#anyways it's just been sitting in my drafts so i thought i'd show it off for a lil bit

[freeuselandonorris]

this has been sitting in my drafts for a day or so and an ask game is the perfect excuse to send it in

☉ SHARK TANK

I've been thinking many thoughts about Oscar and his usually quite well hidden exhibitionism. like he's not as much of an attention whore as Lando is (or at least not nearly as obnoxiously) but he still definitely IS. my source? old prema videos: him on a cliff in monaco talking about the view and then pointing at himself and saying "nice view". talking about how he's fine "becoming a meme on twitter" as long as it gets him attention. being well aware that there's a camera on him while he's getting undressed (the one singular clip that exists of him with his shirt off that is in like every edit ever made) but not making any effort to get said camera turned off or just turning away from it, not even bothering to look at least a little bashful after. like you ain't slick bitch I see you. I've not really seen that characterisation of him in fics but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter

YEAAAH love this!! i think you're so right actually - i think a lot of this is that athletes are just very comfortable with their bodies in the sense that they're used to seeing them as a tool and a thing to be honed and manipulated, so they're constantly being touched, adjusted, assessed (i also have a theory that this is why they're all so grabby with each other) and they're also used to just being on display. but ALSO this is about oscar's quiet confidence - like, lando's an exhibitionist in the sense that he's constantly putting himself on display for approval and because he wants the validation, whereas oscar's just like. yep. here i am. i know i'm worth it.

lil snippet because i love this idea!

The wild thing is, Oscar’s not even bothering to hide it. He’s standing as cool as anything in front of the mirror in his hotel room, dressed in only his boxer shorts, flexing. As if Lando’s not there.

“Damn,” Lando says from his vantage point on the bed, feeling hot and strange. He’d barged into Oscar’s room to get ready for the stupid sponsor event, needs the company to stop him getting all up in his head about it. “Really feeling yourself there, bro.”

He lets his voice tilt a bit scathing as he says it. Not like Oscar’s got nothing to be proud of – his upper body strength’s better than Lando’s now, the last bits of teenage softness melting away into solid muscle as the season’s progressed. But still. Man needs some modesty.

Anyway, he needn’t have bothered, because Oscar just blinks back at him in the mirror, face unreadable. 

“Yeah,” he says simply, and presses a hand to his sternum, twisting to flare his lats. Lando, for some stupid reason, feels his face going pink. “Pretty stoked with my progress recently.”

He doesn’t make an inappropriate joke of it like Lando would, or blush and get awkward. Just turns, angling himself subtly towards Lando instead of the mirror. Slim fingers resting in the channel between his abs, pinkie finger just dipping into his navel. 

Lando swallows. There’s something about the way Oscar’s acting, like it’s perfectly normal for him to be displaying himself like this, that makes Lando want to look. Like, really look. It must be okay, if Oscar's letting him do it. Encouraging him to do it.

He’s kinda flushed, colour high up on his cheeks and across the pale skin of his neck, but it’s not like he’s embarrassed. It’s like he’s excited. Like his heart’s hammering in his chest, sending all the blood rocketing around his body.

“Yeah. You’re looking good, Osc,” Lando says, dry-mouthed, and settles back into the pillows as Oscar’s hand creeps down, down. “Why don’t you show me the rest?”

[iaus]

I SHALL return w specific scene but also ⭐️ bc I love hearing you talk about your v cool work 💖🫡

okay. we're. going to talk about porter. i talk about jace so much (not a bad thing!) but because i tend to draw towards epilogue for these.... i really don't ever talk about porter.

so. i'm gonna talk about a scene from the first chapter of darling.

which. looking away from the untouched draft and the new project.

anyway. i DID make a series for epilogue & darling finally. because. well they are a duo. :)

nsft writing under the cut. as is the nature of darling. <3

so. darling is also tagged unreliable narrator and i want to talk a little about that. specifically about the scene when jace and porter finally get to their honeymoon cabin. so far jace has mostly been kind of poking at porter. he's playing with him. seeing if he matches his memory. and porter's a bit adrift. he can't approach jace the way he used to because this jace is more independent (in a way... i'd argue he's swung more to codependent in a way but. we'll get into that later.)

so. they get to the cabin and look at the amenities. i wish i was more comfortable showing the pictures of the place i based this on but. privacy reasons because it really is a place not far from me. BUT.

their honeymoon cabin is literally one room. it has a little kitchenette that porter's disappointed in, it has a breakfast nook not made for a goliath-genasi (even if he is small <3), and a gigantic bed. well. we're not being subtle on what darling is really about but.

porter's biggest issue is. with the shower.

The shower, irritatingly enough, is not big enough for two. It’s hardly big enough for Porter. Jace finds it hilarious as Porter does his best to maneuver himself into the room. Gives Porter a mean little grin that Porter feels like he hasn’t seen in years. “Guess you can’t wash my back then,” Jace drawls as Porter closes the door.

i personally think this is very telling about their dynamic. in epilogue, at some point when jace is showering he remembers that porter would tend to barge in when he was conditioning his hair and bother him. porter's used to having access to jace all the time. jace was not afforded any sort of privacy in their previous playing house.

but now... there's a logistical issue with just the size of this place they're staying. porter is too big for this space. he cannot just barge in on jace when he's showering in this space. and jace immediately catches onto it and is mean about it. jace has gotten nasty over his week alone and he's more than willing to push that onto porter.

(and this is something else the audience gets to know. from epilogue, we know that jace will kill porter if he's ungrateful. jace is hellbent on having what he wants from porter. porter has no idea. he's still expecting their previous dynamic. he still doesn't know about the fact that there's a literal role reversal now. jace has the power. he's not about to ascend. he doesn't have the shatterstar. yea porter could physically overpower jace: but would he be able to get the opportunity to do that to this jace?)

TANGENT.

but anyway. porter's angry, jace is delighted. but then strangely enough from that frustration we get a bit of sentimental thought from porter:

He thinks about how Jace used to complain—that he hated showering together when obviously Porter just wanted to fuck him against the tile (not that he complained when Porter palmed at his hips, massaged his thighs, spread his ass, and pressed his cockhead up against his already stretched hole)—and then about how before he had the shatterstar in his chest, that Jace would sometimes draw a bath for Porter when they were at their house. Would sit at the edge of the tub and talk to hear his own voice as Porter alternated between dozing off and trying to get Jace’s clothes off.

they're extremely sexually charged thoughts. because i mean. you might be able to tell i think their relationship is really sexual even though they do have some sort of care for each other. but. porter thinking about fucking jace in the shower leads to a memory of jace taking care of him.

which. we never saw any of that in jace's memories of epilogue. in epilogue it was all about how porter took care of him, how porter happened to him. now that we're getting porter's pov we get to see how jace might have showed affection for porter.

(and how porter responds with trying to get in jace's pants.)

i personally think this paragraph is tender and revealing. because even though porter writes it off in the next few sentences and insists this connects to things that he did to keep jace around. it's the first thing he thinks of when he realizes he won't have access to jace.

it's romantic in a bit of a fucked up way. or as romantic as he can get.

He wonders, as he’s hunching over to wash the shampoo from his hair, if Jace remembers that. Little private moments that Porter was so sure Jace would find important. That he went out of his way to do because he knew it had been a good way to ensure Jace was loyal, that he was committed. That he wouldn’t leave.

this section right here. porter plays off his attachment to this memory. he says that he did this because he figured jace would find it important. it's something jace would want. and jace is already known as flighty at this point so i mean. of course he's trying to make it so that jace, known commitmentphobe, is comitted. that he won't leave.

but. there's almost an underlying desperation imo to this little thought.

he's trying so hard to keep this man here who has left him multiple times. he's going out of his way to create these moments and gestures that he thinks are VALUABLE to jace even though... he could get another caster. he doesn't have to entangle himself this deeply but.

porter, unreliable narrator in his own way, wants jace committed. wants jace to stay.

and what was it that jace said in epilogue?

you don't need me, porter.

you want me.

(jace does know him well, huh.)

[kohakhearts]

13, 16 and 40 for the writer asks?

thanks ollie!!

13: what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

god this is a boring answer but. "show, don't tell." it's like the one thing i actually consciously think about when i write (well, more so when i edit tbf but same dif). in the past 3-4 years i've gotten really good at learning to be concise in my writing and i do think this my being comfortable with conveying emotions and such through small actions without a need to justify my choice in the writing is what's led to that!

16: how many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? share one of them?

oh god LOL so many. the big au ideas in my brain right now are the starter mew au and the orre au. i think i recently shared a bit about the orre au (though i'd be so happy to share more if anyone asked me about it!), so i'll share a bit about the starter mew au instead!

basically way back in december @jaystrifes sent me this ask, which festered in my brain and has grown into a whole jn rewrite (that currently remains just plotted...but one day i'll have the time to write it. i hope dhjfghjd). it doesn't go exactly as i said in the ask - i've had time to sit with the idea since then and some of my thoughts have changed a bit - but the basic premise is still the same. this idea of like...mew feeding off of goh's twisted sense of self. what to him is evidence of his capability is to mew a fun little game, and it's making all the rules. i've spent all the time i've been plotting it working out like...ok, so what is the goal of project mew? how does goh fit into it? how does gary fit into it? and the other side of like - ok, so what's the connection between the mewtwo we see in the genesect movie and giovanni's mewtwo? what does that imply about team rocket's research on mew and their attempts at cloning it? goh and ash also met mewtwo in jn - and it didn't wipe their memories or anything, which suggests it respected them enough not to, even after goh insulted it by insinuating battling it was only worth it to get data on mew. there's just a lot of potential with mewtwo and mew that's not really fully explored in jn, so i wanted to dig into that a bit - at the same time as diving into this version of goh who is even more isolated than in canon and who's not just a victim of parental neglect but also of this psychological dependency on mew. his relationship with ash in particular has been fun to analyze. in my mock-up ao3 draft i said that "ash has aura powers and contrarily goh is more of a self-proclaimed empath" so that's...pretty much their dynamic in a nutshell LMAO.

anyway! i titled the au progeny and do have a tag for it, so i'm sure i'll start throwing more things in there once i actually start writing the thing lol

40: if someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

i answered this one here but you know what? i'll also say again about this year's christmas fic i'd love to see art of the boys in their matching christmas sweaters LOL. i can only imagine the abject horror on goh's face lmaoooo

get to know your fic writer!

[fazball]

I want to start this with why You should listen to Me about this :^3! Hi, I'm Chip and I have had a special interest in Minecraft roleplay since I was about 9 (assuming Aphmau's Minecraft Diaries was truly my first mcrp) and that would mean I have had this special interest for Nine Years and I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about.

Now onto what I actually want to talk about! I feel that Minecraft roleplay is simply not explored as much as it truly could be. There is so little of this genre, at least compared to things like let's play series and challenge videos, and it is so baffling to me that a game like Minecraft, an open-world sandbox game with little to no actual canon, would not have a surplus of content like this! Of course recently there has been a significant uptick in content like this because of the DSMP, and I am honestly overjoyed about that, but before this there has been almost nothing? Now obviously I cannot know every single mcrp series ever created, nor have I even watched every series I've seen come on my recommended, but I can confidently say there is a lack of content! Specifically a lack of intentional content.

There are so many series/servers that are completely non-rp, but include things with jokey moments where they allude to things in the past as if it was serious and affected their MC character, or are half-and-half. What I mean by half-and-half is that the series is not actually called an rp (or even just not intended to be and slowly became a thing that regularly happens), but there are many moments where there is clearly a story that everyone is following in some way. I think a good example of this is Hermitcraft, of course I have not seen every single Hermitcraft episode and cannot say if its always been like this, but, for example, in season 7 (which I have fully seen a few creators series) there is a semi-clear story with occasional rp moments, but it is still just a normal SMP. I honestly love servers like this as it's hard for me to actually sit down and watch something that could be considered a show, but the amount of wasted potential is so upsetting to me!!!

There are even many series and SMPs that have no rp at all outside of jokes and the push is from the fandom surrounding it. I unfortunately don't have an example from off the top of my head, but they do exist trust me!!!! I think I could, once again, loosely say Hermitcraft as the creators tend to be involved in the fandom. There are a few moments where they did not consider something as a story moment, they saw fanart or someone talking about it in a more serious way, then they bring it up! I love this aswell, I think it's so fun!!! (if i am completely wrong about this do not point it out :( simply believe me)

You could make any story you'd ever want, you have literally anything at your disposal and so little people actually go for it. In a game where you can: customize your character, literally build (and even specifically retexture) the world around you, have others join you as a character in your story, or make your own NPCs and dialogue, you could genuinely make any story you could ever want and I encourage everyone to dip their toes into it. If you have ever thought of making a story, try using Minecraft. I'd say it's even the perfect place to start.

Final messages!!!! If this all sounds like word vomit, thats because it is! I don't tend to make large posts like this and even struggle to make comprehensible paragraphs, I literally started talking about this on my Twitter account then drafted all of it in a personal discord server. Anyways, thank you for reading if you got this far!!! If you'd like any mcrp recommendations let me know, I will warn you that most of my favorites are Old and aren't the greatest quality Or could be considered a complete normal series. I just love mcrp so bad and it's my longest lasting spin, and I hope there are others who share this!!!!!! Okay goot bye :^3 thank you again for reading if you did

[bokettochild]

what got you into lu?? furthermore, what made you want to write about it???

Story time I guess!

I've been writing since I was eleven, properly since thirteen. When I was about seventeen or eighteen or so, i was actually working on novel that I still haven't finished (whoops!) I was trying to do some character designs and my sister randomly showed me a picture on Pinterest of BotW Link! And, well, I thought he was just the most Person Ever! I wanted to see more! Maybe he would help inspire my work somehow! I mean, she had a princess named Zelda in her stories, so it's not like it'd be weird to learn from something, right? Especially if I didn't lean to heavily into it!

Anyways, cue me a couple months later, scrolling through Pinterest, looking at almost anything legend of Zelda and running into- what's this? Link's meet? Huh, cool! Wait, there's another one? A whole AU? Look at those designs! Look at the costuming! Holy crap this inspires me!

Que me turning to Zelda whenever I wanted to get fired up for art. Somewhere along the line though, I started wondering what all this pretty art by JoJo(random numbers) was from, so I checked out her blog and hello! Sibling dynamics between two of the heroes?

I fell in love with the dynamic between the wolf trio, and honestly couldn't stand a lot of the other links. Legend was a pain in my ass that I thought was super annoying at first. I was here for WILD! He was my baby and I got irritated when he didn't show up for a while.

Yes. I was one of those Wild fans LOL

It wasn't until I started reading fanfics that I learned to enjoy the other boys. I started with the ones JoJo posted and then started looking them up on Ao3. I followed hc blogs and art blogs and anything that looked cool. I read hc after hc about relations between the boys. I found Sillus's work on Ao3 and fell in love with Legend and the Prince leg head cannon.

And then one day, while washing my hair of all things, I was struck with a shower thought. What if all the boys were related?

I thought I'd just submit the idea to a blog and sit back, but my brain took off running. How would it work? Why would it work that way?

I'd been in a writers slump and depressed as I tried to get another story off the ground, but the ideas kept coming so I drafted a outline. Days later, struggling with writing block, I said "screw it!" and wrote the first chapter of TBBU instead of trying once more to introduce a non-existent audience to a made up world even I wasn't sure about.

And, well, once you write one thing, all it takes is time!

[eternalvault]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR GRANBLUE FANTASY'S WHAT MAKES THE SKY BLUE:

Granblue fans, WMTSB enjoyers - I wanna talk about Lucilius - or more specifically what could have been. I wanna talk about my thoughts because he's genuinely one of the most intriguing characters I've ever come across in media. (Please note: I have not finished GBVSR's story nor come anywhere close to where he shows up - thank you Story Mode update not working - so if I'm missing explanations for things by all means feel free to add it in the comments - I want to learn more.)

I've been sitting on a fic concept for a few days, and I've slowly started putting together a draft. It stems a lot from what we learn through raid quests and WMTSB - both Paradise Lost and 000. I'm not at all an experienced writer by any means, so I'm not sure the fic itself will ever truly get off the ground. But here's the concept:

An AU in which Lucilius, after his research is halted and the limiters are in place, turns against and actively undermines the High Council rather than God himself. Going right to the immediate source first before potentially upending the entire world. He's a scientist, a researcher first before anything else. I have a hard time believing that with the pragmatism he possesses that his descent into seeking oblivion within the events of WMTSB itself was nothing short of torturously slow. The kind of loathing that comes from watching your life's work be torn apart and reshaped into something unrecognizable by hands other than your own, while being forced to sit back due to someone else's fear. Sahar in 000 speaks of dreams, of fleeting thoughts with nothing to recall them by. Lucilius has encountered so much in canon that I imagine it would make any being - immortal or otherwise - dizzy and sick.

And I'd be pretty fucking jaded too if all of those things came together and landed on my head. Lucilius's current outlook had to start somewhere. No one is born with that level of hatred. No one is born so cynical. I fully believe that given the opportunity and the resources Lucilius would've been able to flip the High Council's entire world upside down without having to resort to dimensional obliteration. If any Astral we have met thus far would have the tenacity, it'd be him. Not right away though. Just as slow as his descent would've been. Sneaking around to look through records, hiding copies of his research in a million different places so even if the Council found one set they'd never find them all. Biding his time by using the Fallen Angels as a true information network, with ciphers and hidden travel routes and verbal codes to signal exactly what their plans are to each other and which hideout to use next.

To use the information gleaned from Lucifer's interactions with the sky to learn exactly where he has the best shot of not being found at any given time - by Astrals or skydwellers alike. Because god forbid a horde of skydwellers pre-War finds out there's a lone Astral and a bunch of primal beasts sitting in their backyard. And to not be afraid to leave the structure in flames before he goes, knowing he has everything he needs in the next one.

And Lucifer, dear Lucifer having to make the decision to stand against him once again. To be ordered by the Council to hunt Lucilius down after he goes on the run, to be the one to arrest him and carry out his sentence in a spectacle he never wanted to see. Belial, who narrowly escaped the conflict that erupted when they were finally caught on Lucilius's own orders and for once is powerless to do anything other than let it happen because he can't be seen. Who is well aware of the sorrow in Lucifer's eyes as the blade comes down and hates him anyway for it because why couldn't you just play along?

Sandalphon, who had heard months prior that there was finally a way that he could be useful, extended a hand by someone he never expected to receive more than dirty looks and harsh whispers from and practically bounding at the chance. The sheer betrayal striking through his core because when the operation goes down and he sees Lucifer on the battlefield surely the other wouldn't miss the wings and hair and armor he's been so familiar with?

Lucifer, who in the span of just a day lost everything. His confidante, his friend, and the light of his life when all the stress of his position makes the wings upon his back drag at his spine. And when Michael steps into the garden as Lucifer looks up at a sky that never felt so grey, giving the news that Sandalphon was there when the last hideout when down for a brief, short moment in comparison to his already long life (has it been so long?) he no longer possesses that shining brilliance he's so lauded for.

Anyway that's about as far as I've gotten in terms of planning and thought processes so let me know what y'all think. This is the first time I've done something like this so I'm interested in the feedback. As far as other writers and artists, if y'all wanna consider using any part (not the whole thing) of this just ask me first. My messages should be open and if not, leave a comment under this post and I will open them.

[tjemegames]

HSR: 2.3.2 MoC, 2.3.1 AS, & 2.2.1 PF Recaps

I definitely forgot about drafting up the latter part of this post when it was more relevant so excuse my lateness. HSR has a lot of endgame content these days and keeping up with it across multiple different servers is a self-inflicted thorn in my side. So, without further ado, let's get into my yapping (under the cut because this post is long one)!

Apologies in advance for any image distortion: Tumblr doesn’t appear to like long photos.

2.3.2. Memory of Chaos

Dissipation of Dreams dropped yesterday morning and I had been impatiently waiting for it so I could get the Nameless Honor points for getting 15 stars; which, I was informed yesterday, can be earned off of stages that have already been completed. Do you know just how many times I missed out on those stupid xp points back in the early days because I couldn't even get 15 stars in the first place? Would've been great to know about back then, but I digress.

Anyway, as I said, DoD dropped yesterday, and I was fully expecting it to be a bit of a rough time because of how badly it was being dragged in one of the HSR discords I frequent. Much to my surprise, this was the easiest time I've ever had running MoC.

There were a few things that made this MoC easier for me:

The enemy lineup on stage 12 was almost the exact same as the 2.2.2 MoC; they swapped out the elite mob in the first wave of 12-1 for a different one, then flipped the challenge order of 12-1 (The Past, Present, and Eternal Show) and 12-2 (Argenti) so that they were inverted. This meant that I didn't have to think about who to run, and I could just refer to the previous challenge records for guidance. I was able to save myself about 18 wave resets because of this.

I got e5 Gallagher, giving myself a better Boothill team member and freeing up Aven as a secondary sustain for my opposing team lineup.

I've been farming relics like an absolute mad person for the past few weeks to fix some of my builds. Relics make up such a large part of character performance and I could truly feel the difference in the damage output for those I've been able to improve since the last MoC (see new builds below).

I'd rate my enjoyment of this MoC at 4/5 stars. Overall, it wasn't too terribly difficult and went by much faster than any of my previous attempts. This was both a positive/negative for me; while I was glad to have done well and efficiently so, it was very strange not to have to think too much or come back to retry the challenge over the course of a week. I’ve become so used to stopping my runs to farm relics/make team adjustments that it was a bit jarring to finish everything in one sitting. At the end of the day, I got my 800 jades for 36 stars so that's good enough for me.

2.3.1 Apocalyptic Shadow

Stormwind Knight was the integral AS stage, and this one took a bit of finagling to get the final star for 6600+ points. I can't give you an entire rundown on my thoughts as it's been a couple weeks since I finished the challenge, but I vaguely remember having to consult the discord for advice because my brain was not braining with team comps and I had been trying to beat the stage for multiple days.

However, I can tell you that super break Jing Yuan is a meme of a team that I've been using to fight "Harmonious Choir" The Great Septimus since 2.2 when the boss first came out. I don't know what compelled me to do that in the first place since lightning is one of the weaker break types, but here I was using it on stage 3 before having to switch it out for something more effective.

I should also note that, during this challenge, DHIL was on an absolutely trash 2pc/2pc atk% build, making it take far too many tries to get to 6600 points from all his missed crits. Gallagher was also freshly pulled and severely lacking in break effect. Additionally, Aventurine was still running 4-star planar ornaments and half of Tingyun's relics were still 4-star pieces as well. I briefly considered going back into the mode now that all of them have been improved to see how much better of a score I can get, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

2.2.1 Pure Fiction

The Lexical Enigma PF was interesting to say the least. I don’t usually play past the second stage of this mode due to my lack of useful units; I’m still Himeko-less and my duke farming hasn’t been going very well, meaning that Herta is still benched. Hopefully the Navigator will bless me with her presence via standard banner in the near future.

Fortunately for my lack of stellar jade savings, this patch I was feeling especially motivated to have a queen sweep of all the endgame modes; I spent way too much time and put in far more effort than I usually would to get all 12 stars. It was actually my very first time since PF released so yippee! We love progress.

I almost gave up a few times, my pride was hurt, and extreme sacrifices were made to get this finished. If you aren't aware, I have a special amount of spite reserved for Serval; I have nothing against her character (I actually loved playing through her companion mission and using her before version 1.4 came out) I'm just frustrated by the sheer number of times I've pulled both her and her signature light cone since the game came out. S15 Make the World Clamor is ten too many copies of that goddamn lc and I wish I could erase its existence from the game at this point.

That being said, finally releasing Serval from her lvl 70, 5/8/8/8 trace, 4-star relic wearing purgatory was what ultimately led to my success (see build below). Even though it wasn't the best build I could've given her, I'm hoping that it was enough to lift the Serval-based curse that had been placed upon me. And if not, y'all will be hearing about it.

Anyway, that's the extent of my yapping about the endgame modes for now. I'm going to try to put these out after every challenge cycle runs its course so that I'm not making an excessive number of posts about them. I apologize in advance for the impending long posts, but I'd rather not blow up y'all's feeds with separated iterations of my nonsense if I don't have to.

The schedule will still be a bit off for the next one of these recaps since I decided to include the current MoC but not the most recent PF. I'll do my best to get that sorted out asap.

Sheesh, I really rambled my way through this one, didn't I? Fun fact: a severe storm passed over my city while I was writing up this post, causing me to lose power, and I had to rewrite the entire second half of it because auto save wouldn't work without internet access. Don't you just love to see it?

Anyway, thanks for sticking around if you made it to this point! I'll catch y'all later.

[seth-shitposts]

Let's see I'm getting my thoughts in order here.

So.

I have a to write list that's going to keep us busy:

The last two (+bonus) chapters of Conversationalist

A mystery event piece

Jealousy, Ft Lando (🔞)

Edits to an unnamed NSFW piece that's been done I'm just nervous- (the rough draft is done, im going to go over it with one of our friends today i think)

Two chapters for a collab we're doing with a friend

Really any of the prompts sitting in our docs

And then also

A project we will start posting once Conversationalist is completed.

Originally was going to be a short one shot, but then we got attached.

So how it went down:

Seth read a rebel comic that followed an imperial droid and it was such a sad ending. He gave Alex the big ol eyes and said "we can't leave him out in the cold🥺🥺🥺"

To which Alex folded like a wet paper towel.

So now we're working on a side fic following 264, the courier droid that the ghost crew nabbed on lothal when searching for kanan that Chopper promptly pushed out the ghost.

Ima give you the sparknotes of the follow up comic.

Lil guy here, 264, was found in the exact spot the show left him by some local farmers. He decided to stay with them and help them around the farm. Until the empire showed up and arrested the farmers for stolen imperial equipment.

He was reassigned to an outpost on a frigid, inhospitable planet where he was miserable and continuously mistreated by the imperials. There, a captured Sabine Wren had been brought in and 264 recognized her immediately. He set her free and aided the ghost crew in escaping. He was found by the rebels, he could join them.

Zeb recognized the droid, but wasn't able to have much conversation before the ship got trapped in a tractor beam. 264 jumped off ship, choosing to stay behind to release them from the tractor beam so they could get away. The imperials went "What is wrong with this droid" and left him outside in a junk heap.

The comic ends with him thinking to himself that the rebels know where he is now, so he just has to wait for them.

---

Seth: and that makes me want to CRY. He's still out there in the cold!! 😭😭😭😭😭

Alex: so now we're writing a follow up to it about (fulcrum!)Kallus finding him and fixing him up.

Anyway @foxxxtransformer123 Guessed The Droid so here's 264's response to this post.

Also bold is translated, as Kallus understands the droid, that will be written.

"And why's that? You're one of the top agents in your field." The only reason why this agent would bother with this game is in the hope that 264 will lead him to the rebels. Maybe he can use the borrowed time he has to send the agent running in circles.  "Because I have also defected."  … …… "Agent, I have a very limited response bank, but I am doing the best I can to make this response special. Just for you." 264 hopes he's coming across as sarcastic as possible. "You are misleading me, into a cave of deceit. You must be desperate if you're going to create a ruse such as this one just to get me to tell you where those rebels are." The agent doesn't make any move  to stop 264, so he continues while he still has the ability to. "I was going to just send you on wild ghost chases with no inkling of success and revel in wasting your time with what little I have left, but frankly," 264 whirring indignantly, "I'm just so insulted that you thought I'd believe that. I may be cross wired and have no better place to rot than this scrap heap, but I am not the fool you think I am."  The agent looks so entertained by his spiel. And then the… the… 264 rattles in frustration at not having some foul word he can call this agent. Whatever. The agent laughs, utterly infuriating 264. 

The Renascence of 264 is going to be a multichap fic. First chapter is pretty much complete, just wanna brush over it again and finish outlining the plot of the fic before we choose to drop it, and I want to finish Conversationalist before we start dropping it. ^_^

[dunkelzahn]

One of the things I think a lot of people don't really get about writing is that it doesn't necessarily have to be fiction.

Like, fiction writing. Good, excellent, create your worlds, tell your stories, may it be popular and lead to success. But it's so easy to crush your writing under the weight of your own expectations, isn't it? It's so dreadfully easy. You can write a first draft, or just an opening, and give up because you feel there's no way that it'll ever be good enough to show to anyone and that just taints your feelings about the work, your skills, and writing in general.

But what if you didn't seep all of that into your fiction? Just... write something. Doesn't have to be fiction. Like a diary entry. Your thoughts on the news. Conversations you want to have. Events in your life. A paragraph or so on that nice meal you had. Non-fiction stuff, things no one will read. Something with an audience of one person, totally personal and private.

Still, it's writing. I've written furious screeds about topics I don't think anyone else cares about, so I don't bore folks with posting them. I've written tutorials about subjects that've undoubtedly been covered, and in a more comprehensive way than I could manage. I've written love letters to someone that'll never read them. Sometimes what I write is just transcriptions from another source. (No one I know is interested in recipes from 14th century England.) I've written political rants aching with frustration. I've written reviews of canons and products. I've written apologies that will never cross the bridges I've already burned. Even, embarrassingly, a few bits of poetry. They were awful.

And, yes, I've written fiction, both original and fan fiction.

Sometimes it's experiments. Sometimes it's just to get my emotions straight. But writing about the real stuff, the stuff that isn't fiction, the stuff that doesn't have the expectation of readership.

Some of it's saved onto an external. A lot of it, I just delete once I've done it, after I let it sit for a day or four. Then I'll come back to reread it and feel satisfied that I've got it out of my system. So I clear out the text document and start on something new.

But the thing was, I wrote it. And it was freeing because, since I knew I'd be the only one to ever see it, I had no expectations and felt no pressure to make it good.

And, honestly, I feel like doing that frees up some of the pressure for when I do write something that's intended for others. It's like singing in the shower.

Anyway. This got overlong. The short of it is just this: When someone says 'just write something,' they don't necessarily mean to follow it with 'and show it to everyone.' I think a lot of people get caught up on that silent adder and it makes them shrivel up when they do keep writing and never manage to meet their own expectations.

So write, but write for yourself. If you happen to think it's good enough to share, do it. Otherwise, just treat it as private practice, a way to vent out those ideas and feelings until you either find the diamond you want to polish and show off or you decide that you're ready to show off the diamonds you've already got.

[lunarflux]

Let's talk about this story while I anxiously try to get past my exhaustion and writer's block! (part 1)

Serpent on Fire as a title was a random thought that I somehow was able to work into the actual storyline. I would love to say that my planning ability was so impressive that I'd had this in mind from the start, but to show how this was just not the case, let's take this to the very beginning where this story was actually just an unnamed draft I wrote that sat in a Google Drive for over five years... and it wasn't even my Drive.

Back in college, my roommate and I would often talk about fanfiction. She and I wrote for completely different fandoms, but one of the few fandoms we shared was Harry Potter. We're both Slytherins and knew that together, we'd be able to plan something amazing since we'd planned something before (except it never made it to an actual story... I still have the full storyline written out in my notebook). This story was in her Drive as a shared document under the title "Harry Potter AU" and was initially built off a Draco story I tried to write back when I was in high school. This chapter actually never got used.

Anyway, the first two chapters were written out, and each OC was clearly meant to have each of our personalities - I was Io, she was Aster.

Last March, I unfortunately got laid off, and during my time trying to get back on my feet, I decided that I would finally try to get back into writing when I remembered that this draft existed and it had not been touched since around 2015 or 2016. I think it's important to mention that I wrote this - she and I worked on the plot together, but her part in planning actually stops very early on. I found the draft and did what I could to change things around, so that Aster was actually now a reflection of myself. If you see the contrast in Io and Aster's personalities, truly, Io is my true personality whereas Aster is who I would be if I wasn't so worried about what others thought. She's more impulsive and emotional, and Io thinks deeply and internalizes her heavy emotions to keep herself from feeling like a burden.

I always loved Draco's character even when I was younger. When I heard from one of the producers in a behind-the-scenes video that Draco was a foil for Harry in the way that Harry was always meant to make the right decision and Draco wants to but can't, I just grew more fervent in my opinion of him. I have always been the kind of person to want to know the depth of why someone acts the way they do and how the circumstances of our upbringings can help us to understand our personalities. That being said, it led me to further wonder where that threshold was for Draco - what would really push him to step away from his family and the Death Eaters? We saw small pieces of his redemption in the movie, but that was done purely out of the fact that he wasn't truly evil (an asshole, maybe). I wanted to completely see how it would play out if he had a personal reason outside of his family that could influence him to rip away from it all.

The second part of this was understanding what kind of person would be enough for Draco to want more. I struggled with this at first because I definitely thought I might have rushed Io and Draco's relationship, so I ended up sitting down and really thinking "why is he in love with her? how did he fall in love? when?" From that, I noticed that when he says he knows "enough," he really meant it. He didn't need to know more because it wasn't necessarily about what he knew about Io (and her personality, her upbringing, or her habits) because he was drawn to her based on what she didn't show. She didn't show weakness, but she showed a willingness to prove herself without expecting a reaction. She didn't try to get his attention (even though she already had it). She didn't flirt with him - instead, she invited him in to make his own assumptions based on the small things she was willing to show. In the same breath, despite her not knowing much about him, she felt naturally compelled to let him in because he was not aggressive, and he would only move forward if she allowed him to. I think Io looked at Draco like a severely misunderstood piece of art, and she couldn't understand why others couldn't see his beauty. And while there were definitely others who saw it, they tried to force more out of him, and that only made him recoil. She left the door open, told him that he could come in if he wanted to, and that openness and gentle way of giving him permission to be weak around her is why he loved her. No one else had let him be weak without ostracizing him for it. They gave each other permission to be weak and to see the other be weak.

Maybe one day I'll post a picture of that page where I broke down all these answers...

What should I explain next?

[ohthehypocrisy]

My Pokemon Unite Posts and the culmination of Season 2

With Diancie having been posted earlier today, it marks the end of Season 2 and the beginning of a lengthy break for me. Believe me, I love doing this, even if so little people read this stuff. That doesn't matter to me, I just like putting these ideas down to amuse myself.

That said, though, I do feel like I have to put everything together into a neat little package, which is why I made a masterpost for all of Season 2. My own thoughts have to be put down as well, so here we go.

First off, not every Pokemon I teased in my How To posts made it into Season 2. Before I started the season, I made a couple of posts that had some insight on how I made up movesets for the Pokemon I had made drafts for. Here they are: Intro - All-Rounders - Attackers - Defenders - Supporters - Speedsters. At the latter half of the post, I put up screencaps of BSTs for the pokemon I had sitting in my drafts. These drafts are captured from Smogon's Dex, which is why they're all such low quality, and that they were captured before the website changed to Dark Mode.

In the 'All-Rounders' post, I teased Torterra as an All-Rounder, but that ended up changing at the last minute when the post was finalized. Also, Torterra is one of my favorites, which is why it spearheaded Season 2. In addition to Torterra, Falinks and Dubwool were also teased and made it into Season 2. The last two haven't had their posts finalized yet and will most likely show up in Season 3 or if Pokemon Unite surprises us and adds them into the game out of the blue before then.

In the 'Attackers' post, Polteageist, Clawitzer, and Starmie were teased and made for Season 2. The other 2 most likely will be added into Season 3 when it gets made.

In the 'Defenders' post, only Bronzong and Hariyama were teased and added to Season 2. The other 3 will probably be added into Season 3.

In the 'Supporters' post, Pyukumuku and Delibird were the only 2 Supporters that actually made it to Season 2.

And lastly, from the 'Speedsters' post, Boltund, Salazzle, and Golisopod were teased and added to Season 2.

If you've been reading this far, you might be wondering, why were there so many exclusions? Well, math is not my strong suit, but I teased 5 pokemon in each post, totaling up to 25 pokemon. As you can probably tell, 25 does not equal 20, which is how many Posts there are in a Season. I had to make some cuts, and even cut out more slots for Season 2 so I could add in some new pokemon.

I do go by popularity with Pokemon Unite, but not in the way you think. I actually try to avoid making movesets for the super popular Pokemon, because it would be a waste of time to write up a post for a Pokemon that's a shoo-in for Pokemon Unite anyway. I can safely say that Incineroar or Blaziken will most likely be added to the game in the near future, which is why I don't have any drafts set for them.

Tinkaton was the only exception to this as the games were very new at the time and I had seen the popularity results on Twitter. I figured it was only a matter of time until the devs of Pokemon Unite streamlined her application process or something, so I mashed that one out as soon as I could.

Some extra stuff about Season 2:

Rampardos was going to be an Attacker, except it was still going to use physical basic attacks. I changed my mind on that notion pretty quickly when it came time to flesh out the post and I decided to make it a Speedster.

Boltund had a last minute rework to its move synergy and I replaced a moveset altogether. I have already forgotten what it was going to be, probably because it was something dumb and complicated.

Scrafty's moveset is directly inspired from my outdated Sableye moveset post. Since Sableye is in Pokemon Unite officially as a Supporter, I figured I'd rework the Aeos Orb stealing mechanic I came up with for that post originally.

Ariados spent the shortest amount of time sitting in my drafts. It was made and published in less than a week. The inspiration just hit me that hard, I guess.

Shortly after the Ariados post, Tumblr came out with Polls. I've started putting up polls shortly after publishing a moveset. Because I like to space out and time my reblogs in tandem with these posts, what ended up happening was that the posts started being spaced out 1 week apart from each other. This spaced out the Season posts weekly, as I liked getting all of my work done in one day.

I'll be using a similar schedule for Season 3, but the posts will be coming out on their own time, when they're ready. This will ease the burden off of me and give me more time to finalize the drafts and touch up some of those posts. I'll be honest, though, if I pause work on one draft to touch up on another, it's hard for me to come back to that draft with the same zeal as when I first started working on it. That's what all my time goes to, hyping myself back up and sorting out my thoughts to make the posts make sense.

I think that'll about do it. Season 3 won't be happening for a while, not that I don't have enough drafts to fill a Season. I have some real life stuff that needs to get sorted out before I start doing this again as a hobby.

I'm still going to post some Pokemon Unite Stuff on this blog, though. Lapras was officially revealed to be coming to Pokemon Unite, so when that happens, I'll update my original post and break it down compared to the official released. There's also the leaked Pokemon coming soon that I'll need to make a similar post for each one. Those will feature the drafts I've made for those pokemon and will include what ideas I had in mind and such.

I also will have to do one for Girafarig, which I had a draft being worked on until Farigiraf was revealed for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

Also I'll still be doing polls during my break, keep an eye out for those.

That'll about do it. If you've read this far, thanks for reading my thoughts. See you later for more polls and Season 3 when it comes out, eventually.

[rosieblogstuff]

Ok so this has been sitting in my drafts waiting for me to get time to untangle my VERY tangled thoughts... here goes:

I deeply believe that Nikki is a manipulator (& a traitor!) and Mac's relationship with her probably wasn't entirely healthy.

It seems like he worked with Nikki for awhile before they dated (I'm almost certain that in either 1x01 or 1x12, it's mentioned they only dated for a year or two; since we know that Jack was planning to introduce Mac to Nikki in early 2012, that means they potentially worked together for 2-3 years before starting a relationship).

Meanwhile, deep down, Mac is terrified of being abandoned by the people he loves, so he would have been willing to put up with a lot to keep the relationship once it started. Nikki would have known this.

A lot of what Nikki says to Mac comes off as manipulative but he seems to be in denial about it. She says she didn't want him to get hurt, which contradicts Kendrick and the actual events. She makes the ridiculous claim that she assured the CIA that he absolutely wouldn't let that virus escape. As if the CIA would have risked a worldwide disaster on just "but my boyfriend will prevent it!"

Everyone else hearing this claim: *eyes rolling out of their heads* Mac: awwww *heart eyes*

Oh, and the flirting in front of Jack (and anyone else listening to the comms)? Ugh. Mac will get going on some topic of interest and nerd out, sure, but he's not a show-off. I can't think of any time we see him being any sort of exhibitionist. But Nikki is flirting super hard over the comms in a way that seems like would be out of character for Mac. Yet she plows on ahead with her heavy flirting.

Jack breaks in to derail her comments, not Mac. I can see Jack being the type who'd crack inappropriate jokes over the comms, so maybe he's not very bothered by all the flirting. Maybe he breaks in because he knows Mac isn't so comfortable with Nikki's blatent innuendo.

Jack doesn't seem to dislike Nikki and we're never given any reason to think he disapproved of Mac and Nikki in general. But even if Mac told him a lot of things, he might not tell Jack about particularly manipulative things Nikki does that could be red flags.

Given that we never see Nikki again after 1x12 or even hear about her, I'd like to think maybe Jack had a serious talk with Mac after that. About her being manipulative, and untrustwothy, and regardless of her intentions or her job, she knew she'd break his heart and did it anyway.

And as far as Nikki being a traitor: Nikki was absolutely NOT on the level about doing it all for the CIA! She would never have HAD to agree to the stuff she agreed to, if she didn't want to. I think the honest truth was what she told Mac on the plane: that she was jealous because everyone saw him as a hero, and she was always just in the background.

I think probably her feelings became more poisoned over time as she got more and more jealous. Maybe always (often) being stuck in the van and not getting to go out with Mac and Jack was the first seed of it. She probably had to do all the same field agent training that we see Riley doing, since even she's just in the van she's technically in the field. But maybe she made some mistakes at some point, or maybe she just hasn't shown as much innate ability in the field as Riley does, so Thornton held her back.

I was rewatching the first episode and I wonder what the dynamic looked like back when the team was Jack, Mac, and Nikki. Like, comparing the found family situation they wound up in when Riley and Bozer joined up, their close friendship duo before they were teamed with Nikki, to Jack listening to heavy flirting over the comms. Was it still like a little family working together, with Jack and Nikki good friends both looking after Mac? Or did Jack ever feel a little bit on the outside? Did Mac feel a bit torn between two people he loved? Was it fun and teasing? We only got a short glimpse and…Jack and Nikki seemed to like each other well enough. I’m so curious and we’ll never really know. Of course it’s been a while since I’ve watched so I could be forgetting a conversation about this lol

oh my goodness, I have so many questions about this time period, you're gonna open a can of worms with this, friend! What did this look like, both in the field and at home? And I think it depends a little bit on whether you actually believe that Nikki is a triple agents or just a double (and traitor). I kind of eye roll the idea that Nikki "knew" Mac would be able to get the bio weapon back, hard. Sure, she can claim Kendricks acted alone when he shot Mac but that she was willing to put him in that kind of position, to me, screams that she was only ever using him.

I have this work in progress theory about Mac and relationships, and it boils down to, Mac desperately needs to talk to a therapist about his abandonment and attachment issues. I think that he is so desperate to hang onto the people he cares about that he throws himself into romantic relationships (or maybe trying to pursue something that could potentially be a relationship) in kind of like a "marriage/romantic relationships will solve everything/make them stay/make this relationship stable" way. But because we're talking about Nikki and I absolutely don't want to talk about either of the m/f ships we're gonna keep moving ahead.

The question then becomes did Nikki have feeling for him or was she using him. Mac would be so eager to please, so easy to manipulate in a relationship. It makes me wonder if Jack and/or Bozer picked up on any signs that Nikki wasn't genuine. Or did they keep their mouths shut about any concerns because Mac seemed happy? I think if either of them had expressed any concerns, Mac would have trusted them and listened to them.

In the Jakarta flashback from 3x12 (Mac + Fallout + Jack) Jack says he wants to introduce Mac to Nikki so he must trust her a little bit if he's wanting to introduce her.

The scene we see in the pilot looks like the three of them work together well. They joke around, they appear to trust each other. Jack puts up with their flirting with relative good graces. While I think Mac probably shares things about their relationship with Jack while they're alone, I think Nikki probably tries to get a reaction from Jack by saying things like "keep the tie" on open comms. Though I guess neither of them are concerned that Jack might walk in while they're getting cozy in the surveillance van. (Poor Jack has been sent out to take plenty of walks alone while the three of them share a safe house or hotel room)

They both genuinely seem upset at both her death and then her betrayal. Though I could definitely see them both blaming themselves that they never saw it coming and they should have noticed something.

Doesn't matter what happens next, Jack will never trust her again. And he's not too pleased in 1x12 with the comments about them not getting too much sleep the night before. Nikki trying to sway Mac's opinion with nostalgia and romance. Mac is definitely way too forgiving and trusting and easily manipulated. And desperate to hang onto someone that he once cared a lot about. He's experienced a lot of grief and for the first time ever he got back a loved one that he lost. That's going to mess with his head.

My other question: at Lake Como, Nikki stays with the van, ostensibly so she can be a "hostage" and Mac will turn over the bio weapon. That must not be an uncommon occurrence because neither Mac nor Jack twigged anything suspicious about it. Also, in the flashback of Cairo Day, Nikki isn't with them on the scene, but rather working the tech offsite. It's interesting that Riley is often with them in the thick of things.

I guess it all comes down to what you think of Nikki's convoluted triple agent storyline.

While it makes the betrayal worse, I guess I kind of hope they all got along? Like how miserable would it have been for Jack to keep his mouth shut while watching Mac and Nikki get closer and the two of them not getting along.

Or does Jack pull away after Lake Como because he worries that on some level he didn't do everything he could to find Nikki because he didn't want her around. Which, even if they didn't get along, I wouldn't believe because he did everything he could to protect Mac in the Sandbox, from day one, and they started out their friendship throwing punches. Jack can put feelings aside to get the job done.

I do think Nikki would have worked hard to win over Jack though because she knows how important Jack is to Mac.

What are your thoughts?

[starrybouquet]

Star Trek, Stargate, and the Colors of Fandom

Like so many TNG fans the world over, the cast announcement for season 3 of Star Trek: Picard had me stunned, amazed, and then insanely over-the-top excited.

The entire TNG crew back together?!

It's the stuff of us fans' dreams.

When I need a serotonin boost, you bet I'll be playing that little preview video on repeat. (And reading co-showrunner Terry Matalas' tweets, which have been hilarious, if you haven't seen them.)

But my brain is still...my brain, and so of course it decided to insert its depressed, anxious thoughts into what should, by any measure, be 1 minute and 23 seconds of happiness.

If you're so excited about this, my depressed brain asked, why are you not at all excited about a new Stargate show?

Why are you so excited? my anxious brain asked. Aren't you worried they'll ruin everything you loved about TNG? You didn't like season 1 of Picard--remember?

My brain is depressed. And anxious. But it asks hard questions.

Really, I probably should have just ignored those questions. But it's my brain, and I can't really ignore them, so I started thinking. And this is what I came up with.

There are different colors of fandom.

Stargate is burnt orange. It's a blaze, burning, steady but true.

It's love and creation.

It's betrayal.

It grew from canon, yes, but really, my love for Stargate is its own thing now. I've fleshed out "my" versions of Jack and Teal'c and Sam and Daniel more fully than anyone could, in eight-ish seasons of TV. I write about them, I dream about them. I'm active in the fandom, and the community is better than the show. It's gotten me through a pandemic and given me friends and a writing hobby and a hundred photos of Richard Dean Anderson saved in my phone, and really, I'm grateful.

The betrayal I feel whenever I try to watch Avalon and see Cameron Mitchell, over and over, is both a blessing and a curse.

It's a curse because there's canon I cannot in good conscience like. At all. (I know many do enjoy it, and that's fine.) I waffle between disliking it and hating it and feeling like I'm an outsider among people who will just take canon as gospel, whether they like it or dislike it or just think it's meh. (There's a whole rant somewhere in there about how stupidly uncreative people are, trained to just follow the pack and too idiotic to do anything else. Not all of them, but some of them. But that's a post for another day.)

That betrayal is a blessing, too. That's what I realized when I sat down and tried to really think about the questions I was asking myself. The betrayal of canon is a blessing because it's the spark that causes me to write all the canon-divergent fluff deep in my heart. Canon-divergent angst, too, though that's much more difficult for me. It's a blessing that I should really be thankful for, because it forced me to create those versions of characters of which I am so proud. It forced me to write about them.

(I write about them far less than I'd like. But I do write about them.)

So I'm wary of a new show. The reasons I'm wary deserve their own post (there's one that's been sitting in my drafts for awhile--maybe it's time to release it into the world?) but really, I just need to let go of my wariness and embrace what Stargate has become to me. More than a fandom. Less than a complete show.

Anyway, Stargate is burnt orange. A blessing, a curse. Humor and loyalty and the campfire reflecting off four best friends who are closer than family. The color of the trees lining Jack's lake in the fall. The color of the sunrise Jack sees in Sam's smile.

TNG, though--TNG is indigo.

Calming. Serene. The color of royalty. Loyalty, too. (heh, a rhyme!)

TNG is royal. Untouchable, because somehow, despite the 80s spandex and the weird season 6-7 plots and the slightly problematic tone of some season 1-2 episodes, it is perfectly...complete.

I love every second of it.

Maybe it's nostalgia. (I spent so much of my childhood on the TNG DVD set.) Maybe I'm more willing to overlook the episodes I don't like. Maybe I--and I'm cringing as I type this--care about it less?

Yeah, that last one isn't true. What is true is that I really do love every second: the cringey seconds for being the cringe that washes away the seriousness, and the serious seconds for being some of the best sci-fi--scratch that, some of the best TV--that have ever been made.

Anyway, somehow I'm not too worried about TPTB ruining TNG. I've already made my peace with the fact that I'm always going to be on a different axis than most of the (active) Star Trek fandom. And, like I said, TNG is royal. It will stand like a statue, impervious to whatever we try to throw on top of it. It will stand there, and judge us, and that will be that.

Don't get me wrong, I'll definitely be disappointed if this reunion doesn't go the way I want it to. Somehow, though, I'm not so very bothered by that idea.

If I don't like it, I'll go back and watch All Good Things and imagine my own future for the best starship crew ever to grace a screen.

I hope I love it. But--sorry for being repetitive--TNG is indigo. The prospect of being fed a story I don't like doesn't burn the way burnt-orange SG1 does.

TNG is indigo like the depths of the ocean. The recesses of the night sky. Indigo like the surety of Picard's orders, the loyalty in Riker's grip on the observation room chair, the tilt of Guinan's hat and the steadiness of Crusher's hands. TNG is the color of Geordi's beloved warp core, glowing against the shiny 80s paneling of Engineering.

Maybe this reverses. Maybe I hate season 3 of Picard, and my indignation blazes up into red-hot fandom-ing. Maybe SG1 cools into cool seafoam green and there aren't any stories left in me. It's happened before, for other fandoms. It's the cycle of fandom life.

I don't know the future, but I'm going forward with a little more clarity on how I see my fandoms, and a little more color in my day. <3

[antirepurp]

When you're making the "rough draft" of your fics, do you usually do most of it all in one go, or do you chip away at it?

kind of both? like when i write the rough flow of things down i usually do it in one or two sittings, something like that, but actually figuring out the flow and sorting it out in my head is more of a chip job if you will aksjdads. most of the time tho i start by making a note on my phone that i keep slapping things i'd like to write about in the given context, or events that could happen in the story, or problems that would arise with me introducing specific elements, and then just. think about them aggressively a whole bunch? i like musing about things and headworlds and shit in the evenings and that's where a lot of that construction happens. and if needed i'll later write the notes again on the computer to order them chronologically and point where they fit in the midst of the (possible) canon narrative im working with, and add other notes in between to remind myself to check the source material for xyz reasons or that hey you mentioned a thing in a previous chapter and this would be the time to bring it up again. i didn't do the latter step with stranger in morioh/his world tho since they were mostly about the in-between bits and i had the part4/3 narratives fresh-enough in mind anyway (or i just looked up the order of things from the wiki lol)

i put some notes i made for his world under the cut bc i thought those maybe show what i mean better and also i went through the trouble of getting them on the compuper anyway so i might as well share them akjshdas

^ iirc most of these may have been written before i watched the anime again or maybe when i was in the earlier episodes? and most of them didn't end up making it in at least in these forms, but i did work off of them

^ you can probably point out which ones of these i wrote while watching the anime lol. some of them i also picked from the shit i scattered around in stranger in morioh that also just didn't end up addressed bc there wasn't enough to work with, like the vending machine shit. and some were less a "write a chapter about this" and more "this could be a recurring theme" kind of deals

^ the first ones aren't of course chronological and i probably didn't intend them as such anyway. dio's world actually had its own note entirely but that was also me outlining the OVA more or less and picking up interesting things about it/writing down things to put into it than anything? and then things i could've included in the epilogue, half of which went unused bc they weren't enough to work with or wouldn't have worked in the final version of the timeline anyway

in the end i mostly just picked what i saw fitting for each chapter that i didn't have a predetermined purpose for, and also i think i might've done a thing where i copypasted the shit i did use into a separate paragraph in the order i used them to keep track of what i had already included in a chapter? also idk if any of this really answers the question i might be on a tangent again adshjkas

[nightswithkookmin]

RE JIKOOK IS ESTRANGED

Them

Me

Lol

JUMP CUT ALERT: This is a continuation of an ongoing discussion behind the scenes.

DISCLAIMERS:

Article 19, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Every person has the right to freedom of opinion and expression which includes the freedom to hold an opinion without interference through any media.

Misinterpretation of my opinion, my words constitute a violation of my human rights. Please do not take my words out of context, share it on another platform in furtherance of your own agenda. If you do hold yourself accountable first. You are the author of your own intentions and interpretations.

I do not intend malice by my words nor do I seek to be disrespectful of any member mentioned in here. I simply enjoy mentally stimulating conversations and thought provoking discussions.

Let the records show.

MATTER OF THE DAY

Thanks to everyone that's shared your thoughts on this matter with me and thanks to that person that brought this matter to my attention.

I haven't looked into it and I don't know how severe this issue is.

I think people have the right to believe in anything they want to believe in. Personally, I don't think Santa is real but clearly others do, doesn't mean I'm sane or that they are crazy.

I don't think discussions of this nature should be about who is right or who is wrong. Everyone's opinion is valid and holds true to their own delusions. Lol.

Frankly, I prefer this kind of ship wars to the slurs and abuses and they are distributing hard core porn now?? What is going on! Chileee.

I have never believed JK and Tae to be anything more than friends. At one point, I wondered if they were even friends at all lol but since they admitted to having had a falling out themselves at one point the topic is now moot.

Tae and JK have- had- have a really special bond. To me anyways. I always saw them as the evil power twins of BTS due their ability to come together to wreck havoc especially on Bang PD's scripts. Lol. I think I have mentioned this a few times now.

I smiled to myself when I heard them call themselves partners in crime. The bond is there no two ways about it- you either appreciate it for what it is or you don't. personally I love their bond. Can't stand their shippers but I love their bond. They keep the drama going for me- love it. Lol

The question has always been whether their bond is as profound as their shippers make it seem. I argue it's not and I will always argue it is not. Lol

I think it's only fair that they also question whether Jikook's bond is as profound as we make it sound. I really can't be mad at that. All is fair in love and war- at the very least we can agree to disagree.

I mean even Jikookers themselves question the extent of JK and JM's bond. Some think they are just very special friends and nothing more. I think I talked about this in my is Jikook real post when I mentioned labels and the degree of love between JK and JM?

We know JK and JM have a unique bond. The question then is how far does that bond go. Is it just platonic, romantic or something in between?

This is the question I was aiming to answer with my is Jikook real post. My objective was to try and dismantle all the nuances that keep us from seeing the 'truth' about Jikook- that they are real. At least the way I see them.

I talked about unrealistic expectations we have of Jikook, false conditionings that often leads us to see Jikook as something more than they are- the amplified Jikook. We get used to highlight reels of Jikook's interactions in edits such that we feel there is something wrong with them when we see them in real time.

I mentioned that Jimin's nurturing nature often also estops people from reading more into his relationship with JK. He is nurturing of everyone, JK ain't special- they argue, just as this person is doing.

I talked about Jimin's Idol persona, the facade of the boy in love with JK- Jimin's role within BTS since debut and how that can equally blind us into thinking Jikook is something more or less than they really are. I have a post dedicated to this topic sitting in my drafts so I will not go into the details of it here. Please look forward to that.

But this person's post touches on another aspect of Jimin's personality that I feel is one of the things that often keeps us from seeing his relationship with JK for what it really is- his inclination for professionalism.

I keep saying this, several times now, that Jimin's Idol persona to me seems well developed, elaborate and very elusive.

I have mentioned a few times how I think during Jikook break ups that they keep it civil and professional for the sake of the team and that you might not even notice the difference especially if you place high value on their skinship.

The skinship would be there, the cordiality and civility would equally be there- except for moments when they are fighting, that gets bloody. Lol. They are best friends at the very least. It is why it's important to reevaluate the metrics we use to determine whether or not they are a couple.

I wish I could dialogue with this person to understand her assessment of Jikook and what she is using to determine whether or not Jikook are a couple and what makes her think Tae and JK are. Know what I mean?

What makes her think Jikook were a couple before 2017? What makes y'all think Jikook are a couple at all? I would like to hear from y'all- but come at me with the skinship bit and I'll block you deadass. Lol

So on this person's post, I think I agree with her assessment of JM's persona but I don't agree with the Jikook have been broken up since 2017. And I think I understand where this is coming from... I think some of us do. Yes they had a few fights that year especially leading up to Jimin's birthday- August was it? but we all know JK more than made up for it with the damn GCFs. Lol. kindly visit the timeline, peruse as many content as you can and form your own opinion on it. This is just mine.

Are Jikook Jikooking all the time? Absolutely not. They are human too. They fight, they make up, they break up they get back together, they have introverted, extroverted moments, they go up, they go down- have bad hair days, it's all part of their dynamics I'm afraid. From my point of view of course.

I feel some people notice these things too and when they sense Jikook aren't in a good place they bow out and Jump ship- I don't blame them. They are shippers not supporters. What Jikook need are supporters not shippers- or maybe both, do you.

Could this person be one such people? DNF shippers? Given up on Jikook before the end of their story? I don't know. May be.

Jikook is not a fantasy that you ship. It's a relationship that you support. You can't escape into them. They are an ongoing love story- chapters close, chapters open, you just have to ride it out till the very end.

I think the challenge of their post for me is whether or not Jikook is a performance. Her post leans into the whole Jikook is fanservice bull especially in light of the recent photoshoot video which some are using as evidence Jikook don't 'click' when the cameras are off- the lies they tell on Beyonce's internet!

I think I have speculated on this and shared my thoughts on this whole Jikook is fanservice bit. I will delve deeper into it in my next post on Jimin's idol persona but as I've already said, Jikook is fanservice is equally a misnomer.

Yes Jikook does fanservice sometimes, but they are not fanservice. Fanservice is the cover for their relationship. It's their glass ceiling- nothing to see here folks just two snakes under glass. Keep it pushing. (Sorry. Couldn't help myself. Lol)

But you do raise a valid question, what is Jikook like when the cameras are not filming?

Is the mood of Jikook in that footage the general mood of Jikook behind cameras as Tuktukkers are claiming? They barely interact, JM doesn't pay much attention to Kook, yadda yadda yadda?

And the part that gives me a complex, that JK only interacts with JM when they are the center of attention. Huh???????????

Sigh.

I feel caught between a rock and a hard place on this one.

The theory you pointed out in support of this assertion isn't mine and I think I made it clear I didn't share the same thoughts on it. I said it was valid nevertheless. Chilee, this is hard. Lol

Yes JK is an introvert, Jimin is an extrovert, JM doesn't live for JK, all that is true and some Jikookers have said that too- so when you ask, if this is who they are when the cameras are off does that mean what they do when the cameras turn on is fanservice-

I-👁👄👁

I don't know the thought process that went into that theory so I can't confidently defend it. I'll ask? Lol.

Personally, I'd like to know whether or not they see the tension in that footage as tension in the first place. Chileee I don't know.

I see it as tension. Not a very serious one though. So we'd have to agree to disagree on that one.

But the part I can argue, the part I agree with is Jikook aren't hyper super duper lovey dovey on each other all the time. They aren't cuddly all the time. They have their moments of quiet- Jimin seems like the more affectionate kind who'd rub all over JK in the comfort of their homes but still...

If you ask me though, I think Jikook are tamer on cameras than they are behind scenes. I always talk about the fear and panic in the members' eyes when they see Jikook gravitating towards each other- it's probably because they know the extent of Jikook's shenanigans. They know how worse it can be because they've seen it all.

And when JK panics sometimes when JM gets closer too you just know dude is scared perhaps because of his Mochi chick's devil may care shamelessly in love policies- Jimin wild. Bless him.

I did say also that Memories 2019 is equally eye opening. These were censored bits. BigHit was holding all of that and giving us crumbs- stingy mfs. Bless.

All that said, again I don't think Jikook are hyper lovey on eachother behind the scenes. Another part I diverge from that view is that this is not exactly off camera. It was just behind the scenes of a photoshoot. Something we've seen a countless times.

This is not BTS's first ever behind scenes photoshoot. It's just a different angle that's all.

They were working. They were at work. This wasn't an alone private space for them so they can't base on this to say Jikook don't interact when the cameras are off.

The cameras were rolling. We saw them interact, JM was interacting with everyone the way he always does on camera all the time except he wasn't interacting with JK the way he does all the time, grainy footage or not- I mean let's call a spade a spade and not a big fat spoon. Lol

As to why he was doing that- let's just say there are many schools of thoughts.

My thought as I've said is JM was freezing JK out. I think with anyone that's recognized and is familiar with Jikook fights, that mood is all too familiar as I mentioned earlier.

If JM was being courteous and not mad at his man then he would have kept it 'professional' and done the 'fanservice' bit with Jk as per usual just as this person is saying since the cameras were still rolling.

Jikook is not fanservice. They are real.

I have refrained from providing a detailed analysis of that '5 minutes' footage for reasons I will explain later when I do share my thoughts on that footage- eventually. Some day.

But my hypothesis remains the same that I think Jikook were fighting or had a minor issue. As to why they were fighting, chileee I don't know. The confirmation bias in me feel it had something to do with JM's birthday but honestly it could have been over anything at all- dumplings, microphones- we all saw that slap on stage, a certain Iphone notification perhaps, did JinMin make a secret VLive without Kook again? Lol

There are plethora of reasons, I can only speculate on a few. And I think we've all seen Jimin when he is not 'Jimining' with the others, JK included. Take his mood with Tae at GDA for example- since this is not a VMin post I won't go into it.

But it seems they squashed whatever beef they were having on stage when JM extended his hands to Tae and they shaked it out.

We've seen him and Suga bicker too- which again, I am not gonna to get into out of respect for their shippers but I can point you to the On comeback VLive early this year when Suga touched JM and JM mouthed Hajima to him- which I think had something to do with what was going on with him and JK at the time but that is besides the point. Every shipper for themselves.

I contrast his 'fights' with Suga and V to show you the difference between Jimin being professional and courteous and Jimin being rah rah. He was sat next to suga, talking and laughing with him but snapped the moment Suga held his back.

He did the same in the Dynamite MV Vlive, smiling and laughing with Suga but the moment JK teased him with the Yoonmin comment his countenance fell.

Jimin is not that good of an actor if you ask me. I have said he is very Kumbaya in nature, often makes compromises for the sake of the team but that don't mean he is a pushover or one to trifle with- he scares me when he is mad. Lmho.

The scene in that footage didn't look to me as that he was being nice and courteous to JK- is that y'all's definition of professional courtesy? Damn.

If they were having a lover's squabble then the 'icy' mood of Jikook we saw in that footage is not the general mood of Jikook when the camera's are turned off.

I have to state again that I don't know much of what goes on behind the cameras and most of the things we see sometimes are equally missing context.

That been said we have seen enough of Jikook 'behind cameras' and they are more intimate than we can imagine. A certain cozy selfie at the back of an abandoned truck comes to mind. Whatever they were doing at the back of the track wasn't intended for the cameras judging from JK's reaction.

We've had glimpses of Jikook when they are not the center of attention enough to have a fair idea of what they are when cameras are off and I don't think it is that mood we saw in that footage.

We saw them at Jingle ball bell, towards the end of 2019. We saw them in their own space doing what they do best- making us feel single as fuck. Bless them.

We've seen them at awards, we've seen JK eating Jimin's ear nom nom to calm him down- like I would have just bought him icecream to calm down his nerves or rubbed his back but whatever JK. He is your man; you know him best. Good for him. Good for both of you. Now come back and feed us.

And the bit about JK only laughing with JM when he noticed he was on the Bangtan Bomb cameras in that footage- now that's nasty below the belts phony ass ass! I felt that one straight in my chest, shit. Lol

Dude was in a doghouse it seemed and I noticed them stealing glances at each other and.... sigh.

I just think JK was looking for an opening to warm his way back into JM's good graces- it's really nothing we haven't seen before.... sigh.

This is 2020 that narrative of JK hates Jimin, JK doesn't like JM needs to stop. It's dead. Pack it up. Chileee, y'all tried it with this one.

Jk is nice to JM only when the cameras are on him? Nice try.

JK is so fake and fraudulent he glared RM down till he stepped away from Jimin- again, in the very same photoshoot footage y'all swear to God is proof Jikook is not real.

Find it. RM stood next to JM. Looks up see's something- or someone. Does his tell- the hand to head thingy he does when JK glares at him over Jimin. He backs away inches from JM.

Cut to JK. Dudes a mood. Jin bumps into him, stares at him but JK wouldn't even look at him and then deadass looks away grumpyly- talk of professionalism. You doing great swidy keep going!

You can hide a relationship, fake it on God but you can never hide the intimacy. Taekook just lack that intimacy, I'm sorry. Even in that 'estranged' moment Jikook's intimacy was still there-

Even in whatever mood JK was in- which again, I believe was just due to their lover's squabble- JK still was claiming his man and exercising his right of authority over him. That's how you know they are not broken up. In my opinion. Chileee. I'm gonna get in trouble. Deep sigh.

Y'all think JK was hovering over Jimin because he was preparing to strike him down like a censored censored censored? Yea, he was preparing to strike alright- All the corners of Jimin's heart. Y'all better stop before I find you. Lol

I said I wasn't going to analyze the footage in this post but damn. This man out here serving us all kinds of brooding assorted jeonlous as his man takes a time out or two to wiggle wiggle wiggle on him Malfroy style and y'all are out here peddling nonsense. Strike one.

He was a mood alright. Did y'all see Tae rubbing his chest, arms and legs, ears did y'all see any body else in there doing that for him? Y'all's falcon cannot hear his falconer give it up and sorry, Jikook can't relate.

As I've posited, JM I feel was mad as hell for whatever reason and wasn't in the space to be that person JK needed him to be- in that moment. Doesn't mean they are like that behind scenes all the time.

And before I get attacked again for causing drama, being toxic etc by Jikookers understand that I am just a delusional person shipping these two in a way that makes sense to me. Write me off as delulu, and go please.

Whatever ambiguity surrounds that moment, to me, Jin and RM's reaction to JK clarifies things a bit. Jikook were boiling hot. JK was still keeping an eye on his man. Lol. Bless them. That's my conclusion. I'm running miles with that. Catch me. Lol

Feel free to come up with your own theory in a way that makes sense to you.

I'm not sure how long that fight lasted but from the rain day incident I'm hoping it wasn't that long. Jikook are fine I believe- I hope. Judging from the way JM drew JK out in his VLive with the whole I miss JK comment? Did that not sound familiar to y'all? And that Mickey mouse thingy- JM ain't slick. Bless him.

JM is the perched akekeke whisperer whispering all kinds of things in JK's ear, feeding JK news of what goes on on social media and what not. Dude don told his man they won a BB on his birthday, told his man Jin wasn't happy he chose his bag over his- definitely told his man Army was missing him- what? I'm going with that too sue me. Lol

Did you or did you not see Jk coming out to do a live log afterwards? And JK seemed less grumpy, in very high spirits? Wedding bells- I'm manifesting it for JK. Manifest with me.

Remember when JM did a log and talked nonsense about JK, and JK did a rebuttal log to respond to JM and address some of the things JM had said about him? Remember that? It's a jikook thing and it's back😌

I have said JM uses social media to connect with Army while JK uses it as an outlet to express himself. Through out his Live he kept talking about how he wasn't prepared to do a live and it shows in the way he kept saying it was awkward, he just kept it business and didn't know what else to share... I wonder who put his paws on him, dragged his ass to turn on the camera because Armys had asked of him- a certain quick tempered chick who dragged his man out on social media to do the whole Chuseok greetings 2020 on Twitter perhaps?

And JK is so whipped he'd do just about all the hoops to appease his man- Jikook AU written by Goldy. High five. No but seriously...

Behind the scenes, JK sneaks into JM's bed at night- Taekook does it too? Please! The look on JM's face when RM spilled that tea is enough said.

There's only two people in BTS that panic and don't want us to know they lay one on God in bed and it's not Tae Kook.

JK: Jimin hyung and I will sleep here

JM: how about we let the others choose first

Everyone shares a room:

Footage:🦄🍲🐯🧀🐺🍟🐓🥛🐑🛏

JIKOOK share a room:

Footage: 🚪👀

Behind the cameras Jikook sneak into each others bed- camera caught them live. You saw JM's face, I can't make this shit up. Lol

Behind the scenes, Jikook do laundry at 1am. *insert JM pervy face meme.

Chileee, y'all making me trip with this one. Deep breaths.

Jikook have their moments. This was one of them. Can they be human? Please. Thank you.

At this point, these folks are not even shippers. They is shoppers shopping a man for their bias. Lol. Just admit y'all want Jeon thick thighs strong butt for your bias and go. Just admit you want some tall glass of Tiger charming face husky voice strong chest for your bunny and go. Lmho

Chilee, when we say Tae and Kook had a falling out we don't mean they freeze eachother out behind cameras. Hell, we don't even mean they fake their bond or interactions. C'mon! Tae and JK admitted they are not lovers and y'all is bitter. That's why y'all is making up this nonsense about Jikook. Speak the truth and shame the devil. Peter would be proud.

When we say Tae Kook is not real, We just mean JM spends JK's birthday with him while every one including Tae is out there cruising for Jesus with friends. We just mean Jikook claim eachother even when they beefing. That ship beefed and didn't even know they was beefing and they are real? Damn.

We just mean Jikook make efforts for each other even when they are having bad days- Had it not been for Jimin they'd still be gnashing on these cold streets. Place some respect on his name, y'all's ungrateful. Lol

Tae and JK don't want each other they both want Jimin- there. I said it.

Thanks for attending my Tedtalk. 👁👄👁

Now where was I? Never mind. I'm just gonna go burn some sage. There's too much negativity going on around. Hakuna matata!

There is nothing wrong with Taekook as a ship. Personally, I'm a multishipper I ship all the ships but I support Kookmin. I don't mind their shippers calling them whatever, but my eyes twitch when people who claim they support Jikook act wishy washy with Jikook. Lol. Like are you going to withdraw your support of Kookmin if JK sits on Tae's lap?👀 Yall make me nervous. How can you think Jikook is real but then look at Taekook and go huh??? What are y'all seeing that I can't see?

Like those are two completely different dynamics. It's the skinship isn't it? Talk to me. Jikookers who see something nonplatonic in Taekook honestly give me trust issues. Y'all have me out here looking over my shoulders.

I am delusional but I'm confident in my delusions because to me it is about the love and support for JM and JK as LGBTQ plus couples. Please stop shipping Jikook, stop shopping JK and JM for eachother and start supporting them because they are real.

IN MY OPINION.

Signed,

GOLDY

[mwuaferrari]

MISTLETOE

Summary: Where Y/N is part of the Shawn Mendes tour staff. Everyone’s in Miami, where the last show was before Christmas, but something ruins the plans of everyone who wants to spend the holidays with their families. Camila's mother invites them all to spend Christmas at her house and they accept. Shawn and the others start a plan to reunite Connor and Y / N.

Warnings: English is not my native language so I apologize if there are mistakes.

A/N: I know, I know it's been almost a month since Christmas HAHAHAHA, but I had this in my drafts and for some reason I never posted it. 

Remember, the requests are open!

"It's a joke?" Cez asks for the third time on the phone while he keeps an irritated scowl on his face. "Ok, if there is nothing else to do ... ok, thanks, bye"

After a while, he cuts the phone and watches us all before speaking. "Ok guys, this is not easy to say."

"What happen?" Connor asks concerned.

"Our flight was canceled due to bad weather in I don't know where and apparently there is no airline that can take us home in time for Christmas"

"Are you serious?"

"Do you think I'd be kidding about something like that, Sylvie? They said that the flights will be available again in 5 days. ”Everyone sighs in surrender.

"I am very sorry for what happened, I know that everyone wanted to spend Christmas with their families" Sinu, Camila's mother begins to say "But you are all welcome to spend these holidays here, with us" She says referring to Camila, Alejandro, Sofía, Shawn and her.

"That's very nice of you Sinu, but do you think you can feed all of us tomorrow night?" She laughs in response to Cez.

"Of course. Anyway, there are 5 more people, it is nothing, you don’t worry "

It was Cez, Brian, Sylvie, Connor and Y/N who missed their flight, since the rest of the staff had taken flights to different parts that same day, but earlier.

"Then I suppose we will spend this Christmas at the Cabello’s house." Cez ends.

"It will be fun." Y/N says  looking at Camila with a smile.

"Yes, it will be." 

...

At one point in the afternoon, they were all in the living room, except Camila's father who was taking a nap, Y / N who was taking a shower and Connor who was on the phone with his mother.

"So what’s the plan?" Sylvie asks.

"I don't know, but we have to make those two take the first step tonight, or I don't know what I'll do with my life, they stress me out." Brian says exaggeratedly, referring to Y/N and Connor

"I think I have an idea," Sinu exclaims as she leaves the kitchen.

"What? Mom-" Only a few minutes later she comes back with something hidden behind her back "What are you bringing there?” With a bright and proud smile on her face, she shows us a little mistletoe.

"Oh my god, you’re brilliant." Sylvie claps.

...

"So the plan is, at some point in the night, both are under that" Camila ends.

"And finally they will kiss, for goodness sake!" Brian exclaims with his arms in the air.

"Who will kiss?" Connor enters the kitchen suddenly causing us all to panic.

"Nothing, little boy" Brian exclaims quickly while Sinu with a quick movement hides the object that only seconds before had our full attention. "How is your mother? How did she react to the news that her little boy won't be spending christmas at home? " Brian walks over to him and puts one arm around her shoulders, patting her while he ruffles her hair with his other hand.

"Don't call me little boy"

"Hey Tiny, don't get mad, we just play," Shawn says with a laugh as he tightens his grip on Camila's shoulder next to him, who laughs anyway. Connor just rolls his eyes and walks away from Brian.

“What do you all have with giving me such strange nicknames? I don’t like it, at all."

"I don't think any of those are better than the Lemon one, I think it's very original" Y/N he comes down the stairs laughing, his hair wet from the shower she had taken.

"Oh darling, go dry your hair, you can catch a cold." Sinu tells the girl. "Camila, go show him the hair dryer." Camila nods as she gets up from the side of her boyfriend, letting her arm fall on the couch.

Shawn watches Connor and sees him off guard glaring at Y/N coming up the stairs. He sighs and sits next to him.

"Hey, what's up?“

“"Nothing, could you explain to me for the last time why the nickname lemon?”

...

The night of Christmas Eve had already arrived. They were all at the table having dinner while laughing and talking about any topic.

"Can I have the wine, please?" Sylvie exclaims.

Y/ N directs her hand to the wine at the same time as Connor does, making her hands touch.

Y/N thinks everything has been really weird between her and Connor lately. When she met him over a year ago on Shawn's tour, he created a trust in her that she had never felt with anyone. They immediately started talking and became very close. Everyone thought there was something between them, many times their friends teased them about looking like a couple, but they both denied it all those times.

But lately something had changed. Y/N was a friend of touch, she liked to hug her friends in general, and Connor was no exception to her. But lately those touches of best friends that used to be given day to day began to bother her. It made her feel weird. Every time she was near him, she felt butterflies in her stomach.

Lately, Connor was feeling the same.

"Oh my God, can you stop now?" An excited Brian interrupts their thoughts. He takes the bottle of wine and hands it to Sylvie across the table.

"What do you mean? Y/N question, indifferent.

"What do I mean? I mean… ”Brian makes a strange gesture with his hands. "That. That you two do"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Connor says nervously as he takes a sip from his glass.

...

"It is time."

"Will they really do this?" Cez asks laughing.

"Yeah, what makes you think we wouldn't?" Shawn asks.

“I don't know, I thought they were joking. I think both are old enough to make their own decisions and take the first step, they are not little kids "

"They're not little kids, but they're stupid." Sylvie slaps Brian on the shoulder after her comment.

"Besides, we're just giving them a little nudge." Says Sofía, Camila's sister.

"It's just a mistletoe, what if they don't want to kiss, anyway?"

"They must do it, it's a tradition, it's the rules" Sinu tells her husband as she begins to hang the mistletoe on the door that divides the kitchen and the living room. She then she walks into the kitchen with Sofia.

"And you support this Sinu, it can't be." Alejandro tells him, following his wife to the kitchen.

"She is part of us, yes." Camila says proudly.

"Where are they now?" Shawn asks Camila.

"Outside"

"What if they already took the first step?" Cez asks half disinterested.

"I don’t think so". 

"Ok, I'm going to go upstairs, I don't want to see this show" Cez exclaims as he climbs the stairs.

Y / N POV

Connor and I are sitting in the backyard of Camila's house. He rests his head on my legs while I tangle my fingers in his hair.

"You know what? I've been thinking about something lately. " He says as he puts his hand on mine while I continue stroking his hair.

"What’s it?"

"I don't know, it's something that happens when we're together." He responds as he sits up, pulling away from my touch.

"What do you mean?" Is he he is feeling the same as me?

"I've felt a little ... weird"

"Oh ..."

"But not weird in a bad way, if not that ..."

"I think I know what you're talking about." I shyly say without looking at him.

"Seriously?"

"If I…"

"Connor! Can you come here and help me with something ?!" Sylvie's call interrupts me.

Connor and I look toward the house. The boy gets up first, offering his hand to help me up. We both walked inside the house.

"I think the tree star is a bit crooked, can you help me straighten it?" Sylvie says as she climbs on a chair right next to the tree to reach for the object.

"And why couldn't they help you?" Connor says with a frown pointing to the rest of our friends.

"They don't have the same sense of righteousness that you have."

"Sense of righteousness? What the hell are you talking about? "

"Just, just get at the door and let me know when it's right." Connor snorts as he heads for the door, reluctantly. "There’s good?"

"Yes Sylvie, it’s perfectly straight"

Are you sure?" She asks as she moves the object.

"No! Why did you move it? Now is completely leaning to the left "

"And now?"

“It's totally to the right, are you kidding me?

"Come on Connor, do your part a bit."

"Y/N, can you come help me?" I turn to Connor and stands next to him looking at the Christmas tree.

"Move it to the left ... to the right ... a little more to the left again ..."

"There is!" Connor exclaims, raising his arms.

"Perfect, thanks guys. Now could you see if the object above you is straight?"

I look up laughing after the spectacle of straightening the star on the Christmas tree.

A small mistletoe hung over our heads and my breath caught in my throat.

"Did you really plan this?" Connor asks, glancing at me.

"Completely." Brian admits shamelessly.

"Go ahead, pretend we weren't here"

He turns in my direction and I look at him, having to tilt my head up since he’s taller than me.

"Hey"

"Hey" I barely reply. Does he really want to kiss me? Because I do.

"If I want to," he said, as if he could read my mind. "Do you want? ... Would you like us to kiss? I mean, if you don't want to, you really are not obliged, really the mistletoe is nothing more than a stupid tradition, I will understand you completely if you don't want to kiss me-

Quickly I stand on the balls of my feet and cup her cheeks with both hands to bring her lips closer to me. Her lips are warm against mine, the kiss full of emotion and a little shyness. His hands land quietly on my hips, pulling me toward him so I can wrap his arms around your back. His lips move against mine delicately.

"At last! I can't believe it. ”Brian's voice interrupts our moment.

"Did you have to ruin his moment so soon?" Sylvie reprimands him.

"After such a long time ..." Shawn says.

“You have no right to say that. Camila and you took a hundred times longer than them."