#and if you guys like it enough i might post an old fuckin wip i have all packaged together on youtube. its a VIDEO it goes w the MUSIC!!

[sluckythewizard]

SHHH SH HEYYY HEY DONT TELL ANYONE BUT... ive been workin on smth since BITB came out..... itsa lil musical animatic involvin kian and becky.... ITS NO WHERE NEAR DONE YET but loooook look im puttin lil screenshots under the cut. its supposed to go along with Am I In Heaven? by King Gizzard n the Lizard Wizard. infact yknow what cmere come sit with be bc ALOT of songs from the 'IM IN YOUR MIND FUZZ' album makes me think about becky and kian. oh my god. those two make me so damn emotional. like Her and I was the first one to rly resonate with me, and EMPTY was another good one, all just stuff about. yknow LOVE!! doomed by the narrative yet burning SO SO brightly in its last moments, holding hands, playing music, THEY WERE SO IN LOVE WITH YOU THAT THE COPY OF THEM LOVED YOU, AND YOUR COPY LOVES THEM TOO. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL, CRUMBLING, BURNING, HISSING, SQUIRMING, MELTING, CLICKING LOVE STORY..

GET OVER HERE N SCREAM WITH MEEE I LOVE SCREAMING ABOUT THINGS

[jev-urisk]

Morreial's heist supplies: Tag Game ✨️

Original game by @thecomfywriter (Post HERE). Thanks for the tag @the-golden-comet!

Premise: Write your OC using these tools (from Ch. 18 of Throne of Vengeance) to commit a heist involving an armored vault. A piece of string, a lantern, oil, matches, a book, a cup, an enchanted shovel, and a pair of gloves. And, a navy blue Henley

Love, LOVE this prompt. It's perfect for Kazimier💋, my shapeshifting incubus OC from my WIP 🌐7 Circles🌐

It's kinda spoiler-y, because it goes over some of Kazimier's abilities and really shows the kind of bastard he is. You've been warned.

Tonight is your final meeting with this criminal. Kazimier smirks behind his drink, an appraising glint in his mismatched eyes. "You wanna know how I did it?" he teases. He knew you did, but wanted to hear you say it anyway.

"How did you steal it?"

He leans back, swirling his glass. "So the safe in this fancy hotel was owned by a Nexi couple, right? They shipped the damn thing down from Nexis years ago an' had it installed in their always-booked penthouse suite. I woulda' sacked it a decade ago but this safe has an arcane lock, capisce?"

You shake your head no, and he rolls his eyes.

"Magic technology, unpickable. An' the only way to open this particular lock is to touch their wedding rings to this weird circle on the front, yeah? So the first thing I do is track down a mediocre fairy lantern replica."

"Wait, what?" you can help uttering, and it earns you a scoff.

"What? It's not like faeries are real, an' if they were they'd appreciate how stupid some folks are over their alleged arda'facts. The husband was one such stupid folk, and after broadcastin' that someone on the black market found a new lantern, a few fake death threats, and a well-placed comment made by a poker dealer- I got him to agree to a meeting in a car. One of them fancy Nexi ones that comes with a driver an' I made sure the person at the wheel is one on my payroll. I arrive as a representative of the auction house, shapeshifted to look like a vampiress."

"Wait, so you-"

"Had tits, yes. Along with long brown hair, skinny ankles, and a pencil skirt shorter than your attention span."

You grimace, "I wasn't going to ask about you having, uh.."

"-AAAnnyway, the moment I set down my briefcase bag it starts leakin' a sleeping gas and I keep him distracted. Soon enough he's out like a light and I crack open the hollowed out copy of 'Auctions Uncatalogued: A Dry Fuckin' History Book' for a few supplies. I knew he was a thicc bastard, so I came prepared with some oil and string to get the ring off, as well as gloves to keep the guy's taste outta my brain."

"What does that mean??"

"I'm not gonna explain how to get little rings offa big fingers, bud. Ask the internet. OH, I also filched his shirt- a blue henley kinda' thing, and his slacks. The car keeps movin' and I use his weird-Nexi-phone to call his broad, who is very occupied in some high-stakes gambling and tell 'er using her husband's voice that I need her ring to make an exchange of some Nexan technology in the safe for the super legit fairy lamp some vampire just showed me. I shapeshift into the husband, put on his clothes, and am in and out of the casino without the broad suspecting a thing. She hands me the ring, I complain bitterly about her not spendin' enough time with me, she tells me not now and goes back to her gambling. Perfect marriage. An hour later I've exchanged their top-grade arcane technology for a dinky old lamp and am waitin' around for the wife to show up." Kazimier finishes, quirking his brow as he drinks some of his cocktail.

After a few moments it seems like he;s truly done, but it might be another instance of him leading you to egg him on. "Well what happened when the wife showed up?" you ask, hooked despite yourself.

Kazimier's grin widens, "She found a brown-haired vampress in her penthouse wearing nothing but her husbands blue henley." He takes in your expression and keeps going, "The broad probably would've killed me if I didn't 'confess' that her husband had just left for the bar in the lobby with the other girl. Boy did that lie get her back out the door in an instant. From there I put a little oil in a glass cup, light it with a match, an' drop the little moltov offa' the balcony. A signal to get in position. I count to sixty and jump off myself- make my getaway."

You lean back, taking in the convoluted mind you're sitting with tonight, somewhat stunned. "Wait- Why did you need to borrow my enchanted shovel, then?" you add, happy that it was returned to you clean and unharmed the moment you sat down but curious since Kazimier said it was needed for this heist.

"Oh, that? I killed the husband." Kazimier says with a casual shrug.

"You used my shovel to bury a Nexan?!" you hiss, leaning forward. This wasn't what you expected at all when Kazimier offered you a deal.

Kazimier leans forward, all the humor gone from his face, only the tilt of his head hinting at his amusement. "I used your very unique shovel to kill, a Nexan, sunshine." He kills his drink and with a parting chuckle you and your shovel are left behind, tools that have fulfilled their use and you realize with ice in your blood why Kazimier just told you everything.

Tonight is your final meeting with this criminal.

Taggames: Taggames: @katenewmanwrites @smellyrottentrees @wyked-ao3 @lychhiker-writes @cowboybrunch @zackprincebooks @urbiggestfan-01 @quillswriting @tragedycoded

[lokiina]

WIP whenever~

Tagged by both @therealnightcity and @dreamskug

What am I doin? I'm finally actually doing things, which is the important thing. Cuz Christmas is done and stress at work has finally dropped off significantly.

Mod stuffssss: I'm almost done a super fun mod that was mostly self indulgent but I know there's a small handful of peeps out there who enjoy this band as well. An Electric Callboy vest~

It was a vanilla mesh, I added extra submeshes too and made custom decal images for. I based the design choices off their Tekkno tour gear the guys wore with the paint splatters in their colours.

I'm trying to see if I can get an emissive piece of it working and once I'm content enough I'll snap the icon pic and get it out there.

✨

Writing stuffssss: Also forever snail pace plugging away at some writing but like def don't expect that any time soon cuz I keep going back and rewriting things over and over again. Which means this lil excerpt might be entirely different when I finally post the whole thing one day. dfkjghdfkjgh but a smol piece? okeey.

"Jus’- slow down. Please. I dunno what the fuck is goin’ on. My head’s on fire, I just woke up from the world's shortest sleep and my face was in a pile of actual fur. I panicked. Fuckin’…. Start over." Dino sighed, briefly pinching the bridge of his nose, "What the hell’s goin on? Am I trippin’?" "Me…" Zayn’s eyes scanned over the man watching for his reaction, "That was me…" There was a moment of silence as Dino tried to process that. Him. He was pretty sure that it was a huge ass animal but okay. The man let out a snort and half chuckle, "What l-like a werewolf?"  Zayn stared at Dino, looking more annoyed now that it felt like he was making fun of him. "...You're shittin’ me." Dino put a hand on his forehead still processing everything. He blinked at Zayn who was unmoving realizing he was completely serious, “You’re not shittin’ me…”

I wanna go back and also properly write out all the old VP stories I did on insta too. Flesh em out more. Am I gonna be at this for like ever because I write like a snail? Probably. dkjfghkdjf

ANYWAY I'm sure almost everyone at this point has been tagged I'll slap some more anyway. Feel free to ignore if you don't feel like sharing or already did it. It's all for fun, no pressure.

@pinkyjulien @chooh2 @sammysilverdyne @elvenbeard @afterdark-vp @wraithsoutlaws

[axemetaphor]

im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

[snickiebear]

yo nadia <3333 i'm bored in my online classes and u reblogged the questions thingy at the right time lmao, so get ready: 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 23, 24, 28, 30!!!, 34, 38, 39, 40 (the intimacy of being understood) (imma stop here lol) (also i'm sorry u're not feeling well, ily and hope u'll feel better soon!! <33333)

ELE ILY. (and thank you, i’m stayin home today cause,,, yeah. i appreciate you sm.) you’re the literal best, i adore you. 

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

The first fanfiction i read was for The Lunar Chronicles when I was like 11?? and it was 100% on accident and it scarred me because it was a hardcore porn one with a period kink and i was like WHAT IS THIS??? OH MY GOD???? LMAOOOOO i didn’t pick it back up until i was 13-14 and really got into the Fairy Tail fandom. I still reread my favorites on ff.net cause i love them. 

As for writing, I wrote a horrible, terrible x-men fanfiction when I was twelve. (my friend still brings it up and REFUSES to delete it so it still gets comments and views, that shit HAUNTS ME ELE.) then tried again for Fairy Tail, posted like two chapters before taking it down cause i wasn’t really feeling it. And then I posted The Intimacy Of Being Understood and here we are. 

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

OMGG okok 

@murd3rm1ttens ‘s The Problem How Time Works IF YOU HAVENT READ THIS YOU GUYS NEED TO HOP ON IT ASAP. MITTEN’S WRITING SO SO SO SO GOOD. SAKURA AND INO ARE TOTAL BADASSES. KAKASHI IS A SIMPPPP. ITS SO FUCKING GOOD. 

@mouseymightymarvellous ‘s We Were Screaming In Color (Only A Possibility) yes, yes I KNOW. i always point into mousey’s direction but i WILL always advocate that everyone reads her fics, they’re literally so beautiful???? i just happen to be rereading WWSIN rn 

@safelycapricious ‘s Shaking Up And Breaking Down series. I found this like?? idfk but i’ve been raving about it ever since. ALSO CHECK OUT THEIR FICS IN GENERAL. 

fuck i have more than three but also check out @ambivalens999 ‘s Masks

i do wanna make a fic rec thing where i just rav about my favs,,, might do that later or sum

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

Omniscient third person. I don’t like it. Like I can understand that it can be a little hard to stay in one person’s perspective but, in my opinion, if you can, it shows how disciplined you are as a writer. Plus, i just get so confused when I go from A’s thoughts to suddenly what B is thinking about A. 

When writers use ‘ ‘ instead of “ “. When writers put thoughts in ‘ ‘ instead of just italicizing them. It’s small things but like they just bother me sO MUCH. most of the time i can ignore it and try to enjoy but other times i just dip. 

9. Tag 3 fic writers you think are underrated/unknown in the fandom/fanfiction community.

@espoir-et-reves !!!!! THEIR SHISAKU FICS ARE SO SO SO SO SO GOOD. And they have a warring states one going on THAT I AM SO OBSESSED WITH. 

@writer168 idk if they’re really “underrated” but THEY HAVE SUCH GREAT FICS ON AO3. Like theres an AU with sakura, kiba, and shino that i reread constantly because it just. is. so. fucking. GOOD. and they posted a new one that i’m YELLING about. 

@eggtoasties okay they only have 2 in the naruto fandom (one shisaku which is still ongoing) BUT THEIR WRITING STYLE IS SO NICE?? I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I still go back and reread their shikasaku one cause UGH i can’t get enough. I love it. 

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Fandoms: Naruto, Soul Eater, The Old Guard, ATLA

Parings: KakaSaku/ShikaSaku/ShiSaku/MultiSaku, SoMa, Joe X Nicky, Zukka

Character: SAKURA. I will read anything with Sakura as the main character and her being a fuckin badass or becoming a badass. I love her.

17. How obsessively do you sit and stare at your fic after you’ve just posted and wait for feedback?

aha.. haha.. well. I check my email like three times an hour. its the first thing i check in the mornings too. I’m literally a whore for praise and literally eat up feedback like its going out of style. I also reread a lot of my stuff because i make so many mistakes and spelling errors, or the spacing is weird oR SOMETHING. plus, literally any and all comments make my day, i go back and reread them cause they just make me feel so tingly and warm like “wow. this person enjoyed the fic/my writing enough to tell me. thats HUGE!”

23. What’s your absolute favorite trope to write?

Angry, feral, bloodied, morally gray women. They aren’t bad guys, they’re probably the good guy, but that doesn’t mean they cant be fucking raging at the world with raw knuckles and blood on their teeth. I just love an angry woman who struggles with her emotions and just has so much inner conflict but that doesn’t take away from her character or badassery, it adds to it. 

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

The fake dating or miscommunication troupe. LIKE GUYS JUST TALK. AND TELL EACH OTHER OMFG. the entire like obliviousness of “nah they dont like me” while the They holds their hand and kisses their cheek. MOFO WHAT. it makes me so impatient and like mad HAAHHAHA. its probably because i’m a pretty confrontational person so seeing stuff like that just “cmon bro, USE YO HEAD.”

28. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie: pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc)?

I have yet to receive a negative comment! Which i was really surprised about tbh. As for deadlines or pressure to update, i just kind of do whatever. I do set goals, but i set them flexible enough that hey, if i can’t do it, that’s okay. 

I have a lot of mini goals, like “i want to write this chapter and get it done this week” and then the large goal is “FINISH BY END OF MAY” so i have time. 

Actually, now that I think on it, the entire pressure to update thing is probably why i’m waiting until I have all of OL&W written to post it weekly,, cause well. I wouldn’t wanna leave you guys waiting as I tried to write and work out the next chapters and stuff, you know?

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

AAAAAA YOU KNOW I LOVE THESE AHAHAHAH

Have you seen the way the dead dance, World Breaker? They roar, half mad and starving. Do you not wish, do you not hope to see them twist and bend and dance to your will?

Shikamaru snarls, looking behind his shoulders to where his Shadows lay. “Patience.” He spits. “Is of the essence, Things of Ancient. Know your place as the dark you are.”

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

None of my experiences match up to anything I write tbh,,, probably the only thing that is me in my writing is maybe the emotional turmoil? I’m pretty emotionally and mentally mature because from a pretty young age i started forming my own opinions, started looking into the world around us and being like “dude what the fuck this is not what disney advertised”. Then i started talking (read: arguing and debating) with my dad about a lot of it. So, like emotions are kind of hard for me. Like i’m pretty good at controlling them or understanding them, but still. idk its hard to explain ig.

Like the weight of stress, the anger, the sadness. It’s kind of therapeutic to write. Cause i don’t know how to put those feelings to verbal words so writing them really helps. 

As for my readers’ image? Probably like some kind of hunched over figure typing away in the dark with a maniacal grin on their face. I honestly don’t know AHHAHAHA but it is fun to think about. I think they’d see me as someone with potential but a lot of room to grow and someone who is imperfect but in a charming way LMAOOOO

38. What does your writing process look like? How chaotic is it on a scale of 1 (very tame) to 10 (you can’t handle this kind of chaos)?

I’m gonna be real honest. Its probably like a 2. I’m a bit of a control freak so I almost always go in chronological order, my writing is pretty linear. Unless, i get bored and jump to one of my fav parts. It's pretty much i sit down, i open the doc, read over my notes and just start writing. 

It’s a little boring to explain AHAHAHA but once i get into the groove of things its really fucking great, I can like feel myself in the world, I can feel what i want the characters to, i love it. I catch myself mouthing the words as i type too, which i find hilarious.

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I rather like how raw my writing is sometimes. Which might sound really vain, but i do like the way i word things or describe things. I love juxtaposition and repetition, or making a good ole circle back to some minute detail that wouldn’t stand out until i repeat it at the end and you’re like “omg” AHAHAHAHA.

Like those little poetic snippets or certain wording i just sit back and go “damn thats kinda good nadia! go you!’ HAHAHA  

40. How did you come up with the idea for The Intimacy Of Being Understood?

AAAAA this fic is like my first child, my pride and joy LMAO

so the idea initially came when i was reading some fic, idk if it was even naruto, but i was like “i don't like this, but i do like the rain symbolism.” And I knew i wanted to write something kind of slow paced, something a little sad and angsty, but would show KakaSaku slowly but surely falling in love.

Idk if you’ve noticed but a lot of my fics, the pairings don’t change each other dramatically. They accept each other as they are and then they grow with together. Like that acceptance is something i just love writing, its so subtle, it isn’t something you declare. Its simply “I am going to love you. I am going to love you despite your flaws and faults. I am going to love you unconditionally because I know you, I understand you, and there is nothing you could do to drive me away.” 

The fic kind of wrote itself after that first scene. I kept going back to the rain, go being ghosts, and resurrection, and the small epiphanies one gets. I wanted to focus on each character’s growth with each other. They didn’t find light in life because of each other, but with each other. And i think that’s my favorite thing about that fic. 

I wanted something raw and real and just something beautiful. I’m actually really proud of it tbh. Would i go back and rewrite/edit it? Oh of course! I’d do that with every single one of my fics, but i’m not gonna cause i think its in its rawest form right now. :))))

ask me shit plz

[deanmarywinchester]

3, 4, 20

hi noa, hope your firefighters are winning!!!

ok these answers are gonna be about my wip that I’ve been calling “wife dean fic” but that’s titled “men like me,” which is an alternate s13 in which dean says yes to au michael during the widow arc

4: Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

I just really like this bit from dean and cas’s reunion. “did it look cool like in the movies” ass

But out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Michael’s true form lunge, and Jack yelps, and the world dissolves into nothingness.

An eyeblink later, the three of them are back in the bunker, and Jack’s saying “Oh, I guess I can fly with passengers now! Cool,” and Dean’s saying, automatic, “I told you, flying sounds stupid. Call it teleporting. Like Star Trek,” and then it all becomes too much for him, the fight and Michael and the inexpert flying and the way he froze all over when Cas appeared, and he’s throwing up on the war room floor.

20: what’s some meta (themes, symbolism, characterization) you want to ramble to people about?

one of the things im trying my best to get right is having jack learn “do as I say, not as I do” from Sam. sam considers jack worth standing up for in ways where he won’t stand up for himself, and protects jack in ways where he’s willing to throw his own life away. and Jack’s learning from Sam’s actions, not his words

3: what is one scene you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be bothered to write all the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it anyway)

THANK you for this question which I will shamelessly use to post a scene that it’s killing me to cut bc I had to cut the context. below the cut, a newly vampired Max Banes talks hunting with dean. it’s from an earlier version where sam’s hunter community is made of OG hunters not au hunters, but I ended up having to use au hunters as a shorthand. SOME version of this scene is going in my next (banes-centric) fic, i hope!

“You’re taking this pretty well.”

Max gives a short laugh, like he’s testing it out to see if he can find the humor in it. Dean isn’t sure if he succeeds. “Yeah, well. Vampires. Kinda hot, honestly, maybe I’ll pull better with a certain type of guy.”

“You sure you want that type of guy? I’ve met the kind of chicks who are into that Twilight crap, and man, they are not worth the effort.”

“Yeah.” Max’s mouth turns down at his reflection in the rearview mirror, and then he bares his fangs consideringly. “Not exactly Edward Cullen, but this is cooler. More useful than his teeth on a hunt until I can get it fixed, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

“You’re still hunting?”

“Hah. Yeah, I get why that would be surprising. You, I know you have some sort of demon trauma, whatever. Me and Alicia, we weren’t raised to hunt monsters, though. We were raised to hunt witches. And witches are, they’re fuckin’ human, man. I don’t know.”

He pries up his lip to study the way his fangs retract in the mirror, avoiding Dean’s eye. Not that Dean is too interested in interrupting, anyway. He’s no good when people get philosophical about whatever got them this far in the life, so he tends to clam up and let them say what they’re going to say. They usually do.

Max isn’t an exception. “You know I was fifteen,” he says, his voice carefully conversational, “the first time I put Mama’s sawn-off against the back of a man’s neck. By that time, he’d killed eight people. Low-level hex bags, pretty amateur stuff, but the victims had no way of stopping him. I did. So I stopped him.

“I got home and I told Alicia what I did, and she just started crying. Like, instant waterworks, I’ve never seen her like that before or since. And I just knew she was thinking, I’m a witch. What if someone does that to me? What if it’s you?

“So after that, Alicia and me took a long vacation from our mom. She was pretty pissed, but she understood. And we decided, you know, that we would keep doing what we were trained to do, but not if we could help it. If we can bind witches, we bind them. If we can reason with them, we reason with them. If they’re just some poor idiot who needs to be taught or threatened into not getting into more than is good for them, we do that. But if not--” Max cocks an imaginary shotgun, the gesture practiced and ironic. “I’m not stupid. I know we’re probably going to hell for being judge, jury, and executioner. But we do our best to keep people from getting killed, either by witches or, you know. Me.”

Dean lets the silence stretch out. Tries to picture sudden, unstoppable tears on Alicia’s face, where he’s only ever seen determination or a cocky grin. Thinks about Dad telling him he might have to put Sam down like a mean dog that can’t be trusted. Thinks about Jack--

Max shoots a glance at Dean in the rearview mirror and glances down, looking suddenly self-conscious. He flips his sunglasses back on, too studied a gesture to be as nonchalant as he wants it to come off. “Look at me, giving you my whole sob story when I know you’ve seen worse. You old-school hunters, man, you’re the most emotionless, John Wayne bastards I ever met. You still wash your wounds with whiskey or are you not too cool for store-brand antibiotics?”

Dean feels a pang at that. The guy’s got him wrong, not that he knows how to communicate that. “Nah, cool won’t cure an infection, I learned that the hard way. And. You know.” He glances over at Max, catches him fidgeting with the arm of his sunglasses. Wills him to understand the hand he’s reaching out to Max. “Tough thing for a kid to do. Any kid.”

Max lets out a short breath, surprised. “Yeah, well. Guy had it coming. At least if I have to kill a witch, I know they dug their own grave. Creatures, though, they sound like a lot more trouble than they're worth. Don’t know how you can tell which ones are gonna be a problem.”

“You can’t,” Dean says. “Some hunters put down any they can get their hands on. Some let ‘em go if they seem harmless enough. Sam and I’ve done a little of both.” And both have gone bad on us, Dean thinks but doesn't say. Both have left him waking up feeling like a heavy weight was pressing down on him, a weight of something he did, a worry that he let a killer go.

“Well, I promise not to bite anyone that doesn’t deserve it, and you promise to tell me if you’re going through one of your kill-anything-with-fangs phases, deal?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, man,” Dean says, low. Something in his voice makes Max look to him, then back out the window again.

[pynkhues]

i know that the audacity of what im about to ask is off the charts bc you're already too good to us, writing fic left and right and updating a lot soon but im SO weak over the parenting group!AU that im right here to beg for a snippet of it, if you feel like sharing!

Haha, the audacity is not off the charts at all! I can give you a snippet! Sorry it’s coming a little later – when you sent this to me this morning, I was like ‘oh god, everything I have is too ugly to post’ haha, so it gave me an excuse to tidy up a scene I’d drafted already which is fun! 

I will say as just a heads up, I’m operating now on a one-out-one-in system for multi-chaptered WIPs. So when I finish CYF (which is basically done, just got to post the epilogue!), I’ll be starting to post the pirate au, and when I finish See You in the Light, I’ll be starting to post this parents group au, and then finally when I finish If It Wasn’t for All the Lights, I’ll start to post the BDSM au! It’s probably a deeply flawed system, but it’s the one I’m going ahead with, haha.

Anyway! 

A snippet of the parents group au!

“C’mon, pop,” Rio grunts, trying to get the tabs free on the side of the diaper as Marcus kicks out his legs, squirming up the back of the change mat like he’s trying to slip up on out of the thing, and shit, the last thing he needs is the kid to smear Rhea’s Earth Mama Angel Bottom Balm up the back of his new hoodie.

“I have spare diapers if you need to borrow one,” Beth says at the change table beside him, having apparently gotten Jane into her new one in record speed, and Rio lets his gaze stick for a second, watching as she makes even easier work of getting Jane’s thrashing legs back into her pink polka dot leggings, like it’s nothing at all. It’s enough to make his jaw rock, his attention twisting back to Marcus, trying to get the tab unstuck again, but his fingers are still oily with the diaper rash cream, and Marcus’ face is gettin’ redder, and he just can’t get his grip.

He tugs Marcus back towards him, dropping a hand to his son’s belly, tickling a little to try and calm him down, even as he levels Beth with an irritated look.

“Yeah, what part of this looks like the diaper’s the issue?”

Somewhere outside, he hears her friend laughing, the sound loud and warm over the pinging arcade machines and the banging of the bowling balls hitting the polished floor of the lanes, the crack of one hitting pins, and - - and he ain’t being fair.

Knows that.

It’s not her fault he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.

Still, when he glances sideways at her again, she’s unbothered by his tone – not pissed like Rhea would be, or wounded like his ma – and something about that bothers him more than it should. Instead, Beth shrugs, fixing her gaze back down on her daughter.

“It just looks like it’s one of those organic ones, right?” she says, gently lifting Jane to put her onto her belly for a few minutes of tummy time – just like Nance had told ‘em to in class – before turning to better look at Rio, her eyes tired as she watches him yank again on the tab of Marcus’ diaper. “I tried those with Kenny, and I just find the tabs always - -”

Riiiiiiiip.

He can feel his pulse in his throat as his cream-covered fingers clench around a handful of torn diaper, can feel it even harder behind his eyes, his blood thrumming hot beneath his skin and damn, it ain’t anger, it’s just - -

Fuckin’ exhaustion.

He pulls the diaper out from underneath Marcus’ bare, wet-with-diaper-cream ass and stamps his foot hard down on the peddle of the bin beside the change table, tossing the whole damn thing in with more force than necessary, and he’s expecting Elizabeth to have that look on her face again – that one that’s some mix of pity and judgement or even worry at seein’ a guy like him snap – but it ain’t even really a look at all. She’s just magicked up one of her kids’ diapers from that Mary Poppins bag of hers, and holds it out to him.

“If you loosen the tabs and open it up a bit before you get it under him it’ll be easier too,” she offers, and Rio grunts, plucking it from her hand and fixing his attention back on Marcus’ flailing legs, sucking in a breath to calm his frayed nerves, before gently lifting his son again to get the diaper up underneath him, adjusting it to get it in the right spot, trying to avoid Marcus’ kicking feet, and it’s just - - sudden.

That’s the thing.

Because Marcus’ legs calm down right in time with Beth’s arm suddenly pressing into Rio’s, and Rio blinks up to see Beth reached over and her finger is curled in Marcus’ tiny fish, and Rio tears his confused gaze away from Beth to look up and see his son smiling, that one that makes him look like the whole damn sun, and he keeps smiling, even when he shoves his fist – still clutchin’ Beth’s finger – right up into his mouth.

And he’s gonna stop it – ain’t like he loves other people’s kids chewing on his knuckles – but he finally gets Marcus properly into the clean diaper, and before he can do anything else, Beth’s just started talking.

“That is a strong grip,” she whispers, so quiet it’s almost like she doesn’t want Rio to hear, and her voice is light and bright in a way he ain’t really used to hearing. “And very warm slobber, which is what you want from slobber. I mean, can you even imagine cold slobber? Like a ghost. I will say Billy from class has some weirdly cold slobber, so you stay away from him, mister.”

Rio just - - blinks, his brow furrows, his lips parting, but when he opens them all the way, no words come out. Instead he just stands there like a dumbass, watching this woman half-bent over her kid and his at the change table of a bowling alley, her strawberry blonde hair falling down, concealing her face so all Rio can see is his son’s, and how whatever it is she’s doing makes his son happy, and he can’t really explain any of it, but he just - -

“Oh my god, Paulie! Twins!”

“Amber, don’t - -”

Whatever Paulie was about to say is lost to the rest of the parents’ room as Rio spins to see a skinny, leggy blonde thrust a toddler with milkshake-vomit down his shirt at some guy with frosted tips like this is the fuckin’ 90s, and dart towards them in a wave of too-sweet perfume. She’s so fuckin’ quick (or maybe just - - y’know - - awake given her kid’s old enough to vomit milkshake instead of formula), instantly peering over at Marcus and Jane on the change tables, an easier feat now that Beth’s standing up again, her finger reclaimed, rolling Jane back onto her back on the mat.

Amber’s cooing is instant, and Rio sighs, grabbing Marcus’ pants from where he’d slung them over his shoulder and starting to shake them out.

“Oh my goooodddd, they’re like those ones you see on TV! Paulie!! Look!! Like, one’s just like mommy, and one’s just like daddy.”

Which - - Rio blinks, looking sideways at Beth, who just seems to be watching Amber with that same neutral, Stepford Wife-look she gets in class. Rio sets his jaw, shaking his head, as he starts to bunch the pants up in his hands, ready to put them on Marcus, opening his mouth to correct the other woman.

“Nah, they ain’t - -”

“You think so?”

The words are offered so suddenly, so sharply, that Rio’s head spins back around to look at Beth again, his eyebrows raised at her interruption, but she doesn’t look back at him, just keeps her gaze fixed on Amber. She wrinkles her nose a little, purses her lips, before dropping a hand back to the change table while leaning forwards a little, almost conspiratorially.

“We’ve been thinking about signing them up for auditions, but I don’t know,” she waves a hand suddenly at Rio, who only blinks at her. “James here thinks it might not be the best idea.”

And okay, for starters, fuckin’ James? She really wants to play him like that? But also - - just - - y’know. What the fuck? Rio stares at her, taking in her widening eyes and her baggy mama sweater that does exactly zero to hide the fact that she’s stacked, but also the fact that she’s holdin’ herself kinda different all of a sudden. Like she’s caught him looking, her gaze darts towards him, and it’s so quick he almost misses it, the way she just sort of - -

Shrugs.

Rio scoffs a little – a sound Amber clearly reads as about the audition and not about this whole damn show – and turns around, putting on a smile for Marcus as he finishes bunching up the pants and pushing them up over his tiny feet.

“Men are always weird about this stuff, but you guys should totally be auditioning them! Like, I could literally see them in commercials for formula. You know they always put the cutest ones in them, because they want to trick regular people into thinking that their product’s gonna like, magic you a better-looking baby.”

Which - - look, Rio can’t exactly say it’s a surprise. He’s pretty sure his sister changed her kids’ brand of juice because one of the ads had one of the little girl’s playin’ Daisy Doctor instead of Holly Housewife. His thoughts are interrupted though when Marcus sneezes, and Rio leans over enough to grab a tissue from Beth’s diaper bag, vaguely aware of Paulie rounding the change tables for the sink, and tugging off his own kids’ shirt and it’s really only then that Rio realises he hasn’t even blinked at the smell of vomit, which - -

Okay, actually, that could be the fifteen years working in a bar.

“You know, I think I’ve heard that,” Beth says, and the girl makes a humming noise, her bowling shoes tapping a little on the tiled floor.

“Well, that’s an insider secret for you. I lived in LA for like, ever. It was almost two years. I mean, closer to one, but that’s basically 40 Hollywood years. I even once auditioned to play a mom in a Baby’s Only commercial. I mean I didn’t get it, but I think it was because I was like, too in shape, y’know?”

Which - - shit, Rio coughs a little to cover a sound he doesn’t even know, a laugh? A scoff? Why the hell is she even talkin’ to this woman?

“Wow,” Beth says though, her voice loaded with concern. “That’s gotta be discrimination.”

“I know right?”

And it’s Jane who wobbles at least, her bottom lip quivering, her legs kicking, and Beth turns around instantly, humming softly back down at her daughter, and before Rio can help it, his gaze darts over to her, watching as her face softens, her eyes glaze over, like they do sometimes, and he thinks of saying somethin’ to her, but shit, what? He doesn’t know jack about her.

A wave of perfume hits them again, and the second he finishes getting Marcus’ pants on, picks him up, turns around at the same time Beth does with Jane, Amber’s right in front of them, her gaze darting between Jane and Marcus, like she’s not sure which one to look at first.

Finally, she just sighs, clutching a hand forlornly to her chest.

“Like, I’m not even kidding. You made two really nice babies. Like, Paulie, tell them I’m not kidding.”

Over at the sink, Paulie grunts again, holding the toddler’s shirt under a furious stream of water, and Rio stares for a minute, watching the guy morosely clean up toddler vomit while the kid licks the rim of the sink. Rio resists the urge to gag as he bounces Marcus a little on his hip.  

“How’d you two even meet anyway?”

And at least that much he should’ve expected. Rio shakes his head, gaze fixing back on Amber, the words ready on his tongue, but before he can say a damn thing, Beth’s cut him off again.

“It sounds so weird, but it was actually at an underwater research center.”

Which - - okay - - what?

His gaze flicks back to Beth, but she ain’t looking back at him. She’s just got Jane curled into her chest, nestling her face into her breast, while Beth hums a little, just - - blatantly fuckin’ lying.

“I was studying - - ” outside, a bowling ball hits the floor hard. “How sound affects  - -“ she fingers her pearl necklace with the hand not clutching Jane, “Oysters, because I am a scientist, and James here was researching - - ” Beth’s gaze darts around, fixing on Marcus in Rio’s arms. “Marco Polo.”

Before Rio’s even had time to catch up to that, Paulie blinks up, confused, from his spot at the sink.

“In Detroit?”

It’s enough to make Beth stutter, her eyes blinking rapidly, and he really should just leave her to fix this herself, should leave her there gaping like a fish, scrambling for the tail-end of her own lie, and get back out to the group, but - - Rio sucks in a breath - - Marcus would be bare-assed right now if it wasn’t for her.

“Nah, man, west coast. We just moved back here to be close to family with the twins,” he drawls with a shrug, and maybe that makes it worth it – how quickly Beth reels around to look at him, and  - - shit, have her eyes always been that blue? Rio blinks, jerks his head back around to Amber, rolling his shoulders back to undo the sudden knot in them. “One of those things, yeah? We met workin’ out there, but turned out we were both from here.”

He means to leave it at that. Should, really, but all he can think about is her in class – prim and proper and that look again, like she’s judging him, and she got them into this, right? Before he can think twice, he drops his free hand to her lower back, smoothing it around to hold the soft hip furthest from him, smiling toothlessly as Beth stiffens and then pointedly, deliberately, relaxes, while Amber holds her hand to her chest again, hums an: “Aww, that’s how you know it’s meant to be!”

“That’s right,” Rio replies, and he watches Beth turn her face up to meet him, her gaze darting across his face like she’s trying to figure something out, and shit, he’s just trying to match what she’s laying down. After a moment, Beth spins into him, her free arm dipping around his back, and something in him sparks hot and he just - - he hadn’t known how fucking small her hands were until one squeezes at his waist.

“Right, honey,” she says, voice high and too-sweet. “I was just so lucky. And speaking of our families, we should really get back to them.”

After that, it’s easy enough to pack up the last of the diaper bags, for Amber to dip down to help Paulie and the kid, and for them to slip out again under the distraction, and it’s just fuckin’ weird, he thinks, to watch that little character Beth had invented – all ease and charm – slip off her shoulders like a cloak, and he means to let it go, because what skin is it off his nose if she’s some sort of pathological liar? But as they duck between the groups of sprawling teenagers and middle America families ordering fries and picking bowling ball weights, guys shoving each other at arcade games, and kids feeding quarters into claw machines, he just - - itches.

So maybe he steps a little slower, matching her pace, maybe he looks at her, amused, a little goading as he says: “So you in some secret, new mama improv group, or what?”

And Beth just - -

Shrugs, and shit, she doesn’t even look at him when she says:

“You don’t ever get bored of just being you?”

Rio blinks, his step slowing all over again, taking in her tired look, the diaper bag slung over her shoulder, that shirt she’s wearing, stained with grubby children’s fingers and milk, that damn new mama smell that’s always up his nose with her, and he just thinks - - nah, not really, but before he has the chance to say it, it’s like she’s read it on his face. She hoists a snuffling Jane up a little higher and moves faster than she has any right to. Back across the bowling alley, back into their lane, nestled in the shelter between her friend and her sister, away from him.

[galwednesday]

So back in the summer 2016, I wrote 18k of an immediately post-CA:TWS Shrinkyclinks AU with the working title The Lion and the Mouse, then got distracted and mostly abandoned it. When I was writing Bait and Switch, I stole the concept of how Steve and Bucky met from this WIP, not thinking much about it because I wrote Bait and Switch quickly and didn’t expect to go anywhere with it. Except then people asked for more, and specifically the story of how they met, with Steve saving Bucky from an attempted mugging. Which I, uh, stole. From myself.

I’m doing some writing file clean-out today and when I looked at The Lion and the Mouse I discovered the first 4,000 words are almost entirely complete, up to and including the part where Steve and Bucky meet, so I’m posting it here. This isn’t in the same universe as Bait and Switch, but it’s what I was thinking of when I was writing their character dynamics, and I thought it might interest people who had asked for Bait and Switch’s thwarted-mugging scene.

“Have we met?” Iron Man asked. “Because I gotta say, there’s something familiar about you. But that awesome cyborg arm, which, by the way, you should stop trying to punch me with, I would definitely have remembered, so--” Iron Man failed to dodge the Asset’s grab and was thrown upside-down into the wall of the helicarrier. He stuck there for a moment before falling face-first onto the floor. “Maybe not.”

The Asset scaled the closest ladder in under three seconds. Iron Man was a distraction, not the primary target.

The Asset climbed onto the catwalk and ran towards the Widow. She was ignoring the fight behind her, too busy tampering with something on the control panel.

Targeting system, a dispassionate voice in the Asset’s head supplied. The Asset disregarded the thought as irrelevant. It couldn’t help deducing information based on passive observation, but it had never been encouraged to know more than it was told.

It threw a knife at the Widow’s back. She moved impossibly quickly, turning so the knife passed harmlessly to one side, but that brought her nearly within the Asset’s reach. The Asset lunged forward--

Iron Man lurched over the edge of the catwalk and slammed into the Asset’s side, knocking them both down to the lowest level of the helicarrier, the glass underbelly. The ground drifted past deceptively slowly beneath them. The helicarrier was riding low enough that the Asset could see river water quaking from the repulsor engines’ vibrations.

(continues beyond the cut)

“We’re not done, terminator.” Iron Man tried to pin the Asset’s left wrist, but the Asset had already torn off one of his gauntlets and his one-handed grip wasn’t strong enough. The Asset locked its thighs around Iron Man’s waist and threw its body into a twist. Iron Man rolled with the spin and fired his remaining hand repulsor to gain extra momentum, trying to break free of the Asset’s grip.

The repulsor blast must have hit an already damaged support pillar. One moment the Asset was rolling Iron Man onto the floor like a beetle onto its back, and the next the Asset was stunned and gasping, lying face-up and pinned by a metal beam across its abdomen and chest. The beam was too heavy to lift. The Asset was trapped.

“And the Soldier’s finally down. Jesus.” Iron Man pulled his booted foot free of the fallen beam and staggered upright. “Romanoff, you good?”

“Swap made.” The Widow’s voice was light. “We have seven minutes until the fireworks start.”

“Great.” Iron Man shook his foot, the boot repulsor flickering on and off like a dying lightbulb. “I’m down to one and a half repulsors, so if I’m piggybacking you out of here it’s going to get pretty bumpy.”

Their earpieces crackled, a woman’s voice talking about a helicopter en route. The Asset didn’t bother to listen.

Mission failure. Fear washed through the Asset, cryo-cold. Mission failures were unacceptable. It must not fail the mission.

The Asset braced its elbows against the floor. It set its boots flat against the glass below and pushed up with its hips, ignoring the screaming agony spiraling through its abdomen.

“Easy there, tough guy, you’re going to rupture something. Correction, JARVIS tells me you have ruptured several somethings, and now you’re making it worse. Hill, better send paramedics with the chopper if you want the Soldier to live long enough for interrogation.”

Interrogation sent another pulse of terror down the Asset’s spine. It could remain silent despite almost anything, had been given plenty of practice, but interrogation was never easy to endure.

“You know, you really do look familiar.” Iron Man’s head tilted and his faceplate popped up. He narrowed his eyes at the Asset’s face. “JARVIS, run facial recognition on our party crasher.”

The Asset automatically noted that Iron Man was now vulnerable to a throwing knife to the eye, but both its hands were occupied and killing Iron Man wouldn’t salvage the mission. Mission failure mission failure mission failure.

The Widow appeared over the edge of the gangplank. She took in the situation at a glance and gave Iron Man an exasperated look. “For God’s sake, Stark. Keep your faceplate down until the Soldier is disarmed.” For a moment the Asset saw that same face, with the same annoyed line between her eyebrows, but smaller and rounder. A little girl’s pout laid over eyes that were decades too old.

Malfunction, the Asset thought.

Iron Man didn’t seem to hear her. His head snapped back to face the Asset, his eyes widening. “What? JARVIS, repeat that.”

The whine of its arm’s servos increased in pitch as the Asset strained harder. Fire radiated out from its sternum as additional ribs fractured under the pressure. The beam didn’t move.

The panel of glass beneath the Asset did.

The panel separated from one side of its metal housing with a sharp crack. The Asset watched the gap grow wider by inches, slow but inexorable. The seam was going to fail, and the Asset was going to fall.

The Asset stopped pushing against the beam, letting its body go lax against the slowly shifting glass. There was no way to prevent it. And it was fitting, somehow, that the Asset should die by falling.

The Asset didn’t know why. The Asset knew a lot of things without knowing how it knew them.

Iron Man didn’t notice the panel sagging. His eyes, brown and heavy-browed and incomprehensibly familiar, stared at the Asset’s face.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

The glass gave way.

The Asset fell.

Before it hit the water, words formed somewhere in the whirling chaos behind the Asset’s eyes, shaping themselves in accordance with a long-forgotten accent.

Fuckin’ finally.

[[PROBABLY A CHAPTER BREAK]]

The Asset hadn’t expected to survive the fall. The shock of water closing over its head prompted its body to struggle automatically, kicking towards the light in search of oxygen. Once it was breathing and treading water, extraction training kicked in.

The Asset dragged itself to shore and wove a muddy trail through the parks and back alleys of the city, concealing its passage on autopilot. It tore a strip off its undershirt to tie over the bullet wound in its thigh. Pursuers might have sniffer dogs. The Asset must avoid leaving a blood trail.

Iron Man’s parting words played on repeat. Sergeant Barnes? There was something right-but-not-right about Iron Man’s face, about the Widow’s face, something known-but-not-known. Stark, she had called him. His face, his voice, that name, Sergeant Barnes? The Asset’s head buzzed with dissonance.

The Asset didn’t expect to survive the confrontation with its handlers. The Asset had already known it was scheduled for decommissioning. The technicians routinely forgot how acute its hearing was and discussed forbidden topics where the Asset couldn’t help but overhear; it never drew attention to this in case it was punished for listening. The Asset had known before it even reached the helicarrier that this was to be its final mission. Its failure just proved the handlers right. It had grown unstable, erratic, ineffective. The Asset was a tool that had outlived its usefulness.

The Asset reported in because that was how all the its missions ended, and it didn’t know to do anything different in case of mission failure, but it wouldn’t have surprised the Asset to be greeted with a bullet to the brain as soon as it walked into the bank.

Instead, the five technicians in the vault nearly pissed themselves when the Asset appeared, silent as ever even though it couldn’t stand fully upright. Most of the broken ribs were on its right side where the beam had struck. Its abdomen felt worse than the the ribs, or the gunshot wound in its left thigh, but the Asset could feel its body already working to repair the damage. Soft tissue damage healed quickly. It would survive these injuries, if it was allowed to.

“M-mission report,” one of the technicians stammered. That wasn’t proper procedure, handlers were the ones who debriefed the Asset, but there were no handlers present to report to.

The Asset gave its report anyway. Anticipation of punishment was worse than pain, and it didn’t want to wait. It was going to be decommissioned anyway. What was a protocol violation compared to the mission failure it was about to recount?

The Asset’s summary of events made the technicians draw together in a frightened huddle. Two of them kept glancing at the door, either hopeful or worried about who might come through next. Another, the quietest and calmest, snuck two quick looks at the bulletin board the Asset knew concealed a wall safe containing cash and emergency supplies. The other two appeared to be in a state of shock.

“Fuck,” one whispered when the Asset finished. “The news was right. Shit, oh shit.”

“Does that mean Pierce is really dead?”

“The STRIKE teams haven’t checked in. If they were on the helicarriers--”

“They must be dead, too. Or arrested.”

“Christ, look at all these files.” One technician was at a computer, her face frantic as she typed. “They released everything. Everything.”

“What about this address? Is this base burned?”

“Fuck, forget about the base, what about our addresses? Our names?”

“Stop trying to grab the keyboard, look on your own fucking computer!”

The technicians bickered while the Asset stood against the wall. Nobody had told it to do anything else.

The wait gave its ribs time to knit back together. The searing pain in its abdomen lessened, slowly fading into the deep ache of bruising instead of the acute fire of rupture. The Asset was extremely thirsty, but nobody had given it water. The gunshot wound in its thigh reopened as its body worked to expel the embedded bullet. Eventually the bullet dropped down its pant leg, resting on the top of its boot.

Its mind rattled. It hurt, conflicting thoughts grinding against each other, forbidden memories and whistling gaps. The chair would scrape the confusion away, but the chair--

The Asset didn’t like the chair.

The quietest technician wasn’t searching for information like the others. He was sitting at his desk, thinking, watching the other technicians. Watching the Asset. Sweat gathered at his temples and darkened his hair.

The Asset tracked his movements when the quiet technician pulled a pistol from a desk drawer.

The other technicians were facing away, arguing among themselves and distracted by their computers. Easy targets.

The armed technician killed the others. He was fast and fairly professional about it, needing no more than three bullets per target before they stayed down, but it was loud and messy all the same. The shots echoed in the enclosed space despite the vault’s sound-proofing, bleeding into one staccato cacophony.

The Asset watched silently as the technician swallowed hard and readjusted his grip on the pistol. He lowered it to his side.

“Asset,” the technician said. He pulled the bulletin board off the wall. “Open this safe.”

The Asset didn’t know the combination of the safe, but it was an older model and had never been built to stand up to a weapon like the Asset’s arm. One heave on the door handle pulled the entire safe from its wall housing. The movement reopened the Asset’s wounds, sending more acid through its abdomen and a rush of hot blood down its thigh, but the pain wasn’t mission relevant. It could be ignored.

The Asset threw the safe across the room. It smashed corner-first into the reinforced vault door and burst open, spilling its contents onto the floor.

“Jesus Christ! You crazy fucker.” The technician glared at the Asset. “There are grenades in there, fuck.”

The Asset felt a little indignant. The technician should have included this information in the mission briefing if he felt it was relevant. The watching part of the Asset, the part that eavesdropped on handlers and kept its conclusions to itself, thought that the technician was a poor substitute for a handler. He didn’t observe the proper protocols. Probably didn’t know the proper protocols.

Running scared, the watching part Asset thought. Pierce was dead. The STRIKE teams were dead or captured. Hydra’s files had been released to the world. Low-level Hydra agents would be running scared.

If there was one emotion the Asset could reliably recognize, one pattern of behavior it could predict, it was fear.

Who was authorized to command the Asset, with Pierce and Rumlow out of commission? Who was authorized to punish the Asset for mission failure? Who would issue corrections for disobedience?

The watching part of the Asset unfurled and stretched.

The technician glanced up from where he was kneeling by the safe, scooping bundled papers and bricks of cash into a paper bag. He jerked his chin at the Asset’s thigh, which was still oozing blood. “Can you fight with that?”

It was a stupid question. The Asset’s internal ruptures were far more limiting to mission performance than a mostly-healed flesh wound. But the technician had never ordered the Asset to report its full status, so he was unaware of the extent of the damage. Not a handler, the Asset reminded itself. Its pulse picked up with an emotion it couldn’t identify, something like the feeling of checking weapons before a firefight.

“Functional for moderate combat,” the Asset reported. It added, because the technician was clearly not going to think of it on his own, “Rehydration necessary.”

The technician took a coffee cup from one of the desks, filled it from the water cooler in the corner, and pressed it into the Asset’s hands. The Asset drained it quickly before it could be taken away. The water was cool and pleasantly tasteless, much better than the noxious river water it had swallowed earlier or the nutrient IVs it was usually given. Evidently there were advantages to not having a real handler.

The technician looked at the chair and frowned. The Asset’s grip on the coffee mug tightened, but the technician was a cryo specialist. He didn’t know how to use the chair, and he had just killed the technicians that did.

“Fuck it,” the technician muttered. He grabbed the bags of cash and weapons and jerked his head at the door. “Asset, move out.”

***

The technician waved the Asset into the passenger’s seat of one of the field vans, not the black one that rode heavy with armor plating, but the white one with “RUSTY’S PLUMBING - RESULTS GUARANTEED!” painted on its side in big, looping letters. He put the bags of cash and weapons into the back and tucked his pistol into a holster hidden under his blue windbreaker. He put on a headset and connected it to his phone before he started driving, pulling onto I-95 and heading north.

“Buckle your seat belt,” the technician ordered. The Asset complied. It was good to ride in the front of a vehicle, with a full range of vision for upcoming obstacles or threats. The trees lining the highway were pleasant to look at. The Asset occupied itself by memorizing the license plate of every car they passed.

The technician received a call after 22 minutes of driving.

“What?” the technician demanded. “No, I told you. Get the STRIKE teams out of lockup and meet me at the rendezvous in Trenton. Blow up the building if you have to, just stop them from getting transferred to somewhere more secure.” A pause, then the technician slammed his palm onto the top of the steering wheel. “Fuck your cover! Are you even listening to me? I cleaned out the base in D.C. I have the Asset. Shit, that’s enough to start a new cell right there. Your cover’s blown already. All our covers are blown, once they decode those files.” Another, longer pause. “Do whatever you have to do. Report in three hours.” The technician yanked off his headset and slumped back in his seat. “Fucking moron.”

The technician listened to the radio the entire drive, sometimes swearing or punching the dashboard as news anchors revealed a new piece of information. The Asset sat silently without giving any sign that it registered what was being said.

The radio gave names for Iron Man and the Black Widow: Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff. The names were right-but-wrong just like the faces.

Sergeant Barnes. The news didn’t mention that name. The news didn’t mention the Asset at all, although it had a lot to say about Alexander Pierce and Nick Fury and SHIELD and Hydra and Natasha Romanov and Tony Stark. The Asset rolled the names through its mind, lost in thought. Tony Stark. Sergeant Barnes. Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, Natashenka, Nat…

The Asset couldn’t arrive at the correct name, but Nat recalled a child with red hair and a killer’s eyes. The Black Widow’s face in miniature.

Malfunction, the Asset thought automatically. It hadn’t been wiped in more than nine days, far longer than standard protocol. One of the technicians had complained to a handler about it and had been overruled. The Asset’s initial assassination of Fury, Nicholas J. had spawned unexpected, urgent follow-up missions as Hydra’s maneuvers were countered by SHIELD loyalists, and Rumlow had wanted the Asset to be field-ready at a moment’s notice.

Wipes kept mission-irrelevant memories at bay. The Asset was to report unauthorized memories to its handler at once, so the distractions could be properly removed.

The Asset had no handlers left to report to. The Asset said nothing. The watching part of the Asset approved. It wanted to wait and see what would happen.

The Asset was very good at waiting.

They stopped in Pennsylvania, just shy of the border with New Jersey. The technician left the Asset in the car while he pumped gas. Once the tank was full, the technician hovered by the car for a few moments, then opened the passenger-side door.

“Out,” the technician ordered. “We’re going inside. Stay behind me. Don’t say anything. Got it?”

“Confirm.” Standing up was a mix of pleasurable stretching of cramped muscles and painful pulling on wounds that hadn’t quite healed. The Asset’s abdomen felt hot and tender but essentially sound. Its thigh wound had closed and was forming scar tissue that would fade away within a week. The Asset could fight if it had to; it had pushed through injuries that were much worse.

The gas station was empty apart from a clerk at the desk who glanced up at the technician and the Asset, then went back to reading her magazine. The Asset shadowed the technician’s footsteps, taking a perverse pleasure in hiding in the technician’s blind spot, so the technician was constantly turning his head to catch sight of it. Malfunction, the Asset thought, just a little more smug than wary. The technician wasn’t a handler. The technician could hurt the Asset in the course of regular maintenance, when the Asset’s pain was incidental, but he didn’t have the authority to discipline it.

Whoever the technician was taking the Asset to might have that authority. Sobered by the thought, the Asset dropped back a few more paces. The radio had claimed that Alexander Pierce was dead, but there were others. There were always others.

[[TV playing in the corner shows driver’s license photos of suspected Hydra personnel that includes the technician; he sees the store clerk recognize him]]

“Shit,” the technician hissed, face twisting. He pulled his gun from the small of his back.

The clerk froze in place, her mouth opening in shock.

The Asset moved without knowing it was going to. Its flesh hand snatched the gun from the technician’s grip. The technician’s head snapped back as the Asset’s metal fist collided with its chin. The Asset heard the crack of bone.

The cashier screamed.

The technician was dead before he hit the floor.

The Asset separated the clip from the gun, set both of them on the floor, and left the gas station at a sprint.

[[disables tracker and whatever drug ampoules he can reach, manages to backtrack to Philly before collapsing to ride out the withdrawal]]

The Asset hadn’t expected to survive coming down from whatever drugs Hydra had used to keep it docile and compliant. At the worst stage of the withdrawal, when it was shaking, puking, and hallucinating in the basement of a condemned building, it had wished it was back in cryo, numb and frozen and not hurting. It would even have gone to the chair.

Two days later, it had crawled out of the basement, filthy and exhausted but more clear-headed than it could ever remember being.

The Asset was starting to feel a certain kinship with cockroaches.

The Asset spent more than a month just keeping low, moving only through shadows and sleeping once every three days, curling up on rooftops and in flophouses. Hydra didn’t find it. SHIELD didn’t find it. The Asset wasn’t sure there was any difference between the two, no matter what the radio had said, but either way, it wanted to avoid the interrogation Stark’s words had promised.

The Asset ruminated on Romanoff and Stark. It thought maybe Romanoff had been a fellow asset, and Stark had been a technician. Or maybe Stark was a stranger and Romanov an enemy. The Asset couldn’t decide, couldn’t seem to settle on a conclusion.

Neither of them had been a handler. The Asset was sure of that. Hydra had burned the memories of past missions out of its head, but they had made sure the Asset’s ability to recognize its betters was crystal fucking clear.

The Asset’s head ached constantly. Sometimes the pain was just a mild inconvenience, and sometimes it was incapacitating. It wasn’t clear whether to the Asset whether its brain was healing, or just turning to mush. The Asset had been eating mostly from trash cans. Its memories were incomplete at best, but it was certain people didn’t used to throw away so much food. Bruised fruit, stale bread, half-eaten hamburgers. Finding enough to sustain itself hadn’t been difficult.

The hand’s fingers did not open or close. The Asset had opened the forearm access panel and ripped out whatever it could reach, knowing that one of the components was a tracker and unable to distinguish which one. It had felt like fire burning up through the arm and into the shoulder, radiating agony down its back and up its neck into its skull, before the nervous system feedback had, mercifully, shorted out. The Asset could still raise the arm and rotate it at the elbow and shoulder, but the wrist and hand joints were locked in place.

It took weeks for the Asset to form anything approaching a plan. Taking care of basic needs like thirst and hunger were instinctual enough that the Asset could do them on autopilot, but it was out of the habit of thinking for itself.

[[Heads to Brooklyn like a homing pigeon; has vague memories of safety and belonging there. When he arrives, wanders disconsolately looking for where he used to live (without knowing that’s what he’s looking for), but can’t find it. The closest he can find is an alley, where he tries to sleep.]]

The Asset had been asleep with its head on the backpack. Tactical error. One of the boys must have pulled the backpack out by its straps. Now the backpack was four feet away, at the largest boy’s feet.

The three boys had frozen when the Asset swung upright, but as seconds passed while the Asset did nothing but stand rigidly still, they relaxed.

“Woah, easy there,” one of them said. He took a few steps away and looked at the mouth of the alley, either checking for pursuers or scouting an escape route.

“Relax, he’s just a fucking junkie,” the largest boy said quietly. Then, louder, “What’s in the backpack, man? You gonna share?”

The boy crouched beside the backpack, reaching for the zipper.

The Asset could kill him so easily, even with one malfunctioning hand. The steps were as clear as a roadmap: immobilize shoulder, grasp head, twist, drop. It would take less than a second.

The thought made its stomach churn. The Asset held itself rigid, every muscle locked in place, afraid that moving would lead to another body at its feet.

“Hey!” A new boy, his hair startlingly bright in the gloom of the alley, charged forward from the alley’s other end. He stepped in between the Asset and the threat and puffed up like an angry goose. His baggy coat and overstuffed backpack made him appear larger than his thin legs suggested he was. “Leave him alone!”

“Alex,” the third boy muttered, tugging on the largest boy’s sleeve. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Alex shrugged the hand off. He was half a foot taller than the boy standing challengingly in front of him. “We were just talking. What’s it to you?”

“You need to leave,” the blond boy said, voice hard. “You can’t just take people’s stuff.”

“Fuck you, I’ll go when I want to,” Alex retorted. “And I want to see what’s in the backpack first.”

Alex reached for the backpack’s zipper, but the blond boy slapped his hand away before he could touch it.

Enraged, Alex drew back his fist.

The Asset moved.

Alex’s punch landed full force on the Asset’s metal arm, sending a ringing vibration through its shoulder. Alex howled and pulled his hand back to his chest.

“You fucking--”

“Come on, Alex!” the second boy shouted. The third was already running. Alex let himself be pulled out of the alley, and within seconds the Asset was alone with the blond boy.

On closer inspection, the boy wasn’t a boy at all. He was short, no more than five and a half feet, but his voice was deep and his face had no trace of baby fat. The Asset estimated the man was in his mid-twenties.

“Sorry you had to deal with those guys,” the man said. He took a few steps back, leaving the Asset standing over its backpack. “I know one of them, he’s not so bad, but his cousin is a total dick. Are you all right? That sounded like a pretty hard punch." The man reached out and ran both hands up the Asset's left arm. The Asset didn't allow itself to flinch away.

The man’s hands squeezed gently, paused, squeezed more firmly. "Wow, that's--" His eyes went wide and his hands dropped away from the arm. He held them spread at chest height for a moment, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have grabbed your arm without asking. That was not okay, geez."

The Asset had no idea what was going on, but the man seemed upset, which made it nervous. Things didn’t go well when people around the Asset were upset.

It slowly picked up the backpack. When the man didn't do anything but watch, the Asset settled the backpack straps over its shoulders, feeling more secure.

The man reached his pocket and the Asset tensed. It calculated the hang of the jacket and the size of the pocket bulge automatically; not heavy enough for a gun, but a knife could be small and light, or a taser--

He pulled out a rectangle wrapped in blue foil. "Are you hungry? I have an energy bar. It's, uh." He flipped the bar over and squinted in the dim light. "Blueberry lemon flavored. You want any?"

The man half-unwrapped the bar and handed it to the Asset. The Asset took it and bit, tentatively. It was chalky and sweet. Blueberry lemon, it thought, memorizing the taste.

“Not bad, right?" the man said. "That was my last one, sorry. Are you still hungry?"

The Asset knew better than to admit to a weakness, but the man seemed to know anyway. He just kept talking.

"I know a church near here that has food, usually, and a place to sleep if you don't mind waking up with the bells. We could go there now, if you want."

The Asset thought about this. It had to sleep somewhere, and evidently the alley wasn’t safe. The blond man wasn't a threat. If the church was a trap, the Asset could run.

The Asset nodded, and the man smiled.

"Great! It's a little over a mile, are you okay to walk that? Oh!" He smacked his forehead, making the Asset startle. "I forgot to introduce myself, sorry. My name's Steve."

SO THAT’S WHAT I GOT. I have about 14,000 more words of this story written, so either I’ll finish it and post it as a complete fic or I’ll officially give up and post it somewhere as a morgue file.

[livenudebigfoot]

top 5, bottom 5

tagged by @phoenixfalls and @shawarma-palace

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

What are your five most popular works? (starting with the most kudos)

1. the good things one possesses: POI, Reese/Finch, 3,029 words

Summary: Finch throws Reese a housewarming party (by which I mean he fucks him)

I’m kind of surprised that this one is as high up as it is! But at the same time, not surprised. I wrote it around the end of the first season and Reese/Finch was the then-undisputed juggernaut and it was far and away my most popular fic for a really long time before it was briefly dethroned by...

2. Armor: POI, Finch/Fusco, 193,421 words

Summary: Finch gives Fusco a nice leather jacket, which Fusco is uncomfortable with. This somehow leads to romance and also murders.

My baby. My dearest love. My monster. Listen, here’s my advice to you: if you have a rarepair epic flickering and burning away within your breast, but you’re scared that no one will ever take an interest, make sure it takes you like 3 years to finish it so people will eventually check it out from sheer curiosity. 

3. Backbone: POI, Reese/Finch, 2,004 words

Summary: Finch has secret wings.

I credit three things with this fic’s popularity: 1. It’s Reese/Finch and Reese/Finch is popular, 2. it’s wingfic, which seems to be kind of a dying breed, 3. it was prompted by astolat and I thhhink that might have drawn people in. But the hits to kudos ratio is pretty good, so I think people liked it in addition to clicking on it.

4. With One Eye Open: POI, Root/Shaw, 1,052 words

Summary: They Do The Fuck.

I am AMAZED that any Root/Shaw fans pay attention to this fic ‘cause I’m pretty sure it’s older than Root/Shaw-specific fanbase itself. I just looked at the original publishing date (on Tumblr) and it’s March 9, 2013 (which I think makes it the oldest Root/Shaw fic ever??) and all I had to go on was the iron scene in Relevance. Shaw literally doesn’t know Root’s name in this fic because I wasn’t sure if she’d ever know it in canon. 

5. Time Enough At Last: POI, Reese/Finch, 4,497 words

Summary: Right after that episode where Reese has a bomb strapped to his chest, Reese and Finch fuck in like a life-affirming way.

I’m not surprised at this one’s popularity: it’s a beloved jumping-off point for this pairing and I originally posted it in an extremely timely fashion. I think I posted it the night the episode aired.

What are your five least popular works by kudos?

5.Temporary Safety, POI, Finch&Fusco, 2,238 words

Summary: Finch ends up being the one to tell Fusco about the Machine.

This fic is actually doing pretty well, it’s just gen-ish and relatively new and the more popular fics are all at least 4 years old, so. This is kind of a manifestation of my frustrations about the way Fusco’s autonomy and access to information was handled in the last season. I loved that Reese was the one who told him in canon, but I feel like Finch was the one who most needed to like...have a moment of openness with someone and relinquish control over someone he’s trying to protect by keeping them ignorant. It woulda been good. 

4. Standing Eight: POI, Finch/Fusco, 16,310 words

Summary: Finch learns to box (badly) so he can beat up Fusco (for sex reasons).

Not super surprised by this one’s lack of popularity: it’s an unfinished WIP about Finch and Fusco having sex in an extreme way that’s actually a sequel to a different fic where they have sex in an even MORE extreme way. But I like it very much.

3. Men in Suits: POI/Marble Hornets crossover, gen, 1,860 words

Summary: Alex Kralie’s number comes up. Reese is not the only man in a suit.

idk, apparently people aren’t super eager to read a fic where their fandom is crossed-over with a creepypasta webseries and it’s spooky and then all of their faves die of Slenderman. Who knew?

2. One Word, Five Letters, Sounds Like “Rust”: POI, Lionel/Leon, 5,563 words

Summary: Lionel and Leon get stoned and have chill, mildly kinky sex and idk guys, I thought it was cute.

Hey, listen: they got ballgagged together. And Lionel was like kinda cute and protective of Leon while also being super annoyed by his antics. And I thought maybe if Leon came back a bunch more then they could be begrudging friends and also they both have lion names, like how cute is that? Fuckin’ precious, is the answer.

1.  Shoot You Down: POI, Lionel/Leon, 899 words

Summary: Leon proposes that he and Lionel get stoned and have chill, mildly kinky sex.

So, this is interesting. This is the fic that came BEFORE the last one and it’s like a gentle toe-dip into the concept of Fusco and Leon banging, which is a pairing no one wanted. This one has more hits, which makes sense because it’s the first one and there’s no sex in it. However, the one where they bang still has more kudos than the fic where they casually discuss banging. What does this say about The State Of Fandom. I do not know. But I really like this pairing, omg, I forgot how much. It’s so good, you guys. Where did Leon go? He was such a delight. I should have a massive 10,000 fic series about Leon romancing every single other character in POI. No one would read it, but I would be so happy.

Tagging: @waffleironbiddingwar, @enemyofperfect, @croik, @mizliz, @amovingtarget