only give her more techniques under her arsenal. It is very rarely that I love an OCC Sakura who has a bloodline, a clan or godlike abilities.

After Pein's arc, Naruto turned into a joke. Everyone in team 7 (barring Sakura, Sai and Yamato) and long list of antagonists seemed to get power ups left and right. Sakura got hers in the last moment as a last ditch effort to reunite team 7 as one, a moment that felt so hasty that I couldn't take the show seriously at all. I was so disappointed with the whole war arc. I cringe just thinking about it. I sometimes think if it would have been better for everyone to just die with happily ever after in their mind. That would be tragic but a fitting end because Madara became too OP and Kaguya ridiculously so.

The reason people add 'Strong', 'BAMF', 'Smart' prefixes before Sakura is the reason why people add extra qualities to Sakura's character. They are not satisfied with how Sakura handles herself in fights and many base her fights with the one she had with Sasori. After that, did you see her actively participating in any major fight, barring her attempts to make a score on sidelines? Usually, these fanfictions also justify why she is Tsunade 2.0, something the Naruto failed to show.

By the way, many stories have BAMF tag for Shikamaru, Naruto and Sasuke as well. Are they not already strong af? They don't use Strong tag for them though, and that's because their fighting prowess is already seen. Shikamaru is not much of a fighter as much as he is a strategist and a leader. He is a cool and sly character. Naruto and Sasuke have flashy moves with flashy names under their belt with absurd power levels that puts them in god tier. Sakura has none of that – no signature move that is uniquely her, no clan to back her, no move with a name (barring game moves) – and she is seen useless because she is a healer which is a non-offensive, background job even if it is the most crucial and taxing job. It's significance is even more reduced when people point out how her work is futile because they are again sent to the fight/missions once they are up to go. Most fans only care for visual aesthetics, regardless of how rare and in-demand medics are because of the lack of qualified people who can muster and use medical chakra properly.

Sakura is more than just a healer but in canon she is more or less reduced to that. To make things worse for her, both Ino and Hinata are also shown to have healing techniques. They both also have clan techniques (vastly unknown) with them which makes them appear more 'useful'. Sakura is literally in the shadow of her mentor and her friends.

In Boruto, she is said to be the most powerful Kunoichi of her generation and quite possibly the greatest medic in the world but in Shippuden it is severely undermined. This is also why Boruto fans love Sakura but a bunch of Shippuden fans don't.

I mostly don't judge BAMF/Strong Sakura fanfictions, but I mostly avoid Anbu Sakura fanfictions if I can because I personally don't belive Sakura to be an Anbu material.

.

I want to add more, but I think I got my point across. Thank you for reading this far. I hope I answered your question adequately.

[friendofspidermannedleeds]

Fictober - Day 15

Prompt #15: “not interested, thank you” Fandom: Spider-Man (MCU) Rating: G Warnings: None Characters: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker Words: 965 Summary: MJ and Peter bond on the plane ride home from London.   Author’s Note: Is this fic just using MJ as an excuse to rant about repatriation? Why yes. Yes it is.      

--- 

“Hey MJ, you wanna watch a movie?” Peter asks. “I have a dual headphone adapter.”

MJ turns to smile at him, still getting butterflies because she’s sitting so close to Peter Parker, her longtime crush, and she will be for the next eight hours.  

“Yeah, what do you wanna watch?”

Peter suddenly flushes and reaches for the back of his neck.

“Shit, I just remembered that all my stuff blew up. I don’t know why I suggested that…. I guess we could use these terrible airplane headphones?” He unwraps his and fumbles with the cheap plastic, somehow already getting his fingers tangled in the cords. MJ wonders if his hands ever stick to stuff without his control and adds it to her mental list of questions to ask later.

“You know what?” She says, “If I’m being honest, I’m not feeling super up to a movie right now.” Her heart beats faster as she speaks, the words she’s about to say already feeling foreign to her closed-off temperament. “Maybe we could just…talk?”

Peter grins widely. “Yeah. Yeah, I would really love that.”

“Okay, good.” She shifts in her seat and looks down, scanning her brain for a decent topic for small talk.

“So,” she says, “We missed the Eifel Tower, which would have been cool. That’s what I was most looking forward to anyway.” She brushes her hair out of her eyes and looks at him. “What about you? What were you hoping to see?”

“Well, I was most excited about the Eifel Tower, too, but that was because—” his eyes flashed to her black dahlia necklace—“well, you know why.” He laughs softly. “I was also pretty stoked about the Louvre, though. Just one of those landmark museums everyone should see, you know?”

MJ’s brow furrows slightly. “I guess.”

Peter backtracks. “I mean, it’s no British Museum, I’m sure, but like, the Mona Lisa’s there and everything.” He turns to her. “But you like history and art, right? I would have loved to visit the British Museum with you before we left—maybe someday, huh?”

“Not interested, thank you.”

Peter stiffens a bit, and she instantly regrets her hurried and somewhat cold reply.

“Oh—okay.” He says. “Sure.”

She keeps silent, knowing what she wants to say but worrying her blunt honesty might ruin the moment. She’s sitting next to the most sincere, sunshine-y boy she knows, and although her mind is a bit preoccupied with the mission of making him her boyfriend, her natural inclination to tell her truth is ever present.

“MJ?” He interrupts her thoughts. “I take it you’re not much of a museum person then?”

He’s opened the door, and she decides to jump right through.

She exhales.

“I hate the British Museum.”

His eyes widen a bit, but he quickly dials back his surprise. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“It’s full of artifacts stolen by imperialists and colonizers and its Board of Trustees is a bunch of jerks. They refuse to repatriate the things Britain stole, even now. It’s gross.”

Peter is looking at her intently, and she can tell he’s taking her rushed words seriously rather than blowing them off like most of the students at Midtown do.

“Oh.” He says. “I never knew. They really won’t give any of the stolen things back?”

“Pretty much.” MJ reaches for her backpack. “And there’s some pretty high profile stuff happening, too.” She pulls out her sketchbook. “You ever hear of the Elgin Marbles?”

He shakes his head.

She flips to a sketch she’d recently completed of the Greek Acropolis. “They used to live here, but a British dude took all of these gorgeous sculptures from the site in the 1800s just to have them in his house. And the museum has them now, but it refuses to return them even though Greece has been asking for years.”

“Really?” Peter looks dumbfounded. “Why?”

MJ shrugs. “A bunch of paternalistic bullshit. They’re saying they take better care of them than Greece can, but there’s a new state-of-the-art Acropolis Museum there just waiting for the return.” She closes the sketchbook and leans back. “So many museums are incredibly problematic, but the British Museum has to be the worst.”

Peter’s still looking intensely thoughtful, and she feels like she’s killed the light-hearted mood.

“Sorry.” She stuffs the book back into her bag. “I know that’s not the most…exciting topic of conversation.”  

“No, it’s okay,” he says earnestly. “I didn’t know any of that, and it’s important.” He smiles at her. “I think it’s so cool that you know all this stuff. I learn a lot from you.”

She melts as his brown eyes gaze into hers. “Thanks.”

They look away, shifting in their seats again.  

Peter breaks the silence.

“So, what else do you wanna talk about? Know any cool European history facts”

She recalls Peter’s previous admittance that the sweaty guy, “Happy,” had told him to try and rest as much as possible to heal up his injuries.

“Honestly?” She rubs her eyes. “This entire trip has me beat. I kinda want to sleep. Is that terrible?”

His soft smile answers. “No.” He breaks into a yawn. “No, that’s perfect.”

They close their eyes and lay back their heads. MJ hasn’t felt this relaxed the entire trip, and she thinks Peter’s openness to her ramblings has everything to do with it. She feels even less guarded than she’d been with him in London. Even though his superhero identity had technically endangered her and their entire class on this trip, she’s never felt so safe.

Peter makes her feel safe.

MJ smiles at the realization. She’s still giddy that they’re sitting so close, and if she wakes up a few hours later to Peter’s head on her shoulder? Well, that’s just fine with her.

[scriptstructure]

wildface1010 asked:

I find myself being the most creative when I am building my ideas upon other people's works, and I tend to later rip off the parts I don't own so that the content would be deemed original (not that I do this on purpose, it happens when I transition away from fandoms and want to keep my fan characters). The problem then becomes that after that transition, my characters ended up purposeless and as I either doesn't know what original world to put them in (and just keep building on the nitty gritty details of the character's powers and biology), or no story for them to participate in. What should I do to give them a story without ripping off the source material? Or build a world around the character? Or should I be sending a more specific case for you to answer this question?

While fanfiction is a fantastic way to learn and practice writing skills, I think that this issue is one of the biggest downfalls of fanfiction writing. The good thing about fanfic is that it gives new writers a ‘training wheels’ kind of experience where they don’t have to build characters or settings or backstories, and can just dive in playing with readymade story elements to use. The downside is that learning how to construct story elements from scratch is the one of the biggest learning curves of writing original fiction.

When we’re learning to write, as with all things, we’ll find that some things are easier to pick up than others. Some people will find character development and motivation very intuitive, but may struggle with pacing or plot structure. Others may find that story beats are easy for them, but find it difficult to make their characterisation convincing. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and in writing fanfic, we can practice in such a way that the original fiction that we are basing our transformative work on, can ‘fill in the gaps’ of the weakest parts of our writing practice.

This is something that I have noticed in a lot of fanfics-turned-into-original-fic that I’ve read, where the author may have had a solid fanfic, but when they scrape off all of the elements of the story they adapted, there are weird gaps left in the story that make the reading experience feel awkward and incomplete.

Some common issues that I have noticed:

-Place and setting either inconsistent, or left out entirely -Characters ‘orphaned’ or left with nonsensical or incomplete backgrounds because their personality was originally so ingrained in their world/setting -Relationship dynamics assumed or appearing ‘out of nowhere’ as the context for the relationship doesn’t exist in the new work

Part of what is appealing about fanfic is that we already know these characters and this setting, and therefore we can just dive into the satisfying payoff of that sweet relationship dynamic, or into a cool plot-line without having to develop the characters, setting, and background first. The problem is that if you want to make an original fiction, diving in cold like that just means that your characters, setting, and background will be underdeveloped, and the story will feel disjointed, confusing, and unsatisfying.

But, of course, we can learn and develop our skills to ensure that we can transition a story seamlessly from transformative works to original fiction.

What should I do to give them a story without ripping off the source material?

I think that first step is that you’re going to have to do a frank assessment of your skills and weaknesses as a writer, and work on improving the underdeveloped elements of your craft. If you’re struggling to develop worlds and settings, then you might consider working through a series of exercises in worldbuilding and scene setting, so that you can craft something that suits the characters you want to write about and the stories you want to tell.

As well, think about the point at which you want to start telling your characters’ stories. If you’ve spent a long time developing them and their powers, you might want to jump into writing about them as super cool and powerful. This might work, if that’s the story you want to tell, but you could also consider writing their ‘origin story’ or writing something about their journey to their current point. This has the dual benefits of giving your readers the chance to get to know the characters as well as you know them, and also gives you the opportunity to familiarise yourself with your new, self-made story world, and how your characters fit into it.

Even if you don’t end up sharing your characters’ ‘origin story’ it can be very helpful as an exercise in developing backstory so that you can refer back to key events in the character’s life that will influence their reactions, choices, etc.

Remember this diagram?

As you develop your world, your character is going to change, and as your story progresses, your character will influence the world around them in some way.

It might be easier to think of this process as rebuilding from scratch both your world, and the character. The characters should be congruent with the world they live in. They’re a part of it, it’s a part of them. Think about the core, key elements of the character’s identity, and rebuild the rest around those, using the tools that the world you’ve created give you.

It’s a lot of work to dismantle and rebuild the characters that you’ve developed in fanfic, and it’s a lot of work to build a story world from scratch, but when you’ve done it and you write your story, you’ll have a much more complete and satisfying result than you would otherwise get.

I hope this helps, if you have a more specific question, please do send it in.

[momrryfest2020]

You guys are AMAZING!!

Okay, so here’s the list of prompts, gonna open up author signups tomorrow...note, this is an all pairings space, so feel free to read these prompts as such! And if you want to provide something that is NOT a prompt, no worries, just submit to the collection when I open it up. This is gonna be *fun*, you went above and BEYOND on these!! <333

Prompt list:

1. Juno AU

2. During a mutual divorce, harry finds out he’s pregnant and has to navigate that with his ex and his new love interest!

3. Harry is pregnant and he’s all too happy to finally be able to put his pre-post natal yoga certification skills to real practice as he leads his class.

4. Harry has always been into dirty talk, especially “daddy” kink, and now that he (or she) is pregnant, his (or her) partner kicks it up a notch, calling her “mommy”

5. ANYTHING LACTATION KINK, DON’T CARE HOW.

6. Mommy + Pregnancy Kink please Harry calls his partner mommy and imagines getting impregnated by them.

7. Harry’s sad that he’ll never be able to get pregnant so his partner makes him feel better by “knocking him up” ie: lots of dirty talk about harry being fertile and barebacking and sweet talk afterward about what a good mum harry will be.

8. Harry just gave birth to their first child and is still very tired and exhausted, so Louis makes sure he is the best husband ever and learns more recipes to cook for him, takes care of their little bundle of joy and they’re just a happy, small little family :> lots of cuddling pls (and maybe at the end when harry’s feeling better a big family trip with both their families to a swimming hall)

9. That picture of Dakota Johnson at the farmer’s market, feeding a baby a fresh strawberry, you know the one…that’s it, that’s the prompt.

10. Harry gets baby fever after the last of his former bandmates has a kid of his own and he’s the last one standing. He decides he wants to adopt a baby with his current partner. A cute story about Harry adopting a baby basically

11. Harry is in that annoying part of pregnancy where he has to pee every 10 minutes. One night he’s having sex and suddenly has to pee. Person A doesn’t want to ruin the sex and begs him to just pee where they are. They both enjoy it more than they should??

12. The Back-up Plan (2010) AU - Harry conceives twins through artificial insemination, then meets the person of their dreams on the very same day.

13. Moving to a new town to start a new job is never easy. It’s even more challenging with two teenage daughters and a recent divorce from her husband of 16 years. Harry is at her wit’s end when her hair dresser suggests a single mothers’ get-together through the Meetup app. Despite being skeptical of meeting people from the online group, she goes. At the meeting she meets Louis, who also has teenage kids, and they end up falling in love.

14. cheaper by the dozen au

15. harry and his (or her or their) partner on their first night home with their newborn ft. some freaking out about being responsible for a whole human person but mostly lots of cuddles for everyone.

16. one of harry’s close friends just had a baby so he and his partner go to see them, during the visit his partner notices that harry is extra attentive/fixated on his friend while she breastfeeds so he brings it up when they get home and sexy times ensue

17. pregnant/just gave birth harry decides to go to a breastfeeding support group

18. Harry as cool mom inspired by the Cool girl monologue from the movie Gone Girl. Because i don’t get how society’s expectations of moms don’t leave all moms more bitchy, on top of that cool mom has to make it look easy and fun.

19. One thing that made me completely obsessed when I was pregnant, was the feeling that my body was changing but not being able to tell if it was all in my head or physical there. Having that sort of assessed and validated by my partner in a not clinical way has been super satisfying (both in a sexy and peace of mind way)

20. Harry, who has always enjoyed being everybody’s baby, is having a baby

21. Louis is an alpha and a new single father to a six months old or younger if you wish (the mother is not around). Harry is the nanny he hires to help him take care of the baby because he has no idea what he is doing. Harry is an omega and the baby takes an immediate liking towards him and his scent. The baby’s first word will be ‘mummy’ to Harry and him having a break down because he sees the baby as his own. (He and Louis obviously get together)

22. Mitch and Harry have to babysit Adam Prendergast’s kids for the day and Harry falls into the mom role easily.

23. Harry is a single mommy of a newborn that can’t seem to fall asleep at night. Louis is the nice neighbor that should be called baby’s whisperer. Strangers to Lovers AU with lots of kinks and fluff, please! (Bonus points for Louis being obsessed with Harry’s body) (Golden star for lactation kink)

24. Buns in the oven, babying a sourdough and kneading dough could make for some amazing suggestive dirty talk in any kitchen, especially for someone who ten years later still talks about their job at a bakery, loves baguette and is a little obsessed with pregnant bellies.

25. Louis and Harry are at a party that is related to Louis’ job, Harry is just being a good hubby and coming with him. Harry is seven months pregnant though and some of Louis’ colleagues keep staring at him in a flirty way. It makes Louis furious that they’re all staring at his baby mama like that so he takes Harry home and they have hot sex, Louis calling Harry mommy, add lactation kink if you want to and pls lots of mentions about the things Louis adores about pregnant Harry (aka bigger thighs, glowing skin, tiddies, tiddies, did I mention tiddies? you can also make this a/b/o of you want)

26. maybe a cute little collection of Louis’ and Harry’s firsts with their baby? first time they hear the heartbeat, first time they feel them kick, first time they see her after harry gave birth, first time harry breastfeeds, first time they say mama or papa, first time of them going to visit the grandparents, first time crawling, first bath with mama and papa… ugh my heart.

27. Harry’s and Louis’ son is like 16, so he is hanging out with his friends and his friends are teasing him about how hot his mother (aka harry) is, just like the 1d boys always did with harry about Anne. The son feels super uncomfortable and Louis is super confused why these little teenagers boys always stare at Harry’s body when he is cooking for them whenever they visit until he finds out they think of Harry as the hottest milf in town (more humor than actual sexual references pls, this is supposed to be more funny than awkwardly sexual :D)

28. Harry missing his pre-pregnancy body a bit after having his second child and Louis making him feel loved, them both going to the gym and working out together just to have hot kinky sex in the shower later, body worshipping and lots of sassy mommy harry please <3

29. I would love some sad sex fic. Being pregnant is a messy affair. You become a dual entity of you and the baby and are expected to be constantly performing happiness. Dads are allowed to be uncertain but moms are constantly asked how much they are looking forward to the baby. Sometimes you are in line at the supermarket and feeling a profound sadness and frustrating hornynes and being told you are glowing by some complete stranger is in no way making your day better, it only solidifies the feeling of having become your pregnancy.

30. Person A helps a miserably full and sore Harry when he starts to ween the baby from breast feeding but of course he’s still producing milk.

31. Mommy H is spoiled with a huge and extravagant baby shower. Ideally he’s huge and kind of miserable at this point but he’s being pampered and doted on and absolutely loves it.

32. So (optional abo) Harry gets pregnant from a night out at the age of 20 ish? When his kid gets to the age of 12 (Harry 32) he starts asking about his other dad and Harry feels bad his son doesn’t have a dad so he starts to research. He find 4 possible guys it could’ve been - louis, Liam, Niall or Zayn. He thinks he’ll just know when he meets them all. He was wrong. (Perhaps one of them turns out to be the dad, but Harry falls in love with another one For example: Louis the dad and Liam the lover or Zayn the dad and Louis the lover! Choose any pair combo!!! Whichever endgame you prefer)

33. lots of mommy harry with a newborn baby fluff and him being over the moon, loving his little bundle of joy and pls add a cute breastfeeding scene

34. The progression of Harry’s horniness during pregnancy to the point that his mans doesn’t think he can keep up with it

35. Harry’s been dating x person for a while and they have a healthy and diverse sex life. They both think it would be hot for Harry to be fucked by other guys while his boyfriend watches. Basically a cuck/orgy situation with some breeding/fertility dirty talk to make it kinkier. (Could be that he’s already pregnant and gets fucked by an outsider??)

36. Pregnant Harry gets his first bra to accommodate his milk coming in and he’s kind of obsessed with how he looks in it

37. harry + ot5 or ot4, being their intersex mate or omega, multiples in pregnancy and maybe a kidnapping, runaway magic harry using bond or mate pull to make it back to them as they also fight their way back to him

38. Harry Edward Styles, single father with a gorgeous six year old daughter. He works in an event management company, his specialty wedding planning,with his own personal office with a team and all. He is Arya’s mummy as he gave birth to her when he was eighteen year old. With a loads of baggage from his past Harry is a strong person who is giving his all to make a perfect life for his daughter. They are the dynamic duo against the world. (The name for the child can be changed as per author’s wish and Louis and Harry pairing please thank you)

39. Girl direction: Harry is excited to learn that her alien gf is ovulating and volunteers to be the incubator of gf’s self-fertilised eggs. Sexy oviposition and sharing the joy of motherhood.

40. Girl direction 70s AU: Harry and her gf secure a sperm donation and get busy with a turkey baster.

[imagine-loki]

Loki’s Daughter Trigger Warning - Child Slavery, Mental illness and past abuse

TITLE: Loki’s Daughter 

CHAPTER/ONE-SHOT:  Chapter 2 A Drink

AUTHOR: traveling-classicist 

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: 

Imagine Avengers: Endgame AU Loki that gets away with tesseract has been using it to explore the universe. During his adventures, he comes across a little girl with developing but oppressed magical abilities. Intrigued (and subconsciously lonely) Loki keeps her around. 

RATING: Mature for possible triggering content 

NOTES/WARNINGS:  Previous trigger warnings apply to the whole fic. So:

-Child slavery (this topic is being explored throughout the story) Nota bene: I promise I’m not making Loki enslave any children, that’s not our guy -Mental illness including mentions of schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety -Mentions of past torture and abuse: physical, emotional, and mental

In this chapter however, it’s mostly fluff. A bit of foul language.

Also AO3 Link here.

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Loki walked away towards a hill that rose up at one end of the meadow. Kuna stood, staggering a bit as the world still spun a little around her. She followed him up the hill. At the top, Loki stopped. Kuna stumbled up towards him, but the sudden stop made the ground go all off-kilter and she fell down beside him.

Loki, unfazed by the blundering child beside him, looked out across the valley below. His eyes landed on a small, dilapidated looking building, sheltered by a cluster of trees. A small stream ran beside it.

“How idyllic,” Loki mused, looking down at Kuna. She was still fumbling around on the ground next to him like a newborn foal trying to find its legs for the first time. Eventually, she regained her feet but was facing the wrong direction. Loki placed a gentle hand on her head. She flinched beneath him, but he gently turned her round to face he right way.

            “Look down there,” he said, pointing at the building. “There’s an old shack. Maybe we can stay there for the night. Let’s go see if anyone’s home.” He started off down the hill.

Kuna shook her head, trying to make the world stop spinning. However, this only made the world spin more. She took one step forward and fell, rolling down the hill; rolling past Loki. He stopped, chuckling as she tumbled, not-so-gracefully, down the hill. She came to halt at the bottom, sitting up, her legs splayed out in front of her. She wobbled with dizziness for a moment before flopping back onto the grass.

            “Yes, that could happen for while,” he chuckled. He turned back towards the shack and began walking again, stepping high to get through the tall grass.

Kuna stood once more, determined this time, to walk normal. She fought her way through the tall grass, trying to follow the sound of Loki’s footsteps. The blades rose well above her little head. She pushed her arms out in front of her, wobbling with the effort, and tried to clear a path for herself as she stumbled forward. She caught up with Loki who had stepped out of the tall grass and was slowly approaching the door of the hut with his dagger tucked up his sleeve.

It could hardly be considered a door as it hung, broken from its hinges. The windows were broken. Moss and thick ivy grew on one side, creeping up the chimney and onto the roof. Kuna braced herself on Loki’s leg, trying desperately not to fall again.

“I don’t think anyone’s home,” he said. “Good thing, I thought I was going to have to stab someone.” Kuna looked up at him, terrified at the thought of him killing someone again. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he examined the old hut. “Good thing for them, that is. It’s a shame for me,” he continued, muttering more to himself than to Kuna. They walked up to the threshold. Kuna stood behind Loki, cowering a little.

“Hello?” Loki called. He pushed gently on the door. It broke off its hinges and fell with loud bang onto the floor inside. “Well, that’s lovely,” he remarked and stepped in.

Kuna followed, apprehensively. Her gaze dropped to the large step. She took her time to prepare herself to lift her foot. Slowly, she put weight onto the foot, then the knee. Straightening up just too fast, the room started to spin again. She groaned. She did not like this at all.

Inside the small, one-room shack, old straw and broken furniture littered the floor. The smell of earthy decay and damp filled their nostrils. It smelled old. On one wall, close to the hearth, a rickety bench covered in tough leather hides, leaned up against the wall.

“Here,” Loki said, turning to pick the girl up. “You need to sit down before you fall over again.”

She backed away, instinctively but Loki put his hands under her armpits and lifted her up. She whimpered, not fully understanding why he was carrying her. He walked her over to the bench and set her down gently. It creaked but held beneath her minimal weight. In truth, the furs that covered it probably weighed more than she did. She put her hand to her head and swayed.

            “Just stay here,” Loki said, pushing her against the back of the bench with a gentle finger. She leaned back, her head lolling against the wall. He made a gesture for her to stay and then turned towards the cabinets on the far wall. He rummaged through the debris and forgotten household items and found a small pot and a couple cups. Standing up again, he glanced at Kuna.

            She was slumped over to her left, nodding off. Her matted brown hair kissed at the furs as her head instinctively tried to right itself to a sitting position. He wasn’t surprised by her exhaustion. After today’s ordeal and what was likely several years of torture at the hands of those men and who knows who else, on top of a world jump, she was right to be exhausted.

            He walked back over to her and gingerly took her shoulders, trying to lower her to a prone position on the bench. She jumped, suddenly very awake, and grabbed defensively at his hands, crying out.

            “It’s alright,” he said, coolly. “Just lie down and try to relax.” Her jumpiness was beginning make him jumpy. “I’m going to go fetch some water for us. I’ll be right back.”

            He stepped out of the shack and walked towards the stream. She was a mess, Loki thought to himself. He paused for a moment and considered teleporting away, jumping to another planet and leaving the girl behind. He swatted the thought away as quickly as it had come, shaking his head to physically remove it from his mind. That would be insane, cruel, even, to do that to a girl who had already suffered so much.

            He stomped towards the stream and knelt to scoop up some water. The stream bubbled over smooth, rounded pebbles and was quite clear. He took a cup and dipped it into the water, having a taste for himself. It was refreshingly cool but had a slightly strange taste. He waited for a moment and then shrugged. Seeing as he did not immediately keel over and die, he assumed the water was clean enough.

            He filled the pot to the brim and rinsed out the old cups. He set off again for the shack. He took a deep breath, taking in the pristineness of the valley around him. His head spun a little with excitement. Loki loved the freedom to do as he pleased; to go wherever he wanted in the whole universe. Even now, with his impromptu little companion, he felt for the first time in his life, true happiness. Or what he thought was true happiness. In truth, he could not really remember a time in his life where he felt happy, so all these feelings were new to him.

            Returning to the shack, he ducked under the low doorframe and walked to the center of the room, beside the bench. Setting the pot down on the floor, he carefully filled one of the cups with water. He sat down and took another sip, looking up at the sleeping child. He did not want to wake her as she seemed rather peaceful now.

            She was dreadfully thin. Her face was gaunt and pale. Loki could practically see the sinews holding her bones together under her skin. She needed a bath too. Her body was caked in what he imagined was weeks, if not months, of grime and her hair was tangled in thick mats. But her thin figure was what worried him the most. He needed to find food for her and quickly.

“Food first,” he whispered to himself. “Bath later.”

He stood once again and ducked outside. The first sun was just beginning to touch the horizon while the second loomed above it. Looking about at the trees behind the shack, Loki wondered if he would be able to locate edible food on this foreign planet.

            It was easy for Loki to go several days, even weeks, without eating if he needed to. He supposed he had his lineage to thank for that, at least. However, he often would teleport to more civilized planets and purchase food that was already prepared for him. Foraging was not exactly something he had needed to do often in his life.

            He walked back into the copse of trees and came to a small grove where his eyes were caught by a familiar looking green fruit. He walked closer for a better look. To his amazement, an apple tree grew amongst a cluster of oaks and elms. As he looked about, he realized he recognized many trees that were native to the Nine Realms, yet he did not know of any habitable planets anywhere near their system that orbited a dual sun.

            He shrugged this off. Perhaps these species were invasive and slowly took over other planets when their seeds were carried to new realms by more advanced travelers. He wished he could do that; take over other realms so easily. He needed whole armies with advanced weaponry and strategic plans and yet even then, he had his butt handed to him by six freaks.

Frowning at the unpleasant memory, he climbed up the tree a little way to grab a few apples. Letting them fall to the ground, he collected several for both he and Kuna, before dropping down himself. He pulled his tattered cape from around his back and folded it over on his stomach, making a small pouch. He gathered up the apples in his pouch and returned to the shack, content with how his hunt for food had gone.

            Kuna had not moved from the bench save for adjusting the fur over her to a more comfortable position. She was still fast asleep. Loki sat down again on the floor beside the water pot and cups and took out his knife. He cut an apple in half and examined it. It looked perfectly normal to him. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. Smelled like an apple. He took a small nibble of the skin and meat of the fruit with his teeth. Tasted like an apple. He waited to see if the apple might kill him, but it did not happen.

            If it was safe for him, it was safe for Kuna. He cut out the core and seeds of the other half of the apple and filled the other cup with water. He gently nudged Kuna with his finger.

            “Kuna,” he whispered, afraid she would freak out again if he were too loud. “Kuna,” he said a little louder but still the child did not move. Was she dead? He watched her chest for a moment. It rose as she took in a deep breath and fell again as she exhaled. Deep down Loki felt a bit of disappointment at the still living child. Perhaps, it would be merciful to kill her.

It would be easy, a voice crept out of the depths of his mind; his voice.

Loki shook his head as hard as could to get the voice to return to where it had come from. He had struggled for weeks to bury it so it would leave him alone.

She’s just a child.

“Shut up,” Loki muttered and turned back to the child. “Kuna?” he said once more, poking her again with his finger. “I have some food and water for you.”

            She groaned and sleepily turned her head towards him. Her eyes opened slowly. She looked up at him for just a moment before looking away again.

            “Good evening,” Loki said, softly. “I hope you like apples and weird water.” He handed her the cup first.

She lifted it to her lips and drank deeply and then shyly took the half of the apple he offered her. The water did taste weird. It burned a little in her throat, leaving a bitter taste behind, but it was still more refreshing than her own saliva which she’d been sucking on for hours. She took a small bite of the apple but upon tasting the sweet juice and crunch of the fruit, she took several large bites and it was gone.

            “Slow down,” Loki laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself. There’s plenty.”

            He sat back down and cut up another apple, this time giving it to Kuna in small slices so she could not bolt it down again. She took each slice, gingerly, and ate it. Now and then, she would pick up her cup and take another deep drink. When it was empty, Loki took it back and filled it again before returning it too her.

Her face contorted in confusion when he handed the cup back to her as if she had never been given anything in her life. When she took it from him, she bowed her head low in gratitude. He could tell she did not fully trust him yet, but she was coming around it seemed. He did not blame her for not trusting him. Despite the fact it was often the feeling people had around him, Loki thought Kuna had good reason to not trust a stranger. He certainly wouldn’t if he had experienced what she had.

Loki filled his cup again and took another swig of the strange-tasting water. He swayed a little as he put the cup down. Perhaps, he too was a bit tired from the jump. Big world jumps like that often left him exhausted too. He shrugged and drank again.

 He sat for a moment, trying to place the strange taste again. It was subtle but familiar. He frowned at the cup and drank again. Smacking his tongue on the roof of his mouth, he tried to recall what it tasted like. The aftertaste was rather bitter, but it was more than that.

He took another sip and concentrated on what he tasted. He felt like one of the ridiculous mead-tasters in the palace at Asgard; swishing the liquid in his mouth and trying to come up with some ludicrous description of ‘malty, sweet honey’ for a sour tasting bad mead.

Focusing on the water again, he felt a sort of warmth in his throat as it descended to his stomach. The feeling reminded him of home, of Asgard, of mead, but perhaps, stronger? He spit out the water in a burst of spray across the room, making Kuna jump nearly to the ceiling.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. “It’s alcoholic!” He jumped up and took the cup from Kuna, who shied away, cowering, wondering what she had done wrong to induce such a frenzy from Loki.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he said. “But you cannot drink anymore of that. I think it’s what’s making you ill.”

Kuna did not understand. He had been so nice to her up to this point. She still had not decided if she were in hells or still alive. While he had been out looking for food and water, she had dreamily begun to wonder about him. When she had first seen him, as she dangled from the chain on Torileena, she thought for sure he was a demon from hells, there to haul her down to punishment.

When he had offered her water and freed her from her restraints, she wondered if this were some twisted torture meant to tantalize her. He had reassured her that he was not a demon and she had almost believed him. She had wondered to herself if Loki’s grace would end and if he would begin to hurt her like all the others before. She determined that, if it did, she was probably dead, and Loki was probably a demon and she was being tortured in the hell reserved for the worst of slaves.

She cowered away from him, wondering what her first punishment would be and for what horrible deed she had committed. Perhaps she would be beaten for the time she had stolen a moldy bit of bread from the garbage of her fourth master. Or the time with her sixth master, where she had sat down to rest her feet in the fields on Spintula.

She buried her head into the furs, awaiting the pain of the torture all her masters had told her she deserved to suffer when she finally died. Tears wetted the tough fur of the animal skin under her. She took in a shuddering breath and sobbed.

Loki panicked. She was crying. He had been a little too aggressive in getting the alcoholic drink away from her and now she was crying. And she was drunk. He had intoxicated a child into a stupor. He put his hands on his head, running his fingers through his hair in desperation.

“Oh, oh, no,” he said, bending over her, putting his hands out to console her but hovering just above so as not to scare her. “No, please don’t do that. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just… You can’t – you can’t have that drink. You’ve had too much of it and it’s making you sick.”

She looked up from the furs. Her eyelids were flinching, expecting a blow at any minute. Her tears made her eyelashes stick together and feel heavy. This demon was scary. He was nice and then mean and then nice again.

“No, no. I’m not a demon. I promise,” he said desperately, as if reading her mind. Only demons could do that, she thought to herself. Demons or sorcerers. “No, Kuna. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. At all. I promise.”

Kuna was still breathing hard, trembling with fear, but something in his voice felt sincere.

Loki thought of what he could do to make her believe him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He shook his head, trying to think about how to convince a child he was not a demon.

He stuck out his pinky finger to her. “Kuna, I swear I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. His voice was soft but determined. “I pinky swear.”

She stared at his finger from under the furs. A pinky swear was no joke. There was some serious cosmic magic behind them, everyone knew that. The kind of cosmic magic not even the rich people could ban them from.

Kuna stared for a long while at his extended finger. Her brain felt foggy. She couldn’t think straight or really even see straight. She still felt horribly dizzy and nauseous. A demon could not possibly break a pinky swear. No. She believed him. She stuck out her pinky from the safety of the furs and took his.

“I pinky swear,” he said. They locked pinkies. Loki nodded at her in affirmation. She nodded back at him and then pulled her hand away.

“Now,” Loki began, again. “I need to get more food in you.” He glanced down at their remaining apples. He shook his head. He didn’t think that would help to stem the effects of the alcohol. She needed bread. He remembered, suddenly, that he had saved a partial loaf of bread from a market on the planet he had found Kuna on. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it before.

He made it appear from the miniverse he lovingly referred to as his ‘pocket’. Wrapped in a small cloth, he uncovered the loaf and tore off a small piece to give to Kuna. She took it and gave him an uneasy, distrustful look.

“It’s alright,” he said. “It’s from the marketplace on Torileena. It’s still fresh.”

She took a nibble, tasting it. Upon determining it was good, she happily ate the rest. Loki handed her another piece and another until she had eaten the rest of the loaf. She blinked sleepily at him and then, for the first time, smiled. She giggled a little at him. She was plastered.

“What?” he said, laughing with her. Her happiness was alarmingly contagious.

“You’re funny,” she said.

“Is that right?”

She nodded her head up and down like proud horse. Loki laughed and rolled his eyes, putting his tongue in his cheek which elicited even more giggles from the child. He couldn’t help but be a little amused at the drunken little girl in front of him.

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            The second sun had long set. A cold draught blew in through the failure of a door. The cold didn’t bother Loki, but he felt pangs of fear for Kuna. She had been sleeping peacefully for hours. He physically shuddered at the thought of having any sort of attachment to this child. He had to keep on the move, ahead of his brother - should he have chosen to chase him – and whoever else would be after the tesseract.

            You know who else will want it, his more sinister voice in his head hissed. Loki physically shook the voice away. Today had been the first time in a while that he had surfaced. Loki looked out the window to distract himself from himself.

It had taken a surprisingly long time for both suns to set. They had painted the distant clouds beautiful shades of pink and orange. Now that it was dark, Loki could see three small moons orbiting the planet from the window. Their phases were unusual to him as the dual suns and multiple moons cast whimsical shadows onto their surfaces. However, without the warmth of the sun, the cold had begun to settle. Loki stood. Kuna, waking at the sound of him standing, watched.

            “I think we need a little fire in this hearth,” he said.

            Kuna sat up, dizzily, swinging her legs over the side of the bench to go gather some firewood.

            “Oh, no. Not you,” he said, gesturing for her to stop. “I’ll do it. You just lie down and rest.”

            She drunkenly slumped back onto the bench and passed out. Loki let out a little sigh. It was rather normal for children on Asgard to share a drink or two with their parents, but it hardly led to any drunkenness. He thought Kuna had probably never even tasted alcohol, let alone been intoxicated before. And the lack of food and water in her system probably only augmented the effects. He shook his head at himself and walked outside.

            He walked around the yard of the house, picking up branches and twigs. He took in a deep breath as he worked. Today had been a rough one. Attacked and chased by monsters, fooling two morons into their deaths, saving a child and then getting said child wasted on alcoholic water. He let out his breath in a heavy sigh.

            He swayed a little from a sudden dizziness. Even he was not immune to the effects of the alcohol water. He smiled. At least he could handle himself drunk. Kuna, on the other hand, had no business being in such a state.

            Loki pondered for a moment about the chemical make up of this planet. He assumed that it also likely rained alcohol mixed with water. He chuckled to himself at the thought of frozen ice caps where icy drinks could be served straight off the ground. He finished gathering up the wood and returned to the hut, laughing at himself.

            He placed the wood into the hearth and crouched down, assembling a little tee-pee with the sticks and branches. He took some straw from the floor for kindling and used a simple sparking spell to light it.

            An explosion of flames erupted into his face. He jerked back and fell onto the floor, grabbing his blistered hand. He cried out in pain as he looked at his burned, red hand. He seethed and turned over onto his sides, hissing at the pain and heat that radiated up his arm.

            Kuna cried out too but in fear more than any physical pain. She leapt off the bench and dove underneath it, hiding from whatever fire monster had just attacked Loki. She mewled, burying her face in her arms.

            Loki felt for her. He had done nothing but scare her all day. He regained himself and sat up, examining his hand. He had no idea why the spell backfired so literally. His fingers shook with the pain. He cradled it again for a moment. He hated burns. His cursed frost giant blood hated burns.

            He glowered at the floor and the singed straw that lay upon it. He shook his head and kicked it in anger. This only frightened Kuna more. Loki closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. He was acting like his brute of a brother, lashing out like that. He exhaled slowly and turned his head to look at Kuna, hiding under the bench.

“I’m sorry, Kuna,” he said. “I should not have lost my temper like that. And I’m sorry about the explosion, too. I guess I put a little more power than was needed into that spell.” He looked again at his burned hand. The pain still smarted down his fingers and into his wrist. “I’m also a little tipsy, too,” he added, smirking at her and chuckling.

            “Is your hand okay, sir?” she asked. Her voice was barely audible, her mouth still covered up by her arms as she peered up at Loki.

            Loki sighed. “Yes. I’m fine,” he said. “And you don’t have to call me ‘sir’. You can just call me Loki.”

            Kuna swallowed hard. No one had ever allowed her to call them by their first names. Not out loud. And not at least without a ‘master’ or a ‘my lord’ or a ‘sire’ before it. She inched out from under the bench and came to sit beside Loki. Her movements were hesitant but eventually, she came to rest by Loki’s side. She looked at his burned hand and then at the pot of water on the floor. She pulled it close to them, wanting to clean his wound but Loki stopped her.

            “Oh, well, it’s nice of you to offer, Kuna, but this water would not make my hand feel any better.”

            “What’s wrong with it?” she asked, pushing the pot away in shock. Had he poisoned her? She couldn’t remember if he too had drank the water. Her memory felt heavy and foggy.

            “It has alcohol in it,” Loki said, hesitantly. “A lot of alcohol. That’s why you got so sick and dizzy and sleepy when you drank from it—” Loki trailed off.

            Kuna peered down at the water in the pot. It looked normal to her, but it had tasted really weird. Loki stood up quickly and stared down at Kuna. She froze but did not run from him. His mouth dropped open for a moment and he looked around in the air as if searching for something. He suddenly picked Kuna up and moved her to the cabinets on the other side of the room. She was confused. Had he heard something outside? Maybe it was the gigagrunt again! Maybe it followed them from Torileena!

            “Stay behind this counter, okay,” he told her. She nodded but peeked out from the corner to watch what he was doing.

            Loki ran back to the hearth and leaned over the sticks and branches he had built up. He extended his burned hand towards them. He shook slightly, only a little sure of what would happen when he used the spark spell again. He focused his seidr and conjured a small spark.

He dove out of the way of another fireball that erupted in front of his hand. The heat and flame were enough to send renewed twinges of pain down his already burned hand but did not make the injury any worse. He leapt to his feet and ran to Kuna.

            “Gah!” he exclaimed, scooping her up. “The air’s alcoholic too! I am a moron! We have to get out of here.”

            Kuna looked up at him. He switched her to his opposite hip and arm. He summoned the tesseract to his hand and conjured up its energies. He glanced down at Kuna again. He the brief thought crossed his mind that she might not have the strength to make it through another jump like this. But they could not stay here.

            “I’m sorry, Kuna. We have to jump again.”

            She clutched his leather jacket in her little hand and held on tight, shoving her face into his chest. She had no idea what he was on about or what ‘jumping’ meant but she had an awful feeling about it.

            “That’s right,” Loki said. “Hold on to me.” He looked down at the tesseract. “Somewhere with no alcohol in the water or the air,” he hissed at it. He concentrated and the vapors enveloped them, whisking them away to a new realm.

[jessahmewren]

YASSS We have new authors joining in! Hello dear your'e fab! :D Don't know why but hmmmm I'm in a horny mood recently(sorry if it's TMI oops) could I request for some more begging boy? Poly!Queen with bottom!Brian when they wake him up in the morning with blow jobs and keeps teasing and edging him just to hear him beg so prettily? *wink* Love you darling!

You’re a real sweetheart!  Thanks love!  This turned into a full-fledged fic (albeit a short one), so I hope you enjoy.  Also on AO3.

Rated E: Here be smut. Lots of smut. 

Pairing: Poly!Queen

@morewyckedthanyou I’m almost ashamed to tag you hon this one is pretty filthy LOL

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“I love him like this, all warm and soft and sleepy,” he heard one of them mutter.  He thought it might have been John.

He felt hands on him then, tugging his pants down, caressing his hair, smoothing over his chest to tweak at his nipples.  He moaned, low and needy, and Roger giggled.  

“Shhh, he’s waking up,” Freddie chided.  “I want his cock in my mouth when he does.”

Brian was surely dreaming, he thought, as the warm hands continued to massage and caress with great care.  

Then a hot, wet mouth closed around his cock, and he gasped awake.

It was like coming up for air after being under water, waking like that…precious oxygen filling his lungs, his hips stuttering sluggishly as Roger caressed his face. Desire finished hardening him, and he fucked into Freddie instinctively before Freddie gently stilled his hips.  “Don’t think so darling.  You’re not in charge here.”  

He whimpered, his head going back into the pillow, tears stinging his eyes.  “Please,” he whispered before John kissed him, his tongue darting greedily between his lips, seeking the heat of his mouth.  

Brian moaned into the kiss, trying desperately to move against the sweet feeling of Freddie’s mouth on his cock while John ravaged him, kissing him deeply, tangling his tongue with his and nearly smothering him with his need.  

He finally released him, turning his attention to Roger who had been playing in Brian’s hair.

Freddie looked up at Brian teasingly.  “Please what, darling?”

Brian twisted anxiously. “Please touch me sir.”  

Freddie smiled, placing a hand on his thigh.  “Like this?” His eyes glinted.  

Brian whimpered, shaking his head.  “Need your mouth.”

He gasped, twitching as Freddie descending on him again.  

“I want to ride him,” Roger said as he palmed John through his sweats.  Brian groaned, trying to move again as Freddie merely edged him, sucking at his head and then pulling off enough for him to come down from his high only to start again.  His eyes darted to Roger, and then to Freddie.  “Yes, please let him ride me?”  A single tear slipped down his face, soaking the pillow.  “I—I need it.”  

Freddie smoothed his hands along Brian’s hips, placing a kiss to the head of his cock.  “I know what you need baby boy,” he said before deep-throating him nice and slow.

Brian moaned loudly, his arms thrashing for something to hold on to until he found Roger and John. They held his hands as Freddie swallowed him down, then just as quickly pulled off of him.  “You’ll take what you’re given, darling.  Not an ounce more.”  

His whole body was vibrating with the need to come, his cock straining with it…his mind nearly gone, nearly blank with the single minded notion.  Roger was peppering little kisses over his face, and he tried to focus on his lips, the way they whispered over his skin, anything but his anguished cock.

“Let me blow him,” Roger said to Freddie.  His doe eyes were deceptively innocent looking as his fingers toyed with the collar of Brian’s pajama top.  He grinned. “You know I’m the best at it.”  

Freddie smiled, looking at John. “Hard point to argue there lovely.  Go ahead.”  

Roger crawled over the bed, settling between Brian’s legs.  He blew a cool breath over Brian’s cock, making him squirm.  Brian sighed, biting his lip.  “I need it so bad sir.  I’ll be good, I promise.”  

Roger smiled, wetting his lips.  “You’re always such a good boy, Bri.  You deserve this.”  He bent his golden head, licking a stripe on the underside of Brian’s cock.  “But all good things come to those who wait.”  

Brian whined, a hand going up to play with his nipples.  “Is this ok?” he asked quietly.  His whole body was on fire.  

Freddie had a hand on John’s cock, spreading precum down the shaft.  John’s eyes rolled briefly.  “That’s beautiful baby.  Keep doing that.  Let’s see how you pleasure yourself when we’re not around.”  

Brian tweaked his nipples, moaning softly as Roger lapped gently at Brian’s slit, gathering the precum there.  Then, he twirled his tongue around the head.  

“Oh, Roger, Roger, please!”

Roger paid him no mind, taking him down in one easy motion, relaxing his throat until his nose was flush with the soft brown curls at the base of his cock, then withdrawing.  He sat back on his heels, watching Brian for a moment, and then reached down to play with his balls.  

John’s fingers trailed through Brian’s hair, gripping his curls and tugging a bit, causing little sparks of pain mixed with pleasure.  Roger was drawing soft whines out of Brian now, alternately going down on him and then pulling away, keeping him maddeningly on edge.  

John directed Brian’s face where he could look at him, Brian’s eyes hazy with lust.  “Baby boy, if you ask nicely for this cock, it’s yours.”  

Brian swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.  “Please sir, may I have your cock?”  

John smiled, straddling Brian’s chest.  “Of course you may.”  He looked up at Freddie, who had his own cock in his hand.  “Our boy is so polite, isn’t he?”  

Freddie stroked Brian’s leg. “Very.  Give it to him John.  Give him what he wants.”  

John’s cock slid into Brian’s mouth like it had a home there, and he fucked into him in short, punchy strokes.  Tears filled Brian’s eyes as he hummed around his cock, and when John came, he swallowed every bit.  

The dual sensation of having Roger blow him and John fuck his mouth was almost too much for him. He needed to come more than ever; he was shaking with it.  He ran his hands over his nipples, plucking one to the point of pain.  

“Please sir,” he stammered, his voice strained with tears.  “May I come?” He looked away shyly, his eyes flitting to Freddie and John, and then to Roger, whose cheeks were flushed but eyes were bright, watching him.  “And would you fuck me too?  Please?”

Freddie caressed his face. “Oh darling…what a needy little thing our baby boy is!  What do you think boys?  Should he come?”  

John and Roger nodded, smiling.  

“Come for us darling, and we will fuck you too.  We would do anything for you.  Anything in the world.  You know that.”  

Brian sighed, gripping the sheets as Roger descended on him again, his cheeks hollowed out.  He let Brian fuck into his mouth, and Roger worked the base of his cock with his hand, twisting lightly until Brian tensed, coming with a shout as Freddie and John smothered him in kisses.  

Roger licked his lips, nipping his inner thigh on his way up.  “Gonna fuck you so hard you see stars baby boy.”  Brian tried to laugh, but he hadn’t caught his breath yet.  “I think I already did.”  

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[scarlettlawyer]

Part five of my Phantoms & Mirages commentary, @renegadewangs‘ fic series.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Haunted Specters, Chapter 7

Despite the earlier warning not to touch anything, his attention was drawn to a nearby little statue built out of gears and bolts. It was shaped like a man with a top hat. He prodded it and its arm fell off. That effectively got him to stop touching things.

LOOOL

A few of the guards by the exit had smiled at her- one of them had winked at her.

I WAS LOWKEY DISAPPOINTED WHEN THE INITIAL BREAKOUT SCENE ENDED and there was nothing like this. At the time I was honestly like “Stuff it! I’m just gonna pretend people noticed how cute that nurse was!” But THEN, you actually went back to it (when I assumed the scene wouldn’t be returned to) and made it so that I didn’t even have to headcanon anything. Past me needed just a little patience ;D What else is new?

After all that time she- he- they had spent lying in bed, the exercise was unwanted.

Ohooh! I’d forgotten all about the uses of “they” here. I’m pretty sure I felt kind of annoyed on the first readthrough, like “WAIT SO YOU’RE DEMONSTRATING AWARENESS AND USE OF SINGULAR THEY, AND YET…”

But nah, nah, it’s actually pretty cool what’s going on with the pronouns in this segment and the switching going on. “He” is applied to statements that only apply to the phantom and not the makeshift nurse persona. “She” is employed for the makeshift nurse persona because the phantom is leaning on, relying on that persona, as they reject their sense of self and always feel the need to be someone else. As the nurse, the phantom thinks about “the phantom” in the third person, to help further keep that comfortable distance, I suppose. And “they” is used for statements that are true of both the nurse persona AND the phantom. Therefore, interestingly enough, the “they” is technically being applied in both a singular and plural manner - simultaneously.

And also, this pronoun-switching fun and the distinctions that are subsequently made would simply not exist if a consistent singular they was used instead. The he/she/they all serve an important and relevant purpose. On the first readthrough, at least during the first phantom POV breakout scene, I was irritated by the switch to she/her and the references between he & she. I found it unnecessary and tedious when “they” would make everything go so much more smoothly. But I fully realise now that it would have been a lost opportunity of sorts for the reasons mentioned above (and willingly embrace it for other reasons too). I had also very much underestimated the level of the phantom’s investment in roles and how much he was “getting into” the role too, I suppose.

After all, at the end of this chapter, the phantom has absolutely no one to perform for or put on an act for, and yet it specifically says they will very much remain as the nurse until a different disguise/persona can be donned (although I guess it’s also a case of “remain in character so you’re already in character when you encounter anyone”). But it’s also the case of, just like when they were disguised as Bobby, they were compelled to act as Bobby. They’re remaining in-character as the nurse so that they don’t have to be themself. And so that extends to pronouns too, to fully complete it.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 8

The situation felt surreal. As if Simon were caught in some sort of lucid dream. To be sitting around a table with Fulbright and the Phantom, plotting out what could technically be considered a crime… 

I keep trying to put into words just how WILD the situation our three main characters are in is, but Simon keeps beating me to it.

If someone had told him of this situation earlier on in the year, he would’ve laughed and called them stark raving mad.

ME BUT IF SOMEONE TOLD ME THIS IS WHAT FIC 2 WAS GONNA BE LIKE

Bobby Fulbright, Simon Blackquill and the phantom sharing an apartment together? Having a meal together?

What do you mean this isn’t a Roommates Domestic AU? What do you MEAN this is “canon compliant”?! You try explaining this to someone who’s played Dual Destinies and Bobby Fulbright’s presence – his being alive – would be confusing enough and require so much explaining. Let alone EVERYTHING ELSE. And yet.

It wasn’t like Dissociative Identity Disorder, because no matter how invested he became in his role, he still retained a sense of self that could be brought back at will. He adopted roles willingly and studied his subject beforehand- perhaps neurotically so.

Yeah, I was glad for this being brought up but I was focused mainly on the level of control that was had – of course, one of the major defining differences is that the phantom can actively choose to adopt and shed a persona, as opposed to having less control over it or slipping more inadvertently into a different identity like someone with DID. But I was still wondering about the level of self-deception that it involved on the phantom’s part at the time (post-fall), as discussed in my previous post. So I knew it was not DID and it was very, very different from DID, but I was still inclined towards treating Sam like another personality at the time sort of in the same sense you might treat different identities that can front in someone with DID… The key difference being that the phantom has full control over when Sam is present and still knows everything that’s going on even when Sam is in place. It gets kinda confusing to think about XD. You and your ridiculously good acting skills, phantom!! I also knew of course that Sam was more “fake” than the different identities of someone with DID. But it seems that I really didn’t treat him as fake enough. But just like it is for Bobby and Simon, treating Sam as distinct in that manner just made things easier to understand, easier to process.

The characters have been thrust into an odd sort of temporary mundanity in a domestic sense. It is that very mundanity which makes the situation so fascinating. The three characters are sectioned off from direct contact with the rest of the Ace Attorney universe, from other Ace Attorney characters, in their own special kind of liminal space. “Sam” is the only buffer in place separating Bobby and Simon from the phantom. It’s in their best interest to make Sam seem more real… I think… To an extent they have their own limited amounts of self-deception going on there in that regard. Without Sam, things would all fall apart way too easily, it would be all too easy for all hell to break loose, when it’s a struggle to keep the peace as it is. A kind of welcome reprieve. So all THREE characters, the phantom included, hold up and treat Sam as a separate individual. It’s beneficial to all of them, really. But, it kinda also helps the reader out too as they’re sitting there struggling to process this amazing turn of events. Helps the reader make some sense of Bobby’s, and then Simon’s cooperation.

Also sometimes it just felt “too good to be true” for me as well so it was like… ah, Sam. The author must want us to be focusing on him, and not our darling phantom, right? :P

The Phantom was truly devoted to being anyone who wasn’t his ‘true self’, which he claimed he didn’t have. However, Simon had learned that such claims were unsubstantial.

And this is just the beginning… I didn’t know it was coming, I didn’t expect it was coming. But it’s coming. I failed to notice just what this tiny thread was – things were going to get unravelled all the way, following this thread from beginning to end, fully revealing the phantom. Hm! This undercurrent was already firing up but I’d failed to take notice.

The scene with phantom tossing the gun over to Bobby is just, whoa. The whole dynamic of “character A tosses character B a gun and begs character B to shoot them” is really something in and of itself. But “character B is committed to justice and couldn’t do that” meanwhile character A is the phantom, a supposed enemy who is super hard to capture + kill…! Damn. It’s a gripping dynamic. It’s powerful. So many different forces at play, going up against each other.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 9

“Sam Specter does not need to prepare for burglary. The Phantom does.”

“And here I’d assumed you loathed being the person known as the Phantom.”

YEAH this kinda made me a lil “?” on a first readthrough. Simon’s reply most likely means “I’d assumed you loathed [not being in character as someone else and being forced to be “yourself”]” as opposed to “I’d assumed you loathed [being referred to as “the phantom”]”. (Or maybe it’s both?). It surprised me that the phantom would openly refer to “himself” as the phantom when not in-character…! This moniker, after all, was not chosen by him. It was a label slapped on him by other people, and he had absolutely no say in the matter. Well, I was so entrenched in a common characterisation of the phantom basically rejecting this label, or at the very least not being a fan, as it puts a label on him. The he that he claims does not exist. He’s most likely just humouring Simon here using the label that Simon uses and is familiar with, however, as opposed to having internalised it. But I was still surprised because the characterisations of the phantom that I’m accustomed to usually have them explicitly rejecting this label, to the extent that they would not even use it in this sort of context. But then I came to realise – that characterisation is not necessarily the “canon” one. The phantom is lacking emotions, so they would not necessarily have strong feelings like this, about something as simple as a moniker. Just as they do here, they can easily dodge the label and pretend it in fact applies to no one. A non-person. A non-person that they don’t care about. I realise that this interpretation is also valid.

He remembered Fulbright saying that the man had been in pain for eight months already and wondered just how fierce it was. Wondered whether this was karma’s way of repaying the Phantom for all his crimes. He could run from his past life, his emotions and the consequences of his actions, but not physical pain.

This is kind of, well, delicious, really. Karma actually managing to find a way, for a man so indifferent to everything… :P In the only real way the message can be communicated across. I approve.

Simon punched him again. And again. Desperate for something more than blank stares- anything that was genuine sorrow. Genuine regret for all the Phantom’s wrongdoings. Even genuine anger would do. Anything real and substantial. 

Well damn. Doesn’t this just have another layer to it on a second readthrough?!

He initiates violence out of anger. But then. But then, the key motivator is prompting a reaction. The… The same base motivation of the other instance once you strip everything else away, yet under such VASTLY different circumstances. I’d also misremembered this as Simon only punching him once. But no. No. The text initiates the parallel ever more closely with multiple blows. GOSH.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 10

“What did he say?” Simon tried again, more forceful this time. “… He said the walls in this apartment aren’t as well insulated as we’d like.”

AMAZING.

Oh goodness…

THEY’RE IN. THE PHANTOM’S APARTMENT I am yelling. THE PHANTOM feels the need to intervene.

AND HE DOES SO AS SAM.

PERHAPS because he does not wish to do so as himself.

I DON’T THINK HE WAS ALREADY SAM PRIOR TO THIS POINT??? It’s implied that when locked in the room = the phantom, ventures outside of the room = oftentimes Sam. SO LIKE??? HE CHOSE TO BE SAM TO- that is the story I’m sticking with rn because that is so funny to me. And he does come out and be Sam after that cause I guess it’s “well I already switched to Sam so I Might As Well come out and be Sam for a while.”

It was the Phantom hidden behind that harmless façade- he knew it was the Phantom- but even so, he felt as if he were looking at a completely different person. Perhaps, in a way, it was a completely different person.

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN… The narrative putting forth the proposition that perhaps “Sam Specter” does have some sort of claim to personhood.

And then Simon apologises to Sam. And it just, feels like such an important turning point. Sam is a slippery slope. FOR ALL OF US.

It’s also kinda like, Simon knowingly playing along. For the sake of keeping up appearances. Keeping the peace. For the greater good. But does it run any deeper than that? Even the thought of apologising to a mere façade that the phantom is clearly behind is… hmm! It’s a very elaborate act for everyone, kind of.

Either way, Sam seemed content with whatever words Bobby had uttered. He smiled and hung his head for a moment, then nodded at Simon. Apology accepted.

:D

IT’S FAKE REACTION BUT LIKE… THE NARRATIVE POSITIONING… hm!

Sam would join them for dinner and clean up after them, only to disappear into the bedroom once more. 

EVEN THOUGH SIMON HAD KINDA SETTLED DOWN AT THIS POINT I WAS STILL BUSY REELING AT THIS ENTIRE SITUATION/DYNAMIC CHANGE THOUGH.

The. The PHANTOM (in a persona) would join them for dinner and clean up after them. (THIS SENTENCE IS JUST SO CASUAL!!! AND I’M LIKE! NO HOLD UP I’M STILL REELING LOL).

“Right!” There was a moment of silence, then the Phantom turned his head to face Bobby, shooting him a blank stare. A few seconds passed before the man seemed to be hit by a sudden realization. “O-oh! Right! The security systems! I’m on it!”

LOL this is just… so great. Well-timed comedic moments. GOD. When these three characters get together you expect someone to die. And yet we get to reap some comedy from this. I LOVE it.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 11

Every so often, Bobby would start tinkering with the watch again, his eyebrows contracting and the corners of his mouth twitching as information flashed along the display of the sunglasses.

CAN I JUST SAY, that it’s kind of amazing how you like… take imagery explicitly associated with the phantom and ONLY the phantom, and casually apply it to Bobby, cheerfully mixing up the symbolism? Obviously, to those who have played Dual Destinies, the image of “Bobby” having data rapidly scroll past glasses that he is wearing is an association ONLY attached to the phantom. If included in fanart, people will immediately know that this is supposed to depict the phantom in disguise, and not the real Bobby Fulbright. And YET, in your fic, here is the real Bobby Fulbright doing that EXACT same thing! Likewise, thanks to Simon splitting the phantom’s glasses apart during the Turnabout for Tomorrow trial when causing the gash in the phantom’s mask, “Bobby” without glasses is also very phantom-symbolism. Of course, not AS associated with the phantom as the gash in the mask, but the gash+lack of glasses is often used to tip people off. However! Right at the very start of this series it’s implied that the glasses are the phantom’s and the phantom’s alone, and that Bobby was not actually in the habit of wearing sunglasses at all! You go “wait a minute. It’s the other way around. If he’s got glasses, it’s the phantom! The real Bobby Fulbright didn’t even wear those!” That’s pretty damn cool! You also have the amusing reversal during Chasing Phantoms when Bobby impersonates the phantom. Even if it wasn’t the phantom he was specifically impersonating, it goes without saying that impersonation is something attached to the phantom’s character, not Bobby’s, yet it is something Bobby does at that point in the fic. And then, you know, there’s that scene much later on in the next fic where Bobby uses the Jolt of Justice on the phantom. I think I’m comfortable in saying that most of the fandom agrees that the real Bobby Fulbright would not have electrocuted Simon in court like the phantom did and that this was a specifically phantom act. But your fic has the REAL Bobby Fulbright use it, and the narrative even comments on the shocking (pun not intended) nature of it, where Simon muses that he “never thought he’d see the day” when the real Bobby used it. It’s just, so cool, and it’s also a really interesting and meta way of “striking back”, so to speak. After all, we NEVER met the real Bobby in canon. Since we ONLY ever get to meet the phantom, on a meta level, the phantom has truly stolen so much from him. His appearance, for most fanart. I’ve seen many people incorrectly use the name “Bobby Fulbright” as shorthand for “phantom”. The two characters get ridiculously blurred together since the phantom does not have enough to distinguish themself and was Bobby for the entire game. The phantom does not have their own tumblr tag, because “the phantom” is way too vague and applies to too many fandoms, so people throw it into “#Bobby Fulbright” and usually call it a day. What else can they do, really? I’ve been guilty of that myself I’m sure. Some fanart is quite ambiguous whether it depicts Bobby or the phantom. In much of fandom and in the eyes of players, the phantom has stolen much of explicitly Bobby symbolism for themself. But in your series, Bobby Fulbright gets to strike back! He gets to steal the phantom’s symbolism! He takes phantom imagery and claims it as his own, at least temporarily! It’s one of those things that gives him “agency” at least on a meta level that I’m impressed with. It’s also a great way of striking back at people like me, specifically, who tended to ignore Bobby in favour of the phantom. But I am not “forced” to acknowledge Bobby, because in this series it is not a zero-sum game. Rather, I am more than happy to do so. He’s a great character!

The conversation turned more heated. The Phantom- or was it the guard after all?- was shouting. The other voice seemed more calm. Collected. It held a forceful tone. There was a loud slamming sound, followed by more yelling.

Oh my god.. This is. So much on second readthrough. This is the child losing their temper and arguing back against their father. And Lex Sr knows. He knows that is his son. “more calm. Collected. It held a forceful tone.” Oh my GOOOSH this description… Like a SCOLDING. “I am the parent. YOU are the child! Do NOT argue back against me!” THAT’S WHAT THIS BRINGS TO MIND… AND THAT’S???  Probably how Lex Sr may treat it in his mind to an extent

AND I ALSO LOVE THE AMBIGUITY WHERE SIMON CAN’T EVEN KNOW IF THAT’S THE PHANTOM OR NOT, gosh.

“You had no right to take it! You had no right!”

I could not… BELIEVE this. At this point it’s implied, and later on we do know that this statement is absolutely right. And I think my main disbelief over this line stemmed from later if the scene is revisited(?), but I’m just gonna comment on it here.

Even if the phantom is right to say this, is right to be angry (!!!), the fact that it’s the phantom saying it absolutely floors me. It’s shocking and SURPRISING that the phantom could even UNDERSTAND, internally, a concept such as “rights”. And the thing is, he probably DIDN’T prior to this. It’s only when something happens to him, personally, when he is wronged, personally, that he understands.

It is the absolute HEIGHT of hypocrisy, to an incredible extent. The phantom had no right to kill all the people he has killed. He had no right to steal their identities. But he DID. And now, now, he claims “you had no right”?! I have no words. The phantom gets to just go around and wrong as many people as he wants, but the moment someone wrongs him he’s suddenly all, “wait, you can’t do that! That’s wrong!”

LOVE how rich that is coming from him.

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

A N G E R

Honestly luv seeing him just lose it.

“No! I… I’m not upset! I…”

You know what’s even better than seeing the phantom get legit angry for a moment? Seeing the phantom immediately denying it/in denial & confusion over that very anger and falling over himself internally all like “wait was I just angry??? CAN’T be. I am the Logic Man”. This absolute MESS of a man, I tell you, defying his own logic and being DEEPLY confused about himself whenever that happens.

“You’re going back to your cell until your memories return.” “No, I won’t! I won’t go back there!”

“Go to your room until you calm down and learn to treat your own father with some RESPECT.”

Teenage rebel son: “NO, I WON’T! SCREW YOU, DAD!”

The relationship between Luster and the Phantom was much more convoluted than Simon had anticipated. Far more intricate.

Yeah Simon, could you hold onto that thought? It’s uh. It’s just a little bit more convoluted than you think, even. :D

Man, things sure do… progress, huh, as all this is going on. You have Simon going in to search for the phantom, then Bobby… and when Bobby goes, Simon ultimately doesn’t stop him. It’s, aaaah.

Okay, what’s ALSO really great is that, with the Sequel Hook that Chasing Phantoms throws us, and then the timeskip that Haunted Specters begins with, one of the pressing questions on my mind is like “whoaaaa! Wonder what the phantom’s been up to all this time! The possibilities are practically endless! He must have been up to so much behind the scenes!” and then we get the answer to that question and it’s basically like… Nothing. He did basically nothing in all that time. Dumb loser got himself caught in a cell for several months. And that’s basically it. GOOD WORK PHANTOM, A+ ELITE SPY RIGHT THERE.

So, towards the end of the chapter when the phantom rushes back inside and there’s blood, that it was the phantom’s blood was my first assumption. But, of course, it’s the last thing on Simon’s mind. Because Simon still has him so pinned as a treacherous murderer. Having him be confronted with the fact that it’s actually the phantom who is injured, when he was so forceful and convinced otherwise (and the fact of it being the phantom’s blood didn’t even cross his mind!) is a nice touch. It’s a moment that sort of… further renders the perception of the phantom as vulnerable as opposed to emotionless killer. This vulnerability is something that Simon is forced to see and accept, even when he wants to believe and continue to think otherwise.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 12

What was worse- so much worse than the fact that the Phantom had gotten himself injured- was that Simon caught himself worrying. Only for a few split seconds, only in the spur of the moment. He was actually worried about that crazy bastard and the realization was enough to force him right back into a state of anger.

Oh heckin’ YES. The seed’s planted. There’s no going back now, Simon. Muahahaha!

The Phantom, who seemed to be growing tired of the one-handed fiddling, ripped all the buttons clean off his shirt with one quick vertical swiping motion. They scattered along the tiled floor and disappeared into various nooks and crannies. Simon could do nothing but watch with raised eyebrows.

TH SDKJNSDKLNSD VISUALISING THIS IS SO FUNNY

“… Should you not save that for a more practical use?” Simon questioned. “I assure you, this is quite practical.”

I AM DYING WHAT. SO IS HE LIKE… TRYING TO BLUNT PAIN/”RELAX” HIMSELF TO REMOVE A GODDAMN BULLET??? BUT UHHH. WHAt

Well, all those scars are a great reminder that the phantom has led one hell of a crazy life!

Oh. Oh my goodness. And now… Now we have the flashback. To the phantom’s earliest memory.

^Me right after the earliest-memory flashback, with really no idea just what was in store.

Okay. This flashback.

It’s raw. It’s brutal. It’s child abuse, right there on the screen. You really don’t hold back.

And what struck me was… If the phantom was born with their little-to-no-emotions psychological makeup, this really is pretty much how I’d imagine things to have been when they were small. …Ableist parents. If they’d had a “normal” home life and/or supportive parents/family, it’s highly unlikely they would have grown up to become the phantom in the first place, after all.

“It’s okay to cry in front of mommy. Go on, just… Just cry. Just once. Please. For mommy.”

This line is very interesting, and adds further nuance. It shows things aren’t clear cut, that in spite of how much the mother clearly cares, how much she wants to protect her son, and how much she cannot abide by the abuse, as understanding as she tries to be… And as opposite her treatment of her son is compared to the father’s treatment of his son… It is a clear hint that she still sees her son as abnormal, that there’s something fundamentally wrong with him that she wants to stop. She desperately wants her son to be healthy and “normal”. This attitude is clearly motivated by concern… She wants her son to be okay. She still loves her son very much. But her attitude belies a possible fear that maybe there is a little bit more truth in her partner’s words than she wants to acknowledge. It’s why she’s desperate to get him to cry. She wants him to change. She wants him to be different than he is. She’s worried. She’s clearly not happy with the way her son is. She wants her son to show distress. She wants her son to be distressed. For HER sake. Her prompts here… are still somewhat selfishly motivated, however driven by concern that they MIGHT be. That is what this particular phrasing very much implies.

Fundamentally, she does not wholly accept her son for who he is.

Throughout the whole flashback she is defending him, she is trying to protect him, only for us to see, at the very end of the flashback, that even she, deep down, is not fully accepting. I love the nuance.

Obviously, the flashback is only a tiny window, and there’s only so much it can tell us. And it presents the reader only with an extreme, specific circumstance to extrapolate from, but if we are going off of this and this alone to base things on… That was my extrapolation. Based on the limited information we are provided with here.

Because of course… There are many different conditions that children are born with in real life. Some of them are blessed with loving, understanding parents. Others aren’t. There are plenty of conditions that make children appear to be “abnormal” INCLUDING conditions which may not make them seem very expressive or expressive in different ways that are not considered normal. And this situation… is like that, really.

The phantom has suffered plenty in this series prior to this point. You might feel kinda bad for him at times, maybe! But it’s always been with a grain of salt, hasn’t it? “HE is the villain, HE is awful, HE brought this on himself, HE has ruined lives and therefore I don’t have to feel TOO bad!”

For the first time in the entire series, we are presented with a version of the phantom that has genuinely done nothing wrong. The narrative DEMANDS us to feel bad for him in this instance. We, at the very least, feel unambiguously bad for this child getting abused. The extent to which we choose to extend this “feeling bad” to the current version of the phantom is up for some debate.

It’s kinda like. You do feel bad for the current version of the phantom – it really sucks that this happened to him. It’s also something that happened prior to everything the phantom has done - the lives he has taken and ruined. So there’s obviously still that sense of “that really sucks, but you still suck, too.” And of course, it’s abundantly clear that this instance of childhood abuse in no way lessens the phantom’s crimes or how much he happens to suck right now. That doesn’t mean we can’t feel bad for him that this happened to him in his youth. And we absolutely feel bad for that child, who did nothing wrong, yet suffered a beating.

In this fic, prior to this point… From the start we are consistently shown imagery that largely contradicts our conception of the phantom’s character and place in the narrative. The phantom gets shown working together with Bobby for the two to escape. Suddenly, he is living with and working together with both Bobby AND Simon. The narrative invites him to come in and join them to become part of the central “trio”. The phantom is shown to be suffering, in pain, weak. It is such a far cry from the phantom from before, who was positioned as a powerful terrifying figure, the inflicter of suffering. The phantom did not get any POV segments until the very, very end of Chasing Phantoms. Here, in this fic, those POV segments are abundant. He has well and truly changed over from being an antagonist to protagonist.

And now, after all of these steps taken towards this point, the narrative takes it even further. Now the text is repositioning the phantom as – implanting that image in our minds – of the small, innocent child with a mental condition. The image of the phantom from the prior fic has already been largely torn down, but now it gets overturned even more as we are confronted with such opposing imagery.

But wait, there’s MORE. The narrative isn’t even done yet. It’s not even finished. Not quite yet.

Haunted Specters, Chapter 13.

“Fulbright. It may be that my ears are playing tricks on me, yet for a moment there, it sounded as if you hold genuine worry for that man.” Bobby didn’t deny the accusation. He didn’t even attempt to deny it. He only lowered his forehead to rest it against his knees, the corners of his lips twitching into some sort of wry grin. “… Don’t you?”

HE’S OWNING IT. And additionally he’s just like. Come on Simon. Don’t you? And this feels earned, given everything that’s happened. GOSH, IT FEELS SO EARNED. Because the readers aren’t the only ones who have been constantly confronted with a very different perspective/imagery of the phantom. These two protagonists have too!!! They are succumbing to the same fate as the reader – a turnabout of perspectives!

AND THEN. AND THEN. HERE IT IS EVERYONE.

One person supporting him. One person doubting him. It was familiar.

When I read this, I just… It was like my jaw just dropped. As it all… fell into place. As the realisation just HIT me. As I read on, and the narrative, in a rather justified self-satisfied manner, casually pointed out the parallels, built up over so many chapters… All of the little things. There were so many tiny things, choices that just didn’t seem to make sense at the time, didn’t seem to add up, and now… All I could do was sit there, stunned, as direct attention was drawn to this. The long-term game that the narrative had been playing.

In awe, I scrambled back to re-read over bits of past chapters at the time only to find that YES, the narrative, from Simon’s POV, had even actually referred to Bobby’s behaviour towards the phantom as “mothering over him”…

All I could do was shake my head ruefully and go “…okay, you win.”

As I’ve implied/stated throughout these commentaries, I went into this series weirdly harsh and reserved towards it for various reasons. And continued to be for the most part even WITHOUT any real justifiable reason for it. Even when my scepticism was being constantly broken down and shown to be misplaced. But the thing is, I’m never usually so harsh on other fics?

If you imagine it as a play showing in a theatre, I usually just go in and sit down and watch it like a normal damn person. Why on earth was I so… sceptical of this series??? It’s like the equivalent of me strolling in, standing at the back of the theatre with my arms crossed and internally going, “Well, I’ll give this a chance, I GUESS. Show me what you’ve got. But be mindful that I’ve seen VERY good performances in my time, however.” (And then, you know, you confidently went right on ahead and practically put on what is among the very best performances I’ve ever seen.)

But the simple fact of the matter was… Like, I’ve already gone over my reasons for feeling a phantom “disconnect” during the first fic. Reasons that all turned out in retrospect to be entirely unfounded. With this in mind, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with Chasing Phantoms. The phantom it gives us, the phantom content it gives us, is all superb and on-par with the consistently good characterisation provided by the rest of the series. I just had the misfortune of letting my own misconceptions get the better of me at the time. Were it not for that, I would have been able to enjoy the phantom aspects of the 1st fic thoroughly on the first readthrough. Only got myself to blame!

But this fic? As you know, going into it I was already invested – it already held my full attention. And yet I’d still held on to some amount of completely unfair reservation that I do not, and have not subjected other fics to. It was wild, as if I was setting this absurdly high bar when it came to expectations that no other fic had been subjected to by me. But you were still more than ready to rise to that challenge. You took my already high expectations and rose above them, constantly outdoing yourself as the series continued to progress after this point.

Perhaps because I was already standing at the back of the theatre, I had remained there out of habit even as all my doubts were waved off. This meant that even when the fic clearly established it was very much on-par with others I had thoroughly enjoyed with no issues, WAY prior to this chapter, to this point of the story, I was still acting more reserved towards your fic (like a total SNOB) compared to others even when the quality/enjoyment was equal! I was blinded at the time from recognising just how on-par it was. I really don’t think I’m usually like that. It’s like I just happened to pick your series to “discriminate” against, one that could thoroughly show me just how wrong I was. It’s an important lesson I need to keep in mind, because taking this approach to things runs the risk of being unable to actually enjoy them, when if I’d just relaxed, I would have enjoyed it just fine. This risk did not come to fruition, because it got shut down.

All I could do was marvel at the brilliance of the writing, the set-up leading to this… It was the kick I needed to fully relax & sit the hell down to enjoy the show to its fullest potential. That I’d done nothing but stand around like a fool and underestimate, so it was time for me to see just what this series was gonna do. It had my full support. It was the point I truly realised, whoa, this is superb, and all other pretences fell away.

And that’s why all I could do was say to myself, you win, Author. You win. Well-played. I will do my best not to ever doubt you again. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

All I can say is, the fact that I DID have so much reservation and doubt is what made the reading journey all the more wild and fun for me. I expected so little, and received so much… And that’s why I’ve been so open & honest about how unfairly I treated this series going into it. So that I can show just how much it contrasted with the reality of how great it actually is, how much it contrasted with my feelings later on.

...Aaand I’m cutting this post off here ‘cause of how long it is. Anything else I’ve to say connected to this chapter and beyond will be for the next post!

[vrepitsorrynotsorry]

Fic: Location, Location, Location

Title: Location, Location, Location Rating: G Pairing: Eventual Shotor Characters: Shiro, Lotor, guest starring Keith, and a couple unmemorable OCs Author’s Notes: I’m not dead! I’m just glacially slow. I’m trying to write at least a sentence every day, but that ain’t much, so I apologize. Hopefully, it’s good? Part 1 of Physician Heal Thyself and follows more or less directly after “Ready Set Bake”. Keith and Shiro are found family in this and refer to one another as brothers but are not genetically related. Keith knows he’s part Galra but has not yet met his mother, which is not really relevant to this part, but of note for later. Lotor worked in engineering research and development for Galra Inc. before he quit. He also did other things for the company and apart from the company, but that’s for later, too. I know very little about either real estate or running a business. Please excuse my ignorance and vagueness.

After the competition ended, life didn’t, so it was a couple of weeks before both Shiro and Lotor had free time to discuss their bakery project. Finally, they settled on an otherwise free Saturday and planned to meet up early and discuss looking at available properties. They had decided to establish the bakery near where Shiro was living. Lotor assured the other man that he would not mind relocating at all. In fact, he was looking forward to a fresh start, and had already found his own apartment in the area.

The night before the meetup, Shiro’s mind had been running a mile a minute, so he didn’t sleep well and was up earlier than usual. He tried to be quiet so that Keith could sleep, but it wasn’t long before the younger man came shuffling out of his room, half awake.

“Why are you up?” Keith grumbled, followed by a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Lotor and I are going to talk about locations today. You know, for the bakery? I guess I’m just...restless.”

Keith’s expression shifted by an almost unnoticeable margin, but Shiro liked to think he’d gotten pretty good at reading Keith over the years they’d known each other. Keith was excited that Shiro was finally on board with opening his own bakery, but he wasn’t too keen on Lotor. To be fair, Keith wasn’t too keen on most changes or new things. 

“You have the day off from the garage, right? You could join us, if you want.”

The offer was carefully calculated to give Keith the dual opportunity of keeping an eye on the new stranger in Shiro’s life, which Shiro knew he really wanted to do, and if Shiro was lucky, to get a little more accustomed to him. If Shiro was really honest with himself, he was also a little nervous about spending an entire day alone with Lotor. They’d almost always had other people around during their interactions before.

Keith shrugged. “Okay. When’s he stopping by?”

Shiro opened his mouth to answer and then realized that while finally settling on a day, he and Lotor had forgotten to nail down a time. “Umm...”

There was a soft knock at the door that they might not have heard without the awkward pause in the conversation, and Shiro couldn’t help thinking “speak of the devil.” It really was Lotor at the door, slouching nervously on the stoop with a cardboard drink carrier holding three cups steaming in the cool morning air in one hand and a battered paper folder under the other arm.

“Am I too early? I was already up...”

“No,” Shiro assured him, inviting the other man in with a sweeping arm gesture. “We’re awake.”

“I brought hot beverages,” Lotor mumbled, though the cups were pretty obvious.

“Shiro doesn’t drink coffee,” Keith told him. “Who’s the third one for?”

“You,” Lotor offered with a small shrug, “assuming you would be awake. Otherwise, I would drink it. Caffeine is less effective a stimulant to Galra. Shiro’s is a green tea latte.”

Shiro scooped up the cup Lotor had indicated was for him. “Thanks.” He took a sip and realized that Lotor had gotten it made with coconut milk and a little honey--just how he liked it.

Keith was still looking back and forth between his own coffee and Lotor suspiciously. Shiro cut off further anticipated interrogation by explaining, “We talked about coffee preferences, or lack of them in my case, one day on the show when we were making coffee cakes. What’d you get for Keith? A triple-shot or something?” Keith already knew that Shiro had mentioned his own Galra ancestry to Lotor.

“Quadruple. They call it ‘the Defibrillator.’ It’s black, but I have some sweetener packets, if you’d like to add some.” 

“No, this is fine. Thanks.” The last word was a little grudging, but Shiro appreciated the effort he knew it represented.

After a few more moments of silent sipping, Shiro gestured to the folder Lotor was still clutching tightly to his side. “Did you do some research for today?”

Lotor cleared his throat and his cheeks flushed. “Yes, I um, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands recently...” Shiro knew he’d quit his job at Galra Inc. before the competition, but he’d never thought about what the other man might be doing before the bakery project could really get moving. He didn’t seem like much of a “hobby” kind of guy, except of course for the obvious enjoyment of baking, but there was only so much of that one could do.

He pulled a city map from the folder and laid it out on the coffee table. It was peppered with small adhesive circles in different colors. In fact, most were carefully paired halves of two different colors.

“Based upon listings both online and in print, red are properties that do not currently have kitchen facilities, but could be altered to have them, green are currently fitted for some form of food industry, yellow are on the lower end of the cost scale, but not necessarily in highly trafficked areas, and blue have regular foot traffic, but are more expensive.”

“What’s purple?” Shiro asked. There were quite a few of those. 

“Competition.”

“Do you know which ones are leases and which are for sale?”

Lotor dipped back into the folder. “It was getting a little cluttered, so that information is on these overlays.” He produced transparent sheets with dots in black and white. “Black is for lease and white is for sale,” he explained as he carefully placed the stark circles over their more colorful counterparts.

“Wow,” Shiro remarked, “that’s...”

“Obsessive?” Keith muttered.

“Thorough,” Shiro finished with a warning glance. “Sounds like you’ve got this pretty much covered.”

“Not entirely.” Lotor tapped the map. “When it comes to basic logistics and analysis, yes, I’m quite comfortable doing the research, but there are two things I can’t do. First, a place on paper or a screen is quite different that seeing it in person. I figure we can narrow it down some based on these factors and then go see the remaining places.”

“I agree.” Shiro nodded. “What’s the second thing?”

“The human element,” Lotor admitted with a sigh. “I very much dislike dealing with people, especially those who will inevitably be trying to sell me something. I’ve hardly looked into the associated Realtors and agents at all.”

Shiro shook his head and chuckled, and Lotor arched one brow. “Sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I promise,” Shiro hurried to reassure him. “Lucky for you, I’m more of a people person.”

Both Lotor and Keith’s eyes widened as Shiro retrieved his own folder from a desk along one wall. “I’ve been looking into ratings and reviews for different property management companies and Realtors. It shouldn’t take us long to cross reference information, and then we can make a few calls and hopefully see a few locations.”

Keith looked back and forth between the two of them. “I’m not sure the universe can handle you two working together.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to tag along?” Shiro asked playfully.

“Oh, I’m going with you,” Keith insisted. 

He left briefly for a morning run while Shiro and Lotor compared notes and made some calls. Well, Shiro made a few calls. Lotor would occasionally offer a whispered question for him to relay to the person on the other end of the call, but he declined to participate otherwise.

“It’s better this way, believe me,” he declared. “My social interaction skills are limited to three things: avoiding people, which defeats the purpose entirely, saying whatever I think they want to hear, which could end badly where property is involved, and manipulating situations, which I’ve been trying very hard not to do after cutting ties with my family. Besides, I don’t have enough information on any of these places to do it effectively, yet.”

“That’s what the calls are for,” Shiro pointed out. “You ask questions to get more information.”

“I’ve been told I don’t know how to ask things politely, and I make everything sound like an interrogation.”

Shiro let it go because he really didn’t mind doing this portion of the work, and Lotor had obviously spent a great deal of time collecting and organizing other information. 

By the time Keith returned from his run and took a quick shower, they had a short list of five places to visit first. One location oddly wasn’t connected to any of Shiro’s research but seemed very promising.

Several of the locations were in areas with limited parking options, so Lotor offered to drive them. Keith declined, preferring to take his own bike.

“Don’t take it personally,” Shiro told Lotor as he climbed into the passenger seat. “He doesn’t even like it when I drive. I think he likes both the combination of being in control and the open air.” Lotor just shrugged it off and headed toward downtown. He was a very cautious driver. Very.

“If you’re worried that Keith needs to follow you, he does have the address of the first place.”

“Hm?” Lotor shot him a puzzled glance. “He passed us some time ago.”

“Well, you are driving awfully slow.”

“It’s this ground traffic.” Lotor huffed. “It’s so claustrophobic, and movement options are ridiculously limited! Get me out in open space, and I assure you, things would be very different.”

“There’s nothing quite like flying in space,” Shiro readily agreed.

When they finally pulled up in front of the first place on their list, both Keith and the location’s realtor were waiting for them.

“Did you get lost?” Keith asked.

“No,” Lotor answered simply, and Shiro decided not to add any comment.

The first location had formerly been a small cafe styled like an old diner. The kitchen space would need to be totally renovated if it were to become a bakery, as it had two large grill tops, but only one small oven that had definitely seen better days. It was for rent, so any changes would have to be approved by the property owner. Shiro also couldn’t help but notice that it was midmorning on a weekend, and he’d seen hardly any foot traffic outside the large windows along the front of the building. It had looked much more appealing on paper.

The second location was equally unmemorable, though Shiro had talked Lotor into letting him drive there.

At the third location, Shiro finally got a taste of what Lotor had meant about all his questions sounding like interrogations. In this case, however, Shiro felt it was kind of justified.

It wasn’t like Shiro hadn’t expected a few of the property agencies to exaggerate or fudge a few small things. After all, this was business, and they were in it to make a profit like anyone else would be. This, however, was not just a little gilding of the lily.

It was immediately obvious that the published pictures of the storefront were not current. In the listing, there was a lovely, glass entry door. In person, there was a piece of plywood chained into the frame with a large padlock and decorated with some rather risqué graffiti. This was also the location without a pre-researched contact.

The last time Shiro had seen Lotor get angry there had been no yelling. Instead, the other man went intensely quiet, and Shiro could see that Lotor’s expression had gone completely blank.

“Tell me,” he asked in an icy tone, “don’t you think this is something that should have been mentioned in the listing?”

The property manager blinked, but her wide smile didn’t waver. “Ah, yes. This is unfortunate, but it happened only recently-”

“How recently?” Lotor interrupted. “The listing I looked at was posted only a few days ago.”

“There is an allowance included to replace the door,” the woman continued, skirting the question. “This is a great neighborhood. There’s-”

“How great a neighborhood can it be if it’s prone to property damage and vandalism?” Lotor cut into her presentation again.

“Well, just look at the other-”

“Is there something you’re not disclosing about this particular site?” He took a step forward and she took one back. “The interior description was rather vague. Should we expect it to be in

a similar state to the door? How long has this property actually been vacant? Was the information provided intentionally scant because of some kind of past incident?” Lotor was leaving very little time between questions for the woman to respond, and she was beginning to look increasingly alarmed.

“Should one of us step in?” Keith asked quietly from beside him. “She looks like she’s about ready to call the police or something.” He wasn’t wrong.

Shiro gently placed a hand on one of Lotor’s shoulders and he tensed, head whipping around to turn his piercing gaze on Shiro. His expression softened and then became quizzical.

“You think maybe you should ease up a bit? I see what you meant about coming across badly when you ask questions.”

Lotor’s eyebrows shot up and he turned back to the property manager, seeming to see for the first time how she was cowering away from him. He looked lost and a little hurt, but Shiro figured damage control took priority at the moment.

Shiro walked over to the rattled woman hands out in a placating gesture “I’m sorry about that. He’s just a bit...” he trailed off, searching for exactly the right word.

“Galra?” she suggested with a scowl.

Shiro frowned back. “I was going to go with ‘overly assertive’, actually.” He took a calming breath and made another attempt at diplomacy. “You can understand why this was an unpleasant surprise, can’t you? I’d like to think you have an explanation for all of this, and I’m willing to listen.”

This was turning into some kind of absurd property good cop, bad cop. He could see it all in his mind...

“Help me help you, ma’am,” he would say, expression concerned. “This kind of thing really upsets my business partner. I don’t know what he might do.”

“I ought to report this to the Intergalactic Business Bureau,” Lotor would mutter ominously behind him while glaring at the woman, “and I’m leaving a truly nasty review on Yowl.”

“Just tell me what we want to know. What’s really up with this place? Save yourself a lot of trouble.”

The woman’s fearful expression relaxed, and for just a moment, Shiro saw her analyzing the situation shrewdly before her expression turned neutral. “Well, I suppose that makes sense.” She must really, really want to move this property.

“I would like to apologize.” Lotor’s voice cut into their conversation at that point. It was the exact opposite of his tone from before. It was soothing and absolutely nonthreatening. “Clearly, I overreacted badly. I’m moving on from a life where corruption and deceit were commonplace. To believe I was seeing the same in the life I’m trying to start over was...deeply upsetting, but I had no right to take it out on you. If you’re still willing, I would love to see inside the building.”

If you looked up “contrition” in the dictionary, Lotor’s face could be the picture next to it. In fact, it was so perfectly sorry, Shiro’s mind instinctively distrusted the intent, but the property manager seemed to accept it.

She finally had a chance to formally introduce herself as Karen, which Shiro already knew from their brief phone conversation, and explain that she was a lawyer and didn’t usually do this kind of work, but had been managing the property for her brother, who had recently decided to sell. He and his wife had tried to start a restaurant together, but neither the business nor the marriage worked out. After it sat empty for months, they decided to sell the restaurant and split the take. Also, the door hadn’t been broken--the wife had had it made special and decided she was taking it with her.

Inside the building things were actually in pretty decent shape, though neither Shiro nor Lotor were particularly pleased with some of the decorating decisions. Those could be redone, however. There was a very nice, large oven in the kitchen they were told had been primarily used for dinner rolls and desserts. The property was also priced to move quickly. It would be more expensive than leasing initially, but both quite liked the idea of not having to answer to a landlord or property manager.

They decided to take a break for lunch after sending Karen on her way, but it was the middle of lunch rush on a Saturday, and they were having trouble finding a table anywhere.

“My apartment isn’t that far, if you’d like to grab something and eat there,” Lotor offered. Shiro and Keith both agreed, and Shiro suspected curiosity played a large factor in the decision.

The apartment really was quite close, and it was only a few minutes before they pulled into a parking lot beside a modest building. Shiro hadn’t necessarily been expecting anything extravagant, but he was fairly certain Lotor could afford an apartment a good deal larger and nicer than the small studio to which he escorted them. Lotor was clearly still in the process of unpacking, and the majority of the boxes still stacked against one wall appeared to be labelled “books.”

There was no formal dining space, so they crowded around a coffee table in the living area. Even though the seating looked comfortable, the table was low enough that it was easier to sit on the floor. For a few minutes, they were all focused on eating; wandering all over town to look at potential bakery sites was hungry work.

Eventually, Keith broke the comfortable silence by asking, “So, have you two thought of a name for the bakery, yet?”

Lotor and Shiro looked at each other. “Well, no,” Shiro admitted.

“We thought that was a step that could wait for a little while,” Lotor added.

Keith shrugged. “Okay. Just so long as it’s not some horrible pun.” He leveled a playful glare at his brother. “I don’t believe for a minute that you haven’t thought of like a dozen really awful ones.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Shiro replied, all obviously false innocence. “I would never even think about naming a legitimate business something like ‘Bake It Or Leave It’.”

Keith groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Or ‘Flour Power’. Definitely not anything like ‘Crumb and Get It’.”

“Stop! Please!”

“Or,” Lotor interjected, face completely deadpan, “we could make it a really pretentious bakery and call it ‘The Upper Crust’.”

Both Keith and Shiro stared at him shocked silence for a few moments before Shiro burst into a fit of laughter so strong he choked on the bite of food he taken right before the unexpected joke.

Lotor’s eyes went wide and he apologized profusely. He hands fluttered between hovering uselessly in front of him and reaching toward Shiro as if to help but unsure how and back. Once he had enough air, Shiro assured him that he was fine. They locked eyes for a moment, and then both were laughing.

Keith watched them. They seemed genuinely happy, and there was warmth in their expressions. He might not be totally sold on the idea of Lotor working with Shiro yet, but there was no denying they had a connection. Suddenly, the tiny apartment seemed extra crowded.

“I don’t think I’m going to join you to look at the two places left on the list,” Keith announced. Like he had flipped some kind of switch, both of the other men’s demeanors changed from content to nervous.

“Why?” Shiro asked. “Is something wrong?”

“We’ll stop making puns,” Lotor added. “I promise.”

“I’ve just got a couple of things I need to do,” Keith hurried to explain. He had no idea why they suddenly seemed so uncomfortable with the idea of being left alone when they were getting along just fine seconds ago. He hadn’t even been meant to accompany them in the first place! 

Keith was reminded of when he had applied for his current job at the garage. It hadn’t sounded like an interview would be required, so he had been a little nervous when the owner had called to arrange one. Keith didn’t hate people--well, not all of them--but he wasn’t great at interacting with strangers, and he hated small talk. He knew he came across as abrupt and unfriendly to many. Shiro had talked him down and accompanied him to the interview, waiting outside the office until he had finished, and that had only been one of many times Shiro provided unwavering support. What would it really hurt to return the favor in a small way?

Also, Keith realized, if he were to leave now, Lotor would think it was because of him. He still wasn’t anywhere near one of Keith’s favorite people, and he wasn’t sure how much they should trust him, but if nothing else, Keith was certain he intended Shiro no harm.

“It’s not urgent,” he said and watched the other two men visibly sag in relief. “I guess it can wait until after we see the other locations.”

The fourth option was also for sale fairly inexpensively and had once been a bakery, but it was a foreclosed property, and the previous owners had stripped everything they could realistically carry away and even a few that seemed decidedly unrealistic.

“Wow...” Shiro let out a low whistle as he stared at the void where a large oven had once been situated. “They must have really liked that oven.” It had to have been terribly heavy and getting it through the doorway must have been challenging to say the least.

Lotor wrinkled his nose at the state of the floor that had been underneath the former appliance. “They apparently couldn’t be bothered to clean up after themselves though, hm?”

The property might be affordable, but they would have to invest a great deal into making it workable again--maybe even more than at some of the locations they had already seen.

They never even got to see the inside of the last location on their list--it had just been leased before they got there.

Since they had eaten at Lotor’s place for lunch, Shiro invited him to eat dinner with him and Keith so they could discuss the four locations they’d seen that day. They ended up ordering pizza.

“Honestly,” Lotor admitted with a sigh, “I’m leaning toward that for sale property, as much as I’d rather not have to deal with Karen.”

“Is it the sketchy business practices or the xenophobia?” Shiro asked, only half joking.

“A little of both, really. I can’t imagine it would be terribly pleasant, and it’s at least partly my own fault.”

Shiro shrugged. “We won’t really know unless we give it a shot. We can always expand our short list and keep looking.”

“It really was a decent location,” Lotor argued. “I’m not certain how long it will remain on the market. We may only get one shot at it.”

“We don’t want to rush into a decision, though.” Karen had made it sound like the owners wanted to sell fast, but she may have been exaggerating to put them under an increased sense of pressure. Then again, they had missed out on the fifth place on that day’s list. “What do you say we sleep on it and see how we feel about it tomorrow?”

The next day, both agreed that they would make an offer on what they had started calling the “Open Door Property.” Lotor vowed to be on his best behavior, though Shiro thought he rather preferred intensely disapproving Lotor to the diplomatic but rather insincere mask he wore while “behaving.”

“You know I don’t really care if you’re perfectly polite to Karen, right?” Shiro asked. “I mean, you shouldn’t be intentionally rude or anything, but I don’t expect you to be a model citizen at all times. Just be yourself.”

Lotor arched an eyebrow but did not comment.

This time, they met Karen at her office. They had scarcely exchanged pleasantries before she informed them that she had already received an offer of the listing price.

Shiro and Lotor both knew that the property was priced on the lower end of the pricing scale for the area of town where it was located, so this was not entirely surprising. They made a higher offer and left with the uneasy knowledge that it was now a game of waiting and wills.

Unfortunately, it dragged on for several days. Every offer was countered, and the price crept upward. Eventually, they reached a point where they weren’t certain they wanted to go much higher, but the thought of losing the location after all that trouble was also unappealing. 

They discussed it and settled on a maximum price they were willing to pay. It came as quite a shock when Karen called to tell them that the other interested party had just offered the exact same number.

Shiro’s shoulders slumped. This was it. They were going to have to start the process all over again. It was probably just the bitterness talking, but he thought Karen seemed pretty pleased at their disappointment, smiling from her end of the video call.

“What if,” Lotor suddenly said, startling Shiro a little, “we could match that offer but make a generous downpayment in cash?”

Karen’s eyes glittered, and Shiro was certain she wanted to ask how generous but refrained. “Could you do that?” she asked.

Shiro turned so his face was not visible and mouthed, “Could we really?”

“We could,” Lotor affirmed, cool as a cucumber. “However, that will require a trip to the bank, which cannot be done until tomorrow, and such a large withdrawal will require some paperwork. I would prefer not to go through all that trouble unless we have some assurance that this would close the deal.”

“Let me see whether the other party is willing to raise their offer, and I’ll get right back to you.” Karen’s face disappeared, and they were left to wait again.

“So, cash, huh?” On some level, Shiro had always known that Lotor was wealthy, but he hadn’t ever really made it obvious.

“In my experience, it is generally difficult to resist.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Shiro was extremely curious about those experiences, but before he had time to ask, Karen called back.

“If you can have your cash downpayment to me by five o’clock in the evening tomorrow, it’s yours,” Karen told them. She seemed somewhat skeptical that it would be possible.

“Five o’clock,” Lotor acknowledged, and Karen terminated the call.

Shiro went with Lotor to the bank the next day. “I’ve never seen a large amount of cash in person before. I’m curious.” He then added, “Besides, it feels wrong for someone to be walking around with that much money alone.”

“How would anyone know?” Lotor asked with a smile and a roll of his eyes. “I won’t be carrying it out in the open.”

“Briefcase? Duffle bag?”

Lotor laughed. “I believe you watch too many movies. It won’t be in small bills and really won’t take up that much space.” He gestured to a small, leather messenger bag he had slung over one shoulder.

“Sliding a briefcase across the table would look more impressive.”

“Do you own one? No? Well, neither do I.”

Shiro wasn’t sure why he expected the bank to be some grand, old building--probably the movies again--but he had to admit he felt more comfortable in the one they actually went to for the money. The fact that there were only three tellers meant they had to wait for a while, but there was a bowl of hard candies.

“I need to speak to Mr. Hargrave, please,” Lotor told the smiling woman behind the counter and then they went back to the candy dish.

Shiro was just explaining to Lotor how he really didn’t know whether root beer was available in barrels like the candies anymore when the door to a side office opened and a small, nervous man appeared.

“Ah, Mr. Hargrave. How are you?” Lotor greeted him politely. “I’ve come in today to-”

“Is this about the automatic transfer incident?” Hargrave interrupted, wringing his hands in front of himself. “It is, isn’t it? I know I should have contacted you immediately, but it turned out to be a false alarm, and-”

“What incident?” Lotor cut the other man off in turn.

“It was merely a computer system error. The transfer went through as expected, and the message only appeared briefly, so I had hoped you might not have noticed,” the banker confessed. “But, if that’s not why you’re here?”

“No,” Lotor told him, “but I would like to discuss this further. Perhaps in your office?”

Shiro found himself forgotten in the main lobby in the wake of this mysterious money issue. What Lotor did with his money was really none of Shiro’s business, even if he was curious. He distracted himself reading pamphlets about loans, lines of credit, and similar financial topics he discovered near the candy dish. He was in the middle of “Do You Know If You Have Saved Enough for Retirement?” when he heard the office door open again.

“I’ll arrange for your withdrawal to be transferred from the main branch,” Hargrave was saying. “I’m afraid we don’t have that amount in cash on hand today. Would you like to wait here, or have me give you a call when it arrives?”

Shiro must have looked dismayed at the idea of hanging around in the bank lobby much longer because Lotor quickly asked, “How long do you think it will take?”

“An armored transport makes the rounds from branch to branch every few hours. They should be by within the hour.”

Lotor requested to be called and they walked to a café down the street to wait.

“So,” Shiro attempted to ask casually, “is everything really okay with that transfer Hargrave was talking about?”

“Yes.” Lotor answered simply, expression revealing nothing. Oh well, it was worth a shot!

“Exactly how big a downpayment are we making?” Shiro changed the subject. “I mean, if they didn’t have it on hand, it must be a fairly large sum.”

“It’s about half of the cost of the property.”

Shiro almost spat out a mouthful of tea. “Half of the total cost?” he repeated, somewhat stunned.

“I thought that might keep dear Karen from trying to change her mind. Why? Do you think it should be more?”

At first, Shiro thought he was being sarcastic, but Lotor appeared sincere. “That should be plenty,” he finally replied. He wasn’t certain he’d ever had that much money in his own bank account all at once. “Are you sure you want to spend so much right away? I feel like I’m barely contributing.”

“You will going forward,” Lotor reassured him. “It’s an investment. I’m certain we’ll earn it back and more besides.”

A short time later, Hargrave called, and they returned to the bank. Shiro felt vaguely like he was a part of some kind of heist as he watched the banker place neatly bundled stacks of bills into Lotor’s satchel. They also both signed papers for a loan on the remaining property value.

Shiro insisted on driving on the way to Karen’s office because the money made him feel like they had a target painted on them and he wanted to get there faster than he knew Lotor would drive.

Karen’s eyes widened fractionally as she was handed the money, and Shiro was relieved that he wasn’t the only one unused to dealing with this kind of situation. There followed a great deal more paperwork, and then the key was rather anticlimactically slid across the desk to them. The deed would be sent later.

“Congratulations,” Karen told them, “it’s all yours.”

The sun had already set by the time they exited Karen’s office. They should probably just go home, but...

“Hey,” Shiro asked, nudging Lotor’s arm, “wanna go by the bakery?”

Lotor grinned. “Yes!”

They realized after they got to the building that there was currently no power. They went in anyway.

“In the dark this place is kind of...”

“Creepy?”

With only light from the streetlamps outside for illumination, the dinginess and disrepair the property had fallen into was starkly highlighted, but it was theirs now, and that counted for something.

“Well, step one down,” Shiro declared. “We have our location. You know what step two is, right?”

“Buy a new door?” Lotor asked cheekily.

Shiro snorted. “I guess that’s part of step two: get this place ready for business.”

“It’s going to be a lot of work.”

Shiro grunted in agreement. “Yeah, but that’s one of the things friends are good for.”

[queen-of-the-crows]

11 Questions Tag

Okay so I was tagged by like 5 different people and I'm just gonna answer all in one post cause that's the easiest way to do it. Huge thank you to all my loves who tagged me in this @annorarutherford @heraldofwho @sassylavellen @enchantment1385 (twice :P) @elevanetheirin :)

Buckle up cause this is gonna be a long ride!

@annorarutherford questions

1. Biggest fear? Feeling like I've done nothing with my life and that I've been a failure

2. Favorite flower/plant? I'm not a nature person, that's just not my thing but a black rose

3. Are you close to your family? Sorta, some of them anyway, depends on alot honestly

4. Your deepest wish? Not to be rich but to be able to pay all my bills and still have a good amount of money left over to save and buy fun stuff

5. What's something that always calms you? No one thing always works, it depends on why I'm not calm. Video games work often, some times reading, sometimes writing, sometimes drinking

6. Some movies you love? Love this question! Jaws, Jurassic Park series, Alien series, Beauty and the Beast, Dracula, The Crow, and many others

7. Guilty pleasure song? I'm not really ashamed of anything I listen to but alot of people judge me for loving Fall Out Boy so I'll say anything by them, I have an entire playlist

8. Favorite weird smell? Professional hair color, I fucking love it. Also the green soap they use in tattoo shops

9. Game that has changed your life and how? Dragon Age. It introduced me to my love of gaming and are me fall in love with Thedas and the characters

10. Someone(s) on Tumblr you really admire/like? All my usual lovelies of course @annorarutherford @a-shakespearean-in-paris @sassylavellen @enchantment1385 @aban-asaara @heraldofwho also love seeing posts from @jawsandbones @andrastini @fyeahfenrisxfhawke @laraslandlockedblues @nevertrustamage and others

11. Worst personality traits someone can have? Always down on themselves, put down everyone around them, bad hygiene! (Not a personality trait but seriously bathe), being insanely cocky and thinking they can get whoever they want

@heraldofwho questions

1. When you get butterflies in your stomach what color are they? Blues and purples

2. If spiders could talk what would their voices sound like? I think they'd sound alot like Flemeth

3. How do you like your coffee or tea? In the trash lol I hate them both

4. If you could learn any language instantly, which one would you choose? Oh man, there's so many cool ones. Probably Russian, I love the sound of it

5. If they made a DA/ME film or series about YOUR protagonist- which OC would you choose and who should play them? Oh shit, I love them all so much!!! Probably Clea cause I think her and Zevran's story would be the most interesting. I would cast Megan Fox as Clea, she's my face claim for her and she plays a pretty good badass.

6. What change the nature of a person? Anything really depending on the person, death seems to be a big one, break ups, being broken

7. What musical instrument do you play? What instrument would you like to learn? I play piano and I sing. I'd like to have a piano so I can practice more but I wanna learn guitar also

8. Pick any aspect of your life or personality and choose a theme song for it. You Call Me A Bitch Like Its A Bad Thing by Halestorm because I'm very much fuck you and your opinions of me, i don't find being called a bitch insulting

9. Can you cook or bake? What's your speciality? I love baking and I can cook too. Cakes are my favorite thing to make

10. Got any dead crushes? Heath Ledger, Brandon Lee, Paul Walker, and Gary Oldman (I mean him in Dracula is to die for)

11. What is your quirkiest hobby or interest? I don't have many so probably writing fanfic

@sassylavellen questions

1. Do you have a favorite soundtrack from a movie or video game? Oh yes, Queen of the Damned. Best soundtrack ever created

2. What was the first video game you remember playing? Either Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart way back on Game Cube

3. If you could have any kind of food right now what would it be? Chocolate cake or Panda Express, maybe both

4. Are you a good cook? Oh yes

5. Do you have or want any exotic pets? I would love to have an iguana. Snakes are cool too

6. What fictional character would you love to be friends with? Oh so many, strictly friends with no somatic interest: Dorian, Varric, Cassandra, Shale, Charlie from Supernatural, The Doctor, Lisbeth Salandar, and Scout Harding

7. If you could have any superpower what would it be? Telekinesis and mind control

8. What movie could you watch and enjoy every single time? So many. Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, and Big Hero 6 are probably my tops though

9. Favorite color combinations? Black crimson and white, black grey and blue, black and deep purple, basically dark combinations

10. When you play games do you use armor sets that have good stats but looks bad or armor that looks good with bad stats? Definitely looks good with bad stats but I keep the ugly with good stats to change into for particularly challenging encounters. I love the story aspect of games and put so much time into my characters I like them to look good

11. Favorite genre of music? Rock and metal. KoRn and Rob Zombie are my absolute favorites if that helps explain it

@enchantment1385 first set of questions

1. Favorite fandom and why? Dragon Age. Best game series ever, the characters, the play through, the environment, the choices, the romance. And the people I interact with here are amazing

2. What's your Pokemon team? I played Black 2 so my favorite team was Zoroark, Arcanine, Banette, Lapras, Hydreigon, and Virizion

3. Favorite team in Dragon Age or Mass Effect? Depends on my class honestly but my favorite is dual weapon rogue so I'll answer for that. Origins- Alistair, Morrigan, either Shale or Zevran. DA2- Fenris, Aveline, either Varric or Anders or Merrill. Inquisition- Cassandra, Dorian, either Cole or Iron Bull

4. Favorite nonBioware game? Dishonored

5. OTP? Alistair and Cousland, Zevran and Mahariel, Fenris and Hawke, Cullen and Lavellan. None DA OTPs Mulder and Scully, Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner, Emma Swan and Captain Hook, Rose Tyler and the 10th Doctor

6. What is your guilty pleasure? I really don't have one that I know. Reading smutty fan fic maybe?

7. A food you can't get enough of? Cheese pizza, mac and cheese, spaghetti

8. What can you see right now? I'm in class so classroom stuff

9. Something I don't know about you? Alot. I'm coloring my hair white, I have a huge Fenris and femhawke in progress back piece, I'm in cosmetology school, I have a tattoo appointment with Sarah Miller

10. Most loved OC and why? As hard as it to choose between all my loves, I choose Clea. She's the most like me or rather I see the most of myself in her and that was an accident. I love her attitude, her sarcasm, her badassness, her relationship with Zevran, her goals, how she carries herself and how she just is.

11. What song is stuck in your head right now? Hold Me Tight Or Don't by Fall Out Boy

@enchantment1385 second set of questions

1. What does your name mean? Do you think the meaning is anything like you? Like our usernames? Queen of the Crows is a reference to Clea who takes over the Antivan Crows with Zevran and they do some reforming of the guild. She's one of the leaders so she's the queen of the Antivan Crows, hence queen of the Crows. Is that anything like me? Well I mean she's my OC and I'm alot like her so I would hope to be that badass if I was in Thedas.

2. First celebrity crush? Max Thieriot, he's still good looking too

3. If you could live in one fictional world, which one would you choose and why? Come on love, guess :P lol definitely Thedas. Learn archery and dual wield, find one of my favorite romances and fall in love. Oh yes! Second choice would be Westoros provided I could be with Jon Snow of course

4. Why did the chicken cross the road? His life bored him and he needed change

5. You can have one superpower, what do you choose? Answered this already but since this says only 1 I choose telekinesis

6. Biggest pet peeve? When people can't do simple things

7. 1 fictional character you would meet for a day if you could? Hmmmm I wanna meet alot. If I only have a day I think I'd choose Iron Bull, I'd be in for an adventure all day

8. First game you ever completed? Dishonored

9. Which class in game do you enjoy playing the most? Definitely rogue. Idk what it is but I love rogues especially dual weapon although I've recently gotten into playing archery as well

10. Favorite fictional villain and why? I love Maleficient. She turns into a fucking Dragon and is bitter for not being invited to a party. And the movie really goes into depth about how she became how she was and it shows that good people can be broken so badly they become bitter heartless and evil

11. Creepiest experience? I'm not really sure, I try to avoid that sort of thing. I've been hit on by creepy weirdos though

@elevanetheirin questions

1. Coffee or tea? I hate them both. I'm a soda junkie though and love energy drinks

2. What is your favorite book or book series? I have a few. Dracula (this is my all time favorite), A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin (aka GoT series), Millennium series by Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and The Meg series by Steve Alten

3. Do you have a hidden talent? Most people don't know I can play piano

4. Who is your favorite author? George R R Martin, Steve Alten, Michael Crichton, Ellen Hopkins, Stieg Larsson

5. Favorite type of cookie? Chocolate chip, I know I'm boring

6. Brotp? Varric and Hawke, Sara Lance and Mick Rory, Meredith Grey and Alex Kerev, Sherlock and Watson, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner

7. Did you have a nickname in school? I've never really had a nickname ever. My love in high school called me his muse cause he's an artist. Lots of classmates called me that weird goth girl cause I was always quiet, very smart, read for fun, and was goth.

8. Do you have resting bitch face? Oh fuck yes I do haha I love it though

9. What makes you smile? Alot. My stupid cats, my boyfriend, my favorite shows and movies, funny gaming videos, video games, reading, SLEEP, FOOD

10. What one thing do you like most about yourself? The fact that I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks about me. Looks wise probably my eyes

11. The best part of your day yesterday? Getting paid so I had money for chicken nuggets

Finished them all!!!! My 11 questions

1. If you could switch places with one fictional character who would it be and why? (Besides your OCs)

2. If you could choose one fictional character to be your love interest forever who would it be and why?

3. Least favorite video game you've ever played?

4. How did you get introduced into the Dragon Age fandom?

5. Which of your OCs is the most like you and how?

6. If you could only watch one genre of movie for the rest of your life which one would you choose?

7. One tattoo you plan on getting someday?

8. Xbox, PlayStation, or PC?

9. Do you have any exes you would take back if they ever asked?

10. Favorite quest in the Dragon Age series?

11. Favorite ship or OTP?

I'm not tagging anyone cause most you already tagged me but if you wanna answer my questions then go for it!