#anyway surely someone has written this already?? If so would love the fic please

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Has anyone written the canon-divergence where at the end of ep 9 it's Vi who's been shot and not Silco?

It's not a fatal shot, maybe; at least Vi feels oddly present. Been hit a lot in her life, so far, and she has been stabbed not so long ago, so pain is not so much a shock, but she's never been shot and it IS a different, sharper sort of pain; plus she's still dealing with the headache of the hit she received on the head beforehand. She does hear Cait scream "No", and she catches Silco's expression - the trace of relief that crosses his face (asshole, fucking asshole-) before he immediately looks at Powder with genuine, heartbreaking concern for her and it hits Vi that. Silco will always sucks and will always be the one who took her family away from her.

But he loves her, doesn't he? He loves her. He protected her. He'll protect her now.

And then her eyes are drawn to her little sister, her horrified eyes, and suddenly she's her baby sister again, just a small child, breaking down at her knees, holding her, saying she didn't mean to, she didn't-- and this time Vi can make this right.

"It's okay," she says. "It's alright, you're alright." (oh. god. It's hard to breathe. Shit. Fuck.) "Mind untying me?" she asks, gently. "Kind of need the-- breathing space, pow-pow." (It hurts more, in fact, when they embrace, when Vi craddles her sister against her, she's seeing blackspots now and she looks above her sister and she stares at Silco as she repeats: "It's okay. It'll be okay. It's not your fault. You just. Be good, for me, yeah? For us all. If you want to be... If you want to be Jinx, that's okay, but you're not a jinx, you're not. You just. Be good. For me. Make him do what you want, for a change, yeah? How 'bout that? Now i'm. I'm gonna close my eyes now. I love you. I'll never stop loving you." (they're chanting together in his head now, Powder and Cait, a litany of no no no no no) but Vi's dying (oh god, she's dying) an she can't hold her head anymore, and her squeezes her little sister harder, trying to kiss her cheek, and just falls back into her shoulder, faiting.

And then she wakes up. Jinx snuggled at her side, fast asleep. Cait looking like she hasn't slept in three days, holding her hand, reading some papers. And Silco, in the corner, watching silently. What the fuck, thinks Vi, and then she mutters: "What the fuck?" her voice is so dry.

"You're alive!" Cait exclaims, throwing the papers away. "Oh gosh, I hardly - I tried to get you to a proper doctor, but your sister - well, anyway, I'm so glad you're awake, how are you feeling, do you--"

"Cupcake," says Vi. "Slower."

"Oh," Cait says. "Sorry... Your eyes..."

"You could get lost in them?" Vi tries out.

Cait looks like she doesn't know whether she wants to slap or kiss. her for a full second. "They're purple," she says. "Like your sister."

Anyway, Vi gets some water, learns that Zaun got his independence while she was dying, that she was saved with Shimmer, and that now they're technically in hiding because Silco did refuse to send Jinx over to Piltover ("damn right" vi murmurs) and Sevika has been sent upside instead for negotiations. Silco did try to get Caitlyn to go as well, but she refused to leave Vi's side.

(and then something something, they still meet Vander, plot happens, etc. etc.)

[senascoop]

SENA’S FAVOURITES ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 TAG GAME

Ꮺ by @iovestuck and I might've added-edited some questions to my liking. all of these answers are genuine and not with the bias of some of them being my moots. also, extremely sorry if I didn't add you on here. most of them are nsfw so... minors please do not interact. (💌)

001. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE FANFICS?

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER — @i2sunric

i already yapped a lot when I first read her fic but this was personally really really cute to read and I loved heeseung’s and the reader’s bickering a lot.

THE PERFECT COPY — @florestalio

if this fanfic was a person I'd date them lol. this was something new and easily secured a seat in my favs.

STILL INTO YOU — @i2sunric

another one of casey’s work that I love a lot.

COULD I BE MORE OBVIOUS? — @rkvriki

this was written like a year ago and is still really good. especially the way it actually captured the “rich ceo husband” vibes.

BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM — @heechwe

what were you thinking when you wrote that lexi? i couldn't find a single bad thing about the fic when i first read it and ngl it still remains as one of my fav.

FIXED COMFORT — @paarksunghoon

coming back to read this after a bad day and this never fails to bring a smile on my face even if I've already re-read this a lot of times.

002. FANFICS YOU'VE READ RECENTLY?

haven't read much lately but this has to be my list — heehoon jerking off together while thinking of the reader. part one, part two not sure if there's more parts, sharing = caring , and then this mind-blowing fic by casey, heavenly , i personally found this one cute, and then I've read this smtg about toxic situationship heeseung, then this one from mochiwonz which made me laugh, this from yuvany, reader is mean in this one but it's good, little lamb ... I have more but I can't exactly add all of them here—so if you're looking for fic recs, you should check @senascoooop

003. WHAT FANFICS DO YOU THINK SHOULD GET MORE RECOGNITION?

PUPPY ANTICS — @florestalio

I always re-read this because well... no reason-just the descriptions and the scene (though I hate angel for cutting it short...)

YOU’RE LOSING ME — @i2sunric

y'all are missing out on a lot of good stuff if you haven't read this angsty angst fic.

CORPSE BRIDE — @yuvany

start to end-just perfection.

BEWITCHED — @p4ranormaluv

to describe this fic in one word would be #wtfdidijustread? In a good way ofc. this deserves way more notes than it has right now.

TIL DEATH DO US PART — sena

TIED UP IN YOU — sena

self promo lol but I actually like these two of my works and they might as well be my best ones till now.

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS — @flwrstqr

a really fun fic to read, especially with the way both the reader and heeseung’s goal was definitely not to fall in love... but the two anyways did so.

VENOM — @gyuuberryy

the tension in this one and half way transformation of jay was just wowwww.

HORROR — @starryjake

the smut was rather really... cute alongside the ending...

666 — @simpjaes

a big fan of dark fics. and this was absolutely flawless!!

Not really a fanfic but rather sfw niki audio by @vanesycho part one, part two, part three, part four. I usually listen to these when I'm feeling down or can't fall asleep.

004. FAVOURITE AUTHORS?

all of my moots ofc lol but other than that ,

@i2sunric — all of her fics are hits and i personally really really really love them.

@florestalio — first found out about her through the fic “human or not” and I liked it from the go. and nevertheless-even if it's been a little time, I think we match the freak nonetheless.

@yuvany — she was in my favs the second i read corpse bride. then there's miss ugly duckling and her recent jay fic... absolutely amazing.

@p4ranormaluv — do I even need to have a reason for her to be here? she's really talented with the way she writes. Though I hope she's enjoying her break <3

@heechwe — every time you think someone can't get more sweet... lexi replies. even her fics are chefs kiss.

@gyuuberryy — she's my hype girl (ofc I'll add her on here and also bcz her fics are a big mwahh)

@mochiwonz — we aren't moots or anything but her works (smaus) randomly came in my for you page and i actually enjoyed a lot of them (so I'm adding her here too)

@paarksunghoon — every time a hard thought of hers comes into my for you-i know my evening's not gonna be so boring. y’all should read her fixed comfort and you plus me fic. 100% recommended.

@starryjake — another author who's also really good at making hard thoughts and fics :)

005. WHICH AUTHOR/READER DO YOU ADMIRE/ADORE THE MOST AND WHY?

all of my readers and moots ^^

but aside from them, i admire casey (i2sunric) & jazmine (p4ranormaluv) a lot and sort of started to write after reading their works <3

now I adore a lot of authors and readers but angel (florestalio) and ady (gyuuberry) have a special place in my heart. and I've actually gotten used to seeing some frequent readers which I absolutely notice and adore but the loud ones so far would be @zyvlxqht @flowerwinds (thank you so much for showing nothing other than love to me and my works) 🫶🏻💗

NOTE FROM SENA , i don't really read a lot which might explain why I don't have some more popular fics or authors in the recs. I'm also very sorry if I've forgotten someone (totally not intentional) this was really fun to make...thank you rain (iovestuck) you're another sweetie I found on blr :)

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 tagging anyone who wants to join

[becausebuckley]

michelle's buddie fic recs: week 45!

what a week... i'm greatly enjoying all of the post-8x06 buddie fic (many more recs to come!) and took some time to revisit old favourites, which can be found in previous rec lists. enjoy!

this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags before reading! some might also contain spoilers for season 8.

if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment!

all that we need | not1_2write | 26.4k | M

When Buck buys a Powerball lottery ticket he doesn't think much beyond his need for change to air up his tire. He forgets all about the ticket until word spreads that the winning ticket was sold in LA and hasn't been claimed yet and pretty much dismisses it. After all, there's no way he won the lottery. Turns out no, he really did win the Powerball, to the tune of 295 million dollars and just in time for Christmas. He's going to make sure the 118 has the best Christmas of their lives. And just maybe he'll have a good one too. idk about all of you but i do dream about winning the lottery regularly (way too often for someone who's never bought a ticket, that's for sure). this is such a lovely look at what buck would do with a whole lot of money <3

i take this magnetic force of a man | playinginthunderstorms/@playinginthunderstorms | 9k | M

Turns out, he isn’t actually afraid of commitment. He’s just afraid of committing to the wrong thing, or the wrong person. Ana, obviously, had been a mistake, because he hadn’t been ready, and he’d put other people’s expectations above his own wants and needs. With Marisol, he’s done the same thing. Moved too fast, doing what he thinks is the right thing according to who? His parents? For Chris’s benefit? Again, pushing past his own comfort, discarding any doubt because it doesn’t fit like… Like Buck. blanket rec for one of my favourite authors who has been posting incredible fics lately!! this one in particular is so beautifully written and so romantic and just so very buddie <3

if i need to rearrange my particules i will for you | thelikesofus/@thelikesofus | 7.9k | GA

Eddie catches a cold and Buck takes care of him while having a minor, non-platonic emotional crisis. this is definitely influenced by the fact that i've been ill myself but wow truly nothing hits as hard as buddie taking care of each other when one of them isn't feeling well. the bed sharing in this is so good <3

let me | facewithoutheart/@facewithoutheart | 1.6k | T

Eddie doesn't think he needs romance. Buck, respectfully, disagrees. AKA the fic where Buck picks Eddie up and kisses him breathless against a wall. and buck is so right for doing that!! i love it when buck turns eddie to jello <3 so lovely!

second child, restless child | lesbianrobin/@lesbianrobin | 23k and counting| M

how Evan and Maddie make it out of Pennsylvania, and Buck and Maddie build a family. okay so listen these past few weeks i've been doing this thing where i only rec finished fics, and every time i scroll through my ao3 history for these rec lists, i come across this one and go oh i wish i could rec this already. and then i realised wait it's my rec list i can do whatever i want, and so then i did. anyway, mind the tags for this one, but wow are you in for a treat here! i love the character dynamics (chim is brilliant in this!! and maddie!!) and i'm so so excited to see the rest of this fic unfold <3

said that i was fine, said it from my coffin | justhockey/tumblr | 7.3k | T

And it doesn’t matter that he feels like he’s dying. Like the version of himself that he’s always been is suddenly a stranger to him - just a mask he’d spent his entire life hiding behind, without ever even realising he was wearing it. It doesn’t matter that Eddie is…that he’s gay. Because he knows - as surely as he knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow - that the only person he has ever, and will ever, truly love is Buck. And Buck isn’t his to love. another blanket rec for an author who's been posting incredible fics!! this one in particular has such brilliant eddie characterisation and i just devoured it the second i got that little ao3 email hehe

there's no place like home-spun | icewhisper | 4.1k | GA

Buck has spent most of his life trying to find something to settle fidgeting hands and the restless need for a home. He found the key to the latter when he was thirteen. He finds the former in a cozy home on South Bedford Street with two of his favorite people. (AKA the Buck-crochets fic that literally no one asked for.). this fic makes me want to learn how to crochet. i am the least crafty person ever and i have like minus time but just know that if two weeks from now i'm posting about yarn and crochet hooks and whatnot, it's all thanks to this fic. i love buck who crochets so very much <3

you get your dreams for free | llovely/@butchdiaz| 14.9k | T

five times buck and eddie cuddle drunk and one time they cuddle sober. buddie bed sharing my absolute favourite. i read this late at night curled up under three blankets and it hit just right <3

[desperateknot]

Swap Ishqueg/LCB Queequeg AU.

Hex Nail E.G.O Queequeg

Splash art:

Sprites (Awakening & Corrosion):

Awakening: An embrace. Is all. it would take.

Corrosion: Just...hug me. Please. 

Corrosion attack animation idea:

Reasoning:

This makes a lot of sense...but only for me. Look, if you don't already agree with a few headcanons that I already have for Queequeg, this won't make that much sense. Those headcanons are based on canon, though, so maybe you'll be convinced?

Envy => Middle. Hex Nail = Envy => Hex Nail is fitting for someone who is related to the Middle. Even in a gameplay perspective, this will give her more Envy Resonance which is especially useful for her. Queequeg also already has themes of Envy? If Heathcliff is John Envy then Queequeg is Joan Envy. She was jealous of an Abnormality.

Bleed: Hex Nail is a Bleed EGO, which I think would synergise well with her canon counterpart? I'm not sure though.

The playroom:

I'm very invested in the idea of making the Middle an abusive family that Queequeg escaped (sort of). It will connect to her childhood, hence the playroom. More than that, though, is the way she prominently lacking agency in her entire life. More about it here: https://www.tumblr.com/desperateknot/767952971855167488/queequegs-lack-of-autonomy-features-or-bugs?source=share.

In any case, there are 2 character archetypes that often portrayed as lacking in autonomy: the helpless maiden and the child. It would be quite difficult to portray Queequeg as a helpless maiden, so I usually go with the imagery of a child to portray her, especially in the context of her relation to the Middle. Infantilisation is also a common tactic in abusive households as well. I think, merely the act of Queequeg running from the Middle is her maturing and making choices for herself. If I ever write a fic about Queequeg's times in the Middle (which I am), I will write it to be something like a coming of age story, but it's the City, so.

By the by, if you look really closely, you can see the shadow on the splash art is a crib, and her raising her arms so can be interpreted as asking for a hug or asking to be lifted out of the crib (because she has grown).

Nails: We use nails to pin things down. Similarly, the Middle does want to pin her down.

Ragged Doll imagery: My favourite interpretation of Queequeg is her being a disgraced golden child of the Middle. She was loved and respected there, hence a pretty doll for show. But at the same time, she ran away, got punished, beaten and tortured for it, hence a ragged doll.

Affection:

In my interpretation, one of Queequeg's core theme is affection, not necessarily romantic, just affection in general. It is because one of her source material is The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Explanation here: https://www.tumblr.com/desperateknot/767685243953201152/limbus-companys-queequeg-is-based-on-the-little?source=share And affection is really one core theme of The Little Mermaid.

Other than that, Queequeg already stated her motivation for all the atrocities she committed under the Middle is because she wanted respect, which we could argue is also a type of affection. The Middle is quite um...affectionate with each other, anyways?

How does this relate to Hex Nail and the Hurting Teddy Bear? The Hurting Teddy Bear wants to be loved and hugged too, and it became jealous when it sees other people getting affection that won't be extended to itself.

And, at the risk of spoiling my own fic, my version of Swap Queequeg believes attaining others' affection and approval is the only way to atone (if you think hard enough about it, it makes sense I promise).

By the way, the background of the splash art are toys but they have been messed with or destroyed in some ways. Teddy bear is torn apart, blocks got knocked over, jigsaw puzzle got unsolved. She has ruined everything. Would you still hug her?

Hurting Teddy Bear's Abnormality log (written by Rodya):

On the first log, Rodya said this about the Hurting Teddy Bear: And it's got the gall to ask us for hugs… like, who'd wanna hug this thing? I do think Queequeg initially thought of herself as disgusting (maggot) and not worthy of other people's affection, too, but then, her opinion on herself probably shifted a little bit.

On the final log, when the Sinners finally successfully pacify the Abno, Rodya expressed some genuinely affection for it, which would parallel her dynamic with Queequeg in my AU specifically.

Personal notes:

I'm really curious as to, after reading all of my thought process behind Hex Nail Queequeg, what do everyone think is the reason behind the bloodied dress.

And uh...right. It should have been Dieci, shouldn't it? I promised.

I swear that I drew Dieci Queequeg a long while ago, but I didn't like how it looks and the 2 pieces are both stagnating (in truth, I didn't like how Hex Nail turns out too much either, but they are still miles better than Dieci), so I switched to Hex Nail first. I will return to Dieci later.

[coloursparks]

Not Like That

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x F!MC Summary: Things change over the summer holiday with Sebastian, and then things get messy. Might as well spend the first few weeks of your last year fighting about it. WC: 6.1k Notes: Oh god, the first fic I've written in like six years and I am sure it's shit. I am sorry if characterization is off. It takes me a minute?? I also have zero clue if I want this to be canon compliant or not so there's absolutely no mention of Anne or what happened! Also, no beta so please don't be too harsh. I just wanted to have fun writing a thing and hopefully someone else enjoys it!

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“How else am I supposed to look?” you asked Imelda. “Do you hear yourself talk?”

“Do you?” she shot back, giving you the same exasperated look you were giving her. “If you don’t say something about it soon, you’re going to lose your chance. I’m not sure I can hold them at bay much longer.”

“I don’t know what chance you think I should have,” you said, though you didn’t sound as confident about it. The fact of the matter was you knew exactly what Imelda was talking about, and she was right. You hated that she was right.

“Sallow’s come back a foot taller and just bigger and you aren’t the only one who’s noticed,” she pointed out. “Violet’s determined to slip him a love potion. I’ve been trying to tell her he’s already involved, but considering I can’t say who, it hasn’t worked all too well.”

“I hate her,” you muttered, feeling a prick of jealousy. 

“You hate anyone who so much as bats an eyelash at him,” Imelda pointed out. “You can save yourself the trouble but just telling him that you fancy him and snog in the upstairs of the Three Broomsticks already.” 

“Imelda!” 

“Or snog him somewhere else. I happen to quite like the upstairs of the Three Broomsticks for that sort of thing, but to each their own,” she said simply, shrugging. She was unashamed, and part of you envied her for it. 

“It’s not that simple,” you sighed, giving her a pleading look.

“And why not?”

“Because…because…” you stammered, trying to find a reason that would satisfy your friend. When none came to mind as she stared at you expectantly, you groaned and rested your head on your crossed arms on the table in front of you. “He’s going to have a right laugh at me, Imelda.”

“No, he will not,” she said, poking you in the shoulder. You looked up at her, already defeated and resigned to the fact that despite your years-long pining for Sebastian Sallow, nothing would ever come at it.

“What makes you so sure?” you asked.

“Because Sallow’s a lot of things, but he’s not that cruel. Besides, for all you know, he could be whining to Ominus about how much he fancies you but thinks he has no chance,” she pointed out. “Now, come on. We’ll be late, and Hecat swore to put me in detention if I was late again.”  The two of you stood from the table in the library where you had been sitting, gathering up your belongings before heading to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. 

“Why are you so late all the time anyway?” you asked curiously as you held open the door into Central Hall for her. 

“Flying,” she answered simply. 

Of course. It was Imelda - you should have known. 

___

“Mr. Sallow, why must you always duel in my classroom?” 

Professor Hecat was only just leaving her office as you and Imelda entered and seemed too busy repairing the collateral damage from Sebastian’s duel with Leander Prewett to notice the two of you sneaking to nearby seats. The room was righting itself as Sebastian raised his hands up to the professor, taking a few steps away from the dueling platform he had been standing on.

“Because, Professor, there isn’t another place where dueling is sanctioned,” he pointed out, his voice conveying innocence he didn’t possess. You rolled your eyes because you knew full well that dueling being sanctioned didn’t stop him from doing it. Crossed Wands meetings and plenty of adventures proved otherwise, and the look Hecat was giving him also showed she knew otherwise.

“Let’s see if we can make it through the term without you destroying my classroom, Mr. Sallow.”

“I’m sorry, Professor,” he said, raising his wand and muttering a hasty spell to repair the nearby broken desk. It righted itself in one piece, still smoking slightly. “It won’t happen again.” He shot her a smile before heading to a nearby seat. “Imelda, what are you doing here? I didn’t realize Quidditch players needed N.E.W.T.S. Defense Against the Dark Arts,” he chuckled as he leaned forward to look at her.

“I take no chances,” Imelda replied cooly. “You never know what an opponent will do to get ahead, and knowing how to unjinx a broom can’t hurt.”

“If you say so,” he said, still smiling as he shook his head. “And my favorite Hufflepuff returns. I was starting to wonder if you even still went here,” he joked, elbowing you gently in the arm. 

“No, still here,” you chuckled awkwardly, trying to rub the tingling feeling out of your arm where he had touched you. It was ridiculous, letting a simple touch get to you, but everything was ridiculous when he was involved. 

Before either of you could say anything else, Professor Hecat was calling for the class to focus on her so she could teach. You tried your best to pay attention, but the fact you were next to Sebastian was nothing short of distracting. Words came out of the professor’s mouth and you tried to hold onto them, only for them to slip through your fingers because Sebastian was making that focused face he always made when he was trying to learn something, brow furrowed and the tip of his tongue poking out as he scribbled on parchment.

It was the first time you had really gotten to see him up close. Sebastian had certainly grown over the summer holiday – he was broader and if there were any doubts, the way his sleeves were pulled taut over his arms put them to rest. He was a head taller than last year, and you cursed him mentally for somehow having even more freckles. He had left sixth year looking more like a boy and returned for seventh year looking like a man, and you certainly hadn’t been the only one who noticed. 

Part of the reason why Sebastian had joked about not knowing if you had come back to Hogwarts was that you hadn’t been able to get his attention before now. You had seen him on the Hogwarts Express, but he and Ominis had been having such an intense-seeming conversation that you hadn’t wanted to interrupt. You had tried to end up in the same carriage on the way up to the school, but before you could tell him that you had room in your carriage, Violet McDowell was pulling him into hers with Sebastian tugging Ominis in too.

Dejected and a little annoyed, you had ridden up to the school in huffy silence with Imelda and Poppy. 

Outside of trying to wave at Sebastian from the Hufflepuff table after the sorting, you hadn’t bothered to get his attention. He was clearly enjoying the attention of the girls that somehow seemed to find every free space around him. You could have sworn that you saw Imelda notice the upset look on your face, but you decided to jab at your roast potatoes instead of looking at the Slytherin table any longer. 

It was the bell to signal the end of class that shook you from your stupor. You had zoned out watching Sebastian, who blissfully hadn’t noticed the attention. Unfortunately for you, Imelda certainly had. She gave you a look that very clearly said that her thoughts from your earlier conversation hadn’t changed. Luckily, before she could say anything about it, Sebastian was ducking in the way.

“Imelda, Quidditch,” he said quickly, noticing he needed to head her off talking about something, even if he didn’t know what it was.

“What about it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she packed her belongings.

“Tryouts,” Sebastian said simply. “Want to know when they’re happening. Decided to finally try out.” When Imelda gave eyed him suspiciously, like she thought she was walking into a trap of some kind, he sighed and added, “I was told to do something more productive and sanctioned with my time.”

“You’re serious?” Imelda asked. “What position?”

“Beater. You need those, right?”

“We do,” she agreed. She glanced over at you, sighed, and then looked back to Sebastian. “I’m going down to the pitch before Potions if you want to practice before tryouts and I can give you tips to improve.” 

You wanted to laugh. As much as Imelda probably wanted you and Sebastian alone together so you could confess the feelings you still wouldn’t admit to, her love of Quidditch won out. Secretly, you were thankful for it.

“Do you want to join us?” Sebastian asked hopefully, looking over at you. “Get a leg up on your Slytherin competition.”

“Hufflepuff still wouldn’t stand a chance,” Imelda pointed out, and you rolled your eyes.

“No, I’ve got Divination,” you told him, choosing to ignore Imelda’s teasing. 

“You’re still taking that?” 

You shrugged in response. “I like Professor Onai. Plus, someone has to keep Natty company,” you explained. “You two don’t get bloodied up too bad without me.”

“Don’t worry, if Sallow’s any good, his pretty face will stay pretty,” Imelda laughed, and you knew that she was trying to get a rise out of you. Sebastian, thankfully, seemed a bit preoccupied with the comment himself to notice the color rising in your cheeks. You excused yourself with the excuse of not wanting to be late to class before things could get any more awkward.

____

In the weeks after, you had seen more of Sebastian, and then suddenly a lot less. Unsurprisingly, he ended up making the Quidditch team. With the beginning of the Quidditch season coming up, Imelda had them practicing at all hours, meaning that her time to try and press the issue of your feelings for Sebastian was blissfully cut short. 

Luckily, you could at least still spend time with other friends who either didn’t notice what Imelda had or at least had the grace not to press you about it. Without Sebastian around, you seemed to find Ominis on his own more, and the nice part about spending time with him was that he didn’t seem to give a damn about your romantic life nor did he want to divulge on his own the way Poppy and Adelaide had been as of late. You were happy for your friends, but the constant questions about your own because the two Hufflepuffs weren’t as well-versed in your emotions as Imelda was getting to be a little much.

“What do you think you’ll do once you graduate?” 

Ominis had been talking about what his own plans were as the two of you walked toward Hogsmeade. The two of you were friends, sure, but more because you had a mutual friend than because you spent any significant time together before now. You were catching up on the more interesting things now that the two of you were spending time together without Sebastian. 

“When we did career conversations with our Heads of House, I thought I wanted to work for the Ministry but something about it doesn’t feel right anymore,” you told him, stepping out of the way of a witch carrying a stack of books with a cauldron perched precariously on top. “Bit mad to expect a bunch of children to decide what to do with their lives just like that, you know?”

“You sound like Sebastian,” he pointed out, chuckling slightly. “Says he might not bother with curse-breaking at all now. Might want to play Quidditch professionally instead.”

“He hasn’t played in a single game,” you laughed. “The season doesn’t start for another week and he wants to be a professional now?”

“Apparently so.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Well,” Ominis started, “you can ask him all about it later. He’s meeting us here after practice–if Imelda’s left enough of the team.” 

“I didn’t know he was coming,” you said casually, trying to ignore the excitement from the news and the slight feeling of dread. As much as you liked Imelda, you hoped she wouldn’t be joining because you weren’t ready for another round of heavy-handed comments about you and Sebastian. 

“The second I said you and I were going to Hogsmeade, he said he was joining,” he explained, shrugging. “You haven’t seen much of him lately, have you?”

“Outside of classes? No,” you sighed. “He seems too busy for me these days.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Oh,” you said, biting your lip. 

You didn’t want to get into it with Ominis. He didn’t need to know how much it bugged you to see Sebastian at meal times, talking to the rest of the team or those girls that somehow always seemed to hang around him. He didn’t need to know how disappointed you were every time you couldn’t even get Sebastian’s attention to say hello, and when you did, half the time he was rushing off somewhere. You felt thoroughly left behind and the fact you cared so much about him made it hurt all that much more. The less Ominis knew about all of that, the better. 

“He’s just been busy with Quidditch,” you replied finally, in too airy of a voice to be entirely convincing. 

Thankfully, he let the topic of your mutual friend slide as you got into the village. You had needed to restock for Potions, and Ominis seemed uncharacteristically cheery in Honeydukes 

and you didn’t have the heart to suggest going elsewhere when he wanted to explore. Leaving close to an hour later with your coin purses lighter but pockets heavier, you managed to get into and out of Gladrag’s with only the new scarf you had intended to buy before heading to the Three Broomsticks. 

“There you two are!” Sebastian was sitting at a table in the corner, waving at the two of you. Your heart skipped at the look of the smile on his face, and you couldn’t help but smile back and wave to show that you spotted him. 

“Would you mind grabbing the Butterbeers?” Ominis asked, turning towards the sound of Sebastian’s voice. 

“Consider it done,” you told him, giving him a pat on the arm before heading to the bar. “Sirona! Can I get two Butterbeers?” She waved to show that she heard you, even as she was dealing with something else behind the bar. You looked around to see if there was other students in the pub, and you spotted a few younger Hufflepuffs and, a few tables over, Garreth Weasley and Everett Clopton discussing something on a piece of parchment in front of them. That was…dangerous. 

The only other table of interest was the one you were heading to, and as you looked over at it, you saw Sebastian looking at you, still smiling. You smiled back, feeling a little silly at how easy it was for him to make you feel the way he did.

“It’s about time you two showed up,” Sirona commented as she slid two full glasses in front of you. You whipped around, giving her a confused look.

“What do you mean?” 

“Sebastian’s been watching that door like his life depended on it,” she said. “Waiting for you.”

“Well, Ominis doesn’t come to the village often,” you pointed out, taking your drinks. “He was probably just worried about him and won’t admit it. Boys, you know.” 

“Perhaps,” Sirona said, but the look on her face showed that she didn’t believe what you were saying. You pushed what you owed for the drinks toward her, and picked up the Butterbeer. She left it there, and you headed over to your friends. You placed Ominis’ drink in front of him before settling in the free seat.

“If we don’t win, I’m quitting,” Sebastian was telling Ominis.

“Already?” you asked, giving Sebastian an amused look.

“You have no idea what Imelda is like Captain,” he responded, shaking his head. “She woke us up before dawn this morning.”

“I feel like you knew what you were signing up for,” you laughed. “It’s not like it’s a surprise that Imelda is…intense.”

“But add a little power over people,” he sighed, “and you’ll be playing Quidditch every moment you’re not in class or asleep.”

“Just the way she likes it,” you pointed out, taking a sip of your drink. “I thought you wanted to play professionally?”

“Yeah but…” he trailed off. “When did I tell you that?”

“I told her before,” Ominis piped in. “She talks to you even less than I do. We compare notes,” he added dryly. You laughed at the comment. It was perfectly true. Sebastian and you would talk maybe for a minute before class or after, but Ominis at least saw him in the Slytherin Common Room. The two of you talked about other things, but the conversation would always turn to Sebastian at one point or another. 

Sebastian frowned, but before he could say anything else about it, Ominis was talking about something else. For a while, Sebastian was uncharacteristically quiet as you two chatted about nothing in particular and drank your Butterbeers. Slowly, he became more himself, and you had to admit, it was nice to have what felt like the “old days” back again. It felt like you were back in the Undercroft, and not fighting for Sebastian’s attention. 

Once all three glasses were empty, you stood up and scooped them into your arms. “I’ll go get us more,” you declared, smiling brightly. You didn’t want things to end just yet, so another round of drinks made the most sense. You had barely been up at the bar for a minute when your seat was taken by Violet McDowell. She had pulled the chair closer to Sebastian and was leaning so near him she might as well be in his lap, and Ominis was looking almost as annoyed as you were. Sirona said nothing about the look on your face other than a glance over to your table and a head shake. 

Unable to carry all three drinks, you instead charmed the filled glasses to float in front of you as you headed back to the table. You let the three of them fall with more force than you meant to, causing loud thuds and Butterbeer to slop out over the rims and onto the table. Ominis, who couldn’t know that he should move back the way Sebastian had, got the brunt of the spill.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, more to him than the other two. “Just got away from me.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the castle with me?” Violet was simpering, ignoring what had just happened. “You said you’d help me with my Charms work, Bas.” You almost snorted at the nickname but managed to cover it up with a cough.

“I’ll meet you back in the common room later,” Sebastian told her, “go ahead without me.” Violet pouted, and you had to bite the inside of your cheek and look away from her. She was certainly shameless. 

“Fine! But you promised,” Violet huffed before getting up and heading out, ignoring the other two people at the table completely. Ominis was trying to clean up the spilled Butterbeer so he either didn’t notice or care about Violet’s departure. 

“I’m going to wash up,” Ominis said, standing up and shaking his hands. 

“I’m really sorry, Ominis,” you sighed, and he just shook his head.

“Accidents happen.” He disappeared upstairs, leaving you and Sebastian alone for the first time since before the summer holiday. You pulled your chair back to where it had been before Violet showed up and sat down.

Things were quiet between the two of you for a long moment. Both of you seemed more interested in your drinks than speaking, and neither one of you looked at the other. It was Sebastian who finally broke the silence.

“So…you’ve been spending a lot of time with Ominis lately,” he mentioned casually. You shrugged, looking over at him.

“I guess,” you agreed. “You and Imelda have been busy with Quidditch, so it’s just been the two of us.”

He nodded, taking a sip of his drink. “Is that the only reason?” he asked in the same casual voice, leaning forward as if he was expecting you to spill about some secret mission you and Ominis were planning. It was then that you realized that you hadn’t pulled the chair back all the way, and with your back facing the corner where the table was settled, Sebastian was boxing you in. If Sebastian had looked like he had grown before, close up, he looked to have doubled in size with him so closer now. He seemed almost impossibly broad now, and you felt nothing short of tiny in comparison. You looked up at him, confused, blushing slightly.

“Yes?” you said nervously. “Why would there be another reason?”

“Don’t know,” he responded, settling his arm on the table as he continued to lean towards you, resting his head against his hand. “I haven’t seen you much this year so I thought…” he started, but you cut him off.

“That’s not my fault, Sebastian,” you huffed. “You’re the one who doesn’t have any time for me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Sebastian looked taken aback at your words. 

“You’re joking, right?” you said, leaning in a little closer as you stared him down. “You’ve barely said two words for me outside of class. You don’t bother to even say hi at meals anymore.”

“I haven’t seen you,” he explained, eyebrows furrowing. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“Of course, you haven’t seen me.” You rolled your eyes, frustration that had been bubbling finally coming to the surface. “You’re at practice or going to class or busy showing off for Violet and those other girls that follow you around.”

“I’m not showing off for Violet,” he shot back. “Or any of those other girls. I’m not asking them to do that!”

“And you’re not telling them to leave you alone either,” you pointed out, temper creeping into your voice. “You sure seem to be loving the attention every time I see you. Why would you bother looking up to say hi to me when you have…”

“What are you two talking about?”

Ominis had reappeared at the table. Sebastian slid back, no longer crowding you into the corner, looking annoyed. 

“Nothing,” he told the other boy. He drained his entire Butterbeer before standing up. “I should head back to the Castle. Quidditch doesn’t leave much time for homework. I should catch up.” He didn’t bother waiting for either of you to say anything before starting to leave.

“Tell Violet we say hi, Bas.” The words were out of your mouth before you thought about it, and there was a small part of you that looked satisfied as a guilty look appeared on his face, but then replaced by a look of defiance. 

“I’ll see you back at the common room, Ominis,” he said and was gone a moment later. You rolled your eyes, sitting back in your chair. 

“What happened?” 

“Nothing,” you sighed. You looked at your drink, not really wanting it anymore. “Can we go back to school? I…uh, I think we’re getting close to curfew.”

“Right,” Ominis agreed, nodding. “Floo powder is faster.”

“Works for me,” you sighed, letting him lead the way over to the fire. 

_____

The first Quidditch match of the season had the entire castle beside itself. You couldn’t share in the enthusiasm-–even fellow Hufflepuffs were excited to see Ravenclaw vs Slytherin—because it meant having to see Sebastian out on the field. Even in classes over the last week, you determinedly avoided so much as looking at him. Imelda, blissfully, was too worked up about the game to notice.

In the end, you decided to go to support her. 

It hadn’t been too bad. Most of the other Hufflepuffs you were sitting with were cheering for Ravenclaw, but you and Poppy were too excited for Imelda to join in. It certainly got you two some looks from people nearby, but the excitement of seeing her score twice in a row made it easy to ignore. Despite your annoyance with him, it was still something else to see Sebastian zip by, sending bludgers toward the Ravenclaw Chasers. 

You weren’t any less glad when you two were waiting for Imelda to come out of the changing room that she was the last one out.

“Sallow went up with the rest of the team before,” she told you as you hugged her.

“I don’t care,” you huffed. “I was waiting for you.”

“Why don’t you care? Could have gotten to him before Violet McDowell did.”

“Why would you want to get Sebastian before Violet McDowell?” Poppy asked, looking between you and Imelda. You led the way back up towards the castle, your friends following behind.

“I don’t,” you responded, shaking your head. 

“What happened?” Imelda asked. “He was strange when I mentioned you before too.”

“Nothing happened,” you said. “He’d rather spend time with Violet McDowell? Fine. I don’t care.”

“Why does it matter who Sebastian spends time with?” Poppy asked. Then, she stopped. “Oh, you fancy him, don’t you?”

“Not anymore I don’t,” you huffed. “Now can we just leave it be?” Poppy, who you two hadn’t stopped for, ran to catch up with you. Imelda just laughed.

“He might be big on reading, but Sallow is as thick as they come,” she chuckled. “Good riddance, I say. You’ll do much better.”

“I always thought you and Ominis were cute together,” Poppy offered. 

“You know, he asked me if there was a reason the two of us were spending so much time alone together,” you half laughed, half scoffed. 

“You’re joking,” Imelda laughed. “When did he come to you with that idea?”

“Met us in Hogsmeade last week. He and I got into an argument and I haven’t spoken to him since,” you explained. 

“How did I miss this?” Imelda asked, and looked to Poppy. “Did you know about this?”

“No! I didn’t even know she fancied Sebastian,” she said, “no one tells me anything, apparently! All these times we’ve talked about who I fancy and…”

“I don’t fancy Sebastian,” you sighed. “At least, not anymore.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You two would be cute together too!”

“I don’t want to ever talk to him again,” you said shortly as the door to the castle swung open. “I also don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

“That’s right!” Imelda said brightly, “Outside of Quidditch, Sallow is nothing.” When you shot her a look, she shrugged. “He’s a good Beater, you have to admit. But outside of the pitch, won’t talk to him.”

“Am I still allowed to talk to him?” asked Poppy.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t you be?” you replied. 

“Well, you aren’t and Imelda isn’t…” she trailed off, looking between the two of you. 

“I’m just doing it because it’ll annoy him,” Imelda pointed out. “Sounds like fun, right?” You rolled your eyes, putting your hands up.

“Do whatever the two of you wish, but I am not getting involved. I’m going to the library,” you announced. “I have work to do that I ignored to come watch the game.” 

“No fun!” Imelda called.

“What? It’s not like I can join the party anyway.” 

“I’d sneak you in,” she offered. “What about you, Poppy?” 

“No, I really should go check on…” she trailed off, pointing in the direction of the Beasts classroom. 

“No fun, either of you.”

You laughed, waved your goodbyes and made your way upstairs. You were barely a few steps towards the library when a voice made you jump.

“You fancied Sebastian?” 

You spun around to see Ominis nearby. Of course, he’d be in the castle. He probably wouldn’t have even gone down to the game, but leave it to him to be right there at exactly the wrong time. 

“I…” you started, sighing heavily. 

“That was why the two of you argued at The Three Broomsticks?” he guessed. 

“No!” you exclaimed. “Not really, no. I mean…”

“You were annoyed about Violet McDowell and Sebastian leaving to go with her,” Ominous stated.

“How were you not?” you shot back, panicking slightly. He was right, of course, but something about Ominis knowing felt dangerous. You could trust Imelda not to say anything to Sebastian no matter how much she threatened to, but you couldn’t say the same of Ominis. 

“Why didn’t you just tell him how you felt instead of arguing?”

“It’s not that easy, Ominis,” you sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about this. Not with you, no offense. But not anyone else either. Can you just…please don’t say anything about it.”

Ominis shrugged, and you knew that was the closest to a commitment that you’d get. “Does that mean you spend time with me to see him?” he asked quietly.

“No,” you replied quickly. “Merlin’s beard, Ominis. I’m not desperate for his attention like Violet is. We’ve been friends for years.”

“You’ve been friends with Sebastian, and I’ve been friends with Sebastian,” Ominis countered. “I didn’t think we were friends without him until recently.”

“Well, we are,” you stated. “At least I thought we were.”

“So did I,” he said.

“Then there, we’re friends, Ominis. Regardless of whether or not Sebastian is around,” you told him. 

“Isn’t this the type of thing friends talk about?” 

“I don’t know! Not always. It’s not like you go around telling me who you fancy,” you pointed out. He chuckled.

“I suppose not,” he agreed, nodding. 

“Now, can we please never speak about this again?” you pleaded. “I get enough from Imelda and Poppy just found out and now I know I’m never going to hear the end of it. I just want one friend who doesn’t care about my love life.”

“I promise, we won’t speak of your love life.”

“Thank you, Ominis. I really appreciate it,” you told him, breathing a sigh of relief. 

When the two of you parted ways a little while later, you certainly felt better about the fact that Ominis knew. You still couldn’t say for certain if he’d tell Sebastian or not. Their friendship was much longer than yours, but you at least hoped he’d take your desire to leave it alone into consideration. 

The rest of the night was dedicated to you trying to forget about the last few hours and actually trying to get your homework done. The number of people in the common room was keeping you more on task for once. If you looked busy enough, everyone would leave you alone, and you didn’t have to speak to anyone. A few people stopped to say hi, but the fact you weren’t willing to more than glance up to greet them kept you in a mostly solitary corner. 

Just when the common room was starting to clear out, and you were just about finished with your Charms work, when Poppy came through the entrance. You looked up when she called your name, holding your quill over the parchment.

“There you are!” Poppy sighed, pointing towards the door. “Sebastian’s waiting out there for you.”

“Sebastian is waiting for me,” you repeated, letting the ink drip onto your essay. 

“He is,” she confirmed. “He tried to follow me in. I had to promise to come get you.”

“I really don’t want to talk to him right now, Poppy,” you half-whined. You had already had enough uncomfortable conversations about your feelings for one day, and something told you Sebastian wasn’t there to rehash the Quidditch match. Just when you had just about convinced yourself that Ominis was going to keep your conversation between you, Sebastian was attempting to break into the Hufflepuff Common Room.

“He really wants to talk to you,” she said, shifting on her feet. 

“Fine,” you sighed, knowing that Poppy wasn’t going to tell him to go away. “He made you promise to get me to come out, didn’t he?” Poppy nodded, and you rolled your eyes, dropping his quill down. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“I’m sorry,” Poppy said quietly, and you offered her a tired smile. 

“It’s not your fault,” you assured her. “I’m annoyed with him, not you. Can you take my stuff upstairs? Just leave it on my bed. Please?”

“Sure,” she said, looking relieved that you weren’t upset with her. 

“Thanks, you’re the best,” you told her. You took a deep breath before heading for the door. You tried to mentally prepare for what was about to happen. Part of you wondered why Sebastian wanted to talk to you. Maybe make it perfectly clear that the only person he had feelings for was Violet or something.

When you stepped out into the hallway, it was to the sight of Sebastian pacing back and forth. He paused when you closed the door behind you. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, running his hand through his hair before sighing heavily.

“Sebastian, what–” you started, crossing your arms.

“I don’t fancy Violet McDowell,” he blurted out. 

“What?” 

“I don’t fancy her. That’s what you thought, isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe that Ominis told you,” you sighed, rubbing your face. The squirming you felt in the pit of your stomach was back. 

“You talked to Ominis about this?” Sebastian asked, giving you a surprised look.

“Didn’t you?” you responded, staring back at him. 

“No,” he said slowly. “He wasn’t in the common room when we got back from the match. I thought he was with you until he came back.”

“Then Imelda told you I fancy you,” you guessed. There was no other way he could have found out.

“Imelda knew…what am I talking about, of course, you talk to Imelda about this kind of thing,” Sebastian chuckled, running his hand through his hair again. “No, Imelda didn’t tell me either.”

“Then who told you?” you asked, the squirming getting worse. Sebastian looked at you, a satisfied look and a crooked smile on his face.

“You did,” he replied. “Just now.” 

“What?”

“You just said you fancied me,” Sebastian said, amusement written all over his face. “I wanted to be the one to say it first, but you couldn’t let me.” 

“I…what?” you muttered, voice quiet. The words were hitting your ears, but they weren’t making sense to your brain. You stared at him for a long moment, mouth still slightly open as he still had the same look on his face as he watched you process what he had a few moments before.

“You don’t fancy Violet,” you said slowly.

“I don’t,” Sebastian confirmed, chuckling. “I fancy you and you fancy me.”

“You do?”

“Course I do,” he replied, faltering for a moment before pulling you into a hug. The last time the two of you had hugged was to say goodbye at the end of last year, and you hadn’t been much shorter than he was. Now, though, he could easily tuck you under his chin. You managed to uncross your arms and wrap them around him, and he pulled you in closer. As small as he had made you feel at The Three Broomsticks, you were even smaller actually in his arms and you had to admit, it felt kind of nice.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian told you. “About the whole…” he trailed off, sighing. “Fight? That was a fight, I think.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you chuckled, squeezing him before leaning back to look at him properly. “It was about something that didn’t actually happen.” You smiled up at him to show it was all water under the bridge and he smiled back, wider than ever. It wasn’t totally clear which of you made the first move, but then you were kissing and the feeling in your stomach was replaced with the butterflies that you’d felt for the last two years.

When the two of you broke apart, neither of you seemed particularly interested in letting go of each other. The thing that forced the two of you apart was the approaching footsteps of another Hufflepuff trying to get into the common room. Deciding you two needed somewhere more private, you took his hand and led him down the hallway.

“Where are we going?” Sebastian asked, squeezing your hand. However, he made no effort to let go of it, and instead just laced your fingers together. 

“Undercroft,” you informed. 

“Great idea,” he said. “Maybe we can talk about the match later.”

“If we have time,” you told him, rolling your eyes. “I think we’ll be a little busy. We have a month or two to catch up on, don’t you think?” He laughed, tugging you closer, and pressed a kiss to the top of your head as you walked. 

“Definitely,” he agreed. The two of you were all smiles as you walked down the halls, and you were just glad the two of you were on the same page again. It was even better that the page you were on was one where you were the two of you were planning on spending significantly more alone time together from now on.

[the-s1lly-corner]

I’ve read through some of your old posts and I gotta say…I love me some angst. May I kindly, pretty please with a plastic cherry on top, ask for TADC gang with an S/O who abstracted a while back, but then they ‘respawn’ one day with a glitch affect about them, and their memory was totally wiped? Like it was their first day in the digital world? The glitch affect doesn’t hurt them or anyone like what happened to Ragetha and Pomni btw.

TADC cast x mended!reader

so funny story i was about to sit down and work on this about 4 hours ago but then my parents said they were going to watch the fnaf movie in the garage and i literally dropped everything and watched it so uh uh. the reason the grind stopped was because of fnaf movie and now im kinda tempted to pick up my fnaf fic again anyways! i did a similar post, here! jax and caines parts here will be short, really only focusing on the glitch aspect for them in this post, since the other half has already been written!

CAINE:

just got flashed with an image but you know that scene where the iron giant is trying to pick the boy up but hes like limp or something and the giant pulls back (ive never watched iron giant i just know this clip from a meme) i think it would be like that if he tried to poof your glitching away; but like. in an emotional way, if that makes sense. like its the same kind of carefulness and worry, i think... bonus if he does more damage than not

JAX:

honestly a little too scared to even touch you out of the deep seeded fear of getting all glitchy as well. like he knows it wont spread to him, but you know...

POMNI:

similar to jax i think she would instinctively avoid touching you even though she knows its fine... the whole hand thing making her overly cautious for future scenarios, you know? i think she would slip up and accidentally bring up something you and her did before you abstracted, or call you an endearing name before abruptly stopping herself and trailing off, sad stuff. grief makes her tear between wanting to find an exit faster and trying to make you remember/stay for you

RAGATHA:

poor girl :( i think she would genuinely try to make an effort to re/befriend you and try not to have her hopes too high for the two of you to get back together. if you hear about your past relationship and want to learn more about it, shell tell you what you want to know, but i doubt she would instantly start dating you again if you suggest the two of you trying to give the relationship a second shot... i think that would need some time

KINGER:

bro is gonna be going through it, first he loses his possible wife to abstraction and now he lost you.. got you back, but you dont remember anything. on top of that you look.. off.. sure it doesnt hurt you but it still looks like it would be uncomfortable, even if it isnt

stuck between longing to rekindle your old relationship and letting you go in order to allow himself to process this grief; the third option is potential abstraction for himself

ZOOBLE:

tries not to care. they want to forget everything like you did, they were finally starting to be normal after your abstraction. but now your back in a clean slate, mind wiped and memories gone. how does someone cope with that? as much as it hurts them they think it would be best for them to pretend you were a stranger again

GANGLE:

saying it again, poor girl. mix of pomni and ragatha here i think, like she keeps messing up and verbally reminiscing before realizing you cant relate to what shes saying anymore. will tell you anything you want to know about the past, but i think it would take a lot longer for her to consider getting with you again than ragatha. for both its kind of a "i dont want them to feel obligated to try because we were together once" type deal

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

Thank you so much for sending me this!

I am proud of so many of my fics and I'm not even fully sure how to go about this, so... I guess I will just make one rec from each of the fandoms I have written for?

(Warning for some blood in gifs below - but generally there is blood and violence in this fics anyway, so...)

From DC Titans:

No Place Like Home on AO3 - Gar Logan x Fem!Powered!Disabled!Reader x Jason Todd. Friends to Lovers. (Poly Soulmates). Smut, Angst, Hurt and Comfort with a Happy Ending. 90k across 7 chapters. When Jason leaves the Titans broken and battered, he gets set on a dangerous path. It's up to you and Gar, the two people who care about him the most, to bring him home.

Oh, another day on the assembly line, everybody better march in time,

Cause the factory don't care why, you been sayin' coulda, shoulda, woulda.

(There's no place like home. There's no place like home.)

If I could recommend one singular fic and say 'this fic encapsulates my style and summarises everything I am proud of when it comes to writing fanfiction' - this would be it.

I have so much to say about this fic and a lot of it I probably have already said it - but basically, this fic is the reason I started writing. I started writing long before I actually wrote this fic, but everything I have ever sought in terms of creative satisfaction came from this fic. This feels like my orgasmic climax in terms of creating things.

And if this fic is something I could be buried with, I would be proud. If this fic is something that people remember me for, I would be so fucking proud. (Which is not likely, because it's from a very small fandom and I know people are gonna remember me for fics from bigger fandoms that are way more popular, and I wish I could shove this fic in the faces of people who read my other popular fics and make them read it lmao.)

If for some reason I had to quit writing right now - I would be most proud of this singular piece. Especially because so much of this fic, the characters, and the dynamics has been inspired by my real life relationship with my lovers, and the reader character was inspired by my struggle with disability and coping with the loss of control as I became more disabled over time - but having my lovers there for me made that loss of control easier to swallow. It's about how trauma can ruin you and letting someone love you when you are broken is one of the hardest things you can do, but one of the most radical and most rewarding. If you ever liked my writing and my style, even if you don't like Titans - please go and read this.

From The Walking Dead:

(I know this gif is sad but it fits the fic so well.)

Hold Me Tight Or Don't on AO3 - Glenn Rhee x Fem!Reader x Maggie Greene. Established Poly Relationship. Smut and Heavy Angst (No Happy Ending). Set during Season 3, Episode 4. 7k (Oneshot). You are bitten by a Walker while trying to help get Glenn and Maggie to safety, and you are facing your last hours of life. And in those last hours, you only have one wish - to have sex with your partners one last time. Luckily for you, they would do anything for you, and they can’t help but to oblige.

Oh no this isn't how our story ends,

So hold me tight, hold me tight. (Or don't.)

This fic has had some more attention lately, since I have been wanting to write for The Walking Dead again, and I just really want to re-state - I fucking love this fic. This idea came to me so randomly and struck me like lighting and I am so happy that this fic came to fruition. This fic represents so many things that I am excited about writing - poly relationships, relating the themes of sex and death, sad endings (I weirdly prefer writing sad or melancholic endings instead of traditional happy ones).

I am really proud of this fic. If you can handle angst, you should go read it.

From Criminal Minds:

From Your Lips on Tumblr - Jennifer Jareau x GN!Reader. Established Relationship. Smut, Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 2, Episode 15. 3k (Oneshot). After JJ is attacked by dogs on the Hankel farm, you take the time to check on her and distract her flustered mind with a loving touch.

So, most of my Criminal Minds fics have done really well and don't need to be recommended just because it's a really popular fandom, but JJ fics don't really do well? Idk why she's not a popular character?

But I love this fic. I had so much fun working on this fic, and working in the religious references and imagery from the show - this fic was just so much fun for me. And I think it needs more love.

From The Last of Us:

IFHY (I Fucking Hate You) on AO3 - Abby Anderson x Fem!Reader. Enemies with Benefits. Smut and Angst. Set during the main events of Part II. 8k (Oneshot). You and Abby truly hate each other. So when you find Abby handcuffed inside an elevator, instead of being kind and just letting her out, you make her pay a certain price for the key.

I fucking hate you - but I love you.

I'm bad at keeping my emotions bubbled.

You're good at being perfect, we're good at being troubled.

There are so many fics from TLOU that I loved writing and that I'm really proud of, but this one really caught my eye on the list. I love writing about conflict, and I really love writing reader characters who are so bitchy and just cause conflict. (Maybe it's because I'm so nice irl and I never cause conflict, I get out all my internal chaos in writing characters who shit disturb and cause chaos all the time.)

I loved writing this because it's so non-traditional. It's not sappy, it's not romantic - again, it has a really melancholic ending. The characters are so toxic for each other (which is also something I love writing - because it's horrible for relationships irl, but for fiction it's so interesting to explore and observe).

I think this is one of my best, most interesting fics and I really loved doing it.

From Harry Potter:

King For A Day on Tumblr - Poly!Golden Trio x Fem!Reader. (Fem!Reader x Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger). FWB to Poly Lovers. Smut (with slight Angst). Set during Deathly Hallows. 22k (Oneshot). While Horcrux Hunting with your closest friends, the dangerous influence of Slytherin’s Locket causes Ron to snap. And it turns out - he brings on something that everyone in the tent really needed.

You told me think about it - well I did.

Now I don't wanna feel a thing anymore.

I'm tired of beggin' for the things that I want.

I'm over sleepin' like a dog on the floor.

Imagine living like a King someday - a single night without a ghost in the walls.

I have spoken about this fic at length, and how this was a spirtual awaken for me - if No Place Like Home was a culmination of everything I am as an artist, then this fic is an echo of those things. Again, I fucking love writing about poly relationships - and I think this fic has one thing that was missing from No Place Like Home. And that is exploring each individual thread of a poly relationship and how someone interacts with each person in the relationship outside of the poly group functioning as a whole. That is definitely a strong suit of this fic.

Also it's amazing filthy nasty smut, which is something I love writing, and something I am really talented at.

From Stranger Things:

I'm Still Standing on AO3 - Nancy Wheeler x Fem Disabled/Chronically Ill Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Angst, Smut, (slight Fluff). Hurt and Comfort. Happy Ending. Set during Season 4. 37k across 3 chapters. You start having horrible waking nightmares, but you don’t want to worry your best friend Nancy by telling her. She’s already occupied trying to chase down a trans-dimensional killer wizard, and you are convinced that the two problems aren’t possibly related.

There's a cold and lonely light that shines from you,

And you wind up like the wreck you hide, behind that mask you use.

This fic is so interesting.

I wrote this fic shortly after Season 4 came out - and even though I had a few fics for Stranger Things that were pretty popular, everyone just collectively ignored this one? And I know for a fact that it is because Nancy is the love interest. I know that if I had picked Steve or Eddie as the love interest for this fic, then this fic would be just as popular as my other ST fics - but because the subject matter is so deeply personal, I connected with the scenes of Nancy kicking ass at the hospital and worked from there.

(And tbh, if I had to choose a male love interest for this concept, I probably would have chosen Billy, because I relate to him on so many deep personal levels.)

Literally everything in this fic is very personal to me - this is all about my own raw traumas. From the abusive father to the extreme medical trauma to the strained caretaker mother, to the older sister who distances herself from it all - even though this is set in the universe of Stranger Things - this is the story of my life. And idk if I would have wanted it to be a more popular fic, because it is so personal? But I am upset that I worked so hard on it and so many parts of it are so raw, and nobody really saw it. I am upset that I had the bravery to post something so personal and it was just - crickets.

There are so many parts of this fic that I am so insanely proud of. The horror sequences are something that I worked so hard on - not just with the emotion of translating my own trauma, but I wanted to make something honestly scary and I wanted to pay tribute to the tension and emotion and visuals of all my favourite horror media - including Stranger Things and the beautifully tense horror aspects of Season 4. And this is another fic that I feel truly, absolutely represents me as a person to my core. And I feel like it's worth reading if you wanna know more about me and who I am.

(And lastly)

From misc. horror fandoms:

No Brainer on AO3 - Derek Cho (Steven Yeun) x Fem!Reader x Melanie Cross (Samara Weaving). Co-Workers to Lovers. Smut. Based on the film Mayhem from 2017. 7k (Oneshot). When you are the last person alive with an elevator key that Derek and Melanie desperately need, you agree to make a trade. Turns out, when what you're asking for is a threesome - you don't drive too hard of a bargain.

This is one of my favourite fics of all time. This is proof that I do not write for popularity - this fic is written for a fandom on AO3 with a total of five fics FIVE (including mine) and 2 of them are about characters from other media experiencing the plot of this movie as an AU, and mine is the only fic that is x reader. So I didn't just fill a niche - I looked where there was no niche and I dug a hole.

But like - Steven Yeun. Yes, I fell in love with Glenn from TWD, but this is a movie where he is also covered in blood, and rather than being Glenn's meek, reserved self (which I love) - he is outraged and swearing and killing and it makes me foam at the mouth. And I am already in love with Samara Weaving from The Babysitter - so this is literally a killer combination.

My bisexual ass did not even finish the film before I was typing out this fic on my phone.

And I am so happy that I wrote it - because sometimes you just need a self indulgent, blood covered smut.

And you guys can read it too if you want <3

[sonofatoasterwaffle]

surprise self-rec time! pick 5 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics :)

oooh fun!!

1. Always, Everytime 

They don’t do this all the time. Buck isn’t always in the mood to pick someone up and Eddie… well, for Eddie, sex is a sometimes thing. They’d spent hours talking about it, trying things out. It all worked, just to varying degrees. Everything works with Buck. But this. This is great. OR Eddie doesn’t necessarily care who Buck sleeps with as long as he comes home when he’s done

nobody really likes this one but the mutuals and the other aces, but the fact that other ace people saw themselves in this fic will sustain me probably for the rest of my life.

2. motel stay on a weeknight (it's a contrast love)

Buck really thought that this detail to Austin would be the perfect time for him and Eddie to stop dancing around this. To fall into bed together in a cheap motel room and use the excuse to wake up too close and let it happen. Of course, then he opens the door to two goddamn queens. Summer of Buddie 2024 Week 5: Break the Cliche: Too many beds

this fic has such a place in my heart cause i wrote a fair bit of it on a road trip in Turkiye and yet it still came so easily to me. it turned out cozy and reminds me of my SPN days when most fics took place in a motel room.

3. i'd shout it from the rooftops

Buck can’t even deny it. He’s freaking out. Hard. “Public record, Buck.” Eddie is hissing through both hands planted over his face. Under them, Buck’s sure, his cheeks are bright apple red. Because they really, really should have paid more attention. It’s just that everything is so new. And finally being allowed to touch Eddie is such a fucking headrush that Buck can’t seem to keep his damn hands to himself. Nor does he seem to be able to keep his filthy fuckin’ mouth shut. Not even on camera, evidently. OR Buck and Eddie dive head first into their honeymoon phase, take a page out of Buck 1.0's book, and remember their shiny new body cams- in that order.

I just really love this one. my first real dip into some degradation kink.

4. where the lovelight gleams

Buck winks when he catches Eddie watching him. “What?” he asks, amused. Eddie flushes, caught in the act. He contemplates tossing out a quick nothing, or a throwaway line about being tired, but Buck is here, in his teenage bedroom, and that feels important. Too important to obfuscate. “I’ve got a boy in my room.” he says, sounding almost as incredulous as he feels. It’s as ridiculous out loud and it was in his head, but Buck lights up anyway. “Eddie!” He exclaims. “You never had a boy in your room before?” Buck’s eyes go twinkly and mischievous. Eddie should be scared. Instead, he’s getting hard. “Oh we are so fixing this.” OR Buck and Eddie take Chris to El Paso for Christmas. Buck takes the opportunity to help Eddie make some better memories there.

okay, i know it's a lil Christmasy, but i loved how cozy this one turned out and also i just really love hating on Helena Diaz.

5. sweet like honey, tastes like home

“Eddie,” He says again, pulling back to look at Eddie’s eyes, trying to see if he’s there, if he’s doing this for real. “You’re–” Concussed. Bleeding. Scaring me. “Buck,” Eddie begs, fingernails digging into Buck’s shoulders, eyes wide and imploring. “Thought I wasn’t going to make it. Thought I was going to die before I got to, please–” Eddie doesn’t ask. He never asks. He’s asking now. OR Eddie has a close call at work that ends with both of them bleeding and desperate for each other in more ways than one.

AKA the blood kink fic. I am actually REALLY proud of how this one turned out. I feel like I accomplished the freak4freak I was going for. Also this one is SO CLOSE to 1000 kudos, I'm vibrating with excitement.

thanks for the ask, Charlie!!! <3

[itsanidiom]

15 DAY BL CHALLENGE - DAY 9

Most Visually Pleasing Love Scene

This is so hard...I like all the love scenes...and I usually save these posts for my friday #hœ q hahah ANYWAY...

You'd think I'd pick The Sign, right? While I do think the love scenes are GORGEOUS, I actually don't LOVE a few things about them. First off, the purple non-diegetic lighting makes it look too FANTASY and takes me out of the reality. Second, in the shower love scene (the one that isn't in Tharn's head lol) there is this one shot that they repeated. That repeat takes me out of it a bit too. Sorry if you didn't notice it and now you will every time you rewatch.

ONE MORE AGAIN~ lol it's a nice shot but whoever edited the scene does annoyingly use it twice...

LAST THING I SWEAR! Unfortunately the pixelation is also such a mood killer. They did a better job on the third love scene (first non imaginary one lol) using TACTICAL OBJECT PLACEMENT. I much prefer that to pixelation.

If they'd made the colouring more natural, didn't pixel censor, and didn't repeat shots, The Sign WOULD HAVE HAD my favourite love scenes hands down, for sure.

SO MOVING ON! My completely unasked-for complaints about The Sign's OTHERWISE STUNNING Love Scenes aside, that leaves me in a toss up between two scenes...it also makes me think maybe I have a thing for mirrors and bathrooms because my top two are:

The KinnPorsche Mirror Handjob

I know I'm more of a VegasPete stan when it comes to KinnPorsche, but THIS SCENE! Oh my god...it is so gorgeous. See, as much as I complain about the coloured lighting in The Sign, I think KinnPorsche did it better. I prefer the diegetic lighting in KinnPorsche. Like this is a club bathroom and it has green lighting. It makes the scene more REAL and not FANTASY without sacrificing that cool green lighting. It also really hammers in the jealousy after Kinn caught Vegas with his man. I think there's a whole breakdown somewhere about the meaning behind colours and the reflection in this scene, but I just love being able to see Kinn's expression at the same time as Porsche's while they're facing each other like this. It's gorgeous.

Speaking of mirrors...

The My Beautiful Man Bathtub Mirror

Okay so the conversation that happens right before this aside—because omg Kiyoi's cnc kink is too real lol has someone written that fic? asking for a friend...—KIYOI'S LITTLE CHEEKS! They are SO PINK. I just love how he like literally asked for this and then he's all shy and embarrassed and he doesn't usually take baths so YOU KNOW he was already turned on and over heating and he spins toward the mirror but then he just has to look at himself while Hira starts touching him and...[becomes rubber ducky]

[yabancreations]

Hi! 💜 For the wip ask game: please please please, tell me more about in memoriam 👀

Hi! Of course, let's see: both In Memoriam and Scars surged from my curiosity about how Wei Ying (and Lan Zhan, plus the rest of the cast) processed Wei Ying's change of bodies in the long run. The novel shows some of it, yes, but it's such a strange occurrence! Surely there's more to it than saying, "alright, this happened. Moving on~"

Specifically for In Memoriam, I thought about the people who used to know Mo Xuanyu. His family was killed at the beginning of the novel, and no one in the Jin clan cared about him, but there are more people in the world. Someone had to remember him dearly from his childhood years, right? I thought of their reaction upon learning that who they used to know as an odd yet sweet child of the local gentry is now a completely different person. What an unholy aberration it must look like for someone outside the Jianghu who can't even imagine the power of cultivation! That's why I chose a former nanny, someone humble who looked after the clan's kids when needed, isn't well-read nor has contact with the Jianghu—she might even be wary of cultivators. She's gentle and a little superstitious, and would definitely die of horror and shock if they told her what happened with xiao Xuanyu. Her last wish is to see him because she's had dreams of something terrible happening to him, and thus her family decide to lure Wei Ying to the Jin territory with an outrageous story in order to ask him privately to help, so the old lady can leave the world with no worries.

That said, I never planned to make the fic about their meeting, but rather, of the before and after, and the narration is a third person vaguely close to Lan Zhan's perspective. Wei Ying goes to see the nanny without giving it much thought, but the experience makes him face the fact that he was shoved into an already started life that had memories and significance and an identity, and he comes back pretty shaken. Most of the fic would be about how he and Lan Zhan come to terms with it together.

I find writing for MDZS pretty intimidating. The worldbuilding and characterization are both very solid, I don't find as many crevices to get in as with TGCF. I don't know if I'll ever post any of these ideas. Have a preview of what I have written, to compensate, and thanks for asking!

——————

“I am talking nonsense, aren’t I? I'm sorry, Hanguang-Jun,” he said and leaned on Lan Zhan’s chest, looking up at him with eyes filled in equal parts with mischief and adoration. “I really want to see them try to explain their scheme to my face, and they won’t dare doing so in front of you. They are not worth your time, anyway; it would even stain the reputation of the Gusu Lan Clan to meddle with such affairs, don’t you think?”

“They will try to kill you.”

Wei Ying smirked and stretched a bit in order to get close to Lan Zhan’s ear.

“Let them try,” he purred, malicious. “Let me have some fun.”

Lan Zhan could feel Wei Ying’s slender fingers slide across his chest, drawing his collarbones and making little circles around his burnt scar. He didn’t falter.

“I’ll behave, I promise.” Wei Ying smile turned into a kiss against Lan Zhan’s neck. “I’ll be good, very good. I'm only ever naughty with you.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t fly on a sword, so I’ll take Little Apple with me. It'll be a good bonding experience.” Wei Ying sat straight to see Lan Zhan in the eye and offered him the most innocent, purest smile, exquisitely fabricated. “Your uncle will be happy to have some peace; maybe you yourself will remember how much you enjoy silence and how bothersome I am.”

“Wei Ying…”

“Isn’t it true that I am bothersome, and that I love to bother you, and that you love to be bothered by me?”

Lan Zhan couldn’t stop the smallest smile from briefly appearing on his face. Wei Ying noticed it, and he was delighted.

“It is true, it really is!” he said, and leaned forward to point one finger at Lan Zhan’s chest. “Yet don’t tell me you don’t feel at least a bit tempted to have one day of your little five-to-nine clan rituals without my sabotage.”

Lan Zhan frowned slightly. Perhaps Wei Ying was the one in need of a break. He had always been a walking terror, ill-adapted to discipline and routine. Maybe the night hunts were not enough to compensate for the rather domestic, uneventful rhythm of the Cloud Recesses. That was understandable, but why did he want to go alone? 

“Lan Zhan, are you pouting at me?”

—————— Back to WIP game main post.

[alicesadventuresinffxiv]

What are the most popular F/F Final Fantasy XIV ships?

(*on AO3, as of October 13, 2024)

I like writing femslash, so while I was doing the FFxivWrite challenge, I had the thought: wouldn’t it be fun to try writing each of the top 10 most popular FFXIV F/F ships? 

I figured it would be a good way for me to learn to write characters I wasn’t used to, plus hopefully it would mean some of the well-liked but rarely-written pairings would get more fic for them!

But then I ran head-first into the question: what are those F/F ships? I hit some interesting challenges attempting to figure that out, so here’s a post about how I reached my answer!

.

First things first: I’m using AO3 stats for this analysis, entirely because AO3 has the most robust searching and filtering tools. Trying to wrangle this kind of analysis on tumblr or twitter would be a nightmare, as much as I’d love to know the answer on those sites!

Second, let’s quickly double check my assumption that F/F ships are indeed rarepairs in this fandom.

Yep, if you’re at all familiar with @centrumlumina's work on AO3 stats (which this analysis is somewhat inspired by ^^;), this is exactly in line with general fandom trends! For reasons that I understand intellectually but not in my heart, F/F fics tend to hover at around 6% of AO3 output overall.

Interestingly, this small slice of femslash makes FFXIV more similar to large, broad fandoms like the MCU or MHA (pictured above), and less similar to other online multiplayer videogame fandoms (pictured below). You might think that given its friendly reputation, FFXIV would attract more women and/or LGBTQ+ players and therefore have a higher proportion of femslash. But nope!

(Admittedly, pitting FFXIV against the fandom that contains Arcane feels a little unfair... :P)

.

So alright, with that out of the way, let’s start by doing the obvious thing. Hey AO3, what are the top 10 relationship tags when searching FFXIV on the F/F category?

[Note: Since the Warrior of Light is typically written as the author’s original character - especially in cases with multiple WoLs - I am combining the WoL/WoL and WoL/OC tags together.]

If you’ve been in FFXIV spaces for a while, you probably already guessed the #1 result! But as someone relatively new to the fandom, I was actually quite surprised. None of my previous fandoms had nearly this much focus on original characters!

Indeed, WoL/NPC ships and OC/ OC ships absolutely dwarf the numbers for any NPC/NPC ships, with the exception of the three largest M/M pairings (Aymeric/Estinien, Emet-Selch/Hythlodaeus, and Thancred/Urianger). Also, given that not everyone tags their OCs using either of the WoL or OC tags (ack! please use tags, your works get lost otherwise!)… you can always expect results for OCs to be an undercount. Woah!

Anyway, since WoL ships are so huge, I decided it made the most sense to give them their own list:

Another thing that surprised me is that male characters in FFXIV are so many times more popular than female characters that genderbent M/M pairings will show up in these F/F lists.

And… I wasn’t quite sure how to count those ships in my tallies.

On the one hand, genderbending (not to mention trans headcanoning-ing!) characters is a fun and often subversive way to approach popular ships. More power to everyone doing it!

On the other hand, part of the underlying motivation for my own writing goal was that I wanted to write pairings that fandom somewhat overlooks. 

As such, I went with a compromise: I’m including pairings with canonically male characters in my graphs (those are the pink bars), but I kept the lists going until I reached 10 pairings involving characters who are portrayed as women in the source material.

(There were no nonbinary FFXIV characters which placed on any of my lists, sadly. Apologies to Feo Ul, who is still the loveliest of branches in my heart.)

Other than that caveat, the results here aren’t too far off from my own guesses. Anecdotally, I’d seen that a lot of WoLs are self-inserts for their players, so it makes sense that typical WoL ships are with NPCs that are generally considered to be attractive by the fanbase. Correspondingly, the Reader/Character fics that are somewhat common in other fandoms don’t even rank on these lists, which might suggest WoL/NPC ships are largely fulfilling that niche.

(Something something, FFXIV is a dating sim with combat, in this essay I will…. :P)

.

Anyway, WoL ships are nice, but what I actually wanted to write were NPC/NPC ships. So let’s add a bunch more excludes to the filtering… and…

Hm. That's interesting. There's a bunch of F/F ships that I know I’ve seen fic and art for that are missing from this list!

Out of curiosity, I did a few searches specifically on these missing pairings, in case they were so rarely tagged as purely F/F (or so commonly shipped alongside a WoL ship) that trying to find them via excludes didn’t work. These were:

Alisaie/Tesleen (20 total, 13 tagged F/F)

Krile/Tataru (14 total, 7 tagged F/F)

Ysayle/Heustienne (5 total, 5 tagged F/F)

Wuk Lamat/Sphene (4 total, 4 tagged as F/F)

[Note: The first number is what I used during the writing challenge last month… which is how I ended up putting Krile/Tataru over Lucia/Hilda. Oops! But the second number is more in line with the rest of the analysis here, so I will use that going forward.]

Seems my expectations were flat-out incorrect! Of these four, only Alisaie/Tesleen makes the top ten. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat/Sphene is a pairing consisting of very new characters... so perhaps it will grow over time!

Right then, let's add Alisaie/Tesleen in, and while we're at it, let's run direct searches on all the potential candidates rather than using excludes to ensure no fics are getting needlessly thrown out.

With those adjustments in place... I reached my final top ten!

Not bad! Predictably, pairings that get more focus in canon (Gaia/Ryne and Sadu/Cirina) tend to place high, as do pairings involving Y’shtola (since she’s a very popular character overall). 

As a Lyse-enjoyer, I found Lyse getting 3/10 spots on the list to be pretty funny, as was the heavy presence of Stormblood characters! Apparently I’m not the only one who thought StB was a good expansion for lesbians. :D

There are also a few pairings here that I hadn’t ever considered before doing this analysis. But hey, that was the point of making the list! And trying to figure out the dynamics for pairings I didn’t usually ship did indeed turn out to be a fun writing exercise last month.

So what do you all think, tumblr? Did the results surprise you like they did me? Or did I overlook a pairing that really deserved to be included?

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this analysis!

[kipkoh]

please ramble about your ao3 fics!

Not sure if you had a specific fic or topic in mind, but I'm just gonna talk about Effortlessly My Baby since it's my most popular one.

When I get writer's block, I like to take a step back from my current project for a day or two to recoup, and during this time, sometimes I like to write something else entirely to keep up the creativeness. I was working on another longfic as my main project when I started writing Effortlessly My Baby on the side, just as something to do when I got stuck. So, in a way, we can thank my writer's block for EMB.

At some point I'd written so much of it that I just decided to start posting it, because why not? It might have been a side project, but I was still proud of it. At this point in time, I was still not super immersed into the TOH fandom, so I had no idea how big the Dadrius side was initially, and so I was not expecting my fic to get a lot of readers. To my surprise, it did, and I can never express how thankful I am for all the positive reception it received. It even quickly got to the point where EMB was getting far more traction than my main fic. New chapters of my main fic would rarely get any interaction but every new chapter of EMB brought in even more comments and kudos. Writer's aren't lying when they say comments help with motivation. Writing the fic would have been fun for me regardless, but it was made even more fun by the fact so many people were talking with me about it and I got to interact with so many Dadrius fans at once. Eventually, my focus shifted from my other fic to EMB, because why wouldn't it? The praise made me feel good, but not only that, I was giving something to people that brought them a lot of joy and comfort. The fic was originally around 25-30 chapters but because so many people ended up liking it, I ended up with the motivation to squeeze even more chapters into it, making it what it is now.

Anyway, on to the fic itself.

I was always a big fan of Darius and Dadrius, even before I immersed myself in fandom. It was inevitable I'd write about it eventually. The only surprising part is that it wasn't the first type of fic I posted.

The AU itself was something that kinda rotated around in my brain for like a solid year before I actually wrote it down. I wondered what their dynamic in canon would have been like if they'd known each other for longer than a few months. It's unknown how long they've known each other in canon, but I was running off the assumption that it hasn't been that long. Even if they knew of each other, I don't think there wasn't much, if any, non work related interaction before Hunter became Coven Head. It would make sense if Belos was keeping him isolated, after all.

Hunter's isolation was kind of the driving point for the overarching plot. He surely didn't enjoy not being allowed to make friends, and so a lonely kid with a desperate need for socialization with someone other than his emotionally distant uncle would be the perfect set up for a story about found family. Hunter needed someone in his life who actually cared about him, and Darius needed someone who could make him realize he wanted to love again after the death of his mentor.

The "mute" nephew idea was mostly because I thought it would lead to funny misinterpretations on Darius' part, but it also does have more significance. Hunter basically has two sides of himself under Belos: Nephew and Golden Guard. With Belos, he only knows how to be one or the other. Hunter wants to be taken seriously as Golden Guard as is worried he won't be if people knew who he was. (Nvm that it doesn't work.) He'd just be a nepotism kid to everyone. So, he never takes off the mask as Golden Guard and never speaks as Hunter so no one can recognize his voice. This means, however, that no matter who he is in the moment, he can never fully be himself. No matter what, he's lost some aspect of his identity.

After meeting Darius, Hunter's priorities get flipped. Darius already hates the Golden Guard, so now Hunter's goal is to make sure Darius doesn't find out Hunter is the Golden Guard. With everyone else, he was craving a sense of authority, but Darius ended up giving him a taste of what it was like to have a friend, and he was more terrified of losing that.

On Darius' side, I wanted to write about a man who lost someone he loved and in response, chose to give up. His mentor's death made him into a repressed shell of a man who was too scared to get close to anyone new ever again. Then, he meets a random kid who won't leave him alone and ends up worming his way into his cold, dead heart enough to slowly warm it back up without Darius even realizing until it was too late. The thing is, it didn't even take all that much for Hunter to do that. I like to think Darius likes to act tough and nonchalant a lot of the time, but he's inherently a very soft and caring person, even if he doesn't want to be at first.

The fic (and my writing skills) are far from perfect but despite that, Effortlessly My Baby is always going to have a special place in my heart. I was very sad to have to end it but at the same time, every story needs to end eventually. I can't just keep them going forever. I'm always grateful to everyone who read it and I hope it brings people joy for years to come.

[toothpastecanyon]

Hi! I’d like to start with the fact that your writing is PHENOMENAL, the way every first chapter is designed to grab the readers attention, with a mystery or a cozy little opening, establishing where the character is in life and their motives, or a sneak peek at the problem the characters must overcome.

I’m really bad at articulating my thoughts, but ur characters are really well written and I’d like to make more fanart of them, but I’m not quite sure what they look like.

(The only fics of your la that i KNOW you wrote are Unto Dust, and The Comfort of Agony (both of which are really good btw, I also love how you write existing characters, and your portrayal of them(especially Lucy Ann))

Anyway, because there are so many interpretations of species used in TAU, I got a little mixed up on what the non-human characters look like.

Darceus- in Lucy Ann and the Lunch Bunch, there is a Kitsune named Felicity, who is described as “looking a kind of like a human, and kind of like a fox” which my interpretation of is shown below. I forgot that that isn’t typical for kitsune characters in tau (even though she’s the only one since yours) and drew her in a similar way. ( also, are there any distinctive features on her nieces?) btw the LION idea is phenomenal, also do you think she has a mane? They’re fun to draw.

June- how big is she? I assumed she was the size of a human based on her interactions, but then I realized she might be looking down of people because she can fly. But then I remembered that it says she walks around. So then I confused myself. Also, skin tone, hair color/texture, eyes?

Beatrice- SHE IS SO WELL WRITTEN I felt genuinely angry while reading her meeting with Lucy Ann (in a good way) and she seems like someone you would meet in real life, totally obnoxious! Also, I don’t really know how TAU elves usually look so, idk anything about her skin tone or hair or eyes.

Here are pictures of my doodles in case you want to take a look, try to ignore the paper texture please.

Also, an old picture of Felicity:

Sorry if any of this is worded weird, im not that good at talking, but could you please give a solid description of the major/cool characters in Unto Dust?

(And in case I didn’t say it before, the Comfort of Agony is SO WELL WRITTEN there is too much for me to say about it!)

Oh wow, this is all so kind of you to say! Thank you so much - I'm so glad to hear you enjoy my writing, and I love the sketches you've done! You already have a lot of great designs and the characters look super expressive!

It's really exciting to be asked more of what my characters look like and I'll give you the best description I can, but I do want to note I often don't have a clear idea of what my characters look like - I like that writing lets a reader come up with their own spins on what a character looks like! So while I'm adding my own interpretation of my characters here, if you have a different idea you think works better or just looks cooler to you, I say go for it!

I'll organise my thoughts by each character:

Darceus: I was definitely inspired by @feferipeixes' character Felicity to make a kitsune character! I really like the mane idea you have going in your sketches, and female lions do occasionally grow manes! I like the way you've drawn her formal attire, with the nine tails spread out behind her like a sort of cape! You really brought her to life!

I probably still imagine her with a fox's colouration - I liked the lion imagery to evoke the broader facial features and just overall stockier build than an average kitsune.

The nieces: They're probably both young adults of average height. I don't have a clear idea of what they look like, but it might be fun to draw them as a different type or species of fox - silver foxes look really pretty with distinctive markings! They probably have less tails than Darceus, maybe three or so.

June: I definitely had the idea of her being average sized - I think writing it from Lucy Ann's perspective makes her seem taller as a lot of characters have to look down on her (sorry Lucy Ann!). I really like the wings you drew for her! She's a middle-aged lady with a little grey in her red hair, and probably likes wearing a lot of running gear - gotta train for that 10K!

Beatrice: I really like the long ears you've given her, that looks super distinctive! The loose t-shirt is really good. I probably imagine her with more of a pear shaped build with dark brown eyes and hair. If she does magic like in her appearances with Noie I like to think it'd look a lot how Mod V's elf OC Florian does it.

Also I definitely am looking for Lucy Ann to start wearing a glove! I'm not sure whether it would be fun to have it be a red glove to match the rest of her outfit, or if it's black or some other clashing colour to illustrate how she sees it as something unwanted and forced upon her.

That's all I can think of, but if you'd like anything more specific I'd be more than happy to help! Thank you again for this ask and your awesome sketches - if you end up drawing anything else I'd really love to see it!

Have a great day! :D

[ladybeug]

Alright so

It has been about 24 hours since i finished @peachcitts fanfiction metamorphosis and i spent at least 3 of those hours making a fanmix.

Listen, Im sorry, this is just who I am, Im someone who wants to make a playlist about a specific iteration of ml characters. Especially if there are some grey morals up in there.

read the fic, listen to the fanmix, follow me under the cut thats where the party is

...and by party I mean analytical summary of each song.

I'm about to talk about some of these choices I made in depth, as a treat for myself. An indulgence. I'll keep the fic references high level but there may be some theme/tone spoilers so real talk go read the fic and meet me back here.

@peachcitt I know I tagged you but this will get long you do not have to read it or acknowledge this homage just know I appreciated your story and thought a lot about it.

so.

the whole playlist is meant to be listened to start to finish, its half the tragedy and half the hard work to get your life right side up and the rewards.

I actively tried not to put Cry for Judas on here and i did ANYWAYS

its on so many of my playlists already, I'm loose with this song. But frankly if i could only keep it on one I would keep it on here. I mean I just don't think any other adrien iterations do things just to see how bad they'll make him feel QUITE like this one and i just HAD to have that as the first line of lyrics in the playlist.

I'm just also obsessed with sad and angry, can't learn how to behave?? The tragic acceptance of being unable to be good??

find me a better match. this song had to be on here and it had to be first.

Your Ghost - this might be the only song thats only about Marinette which is a crime because I really connected with her pov but the truth is that this is an adrien fanmix and i need to accept that.

But for real the acceptance but inability to move on in this song is just perfect.

Can't Lose - maybe the angriest song on here? A little angrier than I was going for but I had to keep this one though because, I mean, "I'm thinking I can't move if there isn't somewhere else to go?" like, the, 'sure what im doing is bad but what else IS there' of it, I mean, what can I even say. It had to be on here.

If you only listen to one song on here listen to Animal Mask.

It's a song about partners in a wrestling match written as a metaphor for when John Darnielle's wife was in labor, and its so tender and sweet, and frankly it sounds like it could have been written for metamorphosis for like every single flashback of ladybug and chat noir.

I could quote every line and be like 'this is them' but like, 'hold on,' I cried, 'I'll be right there', pulled your mask down through your hair. they won't see you, not until you want them to. What am I supposed to say?? It moves me deeply I'm having emotional problems please come join me. Every other song on this playlist doesn't matter.

Anyways intermission, while we're here, let me share this experience that I had today with you:

I did then proceed to count, was appropriately ashamed that about 25% of the playlist was mountain goats, and extremely painfully chose to remove 'oceanographer's choice'.

[tangent about Oceanographers Choice vs Haunted House]

As obsessed as I am with going straight from the unbearably tender memory in animal mask to oceanographer's choice, first line: "well, guy in a skeleton costume, walks up to a guy in a superman suit, runs through him with a broadsword", the anxious switch in music, and then straight into a song about a fucked up guy fighting the woman he is still complicatedly in love with.... and he doesn't know how else to be....

oh no, listen, as I typed that I half convinced myself to add it back in again

but I won't because I even more love the transit of animal mask to the shrill and tense line in Haunted House, "I was buried in the summer, all those parties ago", and then a confused and hysterical song about dissociation and loss of control in a world where nobody seems connected to what you're going through. The tone is more ungrounded, and scared, and less resigned. Which matches what I was going for - I tried to avoid songs that were just like... "yeah i'm evil >:) thats my identity"

[end tangent]

Little Pistol I feel like I barely have to justify, but I will say what really sold me is the reference to 'I want what's best for me, and I think I know just what that means'. But then also the slight change in tune at the end? Delicious?

The Run and Go, just read the fic ok

I Wanna Get Better is one that honestly feels like it doesn't fit perfectly but I'm really drawn to a sharp turning point in the playlist from 'bad and spiraling' to 'desperately clawing my way up' which is how reading the fic felt at a certain point, and this song feels like the perfect tonal shift and has the end-of-a-movie screaming conviction that I want. Its also just so good

Do it Anyways might be the second most important song... third most important? on this fanmix. The frantic, panicky music matched with the unwavering conviction to improvement is so unmatched honestly and if we're talking about how hard it is to be your best when you feel your worst, oh my god. Read the fic, listen at 2:44 and meet me back here and there's nothing else I even need to say

Absolute Lithops Effect.... I tricked you, this is also a mountain goats song :) its a cover though so I'm not counting it.

This is one of the most beautiful songs about hope for the future and growth that I know its very important to me. The title of the playlist comes from this song. Here's what you need to know about it:

Lithops are these:

They grow so slowly they don't look like they're growing at all. But they are.

Love Love Love: Ugh don't talk to me about love love love. I'm not going to explain how this connects to the fic. It does, I'm right. There's nothing I can say about this that can't be said better by Mr. Mountain Goats himself:

"The point of the song is, you know, that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the Romantic poets--that we think of love as this, you know, thing that is accompanied by strings and it's a force for good, and if something bad happens then that's not love. And the therapeutic tradition that I come from--I used to work in therapy--you know, also says that it's not love if it feels bad. I don't know so much about that. I don't know that the Greeks weren't right. I think they were--that love can eat a path through everything--that it will destroy a lot of things on the way to its own objective, which is just its expression of itself, you know. I mean, my stepfather loved his family, right? Now he mistreated us terribly quite often, but he loved us. And, you know, well, that to me is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing a lot of what I perceive as terrible damage in the way people talk about this--love is this benign, comfortable force. It's not that. It's wild, you know?" — NPR interview with Linda Wertheimer, 14 May 2005

Metamorphosis: okay this one I added to make myself laugh but I also stand by it thematically

SUPERBLOOM: Don't we all deserve a little celebration for the hard work we do?

Anyways this is my fanmix, if you read to here I love you and you're welcome for all the mountain goats songs I peeled off of here that I didn't even tell you about. I didn't even put heel turn 2 on here. Whoops ok now i've told you about that one.

[chairofchaos]

AO3 Chaos

I invite anyone who is interested to 1) Respond to these questions and 2) TELL ME WHAT YOUR AO3 IS SO I CAN FIND YOU THERE!

Thank you @c-starstuff-man0 for the tag! (I think someone else also tagged me but I could not find it- so thank you to you, as well, whoever you are!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? I currently have 7 works up on AO3.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 26,150. (That will easily double when I start posting Letters of Love, since LoL is already about 40,000 words. Oops!)

3. What fandoms do you write for? On AO3, currently only ACOTAR and Crescent City (so, SJM Universe stuff)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (I linked my AO3 at the bottom if you want to go check any of these out!)

The Power of Jewelry (Azris, fluff)

When the Blood Burns (Azris, angst/MCD stuff)

Stormy Night in the Library (Azriel x Reader, fluff)

Death & All That Follows (Azris, definitely angst at this point). This is hilarious because it’s only half done and I’m not sure I like the ending I’ve written, which means it could go happy or sad and I don’t know how to feel about that.

Even In the Dark (Cassian x Reader, hurt/comfort and kind of fluffy) I won’t lie I had to revisit this one to remember what it was lol

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, and I’m mean about it. Sorry to anyone who has been on the receiving end of a teasing chaos comment. I maybe have too much fun dangling teasers like carrots on a stick...

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hahahha. Uh. Probably When the Blood Burns. For now, anyways.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? (Do I write happy endings?) Stormy Night in the Library takes my vote for this, though Say It’s True (Mor x Emerie) is also cute and ends happily. I love them. 

8. Do you write smut? Yes. There are some smutty elements to things I have posted. I haven’t written anything specifically for smut though.

9. Do you write crossovers? Nothing that’s posted.

10. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Uh… not on AO3! (But if you want to check out the Gold Star Crack Headcanons @ninthcircleofprythian and I wrote a little bit ago here they are!)

12. What is your all-time favorite ship? Please. Please don’t hate me. I’ve been on a Dramione train for years now. I know it’s controversial. I can’t get them out of my head.

13. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Would it be bad if I said “Letters of Love”? No. I want to finish it so badly. I do. I’m just scared. I’m working on it, I swear. It just feels monstrous at this point. 

In actuality, I think it’s the crossover that I’m working on. It’s a Throne of Glass/ACOTAR/Crescent City monstrosity that would be roughly 400 9x11 pages long, 12 pt font single spaced with formatting. It started as a romance, morphed into a second-gen TOG x ACOTAR throuple adventure and political drama. Now I just don’t know what to do with it because the universe I’ve imagined for this is so insane and I cannot do it justice.

14. What are your writing strengths? I write with my whole heart, and I care about every word. I’ve been practicing for years.

15. What are your writing weaknesses? Mental illness. Procrastination. Writing 10k in 24 hours and then never finishing that work. I overthink everything. Next question. Please.

16. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I love it. However, I much prefer it when it’s canon that the character speaks another language. I feel awkward prescribing languages to characters unless it’s some sort of AU. I read an incredible Azris AU (linked HERE, check the tags please, written by the wonderful @annaskareninas for Azris Week) where Eris is Italian, and it worked beautifully because it was an AU! But if I was writing in universe, I would have a harder time making Eris speak Italian because for all we know they’re speaking Fae Language We Don't Have a Name For and Italian doesn’t exist in the universe. It’s a mental block for me. I don't mind reading it though!

17. First fandom you wrote for? …Harry Potter. It was 2011, okay?! However, the first I ever POSTED was Percy Jackson. Don't ask me where they ended up, it was a long time ago and those secrets were lost to the sea

18. Favorite fic you’ve written? When the Blood Burns. It hurts just right.

Tags (no pressure!): @positivelyruined @annaskareninas @ ANYONE WHO WANTS TO DO THIS! Also, let me know what your AO3 is in replies or reblogs. I need to follow more of you over there <3

My AO3 is keyboard_clacks, or chairofchaos. I post and respond to comments under both pseuds! Find Me Here!

[olliebee66]

Okay listen

I personally don't like Gaz. I'm a POC [afro latino], I write fanfics with POC oc's and white oc's. You won't catch me writing a fanfic with one of mine paired with Gaz or him being in the forefront because I just don't feel like he suits my taste. That's not to say I wouldn't write it as a request from someone who wants to read something with Gaz being the center of attention, but I won't write it for myself and that's okay. Just like I won't write Ghost x f!reader or Soap x f!reader. I have them already with OCs that are women for my own personal enjoyment. I also don't write Graves, Alejandro, or König with women as I'm transmasc and would like my own representation.

I see so many people up in arms about König "replacing" Gaz in 141 fics and stuff like how it's racist and such when, most likely, people just don't like Gaz. No, König isn't a part of 141, that's canon, but people can write their own AUs if they want to. Are we forgetting that KorTac is basically a group for hire? Idk if y'all know what that means, but please feel free to educate yourself on what for hire means.

Now, some writers for the COD fandom might not even be up to date about all of the characters and writing for themselves (which is what you should be doing cuz writing is supposed to be for fun) with characters they love. If you don't see them writing a character you love, write it yourself. Don't hound them and make them feel like the bad guy because you feel like it's necessary for them to appease you.

Also, COD is a FICTIONAL game. Sure, there's some stuff in it about realistic topics (military, injuries, etc), but it's not a real thing meaning you can write the fanfics with König being his actual height and not cry about how "it's not realistic cuz they wouldn't allow him to join based off his height". Doesn't matter what the REAL military in Austria would allow because guess what? He's a fictional character and sure, it has real locations in it, but the plots and timelines? Fictional. Can we remember that?

Also, stop getting on people's asses for writing specific characters as someone who would do things that you personally couldn't see them doing. If you're reading a fic and it's not something you enjoy, you can scroll past and not leave hate. I've seen hate towards people who write Price in an age gap or Graves allowing his partner to sleep with The Shadows or Valeria being with a man. The only canonical LGBTQ+ rep we have is Laswell and her wife. Valeria is more than likely bi with a preference for women, but until it's written as fact, stop getting mad at people who wanna ship her with Alejandro or Graves even. If it doesn't suit your tastes, move on. Don't send hate, don't reblog with tags about how wrong it is, just scroll past and find something you like.

Anyways, the summary is just move on from things you don't want to see. There's no reason for you to send hate to someone for what they write, no reason to leave nasty tags on reblogs, etc. Not everyone is going to like what you like and that's okay.