#but that was discontinued and the new kind i have doesn't say that so i had to look it up

[casiavium]

*some brands have this explicitly on the jar and some don't, so choose this option if you keep it in the fridge because it's recommended

Also to my knowledge this is a pretty usamerican because the peanut butter i have had outside of the usa has different storage requirements

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook

𝓘 𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮 𝓨𝓸𝓾 (say it back) [𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐑]

He's the introvert tall guy dressed in black who always picks you up from work, makes sure you drink enough water, and that you stay out of trouble. In a way, some might think it must be tiring to have a partner that's just so different than yourself- but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Tags/Warnings: Girly!Reader, Introvert!Jungkook, non-idol AU, opposites attract AU?, established relationship, Angst, Major Fluff, some drama, Slice of Life (like Good Girl AU for example), mc is kook's biggest simp, kook is kind of overwhelmed by her love sometimes, but it's fine they both cute

Length: No chapter limit set. Story will simply update randomly and focus on asks/requests.

━━━━━━━━━━.~°♡°~.━━━━━━━━━━━

You run into the bedroom where Jungkook is currently playing his video game, barely covered by a towel, hair up in a bun that's pretty much held together only by hopes and wishes.

"Jungkook!" You call out excitedly, and he pauses his game in a well used-to manner, making space so you can hop onto his lap, his controller falling onto the floor as he looses grip on it- more so concerned with holding you on his legs as you wiggle around. "Shower with me." You demand, and he sighs, looking over to his TV screen, inner battle hard to decide. "Jungkookie, please!" You whine, and he plays with his lip piercing.

"You know what happened last time." He worries. "You almost hit your head when you slipped-" He reminds you, but you just roll your eyes.

"There's nothing in it anyways-" You start jokingly, but he instead flicks his fingers against your forehead scoldingly, reminding you that he's not too fond of your own demeaning jokes against yourself, even if you don't out any honesty in those words. "-Kookie please, you've been at it for hours and I wanna have some quality time with my hot sexy anime boyfriend!" You huff, and he frowns a bit at that, confused.

"I'm your what now?" He wonders, and you laugh, running your fingers through his by now pretty long hair. He himself doesn't really know what you see in him- but he knows you love both him, and his appearance a lot, no matter if he just woke up, if he's sick, or if he's looking his best.

'You're like, my biggest boy-crush, ever!', he remembers you confessing to him one night in his apartment as you had shared pizza- just after he'd opened the glass bottle of strawberry ramune for you with one hand. 'like, please crush me with those hands, mister!' you had dramatically whined, and back then, he had taken it as nothing but playful joking.

Oh how dense he'd been.

"No really! You kind of look like Miyamura Izumi from Horimiya-" You tell him, pink sparkling acrylics combing over his scalp in a way that would make him purr, if he was a cat. "-a bit more buff and with more tattoos, but still. We gotta watch that show by the way, it's so cute!" You giggle, and he swallows down his own shyness creeping up. Even after half a year of dating you, he's not yet used to your boldness when it comes to complimenting him. He's not really used to it. Maybe never will.

But then again, he also thought of you as nothing but a hollow barbie doll come to life, in the beginning. Come to discover, you're not at all empty inside- but filled to the brim with color, by now having started to paint his life and even himself in more hues than he's ever really thought existed.

"Please.!" You try again, attempting your best puppydog eyes- though he's a little distracted by your cleavage dangerously exposed, towel hardly holding on. "Oh! I bought a new brand of body-scrub, by the way! Strawberry sugar, the one you said you liked when I first came over?" You remember, and he nods, sharing the excitement a lot more subtly than you, who's buzzing just at the thought of your new purchase.

"I remember that. It smelled really nice- but I thought it was discontinued?" He wonders, pulling out the hairtie from your bun to make a proper one for you.

"Oh it is! It's a different brand this time, but it smells pretty much the same.. and the container is like, bio-something, like, it's not plastic-"

"Biodegradable?" He asks with a smile, and you snap your fingers at him.

"So smart, those glasses really aren't just to look good." You praise, and he chuckles. "Anyway I'll scrub your pretty skin down top to bottom if you shower with me and maybe give me a handjob?" You ask, and he sighs a bit bashful. Sex is a big part of your relationship- you're very open with it, show your love in a more physical way than he does. He's never really been a cuddler, or someone to hold hands with- even kissing in public had been nothing but a myth to him prior to dating you.

These days? He can't seem to escape you- and he doesn't want to, either.

Sex has turned from something.. well, somewhat enjoyable to him, to something exciting and even romantic, even during the most messy encounters. It's like he's gotten a unique craving just for the taste of your way of love him- a craving only you can really satisfy.

"I'll even suck you off-" You start again, and at that he averts his eyes, shaking his head with a laugh and red ears, showing clearly that he's caving in, making you laugh as you get up- towel dropping, leaving you completely naked as you run into the bathroom, only turning around for a second to peek around the doorway into the bathroom, bare chest clearly visible as you see him pick up the towel. "oops." You tease, and at that, he suddenly dashes towards you-

easily catching your naked body in his arms as he closes the bathroom door behind him.

[kimbapisnotsushi]

it's akaashi's birthday!!! you guys know what that means!!!!!!!!!! have some timeskip special headcanons about akaashi and co. let's go!!!!

i think akaashi deserves a spin-off about his misadventures in the manga department honestly

gekkan shoujo nozaki kun. sekaiichi hatsukoi. bakuman. there is a lesson to be learned here people!!!!!

tenma gifts him a planner for his birthday and the first thing he does after opening it is mark all of tenma's deadlines. which he also has recorded in his phone calendar. AND he has them memorized. AND on sticky notes scattered throughout the office

tenma: you know i got you this planner so that you wouldn't have to put sticky notes everywhere, right? akaashi, sleep-deprived and running on five cups of coffee: time waits for no one, udai-san

the office has a special "akaashi keiji emergency rest kit" for when he falls asleep at his desk

it's got a blanket if it's cold, a pillow they tuck under his head, a bottle of water and snacks they leave next to him if he gets hungry/thirsty when he wakes up, and an eye mask that they put on him after they take off his glasses

idk i think the whole office really loves akaashi

and he really loves them back!!!! they're a team!!! they work together!!!! deadlines might be hell but at least it's a hell they're united in!!!

akaashi finding love and contentment and happiness in a place he initially wasn't sure about is everything to me okay

also i think he wingmans tenma and akiteru. i think it'd be very funny.

akaashi knows it's bad when he catches tenma drafting a whole new romance plot and he's like "udai-san. please. you have something due in five days you canNOT be doing this right now"

honestly akaashi just wants them to get together so that tenma will stop being dreamy and distracted and ACTUALLY focus on getting his manuscript done on time

and then they DO get together and akaashi is subjected to even more dreamy sighs and staring off into the distance and whatnot

tenma is such a disaster you guys i love him

ALSO YOU KNOW HOW MANGAKAS HAVE A LIL MASCOT TO REPRESENT THEMSELVES IN THE AUTHOR'S NOTE. TENMA'S IS DEFINITELY SOME KIND OF CROW

someone asks tenma if he has a favorite pro vball player and tenma says "hinata shouyou" with the BIGGEST smile on his face and hinata almost cries

LMAO HOW FUNNY WOULD IT BE IF KENMA OFFERED TO BANKROLL AND DEVELOP A ZOMBIE KNIGHTS VIDEO GAME

i mean i barely even know what zkz is about but based on the title i feel like it'd make a good video game

yachi can help design . . . lev and komi can voice act . . . yes . . . it's all coming together . . .

NEVER MIND I KNOW WHAT IT IS I READ A TRANSLATION OF THE LIGHT NOVEL IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING THIS

he wrote zkz in a restaurant are you SHITTING me udai tenma i love you

so apparently it got discontinued?? instead of allowing tenma to finish it the way he wanted?? so when tenma hears that kenma wants to make a video game out of it he ends up in tears

kenma's like "well it might have failed as a manga. but i think it'd make a pretty good video game, if you want to help out with that"

god everything about it makes me want to cry actually. tenma who is still chasing after his dreams. and akaashi right there, learning how to be better. learning how to be passionate. learning how to give tenma his all. because he's TENMA'S editor and he'll be damned if he doesn't do it well.

udai tenma in an interview about meteo attack: "yes, i am sad i didn't get a chance to end zkz in a way that would have made me happy. it was my first series, and that's always going to be precious to me. but meteo attack is one i'm looking forward to. it's a story about learning how to fly, when everybody else has long since been trampling on your wings and telling you that you can't."

sorry i did NOT mean to get this emotional over them. but now i am. and i am going to be thinking about it forever

meteo attack def gets raving reviews from players in the pro volleyball league, especially from hinata shouyou

[transmutationisms]

could you outline in more detail just how each of the siblings are attracted to fascism? i kind of get it for roman and connor but not quite for shiv & kendall

ok so, for roman and connor the connection is pretty clear because they both openly buy into the sort of hierarchical thinking that matsson and mencken bring to the table. connor has his nofap semen retention masculinity thing, and roman basically agrees with logan's dichotomy of masculine strength vs feminine weakness, but identifies himself as being in the weak category and has a sexual fixation on those he perceives as strong and dominant. also both connor and roman have tossed out some haha antisemitism moments, which goes back to their general buy-in to racial thinking and hierarchies. obviously antisemitic violence is a major strategy, tool, and goal for fascist movements. roman and connor both fixate sexually on masculinity, and although connor identifies with it in a way roman does not, they both use this strong / weak, insider / outsider thinking that makes fascism appealing to them.

with shiv i think you have to keep in mind that liberalism is not in any way opposed to fascism. fascism historically is basically an attempted solution to the internal contradictions of liberal democracies; in particular, liberalism is rhetorically egalitarian but in practice hierarchical, exclusionary, and class-divided, because it is capitalist. fascism basically says "that's fine, actually; the hierarchies are natural and biological, so they don't need to be eliminated." this is why shiv is the one to do business with matsson, who shows off his strong masculine body all episode and has a team of strapping young olympians and fulbright scholars. this type of biological-meritocratic appeal is a specific way of naturalising and justifying the class / race / gender hierarchies that liberal capitalism produces and depends on, meaning it's not discontinuous with shiv's liberal ideology at all. (note that her wealth and whiteness allow her to operate within the gender hierarchy, even as the episode shows us the ways in which she's kept from the very innermost masculine socialisation that her brothers have access to). also, her persistently thinking that poor people are dirty is, like, very classic fascist thinking lol.

kendall doesn't really have a cohesive political ideology, but he sure does think capitalism is Cool, Dude. he wants to be, like, a visionary angel investor (wearing lanvins), and he responds to matsson's stupid techno-futurist bullshit. for him fascism has a similar appeal as it does for shiv, because of the capitalism of it all, except kendall doesn't even have to detour through liberalism because he literally doesn't care. in fact, the thing that turns him off matsson's deal is that he wants to run logan's empire himself—so, he's still buying into the hierarchy and logan's concept of dominance, only he's placing himself at the top of it. kendall's not really crusading for any particular political goal because he like.... doesn't think about people besides himself. but what he wants for himself is to be the patriarch-ceo that logan was, thus replicating logan's fascism (but deluding himself into thinking his underlings just Really Like Him, Actually). his ideological vacuousness, combined with his power drive and desire for (retroactive) logan approval, mean he's drawn to fascism as a mode of capitalist governance / corporate management.

i would add that although logan's fascism comes through most directly in roman and kendall (because they don't have their own ideologies), all four sibs are operating within a capitalist political epistemology that logan('s ghost) defines. also, they all have various loganish interpersonal qualities; for example, shiv and connor share that tendency to want to Exert Their Will and Be Right, hence both of them going into politics lol.

i would also add (i'm paraphrasing césaire) that fascism was not 'new' when it arrived in europe in the early 20th century; it was already the modus operandi of colonial governance around the world. what was new was that white europeans started to experience it as directly curbing THEIR freedom. waystar is obviously a different type of empire than the nation-states of the 20th century; namely, it is a corporate entity. however, i think there's still something to be said here about the fact that waystar operates multinationally and engages in certain forms of economic imperialism and foreign political meddling. i would argue that anyone involved in upper managerial positions in the company is at the very least acceding to logics of authoritarianism and fascism in the far reaches of the empire, and more realistically is also okaying it 'domestically' (note that this reverberates all the way down to the level of the roy family unit, as it is an articulation of logan's empire).

[meiieiri]

Hi! Another person here asking about Water's Edge (sorry). This is kind of an insight into your writing and your life, so if you don't feel comfortable with that or just don't wanna share, feel free to ignore this!

You're thinking of discontinuing the series because of lack in interaction, right? I can't think of a smooth way to transition into my question, so I'll just put it bluntly:

Is writing Water's Edge (specifically) something that you're doing for interactions or something you're doing for fun?

That question alone should determine whether or not you should discontinue the series.

If you're doing this purely for interactions, I'd say that I can't really help you. It's up to you if your writing is purely based on interactions.

If it's for fun, then consider how much fun you're having while doing this. Are you having fun writing it? Does it feel more like a chore than something you'd like to do? If it feels like a burden, then stop. Discontinue the series. If it feels like a burden because of interactions, try and disregard interactions and focus on writing. Never let views, interactions, likes, shares, comments, etc– determine the worth or fun of your writing. Ever. You may already know that, but it's just a reminder. If you really liked where the series was headed, then I'd say finish that chapter and see how things go. If you're happy with it and proud of what you did, then I'd say consider continuing it. If you feel like either a huge burden was lifted after finishing it or just genuinely exhausted, try taking a break or just discontinuing it completely. Personally, I was a really consistent poster once. It got boring and exhausting trying to think of new ideas. I'm now only posting once every 2 months, maybe? I feel much better.

Take my advice if you want, but you don't need to be completely swayed by my opinions or personal thoughts. Just take it into consideration. I personally really like Water's Edge. The storyline is interesting and the formatting is unique. I'd love to see more of it, but it'd be awful if you decided to put your work before yourself. If you do discontinue it, please take care of yourself.

Note: Maybe writing shorter chapters will make it less of a chore? The first two chapters were really long. Idk I'm not a writer. Just an idea.

Sorry this was really long. I hope you have a good day 💕 Sorry if something doesn't make sense or if there's grammar mistakes! I'm writing this on my phone :,)

I actually really liked reading this, damn.

And to answer your question, no, I’m not writing purely out of interactions, in fact, I first started writing this series because I really had a good idea on the top of my head, I just think that, with all my exhaustion writing these longass chapters, it’ll be great to see people actually picking it up and showing appreciation or even hate, lmao. Just something to be recognized would have gone a long way but — that’s something the old me would say. I was re-reading the last few chapters and I feel really bad of having to leave it on the table, completely forgotten, because this fic — writing this fic rather – is the closest thing I have to an actual baby :’3

But you’re right, I did a lot of thinking and I’m guessing we’re back on, this is something I’ll see through to the end. However bitter it may be.

Thanks for this, I needed that.

[whumpbug]

hi bug i am here to trade questions!! i have a burning one about your boy archie:

what exactly are his powers? what sort of things can he do? what are the drawbacks to them, how do they hurt him back?

thank you :>

-@whump-kia

thank you SO much for asking this because i've been wanting an excuse to talk about this boy ( ๑˘ω˘ ) like yours, i also wrote a LOT so i apologize in advance

okay so. i think i've said before that his enhancements are like if daredevil and captain's americas abilities combined but ill explain it in more detail for people who aren't totally sure about the specifics of that

the tl;dr is basically this: archie has enhanced strength and heightened senses. he's about 4 times as strong as the average male his age, and similarly as resilient. because of his enhanced strength, he can also run faster and jump higher (the boy has quads of steel). he can also see and hear much clearer and farther than your average human and can even hear heartbeats from a decent distance away!

under the cut is a lottt more detail and context for those who are interested!

so basically, i'm gonna start with some backstory.

archie's villain (hero) origin story:

archie grew up in the city and was never very. affluent.

he grew up with his mother because his father left when he was really young. he doesn't remember him well, but what he does remember is the effect his absence had on his mom. to put it briefly, he grew up around a lot of things that a child shouldn't have had to grow up around.

still, his mother did her absolute best to give him a good, safe childhood. unfortunately, there are things you just cant protect your child from.

when he was about 7, he was walking home from school and goofing around like a kid does, and he somehow got roped into a drug deal that was being made just a block from his apartment.

long story short, the guys were roughing him up (they were assholes.) and one of them was messing around and pretending to stick him with one of the syringes.

and then he actually did.

and it was agony.

poor, tiny archie was immediately overcome with the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life to this day.

to avoid this section becoming a straight up 100k fic, ill just say that the recovery from the initial contact with the serum took archie weeks to recover from, and it many ways, he hasn't.

the boy is terrified of needles.

about the drug itself:

so you're gonna have to bear with me her because i am not a biochemist, and this might not make any sense.

so the drug, which i've dubbed VSD (Very Scary Drug) was originally made by a very shady crime syndicate, for underground fighting rings, kind of like a steroid but more permanent. the drug has 2 parts.

the first part of it works by acting on a specific DNA sequence, and spurring HGH (Human Growth Hormone) to amp up its production in the skeletal muscle cells, bone cells, and neuromuscular junctions (for better and faster reflexes)

the other part alters the somatosensory cortex, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe, and esentially causes them to be extremely active, to a point beyond human ability, but because of the first part of the drug, it's able to heal itself and create new cells

because VSD was designed to be permanent, it is very dangerous and not for everyone. the thing about it is that you have to be genetically compatible with it, or the entire thing could backfire or malfunction. only about 1 in every 100k people are even able to reap the effects of the drug. about 1 in every 100 even survive taking it at the dose archie recieved it.

if someone incompatible takes the drug, the effects are. dire. they can range from blindness, deafness, loss of sensation throughout the entire body, tumors, complete paralysis, and even the body just. not producing more cells. and then the vicitim would just deteriorate.

so yeah! not a fun time! and archie was incredibly lucky. the drug was obviously discontinued, and archie hasn't heard of anyone else who recieved the same effects that he did. there are only drugs that can do similar things now, but none are permant like archie's, and the abilities dont even begin to compare.

now what the hell can archie actually do?

well, let's first start with what he can't do.

the drug has no cognitive or behavioral effects, so archie is still the same old archie, only his body has changed.

the drug also has no effect on the immune system, both innate and adaptive. archie can get sick the same as any person, and has the same recovery time too!

now lets move on to the fun stuff!

like i said before, archie has about 4 times the strength as your average male his age. because of his muscle mass and bone density, he is also relatively resilient to injuries from "normal" people, but he's not like. invincible. if you smack that boy with a brick, its gonna hurt. he is sometimes unaware of his own strength and limits though, and throws himself to situations with the mindset of "this isnt even gonna scatch me" and is proven very wrong.

as for his senses, we'll start with vision

he can see about twice as far as your average person, and with clarity beyond even 20/20. he is also very privy to noticing small movements, even if theyre in his peripheral.

now hearing! he can hear much much quieter things than your average human. im not totally sure how to quantify this one, but basically he is hearing like.. everything. all the time. which we'll get into later. the way i gauge it is the fact than he can hear heartbeats, even when he'd just standing next to the person.

and lastly (and probably least interestingly) touch! he can feel sensations a lot more clearly than most. the sensation you would have on your fingertips is kind of what he feels all over, and it makes him have pretty bad sensory issues with certain things (me too archie, me too.)

how can we whump this boy?!

okay, now onto the drawbacks of these abilities!

you're probably thinking "bug. how are there even any drawbacks? these abilities seem sick asf! how do i get my hands on VSD?!"

and i'm here to tell you. NO no you do not want this. archie still suffers every day.

the first and most obvious one is the unimaginable sensory overload this boy feels every day. he hardly ever gets a quiet moment, and even when he does, he still can't tune out the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. it's hell. luckily, hes had 17 years to learn to cope, but he still has days where he curls into a ball in a dark room and sobs because everything is too bright and so so loud

also, the drug isn't painless. since the muscle mass isn't natural, prolonged use of his body (like in fights) cause horrific aches the days after. it feels like his body is trying to tear itself apart, which, it kind of is.

also, the headaches. god, the headaches. the human brain does not take kindly to being toyed with and doesn't archie know it. archie is sort just. in a perpetual headache. and he only really notices when that headache becomes a migraine. get this boy some ibuprofen, please.

another thing is increased appetite. because cells can't just synthesize out of nowhere, archie has to keep up with the rapid production. this boy can EAT. he is always hungry. always snacking.

lastly, the psychological aspect of the whole thing. growing up as a superhuman, where even playing thumb war could break your classmate's thumb, was hard. archie lived most of his childhood keeping to himself in fear of his own strength. as he got older, he learned to manage it a bit better, but he's still very anxious about it. he won't let himself near babies, cats, or small dogs.

and then, of course, there's the trauma. this manifests as a SEVERE needle phobia, as well as just a fear of doctors in general. its the reason why he and Simon's relationship just works. he doesn't see him as a doctor, he sees him as a friend who is always willing to take care of him when he needs it, and for that, he is forever grateful

end!

and that's pretty much it! please excuse my probably horrid typos and grammar errors, i kind of rushed this because i was excited, so i hope you like it kia! thank you so so much for the ask! ヾ(^ ^ゞ

[idontlikeem]

tw incoherency self-pity and discussions of cancer and medical stuff surrounding it, honestly this is just me being so whiny and i just need to get it out, but i'm talking about actual medical procedures and etc in here so if that or me being a terrible self-centered daughter is going to trigger you please don't read because i'm not censoring this or making it palatable.

i have had a little bit of a fraught relationship with my mom for my whole life, as i think a lot of eldest/only daughters do. there was friction when i was a teenager, there were (are) body image issues thrust upon me, there were expectations and unfair standards and as the only girl a bit of sexism mixed in with it all...the usual, you know. but once i graduated college and grew up a little we've had a much better relationship. i've gotten better at letting her stray comments about my weight and life choices roll off my back (mostly), and she's trying to be less overbearing and critical. i talk to her a lot, and i want to share stuff with her.

she's stopped picking up when i call.

it's not every time, but it's enough that i'm noticing. it's enough that i text to follow up. it's enough that my throat gets tight whenever it happens. aaaaand it's enough to make me cranky and petulant when i don't get a reply.

i have this blue armchair i bought a few months ago. it was my first big furniture purchase after i got divorced that wasn't a necessity and was just something i wanted, and i love it. the problem is it was a discontinued model and color from ikea, so there was no ottoman/footrest that matched that i could buy, and i've been looking for something that was at least a close match ever since, because i'm tall enough that even a chair and a half is not comfy for me to sit on for long periods of time without somewhere to prop my feet.

and i finally found one! it's not perfect but it was inexpensive and i like how they look together, so that's all that matters. come thru target, i should have started there tbh. so i wanted to show her since it got delivered today and i was able to confirm it was a match.

i facetimed twice and she didn't answer, and i texted asking if she was busy with no reply.

i got mad! i got pouty and texted my friends about how my mom barely ever picks up when i facetime her anymore, and i always have to follow up and ask what's going on and if she can talk, and it's annoying to me. as i was doing that, i was texting my dad asking if she was ok.

turns out yesterday she was in the hospital all day getting fluid drained from her abdomen. the chemotherapy she'd been receiving since last fall has recently stopped working, and her blood markers are skyrocketing and the tumors are growing again. she's started a new treatment, sort of a hail mary, but if this doesn't work that's kind of it.

we've always been buying time, but i'd stupidly let myself sort of...i mean, i didn't think she was going to be cured, that's not possible, but when a treatment is letting her sort of seem better, feel better, be out in the world and doing stuff and closer to 'normal'...it's easy to lull yourself into a sense of denial, like 'oh this is just how it's going to be forever'.

stupid. of course it wasn't.

and meanwhile i'm sitting here reading my dad's text about the procedure, about how she had to get 2.75 liters of fluid drained out of her abdomen and she's probably going to have to get a drain re-installed so they can do it at home again (she'd gotten it removed early summer because of how well the chemo was working, the ascites was all but gone), and all i can think is:

i want to show my mom my stupid ottoman. i want her to say 'oh that looks great! isn't target the best? why do we ever shop anywhere else. oh and it has storage! you could put your hats and gloves in there, or maybe even some extra toiletries.' i want to chat about a fucking furniture purchase and listen to her talk about how she's going to try it out when she comes to visit me next. i want her to keep me on the phone for too long, to the point where i get annoyed and make up a meeting so i can hang up.

it's not fair. i want my mom to be my mom. she's sitting at home so exhausted and dying and this is all i can fucking think about. it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Wow, I'm mad at myself for being late to the favorite fic subject coming up /j

Personally, I'm a huge sucker for cya and have itysg as a second(however, if we decide to count your other fics then... itysg would be third while your smile makes me smile would be second). I think it's the amount of world building that makes it so interesting for me along with the fact that it takes place before the archon war. Like, there hardly passes a day where cya doesn't just... scoot right over into my thoughts making it kinda hard to reread cause it know it so well </3.

I am sad to say that I haven't checked out BitA yet. When I first saw it while looking for some other fic of yours to read, I didn't really like apocalypse stories much. I might check it out though cause I'm a lot more open to those kinds of stories now. I also remember starting every good intention, but I don't remember why I stopped... I think I had to get off my phone for a bit and just... forgot to continue? Idk I really should check those two...

You really get me Sprinkles- those murder mystery fics are so good! I remember reading one of genshin that was also mixed with a time loop and I just ate it up-(it was sadly discontinued and then deleted from ao3, but not before I managed to download it for future offline reading-) I'm honestly interested in those wriolette ones you mentionned, may I have a few recs if you don't mind? I need more wriolette in my life.

i do in fact have some wriolette murder mystery / cop mystery recs

A Match Made in France by oooohscar - not a murder mystery per se but it does contain mystery investigations. it's basically furina trying to matchmake neuvillette and wriothesley and she quickly discovers they work well as investigation partners? and so she starts trying to get them to investigate things together, but then shit gets out of hand. it's so fucking good and so fucking funny. like it's pre-reveal furina but i can forgive the mild ooc and- y'know, furina portrayal pre-trauma-reveal (?) just because it's so well written and hilarious (and also she's not portrayed entirely as a brat, i find her more absurdly histrionic than anything). also it's not just furina pov, it switches between all of them. it's incomplete but updating, and absolutely worth a read

The Gambler's Debt by Marsrevale - much more serious than the one above, this one is a murder mystery through and through. the mystery is still only starting, so it probably has a long way to go, but i'm patient so i'll keep up. it's basically neuvillette and clorinde going to investigate a series of murders in the fortress of meropide (this is a sort of modern au so meropide is a gambling house / hotel i think) and wriothesley is the main suspect, but there's also stuff going on between neuvillette and wriothesley bc they knew each other long ago but only wriothesley recognizes him. idk how else to describe it, it's really intriguing so far, i hope the mystery pans out nicely

Hold my hand, never let me go by Jinnmi - also a proper murder mystery, this one is about what is essentially a branch of fontaine's police force for criminal investigation led by wriothesley and the many interconected cases they have to solve. neuvillette is sent as a consultant to keep an eye on them, but ends up basically joining the team as they all try to solve a big case that seems to threaten the country whole and is also somehow connected to wriothesley's past. this one is very good, the murders might be a bit too gruesome for sensitive people? but still, really nice. i love the unsettling vibe of whatever the one behind this all is planning, the suspense is also really good. still updating and i rush to it every time a new chapter comes out, it had me in a chokehold when i first found it.

hope those sound interesting!

[shamera]

Jan-Feb 2024 Manhwa round-up

it is MARCH so it's two whole months of manhwa that I wanna talk about I'M SO SORRY so here are the top 5 new (to me) manhwa that I read the past two months!

5. Estio

The story of a boy with the ability to communicate with animals, a power that grows and evolves into something fearsome as he grows up. It's the story of Estio's search for a meaning to his life and his powers, and to understand humanity's place in the world. (This series had me crying over a cactus at 1am, so it's earned it's place on top 5!)

4. The Way to Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother

The villainess of all time. Roxanna is the reason for 'she can step on me and I will thank her' phrases. Transmigration story, except this time the lead realises that the only way to prevent the bad end is to be a greater villainess than the original character. With an entire villain family to deal with, Roxanna will manipulate, seduce, and kill her way to take them all down and save the character whose death starts the tragic novel she's now living. (Probably discontinued, but good enough to still recommend with the chapters that are out.)

3. Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess

A 'transmigrated as the villainess' story where the original villainess was merely a victim, and every choice leads to death. Thanks to the system, Penelope knows her only chance of survival is to seduce one of the romance targets before the female lead arrives-- except they're all red flags a hair's breath away from murdering her if she so much as says the wrong thing. Her manipulations and scheming in order to survive, however, is leading her to become a greater villainess than the original ever was, and that might actually be the key to her survival... if she doesn't get murdered by her romance targets first.

2. The Greatest Estate Developer

A transmigration story where... the mc's past life is relevant?? Lloyd Frontera was meant to be a scummy noble who dies at the beginning of the story as a way for the protagonist Javier Asrahan to leave the family he was serving, but when a modern day civil engineer takes over Lloyd's life, the fantasy world he's now living in is about to get an upgrade! (An absolutely hilarious story with what might be my favourite mc and protag relationship. The ridiculous artwork is a bonus and I look forward to how much more deranged Lloyd can look with each chapter!)

The S-Classes That I Raised

I started reading this 10am Jan 1st, and I know this because I have liveblogging receipts. I literally wrote 'this one is going to break my heart' and 'BRING IT ON' and then proceeded with 79 reaction comments the first day. When I finished the manhwa, I went straight to the novels and spent the NEXT MONTH AND A HALF reading all 850+ chapters. This series has catapulted it's way to my #1 manhwa in my heart, and I posted a whole powerpoint on why. It's a story about F-ranked hunter Han Yoojin and his S-ranked little brother, Han Yoohyun. It's a story about brothers absolutely doomed by the narrative and their attempts to save each other, even if they have to save the world in the process. It's about the family you choose, and about love (not even the romantic kind) bringing people together, and how people don't need to be strong to be important. It's a story of Yoojin turning back time to save his brother, and then saving a girl who needed help, and then saving a man who needed a friend... and he continues to reach out to people who didn't even know they needed human connection. It's about a doomed world that fears S-ranks as much as they revere them, because people with that kind of power are nothing short of monsters, but they are the only possible way of saving the world. It's about a boy rejected by the world, and his brother who rejected the world to keep him safe. (And later on, it's about a man who was meant to be a protagonist, but even he can't save the world from what's coming.)

Below is: IT DIDN'T MAKE TOP 5, BUT THEY WERE REALLY GOOD! The honorable mentions~

Honorable Mentions (aka they are really good! I read through all the chapters that are out and I now check for weekly updates!!):

How to Live as the Enemy Prince

MC was the prince of a country that was invaded and conquered for a mysterious time artifact, but after he was killed in battle he finds himself decades in the past as the sickly third prince of the enemy kingdom who was originally murdered before he reached adulthood. His goal was to help his original kingdom by preventing his new brother's ascension to the throne, yet he finds out that in this timeline, the king of his previous kingdom didn't have a younger brother who fought for him, and that the time artifact disappeared when he woke in the new body.

Max-Level Player's 100th Regression

MC is part of a brutal death game that he's consistently died to, only to realise right before his final regression that the last stage of the game required teammates-- and now he's on a journey not only to survive the game, but the level up the people around him so that they can finally defeat the death game. Almost made top 5 because the art is... hnnnng. So good. Also MC has a cute little brother he's very protective of, and I desperately wanted another story like S-Classes.

My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me

Genuine Fruits Basket successor, it feels like! After being murdered by her supposed loving family, MC wakes up weeks before her death and throws herself into an contract marriage with a duke powerful enough her family wouldn't dare go against, only to eventually find out that the duke's family has a mysterious and deadly curse-- one that she's immune to (because she's already died from it before), and her immunity sparks hope that perhaps the family curse can be broken after all. Really intriguing plot as it's soon revealed she's not the only one who died and then woke up several weeks in the past, and that there are outsiders who want to make use of the family's curse for their own gains.

The Crown Prince That Sells Medicine

Set in the same world 300 years after Greatest Estate Developer! A doctor wakes up as a sickly crown prince and the system once again pulls shenanigans where the only way to live is to save lots and lots of people, so he goes to save the novel protagonist who becomes his personal guard! Less than 20 chapters so far, but it's super promising and really funny!

The Newbie is Too Strong!

A great take on the tower ascension trope and streaming sponsorships-- except rather than the gods watching, it's other players who are watching the progress! After finding out the orphanage he grew up in would only have three more years of funding, MC discovers a series of videos sent to his phone that featured himself in the future challenging the tower and decides that would be the perfect way to make enough money to keep the orphanage going. By the time he's drawn into the tower, he's ready for every challenge-- or so he thinks.

Debut or Die

Reincarnation idol series with a system! MC wakes up one day three years in the past in someone else's body, with a system that tells him he has to debut as an idol within a year or die! He ends up on an idol show using unconventional thinking to climb his way to the top. Really funny concept with a lead character who has to be the most blank-faced and deadpan debut idol I've ever seen.

Pick Me Up

What I call 'I got isekai'ed into Raid: Shadow Legends' because that is what it is. MC gets isekai'ed into the mobile gacha game he played where characters stay dead if they die in battle, and now he's a character at the whim of an unseen, unknown 'master' who summons heroes and pushes them to fight-- even killing off characters by 'combining' them with others in order to help one get stronger. He has to survive the game he was playing, and this time without control of anything at all!

I Thought My Time was Up!

Hilarious. Almost made top five this time! MC is told she has three months to live, and so she proceeds to stop worrying about everything and live her life the way she wants-- and her bucket list includes having a hot boyfriend! Thus begins her utterly shameless and relentless pursuit of a fearsome Duke, winning the hearts of everyone around her with her fearless and go-getter demeanour (which is really just a result of not fearing death at this point).

Tyrant of Tower Defense

Another 'main character gets isekai'ed into the game he was playing', except with heavy Fear and Hunger and Bloodborne vibes. In a game where the goal was to defend a city against waves of monsters, each level more impossible than the next, the MC is out to discover the secret of the world he's stuck in-- because in his previous life he barely managed to defeat the game with one surviving character, and this time he wants everyone to live. Now he's out to discover just where the invading monsters come from, and why they're here.

Hunter World's Gardener

In a hunter and dungeons world, the MC is the class 'labourer' which doesn't quite allow him to raid dungeons, and thus he opens up a general store for hunters instead. My slice-of-life pick this month! Finally, a sweet cinnamon roll MC who is 1, not struggling in his life and 2, not being taken advantage of by other people in a way that will later leave them scarred or jaded! Seriously, this series is sweet in every way: a kind MC whose kindness is rewarded in turn, and people around him who genuinely want to help him keep that innocence and ensure no one takes advantage of him! (Another around 20 chapters so far story.)

My Favorite Novel has a Weird Epilogue

MC is an olympic gold medalist fencer who gets transmigrated into her favourite novel-- except 20 years after the horrible ending! All her favourite characters are dead and gone, and now she's determined to protect the son of her OTP, which means she's definitely going to do the same thing as her favourite character (his mom), and pretend to be a boy in order to be his knight. Again, around 20 chapters, but this is shaping up to be really really funny.

Moon-Painting Alchemist

Less than 20 chapters so far, and the first bl to make the list! MC is a genius alchemist tasked with creating a spell that would show people their future spouse, but when he finally thought he had it, the spell showed him-- a man? When he fixed the spell again, it showed him a boy the second time-- a boy that he soon meets, who disappears soon after right before he meets the man he saw in his spell-- who hires him to break a complicated curse. (I'd give this one a mature rating for the Duke's dirty mind, lol, but so far it's played off as humorous intrusive thoughts.)

The Tyrant Wants to be Good

This story led me to tears. About a tyrant queen who woke up at the beginning of her life after she was executed by her country, and rather than revenge and power, she decides that this time she will live her life quietly and learn to be a good person. Starting with her as a young, unloved princess, it really explores how she went down the path she did, and her quiet exhaustion as she examines what originally led her to kill her brother for the throne, and her descent into madness as she took up the crown in the first timeline. This time around, she's resigned to a life without love so long as she doesn't cause the downfall of the people she cares for. (Every scene with her and her brother had me in tears, because he loves her so much but it took her a lifetime and a half to see that.)

The Academy's Undercover Professor

I had to debate between this series and Estio on the top 5 list, because this one is also very, very good but in a different way. Complicated world-building, factions and politics, with events that will keep you on your toes-- this is almost a Sherlock Holmes-esque story where the intrigue keeps you going and you don't know who is actually who. Set in a fantasy version of Victorian England at a magical academy, the MC is accidentally roped into a role he was never meant for while he investigates criminal organizations and searches for relics that contain a hidden power, all the while being hunted by different knight and police groups.

Series I read that didn't quite cater to me but it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be good for other people (mostly because I really couldn't connect to the main character, but it doesn't mean the story is bad)!

I'm the Queen in This Life

Regressor Instructional Manual

Necromancer Survival

Global Examination

Limited Extra Time

The Villain Discovered My Identity

The Remarried Empress

Third Wheel Strikes Back

Weapon Creator

Seoul Station Druid

Revenge of the Iron-Blooded Sword Hound

F-Class Destiny Hunter

66,666 Years: Advent of the Dark Mage

Reincarnated Assassin is a Genius Swordsman

Reporting for Duty, Duchess!

Doom Breaker

Cleric of Decay

[sineala]

What do you think was the better* “later addition to canon”?

Steve being frozen post WW2

Or

Tony being an alcoholic

Because those aspects weren’t part of the original sell of the character but it’s such a big part of each

Or a third option!

*better can be “I think this adds the most interesting things to the canon from a writer’s perspective” or even “I like this most 🙂”

Interesting question! Thank you for asking! Honestly, I feel like both of those things are very different from each other, in terms of narrative function, and if you're actually looking for moments in canon that added something new and major to Steve and Tony's characters that wasn't there before, I wouldn't pick either of those moments for either of them.

I have some thoughts about this!

Steve getting iced was basically just a retcon to put Steve in the comics at the age that they wanted and not having to deal with him having reached the ancient and decrepit age of 40, an age that is clearly forbidden for superheroes. It's not really much different from how they keep adjusting things as the timescale keeps sliding -- Sharon is Peggy's niece and not her sister, Tony's origin story moves to wars that are later than Vietnam. It's just one of a number of changes Marvel makes regularly to keep character ages consistent; sure, it might even be the first of them. But I don't think the icing itself is a fundamental change in who Steve is as a character.

Now, you could argue that the Man Out of Time aspect -- which came in as a direct result of the icing -- is a fundamentally different part of Steve's character that wasn't present in earlier comics and changed who he was. But in response to that, I would argue that, in a lot of ways, Golden Age Captain America isn't really the same character at all as later Steve Rogers. I would say that the Steve we know and love is one who has pretty much only existed since Avengers #4 and in a sense has always had the ice in his backstory. Sure, a character with the same name, powers, and origin as Captain America existed in the Golden Age -- but that guy, he doesn't really seem like Steve, and modern canon sure doesn't treat him like Steve. The fact that there was also a discontinuity in publishing -- unlike how DC, IIRC, never really stopped, Timely kind of isn't actually Marvel, and everything from before Fantastic Four #1 kind of doesn't count. I think.

I don't know how much Golden Age Captain America you've read. I haven't read all of it. I've only read about a dozen issues, but I feel like that's enough for me to get a sense of the character. So the thing about Golden Age comics is that they all just feel… really weird, compared to anything from the 60s and later. You get a sense that everyone at the time was still working out what a superhero comic, and maybe just a comic at all, was going to be like. The plots are weird, the villains are… okay, the villains being usually Super Racist is sadly not unique to the Golden Age, but it's really prominent. The characters don't really behave in ways you would expect. Bucky is treated as an actual child would have been in the forties -- like, there are panels of Steve threatening to spank him as discipline -- and the characters just don't feel the same.

Other than the fact that the super-soldier serum turned Steve Rogers into Captain America, and the fact that Bucky is his sidekick, and what Steve's powers basically are, nothing in these comics really feels a lot like the same character. Canonically, most of it isn't the same character! Everything after Captain America Comics #48 has been retconned to be people who aren't Steve, which shows you how much he isn't like Steve. Even the stuff that supposedly happened to Steve and Bucky doesn't really get referred to all that much. When later comics talk about Steve's time in the war, it's almost never the events of the Golden Age comics themselves -- instead, Marvel created a whole lot of stuff via flashbacks and then they refer to that. You never see Steve and Bucky talking about, say, the time they had to be in a drag show as punishment, although I swear this was a real comic. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos? Not in the Golden Age. The Invaders? Not in the Golden Age as a team! The All-Winners Squad was, but again, that features Captains America who were later retconned as not Steve (William Nasland, Jeff Mace). Most of Steve's villains other than Red Skull are not really there. It's just… not really the same character and there's not much of a meaningful sense of continuity between any of the events in the Golden Age and later comics. Later comics are working mostly from their own retellings and flashbacks. So I feel like Steve basically starts anew in Avengers #4 and thus has always been a Man Out Of Time.

Okay, so what about Tony's alcoholism? Tony before and after Demon in a Bottle is still Tony Stark, but the thing is, I feel like Tony's alcoholism isn't a drastic alteration to the character, and it fits very well with established canon, and it has been easily accepted as part of Tony's character, unlike something that just comes out of nowhere and is true now and everyone is all WTF at it (looking at you, adoption arc).

Tony's worst villain has always been himself. Specifically, it's been his own body. At the beginning, it was his heart damage and the chestplate, and the terrible curse inherent in Being Tony Stark was that someday soon his heart was going to give out. There are so many panels of him dramatically plugging himself into the wall and thinking about how close he is to death. Tony's origin story was essentially Here, Have A Disability. His body betrays him. His body doesn't do what he wants. He can't control it. There's something wrong with him and it's hurting him. Every so often they take away whatever's wrong with him, but they always revert to it -- his heart's been bad, and then fine, and then bad, and then fine, and here's the alcoholism, and oh no now he's paralyzed, and now it's his brain and he has amnesia, and so on.

In that sense, the alcoholism really feels like a natural escalation from the heart problems and that it fits well with all of this all of this. Here's something else about his body/mind that isn't right, that's causing him harm, that he initially tries to hide from almost everyone, and that he often has difficulty controlling. It's just that it's not his heart anymore.

So what would I pick for canonical moments in comics history that weren't part of Steve and Tony's original character conceptions and that really represented a new addition to his character?

For Steve I'd pick either the original Secret Empire arc (Nomad) or The Captain, because those basically both show the same thing. Sure, Captain America has always been a symbol of all the ideals of America as a country, and sometimes America lets him down, and sometimes he has to lecture people about how they should be better people -- but, as far as I know, Secret Empire was the first time Steve basically said, "Yeah, no, fuck the government." He loves his country. He doesn't always love his government. He doesn't think what happened in Secret Empire (which, yes, we all know, is secretly Watergate) is right, so he's going to… simply stop being Captain America. He's going to be Nomad. The government itself has now massively let him down, and they don't get to tell him what to do anymore. And now we're all like, "Oh, yeah, of course Steve is mad at the government and has decided to stop being Captain America right now! He's gonna go on a road trip to find himself! Here he is in Civil War telling the pro-Registration side they're wrong and becoming a fugitive from justice." But… he didn't start out like that.

This is a character who was created to be a soldier and to do what his country asked of him. Sure, there are early arcs where he gives up the shield for a little bit, but they're because he's going through one of his usual "who am I when I'm not Captain America?" crises and then he comes back pretty quick. It wasn't that he didn't believe in his government; it wasn't that kind of crisis of faith. But then Secret Empire happens and he's like, "yeah, no, I can't represent a country when the president was conspiring with aliens to take over the world" and he's just out of there. Same deal for The Captain. The government wants to tell him what to do because he's Captain America? Nope! Someone else can be Captain America now. Of course, then John Walker does a terrible job and Steve has to come back anyway. John Walker is like your awful roommate who half-asses the dishes so no one will ask him to do the dishes again even though he clearly knows how to wash dishes and chooses not to, except with murder instead.

But, anyway, the moral stance depicted in Secret Empire and The Captain is pretty much the same -- when the government does something he thinks is wrong, he just simply stops being Captain America. He's not afraid to go against the government in Civil War or (for a more modern example) Devil's Reign. And it's not really a stance he had before Secret Empire, as far as I know. If you told comics readers in, say, 1970, that you really liked the fact that Steve wasn't afraid to quit being Captain America to protest unjust laws, they would probably be very confused. Steve is Captain America! He works for SHIELD! He does what the government tells him! Why wouldn't he? Except, well… these days, he doesn't.

And I think you can tell that this is important to the modern conception of Steve's character because it made it into the MCU. Okay, true, any adaptation of Civil War was probably going to have to involve Steve going against some kind of law about superheroes because he thinks it's the right thing to do -- that personality trait is basically baked into the plot. But they put it in the MCU way before Civil War, presumably because they thought this was important enough to Steve's character that it needed to be included. CATWS is an adaptation of Brubaker's Winter Soldier arc that I would say is a lot more faithful to the comics than many of the MCU entries that share names with the comics. But you know what the 616 Winter Soldier arc doesn't have? A plot where Steve decides that he's unable to trust anyone at SHIELD because they're secretly Hydra and therefore we are right to be suspicious of the US government which may not be acting in our best interests anyway because apparently even the good guys in SHIELD were still interested in building helicarriers to shoot people down -- they just had a different target list than Hydra did. The 616 Winter Soldier arc does, in fact, have the Red Skull infiltrating SHIELD. He then proceeds to successfully murder Steve. There's not really a Trust No One plot going on because Steve doesn't get that far, and he dies before any of this is discovered and also misses out on Secret Invasion. Plus, hey, the scene that introduces us to Steve way back in CATFA shows him sitting there staring at a sign saying it's illegal to lie on his enlistment papers and then we find out he's been lying a lot. Because he thinks doing the right thing is more important than obeying the law. Yeah, they went there pretty early.

For Tony, my pick for a similarly significant character development that absolutely wasn't part of his original character is his decision to stop making weapons in Iron Man #78. He was created to be a defense contractor. He spent about ten RL years making weapons and, as far as we can tell from canon, not really experiencing any kind of crisis of conscience about, say, being a superhero and also making weapons at the same time. And then (because readers complained) he meets a pacifist, changes his mind about everything, stops taking SHIELD weapons contracts, and then stops making weapons entirely. This is a pretty significant career change for a character who started out happily making weapons. He just stopped. He doesn't do it anymore. He hasn't in years. And now it's absolutely part of who he is as a character, such that it ends up being a defining trait of his in multiple universes -- even in 1872, Tony stops making weapons. In Superior Iron Man, one of the first things he did when he went evil was make weapons again. If he is making weapons, we know that something has gone very wrong with him.

This also made it to the MCU -- "Tony becomes Iron Man and stops making weapons" is basically the plot of the first Iron Man movie, right? They decided that "Tony stops making weapons" was important enough that it is absolutely had to be right there in the first movie. Sure, alcoholism is one of Tony's defining traits in modern 616 comics and I'm not saying it's not, though I am saying it's not coming out of nowhere -- but that didn't even make it to the MCU. (I'm sure a lot of that was Disney's fault, yes.)

You also might not know this from looking at modern comics, but The Government Wants Tony To Keep Making Weapons is actually a pretty salient arc after Tony stops making them. Half of the reason Demon in a Bottle happens is because Tony is forced to kill the Carnelian ambassador because Justin Hammer sabotages his suit, but the other half is because Tony is incredibly stressed because Nick Fury keeps trying to find a way to make him make weapons for the government and Tony doesn't want to. (Maybe Tony would have fewer control issues if people stopped trying to control him.)

If I had to pick a second new character trait for Tony, it would also be his willingness to defy the government (and, really, anybody else) and do what he thinks is right. (He and Steve are more similar than I think a lot of fandom gives them credit for. But that would be a different meta post.) I mean, they do what they do with opposite reasoning but they both kind of have the same problems to solve a lot, because comics plots are very often Here's The Trolley Problem. Utlilitarianism versus… what's the other one? Deontology.

Anyway, yeah, I'm talking about Armor Wars. The arc when Tony decided that the ends justified the means and he was simply going to steal his technology back from everyone who had it, including the government, and that he was willing to hurt anyone who got in his way (hi, Steve) and alienate both Avengers teams in the process, because he decided that he knew what he had to do, what he had to do was right, and nothing was more important, no matter what the consequences were to himself. This is the thought process that gets you Armor Wars, Operation Galactic Storm, and eventually Civil War. And before Armor Wars, Tony just… didn't do things like this. After Armor Wars, he does, and everyone expects him to, and none of that was there before as part of his character. So I'd say that's a pretty big change.

Interestingly, of the four things I've named, two of them each basically happen at the same time -- Tony stops making weapons in the early 70s, around the time the Secret Empire and Nomad thing is happening for Steve, and of course in the mid-80s Steve is The Captain when he confronts Tony during Armor Wars. I guess those were two very transformative time periods for Steve and Tony.

But yeah, those are my picks for the biggest changes to Steve and Tony that weren't part of their original conceptions -- Steve's willingness to say Fuck the Government and go do what he thinks is right even if it means not being Captain America; and Tony's decision to stop making weapons, as well as Tony's willingness to say Fuck the Government (And/Or Possibly Also All His Friends) in order to do with he thinks is right. There's a sense in which they're really not all that different.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Imagine here with me.

If roxy green room in the pizzaplex got a update Like a set of living conter that off limits to staff and guest to the pizzaplex that got added just for the animatronics.

Inside the living conter would be like bedroom kitchen and livingroom. And possibly a guest bedroom.

Idk what the guest bedroom is for storage personal office idk.

I've had a good few AUs that have something like this in them. The only ones where Fazbear does this is when the animatronics are biological creatures and not animatronics lmao

I had one where they were all gradually moved to a new location and that new location included a designated living space for the animatronics that they could do whatever they wanted with. It was essentially like a multi-story house within the building with rooms for each animatronic - including DJ of course and the four Minis had a shared room by their own choice - and a big communal space with a living room, kitchen (cause they were upgraded with biofuel stomachs) and a little bathroom for if they ever had human guests over. I had ideas for every room, and I gave them a kind of similar home in Rebuild AU, it's a fun little thought exercise to imagine how each of them would decorate their own space. Especially applicable to Meteors.

If Fazbear were to do this for the animatronics it would probably end up a money making thing like 'come have a sleepover with the Glamrocks!!' or something. It's kinda sad, and I bet if they did that, it'd be incredibly rare that the animatronics ever got maybe five minutes to themselves ever, they'd be constantly on the clock. But, that's not to say the animatronics couldn't give themselves their own space if Fazbear doesn't!

Like how I've been saying lately that Roxy has a bunch of lil dens all over the Raceway, Salon and various nooks and crannies of discontinued areas she finds when she's bored and wandering around. There's no reason why the other animatronics couldn't also find their own little hideaways in the other discontinued attractions.

Like the Cupcake Factory is in pieces even before Ruin, so maybe Chica treats it like a home? There's a cut map in the Fazcade called The Hive that's positioned in such a way that it's pretty closed in, with one of DJ's tunnels lining up to it almost perfectly, so I like to think that's his cosy little room now. Oh and did you know there's an 'Out of Order' door in Mazercise with nothing behind it? Well, anything could be back there man. Could be Chica's secret pizza stash for all we know lmao

If we were to put various living spaces like this in Rockstar Row, we could use the cut shortcuts for it. The large images of each member of the band right outside their doors were all initially going to be shortcuts to their corresponding attractions but were ultimately cut for whatever reason. If we were to turn these halls into rooms, or fill in the space they lead to with rooms, then each animatronic could have a secret room behind their poster. That'd be pretty fucking cool honestly I already have some ideas on how to use that but ya know, my point here is that they could have secret rooms literally anywhere and they deserve it there's so much potential there and Fazbear wouldn't be able to do a thing about it

[tired-fandom-ndn]

What's your take on the Monster High Isi Dawndancer situation? Isi was their only Native American doll, but the company, citing many concerns and criticisms from Native people over the course of the original doll's release, have decided not to reissue her in the Monster High reboot, as they feel she's an offensive character and do not wish to insult Native people.

This has caused some people - who are white - to defend why she's a great character actually, and I don't like that I can't find Native voices talking about this. So I turned to you to get actual Native input: is this a character who should be rereleased as a doll and included in the new webispodes, in your opinion, or did the company do the right thing by removing her?

TV Tropes has a quick overview of the character here under Isi Dawndancer (since digging through the 10+ fan wikis is a pain): http s://tvt ropes.or g/p mwiki/pm wiki.ph p/Char acters/Mons terHigh

Okay so I looked at the TV Tropes page and her wiki page and here are my thoughts:

She's a deer spirit, specifically based off of the Deer Woman apparently. Really don't know how I feel about the Monster High franchise using a sacred spirit as inspiration for a character, but she's not a w-ndigo, which is. . . something, I guess. More than I expected. Also I just hate deer-centered Native characters in general. They're tacky, overdone, stereotypical, and often dehumanizing.

"Native Scaremerican" can we fucking not actually. In complete seriousness though, she doesn't seem to have any official tribe/nation, which is very aggravating.

She's wearing what looks to be dreamcatchers, which are Ojibwe (Northern midwest US). The wiki says that her clothing patterns are "Aztec", but they definitely look more like they're inspired by a number of different Southwest tribes, namely the Apache, Diné, and Hopi. She's from "Boo Hexico", which supports the Southwestern influence, but her name is Choctaw, which is a Southest nation. So she's a mishmash of a whole bunch of unrelated cultures :/. Also the feathers are shitty and unnecessary and her name is just stereotypical in general.

"She is a deer spirit from Boo Hexico who lived there all her life until a vision notified her of Monster High and urged her to study there." A vision? Really? The Native American character gets spiritual visions to guide her?

Dancing seems to be the only cultural thing she's got going for her. What kind of dancing is unclear. Is she a jingle dancer? Fancy shawl? Buckskin? Because traditional dances have purposes and meanings, they're not just generic swaying and that seems to be the vibe they're going with for her.

(I hope it's not buckskin dancing. That would be weird all things considered.)

The TV Tropes page says that she has a power that makes guys fall in love with her and she's repeatedly described as flirty. There's a lot of awful stereotypes centered around the idea of Native women being seductive and irresistible and I do NOT like seeing that continued here.

"The birds of the air and beasts of the field are all my friends. I would not want to cause jealousy by choosing one over the other." Wow. A Native American character who just loves animals so much and has a special connection to them. How unique and interesting.

All in all, she's a fucking mess and even just looking at her design makes me want to cringe out of my skin. I definitely support the company's decision to discontinue her for the reboot, but it would ring very hollow if they continue to produce dolls of her. I also feel like just discontinuing her completely is a cop-out because companies use that sort of backlash against stereotypical characters as an excuse to not include Native characters at all, claiming that it's just not worth risking offending people when they really just don't want to put in the work.

[strangebiology]

Can AI Replace Journalists?

I've tried AI with art and AI with journalism, and their results seem to be the same:

Beautiful, but wrong.

I put in "Mount Diablo in the summer with golden grass in the style of the Hudson River Artists." I get a beautiful image of a mountain that is not Mount Diablo.

Someone at the NorCal Science Writers Association got an AI to write about the NorCal Science Writers Association. The AI produced some lovely paragraphs that make perfect sense but half the facts are wrong.

So...is AI at least on the path to replacing journalists?

My opinion: It depends on what kind of journalism you mean.

TLDR:

Short articles with no original reporting: Maybe partially.

Real journalism: No.

Here's what my job was at N*wsweek:

Be forced to move so I could work in Manhattan for insultingly low pay

Pitch ideas

Editor says no, actually, she has a much better idea: the idea is something I had pitched yesterday so now we're a day late to the party

Find what is doing well online already

Read what others have written and regurgitate it into my article

Find the source and cite them (not sure whether the boss wanted me to do this but I did)

Find the author of the study, schedule a phone interview that is very inconvenient for both of us, and get a quote that is literally the same as what the press release said.

Write furiously, no time for fact-checking!

Find a picture and video that we have the license to go with the article. Most of the time they were completely unrelated.

Negotiate with my editor so the headline was technically true, even if it was grossly misleading. Most people took some terrible hit to their reputation for writing under a headline they didn't choose.

Check which potential words in the headline had the most google results, in a completely counterintuitive and made-up SEO idea

Not tweet the article or tell the sources about it, nor expect the outlet to tweet it

These are mostly things that not only could be done by an AI, but maybe should be, if the AI is advanced enough and was checked by a human. All the young journalists who had their reputations tarnished are real human beings who were burned out and broken by their time at N*wsweek. The robot doesn't care.

Alternatively, I'd consider discontinuing this type of content entirely. If you don't have anything new to say, or a new way to frame it, don't say it at all, you'll just introduce error, whether you're a human or a robot. Just get a content-exchange license and post the original article you're aggregating. This wasn't just make-work, this was actively damaging to all the writers and the readers.

On the other hand, here was my job at Bay Nature:

Find a topic by cultivating relationships with real humans, reading, exploring nature etc.

Discuss in a meeting whether the article is a good idea: Is it original? Is it important? Is there an ethical issue with reporting it? A lot of the ethical issues we considered were super niche: you probably wouldn't think they're issues at all unless you knew a lot about the bay area, nature, and journalism.

Consider interviews carefully: who is a stakeholder? Who has a significant bias? Whose voice needs to be represented?

Ask: What kind of questions are readers going to ask? Who is this for?

Interview people in real life. Include details that wouldn't have been in an email. Use your human brain to determine what is interesting and important. Sometimes things that seem irrelevant turn out to be relevant and engaging.

Cite all sources. A different staff member checks each fact.

I do not believe this type of journalism could ever be done by an AI. Go ahead, find me an AI that can meet up with a trail runner, learn her life story, and select the facts that relate back to the topic of dandelions in a way that engages readers. I don't think AI's can really get any information that doesn't already exist in text, although I know it can synthesize information and come up with new ways to say it.

And, I think this speaks to what the value of journalism really is. So many people think "I learned how to write an essay in high school, and my spelling and grammar are fine, so I'm basically a journalist, right?" No. That's like saying "I can put paint on a canvas, therefore I'm basically a professional fine artist." Yes, most people can do most jobs, but the value isn't in having something technically done, it's in putting your skills to work and doing something new, important, useful, and ethical.

That's just my experience and someone who knows AI better, and also knows journalism, would probably give you a better answer.

[obey-me-headquarters]

Thank you so much for replying to my silly thoughts!! Beware, this will be so long...:(🤡

Satan is my favourite so I'm definitely biased because I strongly sympathize with him, but yeah, his writing is pretty much a failure, especially after Solmare decided to revise the earlier lessons and eradicate certain character traits. You can still see it in his dialogues (home screen+interactions+unedited Devilgrams) - he's extremely snarky, playful and something is deeply wrong with him because he seems lonely (he says "You're late. I was about to go out looking for you." when returning to the home screen and "How bold of you. Are you sure you want to be stuck with me?" is his reaction to being gifted the limited item [handcuffs] on Valentine's Day, for example). He secretly gets a kick out of people being angry and is implicitly interested in having Simeon, who is a high-ranking angel, indulge in his sin ("Wouldn't you be curious to see what Simeon's like when he's angry?"). Plus, I think he's also deeply ashamed of his "circumstances" ("Do you ever sometimes wonder if Mammon is the most decent of all of us?") and thus very much eager to prove himself at every given chance (the incident with being transformed into a Little D, admitting that he's never beaten Diavolo at chess [and yet still trying] and he confesses that he think that he hasn't found a talent or passion so far [Devilgram: Be You] . Nowadays, he's just a cat-loving bookworm whose said to be smart but...never actually utilises it :( Everything is about cats and he's being treated like comic relief and cats are just his punchline.

I think the Nightbringer writing is pretty well-done, too, especially because they know what kind of success they'll reap (the original storyline was pretty obviously supposed to be done after lesson 20 with maybe individual routes beginning, but the game became too big too fast imo). I just hope that Nightbringer will introduce Lilith's alternative storyline to us, because logically, she should be alive in the human world since she "lived a fulfilling life as a human" after Diavolo saved her because Lucifer pledged his eternal loyalty to him. That's all I want tbh!! 🥹 I'm just so bitter that they're discontinuing support for the original game (meaning that there won't be any new lessons coming out and that the anticipated adjustments of difficulty in later lessons would be cancelled) but the pay2win aspect of gacha games will still be a vital mechanic, somehow??? They're not stopping VIP memberships or implementing some kind of progress transfer, but expect players to put up with the same micromanagement again...just in a game that is supposed to be "a continuation" but so far mirrors the first game too much to be truly innovative. I'm a 100% free to play player, I don't care about predatory gambling mechanics in the end because I'm not responsive to them in any way (I have other problems 💀🪦), but I know that many people just get sucked into these things without a way out. They're whale players and that's how these companies make money (and honestly... I fear that Solmare is slowly morphing into EA Sports or something 🤡). Plus, (this is just anecdotal and the devs aren't personally preying on people like that) the people most at risk of running into a »non-gambling« gambling addiction are cluster b disordered peolple who are already isolated... the comorbidity rates are abnormally high in those cases (I recommend Parmar's 2018 study [Indian Journal of Psychological medicine], they look at all personality disorders across the board and break them down by type of addiction, then rank them by rates of risk)

I don't blame them either and indulgence in food it's less of a red flag than depicting uncontrollable, chronic and incurable alcoholism but sigh you put it into words! Beel lacks secondary characteristics and there's no clear way of defining him. Most of the time, he doesn't even converse all that much because he's pretty quiet among the entire cast. And I agree, I loved Beel's character arc and just how devoted he is to his family. He's blooming with love and care for his brothers 🥺 and I think that's so sweet, plus the insight given when Solmare explored just how guilt-ridden he is was beautiful (and so painful rip). His vices seem to hold a death grip on him and that's just never given another thought.

If I could change a thing, I would have intentionally given each of the brothers a redeeming quality from the get-go and having it clash with their sin - Maybe divide the corresponding Seven Heavenly Virtues among them and have them struggle with it (Mammon seems to be written that way??? He practices charity and sacrifices himself but doesn't want others to know it [see the Devilgram in which he reveals why the witches abuse and exploit him, I sadly forgot the name rip]), but I agree that Beel's particular kindness should have stood out way more. He shines so brightly compared to the others when it comes to sincerity and I think you'd be spot-on with your take on the brothers' jealousy! Canon Asmo still wants to preserve the image of the Jewel of the Heavens and tries to be angelic and beautiful all the time. Satan is the only pureblooded demon in the house, I think that's what already gives him identity issues - an angelic Beel is just the cherry on top. And, ironically, the opposite of Belphie, who looks sweet and harmless but is so bitter and manipulative.

I think Lucifer's in an awkward spot with everybody, kind of. They are all aware that they love each other, but everyone thinks that Lucifer is the scariest person in the world. They're terrified of him 💀 when facing their respective fears (I can't remember which lesson or event maybe (??) :((( sorry), Mammon sees an enraged Lucifer and Satan sees Angel Lucifer... that's telling 🤡

Tbh Nightbringer Lucifer should exude Icarus energy - I've never thought about it but you're absolutely right.

Sorry I didn't comment on everything, but you've given me so much to bounce off of its incredible. Your ramblings>>>>>>

And, again, sorry for the spam and for this long long long long ask omg I'm so sorry (especially the Satan bit but I'm passionate about my boy)

!!! No problem! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! :D I really like talking about my guys, and potential stories!!

Ah, Satan, I love him but I can definitely see the flaws in his writing.

I'm kinda..... weird well it comes to stories. If given the choice between consuming a well written perfect story, and a story that has so much potential but didn't stick the landing, I will always choose the story that didn't stick the landing.

Which is crazy! I know! But I noticed that stories that have potential stick with me a lotttttt longer than ones I have nothing to change. I think it's because people are creative, they like thinking about what they want in a story, and so when you give them potential they want to mend that potential into a story they like.

All this to say, I'm surprisingly not salty about the bad writing decisions in Obey Me lol. Solmare is giving little hints of characterization they wouldn't follow through on, and I take those crumbs and make my own story with it lol.

I completely forgot about Lilith's alternative storyline! Omg, yeah Lilith is still alive!!! Gosh, I really really hope they do something with that.

I'm kinda torn on whether I want Lilith to become apart of the family again, since I liked the acceptance of grief that took place in the original game. I don't think Solmare should undo that by having her reunite with her brothers and everything being fine. But I do hope that Solmare does something with that storyline.

I'm upset that there isn't going to be a continuing story in the original game too 😔 though I do wonder if that's going to remain the case. I mean, I don't think Solmare is going to discontinue the game, seeing as players kinda need to play it to get Nightbringer. I'm crossing my fingers here, but I hope that Solmare eventually does something with the original game. They say there are still going to be events, so I hope that the events are longer. I know a lot of people liked a lot of the events, the pirate one, for example. So it'll be interesting if the original game focused on those, expanding the worlds they already created.

Having the difficulty adjusted for these longer events would fall in line with their plans to change the difficulty for the main game. Plus, it could still be paid to win since events still make quite a lot of money, with new cards and everything.

They could even, fingers crossed they don't but they COULD is the scary part, introduce a new currency for these longer events that open up an alternative route. Kinda like what they already have with the event keys but more predatory.... (A lot of gacha games already do this, the Arcana comes to mind)

!!! I've been meaning to talk about the Seven Heavenly Virtues!! I know that if I would ever do something with the 7 Sins, having the 7 Virtues be an aspect was always the plan lol.

Though, in my mind, it'll be interesting if these Virtues are their own characters, and each Sin and Virtue has their own unique relationship. Do they absolutely hate each other? Do they have a weird friendship? Do they want to murder each other? A dredging respect for the other? Madly in love?

Giving each brother a redeeming quality relating to a virtue sounds really interesting! And I didn't even notice that they kinda already did that with Mammon!

Having an angelic Beel with a strong sense of right and wrong is angsty, but it can also be played for comedy. Satan coming up with a scheme to hurt some demons and Beel is like ":( but that's wrong tho." And Satan is like "you're absolutely right, little brother, I don't know what I was thinking." And gently pushing him outside of the room. Once gone Satan turns back to everyone and is like "so they we get a buzz saw and-"

Morally upstanding Beel could also have a really interesting relationship with Simeon. I kinda feel like Lucifer is the only one allowed to have interesting relationships with the other characters outside of his family. His loyalty to Diavolo, his dislike of Solomon and his constant asking for a pact, and his complicated relationship with Simeon. He and Simeon could butt heads a lot, with Simeon believing that Beel can still be saved, and thinking that the only reason Beel is stuck in the Devildom is because of his loyalty to Lucifer. Luke could also believe this, and try to help Beel overcome his sin (while also accidentally causing Beel to hurt himself by starving himself) to try and make Beel into an angel again.

Idk, there's nothing in game to suggest this, but I just think it'll be interesting for Simeon and Beel to have a more strained relationship. It adds layers to Simeon's relationship with Lucifer, and Beel's relationship with Lucifer.

Maybe in the Celestial realm, the two of them were always butting heads on how to handle things. Simeon could be passive-aggressive toward Beel, believing that he was always meant to fall because of his bad decisions in the Celestial Realm, while still seeing that he's the most angelic of all the brothers, and thus can still possibly be "saved".

Give me Beel getting mad at Simeon for choosing goodness over his family. Give him loyal Beel who has a golden heart, but will walk with his family into Hell because he will never abandon them! Give me the two of them arguing over what's more important, morality, or family?

Lucifer giving Icarus energy is such a good idea! Give me Lucifer trying his best and still failing. Give me my fail husband Luci <3

Don't worry about not commenting on anything! I'm pretty sure tumblr has a word limit on how long a comment can be anyway, and all you can tell, we both like to ramble lol.

Don't apologize for long ramblings!! I love to hear them and bounce off of them!

I'm happy with getting new asks, if you want we can dm and ramble about this? It just might be quicker than asks lol. If you have a Tumblr account, that is, no sweat if if you don't! Like I said, i like getting your asks!

[insecateur]

2022 fic wrap-up!

Here it is, my 2022 fic wrap-up! I'll divide it in three parts: general rambling about writing, month-by-month discussion of what I wrote in more detail, and a conclusion about what I'd like to get done this year a.k.a. 2023!

(I wrote so much I'm sorry.)

   

General Thoughts and Rambling about Writing

I've had multiple times when I'd say I stopped writing. I wrote a lot when I was younger, both fic and original, always in my native language (French.) I also roleplayed a fair amount. Back in 2011, after a very bad time in my life, I stopped writing. My last attempts were roleplaying posts; I think by that time I hadn't written fic in over a year. 

For a little while, I focused on drawing exclusively. I even created an original webcomic that's currently discontinued. Then, in 2013, Pokémon X&Y came out–

I'd planned to write posts about my main X&Y fic series on Tumblr, but only wrote one and then never got around to writing the rest. I still want to, though! It probably covers most of what I'd want to say already, so I'll be brief: I got back into writing fic in 2013, for Pokémon X&Y, in English this time, and then lost steam the next year for a variety of reasons. I got back into writing again in 2015-2016, writing more or less exclusively for myself without sharing it except on dreamwidth and password-locked blogs. At the time, I think I felt self-conscious about posting fic on AO3 that I didn't think was "up to par," not to mention I felt guilty about my lingering WIP...

In late 2017, I got into a brand new fandom, Yakuza, and for the first time in four years started to focus my creative energy in something that wasn't Pokémon X&Y. I still thought about it a lot (Lysandre especially) but I was able to get into new ships that I was excited about for reasons that weren't "this reminds me of my ultimate blorbos." In 2018, I started working on a Yakuza fic that I then gave up on, until (encouraged by one of my friends) I got back into working on it in 2020.

I don't know what did it; I'd guess it was having someone who could cheer me on and who was also a writer, maybe, but in 2020 I really started finding pleasure in writing again. I finished the fic around the end of the year and got very sweet feedback (which I was surprised about because the topic of the fic isn't something I expected people to care about haha.) I was itching to write more but I was also kind of exhausted. I figured maybe this was going to be my fanfiction swan song, which I was pretty happy about, honestly. I still think it's a pretty good fic.

Then, in 2021, Pokémon Masters EX grabbed me by the throat–

It felt kind of eye-opening. It felt like I was back in 2013/early 2014 and suddenly I was fueled by the raw power of OTP. I reread my unfinished WIP, that I'd continued further from what was posted on AO3, and thought: I can finish this. Not only that, but I can make what I've already written better. It doesn't matter that it's been almost eight years, it doesn't matter if nobody cares to read it. I can do this, for me.

And I did!

Not only that, but it kickstarted me into getting back into writing for real. I posted the finished, rewritten (in parts) version of the fic in November (I promise I'll talk about this in more detail soon,) and then in December I posted another fic about them. Which then brings us to, of course, what this post is actually supposed to be about: 2022.

   

What I Wrote in 2022 (And Other Considerations)

I started out still riding that high from having finished my long fic, and posted two fics related to it in January, turning it into a series:

* The Pangs of Disprized Love: This one is an outsider POV taking place between two of the later So Long as We Can Say chapters. It was really fun to write, despite the subject matter! The last SLaWCS chapter is actually probably my favorite, as a post-canon aficionado, so getting to write more of that was a treat.

* And With Your Hands Your Hearts: This one is a more or less direct sequel. A marriage proposal... How corny. It felt like what the characters needed after everything they'd gone through, though. I had very strong mental images for this one and I'm still pretty happy with the result.

After that, I got to work on the sequel to Et Surtout Mourir de Langueur, the first part of my mutual pining saga. At the time, I ran into two issues:

— I was embarrassed by the idea of writing and posting smut on AO3. (Yes, this seems insane to me too now.)

— I was worried people would be put off by me writing Lysandre as submissive more "aggressively." (As in, actually making it clear that was what I was going for, and not just implying it.)

Because of this, I started getting writer's block, and found myself stalling after deciding to actually include explicit scenes in (what would become) Le Bien l'Ennemi du Mieux. But something very special would happen to me that month...

Indeed, February is the month I came to know Noah a.k.a. @jonphaedrus. Which seems both so long ago and way too little time. I will refrain from gushing and just say that had we not met, I might have never started posting E-rated works to AO3 and I might have even given up on writing that second mutual pining fic. So there.

Thus, in March, thanks to Noah (and Grey!)'s support, I finished and posted:

* Le Bien l'Ennemi du Mieux: They continue pining, but this time they fuck explicitly. A lot. Way too much if you ask me. The romantic tension does not resolve in this fic and did not resolve period in 2022 but it will in 2023 I promise.

My SLaWCS energy had not left me however, and so after taking a short break I started work on a direct sequel to And With Your Hands Your Hearts, where I'd explore Augustine and Lysandre's backstories at last. This quickly became a multi-chapter project, which I was anxious about because SLaWCS (the original fic) had been my only successful attempt at that, but the fact that I had been successful once – and now had support from a fellow prfr appreciator and author – helped carry me to victory.

So, in May, I successfully published:

* Wisely and Slow: Definitely one of my favorites from the year. A three chapters story about dealing with your demons and finding a new place to belong to in the world. I could talk more about it but I won't... for now. This is the last (plot-relevant) SLaWCS story I've posted so far; the next one is going to be the wedding one and I'm SO excited to work on it. SOON.

Taking a break from longer fic writing, I wrote this treat for Noah:

* That Give Delight and Hurt (Not): I feel like this was the first step toward me going full self-indulgent when it comes to publishing smut. It still has feelings, but there's no pretense of a plot, just two characters engaging in D/s fun. It was my first time posting actual PWP on AO3... emotional...

In June, struck by a sudden bout of inspiration at the very end of a challenge from a Discord server I was in, I wrote 20k in a week:

* Perfect as a Statue, Unadorned: A Xerosic/Lysandre fic where Lysandre is a robot. It's also one of my favorites from this year! Very underrated imo. It's long, it's an AU, it's for a rarepair... so I'm not really surprised, but I do wish more people would give it a try. Oh well.

And then, finally embracing my id fully, I wrote and shared what is probably still the most unhinged thing I've written in 2022:

* All in a Day’s Work: Also known as "Rocket Lysandre free use" which tells you all you need to know. Truly just pure bottom Lysandre PWP. I think about the tag "I Want That Pokémon Villain Obliterated" regularly. I originally wasn't even planning on posting it but doing that freed me from any kind of worry about what I was "allowed" to post on my AO3, because nothing else can come close to it. Also very underrated imo but not for the same reasons LMFAO.

I was slowly getting into the habit of writing regularly, so in July I decided to try my hand at writing short fics/ficlets based on prompts I found or that were sent to me. This way, I successfully wrote five ficlets:

* Phototaxis, Show Off, The Precious Time That We Have, Then We Shall Need Each Other & Aspectabund

I also participated in BDSM Exchange, with a fic! Which was my first time writing fic for an exchange – before that, I'd only done art.

* Viens Me Libérer de Mon Sommeil (Je Suis à Ta Merci): An OT3 (Diantha/Sycamore/Lysandre) fic for Noah! It has all of our favorite things: D/s, Lysandre getting run over, BDSM therapy... I nearly finished it in time for frenchflagshipping day, too, but missed it by three days. Alas.

Powered by pure hubris, in August, I decided to try my hand at Writer's Month... and couldn't pull it off (in parts because I got very, very sick mid-way through.) I'm not going to link all of my fics for that separately (they span from August to December) but I will namedrop a few I especially like. Otherwise, you can check them all out in my series! (Shout-out to the series-within-a-series specifically for the bodyswap storyline, too. I'll finish it in 2023! I swear!)

My favorites from August were:

* My (M37) friend (M32?) keeps alienating everyone we know with the way he presents his opinions: Absolute classic. A reddit post parody. I'd still like to write a sequel/spin-off someday.

* A Comedown of Revolving Doors: Kind of a weird one; I just caught a vibe and followed it without being completely sure where I was going with it. I do enjoy the result though.

* It’s a Mechanical Bull, the Number One: Bottom Dom content for the soul. I still think this one was very big-brained of me. Also the title does not get old.

* Hit Me With the Way They’re Flaunted: It sure is over 3k about Lysandre getting his tits tortured/played with. What else can I say.

August was also the month we started posting courage is the most foolish thing in the world a.k.a. roleswap! I am not involved in the writing (as in, I don't write it; I am definitely involved in the ideas and concepts) but I couldn't not give it a shout-out. 

For September, I'll cite this one:

* Something in Your Head You’ve Been Fighting All Along: It's cakeverse. I found out about cakeverse completely randomly and have not stopped thinking about it ever since. I'll probably write and/or draw some more at some point... It's still at the back of my mind.

I also participated in another fic challenge: to write an AU fic of no more than 5k words. It turned out a lot more difficult than I expected; I apparently do not do well with max word counts. Still, I managed to post:

* From the Throat, I’m Tied to You: A very horny soulmate AU. I just decided to write the kind of soulmates I'd like to see in fic, heh. Despite how hard it was for me to get the words out, I do enjoy the result, and it was fun to work on!

In November, I posted a fic for the exchange Fic In A Box! I feel like I've already talked about this one a lot LOL, so I won't get too into it.

* do let the old enmity be: A recursive fic for Noah's main prfr series. It's all in-universe stuff, and probably the most fun I had working on a fic this year. I was very pleased to see so many people enjoy it!

I also kept working on my late Writer's Month prompts, and my favorite for that month is obvious:

* Let Your Backbone Slide: My first time writing trans porn... finally, I can put what I want to see into the world (Dom trans/cis sub, in case that wasn't clear.) I like this one a lot, tbh. I'd like to write a sequel/related fic sometime soon.

Finally, the last month of the year: December! My end of the year was really busy. I had a lot on my mind. Still, I managed to post a few more Writer's Month fills and one very special fic:

* De nouvelles saveurs: My last fic of 2023! And it's in French! It's 12k words of flirting via baking croissants. Before writing a short thing for my FIAB fill, I hadn't written in French in over a decade... so it was an interesting experience. I am pretty happy with the result though! The croissants (quaso) got baked and that truly is all that matters. 

I'll finish this off by giving a quick shout-out to the old fics I posted throughout the year. These are the fics I wrote back in 2016, as mentioned in the introduction of this post. Noah slowly encouraged me to post them on AO3, even the ones I was the most embarrassed about. Since they've all been backdated, I don't remember the exact month (of 2022) they were posted on, so I'll just give them to you in their original chronological order:

* Fighting With My Weak Hand: A post-canon story about Lysandre trying to earn forgiveness. (Yes, it was already my shit in 2016.)

* Status Symbol: Car sex.

* A Lesson in Self-Control: Omorashi. 

* This Is the Finest Game, It Ain’t Even Got a Name: Spy AU. Very self-indulgent.

* Midas Touch: Lysandre doesn't masturbate. Augustine investigates.

* Give Me Fire, Burning Hell: My original soulmate AU.

Phew. Okay, now that that's all out of the way–

   

What 2023 Has In Store (Hopefully)

I have a lot of WIPs.

See, at the beginning of 2022, I told myself I'd only have one WIP at a time. That way, I could focus on one thing, and get things done at a good pace. Unfortunately, as I began writing more and more, and chatting with Noah about ideas, I started listening to the devil on my shoulder telling me I could just work on multiple things at once.

...and I could! At the end of the day, "a lot of WIPs" isn't actually even that many WIPs. Still, I have a bunch of stuff I'd like to get done in 2023, writing-wise:

— I have an unfinished SLaWCS smut spin-off that's like two scenes away from being done and has been for months. I really need to get back on that.

— I have, of course, part 3 of my mutual pining series. I'm nearly 10k into that and Arceus knows how long it'll get. But I'll finish it this year for sure!

— I have the few prompts left from my Writer's Month, most of which I have ideas for if I haven't already started them. I will complete it this year (and not give the prompt list for this year a try, I'm sorry–)

— I have a few challenge fics I started and never finished that I might or might not go back to. (One I'm fairly confident I can finish; the other I have no idea where to go with so it might stay unfinished forever. Maybe I'll share what I have at some point.)

— I want to write in French more!!

— And, last but not least, I'm desperate to write more SLaWCS. I want them to get married!! I spent most of the latter half of 2022 writing shorter fics, and I really want to get back to longer works. I want to drop 60k of wedding planning that only five people will read. This is all I need to stay alive.

As for the rest... I'm still itching to participate in exchanges and other fandom events, so I have plans in that vein, but I don't want to give it away too early. I'm very grateful for the support I've gotten this year, no matter the content... Thank you for all your comments, asks, tags, kudos... I wouldn't have written this much without you! I don't know if I can aim for more than I did in 2022, but I'd like to keep at it, at least. 

So here's to another year of Pokémon fics... and art! If you've read this whole thing, thank you, too! I appreciate it! 🙏

[queenofstelena]

Stelena fanfiction recommendations on Wattpad (part one)

Note, some of these stories are not finished or incomplete sorry in advanced. NONE of these as far as I know have smut! I only added a few because I have so many in my library and my reading list. So this is gonna be multiple parts. There's 115 on my reading list so yeah. Aka there's going to be a part 2!

She's special

Summary: In which a trust fund boy falls for a small town girl.

Rating: Between the range of K+ - Teen and up audiences.

Completion: Discontinued but it is a good read!

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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String of fate; TVD

Summary: His eyes are kind. She finds herself getting lost in them, not understanding the sense of comfort that builds within her. The sound of a phone ringing at the receptionist's desk allows her to snap out of it, blinking away before realizing that she still hasn't answered his question. She finally smiles, gaining some confidence as she makes direct eye contact without losing herself—well, almost, considering she stole a few glances at his lips. Which he took note of. It is difficult not to notice a girl like her. Her eyes alone were enchanting, mesmerizing, kind. The kind that draws a person in, and he felt like he couldn't look away. "I'm Elena." "I'm Tom. I hope to see you around." His hand is gone, but his touch lingers as she walks down the hall, unintentionally holding onto the feeling that being around him was like a ghost passing through her—cold, yet exhilarating.

Rating: Ranges between K - K+ (General Audiences)

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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One single thread of gold (tied me to you.)

Summary: Stefan's gone. He has been all summer. But something about his absence doesn't sit well with her. Or maybe she just misses him. And this is just a mere excuse. But she couldn't dwell on this. Not right now. Not when she's made her decision. Of course. Of course, she loved Damon. He was everything she needed to be, and more, when she had newly turned. And Stefan and her were just a string coming apart. The longer it stretched it would closer to breaking, but... Somehow he always manged to tie himself back to her.

Rating: K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Ongoing as of Wednesday, July 26th, 2023 it is NOT discontinued.

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Klayley & Stelena oneshots

Summary: "Your not going to get your girl, Stefan?" Lexi sarcastically muttered. "She's not my girl anymore, Lex. Besides I have Caroline." Stefan said with denial.

Rating: K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: One-Shots still being added and worked on.

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Destined (A stelena fanfiction)

Summary: Elena has moved around her whole life. Her father's job required it. When her mother insists on sending Elena to a boarding school for her last two years of high school, Elena doesn't know what to think. And being the new girl isn't always a fun thing. But maybe rude boys and sassy girls are the least of her problems. {Stelena}

Rating: K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Incomplete but interesting and fascinating story line/plot.

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Stelena-Endgame

Summary: While Elena is in her coma, the rest of the gang try to figure out how to wake her in a different way. Stefan on the other hand is reconsidering marring Caroline because he may still have feelings for someone else...wonder who. Damon and Bonnie may have something going on now that they've been spending a lot of time together since Damon is trying to protect her.

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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My twin sister//Stelena

Summary: //Everyone has a double but for Elena. You can say her other side was her Twin Sister.// Elena and Katherine are two different types of girls with different types of personalities. Katherine is the sister who gets everything she wants, including the guys, all the guys love her and want her. Elena is the sister who all to herself and shy, she's really smart, and beautiful and warm hearted. When a new kid named Stefan shows up they're school, Katherine is the first girl that's all over him but what happens when he meets Elena?

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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What if? A stelena FanFic

Summary: What if? What if when Stefan saved all of Elena's family when the car went of the bridge? What if Katherine really did die and Damon got over her? What if Elena had a gift that helped her see the future? What if there and someone else who wanted the moonstone? What if there was someone besides Klaus to threaten the lives of the ones you know? What if Stefan nor Damon expected come back? Who is it? Well let's find out...

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Unfinished

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Stelena Reunited | 8x16 [AU]

Summary: Stefan and Elena have been together and lived a long life, so when Stefan found out Elena drifted into a coma things got hard for him. After years they're reunited.

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Into your arms

Summary: //Everyone has a double side but for Elena, you could say her other side was her Twin Sister.// Elena and Katherine were two different types of girls with different types of personalities. Katherine is the sister who always gets what she wants, including the guys, all the guys love her and want her. Elena is the sister who all to herself and shy, she's really smart and beautiful and warm hearted. When a new kid Stefan shows up at there school, Katherine is the first girl he talks to she's all over him, but what happens when he meets Elena?

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Fairytale

Summary: "If you believe in fairytales they may come true" Elena Gilbert is the journalist from a celebrity magazine she has It all...expect for love. But a chance meeting with the newest celebrity in town changes everything.

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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Wrong Decision ✖️ Stelena

Summary: "People make the wrong decision, and sometimes they decide to go away for a while. It takes time to understand it isn't your fault." Stefan makes the wrong decision, which shakes up Elena and their relationship more than before. However Elena's not one to give up on Stefan.

Rating: Ranges from K+ - Teens and up audiences

Completion status: Complete

Multi-chapter or one-shot

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*Bonus* Author Recommendations

HumanityStelena

Luthorscorps

Letterstomylqver

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