#but sometimes people make it hard to be excited in this fandom jfc

[mymistakewriting]

The 118, weddings, and curses

I know this post is about to ruffle some feathers. I've seen a lot of takes that I really don't like in the last 24 hours on here, though, and I just need to point out something.

As usual, if you read this as character bashing, it's not. I adore these characters. I just also have a lot of opinions. You don't have to read my posts if you don't like them.

To start this off succinctly: the 118's A-Shift is cursed.

Now, to go into this thought process: we do see glimpses of other shifts and other houses in the show. Not much, but enough to get a general feel that things with them and things with the team we follow in the show is different. 118's B-shift with Captain Mehta doesn't seem to experience the same level of life-threatening events. We see a decent amount that suggests that - his reaction at the shooting being confusion first and then reactionary, the fact that Ravi always looks wildly lost when working with A-shift after a stint working with B-shift. Even the few people we've seen fro Harbor this season seem to have it a hell of a lot calmer.

This curse does, unfortunately, extend to the extended families of the team. And it does play a big role in a lot of the major life events.

Now, for the real reason I'm posting this. I've seen a lot of takes in the last 24 hours being upset that a lack of communication on the production team's end meant that content was cut from the new episode - this isn't new. Every episode certainly has scenes that got redone or cut, it's just how the film industry works. That said, I've also seen a lot of "Madney deserve a proper wedding" comments circling.

While yes, I agree that not getting to see such a beautiful thing in full sucks, weddings take HOURS by themselves. And a wedding isn't big enough for two episodes, I'm sorry. Especially because it being chaotic and rushed is a theme with the 118. That curse that I keep saying they have? Yeah, it definitely does show up on events like this. It's MEANT to.

We all joke, as a fandom, that the 118 experiences the highest number of near-death experiences in LA. So why are we ever so surprised that it follows the team? Because you don't get to just hang that stuff up when you clock out as a first responder, stuff like that DOES follow you.

So sure, it sucks that the curse shows up for weddings and makes things a little less neat. But nothing in Maddie and Chimney's story has been neat, their wedding going smoothly and running the course of an entire episode wouldn't make sense for them. I think it makes perfect sense for the wedding to feel a little rushed, a little urgent - because that's the story of their entire relationship. It doesn't make it any less special. It doesn't make Maddie's dress any less gorgeous, it doesn't make their love for one another any less.

For better or for worse, that's what the vows are in a marriage. And these guys work in a career where there's a hell of a lot of for worse - just being able to get married is a pretty good thing. And if that rush was good enough for Bobby and Athena, or Hen and Karen, why are we throwing such a fit as a fandom about it for Maddie and Chimney? Especially when you know damn well that they'll do a vow renewal down the line that's going to be SO much more beautiful than the wedding itself because they'll manage it better now that they know how?

Regardless of what comes of the new episode, I'm thrilled to know that Maddie and Chimney get their happily ever after wedding. And you know what, I'm even MORE thrilled that it's a true-to-fashion 118 wedding. We've needed one.

And I think Oliver said it best already: if you don't like the stories being told this season, you're not required to announce your departure.

Some of us are just happy to see what stories we get with characters we love.

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

fic ask time: 35, 4, 5, 6, 12, 16

(assume everything is going to be The Mandalorian/TBOBF-centric but I'm gonna be veering here and there, too)

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

So I haven't had much brain to sit and read in a very, very long time; any writers I list are from Back Before Internet 2.0 And Adulting Ate My Life. Tolkien and Vonnegut always go on this list. There is also Stephen R. Lawhead who wrote an amazing series about the King Arthur legends called The Pendragon Cycle and also a fantasy trilogy called The Dragon King Saga. I tend to follow books and fics rather than writers so that's about it. Sad answer, I know.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

Oh no I am the proud parent, I love all my children (except for everyone stuck in a locked collection because I am always torn between reasons for deleting and reasons for preserving). But when it comes down to it... I have to say it's The Suns because 1) I plotted a whole ass story and finished it, 2) I actually illustrated that sucker, and 3) I finished it. My biggest fear is writing a story that either collapses because the plot can't support it or never finishes because I burned out/was lured away by shiny. Is it the best fic? I'm not sure. But damn, I did that. I looked at my past self's failures and said, "Not today, Satan," and wrote a 1st draft, a 2nd draft, and illustrated every chapter of it.

And I want to do it again? JFC.

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

I love writing banter. I love writing characters bouncing off each other. Sometimes the sparks fly and they just speak to each other so easily and comfortably, and then I have to stop because it hurts just how easily they converse. Yeah, dinluke, I'm looking at you.

Also, I love plotting. I love wrangling all these threads and turning them into a cohesive whole. The hard part is actually writing the damn fucking thing.

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

*screams in threequelfic*

It's the little things, like a rando thought popping into my head after writing a whole scene about Luke telling Din about Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and returning to the Lars homestead for the first time in years. What happens if Din does go back to Aq Vetina, and how do I make it worse?

And how do I make it about Din coming to terms with what it means to be a Mandalorian while Mandalore awaits, oh and also the New Republic is on the verge of war with a certain Chiss admiral...? The scale is stupid big which is why the only person we follow is Din Djarin, the extremely relatable Tired Adult with Main Character Syndrome. The plot comes in five parts and I wrote 2 parts for NaNo, and now I have to get off my ass, finish wrangling the rest of the plot, and get to writing how this Din's story ends.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

*is a deer in the headlights*

What are tropes, fuck, what tropes are there, fuck, I don't know what tropes there are, fuckkkkkkkkkkk-

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I have two dinluke plots burning holes in my gdocs. One is a Mummy AU because every fandom deserves at least 1 Mummy AU. Hell, I wrote one for Dragon Age and it's one of the best things I ever wrote.

It's simple. The Clone Wars happened but Not Like That, and Ani disappeared during a secret mission to discover a secret weapon to give the Republic the edge, except the Republic won anyway so whoopsie. Luke and Leia grow up knowing nothing about their father's fate so they decide to find out and their research and prying into records and pestering people who worked with their father eventually leads them (and their pilot/Leia's beau Han Solo and his bff Chewie) to Nevarro because it's the rumored resting place of the thing their father was looking for, a supposed living superweapon that fuels itself by eating the Force. Problem is, a Mandalorian sect called the Death Watch is guarding that resting place. Lucky for the twins, Nevarro's security forces apprehended a member of the Death Watch for acts of sabotage against the Republic's Moff Gideon's convoy. Leia can talk to Magistrate Greef Karga about releasing this Din Djarin into their custody and Luke can go talk to the Death Watch Mandalorian, and they can also try to figure out why the fuck Gideon is here.........

The other one proposes Inquisitor Luke who's tasked by Emperor Palpatine with tracking down the bounty hunter who took a job capturing and delivering a Jedi padawan but ran off with the bounty, and the Imperial credits and beskar Moff Gideon's agent paid him. It's his final test to prove... something or another, and boy does he fail hard. This idea also proposes Ben Kenobi survives and starts teaching Leia the ways of the Force, so we're running the fuck off with all these "What if?" premises. This one's the least likely to actually get written but hey it's fun to daydream about.

Ask me anything from this list of numbers!

[lizstaysinneverland]

FFXV Popband!AU Headcanons

I actually had started a fanfic of this started a few years ago when FFXV first came out but I know I’ll never finish it, so I thought why not make it into a headcanon post. I originally went with a boyband but I kinda didn’t think anyone of the boys would be a drummer. Also, please see the end notes for more information.

This is a bit long so I put it under “read more”.

Prompto is the lead singer of the band. He has the sweet flower boy image. Is the one with the most stage fright but once the music turns on, he just forgets about him being on stage and gets really into it. He is super shy when meeting his fans but they love him even more for that. He gets scolded by Luna and Ardyn a lot because he tends to reveal too much in interviews but he can’t help it, he just gets so excited and wants to share what they are working on and how they live and so forth.

Noctis is the backup singer and guitarist. He has the brooding pretty boy image. But he is actually just as nervous (but hides it way better than Prompto) when he meets his fans and is super sweet and kind to them. He lets the others do the talking in interviews, Luna is trying to motivate him to become more proactive but to no avail. He actually trains a lot by himself and puts a lot of effort into every performance. Sometimes clashes with Gladiolus due to Noctis sometimes rather childish attitude and laziness.

Ignis is the keyboardist and songwriter. He has the cold prince image. He also functions as the intermediator whenever Luna isn’t there to stop the fights. He always knows what to say to the fans and is super happy for the love they receive by their fans, that’s why fan meetings are one of his favourite things about this job. He is usually the one calming the others down in interviews when they get too excited and he always has a perfect answer to everything. Despite his usual stoic and sometimes rather calculating demeanor, his songs are full of emotion, he can express his feelings the best in his writings.

Gladiolus is the bassist. He has the bad boy image. His temperament gets him in trouble with paparazzi's sometimes, much to Gentiana’s annoyance. He’s very flirty with his fangirls but treats them with respect, so even if the magazine call him a “fuckboy” his fans don’t cease to fangirl over him and melt whenever he smiles at them. He is quite smart  and knows how to talk his way out of uncomfortable interview questions. He usually practices with the whole band, practicing alone makes him bored after a short time and he feels he improves faster when he hears himself out of tune with the other members.

Cindy is the drummer. She initially wasn’t part of the band when they were still a garage band, but their drummer left after a feud. They were on the verge of signing the contract with the Izunia Music Group record label, so they needed a drummer. Cindy has been a childhood friend of Prompto and Noctis so they kinda roped her into it last minute. But she actually enjoys it and it allows her to spend a lot of money on cars, so whenever she doesn’t practice with the band she is fixing old cars and pimps them up into really cool cars or helps out her grandad at his car repair shop. She has a very big fanbase despite “just” being the drummer. She’s the one who is mostly active on social media.

Iris is the stylist of the band. She is always super hyper and gushing about how great they look with her clothing choices. She also hypes the members up before the big show, to help them feel confident on stage. She always manages to find the perfect clothing for any kind of event, be it the Music Awards or some themed event. They never look bad. Iris also introduces the members to all the memes and newest inside jokes in the band fandom. As she is the sister of Gladiolus, she tags along to the events and such as well and makes sure they look good all night.

Lunafreya is the manager. Despite her quite young age she is one of the best. She helps the band members relax before any major performance and makes sure they are always hydrated and giving their best. She tries to fulfill the wishes of the members, but in turn she expects a lot from them. She might usually be gentle but if anyone of the band pisses her off because they think it’s okay to be lazy or don’t reflect on their behavior or break the rules, she will scold them quite harshly. She has an exceptional organizational talent and that shows in how she schedules everything and makes things work despite all odds.

Ardyn is the CEO of the Izunia Music Group. While the band members won’t see him often, if he does come by to check on things, absolutely everyone is on edge because you don’t piss off THE Ardyn Izunia and you certainly don’t make mistakes. He loves his little charm aka Lunafreya for her hardworking nature and finding the band and making them into popstars. He lets her do most of the management but if she can’t handle something (there can be quite some annoying and snobbish business partners) he will handle it and she can be sure everything will work. He makes the impossible possible. He is the creepy dude that you don’t expect to be rich because of his poor fashion taste but is somehow really charming and attracts a lot of people.

Ravus is the director for the music videos and he is such a perfectionist to the point that he will make them do a scene again because Noctis face should have been turned to the side a teeny tiny bit more, like by 5 degrees. Ravus often tends to bicker with Noctis and Ravus as he feels like they don’t take his commands seriously. Much to Lunafreya’s and Ignis’ annoyance. But you can bet that the music video will turn out incredible well, almost like an art masterpiece. Ravus is quite creative and that shows in all his work.

Gentiana is the head of the marketing department at Izunia Music Group and works a lot with Lunafreya to make sure she promotes the bands correctly. Sometimes she even stops by when Noctis & others are in the middle of a photoshoot or music video shoot just to see how she can implement things into their marketing campaign. She never actually tells them how she promotes the band, so they usually are surprised when they suddenly find their face plastered on a bus or see a commercial of them on TV. But they are never disappointed. She knows what she is doing and enjoys gushing to Lunafreya about all her ideas.

Aranea is the photographer. She seemed a bit harsh at first so they dreaded doing photoshoots with her but once they warmed up to her after they did a good job, they realized she’s just a hard worker and wants the models to be amazed by the photos she took. She can easily lose track of time when she is concentrated on taking pictures of her models and seems to have an endless amount of ideas. But she lets the band members run wild with their own imagination as well, so she can get authentic photos of them for special fan events.

End notes:

JFC finally finished it, this has been on my draft for a long time because I always forgot about it or had no time to sit down and write it all.

I know this isn’t as realistic as it could be, but I didn’t want it to be too realistic, to me it was more fun making them be THE music band everyone wants and so some characters might come off as “Mary Sue” like and some jobs might not be exactly the same as in real life. I apologize for that.

I took a bit of inspiration from Korean bands.

I did choose to use Ardyn Izunia instead of Lucis Caelum because I didn’t wanted them to be related in this fanfic as I didn’t plan to make him appear often.

[archmage--khadgar]

Hia! I always feel happy when I see one of your posts pop up on here c: why do you like Khadgar?

*Stares into space* OH GOD THIS IS gonna probably be a long post. HERE WE GO.So uh. I always really like Karazhan and the lore around it, hardcore fell in love with Medivh and pretty much ANYTHING in game that was connected I ate it up. I got the urn, the keys, all the rings, all the rep, you name it. I tried SO HARD to get Atiesh from the old Naxx but that didn’t happen. (I AM STILL SAD ABOUT THAT.) So that was -kind of- the start. In order for the next part to make sense, need to sidestep and backtrack a wee bit for context.Not to be all sob story, but I gotta be honest, I spent most of my childhood alone (either outside or in my room), reading, playing out epic stories with my toys, exploring the outdoors, and most of my social interactions with people I was either being bullied by kids at school or my mother. And y’know, despite all the stories I read or watched on t.v it was a loooong while before there were characters that made me go….”Holy SHIT I know what that’s like!?” Like there was a difference, to me, between characters like Michelangelo and Beetlejuice that I REALLY WANTED to hang out with, and then a character that made me go….”I know exactly how that character feels. What happened to them, happened to me.”Digimon was the show that broke that mold for me when not only were there two characters who had DIVORCED PARENTS!??? Like me, there was a girl who had a REALLY BAD and unhealthy relationship with her mother. (But she was still powered by love, which was awesome.)This kinda started getting me into other stuff because the more characters I found that I could relate to, the easier it was to explain how I felt to strangers and it made friend finding a little bit easier. FAST FORWARDING A LITTLE BIT.

So I certainly have a character -type- that I relate to the most. And it’s chaotic bookwork with anxiety. Fun fact: I am always dubbed “the twilight sparkle” of friend groups IRL because I was always, ALWAYS the one who was solving friendship problems and I did that looong before the show. OOPH. THE BIG PROBLEM. Was that it was getting to the point where all the chaotic bookworms were either: Evil, female (and I love gals, but that’s not my gender identity ORZ), or like. largely hated by the fandom and were always mocked.Or some combination.SO LIKE. Hey, I get introduced to Medivh and his TOWER OF BOOKS and all that shit and it’s like “Fuck yeah sign me up bro, living alone? Shitty mom? I feel you.” But then, y’know. He was a wee bit possessed and not. Exactly the good guy SO THERE WAS THAT.And then. There was Khadgar.I hadn’t been able to find the last guardian book yet, though I had read about the lore highlights online so I was familiar and stuff.And then WoD came out. And Khadgar! Was doing stuff! Which got me excited because it was more of the Lore that I really liked, and during MoP, I was hardcore going…”THE LEGION IS COMING BAAAACK. I JUST KNOW IT. CAUSE WE DIDN’T KILL KJ. SKREE.” I got called crazy and stupid a few times BUT HEY. Jokes on you fuckers I was *right*.Anyways!That first quest chain into Tannan rolls in. And it’s just. Khadgar. Being Khadgar. “Well, then I guess we owe you one.” scene hit every…“Oh fucking god bless Khadgar for the sarcastic sass”Because I really enjoy sarcasm and it’s more obvious in voice chat or in-person but my sass rhythm and tone, especially if I’m ranting is veeery similar to Khadgar’s sass.And then the PUNS. Listen. *Listen*. I hear an opportunity for a pun and I have to take it. I have to. If I try to hold it in my face starts smiling like the Cheshire cat and I sometimes let out a high pitched “eeeeeee” until given permission. After that quest chain, I quickly noticed that no one had rolled a Khadgar blog. No one! And well, I was all about having a blog where I could be free to make jokes all the time. IIRC, my first post was…”The party has arrived~!” Or something like that. I honestly didn’t expect much to happen cause I didn’t have any friends or anything like that and all the wow blogs all pretty much had their followings already and I was uh…a WEE BIT ALONE. But I was like “well even if this blog doesn’t go off I’ll at least have an outlet where I can just be me where no one will harass me.”Cause gotta be honest, I’ve never been well-liked. There was never a place for bookworms who liked puns and had anxiety in the world I lived in. If I acted like myself I was hated, and in order to fit in, I had to be someone else, which was a ditzy stupid, lazy girl. I wasn’t allowed to be trans, (still not back in Maine), or smart, and….yeah.  But hey! On tumblr, I can RP a male character that had my same sense of humor and sass and BE MYSELF and NOT BE A GIRL and all my IRL haters wouldn’t be able to stop me.And then uh, A THING HAPPENED. I no longer have the original blog because of reasons I’ll mention later, so I CAN’T REMEMBER who first started sending me asks but I know @kiyastrasza was one of them (she passed away suddenly a few months ago and I miss her SO MUCH.) But then like, I DON’T KNOW. I know I got a few initial asks because “fuck yeah finally a khadgar blog”  and honestly, I thought my blog was rubbish because it was 80% me just being my sassy nerd self and 20% studying his word usage for more serious things and getting my hands on every scrap of Khadgar related lore.”So I fully expected to get called out on being canon divergent or a shitty Khadgar or SOMETHING. Or have people ONCE AGAIN be like….”This character archetype is annoying and stupid and we all fucking hate him and hate you for rping him.”But that didn’t happen. In fact the EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENED.My ask box kept getting filled with puns to be approved, rhyming his name with stuff became a thing and now even BLIZZ says “Dadgar” like jfc what even.And then like. I don’t even know, a lot of it is a blur because it all happened so fast but the BIGGEST THING.Was that for the first time ever, being myself wasn’t met with bullying and hate and people telling me to shut up and go away or anything like that.People -loved- Khadgar in-game. And people -loved- finding a Khadgar blog that “when I read their posts I can hear Khadgar’s voice”.  And better yet? KHADGAR WASN’T A VILLAIN! (Don’t get me wrong, I loooove AU’s but imagine being a kid and you can only ever connect to villains and then people hate you anyways IT DOESN’T FEEL TOO GREAT).And uh. Yeah. I don’t really know where to go with this. But yeah! It was the first time where I felt like nothing was wrong with who I was. That there was nothing wrong with being book smart and having a sense of humor and looking death in the face and just eye-rolling and going “Well aiight.”I mean hell yeah there’s been an epic shit ton of drama with people being jealous and making shit up and who the hell even knows what any of that was about anymore, and there’s still plenty of bullshit in my life keeping me otherwise miserable and I’m getting really frustrated that every goal I try to accomplish gets utterly destroyed in some way and I’m currently an emotional husk and I 100% HAVE NOT been myself lately as I’m a mix of grieving and severely hurt and physically ill and I’ve been broken pretty damn hard and when I pull myself back together it’s probably going to be like. 11th Doctor just turning into cranky 12 and not being pleasant BUT. The muse is still strong, the muse is honestly probably the strongest thing about me. Not because I think that I’m actually, really Khadgar and that’s ME you’re talking to in game and Azeroth is real, etc, etc. But it’s strong because that type of muse was already something that was effortless for me and part of my personality foundation. And before the blog it was withering away and crumbling and I had no self-love to keep it going anymore and then the blog happened, and even though I still have 0 self-love, I genuinely hate myself, the love from others healed it, and my love for the character, I think, is my subconscious finding a weird loophole to get around the self-hate because I CAN’T HATE KHADGAR, and fucking hell whenever I make a pun irl and someone is a shithead about it or calls me annoying over voice chat, my brain is like. “Yeah, but if Khadgar were real. He’d laugh.” And eventually, it’s like….”OKAY FINE. IT WAS FUNNY. THAT PERSON IS JUST A SHITHEAD.” I can’t remember where I was going with that. Uhhhhhh……SOMETHING SOMETHING.I absolutely hate myself and feel as if I’m undeserving of love because I’m a horrible, broken person that makes stupid mistakes and is only good for hurting others and being a bitchB U TI hate myself a little bit less when I RP a character, like Khadgar, that lines up with one of my personality foundations, and the general response to it is people loving it and telling them I make them happy.  I’ve still had more hate directed at me in the past (and sadly the present) than I have love. But uh. It doesn’t take much love to get me all sappy and crying and happy.  (Hate is a tossup, a lot of hate I can take but certain, specific things will strike me hard and fast).SO LIKE. Uh. I know the majority of my foundation at the moment is either destroyed or heavily damaged, cause I’ve also been heckin angry a lot lately and I don’t know how to deal with that at all since it’s something new so a lot of my foundation wasn’t protected against that, and I’ve certainly died emotionally a few times more this year than my normal rate of it taking a couple years or more to emotionally die and regenerate. BUT THE PART that’s still holding fast and bouncing off all the negative self-destructive shit is because of Khadgar, and all 1,297 of you (give or take) that’ve either stuck with this blog since the beginning and through a blog deletion and change or have come recently. That send in everything from ARCANE MEAT to puns, to AU ideas to random nice things SO UH. This is turning into an awkward unexpected thank you, to all of you. dashjkIt’s more than likely that I will live the rest of my life absolutely hating myself, and it’s possible that the rest of my foundations may never heal or be repaired. Even though I can easily attach some of them to characters like Khadgar for the most part, I just….eh. I dunno. No outlet and it’s not prompted ever and…it hurts still cause they’re broken. Which, eh, whatever, healing can’t be forced or half-assed, cause you can’t expect a broken leg to heal as fast as a papercut, all you can do is wait and let things heal or you’ll make it worse, but then obviously you can’t heal EVERYTHING otherwise no one would ever be disabled, but REGARDLESS.I may always hate myself. But I’ll always love Khadgar. And YOU guys love Khadgar. And you enjoy me rping Khadgar. So then I guess MAAAAYBE.It helps. With making it worth. Sticking around for a little bit longer.  :T

[katzuyas]

as usual, I’m a terrible procrastinator (this time with good reason tho bc I’ve been dying bc of renovations for a good 4 months now jfc) but I found some time to finally do these so here’s the super longass chain of tags I’m very grateful for ❤️ thank you so much to all of you for thinking of me!! ❤️❤️❤️

tagged by @and-then-yoi-happened, @joeys-piano and @gabzjones -- thank you so much guys ❤️

📽 🎞 Post 10 gifs from your favorite movies without naming them and then tag 10 (or so) people. 📽 🎞 

I had more trouble with this than I thought I would omg it seems I don’t like all that many movies??? unless we want to count each hp and potc movie separately  😂😂

I’ll be tagging @story-kat, @sweet-vitya, @estellie, @ilarual, and @katsudonski for it, but feel free to ignore me if you don’t want to do it ^u^)b

tagged by @story-kat, thank you for the tag kat!

fall/autumn preferences

rules: bold what you prefer and tag 10 people

1. go apple picking vs go on a hay ride 2. scary vs. sweet 3. sweaters vs. boots 4. socks vs. mittens 5. bonfires vs. football 6. trick-or-treating vs. watch scary movies 9. bake pie vs. bake cookies 10. rain vs. fog 11. black cats vs. owls 12. ghosts vs. wizards 13. harry potter vs. halloweentown 14. go hiking vs. sleep in 15. cinnamon vs. nutmeg 16. reading vs. writing 17. hot chocolate vs. tea  18. live in a cabin in a forest vs. have it be fall 24/7 19. candy apples vs. caramel apples 20. blankets vs. pillows 21. roasted marshmallows vs. roasted chestnuts 22. coffee vs. apple cider  23. red leaves vs. orange leaves 24. braids vs. bows 25. scented candles vs. the smell of fresh baked goods 26. carve pumpkins vs. make pumpkin pie (neither is my thing tbqh) 27. pumpkin spice lattes vs. chai tea lattes 28. coats vs. oversized sweaters 29. beanies vs. berets  30. candy corn vs. peanut butter cups 31. s'mores vs. apple crisp 32. jump in a pile of leaves vs. swing on a tire 33. corn maze vs. haunted house (very much neither) 34. bob for apples vs. visit a pumpkin patch 35. whipped cream on hot chocolate vs. marshmallows on hot chocolate

I haven’t seen this one before so this was fun, thank you!

tagging @and-then-yoi-happened, @inlovewithyoi, @victuuritrash, @atesan, and @phichitschulanont

tagged by @dreaming-fireflies, thank you so much!! ❤️

Rules: answer the questions and tag 15 people you want to know better.

1) Relationship status: dating a really adorable boy ;3c

2) Lipstick or chapstick: chapstick bc lipstick always eats away so ugly and I can’t be bothered to reapply every time I lick my lips

3) three favourite foods: chicken fried rice, pepperoni pizza, pad thai

4) song stuck in your head: thunder and lightning by serayah

5) last movie you watched: jurassic world fallen kingdom

6) top three shows: game of thrones, rein, suits

7) book I am currently reading: nothing bc I’m just stuck to my pc writing all the time ;u;

8) last thing i googled: the link to the song above

9) time: 3:51 PM

10) dream trip: japan *u* but also harry potter studio tour bc first fandom always sticks with you *u*

11) anything you want: to be done with renovations, finally, and to deal with my teaching practice asap so I can go back to writing yrdcyhvgb

I won’t be tagging anyone for this, but it was still fun to do so if anyone wants to as well, feel yourself tagged!

tagged by @louciferish, and twice by @gabzjones omg gabz thank you ilu and I’m sorry I’m such a flake trfxcvujbkn /)u(\

7 Sentences

The rules are as follows: go to page 7 of your WIP, go to the 7th line, share 7 sentences, and tag 7 more writer-bloggers to continue the challenge.

Slowly, as if all his motion settings have been reset, Yuuri turns around. And Victor, the blessed man that he is, gives him a little polite smile that freezes Yuuri's brain and sets his heart on fire all in the span of one second.

Fuck, Yuuri thinks to himself again. Oh fuck.

"Hello," Victor says, a perfect smile on his perfect face that sits on his perfect head on his perfect neck on his perfect shoulders and his perfect chest and his–

"Hi," Phichit replies, a smile on his own face, too. "It's amazing to meet you. We're both big fans, but I guess everyone tells you that."

bc I’ve done nothing but write my victuri bang fic for about a month now, that’s what this is from! look forward to it in october ;3

I’ll tag the writers my mind instantly thought of, so @dreaming-fireflies, @belovedyuuri, @teekettle, @the-world-of-illyas-james, @kazul9, @stammiviktor, and @iwritebetterthanispeak!

tagged by @the-world-of-illyas-james, thank you!!

Ao3 Tag Game 

WHAT IS YOUR TOTAL WORD COUNT ON AO3?

920344, which tbh I’m sure will go up after I post this bang fic I’m working on so??? kinda excited to hit 1mil ngl 

HOW OFTEN DO YOU WRITE?

I definitely try to write every day but sometimes life gets too busy so I usually keep it to short headcanons and plot bunnies then but I will definitely get at least one to two sentences out there daily ^u^)b

DO YOU HAVE A ROUTINE FOR WRITING?

sure do! I love setting up a scented candle to get the mood going, turn on some music or ambience and pop open an energy drink while I keep some sweets on hand to get my sugar levels up high. it works perfectly for me!

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE KINKS/TROPES/PAIRING?

Kinks: oh boy... I’m very into soft and sensual, but hard voyeuristic frick frack involving fluffy tail buttplugs and pet play? count me tf in ;3c Tropes: soulmates, rivals, enemies to lovers, creature fic, hanahaki, Pairings: victuuri, the one and only 🙏

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FIC OF YOURS?

it’s definitely dazzle me with gold! but since it’s my fic with most kudos, I will talk about my second fav here, which is oh ye of so little faith, a miyusawa fic that I wrote for a bang once upon a time and which I put my very heart and soul into, and love to pieces even tho it’s been years

YOUR FIC WITH THE MOST KUDOS?

dazzle me with gold, my magnum opus, which I couldn’t be more proud of bc it’s all I love in a fic: historical setting, drama, werewolves, mystery and so much love it’s sickening ❤️

ANYTHING YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOUR WRITING?

not really? tho recently I hate that I can’t seem to write short things anymore 😂😂😂

NOW SOMETHING YOU DO LIKE (ABOUT YOUR WRITING)?

I think I’m fairly good at grasping the characters I’m writing, and I know for sure that my soft/sweet/floof levels are running VERY high, so I’m definitely proud of that!

I’ll tag @gabzjones, @louciferish, @saniika, @postingpebbles, @muttthecowcatridesagain, @yuliaplisetskaya, and @joeys-piano! 😘

tagged by @teekettle, thank you tati! ❤️

Favorite Character Tag Game 

Rules: name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

victor nikiforov

miyuki kazuya

hinata shouyou

aomine daiki

giotto

voldemort

hakuryuu

uzumaki naruto (and his daddy bc I’m baking two pies in one oven and I need my best hubby here FOR REASONS)

portgas d. ace

grimmjow jaggerjack

wow this got me so nostalgic for my lovely boys ❤️ I’m going to send @story-kat, @tetsya, @littorella, @accioharo, and @hentipie down the memory lane next, have fun~ 😘

hooo boy this was a lot to get through but it was fun! thanks again to everyone who tagged me, you guys rock and I’m a dick for procrastinating on this so hard I’m sowwie  (╥﹏╥)  I’m blessed to have such lovely friends like you, so once again: thank you for remembering about me (≧◡≦) ❤️

[bartsugsy]

Oh Lo. Please teach me your ways. I mean I'm not even overly negative about everything, but how can you always be so excited./see the positives with each new spoiler/quote? I wish I could lol. Cos seriously, IM's definition of 'fun' and mine appear to be vastly different. This mainly boring scheming Robert plpt continues into next year? We're not getting a reunion til 2018 are we? Lord, they really want to test our patience don't they? Have we not paid are dues yet? haha! Who's exit you think?

do you know what anon, it’s weird, but i was actually thinking about what i would say to someone earlier today, if they asked me how i tend to stay positive???? it’s like our brains just know sometimes lmao - but that’s why you’re about to get a weirdly deep answer instead of what i usually say here

and honestly, i was thinking about this because i was thinking about life in general and how much i believe in the power of positive thinking? and how incredibly well it works? in fandom terms particularly, it’s a life saviour - in life it’s can be a lot more of a struggle to remind yourself but yk we’re not getting that deep we’re just talking about a soap

i get that it sounds like bullshit, but it works for me literally every single time. i’ve found that complaining about things is literally giving voice to negative thoughts and giving voice to negative thoughts is giving power so that they can breed more negative thoughts and before you know it, you’re sinking down this weird self-made hole of sadness - and not only that, but it spreads to other people, because humans are like feelings sponges and we feed off other people’s emotions a lot - it’s hard to be the lone person feeling one way in a room of people feeling the other. it’s like subconscious peer pressure.

but then the opposite - looking at the positives, being as steadfast and determined and strict with yourselves to look at the good sides of everything, is fucking life changing. there are like one thousand and one ted talks on this - like, you wouldn’t believe how many damn ted talks there are. anyway, because i was in this weird mood this morning and reflecting on it, i watched one that used a quote from wayne dyer - “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

THIS IS SO EMBARRASINGLY DEEP FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A CONVERSATION ABOUT FLIPPIN EMMERDALE SPOILERS BUT IT’S TRUE OK 

it’s true. if i look at spoilers andlook for the positives and literally refuse to give voice to the negative, pullmyself back to the positives whenever i do, and beyond that encourage thatpositivity in others through humour or happy thoughts so that maybe it spreads - and if i do it enough times that it becomes natural to me, a natural response to anything and everything, then… well… everything gets a hell of a lot more fun and enjoyable and those things that maybe i once thought were negative and worrying somehow turn into positives. and that’s not me desperately trying to tell myself something is good - it just genuinely does become something that inspires good feelings in me, happiness and excitement and whatever. i can’t really explain how well it works - you have to experience it. but like now? now i literally fucking love that rob and rebecca had a one night stand lmao. like. i love that god damn story beat so much. it’s just about changing the way you look at things - so when i used to look at that scene, all i ever saw was jfc why i don’t actually want this - but after really and honestly thinking about it in every way, by about acknowledging that i can’t change it and then looking at it from every angle, i look at that scene now and i see the show committing to showing just how affect robert is about everything, and also playing out a soap trope in what is literally the most shippy way possible. i see a scene that is, perversely, entirely about robert’s love for aaron and also a scene that gives me a great look at who robert is as a character and the way he reacts in situations. 

it sounds ridiculous? like, it really god damn does, but like… actually, why does it matter if it sounds ridiculous if i’m having fun and hopefully making other people smile occasionally lmao

also, beyond this, i’m also all about accepting the things i cannot change - and the writing of emmerdale? that’s a thing i cannot change. so why fight it? why not just buckle in and enjoy the ride? what the hell else am i gonna do? 

so yeah, anyway, it’s not about paying dues or anything, it’s not about making us suffer for our crimes of loving too much lmaooo  - they’re just…. it’s a soap and they’re telling a story that ultimately has robert and aaron interacting regularly and still being stupidly in love and eventually reuniting properly. so all i can do and all i want to do is find ways to enjoy the journey - and this is true of every storyline ever. 

and the result of me giving as much voice as i can to the things i enjoy and literally just ignoring any thoughts i may have or thoughts other people have about what they don’t because i don’t find them helpful (sorry all other ppl i love you i just gotta do me) - is that what we’ve had so far has been so much fun for me. i enjoy aaron and robert interacting in a - in a way, very abuse era-esque manner, obviously in an entirely different context. like - they both want to be together but they can’t - and now the feelings are there but only tenfold and so their scenes always have that bubbling underneath. a little bit of subtextual love and angst is fun. yes i want them to get back together and make out and cuddle and all that good and lovely jazz but like… that’s not the only way to enjoy their scenes, i don’t think. why would anyone ever rewatch the lighter relationshippy aspects of the abuse storyline if it was?

like - the smitten kitten scene? maxine’s episode where they go to find sandra? rob dealing with aaron leaving to see family in ireland for a bit (#parallel) and literally just trying to get info about how he’s doing out of chas on a daily if not hourly basis? they weren’t together during any of that. so why do they need to be together as a couple to have amazing, wonderful scenes now? why does them being split up automatically mean we’re in for months of no robron at all? because that hasn’t been what i’ve seen so far and from everything that has been said, that isn’t what they seem to have in store for us going forward.

obviously, you know, you gotta do you etc etc but… yeah, this is literally my secret lmao. just… idk. it took me a long af time to learn this and i had to go through a lot of sadness to get there but… idk the idea of being sad about a soap all the time just isn’t something i’m interested in for a way to spend my free time. so i don’t spend it that way. 

basically, what i’m saying is, this isn’t just innately me, irrationally excited about all things ever. it’s something i learnt to do and it changed my god damn life for the better in every damn way.

(i think it does make me a horrible person to try and be salty with when it comes to plot or spoilers though because i will, with all the love and good intentions in the world, probably refuse to let a conversation wallow in that misery and probably change the subject to something happier in order to preserve the hard work i’ve done on myself)

idk idk hopefully this doesn’t sound like a flipping lecture or whatever but this ask just came at a hilariously appropriate time for where my head has been at this morning

[floralharjuku]

Some part of me is really disappointed in the Noctris fandom for this. But mostly I'm just kinda sad. Like, I get it, I do Noctris, but sometimes I like to branch out! I was running out of steam for the ship because I was the only one writing for it and it seemed like no one really liked it outside of two other people. I'm only one person, you know? I can't keep writing and writing something when the story doesn't even give me enough to work with. (Cough cough, thanks FFXV) that's why I took to searching for prompts and creating stories around them. The reason why I'm so excited to do things with 2B/9S is because their story was fleshed out and didn't feel like something extra I had to stretch to make plausible. My stories always have a touch of reality to them, no matter how fantastical. I couldn't live with myself if I wrote a paint by numbers romance with no conflict or struggle or telling reality to go fuckle itself. That simply isn't me. If you are an author like that, then more power to you, do your thang, but I try really hard to insert frictions between people. What do they have to overcome to make them love each other? I want that to be the question I answer in each story I write. Let me be clear, I'm 100% open for requests of any kind. But this wasn't a request, it was someone going onto one of my other ship stories and being like "do this." Yeaaaaaaaahhhhhh, no. Be nice, is all I ask from my requesters. ^0^ Mum tip of the day, say please or somethin. And maybe next time you're on fanfiction, SEND ME A FREAKING PM INSTEAD OF DOING THIS MAYBE? LIKE THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR. GEEZ YA NERD. I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MAD AT IT HAD YOU SENT ME A PM INSTEAD OF GETTING MY HOPES UP THAT SOMEONE COMMENTED. JFC. Mum is done ranting. Have a smiling 9S *^*

[amorremanet]

11, 14 & 17? ^.^

asks for fanfic writers.

I did 17 over here, but!

11. do you listen to music when writing?

Sometimes, yes! It sort of depends on what I’m writing and what kind of mood I’m in, but I pretty much always listen to something. It’s more just a matter of whether I’m going to listen to music or TV/movies.

And then in each case, there’s the issue of like, “do I want to listen to the Twilight Princess OST or the Silent Hill 2 OST?” (because video game OSTs are great at both evoking mood and increasing focus), or, “do I want a video game OST, or my playlist for [character, ship, project, the mood I’m in, whatever; I have playlists for everything]”

—or if I’m going to listen to TV/movies, then it’s like, “TV or movies?” and then, “Disney movie or superhero movie? Marvel movie or DC movie? Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, or Female Trouble? The Prince of Egypt or Crimson Peak? Star Wars” or in TV Land, it’s more, “Well, I can’t work and listen to something relatively new [which is one of the biggest reasons why I’m perpetually late to everything new on TV], so… House or Criminal Minds? Yuri on Ice dub [because I can’t watch the subs and write at the same time] or SVU reruns? Firefly or Futurama?”

14. easiest character to write

Oh gosh, that’s…… hard. And it often depends on the fandom, and sometimes it depends on what kind of mood I’m in, but…

Barty Crouch Jr. has always been really easy for me (partly because he has Favorite advantage, and partly because I’ve put 16+ years into his character at this point, so like. JKR could drop all of her notes about his family and backstory and everything on us tomorrow — not that I really think said notes exist, but if they did — and I’d probably just go, “Yeah, that’s nice, but with all due respect, Mum? My version’s better, and I’m just going to continue treating it as if it’s canon because bite me, that’s why”).

AlSev Potter and Scorpius Malfoy are both really easy, too, but tbh, I think that’s because my versions of them are essentially glorified OC’s, since my attitude toward Cursed Child with regard to characterization is, “*nods mildly* That’s nice, but I’m going to pick and choose at my leisure, thanks. No offense, but I’ve been working on these kids since DH first came out, and I much prefer my headcanon Scorpius who is the biggest, loudest, gayest Drama Princess you have ever met in your life and has been trying to shock Lucius into having a heart attack and dying since he was like six,

“and my headcanon AlSev who’s sometimes Ruby Minerva Severus, most often genderfluid but sometimes a binary trans girl and other time a gay cis boy, loves Ginny but has a complicated and often strained relationship with her (but in fairness, AlSev-Ruby talks to Godfather Neville and Hagrid about their problems more than they talk to either Harry or Ginny), has a complicated relationship with Harry too but for other reasons and when Harry and Ginny eventually divorce each other, AlSev-Ruby is going to stay at their Dad’s more often than their Mum’s, and never lets anyone forget that their middle name is Severus because AlSev-Ruby likes pissing them off with that fact — especially their Weasley grandparents

“Ron but AlSev-Ruby usually feels bad about this because they know on some level that they’re usually lashing out at Ron unfairly because it’s not about their name in most of these scenarios and entirely about other emotions that AlSev-Ruby has no earthly idea how to handle or express in a healthy or constructive way, and they boil over very easily when people needle them about their name (and if it weren’t Ron on the receiving end of this, it would probably be James)

“and Snape’s portrait, whom AlSev-Ruby accidentally made respect them by going, ‘You’re a painting. You are oil on canvas, magically imbued with the real Severus Snape’s personality and memories. Snap at me all you want, but you can’t do anything to me that’s worse than what Rita Skeeter and Molly have been doing for my entire life so far. If you want to get to know me, instead of using me as some conduit for all of your lingering issues with my Dad, then cool, I’d like to get to know you, too. You’re the closest I can get to getting to know my real middle-namesake instead of the myth of him that’s been built up since the War. But if you’ve got nothing interesting to say, then please shut up and let me wait for the Headmistress in peace’ in their first year, if not as eloquently because they were eleven and being Sulky™”

As much as I still hate being compared to her, even accepting that I totally deserve it, Hermione Granger is another easy one for me to get into and always has been. The hard thing with her is not reducing her to either Perfectly Perfect Hermione (which JKR can even fall into some times, like when Hermione hexed the DA sign-up sheet and it scarred Marietta’s face without regard for how Umbridge is the one to blame in that situation and not Marietta) or some joke about some of the times in canon when she was Over The Top about something, in ways that Harry didn’t entirely get so the narrative treats them as Totally Hilarious, even though SPEW (for example) is actually not funny when held up to scrutiny and Hermione works so hard at school out of deep-set fear of failure and being dispensable, and probably also fear that maybe she doesn’t belong in the magical world

Luna Lovegood is also pretty easy for me, though the hard thing with her is trying to make sure that I write her thought processes honestly but in a way that makes sense for the reader (it’s a variation on the big problem of stream of consciousness writing, where writing actual facts stream of consciousness looks like Finnegan’s Wake and is tedious as fuck to read, so Luna has to be close to stream of consciousness but tamed enough so that the experience of reading anything written from her POV is more likely to be enjoyable, and less likely to be like getting hit upside the head with a tire iron labeled, “IT’S ART OKAY, IT’S NOT FOR YOU”).

Then, Remus Lupin is by far the easiest of the Marauders for me to write, and Andromeda Black Tonks can actually be pretty hard for me sometimes, but she’s easier than either of her sisters and still one of the easiest MWPP-era characters for me, period.

And as far as non-HP characters go: well, my other biggest source of fandom writing in the past while has been Teen Wolf, and the top five easiest kids for me there are Scott McCall (to the surprise of no one ever), Kira Yukimura (#still bitter),

“Camden Lahey (but lbr, he’s pretty much just an OC with a canon name because literally all we know about him in canon is, “Isaac’s older brother, on the 2005/6 swim team, died in the military” so the rest of it is shit that I wholesale made up and of course he’s easier for me to get into character with than, say, Allison — who is probably the third easiest of the ladies for me to get into character with, after either Braeden or Malia but it depends on the day — because Allison has, like, actual canon shit to deal with and Cam…… kinda doesn’t.

Like, all of the vaguely Actual Canon shit that he has to deal with is stuff that’s off in the realm of extrapolation, interpretation, and, “Hey, nothing in canon says that he DIDN’T visit Derek and Laura in New York on his way back from his first visit home during his service, or that he DIDN’T drag Derek uptown to see Patti Lupone as Mama Rose because Cam is a Fanboy for reasons relating to his and Isaac’s late Mother, or that they didn’t argue at the intermission about how IT’S A MUSICAL DEREK STOP TRYING TO QUESTION WHY THE CHARACTERS SING JFC IT’S LIKE I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU”

or, “lbr, Derek is as subtle as a brick hitting you in the face at 5,000 mph and Paige canonically figured out that he was a werewolf anyway, so I don’t think it’s entirely implausible that, if we accept the idea of him and Cam being friends — and Cam being one of the only people who, like, genuinely likes Derek, instead of tolerating him because he’s okay at basketball and his family is rich �� then Cam probably figured out that Derek and Laura are werewolves, and if that’s the case, he probably got trotted over to the Hales’ place so Talia could give him third-degree about whether or not he’s with the Argents or any other hunters.

“And, because he was like fifteen and had literally just found out that supernatural shit is real, Cam probably showed that he wasn’t a hunter by getting way too excited about hearing which magical creatures are real and temporarily shelving his hate-on for Talia to be all, ‘oh my god, are vampires real? can they infect werewolves? could Derek be like, a vampire werewolf, how would that even work’ or, ‘so silver bullets don’t hurt you, but what about someone saying your True Name? is True Name magic real?’ or, ‘do seances actually work? I’m totally not asking because I want to try and perform one to contact my dead Mom, I just want to know, like. For curiosity’s sake. Yeah……’”

[spoilers: Cam was TOTALLY asking because he wanted to try and use a seance to contact Eleanor. Derek and Laura had to stop him from trying to do the thing no fewer than eight times before Cam and Derek graduated. To his credit, Derek at least skipped trying to give Cam any kind of lecture, but tbf, he did that because he knew Cam would argue back at him about how Derek had no right to tell Cam that he was doing something stupid and dangerous and playing with things that he didn’t understand, and that Cam’s argument would probably be more than fair.

This did not stop Laura from giving Cam the lectures that he completely deserved, though, because: 1. he was essentially walking up to a big red button labeled, “do not push” and trying to push it without even reading the owner’s manual or the informational plaque on the wall that had a full explanation of why you shouldn’t push the button, and he KNEW that he was doing this, but he felt like it was all going to work out TOTALLY FINE because he wanted his Mom to be not dead and in lieu of that, why can’t he have a seance, Laura, UGH;

and 2. because, unlike Cam and Derek, Larua generally doesn’t do shit that’s too horribly stupid or that has completely awful consequences (…mostly), so she had an actual high-ground from which to give Cam these, “don’t screw around the magic, what the fuck are you thinking” lectures and wasn’t intimidated by Derek’s loudmouth little friend who, like, actively repels everything that even vaguely resembles chill.]

—so, anyway, the point is that I can pretty much do whatever I want with Cam and it makes him a lot easier to write. Laura is a similar case of, “this character is easy for me to write because I made her up,” and in fairness, a lot of my characterization for Braeden is headcanon, too. It’s just headcanon that has more of a basis in canon than Camden and Laura do.

I mean.

Except for parts like Braeden’s twin sister Belladonna who is a ballerina because fuck Jeff Davis, that’s why and also the only family member Braeden still talks to on any regular basis, and their parents who teach at Miskatonic University because I’m pretty sure it’s in the public domain at this point so nyeh, I’m gonna use it, and also they’re in the know about the supernatural but part of a group who has a policy of strict non-intervention, which Braeden thought was bullshit so she set out to do her own thing, which initially involved more plans to help people…… but then she learned that a girl’s gotta eat, and the mercenary work got started.

Also, she will wipe the floor with you at karaoke. Because I felt like it, that’s why.

Yeah, that’s all pretty, “this is not even remotely implied by canon and I wholesale made it up because canon wasn’t giving me like any damn Braeden backstory beyond the barest implications and I fucking felt like it, so there. PS: fuck Jeff Davis.”)

Derek Hale (I’m not always proud of this fact or entirely thrilled about it because when I get into Derek’s head, I take a lot of things from his canon characterization — especially in earlier episodes, before he started trying to be less of a jerk and discovered that: 1. he sucks as an Alpha, and 2. he loves Scott sooooo much — to their logical conclusions and his head is usually not a very pleasant place to be.

Like, he’s my werewolf disaster and I begrudgingly love him but we’re still talking about a guy who, when I write him, makes leaps of logic like, “Well, Cam said to look out for Isaac because he’s not here to do it himself. That is totally the same thing as giving me verbal permission to stalk his baby brother and manipulate him into accepting the Bite, very good plan, way to go, Derek!! :D” and thinks that, “Scott kissed ME first and didn’t explicitly SAY that he’s NOT 17, therefore I’m totally not obligated to ask him shit about shit or consider whether or not he’s having sex with me as a form of emotional self-harm” is a completely valid conclusion and way of doing things

He’s also a guy who would do things like cheat on Braeden with Cam and Cam with Braeden, while telling neither of them about this, and then when he gets arrested for doing something ridiculous, he would call both of them to come get him at the Sheriff’s station because he’s pretty sure that one of them will be mad and decide to just leave him there to think about what he’s done this time — which would end up in both of them coming, and figuring out that they’ve both been getting cheated on, and skip right past the, “being mad at the other cheated upon party” part to the part that’s more like,

“going for coffee and complaining about the fuck-up they’ve both been dating and making fun of things like his secret One Direction blog, or the Star Wars fanfic he writes where his blatant self-insert OC gets to bang Han, Leia, Mara Jade, Lando, both of the Solo twins, and Padmé (in some wonky shenanigans involving time travel) — oh and sucks for Derek, but Cam and Braeden decided to tell Parrish to just leave him in his holding cell because fuck him, they’ve been getting cheated on so he can just call Laura and beg her to come save his ass tonight”

negl, one of my favorite places to put Derek in non-supernatural AUs is prison. How he wound up there usually involved him killing Peter, and it sometimes involved him panicking and hiding Peter’s body under the floorboards because he’s a loser who thinks Edgar Allan Poe is actually a good model for How To Handle Murdering Someone, and…… yeah, I just. I love Derek, he’s easy for me to write, but he’s a disaster in ways I don’t always feel like dealing with, so sometimes, he gets to just go the fuck to prison so I don’t have to deal with him today.)

and……… ugh, I can’t pick between Danny Mahealani and Jackson Whittemore for the number five spot, but both of them are really easy for me, and like. Jackson, I am still vaguely ashamed of, but I don’t feel that bad about it because I got here by virtue of writing him when Astrid and I RP’d TW stuff together and she didn’t want to just talk to herself for ages by writing Isaac and Jackson, and I refused to half-ass it with Jackson and found a way into his head and here we are.

And Danny as I write him is, in a lot of ways, only somewhat less of an OC than Cam and Laura, so…… basically, that.

And bonuses, because I like talking about my legitimate OC’s, oops: Margot, Pete, and Sebastian are the easiest for me to write at the moment but in fairness, that’s largely because I’ve done the most work developing them as characters, relative to everyone else in the cast.

Like, Todd (who is officially Seb’s “it’s complicated,” and Seb’s Gawain Stacy, if you ask Pete — or sometimes even if you don’t ask Pete, because he will totally tell you this whether you like hearing it or not, especially if your name is Sebastian) — Todd has this notion that he, Margot, and Seb are basically gay boy!Hermione (Todd), lesbian!Harry (Margot), and, “Ron but like what if his family had Malfoy money and he was gay” (Seb). He’s not entirely wrong (and their Houses map onto the Trio’s secondary Houses because of course I know my OCs’ Hogwarts Houses, like why would I not know that)

(This whole Thing of Todd’s actually STARTED because I knew that he is a Ravenclaw, Seb’s a Hufflepuff, and Margot’s a Slytherin, and went, “lol, it’s like the Golden Trio in an AU where none of them wound up in Gryffindor, heh”)

and it makes sense that this is how Todd sees things with them because the three of them found each other in undergrad (though Seb found Margot when their RA paired them up for some “getting to know you” thing during orientation because they were the tallest and the shortest people on the hall, and he found Todd at the first meeting of the campus LGBTIQ students organization, had a crush at first sight on the cute chubby guy in the hot pink t-shirt with the screenprint of the Pink Flamingos poster, and totally meant to go be Super Cool about asking Todd out……

……buuuuuut he got excited and instead it came out like, “Hi, oh my god, I love your shirt, you like John Waters, I love John Waters, he’s my hometown hero, oh my god hi hi hi, my name’s Sebastian what is yours do you want to go get coffee, please be my friend, do you like Rocky Horror too? there’s a theatre a couple blocks from here that does a regular shadow-cast, we should totally check it out, I have just met you and I like you please be my friend” instead of like an actual date invite. And he totally called his Mom later that night to go, “MOM, I MADE ANOTHER FRIEND. TWO IN TWO DAYS, MOM. yeah no i still kind of hate my roommate he’s a jerk BUT I HAVE TWO NEW FRIENDS MOM”

………He was very lonely before undergrad because his only constant friend who wasn’t one of his siblings and didn’t shun him after he got outed at Catholic school [though technically, he sort of outed himself in an attempt to spare his boyfriend/best friend from being outed because Seb’s parents already knew he was gay and were totally cool about it, but Damian’s parents believed in reparative therapy and his uncle was the priest at their Catholic school, so him getting outed was really not an option]? Yeah, that only friend was Pete. But I digress.)

Anyway, Todd’s view of things is a little skewed by how he’s lived them, and strictly speaking, trying to map any of my kids onto the Golden Trio and Company is going to end up being a discussion of archetypes and tropes more than anything else because…… But they’re not the Golden Trio and Company.

There are some similarities, but they are mostly in the realm of archetypes AND the ones that aren’t quite as trope-y happened by accident (like, when I noticed that Seb actually does have quite a few similarities with Ron, aside from having Malfoy money — right down to his dad having an A name (Abraham) and his mom having an M name (Marceline) — I went, “well, FUCK” and started trying to get some of those similarities to be…… less so? Because…… Seb’s not Ron. And I don’t want him to be too overly similar to Ron because I want him to be himself, in his own right.

Fortunately, though, Ron isn’t a filthy rich, gay recovering addict who’s been living with undiagnosed major depression for his entire life and sort of accidentally stumbles into finding his mutant superpowers, and whose abusers aren’t his parents — because Abe and Marceline are pretty chill and have been fab to all four of their kids — but rather a series of douchebag ex-boyfriends who [unlike Molly and Arthur] are for real in-text acknowledged as being abusive jerks, and that’s a pretty solid start on Seb Is Not Ron)

But if you were going to try to do the Golden Trio And Company map here, then Todd would probably be Ginny, actually. They don’t have a lot in common, but there are some points of crossover, and the biggest one for me at the moment? Is that right now, I’m guilty of something that I bag on JKR for doing all the time, which is, “Ginny is a great idea for a character but you didn’t fully actualize her like she deserved in the text, you regularly reduced her existence to being Harry’s Significant Other, and it’s frankly bogus, Joanne” — and I’m aware of this, so I’m trying to fix it by working on Todd as a character

But I’m also trying to not spend forever fine-tuning every last detail about a story and then not having a draft of it so much as I have a two-foot stack of print-outs about different parts of it that kinda sorta look like a complete picture when you arrange them just so and tilt your head slightly to the left. So, basically, at the moment? Getting Todd to be more fully realized is on my List Of Shit To Do, but it’s way less of a priority than, “actual complete draft of this train-wreck” because I can do some of this work in revisions and rewriting

But since I opened this door anyway and want to complete the thought for the amusement factor:

Seb, obviously, is Harry in the bigger picture, even if this is mostly based on, “Harry is The Protagonist of his series, and although MY series is ultimately going to be more of an ensemble cast thing, Seb is the focal character for the first book because, in fairness to all the others, he was here first”

Todd is Ginny for the reasons that I just said

Pete and Margot both have very fair claim to being either Ron or Hermione, so they could arguably take turns, and ultimately, the big reason why I’m going to say Pete’s Ron and Margot’s Hermione?

is that Pete has two older siblings and some Issues with both of them (though he’s working them out with his sister, and not so much with his older brother) and has been Seb’s friend longer

while Margot’s an only child and they have totally used the, “we’re both gay, we love each other like brother and sister” line when they don’t feel like explaining their no romo soulmates kind of relationship to people (and sometimes when trying to make Seb’s siblings be less…… not pleased that Margot is so important to him, because to varying degrees, all three of them kinda sorta blame her for some of his problems in ways that she doesn’t entirely deserve)

Lucy is Neville but, like, a plucky ginger lesbian. This is probably one of the comparisons that looks a lot more like reaching, because on the surface, Lucy has a lot more in common with Ginny outside of their roles in the plot — but the thing is?

Even once I get Todd to be more developed, and even if he and Seb aren’t endgame (which was my original plan and I might stick to it but they have a LOT of shit to work on before they can go there so we’ll see how that goes), Todd is still going to be Ginny’s closest analogue to me because the ideas of them and their arcs are closer than anyone else’s (though in fairness, my idea of Ginny and her arc isn’t necessarily anybody else’s because JKR botched writing Ginny so much that this is almost, “room for wild mass guessing” instead of, “room for interpretation”)

Whereas…… yes. Lucy comes on strong, she’s a plucky go-getter who would probably try to fight the sun if she thought the sun was looking at her girlfriend funny, she’s a complete loudmouth and not always in ways that are conducive to anything, she’ll call you on your shit but usually without realizing that she’s saying something she needs to be hearing too, she tries too hard to do everything on her own and usually needs to experience some kind of big setback before she’ll consider accepting help with anything, and she will probably shout at someone while telling them to go calm down because they told HER to calm down.

Also, she’s the only one in my main ensemble cast who’s a legit Gryffindor, for better and for worse (Pete is a Slytherin — though in fairness, Gryffindor is his secondary House [he is aware of this, thanks to an ex of his who made him get Pottermore Sorted and was dead shocked when he wound up in Slytherin, but he has no idea what this means but he’s offended by it because Gryffindor’s colors are red and gold and no thanks, he doesn’t like how he looks in red and gold. He loves how he looks in green and silver, though] — and Josie’s a Ravenclaw)

—but a lot of how Over-The-Top Extra™ she is? that comes out of insecurity and trying to be various things that aren’t true to herself, because she deeply believes that she isn’t good enough. Granted, a big difference between her and Neville is that, while Neville spends a lot of time in the early books being terrified of his potential because he might screw up and prove right everyone who’s ever called him useless, Lucy instead tries to outrun her all of feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing instead of dealing with them, and basically plays a game of, “if I ignore them and just act like the popular idea of me — or like the me I want to be — but louder, maybe they will go away!!”

She’s going to be shocked when this catches up to her, because when she first shows up in the story, she’s of the mind that hey, she has accepted that she’s a lesbian — even if she’s only out to a small handful of people because…… uh, she’s Damian’s baby sister and their parents are still Not Really Very Safe to come out to. Their dad is probably going to die without Lucy coming out to him and she has VERY fair reasons for being afraid that he’d disown her for this — but!!! She has still accepted this!!!! Clearly it was the ONLY THING in her life that she wasn’t at peace with and now she IS so everything is going to magically be ALL BETTER NOW RIGHT!!!!!

No, not really, Lucy. Your sexuality is just one of the things about yourself that you aren’t at peace with.

Lucy’s response: *throws herself even harder into trying to outrun her self-doubt and being completely disingenuous to herself in the process, while trying to smile and laugh like nothing is wrong even though it really blatantly is*

So, that’s all going over about as well as you’d expect (i.e., not very well, not even a little bit whoops), and a lot of her arc in the series is going to be about finding peace with herself and finding her own ways of being a hero that may not necessarily line up with any more conventional expectations thereof, or even her own preconceived ideas of How To Hero Good, and yeah. She’s Neville, but like, a plucky ginger lesbian.

Also, she and Seb are foils for each other in a loooooot of ways that make them mapping onto Harry and Neville make more sense than trying to make Lucy map onto Ginny, in structural terms

Josie is Luna, and I’m short-changing my genderfluid empath child a lot right now but I’ve also been writing this post for WAAAAAY longer than I intended and ahahaha, everyone’s probably bored

And Conrad is Draco Malfoy, but absent any of the excuses that fans love making for Draco (especially not the age thing, like. Draco behaves in a LOT of ways that are completely unacceptable for any person of ANY age, but I will acquiesce that his age is a contributing factor in some instances because he’s a freaking CHILD. Conrad’s not, though. Like, Conrad is 46 and the oldest member of the main cast in the first book. Conrad gets no excuse for his bullshit based on his age.

He also doesn’t get to claim anything about being terrified for the safety of the people he cares about, because…… uh. While I think that the HP fandom oversells that point re: Draco in HBP because at first, he was completely gung-ho and proud of himself for joining a group of Pureblood supremacist domestic terrorist fascists, Draco was still abused and manipulated by Voldemort here — and during the entirety of HBP and DH — and…… well. Conrad was lied to and played by people who are even bigger douchebags than he is, yeah. But he wasn’t sold on joining the neo-fascist supervillains by having his loved ones threatened; he was sold on it by having his ego stroked and only giving a fuck about how this could benefit him)

So, basically, Conrad is Draco with even fewer redeeming qualities

Given that I think Draco only has, like, TWO redeeming qualities, or maybe three on a good day (and that’s debatable because at least one point here is, “it’s not really a quality of his own so much as the fact that I hate victim blaming more than I dislike Draco”), uh

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah, no.

Conrad is only not The Literal WORST EVER because there are other douchebags in his neo-fascist supervillain club who are even worse than he is.

i just love my oc mutant weirdos a lot, thank u for reading