#and mostly working on the first fic in this poll since i don't want my attention to get even more scattered than it is

[zibulon01]

Got tagged by @kstbj thank you! (hi, feel free to ask about more details or snippets for each of them if you want)

[bomberqueen17]

aight poll results

Huh I haven't really done a poll before, I kind of thought there'd be somewhere you could like, see the results. But no. I just have to scroll back and find the post. And since I made it not rebloggable I can't reblog it either, LOL.

So anyway. It's not quite-quite closed but there's more votes in it than I thought there would be, and I'm going to discuss it behind this lil cut here.

[Image ID: a screenshot of poll results showing 14.5% for the sweet summer children era, 85.5% for the older sea-dogs, 55 votes cast, almost four hours left in the poll.]

After making this poll I went back to my Just Write Some Scenes approach and noodled around some more. My first attempt had been to come up with this whole elaborate Save The World plot, and then try to introduce the crew to each other right at the start of it, and after tripping over that and falling flat on my face, that's when I reconsidered and made the poll. Mostly I just. Need other people to remind me that I'm not alone in the wilderness here, LOL. And you know the quite-contrary "I need advice but mostly so I can identify that when someone tells me to do the thing I don't wanna, that means there's a thing I didn't want to do, which means there is a thing I DO want to do, and now I can narrow down what it is" impulse, yes?

But it's gratifying to find that I've voted with the majority here.

So my main consideration here is that while I cannot really reuse any of the scenes I wrote as fanfic, I can absolutely carry over every bit of the character dynamics. The canon events, I can't translate. The fanfic character work, yes. (What that means to you, dear readers, is that I thus can totally just publish the fanfic at some point LOL, so I'll... try to do that if I can ever manage to become sane about it.)

I don't know that I've fully explained, here-- I fully have a 125,000-word fanfic already complete for this fandom. Like, it is 125,000 words long, and goes from before Master and Commander to... I'm at about the middle of Ionian Mission. That's book nine. And it's all the gapfills and everything from Tom's POV. And I have a few more scenes I'm still writing, but what I have is quite a novel already.

If I took the characters from their Master & Commander Book 1 era and file the serial numbers off and try to instead give them this plot, then I have to cram in every bit of the getting-to-know-you shit, and also worldbuild the whole setting, and then also have them save the world. It's not that I can't do this, but I have this huge shortcut where I've already been working with these guys (and you know how fanfic works, I've subtly warped them from canon because these are side characters the canon author did not devote all that much time to. There are several times when Mowett did something in the first book and by the eleventh or twelfth, Stephen firmly remembers it as something Pullings did, and the narrative treats him as correct, and I genuinely think that O'Brian forgot, unless he was trying to make a point about Stephen's memory issues that he then didn't entirely follow through on. It happens more than once. Also there are a number of occasions when the narrative asserts that Mowett was present for books when he was not; he does not appear in book 3 for example, but is afterward treated as though he'd been there. "They've been together since their youth!" they haven't been in the same hemisphere in six years. Anyway.)

I've been working with these guys for the length of a novel already. So what I can do, and what I think I'm going to do, is that I'm going to just pretend that I've already rewritten a serial-numbers-filed-off version of the first volume, and dive in at circa the book 5 section of the fic, and insert this adventure at that point. Which gives me a certain rank for each character-- Pullings and Mowett would be lieutenants with some seniority, Babbington would be a newly-made lieutenant, Aubrey has moderate seniority, his relationship with Maturin is fairly mature and has weathered some storms and come out well, he's rescued Maturin from torture, Maturin is slightly washed-up with the intelligence people and is addicted to drugs but recovering-- and from the fanfic side (spoilers for the as-yet-unedited-and-unpublished fic!), I've established Pullings in his marriage, given him his checkered career (Indiamen and transports), he has two children, and also he and James and Mrs. Pullings have worked through a bunch of their shit and figured out that they should all have a threesome sometime. But, crucially, they have not had this threesome yet.

So it's like-- a ton of deep character work, that I can just plunk us into.

(I haven't figured out a new naming structure yet so I haven't find-replaced and I'm just writing with the old names, which is hilarious the more I diverge from canon.)

It's not that I don't want to tell that first story, of them all meeting up initially, but I think it would be easier to go back and write a prequel after having done the Big World-Saving Plot.

Anyway-- some serial-number-filing notes here:

Aubrey is going to be a woman because then if I write her exactly the same it comes across wildly differently and I am absolutely dying to see what effect it has. Translating Jack's particular confused helplessness around women makes this new Aubrey into an extremely awkward lesbian and I love it. (Still fat, crucially. Still six feet tall. She might not be blonde, though, depending what I do with racial dynamics in this 'verse. Doesn't matter, as calling a woman Goldilocks is less hilarious than a man.)

Maturin is still a dude. They still have absolutely zero sexual chemistry, but profound deep interpersonal love. (This is bookverse, guys. Sorry the gay movie version is great but that's just not where I'm going here.)

Instead of having a lower-class accent and antecedents, I'm translating Tom into being somehow visibly biracial, which can give the same impediment to his being taken seriously for promotion as in canon, but also lets me tie this into the other books I've started in the land-based part of this verse. His mother is descended from mainland mammoth-herders, and I haven't decided what visual characteristics that gives him but it's enough that he gets called racial slurs occasionally. As in canon, Aubrey doesn't particularly notice these things, and cares only that he is competent.

Babbington is a trans dude so I have to figure out how that works in the worldbuilding but this is an extremely useful thing to have and will illuminate all kinds of awesome things for me. As a bonus, it can just be background established fact in the first book I write, and can be a plot point in the prequel if I do come up with anything cool in the worldbuilding, but if not it can just be a like low-key background thing in the prequel too. Who knows! It gives me a ton of material either way. Has potential to establish vivid character dynamics in a minimum of words, I think.

I was trying to solarpunk-ize solid-shot cast-iron cannons and seem to have independently mentally invented electromagnetic rail guns, so I have to research that somewhat but I think I have some good worldbuilding foundations based off that. !!! Exciting. I especially love the idea that the ships can collect and store potential energy that they can use either for propelling the ship without wind, or for firing guns, and so manoevering with sails still carries enormous tactical value because if you can get in position to fire your shots without having expended your generated power, you'll have much more success in battle; conversely, if you realize you're in a poor tactical position, instead of throwing your guns over the side as in the napoleonic era so you can flee faster, you simply empty your power generation banks into your propulsion to get the fuck out of there. And it makes it more solarpunk post-collapse-friendly by having tactics that can prioritize things other than massive loss of life, which doesn't hold with the dynamics of precarious population levels in the other books in this 'verse. Life was cheap in Europe in the 1800s but that doesn't work here. I love the idea of the "battles" being almost entirely manoevering, and it being plain impossible to have just yardarm-to-yardarm prolonged hammering except by rare circumstance.

So anyway that's where I'm at. So far. Stay tuned i guess? Thanks for reading this far, anyone who does. <3

[lovifie]

A little update for everybody for my current and future updates 🩷: (please read it ❤️)

Her Royal Highness: Hiatus. Trust me, I am the saddest about it. It is the first thing I wrote and what made me want to start the blog, but I have kind of lost the vision I had for it and I can't write anything without hating it. Don't worry too much about it because I am really dramatic and might just keep it going on a month 🩷.

Lift me off my feet: Around 4 chapters left. It would make it a 13 chapter series, taking in consideration I started because of a fanart I'm quite impressed with. Still, the little plot that it has is starting to run out and I feel like it is just unnecessarily stretching it, especially since there are other series I want to work on and I can't until this one is finished. I wanted to ask, would you rather have me finish this one “fast” or alternate it with other posts? Fast would be as in focusing on writing only this fic until I finished, and I believe I could have it done next week most likely.

Switch Bodies: Plot wise, around 2 chapters. After that, it would just be random scenarios that I would think of or that you could want me to write. Still, this one doesn't really have a schedule as it is mostly jokes so I can't tell when I'll update.

Spidey: This one will have a slower than usual post schedule since it is going to be interactive and I'll need to leave time between chapters to let everyone vote their favorites. So I'll be a bit more relaxed rhythm of updates.

Poll Fic: Whichever wins the poll (I can't see the results until Monday unless I vote and I'm edging myself like a moron), I won't probably write anything until I finish Lift Me Off My Feet, plus I want to organize a bit the plot so the thing that happens with Her Royal Highness doesn't happens again and I have something to support myself on to finish it. So I'll be a bit of time still.

Those are the series, I'm also working on oneshots and just silly stuff that genuinely I'll post randomly.

Aswell, I wanted to let people know that the on taglist form I removed the option to choose on which fic to me tagged because I was getting everyone mixed and it was becoming too chaotic so now there will be one single taglist. I hope you guys don't mind too much and thank you for understanding. If you would prefer me to remove you from it you can also tell me on the taglist form without a problem. 🩷🩷

There are going to be a couple of days without updates because I'm going to work on tidying everything up a bit so it is easier to navigate the blog. And I'm also going to slow down a bit as well, because I don't understand why I have pressured myself into uploading as soon as possible to the point I'm burning myself out instead of enjoying writing like I should.

That being said, I'm done rambling and complaining. I'd love any kind of feedback, as comments, asks or DM, I always love to read you guys opinion and ideas so feel free to do so ❤️❤️

Sorry for the disappointment of this not being an update let me know what you would rather have happening on the Lift me off my feet fic 🩷

Back to Masterlist - Taglist Form

TagList (1): @1-800-choke-that-ho @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore @anirok2 @arbesa-mind @avaleigh16 @blckbrrybasket @bunnysdaydreams @cassiecasluciluce @cheomain @cmbghost @cod-z @coldpaperwonderland @contractedcriteria @cringeycookies @crinoid90 @darkangel4121 @dilara-del @dontworryboutitokie @dukeofjjune @dumb12bvtch1212 @dumybitch @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago @evolutionarry @fraserbraw @ghostlythots @ghosts-hoe @glocuseguardian3rd @grenkiesworld @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @hatterripper31 @herefor-tojis-tits @howlove @itsberrydreemurstuff @jaguarthecat @jupiternighties @justyourfriendlyneighbourhood1 @kayden666 @keiraslayz @keiva1000 @kristalhi @l0velifehatey0u @ladyxtiger @lilliumrorum @lolliepopsicle @lolly145 @lotionlamp @lunamoonbby @lunari0 @marymustdie @missmidnight-writes

[blocksruinedme]

(hi there! sorry if this is disrespectful or anything, feel free to delete this ask! i was just concerned because in the comments of jimmy's recent videos, it seems that he might make a video reacting to fanfictions...

very concerning! especially because it seems like he didn't contact the creators of the edits in newest video beforehand. no offense to him, but i genuinely do not trust him to handle fanfiction in a respectful way. he's very hard-working, but he's getting dangerously content-brained!

anyways, the reason i'm sending this ask to you is because you seem to frequent his streams a lot. VERY sorry if this is disrespectful to ask, but if you do attend his next stream, is it ok to ask that you try and send a message in his chat? i would myself, but he streams after midnight where i live T^T i really hope that someone well-versed in the rules of fandom spaces (maybe scott (ｰ ｰ;) ) can talk him out of it, but i would be very grateful if any chatters could discourage him during his next live.

thank you very much for reading!!)

-a shy chinese anon who experienced the banning of ao3 in china because fans of a celebrity mass-reported an rpf fic to the government :<

(Hey shy anon, I didn't show up until a little after the ban, but I was on the english side of that fandom so i know a lot. my eternal condolences, I'll never stop being upset about what happened!)

It is not at all disrespectful to ask politely, which you have! I am not going to send a message in his chat because it is an absolute hellhole, but people I know have left thoughtful comments on his youtube, which I think is 20x more useful. He sees those in his own time and can think about it. Chat is running nonstop, super fast, you get instant reaction in the chat from all kinds of sorts - seriously i love jimmy and i have nothing against younger people, but holy hell that chat is mostly intolerable to read. Most streams I don't even have it visible. Jimmy has very little time to think in response to chat messages, it can't be nuanced, and the first thing he says is now public record.

Overall, I don't think Jimmy will react to fanfic. If he does (and I've been wrong predicting Jimmy before!), it's going to be something like Wholesome Seablings Adventures. I can not imagine Jimmy reading ship fic - unless I guess it's incredibly pg canon-ship? There's all kinds of "pg youtubers", and Jimmy's more on the Katherine side of thing, appealing to families and genuinely little kids. If you look at the saucy things he lets in, you generally need some real non-pg context for it to feel non-pg. (there's always exceptions)

When people demand he address shipping he tries to say as little as possible. He's been shown nsfw fanart while he was streaming. He knows what is going on and he's not going to touch that. He's thoughtful when it counts, and since these aren't stream reacts, he has time to think hard about what he's actually going to use. So if he did do fanfic, there would be plenty of never seen footage of Jimmy of going "holy moly!" and moving on. When it matters, he is generally thoughtful and respectful.

Like the time he realized he was confused about asexuality (he didn't know about aromanticism) and slowed down to be really careful he didn't say anything accidentally hurtful. (for context shelby is ace but dates and he knows that. look at his poor little face trying to understand.)

Maybe he'll mess up this time, I sure hope not, but I'm not personally freaking out.

Also, exactly one time he opened tumblr on stream, it was the sexyman poll, and he read my reply to the post (i'm the one who called him a wet paper bag of a man, my claim to fame.) I showed up to apologize, he was a sweetheart, and he said this about tumblr, that he knows we want our own private space. He's respectful at heart.

I am not on tiktok, but until your ask, I'll admit it never occurred to me he might contact the creators before reacting. Thinking on it, I guess I think of TikTok like youtube, where it is loudly tossed out at the whole world for attention, but I'm not on TikTok.

And why do I think ao3 is different? Well, I have no coherent answer besides "vibes" and "more contained audience" and "everyone knows everyone is on youtube and tiktok".

Here are some more Jimmy clips I've wanted to share on tumblr for one reason or another.

In the end, I have been hyperfixating on this man for sixteen months and I believe it'll be okay. If I'm wrong, well. We'll make it through this, gang. We'll take care of each other and keep going. Nothing's stopped us yet!

If you want to say something to Jimmy, leave a yt comment, don't go into his stream, please, not there, you'll just provoke people and he might have to respond to that, please

Everyone out there who read ao3 not logged in - go log in, people are locking things.

People on ao3, lock or don't lock, as you see fit!

(also joel lizzie and oli did fanfic readings/reenactments/whatever years ago, including writing their own snippets, i got through like 90 seconds of one, youtube at your own risk.)

[trashlama]

Ok hear me out Yandere redson and Mei poly /team up hcs please 🙏who both fallen for macaque female apprentice ~

Mei fights her seeing as macaque fighting monkey king , which leads to MK fighting her future darling it was only when reader makes shadow clones to trap MK , that’s when Mei gets involved. 

It would have been fine if the reader didn’t have such a flirty attitude, who likes to praise Mei even when Mei sword was near her throat. 

Before Mei could do anything , reader disappeared into the shadow realm 

For Red son , I can see him teaming up with her since MK is there enemy , with his brain and her brawn , MK and his friends will be finished in no time . (Reader teamed up with his , for sine reason her mentor disappeared and she thinking rid of MK and his friends will make him praise her ) 

He did not expect reader to be so smooth and honestly praises his inventions even saying he’s amazing . 

There were so close yet MK still won , Red son thought she was gonna leave him only for her to teleport him and her to her hideout to heal his wounds before sending him back home ,not before giving him a flirty remark . 

After that an obsession grow for Red son 

While Mei she gains a guilty crush that got worse when reader decide to keep her company since MK been busy Lately, She knows she should hate it but she been feeling lonely and when reader not being flirty she can be nice even winning Mei a dragon plushie at a fair . 

What made her snap was realising Red son fallen for her darling , but seeing how there got along greatly if there difference aside , there decided to team up to make reader theirs . 

My dude —deep inhale of air— would it be alright if I made this into like a two possibly three shot series?

I love the idea and I've been brainstorming tons of ideas for this one and in each scenario I'm like damn this idea is so good. I really want to do it justice so I need to have multiple chapters. Ya know? To build the tension and really get a feel of the mindsets and what not.

However—

(SORRY THIS TURNS INTO A LITTLE AUTHOR'S NOTE)

As you guys are aware I have to seriously start working on this future Yan Raph fic of mine... . It's Ironic but, I reeaally want to start writing the future yan Mikey part. Mostly because I basically have that one planned out in my head. Meanwhile I got like five different possible scenarios for the Raph fic that I can't decide on. Though a few months ago I had said I was gonna do the Raph one first so to keep my word I plan to do so.

However SOMEBODY (an anon) had requested a future Yan Michelangelo fic and I'm like brooooo were you reading my thoughts? Cause they were somewhat close to what I had in mind but not quite. But the point is I need to write the Raph fic soooonn!!!

Gotta appease the masses~✨

Though guys I'm a bad Trashlama. I keep brainstorming all these awesome plots that I totally want to write— which ironically were formulated when I was brainstorming for the Raph fic.

Soooo I'm gonna do a poll so I can force my procrastinating/ADHD ass to write at least some of these.

And guys btw I'm sorry again for taking so long. I've been caught up recently with finishing a lot of other things I had been procrastinating. -Cough- Hogwarts Legacy -Cough- Spider-Man Across the Spider-verse -Cough- Adult responsibilities -Cough- -Cough-!!!

Anyways thank you guys again for sticking around to the end. I'll have that poll out soon(probably today).

HERE'S THE POLL

In the mean time here's some memes!

Sorry this is long↓ I don't own these memes. I've never claimed to do so. I just come across them on Pinterest when I'm on break at work and think they're funny so I like to share them. If I mistakenly put one on here that I shouldn't have please let me know! I like to respect people's wishes. And if you could add the creator names too that would be great so the same mistake isn't made twice. Sorry for the inconvenience that my sharing may cause. I hope you have a good day.

[gregorovitch-adler]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

Thanks for tagging me, @calaisreno !

1.) How many works do you have on AO3?

-> 69. It's been almost two years since I entered the world of fic writing. Enjoying my time!

2.) What's your current AO3 word count?

-> 204,949.

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

-> I've written for BBC Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Potter, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Good Omens, so far.

4.) Top five fics by kudos?

-> An Old Photograph

Mysterious Cheekbones

A 'Brief' Case

We're Not a Couple!

Wounded

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

-> I respond to all the comments, sometimes to say thanks, sometimes to elaborate on something. I love responding to comments, and receiving new comments always brings me joy (obviously).

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

-> The Fall , I think. Although there are quite a few, but this one is the saddest.

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

-> I mostly write happy endings, so it was a bit difficult to choose. But I think Whisper.

8.) Do you receive hate?

-> Not hate, exactly but rude comments, sometimes. Including bots. But that's also rare.

9.) Do you write smut?

-> Yeah, sometimes. I've written porn both with and without plot. It's fun.

10.) Do you write crossovers?

-> I've written two crossovers by now. One was BBC Sherlock/Harry Potter and the other one was BBC Sherlock/Better Call Saul.

Sherlock/HP: The Hidden Side of London.

Sherlock/Better Call Saul: Better Call Sherlock.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

-> I don't think so.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

-> Yes, three times. Twice in Russian and once in Chinese.

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

-> No, I haven't.

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

-> Sherlock Holmes/John Watson.

15.) A WIP you doubt you'll ever finish?

-> I've been meaning to complete A Fashionable Doctor for a long time, but I didn't get back to it for some reason. Not abandoning it, but yeah. It's a slice of life, fluffy fic. Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting. Pairing: Molly Hooper/Irene Adler. I will finish it, eventually.

16.) Writing strengths?

Characterisation.

Dialogue.

Realism in dark topics.

Descriptions in action packed scenes.

17.) Writing weaknesses?

I struggle to write descriptions when I have to set a scene. I'm an impatient writer, and I find it painfully boring.

Sometimes I tend not to follow the "Show, don't tell" rule. I've been trying to avoid this thing in my current WIPs, though.

I sometimes don't have the patience to write anything more than a drabble-length fic.

18.) Will you write dialogue in another language?

-> Haven't done that before, but I might, if I wanted to. Preferably in one of the 3 languages I speak.

19.) What was your first fandom?

-> BBC Sherlock. I started writing in January 2022.

20.) What's your favourite fic that you've ever written?

-> It was a tough choice between two or three works, but I'd say Superficial Wound, Deep Feelings. This is the first fic I wrote in the Victorian era style (for ACD canon fandom). Canon compliant to The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. Bittersweet ending.

Tagging: @helloliriels @topsyturvy-turtely , @lookingforlifeoutthere, @keirgreeneyes , @totallysilvergirl, etc.

[merakiaes]

TL;DR - I have a lot of fanfiction-garbage and can't decide if it's worth donating in its poorly-edited, not-properly-written state, or if I should just throw it all out and let it rot in a landfill.

So, I have approximately 100k words worth of notes in my phone for fics for Top Gun: Maverick and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Like, we aren't even talking full fic skeletons/first drafts, it's just 100k words worth of dialogue snippets and vague and very badly spelled/messily worded outlines that I've thought of at random times throughout my days for the past month or two during which my brain has been in a hyperfixation sort of overdrive.

I'd say there's probably around a hundred separate fic ideas for each of the two fandoms noted above and I oh, so desperately want to post at least a few of them before my very limited hyperfixation span is exceeded, but I haven't written in so long and I'm hesitating because if I were to post one or more fics, they wouldn't be my usual thoroughly thought-out fics. A few longer ones would be a few thousand words at most, but most no more than a thousand or a few hundred, if even that, and I'd spend little to no time working on them beyond the absoloute neccessary (e.g. cleaning up my initial notes and adding some more content for the sake of structure) because I no longer have the energy needed to go into full writing mode and probably never will again. That being said, they'd be quick, sloppy and only meet the bare minimum requirements of even being considered fics - the notes in question look like they were created by someone repeatedly slamming their head on the keyboard so we really are talking bare minimum, with mostly dialogue and very little descriptive filling.

It's been so long since I wrote that I don't know if that's even something that is worth posting. I desperately want to post something because I could really use the lift-up of reconnecting with the fanfic-community, but I've become so damn insecure about my writing and I am totally overthinking it.

So, please, grant an out-of-practice fanfiction-writer some clarity by voting on the poll provided below, so that I can make up my mind on whether or not it is worth it. Honesty is more appreciated than coddling, you will not hurt my meow meow feelings, I promise.

(I might post them, I might not. I just want some clarity in case I decide to do so bc I am a dependent little bitch who needs the opinions of others before I do literally anything in life.)

[lowkeyclueless5137]

Au smoothie recipe #1

Welp... We have a recipe here :v

Thankfully it's not me cooking real food. Y'all aren't ready for THAT bandwagon. :'D

But I got boooorrrreeeed... And when I got boooorrrreeeed, I do stupid shit.

So I put a poll, a bit hidden, I admit. And got the results :3

It shouldn't have been a surprise that if I combine 3 of my most popular aus, that thing will be picked.

Maybe, in the future, I'll hold a surprise poll from time to time for another Au smoothie. Dw, the previous options that didn't win will be featured too, so you can have another shot at them. :3

Now... For our recipe! We need a bowl, then we put in:

2 cups of my first P5 Au

1 cup of Jumanji Au

5 tablespoons of DR Au.

mandatory quarter bottle of crack(fic genre)

Stirr well and wait for it to grow a bit. Sprinkle in some angst and fluff upon likes of y'all. Then put it in the mixer, add aprox a mental breakdown of your fave punching bag character and wait for the reading speed of your fave ship's new fic on a good day on the fastest option of the mixer. Pour it in a nice glass and add a pretty explanation format straw.

There you have it! :D

Honestly it took way more than I expected, but here we are :'3

Now let us enjoy this drink!

Alright... Let's start with where we starting like usual! Background! :D

We have your normal twst, except that it isn't normal. Due to the magic being rare amongst your usual, adult, crowd, it's more of a 1 in 10 people actually having magic. This complicates things for mages schools as they need students as well.

The reason I specifically said 'adult crowd', is because blot levels were very, VERY, sensible. To the point overblots are quite easy to achieve. And having do few people actually having magic, it was a given that technology compensated for it.

It's also mostly since, initially, some mages don't make it past 20 if they overBlot. It's not a common case, neither is it extremely rare. It is seen mostly like an incurable, spontaneous, illness. You are guaranteed to die if you overBlot and might also take some other people with you too.

But, since we were talking about magic schools, in order to compensate, the elite schools introduced the term of 'ultimate'. The best of the best at something. It allows for teens with incredible talents, weather they have magic or not, to hone their craft and thus work in the world with their talent. An ultimate was basically like a free entry to any university centered around the talent in question. Those people were hunted down by companies and marked for them endless opportunities in their craft aera.

Once the said ultimate finishes school, they lose that title, but that doesn't mean that their talent is gone too, hence why this hype. It allows for multiple people to gain this title in time. Hence, schools are doing this testing yearly, in case of someone previously known as no ultimate talent to suddenly have one, bcs the one before them left it.

Thus, the title of ultimate was much more wanted and respected than the title of mage.

Since an ultimate was hard to determine, for such thing, powerful magic artefacts of introspection were used. Such artefacts were so rare, most of them were the only exemplary altogether. Those were special due to their ability to peer in someone's mind and memories and able to tell if that person has a draw to something, a hidden talent or more.

The most powerful and well known artefact of this kind was, of course, the dark mirror.

Now, fast forward to our time. We have Lilia's 2nd year orientation. This year, Silver was starting his first year as well. Of course, before the 1st years were even introduced at all, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years all have to be examined for an ultimate change. Clearly there were a few rare cases for such thing and Lilia was not amongst them. He was an exceptional mage, but with no ultimate.

So far, one who did get a title change, was Trey, who gained his 'ultimate baker' title. He was the only one out of our (in game) 3rd year main cast. :3

As for the 2nd(in game) years, they first get assigned their ultimates. And thus they are introduced to how this whole thing works:

The dark mirror looks in one's soul and tells them their talent. But because this is such an intimate soul search, only the one evaluated gets to hear, then they only sign if they had an ultimate, OPTIONALLY specify what exactly, and let the mirror go on the normal way to assign them a dorm.

The only exception is the Ramshackle students, who are magicless, thus they automatically have an ultimate.

Lilia only takes note of a few particular students. First of all, there was this Azul guy, who got in Octavinelle, but didn't sign the register of ultimates, followed by a pair of twins who both signed. There was a hyena boy, put in Savanaclaw, with no ultimate, then the next particular one was the infamous Asim and his buddy, who both signed in the register.

Then, there was one last guy before Silver. Lilia particularly kept an eye on him, because his son was next, thus his attention was lazer focused on the ceremony now.

The guy seemed hesitant. By how he looked at the register for a hot second, Lilia knew that the guy hesitated before marking something off on the register and leaving in a hurry.

Then it came to Silver! And he got an ultimate! Yay! :D

Silver was the ultimate dream analyst and in diasomnia to boot, thus Lilia was extremely happy for his son. Malleus, who attended this year, was also down to congratulate Silver, since he as well had an ultimate: the ultimate librarian. The oddest of talents one would associate with THE Malleus Draconia, but the latter seemed very happy with it.

Lilia did ask Silver what was up with the guy before him. Silver says that he and one of the twins that went first caused a small commotion, but the twin got thrown across the room while the older years were examinated, which made people to believe that the short guy was a freakishly strong mage.

Lilia advises Silver to put up good with the guy and maybe they could be friends and study together. It would be in his benefit after all.

The guy before Silver was none other than Riddle, who was pretty shaken up by what ultimate he was assigned. He was given an ultimate, but the said ultimate was a controversial one, thus he specifically wrote in the registry 'do not mention at any cost', which gave away the idea that it was something private, shameful at best and downright dangerous at worst.

This is why specifying was optional. There could be good talents, titles that can bring opportunities and then there could be titles that put in danger people by their mere name alone.

And Riddle himself would take to the grave his talent.

On his first night in the dorm, the redhead was forced to call his mother, but he lied and told her that he had no ultimate title. It came with a berating session and an abrupt call, but Riddle found it better than the actual truth.

Back to Diasomnia, Lilia had to deal with one lil unexpected surprise: Floyd. Floyd didn't want at all in this dorm. He wanted specifically to be with his twin and Azul, who both were in Octavinelle. Lilia figured that these 2 could've been in any other place, thus it wasn't a bias towards some dorm. And Floyd was cranky and refused to even go to dinner.

In between us, maybe that was the best call Floyd ever did out of his pettiness that night.

Silver reported the next day that Floyd didn't want to talk to him at all. He only glared and puffed, which, frankly, was pretty hard to understand exactly what bothered him.

What Lilia did not expect tho, was that after the first school day, to meet with Azul and Jade. Azul declared loud and proud that he needs to talk with Malleus, which got Lilia surprised, because not even mages with ultimates would speak about such things as if Malleus was their equal. Of course, the latter was polite and Jade was, more or so, silent in this matter.

Upon a small talk towards diasomnia dorm, Lilia finds out that Jade's ultimate was actually private and so was Floyd's. Only Azul knows about those and he also said he won't disclose unless the twins request that of him.

At Diasomnia, watch Malleus be absolutely bewildered. He's doing the shocked Pikachu face for a solid 10 minutes when Lilia told him about Azul wanting to talk to him and the said 2nd year also presenting himself next to his vice, fully ready to have the said talk and addressing to Malleus in a friendly and polite manner, but most importantly, friendly. He was friendly with him. No one on this ever loving earth did this befoe(except Silver) and for Malleus it was mind-blowing.

Meanwhile, Floyd hung only around Jade and only talked with Jade. The latter reprimanded his twin for wearing his dorm uniform sloppily, but it wasn't that important, as Jade assured his brother that Azul's taking care of things.

As for the discussion, Malleus notes that Azul is no Dormhead, nor does he bring fame to his name, thus what is the purpose of this conversation. The latter admits to it, but his purpose is to transfer Floyd into Octavinelle. Azul points out the fact that Floyd was uncooperative and in a foul mood all day. And he warns that it will only get worse as time goes by. So Azul's merely taking this problem off Malleus's shoulders, but if he wants something in exchange, a service or material gain, the latter could arrange to fit the criteria.

And Malleus thinks for a bit. He sees it as such: 'this bold human came to him to discuss a matter of transfer so that Malleus won't have to deal with Floyd's moods. Not only that, but he also offers anything in his capability to compensate for the transfer.'. Clearly, from all of this, Malleus was the one in gain. The Fae saw no problem in Floyd just hanging out outside of the dorm or after classes, but Azul insisted on that transfer and, frankly, why not actually get a gain out of it, since it was so important.

And so, Malleus puts his terms on the table: he wants an engagement in between them. Azul is absolutely taken aback by this, not having any idea what to say. This guy is asking for an engagement of all things. Sure, if it's a business engagement or a temporary service, Azul would've said yes in a heartbeat. But Malleus said it was just an engagement. A plain engagement. Of course, Azul's mind jumped to the base meaning of the term used alone.

So he asks for a few seconds to talk to the twins about it. In truth, in those few seconds, Azul merely looked at the 2 from a distance, the twins unaware the latter came in the same room before Azul already went back.

And he accepts, insisting that he will be a loyal spouse in all there is to be. Seeing this declared dedication, besides signing Azul's um contract, Malleus also binds the 2 of them with the engagement tie, a Fae traditional spell which ties together 2 or more future spouses and tells other Fae off from engaging in any action that might affect the tie, including bringing harm onto one of the tied.

Azul accepts it and as such, tells the latter that tomorrow he will come to officially settle the matters of the transfer. The contract Malleus signed was used only for Floyd's transfer, as such Azul insisted that he must show this first to his dormleader and make the formal proceedings with him as well.

Malleus is just fucking happy. He got himself a friendly guy to stay around with and he also prevented a future problem from taking place, by helping the pair of twins to also be happy. He feels proud of himself, because it's a win-win in his eyes. :3

And Azul pointed, rather as a small talk, that a grotesque at the window was pretty, which Malleus immediately was over the moon since 'YES! SOMEONE FINALLY UNDERSTANDS THE DIFFERENCE!'. His lil mind is doing flips atm for choosing a good engagement partner.

Yeah, Malleus, dear... That's not how things work, but go off I guess. :'D

When the twins heard about the actual deal, they lost their shit. Floyd wanted to barehandedly strangle Malleus, insisting that Azul went too far for this. Jade is the more rational one, saying that they are talking about one of the strongest mages in existence. Malleus thought he gained something through this engagement, but if they play their cards right, they could use the fae for their own gain. After all, if Malleus breaks off the engagement, then it's clearly no big loss for Azul as long as they keep on professional terms at least. Jade tries to see the positive side in all of this, which, frankly, was quite a bit to take in account.

Especially since Malleus, fully set on being an exemplary spouse, complies to any and all proceedings Azul mentions. Not only that, but Malleus's status alone intimidated the 3rd year Octavinelle Dormhead into giving out his position to Azul, as a means of getting on the fae's good side.

Of course, Azul insisted for the engagement to be kept private, for the sole purpose of not influencing his hard work. Malleus didn't want to comply to that, but upon Lilia also insisting on this, he had to throw in the towel on that matter. It wasn't the last of it in Malleus's eyes, but he's going to accept defeat for now.

While that was going on, we also have Riddle siezing his Dormhead position on his first day of school, the fastest leader change in the school history, along with Scarabia enjoying their newly renovated dorm, and later down the line, Kalim becoming a Dormhead, with Jamil as his vice.

Along those, there were a few overBlot cases, but, again, it wasn't something particularly rare. It was an unfortunate reality, but students had to get used to this grimm truth, hence why there were special blot courses, meant to try and prevent mages from overusing their magic. Only 3 overblots this year! A surprisingly small amount!

That was also because of shadows. Some new blot branch, manifested as these monsters of desire that ran wild. Normal magic seems to do nothing against them, Malleus's magic as well, rendered useless, so you either had to get physical, entrap it or run away. It made the blot level to decrease considerably and not pile up that easy anymore.

What was also a notable event, was the rise of the Phanthom thief. One individual who is able to destroy these Phanthoms by summoning strange magical spirits, of course, not without stealing the object the shadows latched onto. Most times it's just jewelry, hence the title of 'Phanthom thief'. Those people want their jewellery back after all. :'3

They do get found, mostly in the lost and found cardboard box Crowley put next to the teachers lounge. So there's usually a pile of people there after the thief sighting.

Now that we have the background, we can finally get a taste of the plot. :'D

We start off with Epel and Ortho. Epel was surprised to see a robot of all people getting taken in the school. Ortho took interest in Epel, after the latter apparently ran into a fight with Vil of all people. Slowly, while waiting for their turns, the 2 clicked together and befriended each other.

Epel was first, getting assigned the title of 'ultimate carver', while Ortho was given 'ultimate programer'. He was very happy since it matched with his big brother's ultimate too!

Both get yeeted in different dorms. Ortho in Ignihyde, while Epel in Poemfiore. Still they managed to exchange numbers and are more than hyped about the possibility of sharing classes together.

They don't share almost any class. And besides, Sebek was in Ortho's class, which Epel didn't like the loud cabbage. Ortho tho, was willing to give the latter a chance at least, since they were deskmates. (Sebek, you have to comply to the friendship attempts for F's sake)

It turns out Sebek's actually a pretty cool guy. As the ultimate bodyguard, he was more than happy to share his training routine with Epel, who immediately was down on trying to train with him. Ortho was content with simply watching from the sidelines and remininding these 2 try-harders to keep themselves hydrated and not collapse on the ground.

As for our pre-established peeps, Lilia was not happy with Malleus's lack of implication in his engagement. At this point he popped rarely to see Azul. The latter would give him fridge notes with the dormleader meetings, but Malleus forgot about them and thus Lilia couldn't say he wasn't warned in advance. So he mostly nags him for forgetting.

There's also our lovely Octa-trio who are thriving. Azul's engagement was forgotten a few times, if it wasn't for Malleus just popping at a convenient time. Azul always wore gloves, so the mark on his hand wasn't seen by anyone except the twins and Malleus, who had the same mark too.

There's also Heartslabyul, who are actually pretty chill. Riddle felt so bad trying to reprimand his dorm members, but when they did go over the line, they would get collared. The line was pretty high, but it could've been much higher if Riddle didn't feel that sense of guilt. Cater did bring it up a few times and Trey also tried to talk with the redhead about this, but it proved futile last year, so this year they didn't try it out yet.

Now, we have to follow a bit Adeuce, Yuu and Grim. Yuu was a magicless and titless student, who was brought as a mistake and unable to return to their world. Thus they were welcomed in Ramshackle to stay and serve their job as a school janitor. Grim also joined them as a 2 parter and things mostly go like in cannon, except that this time, their official school position is 'school assistant' and not prefect.

The difference is that when Ace steals the tart, he meets a not so excited Riddle, who was literally too tired to deal with this bullshit. He collars Ace and tells him that tomorrow he should replace the eaten tart, for the upcoming unbirthday party. The ginger doesn't take it lightly, him understanding that basically he's kicked out of the dorm. So he stomps away, pretty mad about it.

It takes Riddle a bit to realise that Ace actually left the dorm, so he tries to catch up with him and prevent Ace from bothering some other dorm at this ungodly hour.

That's when he runs into some shadows and a blot monster that followed from the mines.

That's also when we find out that Riddle was the said Phanthom thief all along. The fight drains him out completely, thus the redhead had to abandon his initial task of retrieving Ace, which translated as a poorly slept night and a cranky morning. Naturally, Trey and Cater called out the redhead when he was a bit too harsh, but in the end, Riddle did comply and insisted that he'll take some rest before the unbirthday party.

Still, Riddle's mood wasn't better all day. Everything was just piling up, including Adeuce and their shenanigans along the magicless student with no title and that lil monster of theirs. Still, to show some hospitality and settle the matters straight, Riddle forgives Ace, demands for the maroon tart to be put in the kitchen fridge and eaten after the party and indulges for Yuu and Grim to participate as well.

Trey and Cater fill in our braincell club about the fact that Riddle gives easy into his emotions, but he doesn't mean harm at all. You just have to get used to the more important rules and you are good to go.

Of course, chaos wasn't yet over. When the magishift tournament gets announced, ofc like in cannon, Crowley is out for cheese so our gang investigates these misterious accidents.

On another side, Ortho is very happy since his brother finally allowed him to get in the magishift team this year. Epel and Sebek do congratulate their buddy, knowing that Ortho, at least, was very hyped about magishift. Not enough to actually join the club, but the thrill of the tournament was the primary factor after all.

Although, Sebek really wanted to bring in question the fact that this robot boy had pretty darn powerful weapons at a finger's disposal. Sebek really doubted that wasn't a factor in Idia's skepticism on the matter.

The 3 were also in the Ignihyde lounge, since it was the quietest place and little to none was there a chance they would get interrupted by someone.

Still, they get cut off by Idia himself, who was pretty serious. The latter didn't even try to be gentle about it, he cut it straight to the case: Ortho was denied of being in the magishift line-up. This, of course, got Ortho enraged. Like what do you mean you allow him and then immediately take it back?! Bro... Settle on the matter already!

Idia tho, insists that, as his big brother, he couldn't let Ortho on the line-up on a good consciousness. This raises some questions from Epel and Sebek, since they did hear Idia declare things before to Ortho and usually he stated 'as your dormhead', meaning that this was not an official thing.

After Idia does leave, Epel brings it up the said phrase change. Ortho also seems to finally pick it up and wonder about it. He says that usually Idia reminds him that he's the oldest, mostly when he's trying to tell 'I'm worried for you and you are my responsibility', thus downplaying the actual severity of the situation as just him overreacting. It was a big red flag for the 3 once they trace down the fact that Idia must've had some important reason for his refusal. A reason concerning Ortho's safety first and foremost.

Thus, they also start investigating! :D

They run into our braincell club, who were there to question Ortho and Sebek, since these 2 were promising first years on the line-ups, further proving that Idia didn't change the line-up yet or was a spontaneous decision caused by smth.

Riddle's also there, saying that he, himself, was staged for such an accident, but Trey took the fall. So they want to prevent other students from getting into similar accidents.

Except that it seems that the accident was meant to happen now, as Ortho's senzors go hairwire, causing the latter to immediately 'drop dead'. It's a technique the latter explains is for safety reasons, when controlling magic tries to get a hold of his body. Something tried to control his body and the system's magic detectors went off. Thus Ortho adapted and went limp, specifically to confuse whoever tried to get a hold of his body.

We get to see Ruggie (courtesy of Sebek's loud yelling) and the hyena boy tries to play it cool.

Except that Riddle catches his hand mid act, revealing that Ruggie stole Adeuce, Epel and Sebek's pens already and wanted to take the redhead's and Cater's too. Of course, being held down, Ruggie had to give them away and Riddle collared him as well, trying to take him to his dorm and hold a proper questioning there.

Ruggie tho, uses the first second Riddle shows any vulnerability/distraction to yank himself off and run, collar on still. Riddle was too tired to keep up the pace and Sebek with Epel were helping Ortho back up. But fear not! Ace's the ultimate lucky student, so surely they could have a chance. Right?

Wrong. :'D

But they had a collar on Ruggie! Surely that could count for smth!

Apparently not, since the very next day, Ruggie has no collar and everything is going fine for him. He was avoiding the 2 investigation groups tho, which made it especially hard when other savanaclaw students were suddenly hit by that pack solidarity.

Although, Riddle was fuming. Like man had literally 0 tolerance now. He saw Ruggie, off he was to find an excuse to bend the guy in half. He saw the hyena and immediately he saw red. So the others usually holded him from actually starting a nasty fight.

Ortho tho, does some actual pin-pointing and violates some privacy laws, but he gets Ruggie's latest transactions, on Leona's card, ofc. A few were made at the Monstro Lounge, which was a bit sus. So Ortho decides to look further into it, especially since he knew well that Azul had some soft eyes for Idia, thus here comes the baby brother perk of softening Azul's guard enough to allow Ortho to have a small 'study session' with Azul. The payment, ofc, was made too.

The 3 find out that Azul has no ultimate and he admits that having an ultimate seems a bit grounding for some. There was that expectation put on the ultimates. At the same time, an ultimate title was something Azul wished he had. He wished he would be apart of the school elites: the mages with an ultimate to boot. Alas, he declares that he's well off for himself and his main priority is his flourishing business. :3c

But, of course, there's a perfectly convenient commotion outside, which gets Azul to leave Ortho alone for a bit. In response, Ortho manages to hack through the safe password and look through the golden contracts. He finds Leona's contract pretty easy since it was fresh atm. He does photograph it and puts it back, making sure Azul won't suspect anything.

So post that, Ortho shows Epel and Sebek the said contract, which was for a magic enchanting potion. The 3 want to show this to the other investigation team, but it seems like both had in mind to meet up, because the braincell club find them and requested of Sebek to send to Malleus a warning.

Apparently the braincell club meet with Jack, who helped them piece together the whole scheme regarding the accidents. And now Riddle was devising a plan to counter this.

Ortho, Epel and Sebek bring up the potion contract. Riddle assures them that he'll get that taken care of. The exchange was meant to be on the tournament morning, so there was a small window where the potion is at Ruggie and thus, the prime time to take it. Azul would have his contract fulfilled and thus there couldn't be handed a replacement.

The big day comes and finally, our shortie gang all are all meeting each other. Riddle came in later, showing that he did get the potion. The how was irrelevant in the redhead's words.

Still, there's a bigass sandstorm, which does manage to hit the decoy diasomnia team. Leona and Savanaclaw still cheer for their supposed 'win', so our group had to burst their bubble. :'3

Cue overBlot fight! :D

Post that shit, things mostly wrap up like in cannon, with the mention that Ortho got his place in the magishift team, despite Idia forbidding him at first. :3

Post that, finally the realisation sinks in everyone's heads. Leona overBlotted. And survived! No one died that day and everyone started to look at the lion Beastman as some alive legend. No one thought it was remotely possible to be snapped out of overBlot and survive, but here he was, in flesh and bones.

So, at the end of the day, Leona didn't win any tournament, but he got a title of 'the first'. He was the first ever recorded person to overBlot and survive it.

But, this wasn't a long lived hot topic.

Because, right after the tournament, a body was discovered in the Savanaclaw lounge. It was drowned in the pool and students were freaking out since 'wtf is this?!'. Azul, naturally, was spooked, since that student was from his dorm and he looked yesterday all over for him since he was on inventory duty today. The student was one with no ultimate, just with magic, so Azul didn't see why they would have anything remotely to envy at first glance. Still, he gets his way to be mainly involved in the investigation as the Dormhead of the deceased.

That seemed to strike a fear in everyone for a bit. Still, Riddle tried to concentrate with his studies.

Except that, because of the said death, the teachers also had a load of bullshit to take in account, so Riddle found himself on detention overlooking duty.

And it so happened that one detention, he had to supervise Epel, Ortho and Lilia cleaning the basement. It seemed like Crowley always said that the detention punishment wasn't at the latitude of the teachers, but the all universal ✨basement cleaning✨. So really, Riddle knew by now that it didn't matter how grave the mistake was, the punishment was the same.

The 4 end up passing some time and clean a bit, until Ortho stumbles upon a box of goodies. Inside there were old comics, photos, letters and other trinkets. You can imagine these 4 had a blast when they read the sappy romance letters from a girl. The old comics were still well kept, so they also gave them a quick read, even if the pages were yellowed from the time and dust gathered on them.

The photos tho, showed a boy from Ignihyde, quite young, smiling happily. They couldn't really say that the guy resembled anyone they knew, but in a few photos he had a kitten, just as big as his palm. There were also some photos with a girl too, or with other boys that were his colleagues. Pretty standard things.

Riddle did wonder what does such a personal box have to be in a school basement? The answer comes at the bottom of the box, where there's another box, but this time it was a board game, titled 'Jumanji'. Being excited over the game, the group unknowingly ditched the cleaning and got a table to set it up and play.

Cue choosing characters. Ortho got first, while Riddle had to pick the very last character left. Lilia did bring up that the redhead looked uneasy, even seemed like he dreaded to play a character meant to be a thief, but Epel just says that it might be because it's a thief and it only adds up to the pile of 'rulebreaker' characters Riddle despises.

Cue the game actually being fucking cursed. :'D

So the 4 now got their characters's species and powers. Lilia was probably the chillest one. Ortho tho, was absolutely bewildered, since, unlike the rest, when he woke up from the knockout, all of his robot pieces were on the floor. The rest do question that tho. :v

It turns out Ortho was a human. But he was meant to be dead if it wasn't for his big brother making an armour meant to keep him alive and allow him to enjoy life like any other person. Ortho keeps his big brother in high-regards for this, so to see that he was fully healed and in top shape, is a miracle. He never thought he would catch a day where he could wear normal clothes and actually feel the fabric itself on his body. He was SO thrilled about it.

Epel and Riddle tho, were in the unhappy corner. Epel bcs 'I'm not a fucking macho strong fish :(' and Riddle bcs 'I literally changed species, I'm so screwed'.

The 4 tho, still have to play the game and finish it. :v

If you know my jumanji oneshot, it goes almost like in there, with the mention that there wasn't a parent-teacher meet, rather a meeting with parents regarding the overBlot and the death of the Octavinelle student.

Azul wasn't at all pleased with the verdict given, regarding the murder. The students were more focused now on the shortie gang and their game adventures and the adults were buying Crowley's statements because they didn't know any other detail.

The Verdict in question? The student commited suicide. Now, Azul was ruled out of the equation, because he was his Dormhead and it wasn't exam period, nor did that particular student made any deal. They seemed happy with their paycheck and pretty carefree from other students's Intel. Still, look where they are now. The friend group of the deceased was getting questioned and Azul found himself going in between those questionings, to try and prolong the investigation.

Malleus, again, was more than passive, so Azul couldn't count on him. Floyd was pretty shaken up by the jumanji adventure, or at least the things he saw going on in the lounge and Jade was helping with the damage control, even if everything was magically fixed at the end.

He instead counts on Idia, the ultimate robotics engineer, to help him out, by trying to see on the cameras any trace of the victim. Azul gave the dates and managed to narrow it down to a specific interval. After that, the cameras cut off due to the implemented 'sleep hour', to make the electricity bill cheaper. Again, a decision done by crow man, which Azul found to be damning at best.

Idia also opens up a bit and tells Azul about this jumanji game and how Ortho gave him nearly a heart attack. He was so caught off-guard by this sudden reality-bending magic and how it healed Ortho in an instant and also added some height too. Rosehearts was a dragon, Epel a siren, Vanrogue a vampire. And all with '3 lives' as stated by the younger Shroud. Idia found it wierd, but after that parent meeting, the game was, apparently 'finished'. Before Azul could ask about the game, Idia says that Ortho and his buddies destroyed it, because it was 'something that shouldn't be used by anyone'.

Azul also takes note of it.

Meanwhile, back to our shortie gang, it had to go back to getting used to the changes made by the game. Trein was a nice man and helped them out, even if sometimes these mfs would get annoying with questions about those old photos and letters. :'3

Still, now that they grew closer, the group also observed how reserved Riddle was. He would dissappear at certain times and no one knew where he was. Trey said that this happened even last year, so it wasn't something unusual. He just goes deadbeat for an hour or so, then he's back like nothing happened.

The new nurse was also Riddle's father, who explained that, at the moment, the home life is a bit rocky so he understands if his son needs some space alone. After all, he came to NRC as a nurse to put some distance in between him and his wife, now future ex due to the upcoming divorce.

So in desire to show their support, Epel, Ortho and Lilia try to hang-out more with Riddle. Help him out and overall trying to 'keep his mind off the home life' for a while.

Riddle finds this absolutely troublesome. :v

It is through this insistence and the absolute shitshows these 3 caused when they followed him in the middle of the night, that the redhead has to come clean and say 'hey, it's not about my home life, it's about the shadows roaming around.'. He was stressed because the shadows were in an all-time height, always 3 or 4 roaming per night. Riddle was overwhelmed by those. He was the ultimate thief, a talent that helped him manifest a persona and be able to fight the shadows.

Epel and Ortho are so hyped by the idea that their buddy over here was THE phantom thief. Like, please, they want a slice of that action too. Lilia seems to be the more rational one and says that maybe, since everything's overwhelming, Riddle should tell exactly what he needs. They could help him. What are friends for, after all?

They also tell this to Trein, because he was also the one who basically has them under a protective wing of sorts. The latter vows to keep the secret and so, he may sometimes indulge Riddle falling asleep in his class. :'3

Up until the exam period, shadows roam around so much that it runs poor Riddle dry. It doesn't help that, because of their involvement in this and the dire situations it puts them in, the rest of the squad also unlocks personas. Imagine their hype when they also get badass costumes and weapons too. Although the hype is a bit salty when they realise only Riddle could have multiple personas. Thus he was deemed the leader of the thief operations.

Watch Trein get even more grey hairs due to these mfs. :'3

BUT! Exams also come around. Riddle did indulge to have Sebek and Silver to join their small study group for the exams. The 2 weren't much of a bother. Jack also joined down the line, when he said that Adeuce weren't that keen on learning and Yuu was way too busy trying to study and also teach Grim.

They get noice scores. Ortho even scores a 99, second highest after Riddle, so he rubs it in Epel's face. :'D

But, this also starts the chain of anemones. From Epel's Intel, Jack went with Yuu to Octavinelle to address the anemone problem. Riddle tho, insists that he doesn't want to get involved with Azul's shady shit at all, especially the anemones.

Cue the braincell club doing sum shit, Azul overblotting and even more shadows roaming around post that.

Again, no one died from the overBlot, which was another miracle. Students were stunted about this. :v

Also we get Malleus barging in because he felt the engagement mark and, unfortunately, in all of his panic he forgot he could've actually teleported. The only time this guy doesn't use his magic for trivial things is the only time it actually proves to be important. :'3

In all this chaos, Floyd's transfer contract gets destroyed. Which meant, by the terms, that Floyd would have to transfer to Diasomnia, as he couldn't stay in Octavinelle anymore. Ofc, the latter instead transfers to Heartslabyul, thus abusing of a loophole in the contract. Riddle was taken aback by this sudden addition, but he indulged it, since Floyd stood almost 24/7 in Octavinelle to help Azul recover from his overBlot.

Also we have Malleus trying to be a better fiancé and actually take care of Azul. Finally Lilia punted sum sense in his thick af skull. :'3

The next day, in Octavinelle, a body is discovered. Malleus discovers it when he went to fetch sum food for Azul. Clearly, at that, Azul ditched the bed and immediately was on to investigate before crow man or anyone else would come and tamper with it.

It was a Scarabia student and he was clearly murdered. Azul had a bad feeling about it, so he calls in Idia, saying to come here and check the lounge's cameras.

Again, during this 'sleep hour' the cameras were off, which was wierd, since Azul swore that the lounge cameras were independent of the school ones. He asked Idia to run a few diagnostics on the cameras, but nothing was out of the ordinary, besides the fact that those were manually set to turn off at the 'sleeping hour'.

Malleus doesn't understand all this, so he demands of Azul to tell him why is Idia involved, why there was a literal murder in the lounge and why was Azul all over this? Leona only did the formalities and complied when that student died in his dorm. Why does Azul keep on making things so difficult for police and staff to proceed with a conclusion?

Azul says that something is fishy. That the verdicts are wrong. Crowley is padding up this thing to make it seem like some depressed students just ending it all. Indeed, the Verdict was the very same as in the case of the first victim, which was enough for Azul to link those 2 together.

Malleus was just not understanding anything. Idia had a vague idea, but both were in the dark about wtf is Azul onto. Like this dude has no chill when he clearly needs to rest. :'v

Meanwhile, for Riddle, things were awkward. Now, don't get him wrong, things were pretty messy around now. Still, the main reason for his awkwardness was that he both got to dating Floyd of all people, but the divorce case will commence during the winter holiday, so he'll be obligated to attend and his mother will see what happened to him.

Ortho is all like: 'if you want, we can hack in the legal files and add homicide on your mother's'. Ah yes, the easy way out :3

This time, Lilia sees the winter holiday as fit to have Malleus deal with his romance problems. He has to work with this guy, bcs Sebek can and will unintentionally rizz people, while Silver has that dad approval™ in getting a date.

But Malleus? Malleus would be the whole package, IF he wasn't so incapable of picking social cues. Someone has to educate him and by heavens Lilia would be that person.

So while trying to work on this, they hear that Azul is still looking into the murder case, which brought him and the twins in Scarabia. So seeing it as a perfect setting, Lilia yeets Malleus in there and hopes that maybe Kalim's friendly and outgoing personality will rub onto Malleus a bit.

Malleus comes back 3 days later and explains that an overBlot occurred and the next morning, some poemfiore student was found dead, stabbed by the fountain head. So Azul again jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon. :'D

But what Azul finds, this time, is something odd... More exactly the blood placement. It looked too artificially put. So he deems it fit to ask Jade about it.

Now it turns out, Jade is the ultimate evidence analyst, thus he could determine things such as counterfeits or unnatural marks on things. And indeed, just as Azul predicted, the blood was fake. It was placed there to induce people in error.

Error, which Azul has to note it down meticulously. Upon further investigation, the poemfiore student fit the same criteria as the other 2 before them: a mage with no ultimate. Jade and Floyd do priquire some curiosity, but for now, Azul insists on one thing: keep this overBlot under wraps. Under no circumstances does this need to get public.

And here is where Malleus and Idia come into play. Malleus, bcs he wants to prove that he's a caring fiancé. Idia because Azul promised him a month of 80% discount at the lounge. :'3

One would be foolish to breach Malleus's wish of keeping this under the wraps. And Idia was the best man when it comes to actually keeping the media quiet about this. Azul thought that he had a foolproof plan, thinking that only the scarabia students and Yuu are involved.

He was fucking wrong.

The second that winter holiday ended, outrageous news about the murder were out and about. Everyone and their grandma knew of what happened. They didn't know of the overblot, but they knew of the murder that occurred, or as told by Crowley: 'another student falling on an unfortunate path'.

As for Riddle? He's praying, alright? Lilia and Ortho were the ones who filled him and Epel on the real deal.

So it strikes him as very freaky that he saw the exact same guy on the street, back in the queendom of roses. They meet by coincidence and with some small talk, Riddle found out that the student in question was expelled overnight. He just woke up one day and he was expelled.

So with a bit of digging on ortho's side, our lil thieves group find some info about the past murder victims and even 'visit' them(aka, spying from afar to check if the guy is alive).

Lilia also compiles the news statements and articles from Malleus, who got a copy from Azul's conspiracy board. And they figure that something is wrong. Something is striking way too familiar to their Jumanji session.

So they also share this with Trein. That's when the old man admits that he found the game in the library archive from NRC. He didn't know why it was there, but at that time, the ghosts said that it was unregistered and he was let to keep it for himself. Trein also adds that at that time, it was another headmaster. Crowley came after them, so there was little hope that crow man could be actually useful in recalling shit.

But woe! VDC be upon thy!

Ortho is struggling to have his brother give a proper speech. He is very much contemplating if he should straight up drag his brother in like a kidnapping attempt or bribe him out. Either way it ends up futile because Idia has to pull through a presentation and q&a section.

The others really wanted to help, but Epel was forced by Vil in the VDC group even before the auditions were announced. Lilia and Ortho also were planning to audition, but the latter didn't really have many hopes regarding it, admitting that maybe Vil was a bit freaked out when he saw this cutesy twinkish looking boy punch a hole through a brick wall. He still has a few loose ends when it comes to his super strength. :'3

So they admittedly leave the matter of Idia to Trein and Riddle. Why Trein too? Because Trein was Idia's homewroom teacher and by seven did this man promise he won't retire until he sees this boyflop execute a coherent sentence in front of a crowd. Making Leona graduate is far easier than this. :'3

Also because Riddle is chosen to be in charge of the festivities this year. Hooray! They choose the local fire-breathing semi-kleptomaniac! :D

The odd thing is that Azul is much more nosey this time. At first he excused it as him checking in on Floyd. But Riddle could see that he aimed for something else. Mainly, the documents regarding the festival activities. While all the dormheads had a schedule and basic knowledge of the program, Riddle, as the head organiser, had access to much more information. Information which Azul wanted.

And it wasn't like he could use Floyd as an excuse. Neither Malleus worked. Riddle was a dragon now. So Malleus, as a draconic Fae, is less superior when it comes to respect in the Fae traditionalism. So he must respect the alleged 'territory' of Riddle(his dorm). He only mingles when he feels like his territory(dorm and Azul) is threatened.

But due to his 'bold moves', Malleus is concerned for Azul's wellbeing. It all comes to a great halt when the octavinelle dormhead is apart of an accident on the still in work sets.

This leads to the meeting between Azul and Mr Rosehearts, who won the custody in the divorce case. The man insisted for Azul to stay in the infirmary for a bit, due to the nasty wound at the legs. And Malleus, skeptical at best, had to allow it. So Floyd and Jade often come by to fill Azul in on things around.

Mr Rosehearts does recognise Floyd as his son's boyfriend, but doesn't dab too much into it. He only passively mentioned that Riddle was racking his brain on how to make Idia attend a presentation.

Azul perks at that and asks Floyd to nudge Riddle so that Azul will take care of Idia. If he does that, Riddle would become indebted to him and thus Azul will get access to the extra documents from the festival.

But what Riddle figures instead is that HE should set up Idia on a date, as to convince him out. And what better candidate than 2 smitten Malleus Draconia and Azul Ashengrotto.

So the auditions finish! Ortho and Lilia don't pass. For Ortho, he wasn't that bummed, while Lilia considered that his performance was satisfactory enough. :'3

Epel was out with the VDC camp and, naturally it makes the Shadow fighting job harder. Add to it the stress of the up and coming festival.

When that shit comes tho... We have an overblot. :'3

And after that, Grim goes hairwire, starting a bit of chaos in ramshackle. Add salt to the wound, Ortho comes to the thief group with the news that Grim is wanted by STIX. He is still gripping onto the secret that he is an executive of STIX, but within the group, it's more of a glass closet than anything at this point. The others didn't question how Ortho had access to classified information, so he isn't elaborating :'3

So it turns in a big chase for Grim. There's the ramshackle ultimates, who needed Grim in order to participate to other magic-oriented events(also bcs Grim is their friend), Azul, who figured Grim has something to do with this conspiracy thing going on, the phantom thieves, who wanted to stop this mess, the other dormheads that were appointed by crow man and the Shroud brothers, who got very clear orders to capture Grim or call for backup if this is too hard.

So 5 different motives for 5 different 'groups', but ultimately it ends up with the same target: the rampaging Grim.

Ortho is the one who catches Grim, but not without a hefty fight. So it comes down to a decision: either give Grim to the phantom thieves or hand him to STIX. He ends up with the first one, presenting Riddle with the situation. They need to keep Grim somewhere where the others won't even think to search at. So he suggests the Ignihyde dorm, due to how little is frequented by anyone outside the dorm.

That way, Ortho feels like he's shooting 2 birds with 1 stone.

Except that he doesn't, because after the whole culture festival is wrapped up, charons break in. And Ortho is absolutely done and over with all this bullshit. :'3

So what's going on? Well Riddle tags along Epel, Rook and Yuu towards STIX, leaving Lilia and Trein to cover up for them at school. We get the reveal that the Shroud Bros are in charge of STIX until their parents come back from a very important trip. Ortho bagged his brother to let him handle the guests and while Idia wouldn't want to greet Rook of all people, it was either that or deal with the wants of the 4 NRC problematic kids, so pick your poison, Idia. :'3

1 round of rock paper scissors later and Ortho ends up with the NRC problematic kids. He just mentally prepares for the bigass nag Riddle would give him later. :'3

One thing that was painfully clear for Ortho tho, was that the 'subjects' were very curious about his situation. They knew him as a robot before, so to see him... well... a human... It was mind blowing. Ortho briefly explains that it was a mishap and while he originally was a human on hi-tech life support, now he's healthy and better than ever in terms of physical condition.

But a good point is brought up: Ortho was seen dying during his play in Jumanji. Vil saw him and the others recall that his 'playmates' also experienced those things. They weren't necessarily very private moments unfortunately. For some reason, Azul was all in on this subject, Which Ortho recalled that his big brother mentioned about the Octomer's recent conspiracy theories.

Ortho responds that it was most likely a field curse put on them. He didn't really have the opportunity to test things out, but he figured that as long as he got wounded during a 'level' on the school ground, he would immediately heal the next one. That comes from a small accident, when he went out with Epel and accidentally burnt his finger. It didn't heal upon entering a new level, so Ortho had to bandage it. He may be 'indestructible' in his character description, but that doesn't mean he cannot get scars from burns. He found that out the hard way.

That seems to priquire more of Azul's interest, but he refrains from asking about it.

Idia comes to the rescue tho. Calling mostly Ortho to discuss with him over the data that was done and also to announce that in 12 hours maximum, everyone would be back to NRC with no scratch or trouble if they just wait patiently.

Not even 15 minutes after the short discussion and he'll breaks loose in the form of the ravenous Grim and the Tartarus ghosts acting up again.

Idia does check up with the other surveillance staff and finds out the trouble: an overblot occurred outside. It was a very natural thing, for the phantoms at the upper levels to get a bit agitated when an overblot occurs. What was not alright, was that the ravenous Grim made a nice lil bit of damage to the cooling system of the Tartarus. And by that I mean he completely shredded the main unit in charge of keeping the cooling system active.

Now, in all of this chaos, not being able to find Ortho, Idia is overwhelmed. Everything is chaotic and he has to stop Grim from breaking into Tartarus, which in turn ends up with the Shadows and blots dragging in Idia and cue overblot.

All in all, out of this whole mess, 3 things are happening: 1. Idia finds the truth behind the phantom thieves post his overblot. 2. Azul gains more information on his case and starts to hatch a plan.

3. OLD MAN VIL! OLD MAN VIL!

Returning to NRC, Ortho does tell his gang that he will have to stay back with Idia and clean up the mess. Also get one hell of a nag from their parents. :'3

Ortho also pleads with Idia to not share his secret with anyone. Sure, STIX knows, but it was a miracle the NRC problematic kiddos don't and Ortho would rather have it that way.

Their parents also weren't very happy with the mess they returned to. But... All in all, Idia had to undergo a few checkups and Ortho had to also go through them too, mostly to make sure none of their sons are actually hurt.

Back at NRC, Azul clears up his conspiracy board. The twins and Malleus think that, maybe, Azul is done with all this conspiracy shit.

By the time Idia returns, the conspiracy board was rebooted. New info, old info, all jumbled up and in some kind of order that makes sense only to Azul.

Turns out, the overblot registered wasn't at NRC, but still, a diasomnia student was found dead. Azul didn't miss the investigation, although people did tell him that the ultimates in this field and professionals should be let to do this. Azul was skeptical, because this is exactly what happened before and the verdict was still the same.

Idia wants to actually break it down to Azul: this was bullshit. He had no ultimate that would give him any right to mingle in this very sensitive business. No one knows what Azul's even aiming at, nor does Idia care, just lay down for f's sake and calm down. Everyone went through enough already.

Azul tho, counters, saying that his motive concerning this investigation is well built. This school, like most mages schools, is notorious for overblots and how casualties happen during that time. But now there were no casualties. The overblot victim was saved. Yet people still die. So Azul wants to get to the bottom of this to prevent any chance of it happening to him or his close ones. And by the pattern he has, he fears that in diasomnia, an overblots would occur, then a heartslabyul student will bite the dust.

And Floyd was a heartslabyul student as of present.

Naturally, this alarms both Malleus and Idia. There was a pattern, just how the STIX data implied. Idia was pretty on edge, since if that was true, then he was a victim of an induced overblot. While Malleus was worried for his dorm's sake. Already 1 student was killed, by Azul's evidence, he couldn't handle having someone also overblot.

So Malleus suggests that Azul should get in contact with Rosehearts quick, seeing how this morbid pattern points towards him. Idia tho, brings this news to Ortho to pass on.

There was a criteria that Azul discovered in this wired string of events: a mage with ultimate overblots, then the next day, a mage from the next dorm with no ultimate is found dead and the cycle is repeated. This year it seems to have started with savanaclaw and it will end with heartslabyul by Azul's calculations.

Lilia also shares with the group the fact that his magic has started to weaken. He was old, so he figured it was time to retire. His persona could hold him oh so long, but even he had to admit defeat at one point.

And while our thieves group and Trein do console Lilia on the matter, nobody was as devastated as Malleus. With the new information at hand, the Fae prince thought Lilia was likely to overblot and boy has his senses went in all mf directions. He tried to scramble for any excuse to keep Lilia here, to keep the dorm morale high.

As a goodbye gift, the Jumanji group decide to give Lilia the board game. It was ripped off its magic, but it would be a nice memory that Lilia could hold onto.

This prompts Malleus to also think of a farewell gift, when he sees the board game and Lilia explains that it was a gift from his buddies. He brings this problem to Azul, mentioning the board game passively.

And that makes Azul finally click in things. He found out from Idia about the allegedly alive victims he was looking into. And now, with Jumanji put in perspective, Azul realised just what big piece he missed in his puzzle.

So he calls in Rosehearts. He wants all the details about the game from Riddle. He insisted that it was of utmost importance. And while Azul was known to be a 2 faced scammer, Floyd advised Riddle to just tell him what he wants to hear. No one really bothers with his nuts investigation anymore. :'3

So Riddle endorses in this saga and gives to Azul the rundown of what happened. And that seems to make Azul pleased enough. He's more than excited to finally get somewhere and point things towards a result.

While that happens, Lilia is having a farewell party prepared. Everyone chimes in a bit to help and keep the mood up. And when that one comes, well...

It's a rave, alright... U-Ub

During the party, Jade and Floyd are sitting aside more. When confronted about it by Riddle, the 2 admit that they have no idea what Azul's planning. He was very hurried today especially. Something about 'catching the mastermind'.

But, their lil party moment is busted when Malleus comes in, proudly here to present his gift towards Lilia. And by how his magic was used around, naturally the students knew where this was going.

The other dormheads and our thieves team do try to stop Malleus before it was too late. Heck... Even personas were up on the table.

Their saving graces come in the form of one Azul Ashengrotto, who came in here all disheveled, demanding for everyone to stop, especially Malleus. He does stun down Malleus by using the engagement mark. Aka, stabbing his hand to also induce a shock to the latter.

Azul reveals that the overblot is staged. That whatever they will do, Malleus is set to overblot weather he overuses his magic or not. So right now, he's on a tight chronometer.

What Azul reveals to the whole crowd goes as follows: the overblots in NRC were all staged. Someone was staging them and stacking them up for a long time, using them as means to murder unsuspecting students and blame it on the overblot. It was effective, until Leona became the first overblot with no casualties. Then the little monotony was broken. The only odd thing was the lack of news coverage or how the families of the deceased didn't chime in. Then he was brought forth the Jumanji game. And by putting pieces head to head and looking through some records, Azul figured who was in charge of this manslaughter.

But before he could actually reveal who did it, he is stabbed from behind. The attacker was a random student, fully under the control of some kind of mania, who immediately seemed to come to his senses and not being able to discern anything. He was just as horrified as the rest of the crowd. The twins rush to Azul's aid. Idia summoned some bandages and also came to the aid.

Malleus? Oh Malleus was furious. You mean to tell him someone attempted to push him to overblot, tried to use him to harm innocent people, then is covering their trails by some hypnotized student harming his fiancé? He may not know who that someone is, but sure as hell is he dumping his initial plan off the window.

So we do get an overblot. But instead of dream adventures, we have a hugeass dragon rampaging in search for the criminal. There were people whom Malleus (triggering his sanity back) protects them. The rest are on their own I guess. :\

That's when we find out 2 things about Floyd:

1. He's the ultimate attendant.

2. That tittle was given to him because he is Riddle's velvet room attendant, thus he could use the glossary to summon personas that Riddle discovered up until now.

Cue very epic ass battle. :3

During that chaos, Azul does try to grip on his last bit of consciousness to tell Jade that the one behind all this is Crowley. He doesn't know why, but he knows that Crowley needs to be caught.

So after knocking some sense in Malleus, Sebek and Silver manage to catch Crowley and present him before Malleus. At Lilia's insistence, the Fae prince doesn't immediately smite him down and indulges to give crow man a few seconds to find a good enough excuse for not getting smited this very second. And of Malleus wasn't going to thunder up his ass, surely the rest of the school body will.

And, surprisingly, Crowley accuses Riddle first. He was the one who messed the order by not overblotting. If he did it, then he would have by now completed his plan and Azul would've been too late. He used the Jumanji game as a tester and our group were the fortunate guinea pigs that survived. He used despair induced students to gather up further victims to test on his rituals ripped from the game's mystical energy.

His plan? Revive Malenoir.

Yes... It's that moment of 'Luke, I'm your father.', which makes it a shock for Malleus. Really the new revelation added so much hatred to Lilia that he did the kill, not Malleus. He straight up decapitated the guy. And his attitude towards the screaming mob was to 'tough up' and give to forgetting this events.

With this, Lilia decides to properly finish the school, not trusting literally anyone to take care of his sons right. He may be old, but he's a vampire with a badass persona. He'll manage. :3

Despite the anticlimactic turn, Idia gets ahold of the blot stone before Grim. He will give it to STIX for study, but alas, with no more Crowley, a new headmaster is going to be elected.

So that would be a happy ending. :3

Azul still ain't getting an ultimate tho x3

[bellatrixnightshade]

Explanation for A Masquerade of Life and Death (PART ONE, maybe)

Mostly for @wisteriaum @liketwoswansinbalance and @2xraequalstorara who have read/interacted with my posts on this. And I believe @harmonyverendez.

To preface this, I still think this is in an experimental phase, and I will most likely not use the Masque of Red Death chapter (the original short story is by someone else and I merely just used it as my playground/made my own version.) to start the story, since this is about Blanche Laurent, my OC and Rafal, their journey to find Rhian and how they perceive these supernatural forces. However, i will certainly keep it for another part of the story and maybe I ca section this fic like I did with ATOTE.

Luckily, I am trying to work on a first chapter right now, and also, since ATOTE and this won equally on the poll, I will just work on this one mostly, but try to work on he other one too. (Reading history helps me with ATOTE, I won't lie. Like reading about President Garfield's assassination yesterday afternoon gave me more inspo for ATOTE than I've had for months.) I am more open to discuss ATOTE too, but I think it will be limited to my posts rather than taking asks for now.

ANYWAY, moving forward: this is actually an AU based on this original story world I wanted to write based on Edgar Allen Poe's stories and poetry, mainly, "The Masque of Red Death" and "The Raven." Of course, on this one I've expanded it a little more and there isn't too much the Raven references (at least not overt ones). So i definitely recommend to read up on it or to see the correlation between my AU (so I will take creative liberty) and Poe's.

I also use other literature as inspiration and even some more modern gothic infused books, like the Belladonna series, though I have subverted the main romance in that one. And I would say the protagonists are a little different, despite having similar powers.

Some of this could be considered based on past historical periods but since this world is made up it won't be uniform!! Just to let people know.

Plot: It starts out in a seaside kingdom (ahem slight reference) where Blanche Laurent and her mother (more on that in another post, which will be author disclaimers.) moved to years ago. Blanche is about 18 for most of the story, maybe ending 19 or 20. Rafal was her childhood friend in her own home but they get out of touch after she leaves and his family, except Rhian despised and disapproved of her. But when Rhian goes missing, then he finds her again and they look for him together. There's more than that but basically what sets off events!

Don't hesitate to ask me anything, either.

Also, future additions will be via reblog rather than separate posts.

(if you follow my tags, I will tag it as fic: masque of life and death and fic: atote from now on.)

[plantcrazy]

Lost Children Progress Update 17/4/24

It's been a little while since I did one of these. I've been giving small updates here and there, but a big one once in a while is nice, and I enjoy sharing my progress. It's sort of motivating. You know? To look and see, 'Oh wow, I did a lot' or 'wow, I didn't accomplish a lot, but I'm proud of what I did do!' (Some chapters take their time to come together, other the ideas just flow on to the paper).

ANYWAY! You don't care about this. You want to know how long till the next chapter comes out, right????

So, will start with the elephant in the room: Ch.19. It's only 8 pages, which is why, despite the first 3 technically done (anything at 90% is just to digitalise & add text), I haven't uploaded anything.

It's about done. I'm just stuck on page 5 (and two panels of page 4). They're a flashback. A god-damned nightmare of a flashback to draw and... I don't want to do it TT , but for effect and impact, the story needs it >>

Otherwise:

(That should be 20/22 chapters done :P )

Part 1 is coming together swimmingly! With the recent addition of 2 new chapters and, I think, this is as big as part 1 will be getting. I'm finishing off tidying up how I want Part 1 to end at the minute, and then we'll have a small time skip to part 2.

(And maaaaaaybe I'll go back to the start and add an intro chapter to give more info on what the heck happened in the Triple Threat Ending to make Henry think screwing up the timelines and making a new one was a great idea. IDK. Still on the hedge about where to put this info)

Also! The poll I'm running looks like everything in one fic will win, for how it gets uploaded on A03. In two days time once the poll is finished I'll work on implementing those changes (, unless the poll swings back the other way again :P ).

Part 2:

The order of the first 9 chapters, take with a grain of salt. I'm still finalizing the order.

For the most part it's just detailed ideas of what I want to happen in each part + 4 chapters finished, 2 being edited.

'Standing on the Ledge' came out FANTASTIC. I cannot wait to upload that one. Personal favourite of the part so far. 2nd place going to 'Stuck With You'.

And what is that at the bottom? A familiar chapter name! Yes! We're getting back to the Wall. Slowly but surly our characters will be reunited with their frozen prisons, well-

Those who I haven't/ don't kill off~

*eViL lAuGhInG! >:D*

jk.

Or am I?

Anyway,

Part 3:

Part 3 is mostly a butt-ton of editing. It looks like most of the new chapters will land in part 2 (asides from 4), so part 3 will be similar to the original version, but not, given all the minor changes you're about to witness snowball into avalanche sized consequences!

^^;

Anyway, I've edited 4 so far dated them since it's going to be a while till we get to Part 3. That being said, given it's 85%ish editing, it should hopefully just be rapid fire chapter uploading when we do get there :)

I think that's about all I've got to say?

Er... you guys should be aware by now of the 'I'm in uni, chapters are as I have time/wrist able' disclaimer. So...

OH! Also, this is all going up on A03 (once the poll is done), so I can keep the readers over there who don't follow this Tumblr up-to-date with what's going on. So when you see a new chapter update in your inbox, don't get too excited ^^;

And finally, for you.

My dear read.

Who has read through my long waffle and sporadic episodes of evil laughter and fun!

I have an... 'opportunity'

*Snots* I sound like a Mafia boss with Liam Neelson's voice reading this allowed.

I left my colour coding in Part 2 (as I couldn't be bothered to remove it ^^; ), so... will have some fun with this.

Whoever can figure out who's POV are colours blue or green will get a free half or full body drawing of one character (SFW), of their choice (mine, oc, stickmin or another fandom (at my discretion)).

And we'll say... 2 guesses a person (either two on one colour, or one guess for each colour) to make it fair. (It shouldn't be too hard, there's only 12 POV's, and you've met them all but one coming in at Part 3.

OH!

And there will be three winners in total.

Good luck :)

(btw, I'm going to bed now, so first people with the right answers are the winners in case you all rush in here with your answers over the next... 10 ish hours...

Unless... you're the only person to read this far >> )

[nobodysdaydreams]

HILBERT PICKED ONE HECK OF A TIME TO DROP HIS TRAGIC BACKSTORY (or my reaction to Episodes 25-26 of Wolf359).

First off I would like to welcome any newcomers to my reactions, courtesy of my poll about Blessie's name, as well as my post about my unhinged yet, apparently shockingly plausible theory that Blessie was created with DNA from Reneé Minkowski.

You can click the links to view the posts, but in the meantime, I'm gonna get right to the reaction, because I've been studying all day, and want to reward myself with a little treat. Sorry for ranting so much about Blessie, but I find the character extremely compelling. I hope Blessie makes it to the end. He deserves it. If not, you best believe I’ll be writing some crack fic.

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts. Especially in this one because it is late, and I am tired.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell

Episode 25: Lame-O Superhero Origin Story

Oh right they are going to Hilbert for help. Bad idea. BAD IDEA.

Hilbert don't try to play therapist. You are NOT in the same boat. You treated him like a science experiment.

Also. This is the same voice actor talking to himself. Pretty incredible. Pure talent. Honestly.

And yeah Hilbert, don't shame him for working with Hera and Minkowski. It's called friendship, something YOU wouldn't understand.

"Ever met anyone who could get things done on their own" "only Lovelace"

...so NOT Cutter then? Hm. I wonder what Hilbert and others have helped Cutter with along the way then. And I wonder what it is about Isabel Lovelace that makes Hilbert so terrified.

Besides, you know, the huge bomb.

Lovelace. Lovelace. You need to be reasonable.

Yeah. HILBERT DOESN'T FEEL GUILT. It's creepy. "Latent, it can be controlled. I've made vast improvements since last round off full scale trials"

...

...

...

Hilbert.

Hilbert.

What happened the last round of trials?

"Command classified you as expendable and gave you exposure samples before I even knew your name"

Oh my gosh I hate Cutter and command so much. And Doug is NOT expendable. Would else is gonna make jokes to lighten the mood?

"They gave orders to terminate your life at Christmas"

^That line is so messed up. Especially since it's also his birthday! I love how hard they rub in how evil command is, like, this could not have waited 24 hours for their evil plans, they couldn't even have that decency, oh no, it had to be on Doug and Jesus's birthday when Minkowski had made them a nice dinner. There was no other way to do this.

They are the worst. They're the worst.

"I did not ask for this hand Eiffel, but I will play it through to the end. For your sake as much as mine."

Hilbert...what hand are you playing? Why do you want to "radically improve human life". And what does radically improve human life mean for you? Does he have a family member that's like...dying of cancer or severely disabled and he's doing this for them or something, because while that's very sad, it does not excuse murder.

"How did they go?" "Slowly..." Oh...huh. Hilbert kinda liked them, but killed them anyway. Why? Hilbert dude, what is your game here?

"What did all that niceness accomplish? You have chance to make a contribution to humanity?"

Hilbert. Two problems with your logic.

So far your contribution has been mostly murder of humanity, so unless that viruses ends up saving millions, you're not really proving your point. Your point only works if there is payoff, and right now, I am really not seeing it, you are MILES aways from Earth and all the people you plan to hypothetically save or sorry "improve" (geez the tmbs comparisons with that one)

Do you HONESTLY believe CUTTER, Mr. "I'll throw you off this building Rachel" is gonna use it for good? Really? You think you get out of this alive? You think you get what you want? You think anything good comes out of this? You're a fool.

EXACTLY! CALL HIM OUT DOUG.

"We can do better"

THERE IS NO WE HERE HILBERT YOU DON'T HAVE A VIRUS IN YOUR BLOODSTREAM. AT LEAST NOT THAT I KNOW OF.

Right! No consent! That's why it's wrong!

Hilbert: "I'm asking you now. At least believe that all I want is positive results".

...are they trying to make Hilbert sympathetic? Because he's still very misguided, and it's gonna take a lot.

Lovelace, Minkowski, you need to work together. There is a middle ground here. One that won't get everyone killed.

"Decima is my life's work but I don't like it." THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING IT.

HILBERT... sister? Why does she need antiradiation meds?

"Ah! Look Monitor! This conversation not productive!"

Hilbert. THIS IS THE ONLY DECENT THING YOU HAVE EVER SAID. But also me when I'm trying to avoid a conversation.

Olga. Nice name.

Aw she had cats.

Oh. He lost his other siblings to radiation poison. He doesn't even remember them.

...

Not that I feel bad for him. He's still an idiot.

When he was four? That's sad.

Huh. Looks like they both have families they'd rather forget. What happened to yours Doug?

Good question. What is his real name. Dmitri what now?

Yeah I wouldn't trust him either. But yeah, he does at least feel like a real person now. Yeah, maybe Doug will "come around". But you know what Hilbert? Maybe you will too. We'll see.

Oh we're getting Lovelace's backstory too I love this!

"Imagine losing him slowly, so he knows there's no hope. Do it four times."

Oh my. Yeah. That would break you.

And yeah: Minkowski DOES care about Lovelace. But we're forgetting the plant monster. Blessie matters too.

Oops. They fixed the ship. Well at least Lovelace trust them now.

More aggressively? What...no, please you guys have trust now, we do not need to pull out the knock out gas! This is a fragile situation. YOU ARE NOT THE ENEMY COMMAND IS. CUTTER IS.

Oh no. NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

DOUG!

HILBERT. I DO NOT FEEL BAD AT ALL. I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SISTER. YOU ARE MURDERING A MAN. YOU MURDERED SO MANY MEN. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT TO YOU HILBERT. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.

...but something tells me it wasn't.

Episode 26: Do No Harm

Oh and this episode title. "Do no harm" yeah, they BETTER do no harm. Eiffel can't die now! It's the middle of season two! Not even a season finale! We never got to find out his big secret about his family.

Hilbert you have explaining to do. Lovelace has to recognize the symptoms. Okay it sounds like she's being helpful. This is good. Crisis brings people together.

They better save Eiffel.

Anti-viral agent? Yeah it better work. And Hilbert she does make a point. How can they trust you?

Lovelace please calm down. I know you lost people but EIFFEL IS DYING. Hera please watch her so she doesn't do anything rash.

Oh gosh these gasping sounds... good voice acting but geez...

Ah. So his immune system is reacting to something else, which consequently also leads to it attacking the virus? Then what is this "something else"?

Hera called him her best friend 🥺

Yeah Hera. Call her out...but also, that was a bit harsh. She lost everyone, and she just wants to help you too.

I also love that Hera is willing to acknowledge that Lovelace's plan leaves her behind, but is okay with it, because it will save Doug and Minkowski.

"No one should have to live through that" Hera knows because that's her life. "And you shouldn't do the same to anyone else" GOOD POINT HERA.

"Fear is the only language you listen to you" "you need a better dictionary" oh boy.

I guess they're not getting along anytime soon.

LUNG COLLAPSED?

That's very serious. Hilbert. This is your ONE shot at MAYBE getting any semblance of...well maybe not redemption arc but something.

Oh boy. What do you have to say Hera.

Yikes. Well Hilbert, now you have motivation. I hope you're thinking long and hard about this Hilbert.

INTERNAL BLEEDING?

GIVE HIM YOUR OWN BLOOD THEN.

Oh great they don't have the right blood.

...Lovelace? Please. LOVELACE.

WHAT IS HER BLOOD TYPE?

I don't even know my blood type I should look that up.

...unusual radiological signals from the star? What does that mean?

Hera. Lovelace. Please get along.

"Don't you dare say I don't care about you. I don't say it because I can't" Oh my goodness.

Oh dear someone hug her good lord. And you CAN be there for them. Right now. BY GIVING BLOOD RIGHT NOW.

"The dumbest person I've met, admittedly it's a small sample size" 😂

"Four other people on this station" WHAT ABOUT BLESSIE!

...does...does Blessie have the blood for the job?

YES LOVELACE HAS THE BLOOD FOR IT!

Doug is the one thing holding them together. Maybe they can move forward together from here.

Fair enough. Lovelace is not getting along with Hilbert, but "a man's life is at stake, that is above all else, on this we agree". Huh. Seems Hilbert's coming around. He was trying to kill them earlier. I guess talking about his sister struck a nerve. But I've still keep a gun on him. Just in case.

29%. Those are rough odds, but you don't have any other options so... oh. Doug doesn't want to leave her? 2.7 years left?

"Don't you want to go home?" oh please tell me they don't split up the team. Minkowski is gonna have to go back, she has a husband.

And uh. What happened. That was not a good sound.

Tell me Hilbert didn't open the door.

Tell me the aliens didn't show up.

WHAT.

Well that...is not supposed to happen. SHOCKWAVE?

ALIENS? TIME LOOP? PORTAL?

UGH... it's super late guys and I gotta get to bed, but MAN I hope I can listen to more soon. Thanks for reading!

[childofsolace-write-ups]

Here's a little sneak peek to the fic I'm working on right now...

This is when Jamie comes into my Httyd AU series. I'm not posting in on Ao3 until the whole thing is done, and this is the only time I'm posting a sneak peek of it. The next time this would be seen, hopefully, it would be in Ao3 and completed. Still waiting for the poll results that will help me decide if I'll make it a one chapter thing or if it will be a multichap.

Either way, it will be completed.

If you want to wait for the complete version to read it, then there's no need to click 'keep reading' at the undercut.

It was another regular day. The Vikings of Berk were still stubborn yet resilient at the varying weather condition of dry cold to freezing cold, the young of these folks can be angels and devils depending on their moods, and the dragons still raise havoc. However, instead of anger and fear, the people react in fond exasperation.

"Brass!"

"Copper!"

"There's hardly a freaking difference!" Jack exasperated, putting down a newly crafted pick axe that Gobber had him make. Honestly, these days, he thought watching the younger children of Berk was a lot less aggravating. "Don't you two have anything better to do than argue and having me caught up in the middle?"

Aster and Gobber looked at him, opening their mouths to answer.

"No, don't answer, I don't really care; It's my break." Overhead, Jack saw the familiar sight of a dark mass with a boy on top of it. "Just in time," he grinned, grabbing his weapon staff before jumping on some nearby barrels and crates. "Over here, Hic!"

Aster held out a hand towards him, "Wait Jack," he scowled, "We're not done here!"

"I am!" Jack gave him a salute, his arm stretched up just in time for Toothless to fly by to grab it. As soon as his barefeet left the roof's surface, he used the curved part of his staff as leverage to flip over and take space on the saddle right behind Hiccup. "Thanks Hic, you saved me from another tug-of-war match with those two."

Hiccup chuckled, "Anything for you, snowflake." he smiled and blushed when Jack kissed him on the cheek for that response.

Jack laughed as a response to the thrilling belly flops he felt as Hiccup continued to soar higher to the sky, and further from the island and the village. He noted that there were some ships heading for the island, but he could see there were mostly people in civilian clothes so he didn't have to worry about it being an attack.

Even if it were, they'd be pretty foolish to attack Berk. After a few encounters with the Outcasts and Berserker alike, (plus kidnap attempts that annoyed Jack to no end, Hiccup more so since it's his boyfriend that got taken more often) Jack's pretty sure word's spread that they were working together with dragons, so the dragons were under their protection and vice versa. Stoick's still hoping they can come to a peaceful resolution with the Berserkers, since the previous chief was an old friend, but that still remained to be seen.

In any case, Jack figured that whoever these people were, they just might be some sort of business partners of Aster. It wouldn't be the first time the man didn't need to leave since the restock of supplies would be coming to him. Although usually, the island would make a day out of it where they would put up stalls or tents and there would be a bazaar for about a week.

Hiccup started to undo the security lock from the prosthetic pedal. "All right bud, you ready?"

Toothless made a  growl in affirmation.

"Wait, wait," Jack balked, "Can't we just enjoy flying without you doing..." he wasn't able to finish as Hiccup leaned more to the side before willingly falling off the dragon. "that..." He groaned, before crouching low to hang on for dear life... Literally.

As Toothless allowed himself to be taken by gravity, unable to continue his flight path without Hiccup's assistance, Jack grimaced and clenched his teeth. Much as he liked to scream, as would be the natural response, the last time Hiccup did this, a flock of birds were nearby and one of them pooped, nearly into his mouth. That said, it landed at his lower cheek and missed his mouth by only a few inches.

Just before they hit the water below, Hiccup angled himself just so and easily got his prosthetic re-attached to its pedal lock of Toothless' saddle and they glided through the surface, water splashing in the process, before taking back to the sky.

"Yeah!" Hiccup laughed as they were high enough to be amongst the clouds again, "I'd say that went about smoothly this time around, too."

Jack huffed, repositioning his staff that went an awkward angle during the crouch, before wrapping his arms around Hiccup's torso. "Maybe from where you're sitting," he shook his head, "And must you do that so frequently?"

"C'mon, it's exciting." Hiccup smirked, nudging Jack the best he could from where he sat. "some part of you has got to admit that it was awesome."

"Yeah, sure." Jack deadpanned, "Only about the thirteenth time, this week alone, you jumped off of Toothless for a thrilling free fall, that almost stopped my heart, without warning."

"If you give it a try..."

"I may now be less terrified of the sea, or bodies of water in general, but that doesn't mean it's going to hurt less when I hit the surface from this height."

Hiccup rolled his eyes, "You're not going to hit it." he said, "I'll catch you."

"Raincheck," Jack said with a smirk, "now I think we're going a little too slow for a Night fury, don't you think Toothless?"

Toothless what might be his version of a laugh, before zooming quickly through the skies.

Back at Berk, Aster and Stoick went to welcome some people docking in port.

A couple of months before, Aster left Berk to barter more items that could be traded. Ever since the island started caring for dragons, he had more business. To that end, the trader needed to restock his wares more often. In one of the island he frequented, a village there was ransacked by wild dragons that didn't seem to know about Berk being a safe haven for them. Not that the island could house every single dragon in the world, of course.

Aster had some good friends in that village though, and he requested Stoick to give some of them temporary refuge while they rebuild their village.

Though, there was one particular family wanted to live in Berk at the request of their one and only son. The boy was adopted because the couple couldn't have children, and rarely asked them for anything. So, when he actually did, it's usually given to him. Stoick was a bit on the fence, but Aster did tell him it was only one family who wanted to move in permanently. Plus, the one that would could open a tavern in Berk so there would be more options for good meals and drinks.

"Does Jack know I'm arriving today?" A young boy about Jack's age, only a year younger, came on port and walked on the gangplank towards Aster. He was visibly excited and nervous at the same time. "Is he here, too?" he looked past the tall man's shoulder, as if Jack would be behind him for a surprise greeting.

Aster chuckled at his amusement, "I haven't told him about it, Jamie. Wanted it to be a surprise," he smirked, "Serves the boy right for pulling a big one on me two months ago."

[scribeofpnakotis]

📓📓👀

Daingit I should have known it would be you 😂

Um ok here's to WIP hell I guess.

The first one is the OFMD idea I'm pretty sure you know about already but w/e. Basic plot is;

Alma runs away to sea at some point post ep10 but before the Blackbonnet reunion

She is found stowing away on a ship Ed & co are raiding

When asked what she's doing there (obviously rich kid, fairly clean and well fed etc etc) she says she's looking for her dad (just. Pretend this works with how e10 ended.)

In spite of himself, Ed is kind of invested. Life After Stede has been painfully, mind numbingly boring when it isn't just crushingly sad and he's once again desperate for a break in the monotony. Not getting attached this time though, no sir 🤡

There's a background here where since s1 Ed & Izzy's dynamic has gotten just, way more blatantly abusive, with Izzy lashing out with threats and verbal abuse (never in front of the crew) whenever he feels Ed isn't performing 'Blackbeard' convincingly enough. Most of the time, Ed's just dissociating to get through the day.

Anyway Ed decides he wants to help Alma find her dad (he has no idea who he is, she's not giving a name), with the justification to Izzy & the crew that she's obviously rich so her dad will probably pay a huge ransom to get her back.

So then there's an extended period of Alma living on the Revenge with Ed, Izzy, Jim & Frenchie & the rest of the crew

There's cute kid bonding with the crew bc I'm not made of stone, but the primary focus of this part of the story is on the dynamic between Ed, Alma and Izzy

Specifically with it mirroring the dynamic of Ed & his parents growing up

Alma= bb!Ed

Izzy= Ed's dad

Ed= His mum

So then it's Alma's POV of Izzy's abuse of Ed getting worse and eventually starting to spill over to her (Izzy generally fucking hates that there's this rando kid here now and also specifically thinks she's in the way of Ed being Blackbeard properly)

Culmination of the fic is Ed either killing or firing or otherwise doing something to Izzy to protect Alma (thematically it has to be murder but I don't like making my blorbo kill people)

This brings the parallel full circle with Ed protecting the kid he's basically adopted from a shitty violent white man in the way he wishes his mum had been able to protect him from his dad

Generic Blackbonnet Reunion Epilogue

The second idea newer and more vague but basically it's a TMA/Good Omens crossover called 'Hope, Love and Indigestion' (came up with the title first, can you tell?)

Current plot points include;

Aziraphale finds Pinhole Books while searching for a rare bible (leitners that are bibles anyone??)

The Boys(gn) adopt Gerry & exorcise Mary's horrible skin ghost & also get closure for Eric's horrible skin ghost

Something about how the Good Omens 'god' is the inverse of the TMA fear Entities, two halves of a whole that cannot exist without each other as per gomens themes about how binaries are dumb

Angels & demons are the positive entity equivalent of the fear avatars??? Maybe? Somehow?

Also I think Adam Young & Agnes Montague would get on really well

Mostly this is about how I like making A&C adopt traumatised children from other media

[vespertin-y]

THE ASK MEME AGAIN what about...... miu kaito and himiko?

it's been an ENTIRE YEAR since the first time we did this. h o w.

MIU

Sexuality Headcanon: not the slutty bisexual rep we wanted, but the slutty bisexual rep we needed.

Gender Headcanon: i firmly see her as a trans woman because she's going to make jokes about her genitals and i find dick jokes funnier than vagina jokes. yes, that is the entire basis of this headcanon.

A ship I have with said character: her and kiibo are bland for my taste but still sweet. her and kaito are fun also (what if we were both soo smart and also sooo stupid...and we're both trans😳!?). honestly i don't ship her with a lot of people in the cast? i should make up an oc for her to date. hm.

A BROTP I have with said character: her and kokichi are great, and not just because they're funny! it's fascinating to think of how long they were cooperating behind the scenes. sometimes i get really mad at miu because kokichi (presumably under the cover of the first electrobomb) TOLD her his plan, he tried so hard to work together, and she rejected him, tried to beat him to death, and sent everything spiraling off the rails for the rest of the game!! but then i have to reel myself back in and remember that she was just as paranoid as kokichi, that she didn't go with the plan because she was terrified "someone" (probably kokichi imo) would betray and kill her, and Not Everyone Mean To Your Blorbo Has To Explode, Mem. miu tried her best. it just wasn't enough. that can be said for 99% of the v3 kids.

A NOTP I have with said character: YOU GOT ME TO RANT ABOUT IRUMATSU LAST TIME YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT AGAIN. i will say i dislike sairuma though, but mostly because i think shuichi hating her ass is the funniest way for that relationship to go.

A random headcanon: i know it gets lost in the whole "haha funny she thinks she's a cyborg, aren't tsumugi's backstories so fucking stupid" thing, but i think she *did* get a traumatic brain injury in that car accident that eroded her impulse control and sense of boundaries and that's a large part of why she behaves the way she does. does that count as a headcanon or is that just extrapolating from canon. hm.

General Opinion over said character: every day i think about kodaka designing her to be a deliberately unlikable character who everyone would hate, and then getting super shocked and mad at the popularity polls showing she's rlly popular. GET FUCKED NERD

KAITO

Sexuality Headcanon: either aro or gay. headcanoning him as not attracted to women is the only way i can get any enjoyment out of the clusterfuck that is the harumota plotline, because at least it makes the scene where maki confesses and he says "...good for you, off to die now!" extremely funny.

Gender Headcanon: a bro. a broski. a brotato chip. a brotein shake. a brofessor. a member of the broman empire.

A ship I have with said character: i've grown fond of oumota if only bc those fics tend to have really good kokichi characterization. him n gonta are the embodiment of the "i lied, i don't actually like sex, now put your pants back on and let me infodump for three hours" meme and i love that for them. but most of all i like the idea of him and rantaro in a qpr postgame. i think those two would get a lot from just...existing quietly in each other's space, slowing becoming the center of the other's life. i should write a fic about that...

A BROTP I have with said character: him and shuichi are sooo unhealthy and that's what makes them so interesting to me. i think about them postgame a lot...about shuichi trying to support kaito the way he was supported, and about kaito fighting against it. it's hard not to slip into old patterns, but i think they could do it.

also i think about "i don't care if you're sick! i don't care if you're dying! i won't let monokuma touch you!" EVERY GODDAMN DAY

 A NOTP I have with said character: him and maki. i can’t even rant about them like i do with my other NOTPs. they just make me...tired.

A random headcanon: he never gels his hair again after the game. i’ve said it before but i really think he should’ve been more messed up when he came out of the exisal - no gel, no coat (where did he even get the second one??), covered in blood, etc. and i think after that, when he wakes up, he can’t bring himself to gel it again. he buys the supplies and goes into his bathroom and just Stares into the mirror. he can’t make himself do it. he leaves.

General Opinion over said character: ehhh...mixed. he’s a very good and complex character but he’s also a raging homophobe in the og japanese, yknow? it’s difficult for me to have super positive feelings on a character who calls people homophobic slurs and is treated as right for doing so by the narrative, no matter how deep and complex they are and how many cute gay headcanons i have. maybe that’s more of a flaw with v3 than a flaw with kaito, though.

HIMIKO

Sexuality Headcanon: she engages in lesbianics

Gender Headcanon: none beef with left girl.

A ship I have with said character: WAH i already talked a bunch about tenmiko in the tenko post,,,i think himikiyo’s surprisingly cute! it’s not a ship i considered before i found it but ao3 user platonics has gotten to me what can i say...

A BROTP I have with said character: the survivor trio makes me very soft,,,they deserve a very long nap together under the softest warmest blankets mankind can acquire. i have a pin of the scene of gonta giving her a piggy back ride because i am not immune to the ancient fandom dynamic of Tol and Smol. i enjoy thinking about the tension she’d have with angie postgame, even if that doesn’t quite count as a friendship. and platonic oumeno is always 👌, their scenes in ch3 are so good.

A NOTP I have with said character: uhh i dunno...maybe her and rantaro? he seems like he’d peg her as a little sister pretty fast.

A random headcanon: nobody ever talks about it but i feel like her master was probably?? not great??? i mean he abandons the child he’s been teaching because she gets more popular than him, what the hell.

General Opinion over said character: i love her so mucjh,,,,she was the most relatable character in v3 to me. her relating everything that happens to her through the lens of her childish interests punched me right in the gut :’). her *choosing* to combat her natural fatigue and depression in order to live a better life because she won’t get another chance was so moving. wish she had a better outfit tho.

[digitallovergirl]

　　HERE'S YOUR COFFEE.. AND MY NUMBER

☕ . . . Barista! Leo Valdez x Customer! Reader.

in which: Leo has a favorite customer, and it's most definitely you.

authors note: I don't have much to say for this one LOL. I'm writing this right after I post my poll to see what fic you guys would like from me so this is one of the options ! also I like to think that the store Leo works at is a mom and pop shop and the parents who run the place love Leo and gave him the job as soon as the place opened 🤭

warnings: literally none

Was it wrong for Leo to have a favorite?

He didn't think so. I mean, It's not like it was obvious. His job was to make caffeine drinks for teenagers, college students, and thirty year old women with two kids. Who would know (or care) that he liked one customer more than another. As long as the quality wasn't getting worse for one customer and way better for a second one.. Why do they care?

When Leo says they, he means his coworkers. He might have talked about one customer a little too much (and how pretty they were) and one day, the people who worked around him were like: "Wait.. do you have a crush on one of the customers?"

Which Leo responded with: "Uhm.. No?" (He's rubbing the back of his neck and blushing like crazy. He also sucks at lying)

So ever since that day, Leo's wonderful peers have been his wingmen and wingwoman. Every time they'd have a break, the people on the job would go into the back and talk about ways Leo could smoothly give you his number. At first, the meetings were really embarrassing. They'd often joke around about how Leo had a crush on somebody who he only saw for a good few minutes a day, but as it went on for longer, they would actually give some good advice.

So Leo, taking all the advice he'd learned from his fellow people's, decided to shoot his shot. And he didn't just pick a random day, no, he might have checked the weather for the week and picked the coldest day because, lets be honest, who doesn't want a hot drink on a cold day?

The day you came into the shop was definitely cold, but that didn't stop you from wearing something cute. As soon as one of Leo's coworkers saw you, she basically pushed Leo to the front desk without saying a word. "What in the world are you—" he stopped talking when he saw you walking up to the front desk. "Well, look who it is." He smirked.

"Hi, Leo." You smiled back, glancing at his name tag and back at him. Not that you had forgotten his name, but it was hard to remember stuff when you were around him. "Can I get a [insert usually order] please?" you asked.

"And will that be a to-go order?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I have a job interview in like.. " You turned your phone on to check the time. "thirty minutes? and I can't be low on energy. I'm trying to get the job, not lose it. "

Leo laughed. "I bet either way you'd get it." If his eyes could form hearts, it would. you were so, so pretty.

[ little time skip hehe ]

It didn't take that long for you drink to come to you (mostly because Leo was high on energy and was making it for you) But before he gave you the drink, he wrote a little something on the side of your cup.

"I'm going to be very honest, you're cute. I'm going to put my number below this just in case you think i'm cute too." He signed the letter with his name and a little red heart that he used a red sharpie to make.

"Here's your drink." Leo handed the coffee cup to you, purposely giving it to you in a way so that your hands could slightly touch. "Thank youu." You said, smiling. "See you next time I come in?" You asked.

"See you next time." He shoot you a pair of finger guns (which was extremely nerd & cute thing for him to do.) "Good luck on your job interview!" he said before you walked out the door. He wasn't happy that you had to leave, but at least you leaving meant his heart wouldn't beat so fast. The only this that he could hope was that you saw his note on the side of your coffee cup.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 5: Evaluating WIP Big Bang Choices

Sign-ups for WIP Big Bang have started but I've been too distracted with Troped Madness to really think about it. I'm leaning toward signing up but not pairing with an artist, mostly because I doubt there will be anyone else from T100 doing this, and I just don't want to have to worry about it or feel like anyone is obligated to make anything for me, etc. It's also not really that important to me that I'm paired with an artist for this. I just want, like, some kinda structure for finishing these things. I like signing up for events. I liked watching people brag at the end of the last round. I continue to be of the naive mistake that THIS event or THIS particular structure will fix me. So. I want to sign up for those reasons, but if I don't finish--eh, it won't put anyone else out to drop out.

So I think there's no downside to signing up.

As to with what... I looked through my fics and didn't find that many that fit the requirements, surprisingly: 500+ words written and at least 7,500 to finish. This is probably because I call something a "WIP" even if I only have a few vague notes for it lol.

In my poll-experiment, the Southern Gothic AU won, which is not surprising to me, since it's the one I talk about the most often and have talked about the most recently. Sleeping Beauty came in second, and my other 2 options, Troped Horror 2022and Troped Madness Horror Round, were last. Probably how I would rank them as a reader, myself, especially with how vague I've been about them.

Here are my thoughts on each, and their respective pros/cons.

Southern Gothic: The pros are that I'm very invested in this story, I think it is/could be one of the best thing I've ever written, and I could definitely use a kick to actually finish it. At this point, I've moved from putting off writing to putting off planning to putting off thinking about planning and I always have so many excuses about it. I'm pretty overwhelmed both by the expectations I've set for it and the still-semi-scattered notes etc. on it. Never mind the sheer number of words still left. In particular, I'm scared that I lost my chance to finish this, that it was of a certain time and now it's just... too late.

The con is that I would want to post it closer to Halloween and posting for the Big Bang ends on October 31, with non-extension posting ending in mid-October. I guess if I picked one of the last dates, it would be still decidedly spooky season? Idk if this is a really lame excuse to put this off again.

Sleeping Beauty: The pros are, again, I need the stupid push because I wanted to resurrect and finish this in, like, late 2020 and STILL have not. I did some significant work in May 2021 and then it fizzled again. I don't have that much to write--almost certainly more than 7.5k, but not a lot compared to the total word count and I just... refuse to consider this functionally abandoned fic to be abandoned because that would mean trashing so much work that I haven't even shared with anyone. But again, it's just never more important than other stuff.

The con is that I don't like this fic as much as SGAU and if I had to pick one to see completed, it would be SGAU.

Troped Madness Horror Round: The pros of this is that, even though I do think I have more than 7.5k left, this fic is much shorter and simpler than the first two. It's not even multi-chap. So it feels like maybe a more do-able goal? On the other hand, still a worthwhile one, because I am really overwhelmed by it and what I want it to be so, again, having a structured event to help force me to make it a priority might be helpful.

The con is that I have a better chance of working on/finishing this without the Big Bang so perhaps I should put that effort somewhere else.

Troped Horror 2022: This is, appropriately given the poll, the exact same situation. This fic is easier than Madness Horror in that it's much more... plot-y and less concerned with trying to explore a theme and actually say something meaningful. The main twist/difficulty with it is that I think it is the rare fic where I need to scrap huge chunks, possibly everything, that I have already written and re-plot, re-write. I realized at some point while I was frantically scribbling that it didn't make sense or feel right and I should have made a different choice way earlier. And at that point, I didn't have the time to re-write it for the event so I just put it aside to think on some more.

This one is probably the weakest contender for the Big Bang because the work is really more in the planning and outlining, and I think when I get to writing, it won't be as hard. Writing the first version was easy and fun. It was just WHAT I was writing that I didn't like. I do need a certain amount of set time and energy to get back into this but when I do, I don't know that I'll need an event structure to help me, and I'm also... not in as much of a hurry about it as I am with the other three.