#but some rules of grammar are ridiculous and make me genuinely mad

[pink-tk-a-latte]

personally i think not italicising the honorifics is better to read! in actuality it’s fine, i just tend to read italicised letters with emphasis so reading “an-chan” over and over again would feel a bit weird. but that’s just an opinion!! both work 👍

- 🎀

Very good point!! I was mostly wondering what would be correct from a grammatical angle, but hey, it’s fanfic. As long as it’s readable, who cares about perfectly proper grammar??

[lordnochybaty]

3/3: Tony/Ziva

The last part of my reply to an awesome @strangerinaholyplace who gave me three ships for this awesome meme.

(you’re all still welcome to send me more ships if you wanna :))

Be gentle with me this time, I don’t really ship it (I love it as a friendship tbh) but I tried my best! ;)

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

Tony works in a team devoted to solving supernatural-themed crimes and making sure no one breaks the rules of peaceful co-existence. Sometimes he brags about the good old days when his family was a family of hunters.

Ziva is a werewolf from an old family of werewolves. Sometimes she still does things that seem odd to humans. Often enough she pretends she doesn’t get it to annoy Tony.

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Ziva is the fisherwoman, Tony is the merman that’s driving her mad. He flirts, he talks, he lounges all over her boat, always in her way. He tags at her nets and hooks. He knocks at the bottom of the boat until she relents and asks ���who’s there?” because the idea of knock-knock jokes is absolutely hilarious to him. (So is the idea of the door in general.) He tells her stories that she thinks pass for what must be gossip under the water and she doesn’t know who all the characters he speaks about are but it never stops him. He always acts shocked when she doesn’t know some famous to him place or a well-known merman but he just keeps on talking. He splashes her when she pays him no attention and grins at her when she yells. He eats her food and complains about how gross it is. He keeps going on about the things he thinks are worthy of eating. It all involves raw fish and sounds disgusting. One day she throws a harpoon at him and he seems genuinely shocked. It misses him and he makes it his new favorite gadget. (”Your aim sucks.” “My aim is perfect. This was just a warning.”)

He always makes sure she comes back home with enough fish to profit. He says it’s to make sure she will come back, but she knows he worries and wants her to be alright. 

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Ziva is a witch. Tony is the weirdest and the loudest familiar she ever met. They’re an odd pair, but Ziva’s magic is also odd. Sharp and surprisingly strong, intense but restrained. Powerful. Together they’re stronger than anyone expected.

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Ziva is the barista. Tony is desperate for anything that will make Gibbs less annoyed. He’s still not able to solve the case, so coffee it is. Somehow he ends up bouncing the ideas off his favorite barista, who happens to know Arabic well enough to help him with translating the background conversation during the call the Sergeant made right before his death... He’s not sure if he wants to ask her out for a date or to join their team. He tries the former and introduces her to Gibbs for the latter.

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

To Ziva’s great disappointment and annoyance: Tony is the professor. He acts like an idiot and avoids paperwork like the plague, but he also is really good at what he does and knows all his students well enough to treat their education like a personal mission. They banter and argue and annoy each other, and when the term ends she tells him how much he matters to her.

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Tony is an annoyingly free-spirited prince, Ziva is determined not to let him die. He keeps quoting Bodyguard. She pretends she has no idea who Kevin Costner is. There’s probably hiding out in a safe-house at some point. I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure that safehouse only has one bed for some reason. Ziva insists on sleeping on the floor and actually follows through with it. Tony decides it’s ridiculous and joins her there.

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Tony is the busy single father who knows how painful and annoying it is when your parents just don’t show up ever, so he does his best to be there for Junior whenever he can.

And then he accidentally hits on his teacher.

(”Oh my god, DAD! This is Miss David! DON’T EMBARRASS ME!”)

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

Ziva writes about the things she knows, the things she survived. It’s painful and raw and she often messes up grammar and misses the right English words.

“Fun as it is,” Tony says casually, spreading the red-inked notes all over the printed pages. “Why do you even insist on writing in English?”

“When you use the language that’s not native to you, everything sounds less awkward and carries less weight. Like cursing. It never sounds jarring enough in English. Those memories... They would be too sharp to hold if I hadn’t used English.”