#but anyway have happy nonbinary grantaire

[mysunfreckle]

Cooking for a Jamboree

Nonbinary R (he/they) making friends with J/B/M, modern AU, 1k

Musichetta is in the kitchen when she hears the front door open and she feels a small spark of happiness fizz at the back of her mind. It’s been almost two months since Bossuet and Joly both have a key and the spark isn’t as all-consuming as it was in the beginning, but it’s still there. The idea of them using their key and coming in on their own is still special.

“Chetta?” Bossuet’s voice calls out. “Is there room for one more at dinner?”

“Is the one more Bahorel?” she calls back suspiciously. “Cause if it is we need more potatoes and in that case some else can peel them.”

There’s a burst of laughter that clearly contains three voices and Musichetta walks into the living room to inspect this new guest who is clearly not Bahorel.

“Chetta this is Grantaire,” Joly says cheerfully. “They were running with a cop and tripped over Bossuet.”

“Tripped over Bossuet?” Musichetta echoes, giving Joly a kiss.

“I was tying my shoelace,” Bossuet explains, leaning down to receive his share of welcome-home affection.

“I’d make a joke about feeling left out,” Grantaire quips. “But fifty seconds into an acquaintance seems a little early to make demands of the hostess.”

“Hm,” Musichetta hums and she gives them an amused look. Grantaire looks scruffy and friendly. They have paint on their clothes and brightly coloured socks. Musichetta files both of these away under ‘endearing until proven otherwise’. “Better place to start is to explain how you were running with a cop,” she points out. “Boss and Jo’s friends are usually running from them.”

“Likewise,” Grantaire grins. “This was an exception.”

Joly and Bossuet are standing side by side, watching their girlfriend size up their new friend with twin grins on their faces.

Musichetta throws them a smiling glance before turning back to Grantaire. “Important question-” she says, narrowing her eyes a little.

“Hit me,” Grantaire says with a crooked grin.

“Can you cook?”

Grantaire snorts. “Well, I haven’t starved yet, so sure, I can cook,” they say.

“Promising,” Musichetta nods. “Well, how about you help me finish dinner and tell me about this exceptional running with cops session.”

“That means you can stay,” Joly whispers helpfully.

“I can do cooking and talking,” Grantaire agrees, shrugging off their bulky sweater.

They follow Musichetta to the kitchen, with Joly and Bossuet close behind. The kitchen is already on the small side for three people, let alone four.

“I’ll get out of your way,” Bossuet says, sitting down on the stool they keep in one of the corners (mostly for Joly to climb on when he can’t reach something).

“Good idea,” Joly says and he sits down on Bossuet’s lap.

“That’s nice,” Musichetta chides amusedly. “Grantaire is going to think you brought him over solely for the free labour.”

“I’m just keeping Bossuet out of harm’s way,” Joly says, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s neck. “He already got tripped over today.”

“Yeah, how did that happen again?” Musichetta asks, looking at Grantaire.

“He was on the ground,” Grantaire explains. “I was running. I didn’t see him.”

“Running with a cop,” Musichetta says, handing them a bell pepper and a cutting board.

“No, the cop had left by then,” they correct, grabbing a knife out of the knife block with a level of confidence that Musichetta can’t help but approve of.

She begins preparing the rest of the stir-fry while Grantaire tells her how they were spray painting a mural on a shabby wall and got caught by a young cop who was going to tell them off, but honestly agreed that it was actually an improvement. The running had only come into it when two of his colleagues happened to drive by as well.

Musichetta has to put down her knife several times because she’s laughing too hard. Grantaire sure knows how to ham up a story for comedic effect.

Joly and Bossuet helpfully add colourful descriptions of Grantaire coming flying round a corner with a bag of spray cans slung over their shoulder and landing flat-out on the pavement as soon as they ran into Bossuet.

“Bossuet insisted it was his fault,” Grantaire says. “Which it wasn’t. And Joly insisted I must have gotten hurt. Which I hadn’t.”

“But you could have,” Joly says seriously.

“And if you had, it would have been my fault,” Bossuet adds.

“And your place was much closer than theirs, Chetta,” Joly explains. “And we know you don’t like it when we’re late for dinner.”

“Very true,” Musichetta nods. “You clearly had no choice but to force him to come home with you.” She twinkles her eyes at Grantaire, who grins.

“Worse things have happened to me on Friday nights,” they say.

Somehow Musichetta has no problem whatsoever believing that. But she hasn’t had this much fun talking to someone she only just met since…well, since she met Bossuet and Joly.

By the time they’re all seated around the table, loading their plates with food, Musichetta has found out that Grantaire laughs at Bossuet’s puns, appreciates Joly’s gross medical facts and has elevated making sarcastic observations to a damn art form. Speaking of art, turns out they’re an art student.

“I’m clearing the table before any of you ask me to draw you,” they declare after the first interrogation about what it is they do exactly.

“We wouldn’t dare,” Joly calls after them laughingly.

“I’d say yes, of course,” Grantaire call back. “I’d just also be suffering and resentful about it.”

Musichetta laughs and Bossuet beams at her.

“Aren’t they fun?” he says, lowering his voice.

“Yes,” she agrees. “They can stay.”

There’s a loud crash from the kitchen that sounds worryingly like a pan ending up on the floor. Musichetta, Bossuet and Joly wince in unison. They can just hear Grantaire’s muttered: “Fuck.”

“Too late to change your mind,” Bossuet grins.

“Honey, if accidentally destroying stuff was a deal breaker for me we’d have very different problems,” Musichetta teases and she drops a kiss on his forehead.

[margridarnauds]

6, 7, 10, 21, 23

THANKS AVERY

6. Answered here 

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in. 

Let’s have the SALT. (Mandatory disclaimer that my own personal feelings towards the SHIP does not inherently extend to the shippers, that I ship many dynamics that some people would call “abusive” given the ongoing debate over what “enemies to lovers” means, and that some dynamics here are things that I might have shipped under other circumstances, but things just...didn’t work out that way.)

Cats - I hated Plato/Victoria before I even knew that it was POSSIBLE to hate a ship that much. I always went with the Plato = Macavity theory to get that little skeavy dudebro off my girl. (Also, I’ll be honest, the whole “mating dance” thing is...such a fucking weird sequence anyway. Like, my ship preferences aside, ALW WHY DID YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SCENE WHERE THE CATS FUCK?) 

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth. 

Harry Potter - Ron/Hermione. I never saw it, tbh, and they seemed to be pretty bad for one another, even in the books. The films just took it up several notches. 

OUAT - Captain motherfucking Swan. I hated that smug, greasy little motherfucker so much. So much. 

Star Trek Ds9: Jadzia/Worf. THERE. I SAID IT. Both sides brought out the absolute worst in each other, leading to an absolute trashfire of a ship that obliterated all in its wake. AND THEN WE HAD TO DEAL WITH THE FALLOUT OF THAT. EVEN AFTER THE SHIP WAS *DEAD*. Don’t mind me, don’t mind me. I’m cool, I’m cool. 

Carmilla - Tbh...Laferry. Never my thing. I know that her character development’s a BIG part of Perry’s arc and I fully embrace character growth, but it just. Left a bad taste in my mouth. And the way shippers used to treat Laflashdrive shippers back in the day. As if shipping a nonbinary character and a flashdrive somehow makes it hetero. (#LetLafBeaRobotfucker2k19). 

Les Miserables - You know what? While I’m on the Salt Train...

Enjolras/Grantaire. Now, there are plenty of ships that are probably more deeply annoying to me, but none are as prevalent as this one. And I might like them a lot more if they WEREN’T so prevalent. But as it is, it’s like a black HOLE that’s devoured the fandom, so that you’d think the entire fucking novel/musical is about these two. And. Maybe I shouldn’t talk given what I ship, but it isn’t even like they’re THEM at this point, they’re just two generic white guys in an “uwu” relationship. And I’m not speaking for EVERY single thing given that I have neither the time, concentration, or will to read every. Single. Thing. Made about these two, but it’s something I’ve noticed, though I’m not saying that I haven’t enjoyed SOME things made about them and the whole “You believe in nothing.” “I believe in you” is...good content. 

It’s like...you’re walking in the woods (there’s no one around and your phone is dead) and you see a brightly colored pink tree. At first, it’s great. A pink tree! You’ve never seen one of those before. You wander further into the woods, and there’s another! And another! And soon enough, you’re surrounded by pink trees, in a technicolored horror realm. Where’s the sky? Where did you come in at? You think you remember seeing the sun once, but NO, it’s another fucking pink tree blocking your way. There is no God, there is no ground, there is only a technicolored nightmare blocking your every move, drowning you in visions of Barbie-esque horror. 

Terra Nova - Skye/Lucas. WHY GOD WHY? Look, we KNOW I have terrible taste in ships, some of which have...questionable dynamics. BUT EVEN I CAN’T GET INTO THIS ONE. There’s no...mutual spark between the two of them, just Lucas creeping on Skye and Skye trying to get away. Also, since I’m here...Skye is estimate to have been born in ‘32-33, making her approximately 16-17 by the time the plot kicks into gear. Let’s be very generous and bump her into 17-18. Lucas? 2124, making him...oh, 25. Not the WORST age gap I’ve ever seen in my lifetime...but....questionable. Very questionable. And I know the series wants to have us believe that people grow up faster (see: The fact they actually think Maddy’s old enough to GET MARRIED. TO A SOLDIER. WHO IS REALISTICALLY IN DANGER OF MAKING HER A WIDOW,) but NO. Like, at my CURRENT AGE, with less than four years separating me from that age gap, I can’t see it. That is still at least 7 years of experience in the “real world” that she doesn’t have. He still saw someone with THAT MUCH of an age gap with him and WANTED something, whether or not she wanted it or not, and tried to PURSUE that something while calling her “sister”. Like, I can’t stop anyone from shipping it and I have a firm “ship and let ship” mentality, but....EW. EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWeWEEWEWEW. 

B5 - I’m in the same boat as you as far as...on one hand. Byron/Lyta makes me want to vomit, but also...our Teep OC does owe her existence to her weird, hetero white goth uncle. 

Star Wars: Han/Leia. Because, as we all know, cornering a woman before you kiss her is the love story of the generation. Han would have been better with Luke and Leia with Holdo. 

The Pirate Queen - Tiernan/Gráinne. I. Hate. This. Ship. 

His Dark Materials - Torn between Ruta Skadi/Asriel and Lyra/Will. Tbh, leaning towards the latter because while the former is AWFUL and signifies the quite frankly terrible writing decisions that distinguish the second and third books, at least it didn’t involve a badass, feral girl child becoming a dainty, submissive 50s housewife in the body of a 12 year old. “Oh, Will, I’ll do whatever you say, I promise. I won’t use my awesome powers unless you say I can, you’re so fantastic, Will.” Gag me. Also...they’re twelve. This doesn’t HAVE to be an epic, tragic romance, and the fact that their “kiss” (WHAT THE FUCK PULLMAN, WHAT THE FUCK, I’M NOT A PURITAN BUT WHAT THE FUCK) is the key to saving the universe? Really? Basically, they should have been friends. 

1789 - Danton/Solène. (I KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT I WOULD SAY, BUT NO. MY HATRED FOR THIS ONE MANAGES TO OUTSHINE IT.) “But Rachel,” you might say, “You’ve been very, very open about preferring anything to Ronan/Olympe” and that’s TRUE. But the Toho version managed to push my hatred of this one with The Scene, AKA “Go back to the kitchen, Solène and let the menfolk take care of this.” The French version didn’t even really have it as A Thing, he was just a customer. And the amount of time Danton spends with Solène is always directly proportional to the amount of spinal surgery she’s going to have. Now, I can’t exactly BLAME the two Japanese productions for doing what they did, because they have to appeal to a Japanese audience in the way they see fit. It’s an ADAPTATION of 1789, not a tour of it. But that doesn’t mean I have to LIKE it. And. Like. You know there’s no way THAT one’s going to end in a way that’s good for Solène. Either (1) he’ll set her aside for his family or (2) If they SOMEHOW stay together...the Reign of Terror’s looming. 

Also: Danton/Charlotte. No. No. Just. No. There are so many reasons why. But no. 

Ace Attorney - Maya/Nick. WHY SWEET MOTHER OF HETERONORMATIVITY WHY? 

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

We’ve both discussed a lot about how...DIFFICULT it can be to write fic for something. There are a lot of things I love dearly but just don’t have it in me to write fic for. Ace Attorney is an obvious one, Mozart l’Opera Rock, Elisabeth (though I’m trying to work on that one), Les Miserables, Star Wars, Star Trek, B5....a ton more that I could mention but it would honestly take too much time. Words hard, reading still hard but slightly easier. 

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote? 

The first thing I ever wrote, when I was five years old, was (very heteronormative) fanfiction for The Stinky Cheese Man, where he finds The Stinky Cheese Woman, which now, of course, I recognize as my own attempt to write myself into a narrative from which I’d been excluded. Or something. I think my mom still has it buried someplace, lurking...

Also, @theocraindora at some point managed to get me to write at least one full Carmilla AU during the second season, when we both must have been about 17-18-ish, if my math’s not too dubious, and that was the first thing I ever actually finished for a long time, even though it didn’t ever meet my personal standards for publishing and is likely to stay buried. For awhile, at least. 

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Since I talked about PLP’s tragic backstory, time for something happier. Paradise Lost, which I’m actually pretty damn happy with because it was my first time working with something that’s not a historical piece, and it was honestly a treat working with Mira’s voice. I think that Mira really “clicked” for me as a character here. Like, “Yes, this is why she’s like this, this makes sense.” There are some times where you can really feel a character’s voice when you’re writing and you can get things out, and this was one of those very rare times for me. Not saying that it’s going to happen NEXT time, but this time, it was rather relaxing. 

It was honestly one of the smoother writing experiences I had? Like, it only took me about a day or so, from when we exchanged PMs to publishing it, which is pretty impressive, all things considered. I’m still not tossing out doing anything more with this world in the future, tbh. That and Goosefic were probably two of the easiest to just...get out. (WHICH. 92 HITS. GOOSEFIC HAS 92 HITS. THAT IS INSANE FOR A ONE-SHOT IN A SMALL FANDOM. HOLY SHIT.) 

(From your other ask!)

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I’ve been WRITING fanfiction since I could hold a pencil and make scribbles.  When I was younger, I could write that kind of thing easily, the shame came later. 

Finding out that fanfiction EXISTED...was probably when I was about 9-10 and found Balto x Harry Potter crossover fanfiction. Which. In hindsight. Was pretty horrible, but my young self was CAPTIVATED because Balto and Harry Potter? In the same universe? IT WAS LIKE MAGIC. 

Astonishingly, I did not read M rated stuff until I was at least 15-16-ish. I kept myself remarkably sheltered and only looked into it when I became curious. And got over my weird hyper-religious phase. 

When I was about 12-13, I started to toy with writing myself, writing my own OC crossovers for Phantom Manor (the gother, European version of Haunted Mansion that was my special interest for. Ages). Carmilla when I was 17-18 was one of the first things I wrote a full, complete Thing for, even if I never published anything for it. And from there, I’d try to write things for both The Pirate Queen and Dracula, though both projects proved to be too ambitious and I ended up cutting them off, tragically, but they gave me the confidence I needed to get into 1789, which I DID publish something for finally, on the day I was taking my GRE because. Well. I had something else I feared more than a flame. 

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

I don’t know if this is one thing or five separate things in a trenchcoat, but here you go. 

I love how we can explore things that could never be explored in canon, for one reason or another; I love that we have an experience that we can filter according to what WE want, including trigger warnings, which is honestly a godsend to me. We talk a lot about the transformative nature of fanfic, and it IS, but also, the level of empowerment that comes with being able to take back a narrative that says “hey, you’re not supposed to be in this narrative” or “You’ll like what we put out and you’ll stick with it” or “Well, if you don’t like it, create your own” and say “Okay, I will.” And, obviously the comments are lovely, having that kind of instant encouragement, and in the small fandoms in particular, it’s VITAL, but I also don’t feel like they’re inherently mandatory or that readers should feel FORCED. But I do love that, no matter what, something you write can connect with someone from the other side of the world. Like, people can argue all they want about fanfic being valid or not, but MOST people who want to be professional writers never get that. And when you stop and think about how we’ve been changing the narrative for as long as we’ve had oral stories, that this is how storytelling was ORIGINALLY done...that’s very humbling.